Note 574 — Chapter LXXIX · FROM THE FOUNDATION OF MESSENE AND MEGALOPOLIS TO THE DEATH OF PELOPIDAS.

I think that this third expedition of Epaminondas into Peloponnesus belongs to 367 B.C.; being simultaneous with the embassy of Pelopidas to the Persian court. Many chronologers place it in 366 B.C., after the conclusion of that embassy; because the mention of it occurs in Xenophon after he has brought the embassy to a close. But I do not conceive that this proves the fact of subsequent date. For we must recollect that the embassy lasted several months; moreover the expedition was made while Epaminondas was Bœotarch; and he ceased to be so during the year 366 B.C. Besides, if we place the expedition in 366 B.C., there will hardly be time left for the whole career of Euphron at Sikyon, which intervened before the peace of 366 B.C. between Thebes and Corinth (see Xen. Hellen. vii, 1, 44 seq.).

The relation of cotemporaneousness between the embassy of Pelopidas to Persia, and the expedition of Epaminondas, seems indicated when we compare vii, 1, 33 with vii, 1, 48—Συνεχῶς δὲ βουλευόμενοι οἱ Θηβαῖοι, ὅπως ἂν τὴν ἡγεμονίαν λάβοιεν τῆς Ἑλλάδος, ἐνόμισαν εἰ πέμψειαν πρὸς τὸν Περσῶν βασιλέα, etc. Then Xenophon proceeds to recount the whole embassy, together with its unfavorable reception on returning, which takes up the entire space until vii, 2, 41, when he says—Αὖθις δ’ Ἐπαμεινώνδας, βουληθεὶς τοὺς Ἀχαιοὺς προσυπαγαγέσθαι, ὅπως μᾶλλον σφίσι καὶ οἱ Ἀρκάδες καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι σύμμαχοι προσέχοιεν τὸν νοῦν, ἔγνωκε στρατευτέον εἶναι ἐπὶ τὴν Ἀχαΐαν.

This fresh expedition of Epaminondas is one of the modes adopted by the Thebans of manifesting their general purpose expressed in the former words,—συνεχῶς βουλευόμενοι, etc.