In the battle, Epaminondas is victorious, but is killed.

However, at the Battle of Leuctra, the Theban generals, Epaminondas and Pelopidas, win a decisive victory over the Spartans under the other Spartan king, Cleombrotus I ( who is killed in the battle ).

Epaminondas evidently began serving as a soldier after adolescence ; Plutarch refers to an incident involving Epaminondas that occurred during a battle at Mantinea.

Though not explicitly stated, this was probably the Spartan attack on Mantinea in 385 BC, as described by Xenophon ; Plutarch tells us that Epaminondas was there as part of a Theban force aiding the Spartans, so this battle fits the description.

As a consistent advocate of an aggressive policy, Epaminondas wished to fight, and supported by Pelopidas, he managed to swing the vote in favour of battle.

During the course of the battle, Epaminondas was to display a grasp of tactics hitherto unseen in Greek warfare.

When, after the battle, the Spartans asked if they and the Peloponnesians could collect the dead, Epaminondas suspected that the Spartans would try to cover-up the scale of their losses.

According to Cornelius Nepos, in his defense Epaminondas merely requested that, if he be executed, the inscription regarding the verdict read: Epaminondas was punished by the Thebans with death, because he obliged them to overthrow the Lacedaemonians at Leuctra, whom, before he was general, none of the Boeotians durst look upon in the field, and because he not only, by one battle, rescued Thebes from destruction, but also secured liberty for all Greece, and brought the power of both people to such a condition, that the Thebans attacked Sparta, and the Lacedaemonians were content if they could save their lives ; nor did he cease to prosecute the war, till, after settling Messene, he shut up Sparta with a close siege.

Xenophon says that, having decided to fight, Epaminondas arranged the army into battle order, and then marched it in a column parallel to the Mantinean lines, so that it appeared that the army was marching elsewhere, and would not fight that day.

Epaminondas, who had been at the head of the column ( now the left wing ), brought some companies of infantry from the extreme right wing, behind the battle line, to reinforce the left wing.

Epaminondas then gave the order to advance, catching the enemy off guard, and causing a furious scramble in the Mantinean camp to prepare for battle.

The battle unfolded as Epaminondas had planned.

However, at the height of the battle, Epaminondas was mortally wounded by a Spartan, and died shortly thereafter.

Hornblower asserts that " it is a sign of Epaminondas political failure, even before the battle of Mantinea, that his Peloponnesian allies fought to reject Sparta rather than because of the positive attractions of Thebes ".

Initially the six Boeotian generals ( i. e. the Boeotarchs ) present were divided as to whether to offer battle, with Epaminondas being the main advocate in favor of battle.

The battle is fictionalised, though in some detail, in David Gemmell's book, Lion of Macedon, which includes the significant deviation from historical canon in that it is credited to a young Parmenio ( n ) instead of Epaminondas, who serves merely to gain permission to carry out the echelon tactic.

Most of the area of Ancient Messene contains the ruins of the large classical city-state of Messene refounded by Epaminondas in 369 BC, after the battle of Leuctra and the first Theban invasion of the Peloponnese.

Thebes won the battle, but its greatest general, Epaminondas, was killed in the fighting.

Before the battle began, Epaminondas gave permission for any of the Boeotians who were unwilling to fight to depart freely.

The battle was to decide the hegemony over Greece, but the death of Epaminondas and the defeat of the Spartans paved the way for Macedonian conquest by Phillip II of Macedon.

Epaminondas charged and routed the Spartan right wing, winning the battle.

While a captive there, Philip received a military and diplomatic education from Epaminondas, became eromenos of Pelopidas, and lived with Pammenes, who was an enthusiastic advocate of the Sacred Band of Thebes.

Epaminondas, although associated with the anti-Spartan faction, is allowed to remain.

Epaminondas of Thebes arrives with an army, finds the Spartan have retired and follows them.

There, Epaminondas starts the rebuilding of the ancient city of Messene on Mount Ithome, with fortifications that are among the strongest in Greece.

* The Theban general, Epaminondas, again invades the Peloponnesus, but this time achieves little beyond winning Sicyon over to an alliance with Thebes.

Epaminondas was one of approximately 50 ancient figures given an extensive biography by Plutarch in his Parallel Lives, in which he is paired with the Roman statesman Scipio Africanus ; however, both these " Lives " are now lost.

Epaminondas, although associated with that faction, was allowed to remain ; since " his philosophy made him to be looked down upon as a recluse, and his poverty as impotent ".

However, on the following day, Epaminondas caused a drastic break with Sparta when he insisted on signing not for the Thebans alone, but for all the Boeotians.

Epaminondas was given charge of the Boeotian army, with the other six Boeotarchs in an advisory capacity.

Instead, Epaminondas occupied himself with consolidating the Boeotian confederacy, compelling the previously Spartan-aligned polis of Orchomenus to join the league.

Epaminondas freed the helots of Messenia, and rebuilt the ancient city of Messene on Mount Ithome, with fortifications that were among the strongest in Greece.

Upon his return home, Epaminondas was therefore greeted not with a hero's welcome but with a trial arranged by his political enemies.

At the same time, however, Epaminondas managed through a series of diplomatic efforts to dismantle the Peloponnesian league: the remaining members of the league finally abandoned Sparta ( in 365 Corinth, Epidaurus, and Phlius made peace with Thebes and Argos ), and Messenia remained independent and firmly loyal to Thebes.

While pressing forward with the troops at Mantinea, Epaminondas was hit in the chest by a spear.

Epaminondas never married and as such was subject to criticism from countrymen who believed he was duty-bound to provide the country with the benefit of sons as great as himself.

All the same, if you should compare the qualities of these with the generalship and reputation of Epaminondas, you would find the qualities possessed by Epaminondas far superior ".

For all his noble qualities, Epaminondas was unable to transcend the Greek city-state system, with its endemic rivalry and warfare, and thus left Greece more war-ravaged but no less divided than he found it.

However, needing to counter the Spartans ' numerical advantage, Epaminondas implemented two tactical innovations.

Many of the tactical innovations that Epaminondas implemented would also be used by Philip of Macedon, who in his youth spent time as a hostage in Thebes and may have learned directly from Epaminondas himself.

Epaminondas had to find a way to gain tactical advantage despite the numerical superiority of the enemy.