206 PELOPIDAS.

faction, to establish an oligarchy, and by that means sub- ject the city to the supremacy of the Spartans. He, accepting the proposal, at the festival of Ceres unexpect- edly fell on the Thebans, and made himself master of the citadel. Ismenias was taken, carried to Sparta, and in a short time murdered ; but Pelopidas, Pherenious, Andro- clides, and man}^ more that fled were publiclj' proclaimed outlaws. Epaminondas staj'ed at home, being not much looked after, as one whom philosophy had made inactive, and poverty incapable. The Laceda?monians cashiered Phoebidas, and fined him one hundred thousand drachmas, yet still kept a garrison in the Cadmea ; which made all Greece wonder at their inconsistency, since they punished the doer, but approved the deed. And though the Thebans, ha%dng lost their polity, and being enslaved by Archias and Leontidas, had no hopes to get free from this tyranny, which they saw guarded by the whole military power of the Spartans, and had no means to break the yoke, unless these could be deposed from then- command of sea and land ; yet Leon- tidas and his associates, understanding that the exiles lived at Athens in favor with the people, and with honor from all the good and Trtuous, formed secret designs against their lives, and, suborning some unknown fellows, despatched Androclides, but were not successful on the rest. Letters, besides, were sent from Sparta to the Athenians, warning them neither to receive nor counte- nance the exiles, but expel them as declared common ene- mies of the confederacy. But the Athenians, from their natural hereditary inclination to be kind, and also to make a grateful return to the Thebans, who had very much as- sisted them in restoring their democracy, and had publicly enacted, that if an}' Athenian would march armed through Boeotia against the tyrants, that no Boeotian should either see or hear it, did the Thebans no harm.