PELOPIDAS (d. 364 B.C.)  , Theban statesman and general . He was a member of a distinguished family, and possessed great wealth which he expended on his friends, while content to lead the life of an athlete . In 385 B.C. he served in a Theban contingent sent to the support of the Spartans at Mantineia, where he was saved, when dangerously wounded, by Epaminondas (q.v.) . Upon the seizure of the Theban citadel by the Spartans (383 or 382) he fled to Athens, and took the lead in a conspiracy to liberate Thebes . In 379 his party surprised and killed their chief political opponents, and roused the people against the Spartan garrison, which surrendered to an army gathered by Pelopidas . In this and subsequent years he was elected boeotarch, and about 375 he routed a much larger Spartan force at Tegyra (near Orchomenus) . This victory he owed mainly to the valour of the Sacred Band, a picked body of 300 infantry . At the battle of Leuctra (371) he contributed greatly to the success of Epaminondas's new tactics 'by the rapidity with which he made the Sacred Band close with the Spartans . In 370 he accompanied his friend Epaminondas as boeotarch into Peloponnesus . On their return both generals were unsuccessfully accused of having retained their command beyond the legal term . In 369, in response to a petition of the Thessalians, Pelopidas was sent with an army against Alexander, tyrant of Pherae . After driving Alexander out, he passed into Macedonia and arbitrated between two claimants to the throne .

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order to secure the influence of Thebes, he brought home hostages, including the king's brother, afterwards Philip II., the conqueror of Greece . Next year Pelopidas was again called upon to interfere in Macedonia, but, being deserted by his mercenaries, was compelled to make an agreement with Ptolemaeus of Alorus . On his return through Thessaly he was seized by Alexander of Pherae, and two expeditions from Thebes were needed to secure his release . In 367 Pelopidas went on an embassy to the Persian king and induced him to prescribe a settlement of Greece according to the wishes of the Thebans . In 364 he received another appeal from the Thessalian towns against Alexander of Pherae . Though an eclipse of the sun prevented his bringing with him more than a handful of troops, he overthrew the tyrant's far superior force on the ridge of Cynoscephalae; but wishing to slay Alexander with his own hand, he rushed forward too eagerly and was cut down by the tyrant's guards . Plutarch and Nepos, Pelopidas; Diodorus xv . 62—81; Xenophon, Hellenica, vii . T . See also Timms . (M . O .

B .