Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Cato the Elder, when some men were praising a person who was recklessly rash and daring in warfare, said that a man's judgment that virtue is worth a great deal, while life is not worth much, is a correct one. At any rate, there was a certain bold soldier in the army of Antigonus, but his condition and body were in poor shape, and when the king asked the reason for his sickly paleness, he confessed to some
secret ailment. When the king, out of eagerness to help, ordered his physicians, if there were any remedy, to spare nothing in the utmost care of him, that noble fellow, once cured in this way, was no longer fond of danger nor headlong in his contests, so that Antigonus even reproached him and marveled at the change. The man, however, did not conceal the cause, but said, "O king, you have made me less bold, by ridding me of those evils on account of which I held life cheap."
In line with this, a certain Sybarite man is on record as remarking, of the Spartans, that dying in war cost them nothing much, since it merely let them escape such drudgery and such a manner of living. But for the Sybarites, dissolved as they were by luxury and softness, it was natural, given their impulse and ambition toward what is fine, that men who did not fear death should seem to hate life;
whereas for the Lacedaemonians, virtue made both living pleasantly and dying so, as their funeral dirge makes plain: for it says, "These men died, not accounting it noble merely to live, nor merely to die, but to accomplish both of these nobly." For flight from death is not blameworthy, if a man reaches for life without disgrace, nor is endurance noble, if it comes about with contempt for life.
Hence Homer always brings forth into battle the most courageous and warlike men well and finely armed, while the lawgivers of the Greeks punish the man who throws away his shield, not the one who casts away his sword or spear — teaching that each man ought to be concerned with not suffering harm before he is concerned with doing harm to the enemy, and above all a commander of a city or of an army.
For if, as Iphicrates used to distinguish, the light-armed troops resemble the hands, the cavalry the feet, the phalanx itself the chest and breastplate, and the general the head, then it would seem that in courting danger and acting rashly he neglects not himself alone, but all those whose safety depends upon him, and the reverse. Hence Callicratidas, though in other respects a great man, answered the seer poorly: when the seer begged him to guard against death, on the ground that the sacrifices foretold it, he said that Sparta did not depend on one man.
For Callicratidas, when fighting or sailing or soldiering, was but one man; but as a commander he had gathered together in himself the strength of all, so that he was not a single man with whose loss so much would perish together. Better was old Antigonus, who, on the point of fighting a naval engagement near Andros, was told by someone that the enemy had far more ships, and replied, "But against how many will you set me myself?" — making great, as indeed it is, the worth of command joined with experience and valor, whose first task is to preserve the man who preserves everything else. Wherefore Timotheus spoke well,
when Chares was once displaying to the Athenians certain wounds on his body and his shield pierced through by a spear: "But I," he said, "was very much ashamed that, while I was besieging Samos, a missile fell near me, since I was behaving in a more boyish manner than befits a general and commander of so great a force."
For where the danger of the general carries great weight for the whole, there one must use hand and body without sparing, bidding farewell to those who say that a good general ought to die of old age, or if not, as an old man; but where the gain from success is small, while everything is lost together if he fails, no one demands of a general the deed of a common soldier performed at his own risk.
These things occurred to me to declare in advance as I was writing the Life of Pelopidas and that of Marcellus, great men who fell unaccountably — men who, though most warlike in the use of their own hands, and though both adorned their fatherlands with the most illustrious commands, and moreover though the one, as is said, was the first to rout Hannibal when he was undefeated, and the other conquered in pitched battle the Lacedaemonians, rulers of land and sea, yet were unsparing of themselves, throwing away their lives with no reckoning at all, at the very moment when there was most need of such men being preserved and in command. For this reason we, following the resemblances, have written their lives in parallel.
Pelopidas son of Hippocles was of a family held in honor at Thebes, as was Epaminondas; and being reared in great wealth, and receiving while still young a splendid household, he set out to help those in need who deserved it, so that he might appear truly master of his money, and not its slave. For of the many, as Aristotle says, some do not use their wealth at all out of stinginess, while others misuse it through prodigality, and the latter are ever enslaved to their pleasures, the former to their business affairs.
The rest of his friends, then, being grateful to Pelopidas, made use of his generosity and kindness toward them; but of his friends only Epaminondas he could not persuade to share in his wealth. He himself, however, shared in that man's poverty, priding himself on plainness of dress, simplicity of table, and tireless devotion to hardship and honesty in campaigns —
like the Capaneus of Euripides, of whom it is said, "his means were great, but he was in no way haughty because of his wealth," being ashamed if he should appear to use more for his own body than the Theban who possessed the least. Epaminondas, then, made the poverty that was familiar to him and inherited from his father even lighter and more unencumbered still, choosing from the start a philosophic and solitary life; but Pelopidas made a splendid marriage,
and children too were born to him; yet no less did he neglect the making of money, and, devoting all his time to the city's affairs, he diminished his estate. When his friends admonished him and said that he was neglecting a necessary thing, namely the having of money, he said, "Necessary indeed, by Zeus — for this man Nicodemus," pointing to someone lame and blind.
They were also naturally inclined alike to every virtue, except that Pelopidas took more delight in physical training, Epaminondas in learning; and in their leisure hours the one spent his time at the wrestling-ground and in hunting, the other in listening to lectures and in philosophy. But though both possessed many fine qualities toward reputation, sensible men consider nothing so great as the goodwill and friendship that, through so many contests and commands and political dealings, remained unimpeached from beginning to end.
For if one, looking at the political careers of Aristides and Themistocles and Cimon and Pericles and Nicias and Alcibiades, should consider how full they were of quarrels and envy and jealousy toward one another, and then should look again at the goodwill and honor of Pelopidas toward Epaminondas, he would rightly and justly call these men rather fellow-rulers and fellow-generals than those others, who spent their time contending more against one another than against the enemy,
the true cause being their virtue, on account of which they pursued from their actions neither glory nor wealth — things in which harsh and quarrelsome envy takes root — but both, having from the beginning fallen in love with a divine love of seeing their fatherland become most illustrious and greatest in their own time, used their own successes as though they were common property directed to this end.
Nevertheless, most people think that their fervent friendship arose from the campaign at Mantinea, where they fought side by side with the Lacedaemonians — at that time still Thebes's friends and allies — when a relief force was sent out from the city. For, being stationed among the hoplites together with one another and fighting against the Arcadians, when the wing of the Lacedaemonians opposite them gave way and a rout of many had occurred, they locked shields together and defended themselves against those pressing upon them;
and Pelopidas, having received seven wounds facing the enemy, fell together with a heap of corpses, both friends and foes; but Epaminondas, though he thought him past saving, stood forward over his body and his arms and, alone, braved danger against many, resolved to die rather than to abandon Pelopidas lying there. And when he too was now in dire straits, wounded by a spear in the chest and by a sword in the arm, help arrived from the other wing in the person of Agesipolis, king of the Spartans, who against all expectation saved them both.
After this, while the Spartans called the Thebans friends and allies in name, yet in practice eyed the city's pride and growing power with suspicion, and above all hated the faction of Ismenias and Androcleidas, of which Pelopidas was a member, a faction that seemed to be at once liberty-loving and popular,
Archias and Leontidas and Philip, men of oligarchic sentiment and wealthy and moderate in nothing, persuaded Phoebidas the Laconian, who was passing through with an army, to seize suddenly the Cadmea, and, having expelled those who opposed them, to establish the constitution in the hands of a few, subject to Lacedaemonian rule.
