EPAMINONDAS
EPAMINONDAS. No panic fear ever surprised the army
of the Thebans while Epaminondas was their general.
He said, to die in war was the most honorable death,
and the bodies of armed men ought to be exercised,
not as wrestlers, but in a warlike manner. Wherefore he hated fat men, and dismissed one of them, saying, that three or four shields would scarce serve to secure
his belly, which would not suffer him to see his members.
He was so frugal in his diet that, being invited by a
neighbor to supper, and finding there dishes, ointments, and junkets in abundance, he departed immediately, saying: I thought you were sacrificing, and not
displaying your luxury. When his cook gave an account
to his colleagues of the charges for several days, he was
offended only at the quantity of oil; and when his colleagues wondered at him, I am not, said he, troubled at
the charge, but that so much oil should be received into
my body. When the city kept a festival, and all gave
themselves to banquets and drinking, he was met by one
of his acquaintance unadorned and in a thoughtful posture.
He wondering asked him why he of all men should walk
about in that manner. That all of you, said he, may be
drunk and revel securely. An ill man, that had committed
no great fault, he refused to discharge at the request of
Pelopidas; when his miss entreated for him, he dismissed
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him, saying: Whores are fitting to receive such presents,
and not generals. The Lacedaemonians invaded the
Thebans, and oracles were brought to Thebes, some that
promised victory, others that foretold an overthrow. He
ordered those to be placed on the right hand of the judgment seat, and these on the left. When they were placed
accordingly, he rose up and said: If you will obey your
commanders and unanimously resist your enemies, these
are your oracles,—pointing to the better; but if you
play the cowards, those,—pointing to the worser. Another time, as he drew nigh to the enemy, it thundered,
and some that were about him asked him what he thought
the Gods would signify by it. They signify, said he, that
the enemy is thunderstruck and demented, since he pitches
his camp in a bad place, when he was nigh to a better.
Of all the happy and prosperous events that befell him,
he said that in this he took most satisfaction, that he overcame the Lacedaemonians at Leuctra while his father and
mother, that begot him, were living. Whereas he was
wont to appear with his body anointed and a cheerful
countenance, the day after that fight he came abroad meanly
habited and dejected; and when his friends asked him
whether any misfortune had befallen him, No, said he, but
yesterday I was pleased more than became a wise man, and
therefore to-day I chastise that immoderate joy. Perceiving the Spartans concealed their disasters, and desiring to
discover the greatness of their loss, he did not give them
leave to take away their dead altogether, but allowed each
city to bury its own; whereby it appeared that above a
thousand Lacedaemonians were slain. Jason, monarch of
Thessaly, was at Thebes as their confederate, and sent two
thousand pieces of gold to Epaminondas, then in great
want; but he refused the gold, and when he saw Jason, he
said: You are the first to commit violence. And borrowing fifty drachms of a citizen, with that money to supply
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his army he invaded Peloponnesus. Another time, when
the Persian king sent him thirty thousand darics, he chid
Diomedon severely, asking him whether he sailed so far to
bribe Epaminondas; and bade him tell the king, as long
as he wished the prosperity of the Thebans, Epaminondas
would be his friend gratis, but when he was otherwise
minded, his enemy. When the Argives were confederates
with the Thebans, the Athenian ambassadors then in
Arcadia complained of both, and Callistratus the orator
reproached the cities with Orestes and Oedipus. But
Epaminondas stood up and said: We confess there hath
been one amongst us that killed his father, and among the
Argives one that killed his mother; but we banished those
that did such things, and the Athenians entertained them.
To some Spartans that accused the Thebans of many and
great crimes, These indeed, said he, are they that have put
an end to your short dialect. The Athenians made friendship and alliance with Alexander the tyrant of Pherae, who
was an enemy to the Thebans, and who had promised to
furnish them with flesh at half an obol a pound. And we,
said Epaminondas, will supply them with wood to that flesh
gratis; for if they grow meddlesome, we will make bold
to cut all the wood in their country for them. Being desirous to keep the Boeotians, that were grown rusty by
idleness, always in arms, when he was chosen their chief
magistrate, he used to exhort them, saying: Yet consider
what you do, my friends; for if I am your general, you
must be my soldiers. He called their country, which was
plain and open, the stage of war, which they could keep
no longer than their hands were upon their shields. Chabrias, having slain a few Thebans near Corinth, that engaged too hotly near the walls, erected a trophy, which
Epaminondas laughed at, saying, it was not a trophy, but
a statue of Trivia, which they usually placed in the highway before the gates. One told him that the Athenians
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had sent an army into Peloponnesus adorned with new
armor. What then? said he, doth Antigenidas sigh because
Telles hath got new pipes? (Now Antigenidas was an
excellent piper, but Telles a vile one.) Understanding his
shield-bearer had taken a great deal of money from a prisoner, Come, said he, give me the shield, and buy you a
victualling-house to live in; for now you are grown rich
and wealthy, you will not hazard your life as you did formerly. Being asked whether he thought himself or Chabrias or Iphicrates the better general, It is hard, said he,
to judge while we live. After he returned out of Laconia,
he was tried for his life, with his fellow-commanders, for
continuing Boeotarch four months longer than the law
allowed. He bade the other commanders lay the blame
upon him, as if he had forced them, and for himself, he
said, his actions were his best speech; but if any thing at
all were to be answered to the judges, he entreated them,
if they put him todeath, to write his fault upon his monument, that the Grecians might know that Epaminondas
compelled the Thebans against their will to plunder and fire
Laconia,—which in five hundred years before had never
suffered the like,—to build Messene two hundred and
thirty years after it was sacked, to unite the Arcadians,
and to restore liberty to Greece; for those things were
done in that expedition. Whereupon the judges arose
with great laughter, and refused even to receive the votes
against him. In his last fight, being wounded and carried
into his tent, he called for Diaphantes and after him fcr
Iollidas; and when he heard they were slain, he advised
the Thebans to make their peace with the enemy, since
they had never a general left them; as by the event proved
true.. So well did he understand his countrymen.
