Pelopidas

After this, having be en elected boeotarch, or governor of Boeotia, together with Melon and Charon, Pelopidas at once blockaded the acropolis and assaulted it on every side, being anxious to drive out the Lacedaemonians and free the Cadmeia before an army came up from Sparta.

And he succeeded by so narrow a margin that, when the men had surrendered conditionally and had been allowed to depart, they got no further than Megara before they were met by Cleombrotus marching against Thebes with a great force. Of the three men who had been harmosts, or governors, in Thebes, the Spartans condemned and executed Herippidas and Arcissus, and the third, Lysanoridas, was heavily fined and forsook the Peloponnesus.

This exploit, so like that of Thrasybulus in the valour, the perils, and the struggles of its heroes, and, like that, crowned with success by fortune, the Greeks were wont to call a sister to it. For it is not easy to mention other cases where men so few in number and so destitute have overcome enemies so much more numerous and powerful by the exercise of courage and sagacity, and have thereby become the authors of so great blessings for their countries.

And yet the subsequent change in the political situation made this exploit the more glorious. For the war which broke down the pretensions of Sparta and put an end to her supremacy by land and sea, began from that night, in which Pelopidas, not by surprising any fort or castle or citadel, but by coming back into a private house with eleven others, loosed and broke in pieces, if the truth may be expressed in a metaphor, the fetters of the Lacedaemonian supremacy, which were thought indissoluble and not to be broken.

The Lacedaemonians now invaded Boeotia with a large army, and the Athenians, having become fearful, renounced their alliance with the Thebans, and prosecuting those in their city who favoured the Boeotian cause, put some of them to death, banished others, and others still they fined, so that the Thebans seemed to be in a desperate case with none to aid them. But Pelopidas and Gorgidas, who were boeotarchs, plotted to embroil the Athenians again with the Lacedaemonians, and devised the following scheme.

Sphodrias, a Spartan, who had a splendid reputation as a soldier, but was rather weak in judgement and full of vain hopes and senseless ambition, had been left at Thespiae with an armed force to receive and succour the renegade Thebans. To this man Pelopidas and Gorgidas privately sent one of their friends who was a merchant, with money, and, what proved more persuasive than money with Sphodrias, this advice. He ought to put his hand to a large enterprise and seize the Piraeus, attacking it unexpectedly when the Athenians were off their guard;

for nothing would gratify the Lacedaemonians so much as the capture of Athens, and the Thebans, who were now angry with the Athenians and held them to be traitors, would give them no aid. Sphodrias was finally persuaded, and taking his soldiers, invaded Attica by night. He advanced as far as Eleusis, but there the hearts of his soldiers failed them and his design was exposed, and after having thus stirred up a serious and difficult war against the Spartans, he withdrew to Thespiae.[*](The attempt of Sphodrias on the Piraeus is more fully described in the Agesilaüs, xxiv. 3-6.)