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Epaminondas

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Military People

            Epaminondas
   c. 418 BC – 362 BC
   Epaminondas
    Allegiance  Thebes
   Battles/wars Battle of Leuctra

   Epaminondas ( Greek: Ἐπαμεινώνδας) (c. 418 BC–362 BC) was a Theban
   general and statesman of the 4th century BC who transformed the Ancient
   Greek city-state of Thebes, leading it out of Spartan subjugation into
   a preeminent position in Greek politics. In the process he broke
   Spartan military power with his victory at Leuctra and liberated the
   Messenian helots, a group of Peloponnesian Greeks who had been enslaved
   under Spartan rule for some 200 years. Epaminondas reshaped the
   political map of Greece, fragmented old alliances, created new ones,
   and supervised the construction of entire cities. He was militarily
   influential as well, inventing and implementing several major
   battlefield tactics.

   The Roman orator Cicero called him "the first man of Greece", but
   Epaminondas has fallen into relative obscurity in modern times. The
   changes Epaminondas wrought on the Greek political order did not long
   outlive him, as the cycle of shifting hegemonies and alliances
   continued unabated. A mere 27 years after his death, a recalcitrant
   Thebes was obliterated by Alexander the Great. Thus Epaminondas—who had
   been praised in his time as an idealist and liberator—is today largely
   remembered for a decade (371 to 362 BC) of campaigning that sapped the
   strength of the great land powers of Greece and paved the way for the
   Macedonian conquest.

Historical record

   Although Epaminondas was a historically significant figure of his time
   there is comparatively little information about his life available to
   modern scholars, and no one ancient historian gives a complete picture.
   Some of the notable biographies include works by Nepos, Pausanias,
   Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus and Xenophon; not all of them have survived
   to the present day.

   Cornelius Nepos's biography of Epaminondas was short, and a few more
   scraps of information can be found in Pausanias's Description of
   Greece. Plutarch wrote a biography, but it has been lost; however, some
   details of Epaminondas' life and works may be found in Plutarch's Lives
   of Pelopidas and Agesilaus. Within the narrative histories of the time,
   Diodorus Siculus preserves a few details, while Xenophon, who idolized
   Sparta and its king Agesilaus, avoids mentioning Epaminondas wherever
   possible and does not even note his presence at the Battle of Leuctra.
   Both narrative historians do provide details about the historical
   events of Epaminondas' time. Furthermore, not all of the ancient
   sources that deal directly with his life are considered entirely
   reliable. These issues may have contributed to a modern situation in
   which Epaminondas is virtually unknown, particularly in comparison to
   near-contemporaries like the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great
   and the Athenian general Alcibiades.

Youth, education and personal life

   Epaminondas' father Polymnis was an impoverished scion of an old Theban
   noble family. Nonetheless, Epaminondas received an excellent education;
   his musical teachers were among the best in their disciplines, as was
   his dance instructor. Most notably, his philosophy instructor Lysis of
   Tarentum (who had come to live with Polymnis in his exile) was one of
   the last major Pythagorean philosophers. Epaminondas was devoted to
   Lysis and was noted for his excellence in philosophical studies.
   Epaminondas saving Pelopidas at Mantinea.
   Enlarge
   Epaminondas saving Pelopidas at Mantinea.

   Not merely an academic, Epaminondas was noted for his physical prowess,
   and in his youth he devoted much time to strengthening and preparing
   himself for combat. In 385 BC in a skirmish near the city of Mantinea,
   Epaminondas, at great risk to his own life, saved the life of his
   future colleague Pelopidas, an act thought to have cemented the
   life-long friendship between the two. Throughout his career he would
   continue to be noted for his tactical skill and his marked capacity for
   hand-to-hand combat.

   Epaminondas never married and as such was subject to criticism from
   countrymen who believed he was duty-bound to provide the country with
   the benefit of sons as great as himself. In response Epaminondas said
   that his victory at Leuctra was a daughter destined to live forever. He
   is known, however, to have had several young male lovers, a standard
   pedagogic practice in ancient Greece, and one that Thebes in particular
   was famous for; Plutarch records that the Theban lawgivers instituted
   the practice "to temper the manners and characters of the youth." An
   anecdote told by Cornelius Nepos indicates that Epaminondas was
   intimate with a young man by the name of Micythus. Plutarch also
   mentions two of his beloveds ( eromenoi): Asopichus, who fought
   together with him at the battle of Leuctra, where he greatly
   distinguished himself; and Caphisodorus, who fell with Epaminondas at
   Mantineia and was buried by his side. .

   Epaminondas lived his entire life in near-poverty, refusing to enrich
   himself by taking advantage of his political power. Cornelius Nepos
   notes his incorruptibility, describing his rejection of a Persian
   ambassador who came to him with a bribe. In the tradition of the
   Pythagoreans, he gave freely to his friends and encouraged them to do
   likewise with each other. These aspects of his character contributed
   greatly to his renown after his death.

Early career

   Epaminondas lived at a particularly turbulent point in Greek and Theban
   history. Following the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC, Sparta
   had embarked upon an aggressively unilateralist policy towards the rest
   of Greece and quickly alienated many of its former allies. Thebes,
   meanwhile, had greatly increased its own power during the war and
   sought to gain control of the other cities of Boeotia (the region of
   ancient Greece northwest of Attica). This policy, along with other
   disputes, brought Thebes into conflict with Sparta. By 395 BC Thebes,
   alongside Athens, Corinth, and Argos, found itself arrayed against
   Sparta (a former ally) in the Corinthian War. That war, which dragged
   on inconclusively for eight years, saw several bloody Theban defeats at
   Spartan hands. By the time of its conclusion, Thebes had been forced to
   check its expansionist ambitions and return to its old alliance with
   Sparta.

   In 382 BC, however, the Spartan commander Phoebidas made a strategic
   error that would soon turn Thebes against Sparta for good and pave the
   way for Epaminondas' rise to power. Passing through Boeotia on
   campaign, Phoebidas took advantage of civil strife within Thebes to
   secure entrance to the city for his troops. Once inside, he seized the
   Cadmea (the Theban acropolis), and forced the anti-Spartan party to
   flee the city. Epaminondas, although associated with that faction, was
   allowed to remain; he was believed to be nothing more than a harmless,
   impoverished philosopher.

Theban coup

   In the years following the Spartan takeover, the Thebans exiled by the
   new government regrouped at Athens and prepared, with the covert
   support of the Athenians, to retake their city. They communicated with
   Epaminondas, who began preparing young men inside Thebes for a coup
   attempt. In 379 BC a small group of exiles, led by Pelopidas,
   infiltrated the city and assassinated the leaders of the pro-Spartan
   government. Epaminondas and Gorgidas led a group of young men who broke
   into armories, took weapons, and surrounded the Spartans on the Cadmea,
   assisted by a force of Athenian hoplites (heavy infantry). In the
   Theban assembly the next day, Epaminondas and Gorgidas brought
   Pelopidas and his men before the audience and exhorted the Thebans to
   fight for their freedom. The assembly responded by acclaiming Pelopidas
   and his men as liberators. Fearing for their lives, the Spartan
   garrison surrendered and were evacuated. The Thebans of the pro-Spartan
   party were also allowed to surrender; they were subsequently killed by
   the victorious insurgents.

After the coup

   When news of the uprising at Thebes reached Sparta, an army under
   Agesilaus was dispatched to subdue the restive city. The Thebans
   refused to meet the Spartan army in the field, instead occupying a
   stronghold outside the city; the Spartans ravaged the countryside but
   nonetheless departed, leaving Thebes independent. In short order the
   Thebans were able to reconstitute their old Boeotian confederacy in a
   new, democratic form. The cities of Boeotia united as a federation with
   an executive body composed of seven generals, or Boeotarchs, elected
   from seven districts throughout Boeotia. This political fusion was so
   successful that henceforth the names Theban and Boeotian were used
   interchangeably in a nod to the newfound solidarity of the region.

   Seeking to squelch this new state, the Spartans invaded three times
   over the next seven years. At first fearing a head-to-head battle, the
   Boeotians eventually gained enough confidence to take the field and
   were able to fight the Spartans to a standstill. The advantage was
   furthered when, in 375 BC, an outnumbered force of Boeotians under
   Pelopidas cut their way through the heart of a Spartan phalanx during
   the Battle of Tegyra. Although Sparta remained the supreme land power
   in Greece, the Boeotians had demonstrated that they, too, were a
   martial threat and a politically cohesive power. At the same time,
   Pelopidas, an advocate of an aggressive policy against Sparta, had
   established himself as a major political leader in Thebes. In years to
   come, he would collaborate extensively with Epaminondas in designing
   Boeotian foreign policy.

