Pelopidas

And with this in view, they did well to give the goddess who was said to have been born of Ares and Aphrodite a home in their city; for they felt that, where the force and courage of the warrior are most closely associated and united with the age which possesses grace and persuasiveness, there all the activities of civil life are brought by Harmony into the most perfect consonance and order.

Gorgidas, then, by distributing this sacred band among the front ranks of the whole phalanx of men-at-arms, made the high excellence of the men inconspicuous, and did not direct their strength upon a common object, since it was dissipated and blended with that of a large body of inferior troops; but Pelopidas, after their valour had shone out at Tegyra, where they fought by themselves and about his own person, never afterwards divided or scattered them, but, treating them as a unit, put them into the forefront of the greatest conflicts.

For just as horses run faster when yoked to a chariot than when men ride them singly, not because they cleave the air with more impetus owing to their united weight, but because their mutual rivalry and ambition inflame their spirits; so he thought that brave men were most ardent and serviceable in a common cause when they inspired one another with a zeal for high achievement.

But now the Lacedaemonians made peace with all the other Greeks and directed the war against the Thebans alone;[*](In 371 B.C.) Cleombrotus their king invaded Boeotia with a force of ten thousand men-at-arms and a thousand horse; a new peril confronted the Thebans, since they were openly threatened with downright dispersion; and an unprecedented fear reigned in Boeotia. It was at this time that Pelopidas, on leaving his house, when his wife followed him on his way in tears and begging him not to lose his life, said:

This advice, my wife, should be given to private men; but men in authority should be told not to lose the lives of others. And when he reached the camp and found that the boeotarchs were not in accord he was first to side with Epaminondas in voting to give the enemy battle. Now Pelopidas, although he had not been appointed boeotarch, was captain of the sacred band, and highly trusted, as it was right that a man should be who had given his country such tokens of his devotion to freedom.

Accordingly, it was decided to risk a battle, and at Leuctra they encamped over against the Lacedaemonians. Here Pelopidas had a dream which greatly disturbed him. Now, in the plain of Leuctra are the tombs of the daughters of Scedasus, who are called from the place Leuctridae, for they had been buried there, after having been ravished by Spartan strangers.[*](The damsels, in shame, took their own lives. Cf. Pausanias, ix. 13, 3. )