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Epaminondas, however, as some say, was reluctant to give his fellow-citizens a taste of the advantages accruing from naval superiority, in order that they might not surprise him by becoming, instead of
‘steadfast hoplites,’ to use Plato's words,1 degenerate mariners; and therefore he purposely came back from Asia and the islands without achieving anything2
1 Laws, iv. p. 706. Cf. the Themistocles, iv. 3.
2 In 364 B.C., two years before his death, Epaminondas successfully inaugurated a naval policy for Thebes, which enabled her to cope with Athens on the sea.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives. with an English Translation by. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. 10.
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