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 Lacedaemonians 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 Lacedaemonian 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.