When he had been persuaded, and had fallen upon the Thebans while they were unsuspecting, at the time of the Thesmophoria, and had taken possession of the citadel, Ismenias was seized and carried off to Lacedaemon, and not long after put to death; while Pelopidas and Pherenicus and Androcleidas, together with many others, fled and were banished by proclamation; but Epaminondas remained in the country, being held in contempt — because of his philosophy as harmless, and because of his poverty as powerless.
When the Lacedaemonians stripped Phoebidas of his command and imposed on him a fine of ten thousand drachmas, yet all the same held onto the Cadmea by garrison, all the other Greeks marveled at the strangeness of it, that they should punish the doer while approving the deed; but for the Thebans, who had lost their ancestral constitution and had been enslaved by the party of Archias and Leontidas, there remained no hope of any release from the tyranny,
which they saw was upheld by the guard of Spartan hegemony and could not be overthrown, unless someone should stop those men also from being masters of land and sea. Nevertheless, the party of Leontidas, learning that the exiles were staying at Athens, beloved by the multitude and held in honor by men of worth, plotted against them secretly; and sending unknown men, they killed Androcleidas by treachery, but failed to get the others.
A letter also came from the Lacedaemonians to the Athenians, ordering them not to receive nor to stir up the exiles, but to drive them out as common enemies, so declared by the allies. The Athenians, however,
in addition to having compassion as an ancestral and inborn trait, were repaying the Thebans, who had been especially instrumental in the people's restoration, and who had decreed that should any Athenian pass armed through Boeotia to move against the tyrants, no Boeotian was to notice or take heed of it — committed no wrong against the Thebans.
Pelopidas, although he was among the youngest, urged on each of the exiles privately, and made speeches to the multitude, saying that it was neither noble nor pious to look on while their fatherland was enslaved and garrisoned, while they themselves, content merely with being safe and getting by, hung upon the decrees of the Athenians and, cringing, courted those able to speak and persuade the crowd,
but that they must run risks for the greatest of stakes, taking as their model the daring and valor of Thrasybulus, so that, just as he set out formerly from Thebes and overthrew the tyrants at Athens, so they in turn, setting forth from Athens, might free Thebes. When he had persuaded them by saying this, they sent secretly to Thebes to the friends left behind, telling them what had been resolved.
And these approved, and Charon, who was the most prominent among them, agreed to provide his house; while Phyllidas contrived to become secretary to Archias and Philip, who were then polemarchs. Epaminondas had long since been filling the young men with the right spirit; for he used to bid them, in the gymnasia, to grapple with the Lacedaemonians and wrestle with them, and then, seeing them proud at winning and prevailing, he would rebuke them, saying that they ought rather to be ashamed, if through unmanliness they were enslaved to men over whom they had so great an advantage in strength.
When the day for the action had been fixed, it seemed best to the exiles that Pherenicus should keep the rest gathered together and waiting in the Thriasian country, while a few of the youngest ventured to go ahead into the city; and if these should suffer anything at the hands of the enemy, the others were to take care that neither their children nor their parents should be left in want of necessities.
Pelopidas was the first to undertake the venture, then Melon and Damocleidas and Theopompus, men of the leading houses, who in all other respects dealt with one another as friends and in good faith, but were always rivals with each other over reputation and courage. There were twelve of them in all; they embraced those who were being left behind, and sent a messenger ahead to Charon, then set out wearing short cloaks, carrying hunting dogs and stakes for nets, so that none of those they met along the road should suspect anything, but should think they were merely wandering idly about and hunting.
When the messenger they had sent arrived at Charon's and told him they were on the road, Charon himself did not shift his resolve one bit even though the danger was drawing near, but was a good man and offered his house; but a certain Hipposthenidas, a man not base, but patriotic and well disposed toward the exiles, yet lacking the boldness that the sharpness of the moment and the undertaking at hand demanded, grew as it were dizzy at the greatness of the contest now at hand, and
at last, coming to his senses through reasoning that in some way they were shaking the rule of the Lacedaemonians and undertaking its overthrow, trusting to hopes that were resourceless and fit only for exiles, went home quietly, withdrawing once more to Athens, but not before dispatching one of his friends to reach Melon and Pelopidas, telling them to postpone the action for now and await a more favorable moment. The man sent was named Chlidon, and hurrying home to fetch his own horse, he asked his wife for the bridle.
When his wife was at a loss, saying she did not have it but had lent it to one of her acquaintances, first there were reproaches, then curses, his wife calling down evil roads upon him and upon those who were sending him; so that Chlidon, having wasted much of the day over this in anger, and at the same time taking the incident as an omen, gave up the journey altogether and turned to something else. By so narrow a margin did the greatest and finest of undertakings come, right at the outset, to slip past its opportunity.
Pelopidas and his companions, having put on farmers' clothing and divided themselves so as to enter by different parts of the city, slipped in while it was still day. There was a wind and some snow as the weather was beginning to turn, and this helped them go unnoticed, since most people had already taken refuge in their houses because of the storm; but those whose concern it was to know what was happening kept receiving the men as they arrived and installing them at once in Charon's house. Counting the exiles, they came to forty-eight in all.
The situation regarding the tyrants was as follows. Phyllidas the secretary was, as has been said, cooperating in everything and was in on the plot with the exiles; and having long before arranged for that very day a drinking party and gathering for Archias and his circle, with married women present, he was doing everything he could to hand the men over to the attackers thoroughly loosened by pleasure and drunk with wine.
While they were not yet very far gone in drink, a report reached them that was not false, but uncertain and containing much obscurity, that the exiles were hiding in the city; and though Phyllidas tried to steer the conversation elsewhere, Archias all the same dispatched an attendant to fetch Charon, commanding that he appear without delay. Night had already fallen, and inside, Pelopidas and his companions were taking up their positions, already in armor with swords drawn.
Suddenly, when there was a knock at the door, someone ran up, and having learned from the attendant that Charon was being summoned by the polemarchs, reported this inside in great alarm; and it seemed to all at once that the plot had been discovered and that they were all going to perish, without even having done anything worthy of their courage. Nevertheless it was decided that Charon should obey and present himself to the magistrates without arousing suspicion, being otherwise a manly man and steady in the face of danger,
but at that moment thrown into terror and deep distress on their account, lest some suspicion of betrayal should fall on him once so many and such men had perished. So as he was about to leave, he took his son from the women's quarters — still a boy, but foremost in beauty and bodily strength among those of his age — and handed him over to Pelopidas and his men, bidding them, if they should find any treachery or betrayal in him, to treat the boy as an enemy and show no mercy.
Tears fell from many of them at Charon's suffering and his spirit, and all were indignant that anyone could seem so cowardly and so corrupted by the present situation as to suspect him or blame him at all; they urged him not to draw the boy into their own danger, but rather to remove him from whatever was about to happen, so that the child, spared and having eluded the tyrants, could later stand as an avenger on behalf of the city and his friends.
But Charon said he would not send his son away: for what life, or what finer safety, could he see for him than death unshamed together with his father and so many friends? Having prayed to the gods and embraced them all and encouraged them, he departed, taking care of himself and composing his expression and the tone of his voice to appear as unlike as possible to what he was doing.
