Pelopidas charged with the Three Hundred in serried ranks. He caught
the Lacedæmonians in a moment of confusion, when they were not
standing ready to make an attack, for Kleombrotus had not time either
to extend his right, or to bring the troops back again and close up
the ranks. Yet the Spartans, skilled as they were to the highest
pitch in war, had been specially educated and practised in changing
their formation without disorder or confusion; each man used any other
as his right-hand or rear-rank man, and wherever danger threatened
they would meet it, forming and fighting simultaneously. But now, when
the main Theban phalanx under Epameinondas, projecting before all the
rest of the line, bore down upon them, and when Pelopidas, by a charge
of inconceivable speed and daring was already amongst their ranks,
their spirit and discipline was so shaken that the rout and slaughter
of the Spartans was such as had never been before. In this victory and
success as much glory belonged to Pelopidas, though not one of the
generals, and only in command of a few men, as to Epameinondas, who
was Bœotarch and leader of the whole force.

XXIV. In the invasion of Peloponnesus they were both Bœotarchs, and
they brought over to their side most of the nations there, for they
detached from the Lacedæmonian alliance Elis, Argos, the whole of
Arcadia, and most part of Laconia itself. It was mid-winter, a few
days only remained of the last month, and with the new year the law
was that the commands should be delivered up and new generals chosen.
Death was the penalty in case of disobedience, and all the other
Bœotarchs, fearing this law and wishing to avoid the severe weather,
wished to withdraw the army homewards, but Pelopidas first, supported
by Epameinondas, encouraged his fellow citizens, and crossed the
Eurotas. He took many of their towns and wasted all their country up
to the sea-coast, with an army of 70,000 Greeks, of whom the Thebans