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In my opinion this action was in no way inferior to any of the battles fought by the Athenians in former times; for neither the victory at Marathon nor the success over the Persians at Plataea nor the other renowned exploits of the Athenians seem in any way to surpass the victory which Myronides won over the Boeotians. [2] For of those other battles, some were fought against barbarians and others were gained with the aid of allies, but this struggle was won by the Athenians single-handed in pitched battle, and they were pitted against the bravest warriors to be found among the Greeks. [3] For in staunchness in the face of perils and in the fierce contests of war the Boeotians are generally believed to be surpassed by no other people; at any rate, sometime after this the Thebans at Leuctra and Mantineia,1 when they unaided confronted all the Lacedaemonians and their allies, won for themselves the highest reputation for courage, and contrary to expectation became the leading nation of all Greece. [4] And yet, although this battle of Myronides has become famous, none of our historians has described either the way it was fought or the disposition of the troops engaged in it.2 Myronides, then, after defeating the Boeotians in a remarkable battle, came to rival the reputations of the most renowned commanders before his time, namely, Themistocles, Miltiades, and Cimon. [5] Myronides after this victory took Tanagra by siege, levelled its walls, and then he passed through all Boeotia, breaking it up and destroying it,3 and dividing the booty among his soldiers he loaded them all down with spoil in abundance.

1 In 371 and 362 B.C. respectively.

2 Thucydides (Thuc. 1.108) mentions the battle of Tanagra (supra, chap. 80) and that of Oenophyta (supra, chap 83), but not this engagement, and the authority of Diodorus' account is questioned generally by modern historians. What Diodorus did was to mistake two accounts of the same battle (of Oenophyta) for two battles (cp. Busolt, Griech. Gesch. 3. 1, p. 319).

3 This refers to the dissolution of the Boeotian League, under the hegemony of Thebes, which had just been re-established by the Spartans (chap. 81.3).

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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