This victory gave so happy a turn to the affairs of the Thebans, that their alliance was now as much courted as before it had been despised and shunned. The Arcadians applied to them for succours against the Spartans. Epaminondas and Pelopidas were sent with a powerful army to their assistance. At the head of the joint forces these two great men entered Laconia, and appeared with a hostile army at the gates of Sparta. The first sight of that kind ever seen by that haughty people. The masterly conduct of Agesilaus, and the desperate valour of the Spartans saved the city, but could not prevent the ravage of their territories by the two Theban generals, who restored the Messenians to their kingdom, of which the Spartans had deprived them near three hundred years before, defeated the Athenians, who came to the assistance of the Spartans, and returned home with glory. The Theban arms were now so terrible, and their power grown so formidable, that whilst some states applied to them for protection, and others for assistance, the Macedonians referred the disputes about the succession to that crown to their decision, and gave hostages as a security that they would abide by their determination. The chief of these hostages was the famous Philip, father of Alexander the Great, who employed his time so well, under those two able masters, in the art of war, that from them he acquired that military knowledge which proved afterwards so fatal to all Greece in general. Thus the publick virtue of two private citizens not only restored Thebes to her former liberty, but raised her to a much more respectable rank than she had ever held before amongst the Grecian republicks. But this eminent, and newly acquired degree of power was but of short duration. Pelopidas had freed the Thessalians from the insults of Alexander the Pherean; but going to him afterwards, accompanied only by Ismenias, to compose some differences, he was not only unjustly made prisoner, but treated with the most spiteful cruelty by that perfidious tyrant. The Thebans, enraged at this treacherous act, sent an army against the tyrant, under the command of two new generals, who returned with loss and dishonour. The command was again committed to Epaminondas, who, by the terror of his name alone, brought the tyrant to reason, and procured the release of his friend Pelopidas and Ismenias. But the tyrant soon after renewing his usual depredations upon the Thessalians, Pelopidas was once more sent with forces to their assistance. The two armies came soon to action, when Pelopidas, blinded by resentment, and eager after revenge, rushed into the right wing, where the tyrant commanded in person, and fell, covered with wounds, in the midst of his surrounding enemies. His death however was not unrevenged, for his troops, quite furious at the loss of a general they so much revered and loved, routed the enemy, and sacrificed three thousand of them to his _manes_.