Description of Greece

​Now to Epaminondas, his ancestral heritage was sufficient for the glory of his house, but his father, in respect of money, fell short of an average Theban. Of their subjects of instruction, he learned the local ones with the utmost accuracy, and when he was already a youth, he attended the lectures of Lysis, a man by birth of Tarentum, who was well versed in the doctrines of Pythagoras of Samos. It is said that Epaminondas, when the Lacedaemonians were at war with the Mantineans, was sent from Thebes with other men to help the Lacedaemonians; and in the battle he saved Pelopidas, who had received wounds, by exposing himself to the utmost danger.

​At a later time, when Epaminondas had come as an envoy to Sparta, when the Lacedaemonians said they were making the peace with the Greeks called the Peace of Antalcidas, then Agesilaus asked Epaminondas whether they would allow the Boeotians to swear to the peace city by city. “Not before, Spartans,” said he, “we see your perioikoi also swearing city by city.”

​When the war between the Lacedaemonians and the Thebans had already broken out, and the Lacedaemonians with the force of both themselves and their allies were marching against the Thebans, Epaminondas, holding a portion of the army, lay encamped opposite them beyond the Cephisian lake, on the assumption that the Peloponnesians would make their invasion by this way; but Cleombrotus, the king of the Lacedaemonians, turned towards Ambrossus in Phocis, and having killed Chaereas, who had been stationed to guard the passes, and the other Thebans with him, he crossed over and arrived at Leuctra in Boeotia.

​There, both to Cleombrotus himself and to the common state of the Lacedaemonians, signs came from the god. For their kings on their expeditions were followed by sheep to be sacrifices to the gods and to obtain good omens before battles; and as leaders of the way for the flocks there were goats, which the shepherds call katoiades. On this occasion, then, wolves rushed upon the flock and did no harm to the sheep, but killed the goats that were the leaders.

​It was also said that there was wrath against the Lacedaemonians arising from the daughters of Scedasus. For to Scedasus, who lived near Leuctra, daughters were born, Molpia and Hippo; when these had already reached a marriageable age , Lacedaemonian men, Phrurarchidas and Parthenius, violated them contrary to law. And the maidens immediately—for the outrage seemed to them not to be endured—hanged themselves; and Scedasus, since no justice was done for him when he went to Lacedaemon, thus returned to Leuctra and made away with himself.