But he
introduces it in a very bold and abrupt way, such as cannot be
conformable to the reality. To raise a question about the right of
Sparta to govern Laconia was a most daring novelty. A courageous and
patriotic Theban might venture upon it as a retort against those
Spartans who questioned the right of Thebes to her presidency of
Boeotia; but he would never do so without assigning his reasons to
justify an assertion so startling to a large portion of his hearers.
The reasons which I here ascribe to Epameinondas are such as we know
to have formed the Theban creed, in reference to the Boeotian cities;
such as were actually urged by the Theban orator in 427 B.C., when the
fate of the Plataean captives was under discussion. After Epameinondas
had once laid out the reasons in support of his assertion, he might
then, if the same brief question were angrily put to him a second
time, meet it with another equally brief counter-question or retort.
It is this final interchange of thrusts which Plutarch has given,
omitting the arguments previously stated by Epameinondas, and
necessary to warrant the seeming paradox which he advances. We must
recollect that Epameinondas does not contend that Thebes was entitled
to _as much power_ in Boeotia as Sparta in Laconia. He only contends
that Boeotia, under the presidency of Thebes, was as much an integral
political aggregate, as Laconia under Sparta--in reference to the
Grecian world.
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