and having the ear of the people, he was ever singing the praises of Charon, and uttering panegyrics on his skill and his success.  He endeavoured to set up a memorial of the cavalry battle at Plataea, before the battle of Leuktra, in which the Thebans under Charon were victorious, in the following manner.  Androkydes of Kyzikus had been entrusted by the state with the task of painting a picture of some other battle, and had been engaged on it at Thebes.  When the war broke out, this picture, nearly completed, was left in the hands of the Thebans; and Menekleides persuaded them to put it up publicly and to write on it the name of Charon, in order to throw the glory of Pelopidas and Epameinondas into the shade; a silly exhibition of ill-feeling indeed, to compare one poor skirmish, in which Gerandas, an obscure Spartan, and some forty men fell, with the great and important services of the others.

Pelopidas indicted this proposal as illegal, arguing that it was not the custom of the Thebans to show honour to individuals, but to keep alive the name of a victory for the glory of the country at large.  He bestowed unmeasured praise upon Charon throughout the trial, and proved Menekleides to be a malignant slanderer.  He was fined a large sum, and not being able to pay it, subsequently endeavoured to bring about a revolution in the state; by which one gains some insight into his character.

XXVI.  Alexander, the tyrant of Pherae, was at this time at open war with many states of Thessaly, and threatened the independence of all.  Ambassadors from these states were sent to Thebes, begging for a military force and a general to be despatched to their assistance.  Pelopidas, since Epameinondas was busy settling the affairs of Peloponnesus, offered himself to the Thessalians, as he could not bear that his talents and skill should lie idle, and he thought that where Epameinondas was, no second general could be needed.  So he marched with a sufficient army into Thessaly, took Larissa, and, when Alexander begged for terms of peace, endeavoured to convert him into a mild and law-abiding ruler.  But he, a wild, desperate, cruel barbarian, when he was accused of insolent and grasping practices, and Pelopidas used harsh and angry language, went off in a rage, with his body-guard.  Pelopidas, having relieved the Thessalians from fear of the tyrant, and reconciled them one to another, proceeded to Macedonia.  Here Ptolemy was at war with Alexander the king of Macedonia, and each of them had sent for him to act as arbitrator and judge between them, thinking that he would right whichever of them should prove to have been wronged.  He came, and settled their dispute, and after bringing back the exiled party, took Philip, the king’s brother, and thirty other sons of the noblest families as hostages, and kept them at Thebes, to show the Greeks how far the Theban policy extended, merely through its reputation for power and for justice.