the gymnasia he would bid them lay hold of the
Lacedaemonians and wrestle with them, and then seeing them pluming
themselves on their success, he would upbraid them, telling them that
they ought rather to feel ashamed at being, through their own
cowardice, in bondage to men whom they so greatly excelled in
strength.

VIII. When a day was fixed on for the attempt, the exiles determined
that Pherenikus, with the main body, should remain in the Thriasian[6]
plain, while a few of the youngest men ran the risk of entering the
city; and if anything were to befall these men, the others would take
care that neither their parents nor their children should want for
necessaries. First Pelopidas volunteered for the attempt, then Mellon
and Damokleides and Theopompus, men of the first families, faithful
friends to one another, and ever rivals in glory and bravery. Having
made up a party of twelve in all, and embraced those who were to stay,
and sent a messenger before them to Charon, they set out, dressed in
short cloaks, with hounds and carrying stakes for hunting nets, so
that no one whom they met on the road might suspect them, but that
they might seem to be merely ranging about the country and hunting.
When their messenger reached Charon, and told him that they were on
their way, Charon did not, even now that the danger was close to him,
falter in his determination, but acted like an honourable man, and
received them into his house. But one Hipposthenides, not a bad man,
but one who loved his country and favoured the exiles, yet proved
wanting in that audacity which this emergency, a hazardous one indeed,
and the attempt they had in hand, required.

Apparently the importance of the issue with which he was dealing
turned him dizzy; he with difficulty grasped the idea that, trusting
in the desperate hopes of exiles, these men were in some fashion
about to attempt to overthrow the Lacedaemonian government in Thebes,
and the power of Sparta. He went quietly home, and sent one of his
friends to Mellon and Pelopidas, bidding them put off their design for
the present, to go back to Athens, and await a better opportunity.
Chlidon was the name of the messenger, and he hurriedly went to his
own house, and, leading out his horse, asked for his bridle. His wife
was at her wit's end, as she had it not to give him, but she said that
she had lent it to a neighbour. Hereupon there was a quarrel, and
words of ill omen were used, for his wife s