Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece - Chapter 738

[Chapter 84 The Thebes Incident (2)]

For more than a year after that, the exiles died down. Although the team continued to grow, they did not fight again. Instead, the fighting spirit was wiped out by time.

Pelopidas has always been concerned about the trend in the west: the rulers of Thebes had the support of the Spartans, and they went backwards and imposed high-pressure rule on the city-state. The people were miserable and complained; The other city-states also surrendered to Sparta…

The strong sense of responsibility made Pelopidas unable to bear it any longer. He decided to take immediate action. Because he was afraid of leaking the secret, he did not discuss with the other leaders of the exiles, but In private, he found six like-minded friends to help him implement his long-thought-about “recovery of Thebes plan”.

Disguised as hunters, they set off from the border of Athens early in the morning, hurried over mountains and mountains, and kept on their way. When they reached the outside of Thebes, night was approaching, so they mixed with the peasants who returned from the field to the city. Passed the city gate, then hid in the residence of his good friend Charon, and asked Charon to send slaves to call another good friend of his, Philidas, the secretary under the military consul.

After a few discussions, the banquet was held the next night.

Now that they have successfully killed two pro-Spartan military consuls, Pelopidas just breathed a sigh of relief, and Philidas raised the letter in his hand anxiously: “Pelopidas , the situation is not good! Someone noticed our plan and wrote a letter to inform us!”

Pelopidas hurriedly took the letter and read it, the content of the letter was to warn Achias: There are exiles sneaking into the city, trying to attack the relatives The leaders of the Bada faction assassinated, reminding him to be careful!

Pelopidas changed his face and hurriedly asked: “Who wrote it?

”

!

Philidas shook his head: ”

There was no signature on the letter, and the messenger left immediately after delivering the letter. It can be seen that this person is not a friend of Azias. Maybe he is just an ordinary city-state official who accidentally saw it in the city.” You…” After all, Pelopidas, although young, was still somewhat famous among the people of Thebes.

“What should we do now?!” Several others looked nervous and looked at Pelopidas.

Pelopidas calmed down at the moment, and he said with a resolute expression: “Didn’t we make a wish to Zeus when we set off and are ready to sacrifice! The matter has already progressed, do we still have to retreat halfway! We We should speed up our actions, and quickly complete our plan before the enemy may know the situation!”

Pelopidas’ words gave the others a boost, and everyone quickly reached a consensus, taking advantage of the night to leave the mansion, Go to the home of the two true leaders of the pro-Spartan faction, Leontiadas and Hypatas.

The lascivious Hypatas was spending the night in a high-class brothel in the city. Charon had already bribed the brothel’s people, and the exiles easily entered the bedroom and stabbed him to death.

Leontiadas is not as careless as his colleagues, he never goes out at night, and the mansion is guarded by guards, and the defense is relatively strict.

But Pelopidas had an assassination plan in his heart. He had not been idle for more than a year on the border of Athens. He asked Charon in Thebes to find an opportunity to contact these guards, and finally persuaded them. Some of the guards who hated Sparta poured wine on their comrades that night and quietly opened the gate to Pelopidas.

Leontiadas was still sound asleep when Pelopidas entered the bedroom.

Pelopidas covered his mouth with his hand and stabbed a sharp dagger into his heart, the cunning pro-Spartan leader Leonty who caused the fall of Thebes and killed and wounded countless people Addas died just like that.

Immediately afterwards, Pelopidas rushed to the prison with some guards, pretended to be Leontiadas’ entourage, used his personal token to deceive the door, and then took advantage of it and killed all the jailers. All imprisoned rebels against Sparta were released.

They all thanked Pelopidas, but Pelopidas begged them to go to the city immediately and contact all the people who were dissatisfied with Sparta.

Everyone was happy to be ordered.

As a result, the city of Thebes became unstable in the middle of the night, and the pro-Spartans noticed the abnormality, but they were completely unable to contact their own leaders, so they could not respond in time.

And the Spartans in the acropolis did not dare to act rashly in the dark because no one informed them, they did not know what happened in the city, and they could only guard the city.

As soon as dawn broke, the whole city of Thebes was boiling.

Most of the people in the city rushed to the square, and Ipaminonda was among them.

