Epaminondas

Epaminondas (ca.

418 BCE – 362 BCE), or Epameinondas, is a Theban general and statesman of the 4th century BCE who transforms the Ancient Greek city-state of Thebes, leading it out of Spartan subjugation into a preeminent position in Greek politics.

In the process he breaks Spartan military power with his victory at Leuctra and liberates the Messenian helots, a group of Peloponnesian Greeks who had been enslaved under Spartan rule for some 230 years, having been defeated in the Messenian War ending in 600 BCE.

Epaminondas reshapes the political map of Greece, fragments old alliances, creates new ones, and supervises the construction of entire cities.

He is militarily influential as well, inventing and implementing several major battlefield tactics.

The Roman orator Cicero called him "the first man of Greece", but Epaminondas has fallen into relative obscurity in modern times.

The changes Epaminondas wrought on the Greek political order did not long outlive him, as the cycle of shifting hegemonies and alliances continued unabated.

A mere twenty-seven years after his death, a recalcitrant Thebes was obliterated by Alexander the Great.

Thus Epaminondas—who had been praised in his time as an idealist and liberator—is today largely remembered for a decade (371 BCE to 362 BCE) of campaigning that sapped the strength of the great land powers of Greece and paved the way for the Macedonian conquest.

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