Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/105

 BANQUET TO THE POLEMARCHS. 8? irilimation, and in concert also with two out of the ten Strategi of Athens, who took on themselves privately to countenance the enterprise, without any public vote, Pelopidas and Mellon, and their five companions, 1 crossed Kithseron from Athens to Thebes. It was wet weather, about December B. c. 379 ; they were dis- guised as rustics or hunters, with no other arms than a concealed dagger ; and they got within the gates of Thebes one by one at nightfall, just when the latest farming men were coming home from their fields. All of them arrived safe at the house of Cha- ron, the appointed rendezvous. It was, however, by mere accident that they had not been turned back, and the whole scheme frustrated. For a Theban named Hipposthenidas, friendly to the conspiracy, but faint- hearted, who had been let into the secret against the will of Phyl- lidas, became so frightened as the moment of execution ap- proached, that he took upon himself, without the knowledge of the rest, to despatch Chlidon, a faithful slave of Mellon, ordering him to go forth on horseback from Thebes, to meet his master on the road, and to desire that he and his comrades would go back to Attica, since circumstances had happened to render the project for the moment impracticable. Chlidon, going home to fetch his bridle, but not finding it in its usual place, asked his wife where it was. The woman, at first pretending to look for it, at last con- fessed that she had lent it to a neighbor. Chlidon became so irri- tated with this delay, that he got into a loud altercation with his wife, who on her part wished him ill luck with his journey. He at last beat her, until neighbors ran in to interpose. His depar- ture was thus accidentally frustrated, so that the intended message of countermand never reached the conspirators on their way. 2 In the house of Charon they remained concealed all the ensu- ing day, on the evening of which the banquet of Archias and Phih'ppus was to take place. Phyllidas had laid his plan for in- troducing them at that banquet, at the moment when the two pole- marchs had become full of wine, in female attire, as being the 1 Plutarch, (Pelopid. c. 25 ; De Gen. Socr. c. 26, p. 594 D.) mentions Menekleides, Damokleidas, and Theopompus among them. Compare Cor nel. Nepos. Pelopid. c. 2. 3 Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 8; Plutarch, De Gen. Socrat. c. 17, p. 586 B.; c 18, p. 587 D-E.