born about 418 or 415 b.c. at Thebes, now in Greece,
the son of Polymnis, and educated by Lysis of Taren-
tum, a Pythagorean philosopher. At that time, Sparta, in
southern Greece, was the strongest state in the region,
while Thebes, farther north, controlled the city-states
in Boeotia. In 371, the Spartans called a conference, the
Congress at Sparta, at which Epaminondas refused to
cede Theban control of Boeotia. Consequently, Agesilaus
II of Sparta excluded Thebes from a peace treaty in the
Peloponnesian strait, a slight that led to war.
Epaminondas commanded Theban forces against
Sparta, and in 371 b.c., the two armies met at Leuc-
tra, a Boeotian city. Fielding a force of some 11,000, the
Spartans surrounded the Theban army of approximately
6,000, but the Thebans’ larger cavalry force held their
ground, and Epaminondas advanced his own forces
behind the cavalry. His friend Pelopidas, commanding
the forces known as the Sacred Band, delivered the final
blow to the Spartans, as the Greek historian Xenophon
writes:
At this juncture there were some Lacedaemoni-
ans [Spartan allies], who, looking upon such a di-
saster as intolerable, maintained that they ought
to prevent the enemy from erecting a trophy, and
try to recover the dead, not under a flag of truce,
but by another battle. The polemarchs [com-
manders], however, seeing that nearly 1000 of
the total Lacedaemonian troops were slain, and
seeing, too, that of the 700 regular Spartans who
were on the field some 400 lay dead; aware like-
wise of the despondency which reigned among
the allies, and the general disinclination on their
part to fight longer—a frame of mind not far
from positive satisfaction in some cases at what
had happened—under the circumstances, I say,
the polemarchs called a council of the ablest rep-
resentatives of the shattered army, and deliberated
on what should be done. Finally, the unanimous
opinion was to pick up the dead under a flag of
truce, and they sent a herald to treat for terms.
The Thebans after that set up a trophy, and gave
back the bodies under a truce.Leuctra was the first recorded Spartan military defeat in
over four centuries.
Epaminondas did not hesitate to follow up this vic-
tory, returning to Thebes to raise an army of approxi-
mately 70,000 men to march on Sparta. In 370 b.c., he
defeated Laconia, a Spartan client state, and liberated the
citizens under Spartan domination there. In 369 b.c., he
marched into Sicyon, where he founded Megalopolis,
making it the center of the newly formed (anti-Spartan)
Arcadian League. In 366, he again raided Spartan terri-
tory, liberating the Achaeans from Spartan control and
bringing them into the Arcadian League. In 362 b.c.,
when Sparta founded the Spartan League to counter the
Arcadian League, Epaminondas gathered his army and
advanced against the Spartan army at Mantinea. Utiliz-
ing his cavalry and phalanx (heavily armed infantry in
close formation), he again won a decisive victory against
the Spartans. However, he was fatally wounded during
the battle and died before his triumph could be savored.
Some historians claim that he was killed by Gryllus, the
son of Xenophon, but this cannot be confirmed.
Thebes’s chances of empire died with Epaminondas.
His tactics were later studied and improved by Philip
II of Macedon and his son, alexander the great.
Historian James Lucas sums up Epaminondas’s legacy:
“Until his defeat of Sparta at Leuctra in 371 b.c., Epa-
minondas was best known as a private citizen involved in
the fringe of Theban politics. After the battle, however,
he was recognized as the greatest of Greek generals.”References: “Epaminondas and Leuctra,” in The Penguin
Dictionary of Ancient History, edited by Graham Speake
(London: Penguin Books, 1995), 233–234; Cawkwell,
George L., “Epaminondas and Thebes,” Classical Quar-
terly 66 (1972), 254–278; William Stearns Davis, Read-
ings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources,
2 vols. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon 1912–13), II:279–284;
Anderson, John Kinloch, Military Theory and Practice in
the Age of Xenophon (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1970); “Epaminondas,” in Command: From Alex-
ander the Great to Zhukov—The Greatest Commanders of
World History, edited by James Lucas (London: Blooms-
bury Publishing, 1988), 38–39.Essex, Robert Devereux, third earl of (1591–
1646) English general
The son and namesake of the second earl of Essex, who
was executed for treason in 1601, Robert Devereux was
born in London in January 1591. His father’s execution
when he was just 10 years of age left an emotional scar
on him that never healed, and he was forced to apply0 eSSex, RobeRt DeveReux, thiRD eARl oF