Even if there were no such names in Greek history as Hesiod, Pindar, Pelopidas, and Plutarch, the memory of Epaminondas would be sufficient to redeem Bœotia from the reproach so often cast upon it as a land of dullards. He was not only a consummate general, whose name will always be associated with the irresistible phalanx which anticipated that of Macedonia,[2] but was in every respect a great man--the greatest of the Greeks, according to Cicero. Distinguished in music and philosophy, he was also a good speaker, and if he had had more opportunities for the practice of eloquence, he would probably have been found a match for the greatest orators of his day. We may judge of his readiness in debate from the answer he gave to Callistratus, the renowned Athenian orator, when the latter, pleading with the Arcadians to form an alliance with Athens rather than with Thebes and Argos, sought to excite prejudice against these states by asking, “Were not Orestes and Alcmæon, who were both murderers of their mothers, natives of Argos? Was not Œdipus, who slew his father and married his mother, a native of Thebes?” “Yes, they were,” said Epaminondas, in his reply, “but Callistratus has forgotten to tell you that these men, while they lived at home, were innocent or were reputed to be so. As soon as their crimes became known they were banished; and then it was that Athens received them, stained with blood.” On another occasion, when he was accused by a demagogue of trying to emulate the glories of Agamemnon at the risk of his country, by sailing from Aulis to the Hellespont at the head of a great fleet, he replied, “By the help of Thebes I have already done more than Agamemnon. He with the forces of Sparta and all Greece besides, was ten years in taking a single city; while I, with the single force of Thebes and on the single day of Leuctra, have crushed the power of the Agamemnonian Sparta.” This was answering a fool according to his folly; but, in general, he was as remarkable for his modesty as for his great powers. It was said of him by one who had been in early life a companion of Socrates that he had never known any one who understood so much and spoke so little; and when he was reduced in rank, even after the great battle which deprived Sparta of its military supremacy, he did not disdain to serve his country for a time in a comparatively humble position. That the Spartans knew how formidable he was as an adversary is evident from the honours which, as Plutarch tells us, they heaped on the man who slew him, even ordaining that his descendants in all time coming should be exempted from the payment of taxes. Like Aristides the “Just” and Delyannis, the recently-assassinated Premier of Greece, Epaminondas was so free from the love of money that he did not leave enough even to pay his funeral expenses.