Plutarch's Lives, Volume 2 (of 4)

by Plutarch

XXIX. The Theban generals invaded Thessaly, but through incompetence or misfortune effected nothing, and had to retreat in disgrace. The state fined them ten thousand drachmas, but sent Epameinondas with the army. There was at once a great fluttering of hope among the cities of Thessaly at the reputation of that general, and the cause of the tyrant tottered to its fall, such fear fell upon his officers and friends, and such a longing to subvert his government upon his subjects, who viewed the future with hope, as now they expected to see the tyrant meet with his deserts. However, Epameinondas, disregarding his own glory in comparison with the safety of Pelopidas, and fearing that if Alexander were driven to despair by seeing his kingdom falling to pieces, he might turn upon him like a wild beast, conducted the war remissly. By degrees and after slow preparation he surrounded the tyrant and confined him to one spot, so as to be able to check any attack that he might venture on, and yet not to excite his savage and ferocious nature; for he had heard of his cruelty and disregard of what is right, and how he would bury men alive, and dress them in the skins of wild boars and bears and then set dogs at them and hunt them with spears, making this his sport, and how he surrounded two peaceful cities, Melibœa and Skottusa, with his body-guard when the inhabitants were at their public assembly, and slew them all from the youth upwards, and how he had consecrated and crowned the spear with which he killed his uncle Polyphron, and used to address prayers to it and call it the Slayer. Once when he saw a tragedian performing Euripides' tragedy, the 'Troades,' he went suddenly out of the theatre, and sent a message to him to be of good courage, and not act worse for this, for he had not left the house because he disliked his acting, but because he felt ashamed that the citizens should see him weeping at the woes of Hekuba and Andromache, though he never had pitied any of the people whom he had put to death himself. But he, terrified by the prestige and reputation of Epameinondas for strategy,

"Let fall his feathers like a craven cock,"

and quickly sent an embassy to him to make peace. Epameinondas scorned to make a treaty of peace and friendship between the Thebans and such a man, but agreed to an armistice for thirty days, and taking Pelopidas and Ismenias returned home.

XXX. When the Thebans heard that ambassadors were being sent from Athens and Sparta to the Great King to make an alliance with him, they also sent Pelopidas, a step most advantageous to his reputation. As he went on his journey through the Persian provinces he excited the greatest admiration, for the fame of his victories over the Lacedæmonians had spread trumpet-tongued through Asia, and from the time of his first success at Leuktra it had begun to reach far and wide, some new exploit being ever added to it, till it reached to the furthest peoples. Next, when he reached the court, he was an object of wonder and interest to the satraps, generals, and officers there. "This is the man," they said, "who destroyed the Lacedæmonian dominion over sea and land, and who reduced to the little state at the foot of Taygetus by the Eurotas, that Sparta which a little while before went to war under Agesilaus with the Great King himself about Susa and Ecbatana." At this Artaxerxes himself was pleased, and admired Pelopidas and showed him great honour, as he wished it to appear that he was courted and sought after by the most powerful Greeks. After an interview, in which he found that he spoke with sounder sense than the Athenians, and greater simplicity than the Spartans, he esteemed him still more, and after the fashion of monarchs, did not conceal his regard, but let the other ambassadors see plainly that he was highest in favour. Of all the Greeks he showed Antalkidas the greatest honour, when he took off his own wreath of flowers at table and dipping it in scent, gave it him to put on. He attempted no such refinements with Pelopidas, but gave him presents, more splendid and valuable than was customary, and assented to his proposals that all Greek states should be independent, that Messenia should be reconstituted, and that the Thebans should be accounted the king's old friends.

With these answers, and none of the presents except such as were pledges of friendship and good will, he returned, to the great discredit of the other ambassadors. The Athenians condemned and executed Timagoras, and if it was for the amount of presents which he received, rightly enough; for he not only took silver and gold, but a costly bed and slaves to make it, as if Greeks did not know how, and also eighty cows and their herdsmen, on the pretence of wanting cow's milk for some weakness that he suffered from; and at last he went down to the sea-coast carried in a palanquin, and four talents were given by the king to his bearers—still, it does not seem to have been his venality which especially disgusted the Athenians. At any rate, Epikrates, called the "Bearded," once brought a motion before the assembly that instead of electing nine archons yearly they should send nine poor citizens as ambassadors to the Great King, that they might be enriched by him, at which there was great laughter. But it was because of the success of the Thebans that they were so vexed, not reflecting on the power of Pelopidas's name, and how far it outweighed all their rhetoric in the estimation of one who always inclined to the stronger side.

