_Archidamus._ We know fairly well, Capheisias, how things were at Thebes before the return of the exiles. We had heard at Athens how Archias and Leontides persuaded Phoebidas to [Sidenote: 576] seize the Cadmeia during a truce; how they expelled some of the citizens and terrorized others, and seized office for themselves in defiance of law. We were the personal hosts here of Melon and Pelopidas, and constantly in their company so long as they were in exile. Again, we had heard how the Lacedaemonians fined Phoebidas for seizing the Cadmeia, removed him from the command against Olynthus, and then replaced him at Thebes by Lysanoridas and two others, and kept a stronger garrison than before in the Citadel. We were aware, too, how Ismenias met an unworthy death, since, immediately after his trial, Gorgidas wrote the whole account in a letter to the [Sidenote: B] exiles here. Thus it remains for you to tell us about the actual return of our friends and the capture of the tyrants. II. _Capheisias._ Well then, Archidamus, during those days, all of us who were concerned in the movement were accustomed to meet for conference when necessary in the house of Simmias, who was recovering from a wound in the leg; ostensibly passing the time in philosophical talk, into which, as a blind, we often drew Archias and Leontides, men not altogether strangers to [Sidenote: C] such discussion. For Simmias had spent much time abroad, and wandered among men of other lands, and had shortly before this returned to Thebes full of all sorts of stories and outlandish accounts. These stories Archias used to enjoy when he chanced to have leisure, taking his seat with the young men, and liking us to pass the time in talk rather than attend to their proceedings. On the day upon which the exiles were to reach the walls at dusk, a man came in from here, sent by Pherenicus, known to none of our party except Charon; he proceeded to explain that the younger exiles, twelve in number, had taken hounds to hunt the Cithaeron country, intending to reach Thebes towards evening. He had been sent, he said, in advance [Sidenote: D] to tell us this, and to find out who was to provide the house for their concealment on arrival, so that they might have notice and go straight to it. While we were puzzling it over, Charon agreed to provide his own house. So the man settled to return to the exiles as fast as he could.