371 BC

Peace conference of 371

   No source states exactly when Epaminondas was first elected a
   Boeotarch, but by 371 BC he was in office and, the following year,
   leading the Boeotian delegation to a peace conference held at Sparta. A
   feeble attempt at a Common Peace had been made in 375, but desultory
   fighting between Athens and Sparta had resumed by 373 (at the latest).
   Thebes, meanwhile, was strengthening its confederation. By 371 Athens
   and Sparta were again war-weary, so a conference was called. There,
   Epaminondas caused a drastic break with Sparta when he insisted on
   signing not for the Thebans alone, but for all the Boeotians. Agesilaus
   refused to allow this, insisting that the cities of Boeotia should be
   independent; Epaminondas countered that if this were to be the case,
   the cities of Laconia should be as well. Irate, Agesilaus struck the
   Thebans from the document. The delegation returned to Thebes, and both
   sides marshaled for war.

Leuctra

   Top: Traditional hoplite order of battle and advance. Bottom:
   Epaminondas's strategy at Leuctra. The strong left wing advanced while
   the weak right wing retreated. The red blocks show the placement of the
   elite troops within each phalanx.
   Enlarge
   Top: Traditional hoplite order of battle and advance.
   Bottom: Epaminondas's strategy at Leuctra. The strong left wing
   advanced while the weak right wing retreated. The red blocks show the
   placement of the elite troops within each phalanx.

   Immediately following the failure of the peace talks, orders were sent
   out from Sparta to the Spartan king Cleombrotus, who was at the head of
   an army in the pastoral district of Phocis, commanding him to march
   directly to Boeotia. Skirting north to avoid mountain passes where the
   Boeotians were prepared to ambush him, Cleombrotus entered Boeotian
   territory from an unexpected direction and quickly seized a fort and
   captured several triremes. Marching towards Thebes, he camped at
   Leuctra, in the territory of Thespiae. Here, the Boeotian army came to
   meet him. The Spartan army contained some 10,000 hoplites, 700 of whom
   were the elite warriors known as Spartiates. The Boeotians opposite
   them numbered only 6,000, bolstered by a cavalry superior to that of
   the Peloponnesians.

   In arranging his troops before the battle, Epaminondas utilized a
   strategy as yet unheard of in Greek warfare. Traditionally, a phalanx
   lined up for battle with the elite troops on the right flank—the "flank
   of honour." Thus, in the Spartan phalanx, Cleombrotus and his
   Spartiates were on the right, while the less experienced Peloponnesian
   allies were on the left. Needing to counter the Spartans' numerical
   advantage, Epaminondas implemented two tactical innovations. First, he
   and his Thebans lined up on the left, with the elite Sacred Band under
   Pelopidas on the extreme left flank. Second, recognizing that he could
   not extend his troops to match the width of the Peloponnesian phalanx
   without unacceptably thinning his line, he abandoned all attempt to
   match the Spartans in width. Instead, he deepened his phalanx on the
   left, making it fifty ranks deep instead of the conventional eight to
   twelve. When battle was joined, the strengthened flank was to march
   forward to attack at double speed, while the weaker flank was to
   retreat and delay combat. The tactic of the deep phalanx had been
   anticipated by Pagondas, another Theban general, who used a 25 man deep
   formation at the battle of Delium; the staggered line of attack,
   however, was a new innovation. Thus, Epaminondas had invented the
   military tactic of refusing one's flank.

   The fighting opened with a cavalry encounter, in which the Thebans were
   victorious. The Spartan cavalry was driven back into the ranks of the
   phalanx, disrupting the order of the infantry. Seizing the advantage,
   the Boeotians pressed the attack. Cleombrotus was killed, and although
   the Spartans held on for long enough to rescue his body, their line was
   soon broken by the sheer force of the Theban assault. At a critical
   juncture, Pelopidas led the Sacred Band in an all-out assault, and the
   Spartans were soon forced to flee. The Peloponnesian allies, seeing the
   Spartans put to flight, also broke and ran, and the entire army
   retreated in disarray. Four thousand Peloponnesians were killed, while
   the Boeotians lost only 300 men. Most importantly, 400 of the 700
   Spartiates on the scene were killed, a catastrophic loss that posed a
   serious threat to Sparta's future war-making abilities.

