The Theban women were distinguished for majestic figure and beauty (Dikæarchus, Vit. Græc. p. 144, ed Fuhr.).
[180] Plutarch, (Pelopid. c. 25; De Gen. Socr. c. 26, p. 594 D.) mentions Menekleidês, Damokleidas, and Theopompus among them. Compare Cornel. Nepos, Pelopid. c. 2.
[181] Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 8; Plutarch, De Gen. Socrat. c. 17, p. 586 B.; c. 18, p. 587 D-E.
[182] Xenophon does not mention this separate summons and visit of Charon to the polemarchs,—nor anything about the scene with his son. He only notices Charon as having harbored the conspirators in his house, and seems even to speak of him as a person of little consequence—παρὰ Χαρωνί τινι, etc. (v, 4, 3).
The anecdote is mentioned in both the compositions of Plutarch (De Gen. Socr. c. 28, p. 595; and Pelopidas, c. 9), and is too interesting to be omitted, being perfectly consistent with what we read in Xenophon; though it has perhaps somewhat of a theatrical air.
[183] Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 10; Plutarch, De Gen. Socr. c. 30, p. 596 F. Εἰς αὔριον τὰ σπουδαῖα.
This occurrence also finds no place in the narrative of Xenophon. Cornelius Nepos, Pelopidas, c. 3. Æneas (Poliorcetic. c. 31) makes a general reference to the omission of immediate opening of letters arrived, as having caused the capture of the Kadmeia; which was, however, only its remote consequence.
[184] The description given by Xenophon, of this assassination of the polemarchs at Thebes, differs materially from that of Plutarch. I follow Xenophon in the main; introducing, however, several of the details found in Plutarch, which are interesting, and which have the air of being authentic.
Xenophon himself intimates (Hellen. v, 4, 7), that besides the story given in the text, there was also another story told by some,—that Mellon and his companions had got access to the polemarchs in the guise of drunken revellers. It is this latter story which Plutarch has adopted, and which carries him into many details quite inconsistent with the narrative of Xenophon. I think the story, of the conspirators having been introduced in female attire, the more probable of the two. It is borne out by the exact analogy of what Herodotus tells us respecting Alexander son of Amyntas, prince of Macedonia (Herod. v, 20).
Compare Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 10, 11; Plutarch, De Gen. Socrat. c. 31, p. 597. Polyænus (ii, 4, 3) gives a story with many different circumstances, yet agreeing in the fact that Pelopidas in female attire killed the Spartan general. The story alluded to by Aristotle (Polit. v, 5, 10), though he names both Thebes and Archias, can hardly refer to this event.