Theban general and statesman, whose victory at Leuctra (371 BC) broke the military power of Sparta and made Thebes the most powerful state in Greece. His death at the Battle of Mantinea abruptly brought this supremacy to an end.
| Epaminondas | |
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| c. 418 BC – 362 BC | |
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Epaminondas |
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| Allegiance | Thebes |
| Battles/wars | Battle of Leuctra |
Epaminondas (Greek: Ἐπαμεινώνδας) (c. 418 BC–362 BC) was a Theban general and statesman of the 4th century BC who transformed the Ancient Greek city-state of Thebes, leading it out of Spartan subjugation into a preeminent position in Greek politics. Epaminondas reshaped the political map of Greece, fragmented old alliances, created new ones, and supervised the construction of entire cities.
The Roman orator Cicero called him "the first man of Greece", but Epaminondas has fallen into relative obscurity in modern times. The changes Epaminondas wrought on the Greek political order did not long outlive him, as the cycle of shifting hegemonies and alliances continued unabated. A mere 27 years after his death, a recalcitrant Thebes was obliterated by Alexander the Great.
Historical record
Although Epaminondas was a historically significant figure of his time there is comparatively little information about his life available to modern scholars, and no one ancient historian gives a complete picture.
Cornelius Nepos's biography of Epaminondas was short, and a few more scraps of information can be found in Pausanias's Description of Greece. Within the narrative histories of the time, Diodorus Siculus preserves a few details, while Xenophon, who idolized Sparta and its king Agesilaus, avoids mentioning Epaminondas wherever possible and does not even note his presence at the Battle of Leuctra. These issues may have contributed to a modern situation in which Epaminondas is virtually unknown, particularly in comparison to near-contemporaries like the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great and the Athenian general Alcibiades.
Youth, education and personal life
Epaminondas' father Polymnis was an impoverished scion of an old Theban noble family. Nonetheless, Epaminondas received an excellent education; Epaminondas was devoted to Lysis and was noted for his excellence in philosophical studies.
Not merely an academic, Epaminondas was noted for his physical prowess, and in his youth he devoted much time to strengthening and preparing himself for combat. In 385 BC in a skirmish near the city of Mantinea, Epaminondas, at great risk to his own life, saved the life of his future colleague Pelopidas, an act thought to have cemented the life-long friendship between the two.
Epaminondas never married and as such was subject to criticism from countrymen who believed he was duty-bound to provide the country with the benefit of sons as great as himself. In response Epaminondas said that his victory at Leuctra was a daughter destined to live forever. He is known, however, to have had several young male lovers, a standard pedagogic practice in ancient Greece, and one that Thebes in particular was famous for; An anecdote told by Cornelius Nepos indicates that Epaminondas was intimate with a young man by the name of Micythus. and Caphisodorus, who fell with Epaminondas at Mantineia and was buried by his side.
Epaminondas lived his entire life in near-poverty, refusing to enrich himself by taking advantage of his political power.
Early career
Epaminondas lived at a particularly turbulent point in Greek and Theban history. Following the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC, Sparta had embarked upon an aggressively unilateralist policy towards the rest of Greece and quickly alienated many of its former allies. Thebes, meanwhile, had greatly increased its own power during the war and sought to gain control of the other cities of Boeotia (the region of ancient Greece northwest of Attica). This policy, along with other disputes, brought Thebes into conflict with Sparta. By 395 BC Thebes, alongside Athens, Corinth, and Argos, found itself arrayed against Sparta (a former ally) in the Corinthian War. By the time of its conclusion, Thebes had been forced to check its expansionist ambitions and return to its old alliance with Sparta.
In 382 BC, however, the Spartan commander Phoebidas made a strategic error that would soon turn Thebes against Sparta for good and pave the way for Epaminondas' rise to power. Passing through Boeotia on campaign, Phoebidas took advantage of civil strife within Thebes to secure entrance to the city for his troops. Epaminondas, although associated with that faction, was allowed to remain;
Theban coup
In the years following the Spartan takeover, the Thebans exiled by the new government regrouped at Athens and prepared, with the covert support of the Athenians, to retake their city. They communicated with Epaminondas, who began preparing young men inside Thebes for a coup attempt. Epaminondas and Gorgidas led a group of young men who broke into armories, took weapons, and surrounded the Spartans on the Cadmea, assisted by a force of Athenian hoplites (heavy infantry). In the Theban assembly the next day, Epaminondas and Gorgidas brought Pelopidas and his men before the audience and exhorted the Thebans to fight for their freedom.
