In Pausanias ' recounting, Hera sent witches ( as they were called by the Thebans ) to hinder Alcmene's delivery of Heracles.

When, in the immediate aftermath of Leuctra, the Thebans had sent a herald to Athens with news of their victory, the messenger was met with stony silence.

After an abortive attack on Corinth and the arrival of a task force sent by Dionysius of Syracuse to aid Sparta, the Thebans decided to march home.

On learning that Athens had accepted the alliance, the Thebans sent an army against Plataea, but were met by an Athenian one.

The Spartans also sent a large force led by King Cleombrotus I ( Spartans have two kings simultaneously ) to Phocis, ready to invade Boeotia if the Thebans refuse to attend the peace conference or accept its terms.

After the battle, the Thebans immediately sent a herald to Athens, naively believing that Athens would be overjoyed at the defeat of their old rivals.

The Thebans also sent a herald to their Thessalian ally, Jason of Pherae.

In what Cawkwell describes as his proudest moment, Demosthenes alone counseled against despair, and proposed that the Athenians should seek an alliance with the Thebans ; his decree was passed, and he was sent as ambassador.

Philip had also sent an embassy to Thebes, requesting that the Thebans join him, or at least allow him to pass through Boeotia unhindered.

The Athenian army had already pre-emptively been sent in the direction of Boeotia, and was therefore able to join the Thebans within days of the alliance being agreed.

Archidamus headed the force sent to aid the Spartan army after its defeat by the Thebans at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC and was commander later during the fighting in the Peloponnese.

In 480 BC a small force of Spartans, Thespians, and Thebans led by King Leonidas ( approximately 300 were full Spartiates, 700 were Thespians, and 400 were Thebans although these numbers do not reflect casualties incurred prior to the final battle ), made a legendary last stand at the Battle of Thermopylae against the massive Persian army, inflicting very high casualties on the Persian forces before finally being encircled.

The Spartans, unwilling to engage the massive Theban army in battle, remain inside their city while the Thebans and their allies ravage Laconia.

When news of the uprising at Thebes reached Sparta, an army under Cleombrotus had been dispatched to subdue the city, but turned back without engaging the Thebans.

Another army under Agesilaus II was then dispatched to attack the Thebans.

However, the Thebans refused to meet the Spartan army in battle, instead building a trench and stockade outside Thebes, which they occupied, preventing the Spartans advancing on the city.

The Spartans, unwilling to engage the massive army in battle, simply defended their city, which the Thebans did not attempt to capture.

Rather than take the expected, easy route into Boeotia through the usual defile, the Spartans marched over the hills via Thisbae and took the fortress of Creusis ( along with twelve Theban warships ) before the Thebans were aware of their presence and then proceeded to Leuctra where they were confronted by the Boeotian army.

The arrival of a Thessalian army under Jason of Pherae persuaded a relieving Spartan force under Archidamus not to heap folly on folly and to withdraw instead, while the Thebans were persuaded not to continue the attack on the surviving Spartans.

He prudently advocated that Cleombrotus ' army be disbanded while they give the Thebans a chance to back down.

Cleombrotus ' army crossed the Phocian-Boeotian border into Chaeronea then halted, perhaps hoping that the Thebans might change their mind.

So instead of helping the Thebans fight the reinforced Spartan army, he instead negotiated a truce with Archidamus.

As often happened in hoplite battles, the right flank of each army was victorious, with the Spartans defeating the Athenians while the Thebans, Argives, and Corinthians defeated the various Peloponnesians opposite them ; the Spartans then attacked and killed a number of Argives, Corinthians, and Thebans as these troops returned from pursuing the defeated Peloponnesians.

The next morning, Agesilaus ordered the polemarch Gylis to put the army in battle formation and gave out awards for valour, received a delegation from the Thebans and allowed them to collect their dead.

Son of Pausanias, he became king of Sparta after the death of his brother Agesipolis I in 380 BC, and led the allied Spartan-Peloponnesian army against the Thebans under Epaminondas in the Battle of Leuctra.

The Thebans are said to have had one such regiment as the core of their entire army.

At Leuctra, in Boeotia, the Thebans comprehensively defeated an invading Spartan army.

This novel technique worked wonders, as the Thebans rapidly broke through the Athenian left, and moved to encircle the rest of the Athenian army.

The fighting at Leuctra opened with a clash between the cavalry, in which the Thebans were victorious over the inferior Spartan cavalry, driving them back into the ranks of the infantry, and thereby disrupting the phalanx.

As they journeyed into Arcadia, the Thebans were joined by armed contingents from many of Sparta's former allies, swelling their forces to some 50 – 70, 000 men.

Thucydides tells that in April 431 BC, an armed force of 300 Thebans commanded by two leading Theban generals / politicians were admitted after dark on a stormy moonless night into Plataea by two private citizens who expected the Theban force to immediately capture and kill the democratic leaders and bring Plataea into alliance with Thebes.

According to Plutarch, upon seeing the Spartans, one of Thebans allegedly told Pelopidas " We are fallen into our enemy's hands ;" to which Pelopidas replied, " And why not they into ours?

The Battle of Coronea in 394 BC was a battle in the Corinthian War, in which the Spartans and their allies under King Agesilaus II defeated a force of Thebans and Argives that was attempting to block their march back into the Peloponnese.

Consequently, the Thebans had marched south, into the area traditionally dominated by the Spartans, and set up the Arcadian League, a federation of city-states of the central Peloponnesian plateau, to contain Spartan influence in the Peloponnese and thereby maintain overall Theban control.

However, the Athenians and Thebans had either forgotten the existence of this road, or believed that Philip would not use it ; the subsequent failure to guard this road allowed Philip to slip into central Greece unhindered.

Frustrated by the perennial belligerence and bullying of the Thebans, the Eleuthereans turned to Athens and volunteered to give up their independence in exchange for incorporation into the Athenian polis.

Sensing that his victorious Thebans could not outflank the enemy before the Athenian right broke into his rear, Pagondas chose to do something utterly unprecedented in the annals of Greek warfare.

Nevertheless, the use of the cavalry reserve broke the Athenian right and, because the Thebans had by now moved into the Athenian rear, caused a general Athenian rout.

In history, it was more famous as the home of the fourth-century tyrants Jason and Alexander of Pherae, who took control of much of Thessaly before their defeat by the Thebans.

At Cynoscephalae, the Thebans defeated Alexander, but Pelopidas was killed ;.

In the Theban assembly the next day, Epaminondas and Gorgidas bring Pelopidas and his men before the audience and exhort the Thebans to fight for their freedom.

Pelopidas retreats with his force, but before the Thebans can reach safety at Tegyra, they meet the original Spartan garrison returning from Locris.

* Theban leader Pelopidas goes on an embassy to the Persian king Artaxerxes II and induces him to propose a settlement of the Greek states ' disputes according to the wishes of the Thebans.

In the years following the Spartan takeover, the exiled Thebans regrouped in Athens and, at the instigation of Pelopidas, prepared to liberate their city.

The following day, Epaminondas and Gorgidas brought Pelopidas and his men before the Theban assembly and exhorted the Thebans to fight for their freedom ; the assembly responded by acclaiming Pelopidas and his men as liberators.

In 367 BC Pelopidas went on an embassy to the Persian king and induced him to prescribe a settlement of Greece according to the wishes of the Thebans.

Pelopidas, however was killed at Cynoscephalae, in battle against troops from Pherae ( though the battle was actually won by the Thebans ).