Pelopidas

When the Theban generals had accomplished nothing by their invasion of Thessaly, but owing to inexperience or ill fortune had retired disgracefully, the city fined each of them ten thousand drachmas, and sent out Epaminondas with an armed force.[*](367 B.C.)

At once, then, there was a great stir among the Thessalians, who were filled with high hopes in view of the reputation of this general, and the cause of the tyrant was on the very verge of destruction; so great was the fear that fell upon his commanders and friends, and so great the inclination of his subjects to revolt, and their joy at what the future had in store, for they felt that now they should behold the tyrant under punishment.

Epaminondas, however, less solicitous for his own glory than for the safety of Pelopidas, and fearing that if confusion reigned Alexander would get desperate and turn like a wild beast upon his prisoner, dallied with the war, and taking a roundabout course, kept the tyrant in suspense by his preparations and threatened movements, thus neither encouraging his audacity and boldness, nor rousing his malignity and passion.

For he had learned how savage he was, and how little regard he had for right and justice, in that sometimes he buried men alive, and sometimes dressed them in the skins of wild boars or bears, and then set his hunting dogs upon them and either tore them in pieces or shot them down, making this his diversion; and at Meliboea and Scotussa, allied and friendly cities, when the people were in full assembly, he surrounded them with his body-guards and slaughtered them from the youth up; he also consecrated the spear with which he had slain his uncle Polyphron, decked it with garlands, and sacrificed to it as to a god, giving it the name of Tycho.[*](That is, Luck.)

Once when he was seeing a tragedian act the Trojan Women of Euripides, he left the theatre abruptly, and sent a message to the actor bidding him be of good courage and not put forth any less effort because of his departure, for it was not out of contempt for his acting that he had gone away, but because he was ashamed to have the citizens see him, who had never taken pity on any man that he had murdered, weeping over the sorrows of Hecuba and Andromache.

It was this tyrant, however, who, terrified at the name and fame and distinction of the generalship of Epaminondas,

1. Crouched down, though warrior bird, like slave,
2. with drooping wings,