XXXI. On his return, Pelopidas was welcomed with no little gratitude because he had re-established Messenia, and obtained freedom for all other Greeks. But Alexander of Pheræ had relapsed into his old courses, and had ravaged the territory of many cities of Thessaly. The Phthiot Achæans and Magnetes formed a league to oppose him, and hearing of Pelopidas's return, these cities sent to Thebes begging for a force to help them and for him as its general. The Thebans willingly decreed this, but when all was ready and the general was about to march, the sun was eclipsed and darkness fell upon the city. Pelopidas, seeing that all men were disheartened at this, thought that it was useless to force frightened men full of presage of evil, to march with him, nor did he like to risk the lives of six thousand citizens, but he offered his own services to the Thessalians, and took with him three hundred horsemen, volunteers and men of other states. With this force he started, though forbidden by the prophets and against the will of his fellow citizens, who all held that a great portent had been shown in heaven about some celebrated man. However, he was all the fiercer against Alexander, remembering his own sufferings, and hoping from his conversations with Thêbê, that by this time his own family would have turned against him. He was also much encouraged by the glory of the action, that, at a time when the Lacedæmonians were sending out generals and governors to help Dionysius the Sicilian tyrant, and when the Athenians had Alexander in their pay, and had even set up a bronze statue of him as a public benefactor, he might show the Greeks that it was the Thebans alone who took up arms in defence of the oppressed, and who put an end to the violent and illegal rule of despots in Greece.

XXXII. When he had come to Pharsalus and collected his army there, he marched straight to attack Alexander. But he, seeing that Pelopidas's force of Thebans was small, while he had more than double his numbers of Thessalian hoplites, met him near the shrine of Thetis. When some one said to Pelopidas that the tyrant was coming on with a great force, he answered. "So much the better, for we shall conquer more."

Between the two armies, near the place called Kynoskephalæ, or the Dog's Heads, were some high and isolated hills. Each party tried to occupy these with their infantry, but Pelopidas, knowing his cavalry to be numerous and good, sent it to charge that of the enemy. The enemy's horse was routed, and pursued over the plain, but meanwhile Alexander had secured the hills, and when the Thessalian infantry came afterwards, and tried to force their way up the hill into that strong position, he was able to cut down the foremost, while the rest suffered from his missiles and could do nothing. Pelopidas now recalled the cavalry, and sent it to attack the enemy's position in flank, while he himself took his shield and ran to join the infantry in their fight on the hill. Pushing his way through their ranks till he reached the front he infused such strength and ardour into them, that the enemy thought that they attacked with new bodies as well as new spirit. They repulsed one or two assaults, but seeing that the infantry resolutely came on, and also that the cavalry had returned from its pursuit and was threatening their flank, they made an orderly retreat. Pelopidas, when he gained the height, saw below him the whole of the enemy not yet beaten, but confused and shaken. He stood still and looked around him, seeking Alexander himself. When he saw him, on the right, rallying and encouraging his mercenaries, he could no longer restrain his rage, but kindling at the sight, and, reckless of his own person and of his duties as a general, rushed far beyond the rest, shouting and challenging the tyrant to fight. He would not await the attack, but took refuge in the ranks of his body-guard. Pelopidas attacked these troops and cut them down, wounding several mortally, but they from a distance struck him through his armour with their spears, till the Thessalians in great anxiety charged down the hill to the rescue. But he had by this time fallen.

The cavalry now charged and routed the whole body, and pursuing them to a great distance, strewed the country with corpses, for they cut down more than three thousand of them.

XXXIII. It was no wonder that the Thebans who were there grieved at the death of Pelopidas, and called him their father, their saviour, their teacher in all that was best and noblest; but the Thessalians and their allies, who decreed greater honours than had ever been shown to any brave man, proved their gratitude to him, even more by their sorrow. It is said that the men who were at the fight did not lay aside their armour, nor unbridle their horses, nor even bind up their wounds, when they heard of his death, but warm as they were from victory, in their arms, flocked round the corpse, piling up near it, as a trophy, the arms of their slain enemies. They cut off the manes of their horses, and their own hair, and many went off to their tents, lit no fire, and ate no supper, but there was such silence and despondency in the whole camp as would have befitted men who had been defeated and enslaved by the tyrant, not who had just won a great and glorious victory over him.