The 360s BC

First Invasion of the Peloponnese

   Ancient Greece.
   Enlarge
   Ancient Greece.

   For about a year after the victory at Leuctra, Epaminondas occupied
   himself with consolidating the Boeotian confederacy, compelling the
   previously Spartan-aligned polis of Orchomenos to join the league. In
   late 370 BC, however, as the Spartans under Agesilaus attempted to
   discipline their newly restive ally Mantinea, Epaminondas decided to
   capitalize on his victory by invading the Peloponnese and shattering
   Sparta's power once and for all. Forcing his way past the
   fortifications on the isthmus of Corinth, he marched southward toward
   Sparta, with contingents from Sparta's erstwhile allies flocking to him
   along the way.

   In Arcadia he drove off the Spartan army threatening Mantinea, then
   supervised the founding of the new city of Megalopolis and the
   formation of an Arcadian League, modeled on the Boeotian confederacy.
   Moving south, he crossed the Evrotas River—the frontier of Sparta—which
   no hostile army had breached in historical memory. The Spartans,
   unwilling to engage the massive army in battle, lingered inside their
   city while the Thebans and their allies ravaged Laconia. Epaminondas
   briefly returned to Arcadia, then marched south again, this time to
   Messenia, a territory which the Spartans had conquered some 200 years
   before. There, Epaminondas rebuilt the ancient city of Messene on Mount
   Ithome, with fortifications that were among the strongest in Greece. He
   then issued a call to Messenian exiles all over Greece to return and
   rebuild their homeland. The loss of Messenia was particularly damaging
   to the Spartans, since the territory comprised one-third of Sparta's
   territory and contained half of their helot population.

   In mere months, Epaminondas had created two new enemy states that
   opposed Sparta, shaken the foundations of Sparta's economy, and all but
   devastated Sparta's prestige. This accomplished, he led his army back
   home, victorious.

Trial

   Upon his return home, Epaminondas was greeted not with a hero's welcome
   but with a trial arranged by his political enemies. The charge—that he
   had retained his command longer than constitutionally permitted—was
   indisputably true; in order to accomplish all that he wished in the
   Pelopponese, Epaminondas had persuaded his fellow Boeotarchs to remain
   in the field for several months after their term of office had expired.
   In his defense Epaminondas merely requested that, if he be executed,
   the inscription regarding the verdict read:

     Epaminondas was punished by the Thebans with death, because he
     obliged them to overthrow the Lacedaemonians at Leuctra, whom,
     before he was general, none of the Boeotians durst look upon in the
     field, and because he not only, by one battle, rescued Thebes from
     destruction, but also secured liberty for all Greece, and brought
     the power of both people to such a condition, that the Thebans
     attacked Sparta, and the Lacedaemonians were content if they could
     save their lives; nor did he cease to prosecute the war, till, after
     settling Messene, he shut up Sparta with a close siege.

   The jury broke into laughter, the charges were dropped, and Epaminondas
   was reelected as Boeotarch for the next year.

Later campaigns

   In 369 BC Epaminondas again invaded the Peloponnese, but this time
   achieved little beyond winning Sicyon over to an alliance with Thebes.
   When he returned to Thebes, he was again put on trial, and again
   acquitted.

   Despite his achievements, he was out of office the next year, the only
   time from the battle of Leuctra until his death that this was the case.
   In this year, he served as a common soldier while the army marched into
   Thessaly to rescue Pelopidas, who had been imprisoned by Alexander of
   Pherae while serving as an ambassador. The commanders who led this
   expedition were outmaneuvered and forced to retreat to save their army.
   Back in Thebes, Epaminondas was reinstated in command and led the army
   straight back into Thessaly, where he outmaneuvered the Thessalians and
   secured the release of Pelopidas without a fight.

   In 366 BC a common peace was drawn up in a conference at Thebes, but
   negotiations could not resolve the hostility between Thebes and other
   states that resented its influence. The peace was never fully accepted,
   and fighting soon resumed. In the spring of that year, Epaminondas
   returned to the Peloponnese for a third time, seeking on this occasion
   to secure the allegiance of the states of Achaea. Although no army
   dared to challenge him in the field, the democratic governments he
   established there were short-lived, as pro-Spartan aristocrats soon
   returned to the cities, reestablished the oligarchies, and bound their
   cities ever more closely to Sparta.

