Epaminondas

{{Infobox/warrior|image = |weapons = Theban short sword,theban spear,javelin,hoplon shield}|origin = Ancient Greece|activities = Theban commander|service = adult life|gallery = gallery|status = will battle Leonidas|}}"How he came he to have so much leisure as to die, when there was so much stirring?"

- Plutarch Epaminondas (died 362 BC) was a Theban general and statesman of the 4th century BC who transformed the ancient city-satate of Thebes, leading it out of Spartan subjucation to a preeminent position of Greek politics. In the process he broke Spartan military power with his victory at Leuctra and liberated the Messenian helots, a group of Peloponnesian Greeks who had been enslaved under Spartan rule for over 230 years, having been defeated in the Messenian War, ending in 600 BC. Epaminondas reshaped the political map of Greece, fragmenting old alliances, created new ones, and supervised the construction of entire cities.

The Roman orater Cicero called him "the First Man of Greece", and Montaigne judged him one of the three "worthiest and excellent men " that ever lived, but Epaminondas had fallen into relative obscurity in modern times. The changes Epaminondas wrought on the Greek political order did not long outlive him, and the cycle of shifting hegemonies and alliances continued unabated. A mere twenty-seven years after his death, a recalcitrate Thebes was obliterated by Alexander the Great. Thus Epaminondas--who who had been praised at his time as an idealist and a liberator--is today largely remembered for a decade (372-362 BC) of campaigning that sapped the strength of the greal land powers of Greece and paved the way for Macedonian conquest

==Battle vs Leonidas<spanuser:impaler5150