is influence in the state; but Pelopidas he could not
misrepresent to the people, so he endeavoured to make a quarrel
between him and Charon. He used the usual method of detractors, who if
they themselves be inferior to the object of their spite, try at any
rate to prove that he is inferior to some one else; and having the ear
of the people, he was ever singing the praises of Charon, and uttering
panegyrics on his skill and his success. He endeavoured to set up a
memorial of the cavalry battle at Plataea, before the battle of
Leuktra, in which the Thebans under Charon were victorious, in the
following manner. Androkydes of Kyzikus had been entrusted by the
state with the task of painting a picture of some other battle, and
had been engaged on it at Thebes. When the war broke out, this
picture, nearly completed, was left in the hands of the Thebans; and
Menekleides persuaded them to put it up publicly and to write on it
the name of Charon, in order to throw the glory of Pelopidas and
Epameinondas into the shade; a silly exhibition of ill-feeling indeed,
to compare one poor skirmish, in which Gerandas, an obscure Spartan,
and some forty men fell, with the great and important services of the
others.

Pelopidas indicted this proposal as illegal, arguing that it was not
the custom of the Thebans to show honour to individuals, but to keep
alive the name of a victory for the glory of the country at large. He
bestowed unmeasured praise upon Charon throughout the trial, and
proved Menekleides to be a malignant slanderer. He was fined a large
sum, and not being able to pay it, subsequently endeavoured to bring
about a revolution in the state; by which one gains some insight into
his character.

XXVI. Alexander, the tyrant of Pherae, was at this time at open war
with many states of Thessaly, and threatened the independence of all.
Ambassadors from these states were sent to Thebes, begging for a
military force and a general to be despatched to their assistance.
Pelopidas, since Epameinondas was busy settling the affairs of
Peloponnesus, offered himself to the Thessalians, as he could not bear
that his talents and skill should lie idle, and he thought that where
Epameinondas was, no second general could be needed. So he marched
with a sufficient army into Thessaly, took Larissa, and, when
Alexander begged for terms of peace, endeavoured to convert him into a
mild and law-abiding ruler. But he, a wild, desperate, cruel
barbarian,