[373] Xen. Hellen. vi, 4, 3, 4; Diodor. xv, 53; Pausan. ix, 13, 2.
[374] Kallisthenes, apud Cic. de Divinatione, i, 34, Fragm. 9, ed. Didot.
[375] Xen. Hellen. vi, 4, 7; Diodor. xv, 54; Pausan. ix, 13, 3; Plutarch, Pelopid. c. 20, 21; Polyænus, ii, 3, 8.
The latter relates that Pelopidas in a dream saw Skedasus, who directed him to offer on this tomb “an auburn virgin” to the deceased females. Pelopidas and his friends were greatly perplexed about the fulfilment of this command; many urged that it was necessary for some maiden to devote herself, or to be devoted by her parents, as a victim for the safety of the country, like Menœkeus and Makaria in the ancient legends; others denounced the idea as cruel and inadmissible. In the midst of the debate, a mare, with a chestnut filly, galloped up, and stopped not far off; upon which the prophet Theokritus exclaimed,—“Here comes the victim required, sent by the special providence of the gods.” The chestnut filly was caught and offered as a sacrifice on the tomb; every one being in high spirits from a conviction that the mandate of the gods had been executed.
The prophet Theokritus figures in the treatise of Plutarch De Genio Socratis (c. 3, p. 576 D.) as one of the companions of Pelopidas in the conspiracy whereby the Theban oligarchy was put down and the Lacedæmonians expelled from the Kadmeia.
[376] Diodor. xv, 52-56; Plutarch, Pelop. c. 20.
[377] Xen. Hellen. vi, 4, 5.
[378] Polyæn. ii, 2, 2; Pausanias, ix, 13, 3; ix, 14, 1.
[379] Plutarch, Symposiac. ii. 5, p. 639 F.
[380] Pausanias (ix, 13, 4; compare viii, 6, 1) lays great stress upon this indifference or even treachery of the allies. Xenophon says quite enough to authenticate the reality of the fact (Hellen. vi, 4, 15-24); see also Cicero De Offic. ii, 7, 26.