Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/307

RELEASE OF PELOPIDAS. 285 At length they sent a force for the purpose ; which was placed, an this occasion, under the command of Epaminondas. The re- nown of his name rallied many adherents in the country ; and his prudence, no less than his military skill, was conspicuously exhib- ited, in defeating and intimidating Alexander, yet without reducing him to such despair as might prove fatal to the prisoner. The despot Avas at length compelled to send an embassy excusing his recent violence, offering to restore Pelopidas, and soliciting to be admitted to peace and alliance with Thebes. But Epaminondas would grant nothing more than a temporary truce, 1 coupled with the engagement of evacuating Thessaly ; while he required in exchange the release of Pelopidas and Ismenias. His terms were acceded to, so that he had the delight of conveying his liberated friend in safety to Thebes. Though this primary object was thus effected, however, it is plain that he did not restore Thebes to the same influence in Thessaly which she had enjoyed prior to the seizure of Pelopidas. 2 That event with its consequences 1 Plutarch (Pelopidas, c. 29) says, a truce for thirty days ; but it is diffi- cult to believe that Alexander would have been satisfied with a term so very Bhort. 8 The account of the seizure of Pelopidas by Alexander, with its conse quences, is contained chiefly in Diodoras, xv, 71-75 ; Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 27-29 ; Cornel. Nep. Pelop. c. 5; Pausanias, ix, 15, 1. Xenophon does not mention it. I have placed the seizure in the year 366 B. c., after the return of Pelopi- das from his embassy in Persia ; which embassy I agree with Mr. Fynes Clinton in referring to the year 367 B. c. Plutarch places the seizure before the embassy ; Diodorus places it in the year between Midsummer 368 and Midsummer 367 B. c. ; but he does not mention the embassy at all, in its regular chronological order ; he only alludes to it in summing up the ex- ploits at the close of the career of Pelopidas. Assuming the embassy to the Persian court to have occurred in 367 B. c., the seizure cannot well have happened before that time. The year 368 B. c. seems to have been that wherein Pelopidas made his second expedition into Thessaly, from which he returned victorious, bring- ing back the hostages. See above, p. 264, note. The seizure of Pelopidas was accomplished at a time when Epaminondas was not Boeotarch, nor in command of the Theban army. Now it seems to have been not until the close of 367 B. c., after the accusations arising oni of his proceedings in Achaia, that Epaminondas missed being rechosen as general.