Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/374

352 HISTORY OF GREECE. entbusiaytic. Cicero pronounces him tL be the first man of Greece. 1 The judgment of Polybius, though not summed up so emphatically in a single epithet, is delivered in a manner hardly less significant and laudatory. Nor was it merely histo- rians or critics who formed this judgment. The best men )f action, combining the soldier and the patriot, such as Timoleon a.ad Philo- pcemen, 2 set before them Epaminondas as their model to copy. The remark has been often made, and suggests itself whenever we speak of Epaminondas, though its full force will be felt only Avhen we come to follow the subsequent history, that with him the dignity and commanding influence of Thebes both began and ended. His period of active political life comprehends sixteen years, from the resurrection of Thebes into a free community, by the expulsion of the Lacedaemonian harmost and garrison, and the subversion of the ruling oligarchy, to the fatal day of Mantinea (379-362 B.C.). His prominent and unparalleled ascendency be- longs to the last eight years, from the victory of Leuktra (371 B. c.). Throughout this whole period, both all that we know and all that we can reasonably divine, fully bears out the judgment of Po- lybius and Cicero, who had the means of knowing much more. And this too, let it be observed, though Epaminondas is tried by a severe canon : for the chief contemporary witness remaining is one decidedly hostile. Even the philo-Laconian Xenophon finds neither misdeeds nor omissions to reveal in the capital enemy of Sparta, mentions him only to record what is honorable, and manifests the perverting bias mainly by suppressing or slurring over his triumphs. The man whose eloquence bearded Agesilaus at the congress immediately preceding the battle of Leuktra, 3 who in that battle stripped Sparta of her glory, and transferred the wreath to Thebes, who a few months afterwards, not only rav- aged all the virgin territory of Laconia, but cut off the best half of it for the restitution of independent Messene, and erected the hostile Arcadian community of Megalopolis on its frontier, the author of these fatal disasters inspires to Xenophon such intolera- 1 Cicero, Tusculan. i, 2, 4 ; De Orator, iii, 34, 13'. t. "Epaminondas, princeps, mco judicio, Grsecias," etc. 8 Plutarch, Philopcemen, c. 3 ; Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 36 3 See the inscription of four lines copied by Pausanias from the statue of Epaminondas at Thebes (Paus. ix, 16, 3): 'H/UETfpaif /J;t;/ta<f STTOOTT' uev EKfiparo fibl'-.v, etc.