Pelopidas
Pelopidas (/pəˈlɒpɪdəs/; Greek: Πελοπίδας; died 364 BC) was an important Theban statesman and general in Greece, instrumental in establishing the mid-fourth century Theban hegemony.[1]
Pelopidas was a member of a distinguished family and possessed great wealth, which he expended on his friends and on public service while he himself was content to lead the rough life of an athlete.[2] In 384 BC, he served in a Theban contingent sent to the support of the Spartans during the Siege of Mantinea, where he was saved, when dangerously wounded by the Arcadians, by Epaminondas and Agesipolis.[3]
Plutarch says that this incident firmly cemented their friendship, and Pelopidas would be Epaminondas's partner in politics for the next 20 years.[4]
According to Plutarch's Life of Pelopidas (from Plutarch's Parallel Lives in which Pelopidas's life was paired with the life of Marcellus), he lessened his inherited estate by showing constant care for the deserving poor of Thebes, taking pleasure in simple clothing, a sparse diet, and the constant hardships of military life. People said that he was ashamed to spend more on himself than the lowest of the Thebans spent on himself. Once, when friends argued that he needed to care for his finances since he had a wife and children, and that money was a necessary thing, Pelopidas pointed to a blind, crippled pauper named Nicodemus and said, "Yes, necessary for Nicodemus."[2]
Upon the seizure of the Theban citadel by the Spartans (382 BC), he fled to Athens and took the lead in a conspiracy to liberate Thebes. Spartans had kingship in their home and were supportive of oligarchic governments in other cities in pursuit of the Spartan hegemony; contrariwise, cities with oligarchic and not democratic political system tended to support Sparta. In 379 BC, his party (the democratic) surprised and killed their chief political opponents in Thebes (members of the aristocratic party that supported the Spartans) and roused the people against the Spartan garrison, which surrendered to an army gathered by Pelopidas.[5]
In this and 12 subsequent years, he was elected boeotarch, or warleader,[6] and around 375 BC, he routed a much larger Spartan force at the Battle of Tegyra (near Orchomenus).[7] This victory he owed mainly to the valour of the Sacred Band, an elite corps of 300 seasoned soldiers. At the Battle of Leuctra (371 BC), he contributed greatly to the success of Epaminondas's new tactics by the rapidity with which he made the Sacred Band close with the Spartans. At Leuctra, Epaminondas, a brilliant and intuitive general, used the oblique order for the first time. After the battle at Leuctra, Thebes began to replace Sparta as the leading city of Greece.[citation needed]