When he had come to the doors, Archias himself came forward, along with Phyllidas, and said: "Charon, I have heard that some men have come in and are hiding in the city, and that certain of the citizens are cooperating with them." At first this news troubled Charon, but he then asked who these newcomers were, and who was concealing them, when he saw that Archias had nothing clear to say, he suspected that the report had not come from anyone in the know, and said, "Take care, then, that some empty rumor is not disturbing you; still, I will look into it, for perhaps one ought to despise nothing."
Phyllidas, who was present, praised these words, and leading Archias away again, plied him with a great deal of unmixed wine, and kept the drinking going with hopes concerning the women. When Charon returned home and found the men equipped, not expecting any victory or safety, but rather expecting to die gloriously and with great slaughter of the enemy, he told the truth to Pelopidas and his companions, but to the others he lied, inventing some story about other matters supposedly said by Archias.
While the first storm was still passing over, fortune brought a second upon the men. A messenger arrived out of Athens, sent by the hierophant Archias to the man who shared his name, Archias, a guest-friend and companion of his, carrying a letter that contained no empty or invented suspicion, but stated clearly, point by point, everything that was being done, as was later learned.
At that time, the letter-bearer, approaching Archias who was already drunk, handed over the letter and said, "The man who sent this ordered that it be read at once, for it concerns serious matters." And Archias, smiling, said, "Serious matters, then, until tomorrow." And with that, he tucked the letter beneath his pillow, and went back to Phyllidas to continue whatever they had been discussing. This saying has been preserved down to the present day among the Greeks, current as a kind of proverb.
Since the action now seemed to have its proper moment, they set out, dividing themselves in two: Pelopidas and Damocleidas went against Leontidas and Hypates, who lived near one another, while Charon and Melon went against Archias and Philippus, having put on women's clothing over their breastplates, and wearing thick wreaths of fir and pine drawn down to shadow their faces.
So when they first stood at the doors of the banquet, they caused clapping and uproar among men who supposed that the women they had long been expecting had come. But when they had looked around the banquet in a circle, and had carefully noted each of those reclining there, they drew their swords, and rushing through the tables toward Archias and Philippus, showed themselves for who they were.
Phyllidas persuaded a few of those reclining to keep quiet, but the rest, who tried to defend themselves along with the polemarchs and rose up together despite their drunkenness, they killed without much difficulty. But the affair proved more troublesome for Pelopidas and his men: for their target was Leontidas, a man both formidable and level-headed, and they discovered his door already barred, since he had gone to sleep, and for a long time, though they knocked, no one answered.
At last, when the servant inside noticed and came forward and removed the bar, the moment the doors gave way and opened, they burst in all together, and having knocked down the servant, rushed toward the bedroom. Leontidas, guessing what was happening from the very noise and the running,
drew his dagger and rose up, but forgot to knock down the lamps, and so failed to throw the men into confusion with one another in the darkness; instead, seen clearly in the bright light, he met them at the doors of the bedroom, and struck down Cephisodorus, the first to enter, killing him; and when this man had fallen, he grappled with Pelopidas, the second to come in, and the narrowness of the doorway, together with the body of Cephisodorus now lying dead in the way, made the fight difficult and hard-fought.
Pelopidas nevertheless prevailed, and having dispatched Leontidas, went at once against Hypates together with those who were with him. They broke into his house in the same way; but he, perceiving it quickly and fleeing to his neighbors, was pursued and caught at close quarters and put to death.
Having accomplished this, and having joined forces with Melon's group, they sent to Attica for the exiles who had been left behind there, and called upon the citizens to fight for freedom, and armed those who came forward, taking down the spoils that hung around the porticoes, and breaking open the workshops of the spear-makers and sword-makers near the house.
Epaminondas and Gorgidas came to their aid under arms, having gathered no small number of the best of the young men and the older men as well. The city was already all astir, and there was much uproar, and lights around the houses, and people running back and forth to one another, but the multitude had not yet come together in a body; rather, stunned by what was happening and knowing nothing for certain, they waited for daylight.
For this reason the Lacedaemonian commanders were thought to have erred in not attacking or engaging at once, since the garrison itself numbered about fifteen hundred, and many were running together against them from the city; but fearing the shouting and the fires and the crowd advancing from every side, they kept quiet, holding only the Cadmea itself,
and at daybreak the exiles arrived armed from Attica, and the people had assembled in the assembly. Epaminondas and Gorgidas brought in Pelopidas and his men, surrounded by the priests holding out wreaths and calling on the citizens to help their fatherland and their gods, and the assembly rose upright at the sight amid clapping and shouting, receiving the men as benefactors and saviors.
After this, Pelopidas, chosen boeotarch together with Melon and Charon, at once walled off the acropolis and made assaults from every side, eager to expel the Lacedaemonian garrison and liberate the Cadmea before any relief force could arrive out of Sparta.
And he came so close to succeeding that he had already let the men go out under truce when, while they were still at Megara, they met Cleombrotus marching against Thebes with a large force. As for the Spartans, since there had been three harmosts at Thebes, they condemned and put to death Herippidas and Arcissus, while the third, Lysanoridas, having been fined a great sum of money, removed himself from the Peloponnese.
This deed, comparable in the valor, dangers, and struggles of the men involved to that of Thrasybulus, and crowned with success by fortune in like manner, the Greeks called the sister of that other; for it is not easy to name any other men who, being fewer and weaker and more destitute than a greater and more powerful enemy, prevailed by daring and skill and became the cause of greater blessings for their fatherlands,
This deed was made yet more glorious by the change it wrought in affairs; for the war which broke Sparta's pride and terminated her dominion over land and sea took its rise from that very night in which Pelopidas, seizing neither garrison nor wall nor citadel, but coming down into a private house with eleven companions, if the truth may be told in a figure, loosed and cut through the bonds of the Lacedaemonian hegemony, which had seemed unloosable and unbreakable.
When, then, the Lacedaemonians invaded Boeotia with a great army, the Athenians, seized with fear, renounced their alliance with the Thebans, and bringing to trial those among them who favored the Boeotian cause, put some to death, banished others, and fined others in money; and the condition of the Thebans seemed wretched indeed, since no one came to their aid. Pelopidas, as it happened, was serving as boeotarch together with Gorgidas, and the two, plotting to set the Athenians once more at odds with the Lacedaemonians, contrived some such scheme as this.
Sphodrias, a Spartan, a man renowned and brilliant in war but somewhat light in judgment, full of empty hopes and of a senseless ambition, had been left behind at Thespiae with a force, to receive and assist those Thebans who might revolt. Pelopidas and his friends secretly sent to him, privately, a merchant who was one of their acquaintances, bearing money and words — and it was the words rather than the money that persuaded him that he ought to lay hold of great enterprises and seize the Piraeus, falling upon the Athenians unexpectedly while they kept no watch;
for nothing, they said, would be so welcome to the Lacedaemonians as the taking of Athens, while the Thebans, being ill-disposed toward the Athenians and reckoning them traitors, would not come to their aid. At length Sphodrias was persuaded, and taking up his soldiers he made a night march into Attica, pressing on as far as Eleusis; but there, his men losing heart, he was discovered, and having stirred up a war against the Spartans that was neither slight nor easy, he withdrew again to Thespiae.
After this the Athenians once more allied themselves most eagerly with the Thebans, and laid claim again to the sea, and traveling about, they welcomed and gained the allegiance of any Greek states minded to break away. Meanwhile the Thebans, fighting by themselves in Boeotia against the Lacedaemonians on each occasion, in battles that were not great in themselves but that involved great practice and training,
were kindled in spirit and disciplined in body, gaining at once experience through habituation and confidence from these contests. Hence it is said that Antalcidas the Spartan, when Agesilaus came back wounded from Boeotia, said to him: "A fine tuition indeed you are receiving from the Thebans, for teaching them to fight and give battle when they had no wish to do so."
