Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/327

 POLICY OF EPAMINONDAS, 305 das, has been handed down by Nepos and Plutarch in odious col- ors. Demagogues like him, whose power resided in the public assembly, are commonly represented as if they had a natural interest in plunging their cities into war, in order that there might be more matter of accusation against the leading men. This representation is founded mainly on the picture which Thucydides gives of Kleon in the first half of the Peloponnesian war: I have endeavored in my sixth volume to show, 1 that it is not a fair estimate even of Kleon separately, much less of the demagogues generally, unwarlike men both in tastes and aptitudes. Mene- kleidas at Thebes, far from promoting warlike expeditions in order that he might denounce the generals when they came back, advo- cated the prudence of continued peace, and accused Epaminondas of involving his country in distant and dangerous schemes, with a view to emulate the glories of Agamemnon by sailing from Aulis in Boeotia, as commander of an imposing fleet to make conquests in the Hellespont. " By the help of Thebes (replied Epaminon- das) I have already done more than Agamemnon. He, with the forces of Sparta and all Greece besides, was ten years in tak- ing a single city ; while 7, with the single force of Thebes and at the single day of Leuktra, have crushed the power of the Aga- memnonian Sparta." 2 While repelling the charge of personal motives, Epaminondas contended that peace would be equivalent to an abnegation of the headship of Greece ; and that, if Thebes wished to maintain that ascendant station, she must keep her citi- zens in constant warlike training and action. To err with Epaminondas may be considered, by some readers, as better than being right with Menekleidas. But on the main point of this debate, Menekleidas appears to have been really right. For the general exhortations ascribed to Epaminondas 1 See Vol. VI. Ch. liv. p. 475. tarch, De Sui Laude, p. 542 A. Neither of these the authors appear to me to conceive rightly either the attack, or the reply, in which the name of Agamemnon is here brought for- ward. As I have given it in the text, there is a real foundation for the attack, and a real point in the reply ; as it appears in Cornelius Nepos. there is neither one nor the other. That the Spartans regarded themselves as having inherited the leader cLip of Greece from Agamemnon, may be seen by Herodotus, vii. 159. VOL. X. 200C,
 * Cornelius Nepos, Epaminond. c. 5 ; Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 25 ; Plu-