312 HISTORY C F GREECE. vated by the fact, which we must presume to have been concur rent, that the Thebans appropriated the territory among theii own citizens. It would seem that the neighboring tcwn of Koro- neia shared the same fate ; at least the two are afterwards spoken of together in such manner as to make us suppose so. 1 Thebes thus absorbed into herself these two towns and territories to the north of her own city, as well as Plataea and Thespiae to the south. "We must recollect that during the supremacy of Sparta and the period of Theban struggle and humiliation, before the battle of Leuktra, Orchomenus had actively embraced the Spartan cause. Shortly after that victory, the Thebans had been anxious under their first impulse of resentment to destroy the city, but had been restrained by the lenient recommendations of Epaminondas. 2 All their half-suppressed wrath was revived by the conspiracy of the Orchomenian Knights ; yet the extreme severity of the pro- ceeding would never have been consummated, but for the absence of Epaminondas, who was deeply chagrined on his return. 3 He well knew the bitter censures which Thebes would draw upon herself by punishing the entire city for the conspiracy of the wealthy Knights, and in a manner even more rigorous than Pla- taea and Thespiae ; since the inhabitants of these two latter were expelled with their families out of Bosotia, while the Orchome- 1 Demosth. De Pace, p. 62, s. 21 ; Philippic. II, p. 69, s. 13 ; s. 15 ; Fals. Leg. p. 375, s. 122 ; p. 387, 8. 162 ; p. 445, s. 373. 2 Diodor. xv, 57.
- Pausan. ix, 15, 2.
Diodorns places in the same year all the three facts : 1. The maritime expedition of Epaminondas. 2. The expedition of Pelopidas into Thessaly, his death, and the following Theban victories over Alexander of Pherw. The conspiracy of the Orchomenian Knights, and the destruction of Or- chomenus. The year in which he places them is, the archonship of Timokrates, from Midsummer 364 to Midsummer 363 B. c. That the destruction of Orchomenns occurred during the absence of Epa- minondas, and that he was greatly distressed at it on his return. is dis- tinctly stated by Pausanias ; who however is (in my judgment) so far mis- taken, that he refers the absence of Epaminondas to that previous occasion when he had gone into Thessaly to rescue Pelopidas from the dungeon of Alexander, 366 B. c. This date is not so probable as the date assigned by Diodorns; nor do the chronological conceptions of Pausanias seem lo me exact
