XX. When the Lacedæmonians made peace with all the other Greeks and attacked the Thebans alone, and Kleombrotus, their king, invaded Bœotia with ten thousand hoplites and a thousand cavalry, the danger was not that they should be reduced to their former condition, but absolute destruction plainly threatened their city, and such terror prevailed as never before had been in Bœotia. Pelopidas, when leaving his house, as his wife wept at parting with him and begged him to be careful of his life, answered, "My dear, this is very good advice for private soldiers, but we who are commanders must think about saving the lives of others." When he reached the camp, he found the Bœotarchs differing in opinion, and he at once gave his voice for the plan of Epameinondas, who voted for battle. He was not named Bœotarch, but he was in command of the Sacred Band, and enjoyed great confidence, as was only just a man should who had given such proofs of patriotism. When, then, they had determined to face the enemy, and taken up a position at Leuktra opposite to the Spartan army, Pelopidas saw a vision in his sleep which greatly disturbed him. In the plain of Leuktra there are the tombs of the daughters of Skedasus, whom they call Leuktridæ because of the place of their burial; for there it was that they were buried after they had been violated by some Spartan strangers. When this base and impious deed was done, their father, as he could get no satisfaction from the Lacedæmonians, invoked curses upon the Spartan race, and slew himself at the tombs of his daughters. Oracles and legends always had warned the Spartans to beware of the vengeance of Leuktra, though most of them did not understand it, and were not clear as to the place, since a small sea-side town in Laconia is also called Leuktron, and there is a place of the same name near Megalopolis in Arcadia, and, also, this crime was committed a long time before the battle.