   Throughout the decade after the Battle of Leuctra, numerous former
   allies of Thebes defected to the Spartan alliance or even to alliances
   with other hostile states. As early as 371, the Athenian assembly had
   reacted to the news of Leuctra with stony silence. Thessalian Pherae, a
   reliable ally during the 370s, similarly turned against its newly
   dominant ally in the years after that battle. By the middle of the next
   decade, even some Arcadians (whose league Epaminondas had established
   in 369) had turned against him. Only the Messenians remained firmly
   loyal.

   Boeotian armies campaigned across Greece as opponents rose up on all
   sides; in 364 BC Epaminondas even led his state in a challenge to
   Athens at sea. In that same year, Pelopidas was killed while
   campaigning against Alexander in Thessaly. His loss deprived
   Epaminondas of his greatest Theban political ally.

Battle of Mantinea

   A relief of the death of Epaminondas, by David d'Angers.
   Enlarge
   A relief of the death of Epaminondas, by David d'Angers.

   In the face of this increasing opposition to Theban dominance,
   Epaminondas launched his final expedition into the Peloponnese in 362
   BC. The immediate goal of the expedition was to subdue Mantinea, which
   had been opposing Theban influence in the region. As he approached
   Mantinea, however, Epaminondas received word that so many Spartans had
   been sent to defend Mantinea that Sparta itself was almost undefended.
   Seeing an opportunity, Epaminondas marched his army towards Laconia at
   top speed. The Spartan king Archidamus was alerted to this move by a
   runner, however, and Epaminondas arrived to find the city
   well-defended. Hoping that his adversaries had denuded the defenses of
   Mantinea in their haste to protect Sparta, he countermarched back to
   his base at Tegea and dispatched his cavalry to Mantinea, but a clash
   outside the walls with Athenian cavalry foiled this strategy as well.
   Realizing that a hoplite battle would be necessary if he wanted to
   preserve Theban influence in the Peloponnese, Epaminondas prepared his
   army for combat.

   What followed on the plain in front of Mantinea was the largest hoplite
   battle in Greek history. Nearly every state participated on one side or
   the other. With the Boeotians stood a number of allies: the Tegeans,
   Megalopolitans, and Argives chief among them. On the side of the
   Mantineans and Spartans stood the Athenians, Eleans, and numerous
   others. The infantries of both armies were 20,000 to 30,000 strong. As
   at Leuctra, Epaminondas drew up the Thebans on the left, opposite the
   Spartans and Mantineans with the allies on the right. On the wings he
   placed strong forces of cavalry strengthened by infantry. Thus, he
   hoped to win a quick victory in the cavalry engagements and begin a
   rout of the enemy phalanx.

   The battle unfolded as Epaminondas had planned. The stronger forces on
   the wings drove back the Athenian and Mantinean cavalry opposite them
   and began to attack the flanks of the enemy phalanx. In the hoplite
   battle, the issue briefly hung in the balance, but then the Thebans on
   the left broke through against the Spartans, and the entire enemy
   phalanx was put to flight. It seemed that another decisive Theban
   victory on the model of Leuctra was about to unfold until, as the
   victorious Thebans set off in pursuit of their fleeing opponents,
   Epaminondas was mortally wounded. He died shortly thereafter.

   As news of Epaminondas' death on the field of battle was passed from
   soldier to soldier, the allies across the field ceased in their pursuit
   of the defeated troops—a testament to Epaminondas's centrality to the
   war effort. Xenophon, who ends his history with the battle of Mantinea,
   says of the battle's results

     When these things had taken place, the opposite of what all men
     believed would happen was brought to pass. For since well-nigh all
     the people of Greece had come together and formed themselves in
     opposing lines, there was no one who did not suppose that if a
     battle were fought, those who proved victorious would be the rulers
     and those who were defeated would be their subjects; but the deity
     so ordered it that both parties set up a trophy as though victorious
     and neither tried to hinder those who set them up, that both gave
     back the dead under a truce as though victorious, and both received
     back their dead under a truce as though defeated, and that while
     each party claimed to be victorious, neither was found to be any
     better off, as regards either additional territory, or city, or
     sway, than before the battle took place; but there was even more
     confusion and disorder in Greece after the battle than before.

   With his dying words, Epaminondas is said to have advised the Thebans
   to make peace, as there was no one left to lead them. After the battle
   a common peace was arranged on the basis of the status quo.

