Epaminondas: Encyclopedia II - Epaminondas - Historical record

Epaminondas - Historical record

Even though Epaminondas was a historically significant figure of his time there is comparatively little information about his life available to modern scholars, and no one ancient historian gives a complete picture. Some of the notable biographies include works by Nepos, Pausanias, Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus and Xenophon; not all of them have survived to the present day.

Cornelius Nepos's biography of Epaminondas was short, and a few more scraps of information can be found in Pausanias's Description of Greece. Plutarch wrote a biography, but it has been lost; however, some details of Epaminondas' life and works may be found in Plutarch's Lives of Pelopidas and Agesilaus. Within the narrative histories of the time, Diodorus Siculus preserves a few details, while Xenophon, who idolized Sparta and its king Agesilaus, avoids mentioning Epaminondas wherever possible and does not even note his presence at the Battle of Leuctra. Both narrative historians do provide details about the historical events of Epaminondas' time. Furthermore, not all of the ancient sources that deal directly with his life are considered entirely reliable. These issues may have contributed to a modern situation in which Epaminondas is virtually unknown, particularly in comparison to near-contemporaries like the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great and the Athenian general Alcibiades.^[1]

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Historical record", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki