page_title: Epaminondas
section_title: Death
hierarchical_section_title: Epaminondas / Death
caption_attribution_description: English: Death of Epaminondas
context_page_description: Epaminondas was a Greek general of Thebes and statesman of the 4th century BC who transformed the Ancient Greek city-state of Thebes, leading it out of Spartan subjugation into a pre-eminent 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 230 years after being defeated in the Messenian War ending in 600 BC. Epaminondas reshaped the political map of Greece, fragmented old alliances, created new ones, and supervised the construction of entire cities. He was also militarily influential and invented and implemented several major battlefield tactics.
  Xenophon, the historian and contemporary, is the main source for Epaminondas military prowess, and Xenophon describes his admiration for him in his major work Hellenica.
  Accordingly, in later centuries the roman orator, Cicero called him "the first man of Greece", and even in modern times Montaigne judged him one of the three "worthiest and most excellent men" that had ever lived.
context_section_description: While pressing forward with the troops at Mantinea, Epaminondas was hit in the chest by a spear (or, in some accounts, a sword or large knife). Cornelius Nepos suggests the Spartans were deliberately aiming at Epaminondas in the hope of killing him, and thereby demoralizing the Thebans. The enemy who struck the killing blow was variously identified as Anticrates, Machaerion, or Gryllus, son of Xenophon.
  The spear broke, leaving the iron point in his body, and Epaminondas collapsed. The Thebans around him fought desperately to stop the Spartans taking possession of his body. When he was carried back to camp still living, he asked which side was victorious. When he was told that the Boeotians had won, he said "It is time to die." Diodorus suggests that one of his friends exclaimed "You die childless, Epaminondas" and then burst into tears. To this Epaminondas is supposed to have replied "No, by Zeus, on the contrary I leave behind two daughters, Leuctra and Mantinea, my victories." Cornelius Nepos, whose story is otherwise similar has the last words of Epaminondas as "I have lived long enough; for I die unconquered." When the spear point was withdrawn, Epaminondas quickly expired. In accordance with Greek custom, he was buried on the battlefield.
caption: Death of Epaminondas, as painted by Benjamin West.
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