Ὁ συνταχθεὶς ὑπὸ Ἐπαμινώνδου ἱερὸς λόχος (Hieronymus apud Athenæum, xiii, p. 602 A.). There was a Carthaginian military division which bore the same title, composed of chosen and wealthy citizens, two thousand five hundred in number (Diodor. xvi, 80). We must remark that the Thebans had always been good soldiers, both as hoplites and as cavalry. The existing enthusiasm, therefore, with the more sustained training, only raised good soldiers into much better. But Thebes was now blessed with another good fortune, such as had never yet befallen her. She found among her citizens a leader of the rarest excellence. It is now for the first time that Epaminondas, the son of Polymnis, begins to stand out in the public life of Greece. His family, poor rather than rich, was among the most ancient in Thebes, belonging to those Gentes called Sparti, whose heroic progenitors were said to have sprung from the dragon’s teeth sown by Kadmus.[247] He seems to have been now of middle age; Pelopidas was younger, and of a very rich family; yet the relations between the two were those of equal and intimate friendship, tested in a day of battle, wherein the two were ranged side by side as hoplites, and where Epaminondas had saved the life of his wounded friend, at the cost of several wounds, and the greatest possible danger, to himself.[248] [247] Pausan. viii, 11, 5. Dikæarchus, only one generation afterwards, complained that he could not find out the name of the mother of Epaminondas (Plutarch, Agesil. c. 19). [248] Plutarch, Pelop. c. 4; Pausan. ix, 13, 1. According to Plutarch, Epaminondas had attained the age of forty years, before he became publicly known (De Occult. Vivendo, p. 1129 C.). Plutarch affirms that the battle (in which Pelopidas was desperately wounded, and saved by Epaminondas) took place at Mantinea, when they were fighting on the side of the Lacedæmonians, under king Agesipolis, against the Arcadians; the Thebans being at that time friends of Sparta, and having sent a contingent to her aid. I do not understand what battle Plutarch can here mean. The Thebans were never so united with Sparta as to send any contingent to her aid, after the capture of Athens (in 404 B.C.). Most critics think that the war referred to by Plutarch, is, the expedition conducted by Agesipolis against Mantinea, whereby the city was broken up into villages—in 385 B.C.; see Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici ad 385 B.C. But, in the first place, there cannot have been any Theban contingent then assisting Agesipolis; for Thebes was on terms unfriendly with Sparta,—and certainly was not her ally. In the next place, there does not seem to have been any battle, according to Xenophon’s account.