After the coup
When news of the uprising at Thebes reached Sparta, an army under Agesilaus was dispatched to subdue the restive city. The Thebans refused to meet the Spartan army in the field, instead occupying a stronghold outside the city;
Seeking to squelch this new state, the Spartans invaded three times over the next seven years. At the same time, Pelopidas, an advocate of an aggressive policy against Sparta, had established himself as a major political leader in Thebes. In years to come, he would collaborate extensively with Epaminondas in designing Boeotian foreign policy.
371 BC
Peace conference of 371
No source states exactly when Epaminondas was first elected a Boeotarch, but by 371 BC he was in office and, the following year, leading the Boeotian delegation to a peace conference held at Sparta. There, Epaminondas caused a drastic break with Sparta when he insisted on signing not for the Thebans alone, but for all the Boeotians. Epaminondas countered that if this were to be the case, the cities of Laconia should be as well.
Leuctra
Immediately following the failure of the peace talks, orders were sent out from Sparta to the Spartan king Cleombrotus, who was at the head of an army in the pastoral district of Phocis, commanding him to march directly to Boeotia.
In arranging his troops before the battle, Epaminondas utilized a strategy as yet unheard of in Greek warfare. Needing to counter the Spartans' numerical advantage, Epaminondas implemented two tactical innovations. First, he and his Thebans lined up on the left, with the elite Sacred Band under Pelopidas on the extreme left flank. Thus, Epaminondas had invented the military tactic of refusing one's flank.
The fighting opened with a cavalry encounter, in which the Thebans were victorious.
The 360s BC
First Invasion of the Peloponnese
For about a year after the victory at Leuctra, Epaminondas occupied himself with consolidating the Boeotian confederacy, compelling the previously Spartan-aligned polis of Orchomenos to join the league. In late 370 BC, however, as the Spartans under Agesilaus attempted to discipline their newly restive ally Mantinea, Epaminondas decided to capitalize on his victory by invading the Peloponnese and shattering Sparta's power once and for all.
In Arcadia he drove off the Spartan army threatening Mantinea, then supervised the founding of the new city of Megalopolis and the formation of an Arcadian League, modeled on the Boeotian confederacy. The Spartans, unwilling to engage the massive army in battle, lingered inside their city while the Thebans and their allies ravaged Laconia. Epaminondas briefly returned to Arcadia, then marched south again, this time to Messenia, a territory which the Spartans had conquered some 200 years before. There, Epaminondas rebuilt the ancient city of Messene on Mount Ithome, with fortifications that were among the strongest in Greece.
In mere months, Epaminondas had created two new enemy states that opposed Sparta, shaken the foundations of Sparta's economy, and all but devastated Sparta's prestige.
Trial
Upon his return home, Epaminondas was greeted not with a hero's welcome but with a trial arranged by his political enemies. in order to accomplish all that he wished in the Pelopponese, Epaminondas had persuaded his fellow Boeotarchs to remain in the field for several months after their term of office had expired. In his defense Epaminondas merely requested that, if he be executed, the inscription regarding the verdict read:
Epaminondas was punished by the Thebans with death, because he obliged them to overthrow the Lacedaemonians at Leuctra, whom, before he was general, none of the Boeotians durst look upon in the field, and because he not only, by one battle, rescued Thebes from destruction, but also secured liberty for all Greece, and brought the power of both people to such a condition, that the Thebans attacked Sparta, and the Lacedaemonians were content if they could save their lives;
The jury broke into laughter, the charges were dropped, and Epaminondas was reelected as Boeotarch for the next year.
Later campaigns
In 369 BC Epaminondas again invaded the Peloponnese, but this time achieved little beyond winning Sicyon over to an alliance with Thebes.
Despite his achievements, he was out of office the next year, the only time from the battle of Leuctra until his death that this was the case. Back in Thebes, Epaminondas was reinstated in command and led the army straight back into Thessaly, where he outmaneuvered the Thessalians and secured the release of Pelopidas without a fight.
In 366 BC a common peace was drawn up in a conference at Thebes, but negotiations could not resolve the hostility between Thebes and other states that resented its influence. In the spring of that year, Epaminondas returned to the Peloponnese for a third time, seeking on this occasion to secure the allegiance of the states of Achaea.
