Note 660 — Chapter LXXIX · FROM THE FOUNDATION OF MESSENE AND MEGALOPOLIS TO THE DEATH OF PELOPIDAS. (continued 2)

Plutarch (Philopœmen, c. 14) mentions that some authors represented Epaminondas as having consented unwillingly to this maritime expedition. He explains such reluctance by reference to the disparaging opinion expressed by Plato about maritime service. But this opinion of Plato is founded upon reasons foreign to the character of Epaminondas; and it seems to me evident that the authors whom Plutarch here followed, introduced the opinion only as an hypothesis to explain why so great a general on land as Epaminondas had accomplished so little at sea, when he took command of a fleet; putting himself in a function for which he had little capacity, like Philopœmen (Plutarch, Reipublic. Gerend. Præcep. p. 812 E.).

Bauch (in his tract, Epaminondas und Thebens Kampf um die Hegemonie, Breslau, 1834, p. 70, 71) maintains that Epaminondas was constrained against his own better judgment to undertake this maritime enterprise. I cannot coincide in his opinion. The oracle which Bauch cites from Pausanias (viii, 11, 6) proves as little as the above extract from Plutarch.