306 HISTORY OF GREECE. resemble but too closely those feverish stimulants, which Alkibi ades administered at Athens to wind up his countrymen for the fatal expedition against Syracuse. 1 If we should even grant his advice to be wise, in reference to land-warfare, we must recollect that he was here impelling Thebes into a new and untried mari- time career, for which she had neither aptitude nor facilities. To maintain ascendency on land alone, would require all her force, and perhaps prove too hard for her ; to maintain ascendency by land and sea at once would be still more impracticable. By grasping at both she would probably keep neither. Such consid- erations warrant us in suspecting, that the project of stretching across the JEgean for ultramarine dependencies was suggested to this great man not so much by a sound appreciation of the perma- nent interests of Thebes, as by jealousy of Athens, especially since the recent conquests of Timotheus. 2 The project however was really executed, and a large Theban fleet under Epaminondas crossed the JEgean in 363 B. c. In the same year, apparently, Pelopidas marched into Thessaly, at the head of a Theban land-force, against Alexander of Phera. What the fleet achieved, we are scarcely permitted to know. It appears that Epaminondas visited Byzantium ; and we are told that he drove off the Athenian guard-squadron under Laches, prevailing upon several of the allies of Athens to declare in his favor. 3 Both he 1 Thncyd. vi, 17,18. z Plutarch (Philopcemen, c. 14} mentions that some authors represented Epaminondas as having consented unwillingly to this maritime expedition. He explains such reluctance by reference to the disparaging opinion ex- pressed by Plato about maritime service. But this opinion of Plato is founded upon reasons foreign to the character of Epaminondas ; and it seems to me evident that the authors whom Ptutarch here followed, intro- duced the opinion only as an hypothesis to explain why so great a general on land as Epaminondas had accomplished so little at sea, when he took command of a fleet ; putting himself in a function for which he had little capacity, like Philopcemen (Plutarch, Beipublic. Gerend. Praecep. p. 812 E.). Bauch (in his tract, Epaminondas und Thebens Kampf um die Hege- monic, Breslau, 1834, p. 70, 71) maintains that Epaminondas was con- strained against his own better judgment to undertake this maritime enter- prise. I cannot coincide in his opinion. The oracle which Bauch cites from Pausanias (viii, 11, 6) proves as little as the above extract from Plu- Uirch. 3 Tsokrates, Or. v, (Philip.) s. 53 ; Diodor. xv, 7 S. Idiaf rug
