Epameinondas, encouraged his fellow citizens, and crossed the Eurotas.  He took many of their towns and wasted all their country up to the sea-coast, with an army of 70,000 Greeks, of whom the Thebans formed less than a twelfth part.  But the great reputation which these men enjoyed made the rest follow them without any formal vote or decree to do so; for the first and most fundamental law is that which makes men in need of help follow him who can save them; and even if, like men sailing on a calm sea or anchored close to port, they sometimes murmur at and brave their pilot, yet in time of danger and storm they look up to him and place all their hopes in him, so the Argives and Eleans and Arcadians would at the council-board dispute the Theban claims to supremacy, but in war and at critical moments they of their own accord obeyed the Theban generals.  In this campaign, Arcadia was consolidated into one state; they also separated Messenia, which had been annexed by the Spartans, and bringing back the Messenian exiles established them in the old capital, Ithome.  On their homeward march through Kenchreae they gained a victory over the Athenians, who attempted to harass them and hinder their march through the narrow isthmus of Corinth.

XXV.  After these exploits all men were full of admiration and wonder at their courage and success, but at home the envious feelings of their countrymen and political opponents, which grew along with the growth of their renown, prepared a most scurvy reception for them.  On their return they were both tried for their lives, on the ground that whereas the law is that during the first month of the year, which they call Boukation, the Boeotarchs must lay down their office, they had held it for four additional months, during which they had been settling the affairs of Messenia, Laconia, and Arcadia.  Pelopidas was tried first, and so incurred the greater danger, but both were acquitted.

Epameinondas, who thought that true courage and magnanimity was best shown by forbearance in political strife, bore this contemptible attack with patience, but Pelopidas, who was of a hotter temper, and whose friends encouraged him to revenge, chose this for its opportunity.  Menekleides the orator had been one of the conspirators who came with Pelopidas and Mellon to Charon’s house.  As, after the revolution, he did not obtain equal rights with the rest, being a man of great ability in speaking, but reckless and ill-conditioned, he took to using his powers to slander and assail the men in power, and was not silenced even by the result of that trial.  He got Epameinondas turned out of his office of Boeotarch, and for a long time succeeded in lessening his influence in the state; but Pelopidas he could not misrepresent to the people, so he endeavoured to make a quarrel between him and Charon.  He used the usual method of detractors, who if they themselves be inferior to the object of their spite, try at any rate to prove that he is inferior to some one else;