EPAMINONDAS (c. 418-362)  , Theban general and statesman, born about 418 B.C. of a noble but impoverished family . For his education he was chiefly indebted to Lysis of Tarentum, a Pythagorean exile who had found refuge with his father Polymnis . He first comes into notice in the attack upon Mantineia in 385, when he fought on the Spartan side and saved the life of his future colleague Pelopidas . In his youth Epaminondas took little part in public affairs; he held aloof from the political assassinations which preceded the Theban insurrection of 379 . But in the following campaigns against Sparta he rendered good service in organizing the Theban defence . In 371 he represented Thebes at the congress in Sparta, and by his refusal to surrender the Boeotian cities under Theban control prevented the conclusion of a general peace . In the ensuing campaign he commanded the Boeotian army which met the Peloponnesian levy at Leuctra, and by a brilliant victory on this site, due mainly to his daring innovations in the tactics of the heavy infantry, established at once the predominance of Thebes among the land-powers of Greece and his own fame as the greatest and most original of Greek generals . At the instigation of the Peloponnesian states which armed .against Sparta in consequence of this battle, Epaminondas in 370 led a large host into Laconia; though unable to capture Sparta he ravaged its territory and dealt a lasting blow at Sparta's predominance in Peloponnesus by liberating the Messenians and rebuilding their capital at Messene . Accused on his return to Thebes of having exceeded the term of his command, he made good his defence and was re-elected boeotarch . In 369 he forced the Isthmus lines and secured Sicyon for Thebes, but gained no considerable successes . In the following year he served as a common soldier in Thessaly, and upon being reinstated in command contrived the safe retreat of the Theban army from a difficult position . Returning to Thessaly next year at the head of an army he procured the liberation of Pelopidas from the tyrant Alexander of Pherae without striking a blow .

In his third expedition (366) to Peloponnesus, Epaminondas again eluded the Isthmus

garrison and won over the Achaeans to the Theban alliance . Turning his attention to the growing maritime power of Athens, Epaminondas next equipped a fleet of too triremes, and during a cruise to the Propontis detached several states from the Athenian confederacy . When subsequent complications threatened the position of Thebes in Peloponnesus he again mustered a large army in order to crush the newly formed Spartan league (362) . After some masterly operations between Sparta and Mantineia, by which he nearly captured both these towns, he engaged in a decisive battle on the latter site, and by his vigorous shock tactics gained a complete victory over his opponents (see MANTINETA) . Epaminondas himself received a severe wound during the combat, and died soon after the issue was decided . His title to fame rests mainly on his brilliant qualities both as a strategist and as a tactician; his influence on military art in Greece was of the greatest . For the purity and uprightness of his character he likewise stood in high repute; his culture and eloquence equalled the highest Attic standard . In politics his chief achievement was the final overthrow of Sparta's predominance in the Peloponnese; as a constructive statesman he displayed no special talent, and the lofty pan-Hellenic ambitions which are imputed to him at any rate never found a practical expression . Cornelius Nepos, Vita Epaminondae; Diodorus xv . 52-88; Xenophon, Hellenica, vii . ; L . Pomtow, Das Leben des Epaminondas (Berlin, 1870) ; von Stein, Geschichte der spartanischen and thebanischen Hegemonie (Dorpat, 1884), pp .

123 sqq . ; H . Swoboda in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopeidie, v. pt . 2 (

Stuttgart, 1905), pp . 2674-2707; also ARMY: History, § 6 . (M . O . B .