and puts it out of Fortune’s power.  That Spartan spoke well, who, when Diagoras, the Olympic victor, was looking at his sons being in their turn crowned as victors at Olympia, with his grandchildren about him, embraced him and said, “Die, Diagoras; for you cannot rise to Olympus and be a god there.”  Yet I do not suppose that any one would compare all the Olympian and Pythian prizes together with one of Pelopidas’s achievements, of which he performed many, and lived the most part of his life esteemed and looked up to, and at last, in his thirteenth Boeotarchy, when fighting gloriously against a tyrant, he died in defence of the liberties of Thessaly.

XXXV.  His death caused great sorrow to his allies, but likewise benefited them; for the Thebans as soon as they heard of the death of Pelopidas did not delay for a moment to avenge his fall, but hastily marched with an army of seven thousand hoplites and seven hundred cavalry, under Malkitus and Diogeiton, against Alexander.  Finding that he was weakened and shorn of much of his power, they compelled him to restore to the Thessalians their cities, which he held, to liberate the Achaeans in Magnesia and Phthiotis, to withdraw his garrisons from those countries, and to swear to the Thebans, that he would attack, and assist them to attack, any enemy they might choose.

The Thebans were satisfied with these terms; but I will now recount how, shortly afterwards, Heaven exacted retribution from him for the death of Pelopidas.  Thebe his wife, as we have said before, had been taught by Pelopidas not to fear the outward pomp and body-guard of the tyrant, since she was within all his defences.  She, dreading his suspicious nature, and hating his cruelty, made a plot with her three brothers, Tisiphonus, Pytholaus, and Lykophron, which she carried out in the following manner.  The night patrol of the guard watched in the house, but their bedchamber was upstairs, and before the door there was a dog chained as a guard, very savage with every one except themselves and one of their servants who fed it.  Now when Thebe determined to make the attempt, she got her brothers concealed near at hand during the day in one of the rooms, and when she came, as usual, alone to Alexander’s chamber, she found him asleep.  In a little time she came out again, and ordered the servant to take away the dog, as the despot wished to sleep undisturbed.  Fearing that the stairs would make a noise when the young men mounted, she covered them with wool, and then brought up her brothers, with their swords drawn.  Leaving them outside she herself went in, and taking down the sword that hung over his head, showed it to them as a proof that he was in their power and asleep.  The young men now were terrified, and hesitated to act; but she reproached them bitterly, and swore that she would herself awaken Alexander and tell him the whole plot.  Between shame and terror she got them in and placed them round the bed, herself holding the light.  One of them seized his feet, another held his head back by the hair, and the third despatched him with a stab of his sword, a death, perhaps, easier than he deserved.  He was the first, or perhaps the only despot ever assassinated by his own wife.  His body after death was dragged about and trodden under foot by the people of Pherae, a recompense which his villanies deserved.