Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/148

 126 HISTORY OF GREECE. attack of Sparta and her extensive confederacy. Not even Athens had yet declared in their favor, nor had they a single other ally. Under such circumstances, Thebes could only be saved by the en- ergy of all her citizens, the unambitious and philosophical as well as the rest. As the necessities of the case required such sim- ultaneous devotion, so the electric shock of the recent revolution was sufficient to awaken enthusiasm in minds much less patriotic than that of Epaminondas. He was among the first to join the victorious exiles in arms, after the contest had been transferred from the houses of Archias and Leontiades to the open market- place ; and he would probably have been among the first to mount the walls of the Kadmeia, had the Spartan harmost awaited an as- sault. Pelopidas being named Boeotarch, his friend Epaminondas was naturally placed among the earliest and most forward organizers of the necessary military resistance against the common enemy ; in which employment his capacities speedily became manifest. Though at this moment almost an unknown man, he had acquired, in B. c. 371, seven years afterwards, so much reputation both as speaker and as general, that he was chosen as the expositor of Theban policy at Sparta, and trusted with the conduct of the bat- tle of Leuktra, upon which the fate of Thebes hinged. Hence we may fairly conclude, that the well-planned and successful system of defence, together with the steady advance of Thebes against Sparta, during the intermediate years, was felt to have been in the main his work. 1 The turn of politics at Athens which followed the acquittal of Sphodrias was an unspeakable benefit to the Thebans, in second- 1 Bauch, in his instructive biography of Epaminondas (Epaminondas, and Thebens Kampf um die Hegemonic: Breslau, 1834, p. 26), seems to conceive that Epaminondas was never employed in any public official post by his countrymen, until the period immediately preceding the battle of Leuktra. I cannot concur in this opinion. It appears to me that he must have been previously employed in such posts as enabled him to show his military worth. For all the proceedings of 371 B. c. prove that in that year he actually possessed a great and established reputation, which must have been acquired by previous acts in a conspicuous position ; and as he had no great family position to start from, his reputation was probably acquired only by slow degrees. The silence of Xenophon proves nothing in contradiction of this suppo- sition; for he does not mention Epaminondas even at Leuktra.