page_title: Pelopidas
section_title: Boeotarch
hierarchical_section_title: Pelopidas / Biography / Boeotarch
caption_attribution_description: English: Elementary history of Greece, made up principally of stories about persons, givingat the same time a clear idea of the most important events in the ancient world and calculated to enforce the lessons of perseverance, courage, patriotism, and virtue that are taught by the noble lives described. Beginning with the legends of Jason, Theseus, and events surrounding the Trojan War, the narrative moves on to present the contrasting city-states of Sparta and Athens, the war against Persia,their conflicts with each other, the feats of Alexander the Great, and annexation by Rome.
context_page_description: Pelopidas was an important Theban statesman and general in Greece, instrumental in establishing the mid-fourth century Theban hegemony.
context_section_description: In this and 12 subsequent years he was elected boeotarch, or warleader, and about 375 BC he routed a much larger Spartan force at the battle of Tegyra (near Orchomenus). This victory he owed mainly to the valour of the Sacred Band, an elite corps of 300 seasoned soldiers. At the battle of Leuctra (371 BC) 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. At Leuctra Epaminondas, a brilliant and intuitive general, used the oblique order for the first time. After the battle at Leuctra, Thebes began to replace Sparta as the leading city of Greece.
  In 370 BC he accompanied his close friend Epaminondas as boeotarch into the Peloponnese, where by re-founding as an independent city Messene Sparta’s former dependency, they were able to consolidate their success, and permanently deprive Sparta of its hegemonic power. On their return, both generals were accused, unsuccessfully, of having retained their command beyond the legal term. In fact, the democrats and some aristocrats of Thebes acknowledged that Pelopidas and Epaminondas were the two most capable and important personalities of their city. Both were trying to establish a state that would unite Greece under the Theban hegemony – what Xenophon called a policy “continuously direct towards securing supremacy in Greece”.
caption: Charon placed his only son in the arms of Pelopidas