At the great battle of Platæa, where the retiring Persians made their final effort to crush the forces of Greece, the Theban oligarchs had been found fighting, with bravery worthy of a better cause, in the ranks of the invaders. A reference to this struggle has been suspected in the Third Isthmian:—
"But on their home in wrath the tempest leapt,
And from their hearth four hero-brethren swept."—(S.)
If the suspicion be correct, we may see in Pindar's language an illustration of the caution and tact with which he handles a perilous theme. The fall of the Theban oligarchs, fighting for their country's foes, is treated rather as an inevitable calamity than as the just penalty of their criminal schemes. The poet gazes on it with awe and pity. No word of reproach escapes his lips. He cannot defend the cause in which the warriors fell; but he buries their fault in silence.
Amid the clouds and gloom which hung over Thebes, the result of her disgraceful union with, the enemies of Greece, one ray of light appears to console the patriotic poet. He dwells with eagerness on the sympathy, resting partly on national traditions, partly on community of interests, and not least, perhaps, on common fear and dislike of Athens, which, after the Persian troubles, grew up between Thebes and Sparta. He seems to have looked upon this friendship as offering to Thebes her best hope of recovering the position which she had lost. And it is probable that those mythical traditions of his own family, which were so constantly present to his fancy, gave him an additional
