Epaminondas and Thebes

Abstract

Epaminondas the soldier has been much admired. His two great battles rank as masterpieces of the military art. Epaminondas himself perhaps regarded them as his greatest achievements, to judge by his last words as reported by Diodorus (15. 87). He had been carried from the battlefield of Mantinea with a spear stuck in his chest. The doctors declared that when the spear was removed he would die. After hearing that his own shield was safe and that the Boeotians had won, he ordered that the spear be removed. One of his friends said to him ‘But you die without a son.’ He answered ‘I do, by God, but I leave two daughters, my victory of Leuctra and my victory of Mantinea’, and then he died. Nor were his ‘daughters’ unadmired. By remarkable chance the future Philip II of Macedon was hostage at Thebes at the very time of Epaminondas' pre-eminence and did not fail to learn, as Chaeronea was to show

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