Pelopidas

This embassy, then, added not a little to the goodwill felt towards Pelopidas, on his return home, because of the peopling of Messene and the independence of the other Greeks. But Alexander of Pherae had now resumed his old nature and was destroying not a few Thessalian cities; he had also put garrisons over the Achaeans of Phthiotis and the people of Magnesia. When, therefore, the cities learned that Pelopidas was returned, they at once sent ambassadors to Thebes requesting an armed force and him for its commander.

The Thebans readily decreed what they desired, and soon everything was in readiness and the commander about to set out, when the sun was eclipsed and the city was covered with darkness in the day-time.[*](July 13, 364 B.C.) So Pelopidas, seeing that all were confounded at this manifestation, did not think it meet to use compulsion with men who were apprehensive and fearful, nor to run extreme hazard with seven thousand citizens,

but devoting himself alone to the Thessalians, and taking with him three hundred of the cavalry who were foreigners and who volunteered for the service, set out, although the seers forbade it, and the rest of the citizens disapproved; for the eclipse was thought to be a great sign from heaven, and to regard a conspicuous man. But his wrath at insults received made him very hot against Alexander, and, besides, his previous conversations with Thebe[*](Cf. chapter xxviii. 3. ff. ) led him to hope that he should find the tyrant’s family already embroiled and disrupted.

More than anything else, however, the glory of the achievement invited him on, for he was ardently desirous, at a time when the Lacedaemonians were sending generals and governors to aid Dionysius the tyrant of Sicily, and the Athenians were taking Alexander’s pay and erecting a bronze statue of him as their benefactor, to show the Greeks that the Thebans alone were making expeditions for the relief of those whom tyrants oppressed, and were overthrowing in Greece those ruling houses which rested on violence and were contrary to the laws.