Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/377

 EPAMINONDAS 35$ The mildness of his antipathies against political opponents at home was undeviating ; and, what is even more remarkable, amidst the precedence and practice of the Grecian world, his hostility against foreign enemies, Bceotian dissentients, and Theban exiles, was uniformly free from reactionary vengeance. Sufficient proofs have been adduced in the preceding pages of this rare union of attributes in the same individual ; of lofty disinterestedness, not merely as to corrupt gains, but as to the more seductive irritabili- ties of ambition, combined with a just measure of attachment towards partisans, and unparalleled gentleness towards enemies. His friendship with Pelopidas was never disturbed during the fif- teen years of their joint political career ; an absence of jealousy signal and creditable to both, though most creditable to Pelopidas, the richer, as well as the inferior, man of the two. To both, and to the harmonious cooperation of both, Thebes owed her short-lived .splendor and ascendency. Yet when we compare the one with the other, we not only miss in Pelopidas the transcendent strategic genius and conspicuous eloquence, but even the constant vigilance and prudence, which never deserted his friend. If Pelopidas had had Epaminondas as his companion in Thessaly, he would hardly have trusted himself to the good faith, nor tasted the dungeon, of the Pherasan Alexander ; nor would he have rushed forward to certain destruction, in a transport of phrensy, at the view of that hated tyrant in the subsequent battle. In eloquence, Epaminondas would doubtless have found supe- riors at Athens ; but at Thebes, he had neither equal, nor prede- cessor, nor successor. Under the new phase into which Thebes passed by the expulsion of the Lacedaemonians out of the Kad- meia, such a gift was second in importance only to the great strat- egic qualities ; while the combination of both elevated their pos- sessor into the envoy, the counsellor, the debater, of his country, 1 iraprj /J.rj6s -&epa.TrevTiKbv o^/luv elvai, Kal Mere/lAof eZ^e not 'Apiareidrje *<*' 'ETra[j.eivuv6a<; d/l/lu TCJ Karapovelv wf a%,7j&u uv 8r][i6<; kari Kal dovva. Kal u0e/Ucn9cu K.i>piO, e!;oaTpaKi6/tEvoi Kal aTroxipoTovov(j.evoi Kal Karadi/ca 6[isvoi TToTiTiaKif OVK up-yi&vro rolf Tro/Uraif ayvuficvovaiv, A2,' jjyawuv avdic fj.ETafie7.ofj.Evovf Kal dLrj^uTTovro TrapaKa^oiivruv, 1 See an anecdote about Epaminondas as the diplomatist and negotiator on behalf of Thebes against Athens 6iKaio%oyoi>/i.evoc, etc. Athensenai xiv, p. 650 E.