PELOPIDAS AND MELLON. 81 tnent in the city was decidedly adverse to the government, and though the young men while exercising in the palaestra (gymnas- tic exercises being more strenuously prosecuted at Thebes than anywhere else except at Sparta) kept up by private communica- tion the ardor of an earnest, but compressed, patriotism, yet all manifestation or assemblage was forcibly kept down, and the com- manding posts of the lower town, as well as the citadel, were held in vigilant occupation by the ruling minority. 1 For a certain time the Theban exiles at Athens waited in hopes of some rising at home, or some positive aid from the Athenians. At length, in the third winter after their flight, they began to des- pair of encouragement from either quarter, and resolved to take the initiative upon themselves. Among them were numbered several men of the richest and highest families at Thebes, proprie- tors of chariots, jockeys, and training establishments, for contend- ing at the various festivals : Pelopidas, Mellon, Damokleidas, Theopompus, Pherenikus, and others. 2 Of these the most forward in originating aggressive measures, though almost the youngest, was Pelopidas ; whose daring and self-devotion, in an enterprise which seemed utterly desperate, soon communicated itself to a handful of his comrades. The exiles, keeping up constant private correspondence with their friends in Thebes, felt assured of the sympathy of the citizens generally, if they could once strike a blow. Yet nothing less would be sufficient than the destruction of the four rulers, Leonti- ades and his colleagues, nor would any one within the city devote himself to so hopeless a danger. It was this conspiracy which Pelopidas, Mellon, and five or ten other exiles (the entire band is differently numbered, by some as seven, by others, twelve 3 ) un- 1 Plutarch, De Gen. Socr. c. 4, p. 577 B ; c. 17, p. 587 B ; c. 25, p. 594 C.; c. 27, p. 595 A. 8 Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 7, 8. Plutarch, De Gen. Socr. c. 17, p. 587 D. Tuv MeWovo? up^ar^aTuv tiriaruTTie T Ap' ov Xhiduva /leyetf, rdi> K&T/TI TU 'Hpala VIKUVTO, ne- jtvaiv ;
- Xenophon says seven (Hellen. v, 4, 1, 2) ; Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos
say twelve (Plutarch, De Gen. Socr. c. 2, p. 576 C.; Plutarch, Pelopidas c. 8-13; Cornel. Nepos, Pelopidas, c. 2). It is remarkable that Xenophon never mentions the name of Pelopidas in this conspiracy ; nor indeed (with one exception) throughout his Hellenica VOL. x. 4* 6oc.
