XIV. Now when a great Lacedæmonian army invaded Bœotia, the Athenians manifested great alarm. They repudiated their alliance with the Thebans, and impeached those who had shown Bœotian sympathies; some of these men were put to death, others fined and banished. The case of the Thebans seemed desperate, as no one offered to help them; but Pelopidas, who with Gorgidas was Bœotarch, contrived to alienate the Athenians from Sparta by the following plot. Sphodrias, a Spartan, of great renown in the wars, but somewhat flighty and prone to wild enterprises and reckless ambition, had been left near Thespiæ with an army, to receive and assist those Thebans[9] who were now sent into exile because they favoured the Lacedæmonians. Pelopidas sent secretly to this man a merchant, a friend of his own, who gave him a bribe, and also made proposals which fascinated him more than the money, that he should attempt some enterprise on a great scale, and surprise Peiræus by a sudden attack when the Athenians were off their guard: for the Lacedæmonians would be better pleased with the capture of Athens than with anything else, and the Thebans would not assist them, for they were at variance with them and regarded them as traitors. At length Sphodrias was prevailed upon to agree to this, and, with his soldiery, invaded Attica by night. He got as far as Eleusis, but there the soldiers lost heart, and the attempt was detected. So, having involved the Spartans in a war of no slight importance, he retired to Thespiæ.