But in truth the teacher was not Agesilaus, but those who, seizing the right moment and acting with calculation, launched the Thebans like young hounds against the enemy with skill, and then, once they had tasted victory and confidence, led them safely away — of whom Pelopidas had the greatest renown; for from the time they first chose him leader under arms, they never ceased electing him to office each year, but he continued, either leading the Sacred Band or serving for the most part as boeotarch, until his death.
There were defeats and routs of the Lacedaemonians near Plataea and Thespiae, where also Phoebidas, who had seized the Cadmea, was killed; and many of them were routed near Tanagra as well, and Panthoidas the harmost was slain. Yet these contests, while they raised the victors to confidence and courage, did not wholly enslave
the spirit of the defeated; for these were not set battles nor engagements with an open and regular array, but rather momentary sallies, and the Thebans, attempting flights or pursuits against them and grappling with them, gained their successes in this way.
The battle near Tegyra, which was in a sense the prelude to that of Leuctra, raised Pelopidas to great renown, leaving neither dispute over the achievement for his fellow commanders nor any excuse for defeat to the enemy. For the city of the Orchomenians, having chosen the Spartan side and received two of their regiments for its security, he was continually plotting against and watching for an opportunity,
and when he heard that the garrison had gone off on a campaign into Locris, hoping to take Orchomenus while it was undefended, he moved against the town, bringing along the Sacred Band together with a small body of cavalry. But when he came up to the city he found that a relief garrison had arrived from Sparta, and so he led his army back again through Tegyra, the only passable route around by the foot of the mountain.
For the whole of the middle way was rendered impassable by the river Melas, which, right from its source, broadens into marshes and lakes deep enough for boats. Just downstream from these marshes there stands a temple of Tegyraean Apollo and an oracle that had ceased not very long before, but had flourished down to the time of the Persian Wars, when Echecrates held the prophetic office; there they tell in myth that the god was born; and the neighboring mountain is called Delos, and against it the outpourings of the Melas come to an end,
and behind the temple two springs break forth, marvelous for the sweetness, abundance, and coldness of their water, of which we still call the one Phoenix and the other Elaea to this day — not from two plants, but from the streams by which the goddess was delivered of her travail. For the Ptoan mountain too is near, whence they say she was startled by a boar that suddenly appeared, and the tales concerning Python and Tityus likewise associate these places with the birth of the god.
I pass over most of the proofs; for the tradition of our fathers does not leave this god among those who became immortal through a change of state, born mortal, as it does Heracles and Dionysus, who through excellence cast off by transformation what was mortal and subject to suffering, but he is one of the eternal and unbegotten gods, if we are to judge of such great matters by what has been said by the wisest and most ancient men.
At Tegyra, then, the Thebans, withdrawing at this same time from the territory of Orchomenus, fell in with the Lacedaemonians, who were marching back from Locris to meet them from the opposite direction. As soon as they were seen passing through the narrows, a man rushed toward Pelopidas exclaiming, "We are trapped in the enemy's hands," and he replied, "Why more we into theirs than they into ours?"
And he at once ordered all the cavalry to ride up from the rear, as being ready to charge first, while he himself gathered together his hoplites, three hundred in number, into a compact body, hoping that by striking where he pressed hardest he would cut through the enemy, who surpassed him in numbers. There were two regiments of Lacedaemonians; and as to the size of a regiment, Ephorus says it numbered five hundred men, Callisthenes says seven hundred, and some others, among them Polybius, say nine hundred.
The Spartan polemarchs Gorgoleon and Theopompus, full of confidence, charged upon the Thebans; and since the onset happened to fall, above all, precisely upon the commanders themselves on both sides, with fury and violence, first the Lacedaemonian polemarchs, clashing with Pelopidas,
fell; and then, as those around them were being struck down and were dying, the whole army was seized with fear, and it opened a passage on both sides for the Thebans, as though wishing to let them break through and slip away in front. But when Pelopidas led his men against those still standing firm, cutting his way through with slaughter, then all fled headlong. The pursuit, however, did not extend far; for the Thebans feared the nearby Orchomenians and the relief force of the Lacedaemonians,
but so far as forcing a decisive victory and cutting their way clean through the whole of the defeated army went, this they accomplished; and setting up a trophy and stripping the dead, they withdrew home, greatly exalted in spirit. For in so many wars, it seems, Greek and barbarian alike, never before had the Lacedaemonians, though more numerous, been overcome by fewer, nor even equal numbers meeting equal numbers in set battle.
Hence their spirit had been thought irresistible, and by their reputation alone they had struck terror into those arrayed against them, who did not even think it fitting to contend on equal terms of strength with Spartans; but now they had come to close quarters, and that battle was the first to teach the rest of the Greeks that fighting, warlike men are bred neither by the Eurotas River nor by the district lying between Babyce and Cnacion, but that wherever young men grow up ashamed of what is shameful and willing to dare for what is noble, and shunning reproach in danger more than danger itself — these are the most fearsome to their enemies.
The Sacred Band, they say, was first assembled by Gorgidas from three hundred selected men, for whom the polis provided upkeep and instruction as they were quartered in the Cadmea; and for this reason they were called the City Band, for in those days people commonly called their acropolises "cities." But some say that this company was formed of lovers and beloved,
and a saying of Pammenes made half in jest is remembered: he said that Homer's Nestor was no tactician in bidding the Greeks be marshaled by tribes and clans, "that clan might help clan, and tribe help tribe," when he ought rather to have stationed lover beside beloved. For tribesmen and clansmen, he said, take little account of one another in times of danger, but a company knit together by erotic friendship is unbreakable and indissoluble, when men, some loving their beloved and others ashamed before their lovers, stand fast in danger for one another's sake.
And this is no wonder, if indeed men feel more shame before those they love even in their absence than before others present, as in the case of that man who, when an enemy was about to finish him off as he lay wounded, begged and besought him to drive the sword through his breast, "so that," he said, "my beloved may not see me lying dead wounded in the back, and be ashamed."
It is said too that Iolaus, the beloved of Heracles, shared in his labors and stood by his side in battle. And Aristotle says that even in his own day men still made their pledges of loyalty at the tomb of Iolaus, lovers and beloved together. It is likely, then, that the band too was called "sacred" for this reason, just as Plato called the lover a friend inspired by a god.
It is said to have remained unconquered until the battle at Chaeronea; and when, following that engagement, Philip went over the fallen and paused at the spot where, as it turned out, the three hundred were lying, every one of them having met his sarissas face to face and fallen mingled together with one another still in their armor, he was struck with wonder, and once told that these were the lovers-and-beloved company, he broke into tears and said, "Perish miserably those who suppose that these men did or suffered anything shameful."
In general, the custom of loving among the Thebans did not, as the poets say, take its origin from the suffering of Laius, but rather the lawgivers, wishing from childhood on to relax and soften what was by nature fierce and unmixed in their spirit, mingled much of the flute into both their serious pursuits and all their play, bringing it into honor and a place of prominence, and they fostered a splendid form of love in their wrestling-schools, tempering thereby the characters of the young.
And rightly, for this same reason, they associated with their city the goddess whom tradition holds to be the offspring of Ares and Aphrodite, on the ground that wherever the warlike and combative element consorts and dwells together with persuasiveness and grace, all things are brought, through Harmony, into the most tuneful and orderly form of civic life.
