lay aside their armour, nor unbridle their horses, nor even bind up their wounds, when they heard of his death, but warm as they were from victory, in their arms, flocked round the corpse, piling up near it, as a trophy, the arms of their slain enemies.  They cut off the manes of their horses, and their own hair, and many went off to their tents, lit no fire, and ate no supper, but there was such silence and despondency in the whole camp as would have befitted men who had been defeated and enslaved by the tyrant, not who had just won a great and glorious victory over him.

As soon as the sad news reached the cities of Thessaly, the chief men, youths, children and priests came forth in procession to receive his body, and carried trophies and wreaths and golden armour in its honour.  When the body was about to be brought home, the chiefs of the Thessalians begged the Thebans to allow them to bury him, and one of them spoke as follows:  “Allies, we beg of you a favour which will prove to be an honour and a comfort to us in this our great misfortune.  We Thessalians shall never again escort Pelopidas, nor render him the honours which he deserved; but if we may have his body to touch, and ourselves adorn it and bury it, we shall then be able to show you that we Thessalians truly feel this misfortune more than even you Thebans.  For you have only lost a good general, while we have lost that, and our liberty too, since how can we ever have the heart to ask you for another general, after not giving you your Pelopidas back.”

This proposal the Thebans agreed to.

XXXIV.  No funeral was more splendid than this, not indeed in the estimation of those who think that splendour lies in ivory and gold and purple, as Philistius celebrates and praises the funeral of Dionysius, where his tyranny concluded like the pompous finale of some great tragedy.  Alexander the Great, when Hephaestion died, not only cut off the manes of the horses and mules, but actually took down the battlements from the walls, that cities might seem in mourning, presenting a shorn and woeful look in contrast to their former appearance.

But these were the commands of tyrants; they were done under compulsion, and caused a feeling of dislike to the person honoured, and of absolute hatred against those who enforced them, but showed no gratitude or desire to honour the dead.  They were mere displays of barbaric pride and boastful extravagance, which wastes its superfluity on vain and useless objects; whereas, here was a private citizen who died in a foreign land, without his wife, his children or his friends, and, without any one asking for it or compelling them to it, he was escorted to his grave, buried and crowned with garlands by so many provinces and cities, vying with one another in showing him honour, that he seems to have enjoyed the most blessed fate possible.  For as AEsop says, the death of the fortunate is not grievous, but blessed, since it secures their felicity,