Glued Linen Armour- a simple test

[Paralus]

The Reader's Digest abridged version of the epitomised Plutarch Epaminondas is Paus 9.13 - 9.15.6.

Is it generally accepted that Pausanias drew his information from Plutarch?

It has been thought so. The information, of necessity, was drawn from some source(s) and the notion that it is largely a curt summary of Plutarch rises and falls like the tides. A little in the same fashion as the "high" or "low" chronologies for events immediately after Alexander's death (down to 308). Just on which, the debate has been settled by Boiy and Stylianou: both are correct - in parts - the crucial period 319-315 definitely "high".

He is variously killed by an Athenian horseman, perhaps Xenophon's son, in Pausanias, by (inexplicably) thrown spears in Diodorus, and by a Spartan sword thrust in Plutarch.

Nepos has the thrown spear; Diodorus simply has him mortally wounded by a spear - it is Epaminondas who "hurls his javelin" - this whilst "missiles" flew about him. It is likely several versions of his death were in circulation and that Diodorus has compressed the description of the battle in his source (missiles are unlikely to be flying about the heavily engaged phalanxes at this stage). Diodorus is almost certainly summarising Ephorus for this material (whose obituary notice he is generally agreed to have preserved at 15.88). Ephorus, one thinks, would see an heroic end to Thebes greatest statesman and so the great general dies the hoplite's death with a dory in his chest. It might just as easily have been down to swords by this stage.