Now this Sacred Band Gorgidas distributed among the front ranks and stationed along the whole line of hoplites, so that the valor of these men was not made conspicuous, nor did he employ their strength for a single common task, since it was dispersed and mingled with a great mass of inferior troops. But Pelopidas, once their valor had shone forth clearly at Tegyra, where they had fought as a body around him alone, no longer divided or dispersed them, but using them as a single body, exposed them to danger first in the greatest contests.
For in the same way that horses gain speed once harnessed together to a chariot rather than running alone — not because they more forcibly cleave the air, which offers resistance in proportion to their bulk, but because the rivalry and contentiousness among one another kindles their spirit together — so he believed that brave men, instilling in one another emulation in noble deeds, would be most useful for a common task and most eager for it.
When the Lacedaemonians, having made peace with all the other Greeks, directed the war against the Thebans alone, and King Cleombrotus had already invaded, leading ten thousand hoplites and a thousand cavalry, and the danger was no longer over the matters that had earlier concerned the Thebans but was now an open threat and proclamation of the dissolution of their city, and a fear such as had never before gripped Boeotia — as Pelopidas was setting out from his house, and his wife, in seeing him off, wept and urged him to save himself, he said, "That, wife, is advice
one should give to private citizens; to those in command one should say, save the others." On arriving at the camp he found the Boeotarchs not of one mind, and he was the first to side with Epaminondas, who was voting to go to battle against the enemy — Pelopidas not yet having been appointed a Boeotarch, but commanding the Sacred Band, and trusted, as was just for a man who had given his country such pledges of its freedom.
So when it had been decided to risk battle, and they were encamped opposite the Lacedaemonians at Leuctra, Pelopidas saw a vision in his sleep that greatly disturbed him. For in the plain of Leuctra stand the burial mounds of Scedasus's daughters, whom they call the Leuctrides after the place; for it was there that they were buried, after having been violated by some Spartan strangers.
This deed having been done, so cruel and so lawless, their father, since he obtained no justice at Lacedaemon, called down curses upon the Spartans and took his own life at his daughters' graves; and oracles and prophecies never ceased warning the Spartans to be wary and guard themselves against the wrath of Leuctra — though most failed to grasp the meaning fully, being unsure which place was intended, since there is also a small coastal town of Laconia called Leuctron, and a place bearing the identical name lies near Megalopolis in Arcadia. This tragedy, then, long predated the battle fought at Leuctra.
Pelopidas, having lain down to sleep in the camp, dreamed that he saw the girls lamenting at their graves and invoking curses on the Spartans, while Scedasus urged him to offer a fair-haired maiden as a victim to his daughters, if he wished to prevail over the enemy. The command seemed to him terrible and lawless, and rising up he shared it with the seers and the commanders.
Of these, some said he must not neglect it, others that he must not obey it, citing among the ancients Menoeceus son of Creon and Macaria daughter of Heracles, and among later examples Pherecydes the wise man, put to death by the Lacedaemonians, whose skin was kept guarded by the kings according to a certain oracle, and Leonidas, who in a manner sacrificed himself in advance for Greece in accordance with the oracle,
and further those whom Themistocles sacrificed to Dionysus Omestes before the sea-battle at Salamis; for the success of their actions bore witness in favor of those men. But this too — how Agesilaus, when launching a campaign from the very same district as Agamemnon, against the very same foes, had his daughter demanded of him by the goddess as an offering and saw this identical vision as he slept at Aulis, yet did not give her, but weakened and abandoned the campaign, which came to nothing and won no glory.
The others, on the contrary, refused, saying that such a sacrifice, barbarous and lawless, could not be pleasing to any of the higher powers, the ones above us; for it is not the Typhons of that sort nor the Giants who rule, but the father of all, of gods and men alike; and that to believe there are spirits who delight in human blood and slaughter is perhaps foolish, but if such beings do exist, one must disregard them as powerless; for it is out of weakness and corruption of soul that such strange and cruel desires take root and persist.
While the leading men were engaged in such debate, and Pelopidas especially was at a loss, a filly broke away from a herd of horses and, running through the ranks, came to a stop just where they stood; and to the others it was simply a spectacle — the gleam of her mane, most fiery in color, her spirited bearing, and the proud, confident sound of her neighing —
but Theocritus the seer, grasping the meaning, cried out to Pelopidas, "Your victim has come, good sir; let us not wait for another maiden, but use the one the god gives." At this they took the mare, brought her to the graves of the maidens, and, offering prayers and garlands, slit her throat, rejoicing themselves and spreading word through the camp of Pelopidas's vision and the sacrifice.
In the battle, as Epaminondas drew his phalanx obliquely toward the left, so as to push the Spartan right wing to the greatest possible distance from the other Greek contingents, and to drive back Cleombrotus by falling upon him in mass on that flank and forcing him back, the enemy, perceiving what was happening, began to shift their own formation,
unfolding and extending their right wing so as to encircle and surround Epaminondas by sheer numbers. But Pelopidas at that moment darted out ahead, and, gathering his three hundred at a run, got there before Cleombrotus could either extend his wing or bring it back together again and close up the line — falling upon the Lacedaemonians while they were not yet settled but in confusion among themselves,
and yet the Spartans, though supreme craftsmen and masters of all things military, trained and practiced themselves in nothing so much as this: not to wander or fall into disorder when their formation was broken, but, using every man as his own file-leader and rank-mate, wherever the danger might gather, to rally, close ranks, and fight all the same.
But on that occasion the phalanx of Epaminondas, bearing down on those men alone and passing by the rest, together with Pelopidas, who with incredible speed and daring had thrown himself into the fighting, so confounded their pride and their skill that there occurred a rout and slaughter of Spartans such as had never happened before. And so, though Epaminondas held the office of Boeotarch and Pelopidas did not, and though the one commanded the whole force and the other only a small part of it, they carried off an equal share of the glory of that victory and of the achievement.
Both, still holding the office of Boeotarch, invaded the Peloponnese and won over the greater part of its population, prying loose from Lacedaemonian control Elis, Argos, all of Arcadia, and most of Laconia itself — even though it was the height of winter, near the solstice, and only a few days of the last month remained, after which others would have to take over command at once with the start of the new month, or else those who failed to hand it over would face death.
The other Boeotarchs, fearing this law and shunning the winter, were eager to lead the army home; but Pelopidas, the first to side with Epaminondas and to urge the citizens on together with him, led them against Sparta and brought them across the Eurotas. He captured many of their cities and ravaged the whole country as far as the sea, leading a Greek army of seventy thousand, of which the Thebans themselves made up less than a twelfth,
yet the reputation of these two men, without any common decree or vote, made all the allies follow their lead in silence. For, it seems, the first and most sovereign law grants by nature to one who can save, authority over one in need of saving; just as sailors who, in fair weather or riding at anchor by the shore, behave insolently and boldly toward their helmsmen, but the moment a storm and danger overtake them, look to those same men and place their hopes in them.
And indeed the Argives, the Eleans, and the Arcadians, who in their councils quarreled and disputed with the Thebans over the leadership, nonetheless, in the midst of the actual struggles and dangers, willingly obeyed those men as their generals.
In that campaign they organized all of Arcadia into a single power, and, cutting off from the Spartans, who were occupying it, the territory of Messenia, they called back the ancient Messenians and resettled them, founding Ithome; and as they returned home through Cenchreae, they defeated the Athenians who attempted to skirmish with them at the narrow passes and block their march.
