Editing Epaminondas (section)

====Trial====
In order to accomplish all that he wished in the Peloponnesus, Epaminondas had persuaded his fellow Boeotarchs to remain in the field for several months after their term of office had expired. Upon his return home, Epaminondas was therefore greeted not with a hero's welcome but with a trial arranged by his political enemies. According to Cornelius Nepos, in his defense Epaminondas merely requested that, if he be executed, the inscription regarding the verdict read:{{sfn|Nepos|1790|p=146}} <blockquote> Epaminondas was punished by the Thebans with death, because he obliged them to overthrow the Lacedaemonians at Leuctra, whom, before he was general, none of the Boeotians durst look upon in the field, and because he not only, by one battle, rescued Thebes from destruction, but also secured liberty for all Greece, and brought the power of both people to such a condition, that the Thebans attacked Sparta, and the Lacedaemonians were content if they could save their lives; nor did he cease to prosecute the war, till, after settling Messene, he shut up Sparta with a close siege.</blockquote> The jury broke into laughter, the charges were dropped, and Epaminondas was re-elected as Boeotarch for the next year.{{refn|1=Certain modern scholars do not believe that an actual trial took place.{{sfn|Stylianou|1998|pp=469{{ndash}}470}}|group=note}}