Throughout the decade after the Battle of Leuctra, numerous former allies of Thebes defected to the Spartan alliance or even to alliances with other hostile states. By the middle of the next decade, even some Arcadians (whose league Epaminondas had established in 369) had turned against him.
Boeotian armies campaigned across Greece as opponents rose up on all sides; in 364 BC Epaminondas even led his state in a challenge to Athens at sea. His loss deprived Epaminondas of his greatest Theban political ally.
Battle of Mantinea
In the face of this increasing opposition to Theban dominance, Epaminondas launched his final expedition into the Peloponnese in 362 BC. As he approached Mantinea, however, Epaminondas received word that so many Spartans had been sent to defend Mantinea that Sparta itself was almost undefended. Seeing an opportunity, Epaminondas marched his army towards Laconia at top speed. The Spartan king Archidamus was alerted to this move by a runner, however, and Epaminondas arrived to find the city well-defended. Realizing that a hoplite battle would be necessary if he wanted to preserve Theban influence in the Peloponnese, Epaminondas prepared his army for combat.
What followed on the plain in front of Mantinea was the largest hoplite battle in Greek history. As at Leuctra, Epaminondas drew up the Thebans on the left, opposite the Spartans and Mantineans with the allies on the right.
The battle unfolded as Epaminondas had planned. In the hoplite battle, the issue briefly hung in the balance, but then the Thebans on the left broke through against the Spartans, and the entire enemy phalanx was put to flight. It seemed that another decisive Theban victory on the model of Leuctra was about to unfold until, as the victorious Thebans set off in pursuit of their fleeing opponents, Epaminondas was mortally wounded.
As news of Epaminondas' death on the field of battle was passed from soldier to soldier, the allies across the field ceased in their pursuit of the defeated troops—a testament to Epaminondas's centrality to the war effort. Xenophon, who ends his history with the battle of Mantinea, says of the battle's results
When these things had taken place, the opposite of what all men believed would happen was brought to pass.
With his dying words, Epaminondas is said to have advised the Thebans to make peace, as there was no one left to lead them.
Legacy
Extant biographies of Epaminondas universally describe him as one of the most talented men produced by the Greek city-states in their final 150 years of independence. Many of the tactical changes that Epaminondas implemented would also be used by Philip of Macedon, who in his youth spent time as a hostage in Thebes and may have learned directly from Epaminondas himself. Victor Davis Hanson has suggested that Epaminondas's early philosophical training may have contributed to his abilities as a general.
In matters of character, Epaminondas was above reproach in the eyes of the ancient historians who recorded his deeds.
In some ways Epaminondas dramatically altered the face of Greece during the 10 years in which he was the central figure of Greek politics.
At Mantinea, Thebes had faced down the combined forces of the greatest states of Greece, but the victory brought it no spoils. With Epaminondas removed from the scene, the Thebans returned to their more traditional defensive policy, and within a few years, Athens had replaced them at the pinnacle of the Greek political system. Finally, at Chaeronea in 338 BC, the combined forces of Thebes and Athens, driven into each others' arms for a desperate last stand against Philip of Macedon, were crushingly defeated, and Theban independence was put to an end. Three years later, heartened by a false rumor that Alexander the Great had been assassinated, the Thebans revolted; A mere 27 years after the death of the man who had made it preeminent throughout Greece, Thebes was wiped from the face of the Earth, its 1,000-year history ended in the space of a few days.
Epaminondas, therefore, is remembered both as a liberator and a destroyer. Cicero eulogized him as "the first man, in my judgement, of Greece," and Pausanias records an honorary poem from his tomb:
By my counsels was Sparta shorn of her glory,
And holy Messene received at last her children.
By the arms of Thebes was Megalopolis encircled with walls,
And all Greece won independence and freedom.
Epaminondas's actions were certainly welcomed by the Messenians and others whom he assisted in his campaigns against the Spartans. the endless warfare in which Epaminondas played a central role weakened the cities of Greece until they could no longer hold their own against their neighbors to the north. As Epaminondas campaigned to secure freedom for the Boeotians and others throughout Greece, he brought closer the day when all of Greece would be subjugated by an invader. Victor Davis Hanson has suggested that Epaminondas may have planned for a united Greece composed of regional democratic federations, but even if this assertion is correct, no such plan was ever implemented. For all his noble qualities, Epaminondas was unable to transcend the Greek city-state system, with its endemic rivalry and warfare, and thus left Greece more war-ravaged but no less divided than he found it.
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