For these deeds, while everyone else admired their valor beyond measure and marveled at their good fortune, the envy natural to kinsmen and fellow-citizens, growing along with the men's fame, prepared for them a welcome neither fair nor fitting. For both, upon their return, faced trial for their lives, because, though the law commanded that the office of Boeotarch be handed over to others in the first month, which they call Bucatius, they had held on to it four whole months beyond, during which they had settled affairs in Messenia, Arcadia, and Laconia.
Pelopidas stood trial first, and so faced the greater peril; yet both men were cleared of the charge. Epaminondas endured the false accusation and the whole ordeal calmly, counting patient endurance in political matters as a great part of courage and greatness of soul; but Pelopidas, being by nature more hot-tempered, and urged on by his friends to punish his enemies, seized upon such an occasion.
Menecleidas the orator had been one of those who joined with Pelopidas and Melon in gathering at Charon's house; but since he was not held in equal honor among the Thebans — though a most formidable speaker, he was unruly and malicious in character — he turned his nature to slandering and maligning his betters, and did not stop even after that trial.
He succeeded in driving Epaminondas out of the Boeotarchy and blocking his political career for a long time; but he was not able to turn the people against Pelopidas by slander, and so tried instead to set him against Charon; and having as a common consolation for envy this, that if men cannot show themselves better than others, they can at least make those others appear worse — he went to great lengths before the people to exalt the deeds of Charon, praising his generalship and his victories.
As to the cavalry battle near Plataea, which they had won under Charon's command before Leuctra, he attempted to have a dedication made in this manner. Androcydes of Cyzicus, having been commissioned by the city to paint a picture of a different battle, was carrying out the work at Thebes; but when the revolt occurred and war broke out, the Thebans, since the picture was not far from complete, kept it for themselves.
This, then, Menecleidas persuaded them to dedicate with an inscription bearing the name of Charon alone, meaning to dim the glory of Pelopidas and Epaminondas. It was a foolish piece of vanity, to prize so highly, amid so many and so great struggles, one action and one victory, in which, so the story goes, one Gerandas, a Spartan of no particular rank, fell along with forty of his men, and nothing else of importance was accomplished.
Against this decree Pelopidas brought an indictment for illegality, arguing that it was not the ancestral custom of the Thebans to honor any man privately, but to preserve the name of the victory in common for the fatherland. Throughout the whole trial he continued unstintingly to praise Charon, while exposing Menecleidas as malicious and wicked, and asking the Thebans whether nothing good had ever been done by them at all — so that Menecleidas was fined a sum of money, which, being unable to pay because of its size, he later tried to stir up revolution and overturn the constitution. These matters, then, offer some insight into the man's character.
When Alexander, tyrant of Pherae, was openly at war with many of the Thessalians and plotting against all of them, the cities sent embassies to Thebes asking for a general and a force. Pelopidas, seeing that Epaminondas was managing affairs in the Peloponnese, gave himself over to the task and devoted himself to the Thessalians, unwilling to let his own skill and power lie idle, and thinking that wherever Epaminondas was present, no other general was needed.
So when he had marched into Thessaly with a force, he at once took over Larissa, and when Alexander came and begged for reconciliation, he tried to make him a mild and lawful ruler for the Thessalians instead of a tyrant. But since he proved incurable and beastly, and much cruelty, much wantonness and greed were charged against him, and Pelopidas grew harsh and angry with him, he fled away secretly with his bodyguard.
Pelopidas, having left the Thessalians a great measure of security from the tyrant and concord among themselves, departed himself for Macedonia, since Ptolemy was at war with Alexander, king of the Macedonians, and both were summoning him to come as arbiter, judge, ally, and helper to whichever side seemed to be wronged.
He went and settled the disputes and restored the exiles, taking as hostage Philip, the king's brother, and thirty other boys of the noblest families, and settled them at Thebes, thereby showing the Greeks how far the power and reputation of Thebes reached, and how deeply she was trusted for her justice.
This was the Philip who later fought the Greeks for their freedom, but who was then a boy living at Thebes in the household of Pammenes. From this he seems to have become an admirer of Epaminondas, having perhaps noted his energy in wars and generalship — though this was only a small part of that man's virtue — while of the self-control, justice, magnanimity, and gentleness in which Epaminondas was truly great, Philip took no share, either by nature or by imitation.
After this, when the Thessalians again accused Alexander of Pherae of throwing their cities into disorder, Pelopidas was sent as an envoy together with Ismenias; and he arrived neither bringing an armed force from home nor expecting war, but was compelled to make use of the Thessalians themselves to meet the urgency of the situation.
Meanwhile affairs in Macedonia were again in turmoil, for Ptolemy had killed the king and seized power, and the friends of the dead man called on Pelopidas. He wished to make his presence felt in these affairs, yet since no troops of his own were at hand, he hired mercenaries on the spot and marched against Ptolemy with them at once.
But when they had come near one another, Ptolemy corrupted the mercenaries with money and persuaded them to come over to his side; yet he feared the very reputation and name of Pelopidas, and met him as a superior, and by taking his hand and pleading with him, agreed to hold the throne only as a trust for the murdered king's brothers, and to share the same friends and foes as the Thebans. As surety for this he gave his son Philoxenus as hostage, along with fifty of his companions.
Pelopidas dispatched these men to Thebes, while he himself, resenting bitterly the mercenaries' betrayal, discovered that near Pharsalus lay stored most of their wealth along with their wives and children; hoping that seizing these would exact a fitting price for the wrong done to him, he mustered a body of Thessalian troops and arrived at Pharsalus.
But he had scarcely arrived there when Alexander the tyrant appeared with his forces. Pelopidas and his companions, supposing he had come to answer for himself, went to meet him themselves — knowing him to be utterly abominable and murderous, yet expecting, because of Thebes and the respect and reputation they enjoyed, to suffer nothing.
But he, seeing them approaching unarmed and alone, at once seized them, and took possession of Pharsalus, and struck terror and fear into all his subjects, since after so great a wrong and so great a daring act he would clearly spare no one, and would deal with whatever men and affairs came his way as one who had, for the time being, utterly given up on his own life.
When the Thebans heard this they took it hard, and sent out an army at once, though because of some anger against Epaminondas they appointed other commanders. The tyrant, having carried Pelopidas off to Pherae, at first allowed those who wished to converse with him, supposing he had become pitiable and humbled by his misfortune.
But when Pelopidas, seeing the people of Pherae lamenting, urged them to take courage, since the tyrant would now above all pay the penalty, and sent word to Alexander himself saying it was absurd that he should day after day torture and murder the wretched citizens who had done no wrong, while sparing the very man he knew above all would take vengeance on him should he escape —
Alexander, astonished at his spirit and his fearlessness, said, "Why is it, then, that Pelopidas is in such a hurry to die?" And Pelopidas, on hearing this, said, "So that you may perish the sooner, having become still more hateful to the gods than you now are." From this time on Alexander forbade outsiders to have access to him. But Thebe, who was the daughter of Jason and wife of Alexander, learning from the guards of Pelopidas' boldness and nobility, desired to see the man and speak with him.