Legacy

   Isaak Walraven. The death bed of Epaminondas. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
   Enlarge
   Isaak Walraven. The death bed of Epaminondas. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

   Extant biographies of Epaminondas universally describe him as one of
   the most talented men produced by the Greek city-states in their final
   150 years of independence. In military affairs he stands above every
   other tactician in Greek history, with the possible exception of Philip
   of Macedon, although modern historians have questioned his larger
   strategic vision. His innovative strategy at Leuctra allowed him to
   defeat the vaunted Spartan phalanx with a smaller force, and his novel
   decision to refuse his right flank was the first recorded successful
   use of a battlefield tactic of this sort. Many of the tactical changes
   that Epaminondas implemented would also be used by Philip of Macedon,
   who in his youth spent time as a hostage in Thebes and may have learned
   directly from Epaminondas himself. Victor Davis Hanson has suggested
   that Epaminondas's early philosophical training may have contributed to
   his abilities as a general.

   In matters of character, Epaminondas was above reproach in the eyes of
   the ancient historians who recorded his deeds. Contemporaries praised
   him for disdaining material wealth, sharing what he had with his
   friends, and refusing bribes. One of the last heirs of the Pythagorean
   tradition, he appears to have lived a simple and ascetic lifestyle even
   when his leadership had raised him to a position at the head of all
   Greece.

   In some ways Epaminondas dramatically altered the face of Greece during
   the 10 years in which he was the central figure of Greek politics. By
   the time of his death, Sparta had been humbled, Messenia freed, and the
   Peloponnese completely reorganized. In another respect, however, he
   left behind a Greece no different than that which he had found; the
   bitter divides and animosities that had poisoned international
   relations in Greece for over a century remained as deep as or deeper
   than they had been before Leuctra. The brutal internecine warfare that
   had characterized the years from 432 BC onwards continued unabated
   until the rise of Macedon ended it forever.

   At Mantinea, Thebes had faced down the combined forces of the greatest
   states of Greece, but the victory brought it no spoils. With
   Epaminondas removed from the scene, the Thebans returned to their more
   traditional defensive policy, and within a few years, Athens had
   replaced them at the pinnacle of the Greek political system. No Greek
   state ever again reduced Boeotia to the subjection it had known during
   the Spartan hegemony, but Theban influence faded quickly in the rest of
   Greece. Finally, at Chaeronea in 338 BC, the combined forces of Thebes
   and Athens, driven into each others' arms for a desperate last stand
   against Philip of Macedon, were crushingly defeated, and Theban
   independence was put to an end. Three years later, heartened by a false
   rumor that Alexander the Great had been assassinated, the Thebans
   revolted; Alexander squashed the revolt, then destroyed the city,
   slaughtering or enslaving all its citizens. A mere 27 years after the
   death of the man who had made it preeminent throughout Greece, Thebes
   was wiped from the face of the Earth, its 1,000-year history ended in
   the space of a few days.

   Epaminondas, therefore, is remembered both as a liberator and a
   destroyer. He was celebrated throughout the ancient Greek and Roman
   worlds as one of the greatest men of history. Cicero eulogized him as
   "the first man, in my judgement, of Greece," and Pausanias records an
   honorary poem from his tomb:

     By my counsels was Sparta shorn of her glory,
     And holy Messene received at last her children.
     By the arms of Thebes was Megalopolis encircled with walls,
     And all Greece won independence and freedom.

   Epaminondas's actions were certainly welcomed by the Messenians and
   others whom he assisted in his campaigns against the Spartans. Those
   same Spartans, however, had been at the centre of resistance to the
   Persian invasions of the 5th century BC, and their absence was sorely
   felt at Chaeronea; the endless warfare in which Epaminondas played a
   central role weakened the cities of Greece until they could no longer
   hold their own against their neighbors to the north. As Epaminondas
   campaigned to secure freedom for the Boeotians and others throughout
   Greece, he brought closer the day when all of Greece would be
   subjugated by an invader. Victor Davis Hanson has suggested that
   Epaminondas may have planned for a united Greece composed of regional
   democratic federations, but even if this assertion is correct, no such
   plan was ever implemented. For all his noble qualities, Epaminondas was
   unable to transcend the Greek city-state system, with its endemic
   rivalry and warfare, and thus left Greece more war-ravaged but no less
   divided than he found it.
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