The eclipse of the sun, which both Plutarch and Diodorus mention to have immediately preceded the out-march of Pelopidas, does not seem to have been as yet certainly identified. Dodwell, on the authority of an astronomical friend, places it on the 13th of June, 364 B.C., at five o’clock in the morning. On the other hand, Calvisius places it on the 13th of July in the same Julian year, at a quarter before eleven o’clock in the day (see L’Art de Vérifier les Dates, tom. i, p. 257). We may remark, that the day named by Dodwell (as he himself admits) would not fall within the Olympic year 364-363 B.C., but during the months preceding the commencement of that year. Moreover Dodwell speaks as if there were no other months in the year, except June, July, and August, fit for military expeditions; an hypothesis not reasonable to admit.
Sievers and Dr. Thirlwall both accept the eclipse mentioned by Dodwell, as marking the time when the expedition of Pelopidas commenced—June 364 B.C. But against this, Mr. Clinton takes no notice of it in his tables; which seems to show that he was not satisfied as to the exactness of Dodwell’s statement or the chronological identity. If it should turn out, on farther astronomical calculations, that there occurred no eclipse of the sun in the year 363 B.C., visible at Thebes,—I should then fix upon the eclipse mentioned by Calvisius (13 July 364 B.C.) as identifying the time of the expedition of Pelopidas; which would, on that supposition, precede by eight or nine months the commencement of the transmarine cruise of Epaminondas. The eclipse mentioned by Calvisius is preferable to that mentioned by Dodwell, because it falls within the Olympic year indicated by Diodorus.
But it appears to me that farther astronomical information is here required.
[669] Plutarch, Pelopid. c. 35.
[670] Diodor. xv, 79.
[671] See the sentiment expressed by Demosthenes cont. Leptinem, p. 489, s. 121,—an oration delivered in 355 B.C.; eight years after the destruction of Orchomenus.
[672] Demosth. De Pace, p. 62, s. 21; Philippic. II, p. 69, s. 13; s. 15; Fals. Leg. p. 375, s. 122; p. 387, s. 162; p. 445, s. 373.
[673] Diodor. xv, 57.
[674] Pausan. ix, 15, 2.
Diodorus places in the same year all the three facts:—1. The maritime expedition of Epaminondas. 2. The expedition of Pelopidas into Thessaly, his death, and the following Theban victories over Alexander of Pheræ. 3. The conspiracy of the Orchomenian Knights, and the destruction of Orchomenus.