When she came to him, being a woman, she did not at once perceive the greatness of his character amid so great a misfortune, but judging by his hair, his dress, and his manner of life that he was suffering wretchedly and unbecomingly of his repute, she wept for him. At first Pelopidas, not knowing who among women she was, marveled; but when he learned who she was, he addressed her by her father's name — for he had been an intimate friend of Jason. And when she said, "I pity your wife," he replied, "And I pity you, because though unfettered you endure Alexander."
This saying somehow touched the woman; for she was burdened by the cruelty and insolence of the tyrant, who along with his other wantonness had made even the youngest of her brothers his favorite. For this reason, coming continually to Pelopidas and speaking her mind freely about what she suffered, she was gradually filled with anger and resolve and hostility toward Alexander.
When the Theban generals invaded Thessaly but accomplished nothing, and through inexperience or misfortune withdrew shamefully, the city imposed on each a fine of ten thousand drachmas, and dispatched Epaminondas at the head of a force.
At once there arose a great stirring among the Thessalians, who were roused by the general's reputation, and the tyrant's affairs needed only a slight tipping to be utterly ruined — such fear had fallen upon his commanders and friends, and such an impulse toward revolt and such joy at what was coming possessed his subjects, as though they would now see the tyrant paying the penalty.
Nevertheless Epaminondas ranked his own standing below the need to keep Pelopidas safe, and worried that a general breakdown might drive Alexander, despairing of his own position, to turn savagely against his captive, hovered over the war, and going about in a circle, by his preparations and his delay he checked and restrained the tyrant, so as neither to provoke resistance from his arrogance and boldness nor to stir up his bitterness and passionate temper.
For he had learned of his cruelty and his contempt for what was noble and just — how he buried men alive, and dressed others in the skins of wild boars and bears and set hunting dogs upon them, and they were torn apart and speared, this being his idea of sport; and how, at Meliboea and Scotussa, cities in alliance and friendship with him, while their assemblies were in session, he surrounded them with his guards and slaughtered all the young men; and how he had dedicated and garlanded the very spear that struck down his uncle Polyphron, offering it sacrifice as though it were divine and naming it Tychon.
Once, watching a tragic actor perform Euripides' Trojan Women, he got up and left the theater, and sending word to the actor bade him take heart and not perform any the worse for it — for he had not left out of contempt for him, but out of shame before his citizens, lest, having never pitied any of those he himself had murdered, he should be seen weeping over the sufferings of Hecuba and Andromache.
This man, then, terrified at the very reputation and name and mere semblance of Epaminondas' generalship, "crouched like a cock, a slave, with wing bent low," and quickly sent men to plead his case. Epaminondas would not allow the Thebans to conclude peace and friendship with such a man, but having agreed on a thirty-day truce in the war, and having received back Pelopidas and Ismenias, he withdrew.
When the Thebans learned that the Lacedaemonians and Athenians were sending envoys up to the Great King to seek an alliance, they too sent Pelopidas, having planned excellently with regard to his reputation. For in the first place, as he journeyed up through the king's provinces, he was already famous and much talked of; for the fame of his struggles against the Lacedaemonians had spread not faintly nor to any small extent through Asia, but
from the moment the first report of the battle at Leuctra ran abroad, it grew, with some new success always being added, and spreading and mounting, reached to the farthest lands; then, once he stood before the assembled satraps, generals, and officers at the King's gate, it stirred both amazement and conversation, that this was the man who had driven the Lacedaemonians from land and sea and had confined Sparta beneath Taygetus and the Eurotas — the same Sparta which but a short time before, through Agesilaus, had waged war against the Great King himself over Susa and Ecbatana.
At this Artaxerxes rejoiced, and marveled at Pelopidas for his reputation, and made him great with honors, wishing to seem to be courted and esteemed by the greatest of men. And when he had observed his bearing and listened closely to his speech — firmer than what the Athenians offered, and plainer than the Lacedaemonians' manner —
he came to like him still more, and, feeling a kingly affection, did not conceal his honor toward the man, nor did it escape the notice of the other envoys that he gave Pelopidas the largest share of his favor. And yet he is thought to have honored, above all the Greeks, Antalcidas the Lacedaemonian, in that he dipped in perfume the garland he had worn while drinking and sent it to him.
To Pelopidas he did not show such intimate favor, but he sent the most splendid and greatest of the customary gifts and confirmed his requests — that the Greeks should be autonomous, that Messene should be inhabited, and that the Thebans should be considered ancestral friends of the King. With these answers, and having accepted none of the gifts save such as were tokens of goodwill and friendliness, he set off homeward — which most of all discredited the other envoys.
Timagoras, at any rate, the Athenians condemned and put to death — and if it was for the abundance of his gifts, rightly and justly so; for he received not only gold and silver, but also a costly couch and servants to make the bed, as though the Greeks did not know how, and further, eighty cattle and cowherds, on the pretense that he needed cow's milk for some illness, and at the end he was borne down to the coast reclining in a litter, the King paying four talents to the men who carried him. But it seems it was not chiefly the bribe-taking that most provoked the Athenians.
For once, when Epicrates the shield-bearer, so far from denying that gifts from the King had come to him, went on to propose a decree that instead of the nine archons, nine envoys be chosen by lot each year from the common people and the poor to go to the King, so that by receiving gifts they might become well off, the people only laughed; but because everything had turned out well for the Thebans they took it hard in every way, not reckoning the reputation of Pelopidas, how far superior he was to all rhetoric and speeches in the eyes of a man who was always courting whoever held the mastery of arms.
This embassy, then, added no small measure of goodwill toward Pelopidas on his return, on account of the resettlement of Messene and the autonomy secured for the other Greeks. But when Alexander of Pherae reverted again to his own nature, cutting off not a few Thessalian cities, and had put the Phthiotic Achaeans entirely and the Magnesian people under garrison, the cities, learning that Pelopidas had returned, at once sent envoys to Thebes asking for a force and for him as its general.
When the Thebans voted eagerly for this, and everything was quickly made ready and the general was on the point of setting out, the sun failed and darkness held the city in the midst of day; and Pelopidas, seeing everyone thrown into confusion by the apparition, did not think he ought to force men who were fearful and despondent, nor risk seven thousand citizens,
but gave himself alone to the Thessalians, and taking along three hundred volunteer horsemen and some foreign troops, set out — though the seers did not permit it, nor did the other citizens share his eagerness, for it seemed a great sign to have come from heaven regarding so illustrious a man. But he was the hotter against Alexander because of the anger he felt at the outrage done to him, and he hoped, too, to find Alexander's household already sick and corrupted, from what Thebe had told him.
But what most called to him and invited him, since he desired it and was ambitious for it, was the nobility of the deed — for in an era when Lacedaemon was dispatching commanders and overseers to serve under Dionysius, tyrant of Sicily, while Athens retained this same Alexander on its payroll and was erecting a bronze statue of him as though he were a benefactor, then indeed it fell to the Thebans alone to show the Greeks that they took the field on behalf of those under tyranny, and were putting down among the Greeks the lawless and violent dominations.
So when he came to Pharsalus and had gathered his force, he marched at once against Alexander. Alexander, seeing the Thebans few in number around Pelopidas, while his own hoplites numbered more than double the Thessalian force, came out to meet them at the Thetideum. And when someone told Pelopidas that the tyrant was coming on with many men, he said, "So much the better — we shall conquer the more."
As hills sloping down on either side toward the middle ground rose up near the place called Cynoscephalae (Dogs' Heads), both sides set out to seize them with their infantry. Pelopidas sent his cavalry, who were numerous and good, against the enemy's cavalry, and when these prevailed and drove the fleeing enemy horse out together with them onto the plain, Alexander got there first and seized the hills,
and when the Thessalian hoplites came up afterward and pressed forward against the strong and elevated ground, he fell upon them and killed the foremost, while the rest, having taken wounds, could accomplish nothing. Seeing this, Pelopidas called back his cavalry and ordered them to ride against the enemy's massed body, while he himself, taking up his shield, joined at a run those fighting around the hills,
and pushing his way through from the rear to the front ranks, he put such strength and eagerness into all of them that even to the enemy they seemed to have become different men, changed in body and in spirit. They beat off two or three attacks, but seeing these men too pressing on vigorously, and the cavalry wheeling back from its pursuit, they gave way, making their withdrawal step by step, facing the enemy.
Pelopidas, looking down from the heights upon the whole enemy camp, saw it not yet turned to flight but already filling with confusion and disorder; he stopped and looked about, searching for Alexander himself. And spotting him stationed over on the right flank, urging on and arranging his mercenaries, he could not master his anger by reason,
but, kindled at the sight and surrendering his body and the command of the action to passion, he leapt out far ahead of the others and bore down shouting, calling out the tyrant. Alexander did not accept the charge nor stand his ground, but fled back among his bodyguards and hid himself; of the mercenaries, those who first came to close quarters were cut down by Pelopidas, and some, being struck, died on the spot,
but most of them, striking at him from a distance with their spears through his armor, wounded him again and again, until the Thessalians, stricken with grief, came running down from the hills to help, though he had already fallen; and the cavalry, riding up, routed the whole phalanx, and pursuing it a very long way filled the country with corpses, cutting down more than three thousand.
That the Thebans present should have taken heavily the death of Pelopidas, calling him father and savior and teacher of the greatest and noblest goods, was not at all surprising; but the Thessalians and their allies, though they exceeded in their decrees every honor becoming to human excellence, showed the grace they bore the man still more by their outward displays of feeling,
for they say that those who had been present at the deed neither put on breastplate, nor unbridled horse, nor bound up a wound, before, on learning of his death, they went, still hot in their arms, to the corpse, as though he could perceive it, and heaped up around his body in a circle the spoils of the enemy, and shore the manes of their horses, and cut their own hair too.
And many, going off to their tents, neither lit a fire nor took a meal, and silence and dejection lay over the whole camp, as though they had not carried off the most conspicuous and greatest of victories but had instead been vanquished by the tyrant and reduced to slavery,
and from the cities, as soon as this was reported, the magistrates came, and with them ephebes and boys and priests, to receive the body, bringing trophies, wreaths, and sets of gilded armor. And just as the body was about to be carried out, the eldest of the Thessalians came forward and asked the Thebans to allow them to bury the dead man themselves. And one of them spoke: "Allied men, we ask a favor of you, an honor that may bring us comfort in so great a misfortune.
For the Thessalians will not be escorting Pelopidas away alive, nor rendering him the honors he deserves while he can perceive them; but if we may be granted to touch the corpse and to adorn and bury the body ourselves, we shall seem to you not to distrust that a greater calamity has befallen the Thessalians than the Thebans; your loss is merely that of a fine commander, whereas ours is that man together with our very freedom in one stroke. So with what courage could we still request a further general from you, seeing that we failed to send Pelopidas back to you?" To this the Thebans agreed.
Of those funeral rites, it does not seem that any others were ever more splendid, at least to those who do not believe splendor lies in ivory and gold and purple, as Philistus does, hymning and admiring the funeral of Dionysius, which became, as it were, a theatrical finale to the great tragedy of his tyranny.
Alexander the Great, when Hephaestion died, not only shore the manes of horses and mules, but also tore down the battlements from the city walls, so that every city would appear clothed in grief, its former look traded for one shorn bare and disfigured. These, however, were commands of a master, carried out under great compulsion, amid the resentment of those who suffered them and the hatred of those forced to it, and were no mark of gratitude or honor, but a display of barbaric pomp and luxury and boastfulness, on the part of one disposing of his abundance
in ways empty and unenviable. But a man of the people, dying on foreign soil, with no wife, no children, no kinsmen present, with no one compelling or constraining it, accompanied, borne forth, and garlanded by such a multitude of peoples and cities competing with each other — he might reasonably be judged to possess the most complete happiness.
For it is not, as Aesop said, the death of the fortunate that is hardest, but rather the most blessed, since it lays up their successes in a safe place, beyond the reach of fortune's turning. Hence the Laconian did better, who, when he embraced Diagoras the Olympic victor — after Diagoras had watched his own sons take Olympic crowns, and had likewise lived on to see the sons of his sons and of his daughters — said, "Die now, Diagoras, for you will not ascend to Olympus."
But as for Olympic and Pythian victories, I do not think anyone, setting them all together, would think it worth comparing them to a single one of Pelopidas's contests — he who fought and won many such contests, and who, having lived the greater part of his life in glory and honor, died at last, in his thirteenth term as Boeotarch, achieving a feat of valor mingled with tyrannicide, on behalf of the freedom of the Thessalians.
His death grieved the allies greatly, but benefited them still more. For the Thebans, on learning of Pelopidas's death, made no delay of their vengeance, but swiftly took the field with seven thousand hoplites and seven hundred cavalry, under the command of Malcitas and Diogeiton.
Finding Alexander's power reduced and cut down, they compelled him to give back to the Thessalians the cities of theirs which he held, to release the Magnesians and the Achaeans of Phthia and withdraw his garrisons from them, and to swear that he would follow wherever the Thebans might lead and whatever they commanded. With this the Thebans were satisfied; but the penalty which he paid to the gods on Pelopidas's account a little later, I shall now relate.
Thebe, who lived with him as his wife, Pelopidas had first, as has been said, taught not to fear the outward splendor and pomp of the tyranny, seeing that it lay within reach of arms and guards; but afterward, fearing his faithlessness and hating his cruelty, she conspired with her brothers, three in number, Tisiphonus, Pytholaus, and Lycophron, and set about the deed in the following manner,
The rest of the tyrant's house was held by the guards who kept watch through the night, but the bedchamber, in which they were accustomed to sleep, was upstairs, and before it a chained dog kept guard, terrifying to everyone except those two and the one servant who fed it. At the hour, then, when Thebe intended to make her attempt, she had her brothers hidden nearby in a certain house from daybreak, and she herself went in, as was her custom,
alone to Alexander, who was already asleep, and after a little while came out again, and ordered the servant to take the dog outside, saying that her husband wished to rest in quiet; and she herself, fearing that the ladder might make a noise as the young men climbed up, spread wool over it,
then, having thus brought her brothers up armed with swords and stationed them before the doors, she herself went in, and taking down the sword hanging over his head, displayed it to them, a signal that the man lay bound fast in sleep. And when the young men, struck with terror, hesitated, she reviled them and swore in anger that she herself would wake Alexander and reveal the plot; and shamed as well as frightened, she led them in and stationed them around the bed, holding out the lamp.
Of them, one held down his feet, pressing them fast; another, seizing his head by the hair, wrenched it back; and the third, striking him with the sword, dispatched him — a death, by the swiftness of its ending, perhaps gentler than was fitting for him to suffer, but one in which he earned the distinction — unique among tyrants, or the first of them — of dying by his own wife's hand; his corpse was afterward abused, cast out and trampled underfoot by the people of Pherae, he was thought to have suffered what his crimes deserved.