Pelopidas (14.2-14.3)

Sphodrias, a Spartan, who had a splendid reputation as a soldier, but was rather weak in judgement and full of vain hopes and senseless ambition, had been left at Thespiae with an armed force to receive and succour the renegade Thebans. To this man Pelopidas and Gorgidas privately sent one of their friends who was a merchant, with money, and, what proved more persuasive than money with Sphodrias, this advice. He ought to put his hand to a large enterprise and seize the Piraeus, attacking it unexpectedly when the Athenians were off their guard;

for nothing would gratify the Lacedaemonians so much as the capture of Athens, and the Thebans, who were now angry with the Athenians and held them to be traitors, would give them no aid. Sphodrias was finally persuaded, and taking his soldiers, invaded Attica by night. He advanced as far as Eleusis, but there the hearts of his soldiers failed them and his design was exposed, and after having thus stirred up a serious and difficult war against the Spartans, he withdrew to Thespiae.[*]