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 Pherae had relapsed into his old courses, and had ravaged the territory of many cities of Thessaly.  The Phthiot Achaeans 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 Thebe, 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 Lacedaemonians 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.