Epameinondas, who thought that true courage and magnanimity was best shown by forbearance in political strife, bore this contemptible attack with patience, but Pelopidas, who was of a hotter temper, and whose friends encouraged him to revenge, chose this for its opportunity. Menekleides the orator had been one of the conspirators who came with Pelopidas and Mellon to Charon's house. As, after the revolution, he did not obtain equal rights with the rest, being a man of great ability in speaking, but reckless and ill-conditioned, he took to using his powers to slander and assail the men in power, and was not silenced even by the result of that trial. He got Epameinondas turned out of his office of Bœotarch, and for a long time succeeded in lessening his influence in the state; but Pelopidas he could not misrepresent to the people, so he endeavoured to make a quarrel between him and Charon. He used the usual method of detractors, who if they themselves be inferior to the object of their spite, try at any rate to prove that he is inferior to some one else; and having the ear of the people, he was ever singing the praises of Charon, and uttering panegyrics on his skill and his success. He endeavoured to set up a memorial of the cavalry battle at Platæa, before the battle of Leuktra, in which the Thebans under Charon were victorious, in the following manner. Androkydes of Kyzikus had been entrusted by the state with the task of painting a picture of some other battle, and had been engaged on it at Thebes. When the war broke out, this picture, nearly completed, was left in the hands of the Thebans; and Menekleides persuaded them to put it up publicly and to write on it the name of Charon, in order to throw the glory of Pelopidas and Epameinondas into the shade; a silly exhibition of ill-feeling indeed, to compare one poor skirmish, in which Gerandas, an obscure Spartan, and some forty men fell, with the great and important services of the others. Pelopidas indicted this proposal as illegal, arguing that it was not the custom of the Thebans to show honour to individuals, but to keep alive the name of a victory for the glory of the country at large. He bestowed unmeasured praise upon Charon throughout the trial, and proved Menekleides to be a malignant slanderer. He was fined a large sum, and not being able to pay it, subsequently endeavoured to bring about a revolution in the state; by which one gains some insight into his character.