Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/261

 RETURN OF THE THEBANS 239 On returning to Thebes, Epaminondas with Pelopidas and the other Boeotarchs, resigned the command. They had already tivff[3a.Ta KfieTC^Ev, 'ItyiKpuTTjg 6 Tifiodeov TreAraoraf Kal e^ui' diivafiiv, imxeipel rotf Orjdaioic.. 'E^a/J,ivuvdaf St rovf iTridsuev KOI npbs aiirb utyiKo/j-evof 'Afitjvaiuv TO UGTV, EK.uA.vn' 'iQiKpaTjjc, 6 In this statement there are some inaccuracies, as that of calling Iphikra- tes " son of Timotheus; " and speaking of Lechceum, where Pausanias ought to have named Kenchrece. For Epaminondas could not have passed .Corinth on the side of Lechaeum, since the Long Walls, reaching from one to the other, would prevent him; moreover, the " rugged ground " was be tween Corinth and Kenchrcas, not between Corinth and Lechaeum. But the words which occasion most perplexity are those which follow " Epaminondas repulses the assailants, and having come to tJie city itself of the Athenians, when Iphikrates forbade the Athenians to come out and fight, he (Epaminondas) again marched away to Thebes." What are we to understand by the city of the Athenians? The natural sense of the word is certainly Athens; and so most of the commentators relate. But when the battle was fought between Corinth and Kenchreai, can we reasonably believe that Epamiuondas pursued the fugitives to Athens through the city of Megara, which lay in the way, and which seems then (Diodor. xv, 68) to have been allied with Athens? The station of Iphikrates was Corinth; from thence he had marched out, and thither his cavalry, when repulsed, would go back, as the nearest shelter. Dr. Thirlwall (Hist. Greece, vol. v, ch. 39, p. 141) understands Pausanias to mean, that Iphikrates retired with his defeated cavalry to Corinth, that Epaminondas then marched straight on to Athens, and that Iphi- krates followed him. "Possibly (he says) the only mistake in this state ment is, that it represents the presence of Iphikrates, instead of his absence, as the cause which prevented the Athenians from fighting. According to Xenophon, Iphikrates must have been in the rear of Epaminondas." I cannot think that we obtain this from the words of Xenophon. Neither he nor Plutarch countenance the idea that Epaminondas marched to the walls of Athens, which supposition is derived solely from the words of Pausanias. Xenophon and Plutarch intimate only that Iphikrates inter- posed some opposition, and not very effective opposition, near Corinth, to the retreating march of Epaminondas, from Peloponnesus into Boaotia. That Epaminondas should have marched to Athens at all, under the cir- cumstances of the case, when he was returning to Bceotia, appears to me in itself improbable, and to be rendered still more improbable by the silence of Xenophon. Nor is it indispensable to put this construction even upon Pausanias; who may surely have meant by the words Trpdc avro 'Ai9^va<- uv TO iiarv, not Athens, but the city then occupied by the Athenians engaged, that is, Corinth. The city of the Athenians, in. n ference to this battle, was