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[3] But the Thebans alone would not agree that the ratification of the peace should be made city by city,1 but insisted that all Boeotia should be listed as subject to the confederacy of the Thebans. When the Athenians opposed this in the most contentious manner, Callistratus, their popular leader, reciting their reasons, while, on behalf of the Thebans, Epameinondas delivered the address before the general assembly with marvellous effect, the result was that though the terms of the peace were harmoniously concluded for all the other Greek states, the Thebans alone were refused participation in them2 and, through the influence of Epameinondas, who by his own personal merits inspired his fellow citizens with patriotic spirit, they were emboldened to make a stand against the decision of all the rest.

1 This peace seems to have been concluded though it did not last long. Ascribed by Beloch, Griechische Geschichte (2), 3.1.156 to the year 375/4 (see also Judeich, "Athen und Theben," Rheinisches Museum 76 (1927), 181 and his ascription in note 2 of Cephisodotus' statue of Eirene to this occasion). Cp. Xen. Hell. 6.2.1; Isoc. 15.109 f., Isoc. 14.10; Nepos Timotheus 2; Philochorus in Didymus de Demosthene 7.64 ff.

2 Beloch (l.c. note 1) thinks that Diodorus has confused this peace with the peace concluded three years later before Leuctra from which Epameinondas withdrew. Judeich (op. cit. pp. 182-183) accepts Diodorus' account of this peace of 374 and believes that Epameinondas may well have addressed the league synhedrion at Athens, to which he thinks Diodorus refers. In any case Thebes remained in the Athenian confederacy, as is shown in Isoc. 14.21; Dem. 49.14, 21, 40 ff. If Diodorus means by synhedrion an assembly of the members of the second Athenian confederacy, as Judeich seems to think, and not a general peace conference, the question arises how it happens that Callistratus addresses the assembly in which Athens by the terms of the league has no voice. Possibly we are to interpret the κοινόν as a joint meeting of the league assembly and the Athenians. But Diodorus, chap. 28.3, uses the term κοινὸν συνέδριον of the common council of the league which seems to mean the council of the allies. Callistratus may have spoken in the Athenian assembly only, while Epameinondas addressed the allies in their council.

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