seem to have missed an opportunity in not at once sallying out and attacking them, for the garrison itself consisted of 1500 men, and many people kept running to them for refuge from the city; however, alarmed at the shouts and fires and mass of people assembling from all parts, they remained quiet, holding the Kadmeia only.  At daybreak arrived the exiles from Attica, fully armed, and the public assembly met.  Epameinondas and Gorgidas led forward the band of Pelopidas, surrounded by the priests, who crowned them with wreaths, and called upon the citizens to fight for their country and their gods.  The whole assembly, with shouts and applause, rose at the sight, and received them as their benefactors and saviours.

XIII.  After this, Pelopidas, who was chosen Boeotarch,[8] with Mellon and Charon as colleagues, at once blockaded the citadel, and made assaults upon it on all sides, being eager to drive out the Lacedaemonians and recover the Kadmeia before an army should come upon them from Sparta.  And so little time had he to spare, that the garrison, when going home after their capitulation, met at Megara Kleombrotus, marching with a great force against Thebes.  Of the three men who had been governors of Thebes, the Spartans condemned two, Herippidas and Arkissus, to death, and the third, Lysanorides, was heavily fined and banished.

This adventure was called by the Greeks the “sister” of that of Thrasybulus, as it resembled it in the bravery and personal risk of its chief actors, and was, like the other, favoured by fortune.  It is difficult to mention any other persons, who with fewer numbers and scantier means than these, conquered men more numerous and powerful than themselves, by sheer daring and ability, or who conferred greater blessings on their own countries; and that which made this more remarkable was the change which it effected.  The war which destroyed the prestige of Sparta, and put an end to her empire by sea and land, began in that night, in which Pelopidas, without having made himself master of any fort, stronghold, or citadel, but merely coming to a private house with eleven others, loosed and broke to pieces, if we may use a true metaphor, the chains of Lacedaemonian supremacy, which seemed fixed and immovable.

XIV.  Now when a great Lacedaemonian army invaded Boeotia, the Athenians manifested great alarm.  They repudiated their alliance with the Thebans, and impeached those who had shown Boeotian sympathies; some of these men were put to death, others fined and banished.  The case of the Thebans seemed desperate, as no one offered to help them; but Pelopidas, who with Gorgidas was Boeotarch, contrived to alienate the Athenians from Sparta by the following plot.  Sphodrias, a Spartan, of great renown in the wars, but somewhat flighty and prone to wild enterprises and reckless ambition, had been left near Thespiae with an army, to receive and assist those Thebans[9] who were now sent into exile because they favoured