Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/108

56 HISTORY OF GREECE. Having been thus far successful, Phyllidas conducted three of the conspirators, Pelopidas, Kephisodorus, and Damokleidas, to the house of Leontiades, into which he obtained admittance by announcing himself as the bearer of an order from the polemarchs. Leontiades was reclining after supper, with his wife sitting spin- ning wool by his side, when they entered his chamber. Being a brave and powerful man, he started up, seized his sword, and mor- tally wounded Kephisodorus in the throat ; a desperate struggle then ensued between him and Pelopidas in the narrow doorway, where there was no room for a third to approach. At length, however, Pelopidas overthrew and killed him, after which they retired, enjoining the wife with threats to remain silent, and clos- ing the door after them with peremptory commands that it should not be again opened. They then went to the house of Hypates, whom they slew while he attempted to escape over the roof. 1 Xenophon himself intimates (Hellen. v, 4, 7), that besides the story giv- en iu the text, there was also another story told by some, that Mellon and his companions had got access to the polemarchs in the guise of drunken revellers. It is this latter story which Plutarch has adopted, and which car- ries him into many details quite inconsistent with the narrative of Xeno- phon. I think the story, of the conspirators having been introduced in fe- male attire, the more probable of the two. It is borne out by the exact an- alogy of what Herodotus tells us respecting Alexander son of Amyntas, prince of Macedonia (Herod, v, 20). Compare Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 10, 11 ; Plutarch, De Gen. Socrat. c. 31. p. 597. Polyaenus (ii, 4, 3) gives a story with many different circumstances, yet agreeing in the fact that Pelopidas in female attire killed the Spartan general. The story alluded to by Aristotle (Polit. v, 5, 10), though he names both Thebes and Archias, can hardly refer to this event. It is Plutarch, however, who mentions the presence of Kabeirichus the archon at the banquet, and the curious Theban custom that the archon dur ing his year of office never left out of his hand the consecrated spear. As a Bosotian born, Plutarch was doubtless familiar with these old customs. From what other authors Plutarch copied the abundant details of this rev- olution at Thebes, which he interweaves in the life of Pelopidas and in the treatise called De Genio Socratis we do not know. Some critics suppose him to have borrowed from Dionysodorus and Anaxis Boeotian historians whose work comprised this period, but of whom not a single fragment is preserved (see Fragm. Histor. Graec. ed. Didot, vol. ii, p. 84). 1 Xen. Hell, v, 4, 9; Plutarch, Pelop. c. 11. 12 ; and De Gen. Socr. p. 597 D-F. Here again Xenophon and Plutarch differ; the latter represents lhat Pelopidas got into the house of Leontiades without Phyllidas, which