Epiminonda, like some of Pelopidas’ friends, was opposed to such a risky plan when Pelopidas wrote to him quietly of his plan, but now he saw Pelopidas standing in the square. On the central platform, when the bodies of Leontiadas and others were shown to the public, he couldn’t help but sighed at Pelopidas’ resolute and resolute action. Such a seemingly incomparably difficult task, he actually asked him to give it to him. Done!

Pelopidas recounted the various crimes committed by the Spartans and the pro-Spartans in Thebes to the people, making the people in the square feel the same, and then he made an impassioned appeal: The people of Thebes take up arms , unite and fight bravely with those traitors and invaders!

Avenge the dead compatriots and let Thebes regain its freedom and independence!

…

the people were so excited that they shouted the name of Pelopidas, and excitedly put on laurels for the insurgents who participated in this assassination plan headed by Pelopidas, and at the same time unanimously elected Pelopidas and Philidas served as military consuls.

The two accepted the appointment given by the people without hesitation, and at the same time announced the establishment of the City-State Council of 100, whose members were rotated by the citizens of Thebes every month, and established the city-state’s highest authority as the Citizens Assembly.

People raised their arms and cheered to celebrate Thebes becoming a democratic government.

Then, Pelopidas immediately gave orders to the people: take up the shield and spear, form an army, capture all the pro-Spartans, take back the acropolis occupied by the Spartan army, and at the same time defend against the most likely The Spartan army came to intervene.

The people of Thebes acted immediately, and the pro-Spartans were arrested and either killed or imprisoned. Only a few people escaped from Thebes.

When the heavily armed civic soldiers gathered in the square again, Pelopidas did not lead the army immediately, and he asked to appoint Epiminonda as the commander of the army to fight alongside him.

Many of the civic soldiers didn’t even know who Ipaminonda was, but Pelopidas was very prestigious at this time, and most of the people chose to agree with him out of their trust in him.

When they saw a middle-aged man with an ordinary appearance but a bookish spirit walking onto the platform, they couldn’t help but regret the choice they had just made.

But Pelopidas was full of joy. He knew about Ipaminonda’s abilities, so he excitedly said to him, who slowly came to the stage: “Ipa, we can finally fight together again!

” Palminonda seemed calm on the surface, but he was also very excited.

He is a humble and low-key man, and because of his aversion to factionalism, he does not participate in the series of political adventures that Pelopidas is carrying out, and he spends most of his time reading books, music and physical exercise.

But when the people chanted victory, the high revolutionary enthusiasm also infected him, not to mention that his close friends gave him so much trust, so even he knew that the new Thebes government was facing a dangerous situation. , he still said without hesitation: “I will do my best to defend Thebes with the citizens!”

Epiminonda’s first public office in the city-state was such an important position that was related to the rise and fall of the city-state. He was forty-one years old at the time.

At this moment, the citizen soldiers guarding the south gate hurriedly came to report: “A small group of Spartans came out of the acropolis, broke through their barriers and escaped from the city.”

It turned out that some pro-Spartan personnel ran into the Acropolis and reported the shocking news to the Spartan commander that “a riot broke out in the city, the pro-Spartan government has been overthrown, and the leader has been killed”. He was shocked to hear it, but he only had 400 soldiers under his command, which was too small. Without the cooperation of the Thebes, he did not dare to send them out to quell the rebellion. Even if the soldiers were all brave, it could not be several thousand. The opponent of the angry mob of Thebes, so he made a quick decision: while the riots in Thebes had just broken out and the mob had not yet completely controlled the city, he quickly sent people to force out of the city and attacked the neighboring city-states of Platia and Thebes. The Spartan garrison in Pia asked for assistance.

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The news brought by the city guards made the insurgents of the coup feel nervous.

At this time, Epiminonda, who had just been appointed as the commander of the army, volunteered: “Perro, please let me lead a force to the south gate to block the coming Spartan reinforcements, while you go to retake Acropolis!”

Peropidas

saw Ipaminonda’s firm eyes and answered without hesitation: “Okay!”

He left behind 2,000 soldiers, and the generals equipped with Ipaminonda were all his close friends, and they were more familiar with Ipaminonda, so that Ipaminonda could command more conveniently.

Ipaminonda had no time to thank him, so he hurried to the south gate with his army.

At this time, another military consul, Philidas, asked worriedly: “Can Ipaminonda stop the reinforcements of the Spartans?! Do we need to do more preparations?!”

..

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