Plutarch, a Greek writer living under Rome, made Parallel Lives: paired biographies of famous Greeks and Romans. This life is Pelopidas of Thebes, a city in what is now central Greece. When Pelopidas was young, Thebes was a Spartan possession with a local puppet government. Plutarch pairs him with the Roman Marcellus: two soldiers of dash, both killed in the field.

Pelopidas came back from exile in a hunting cloak, slipped into the city, and killed the collaborators at a drinking party. With his friend Epaminondas he formed the Sacred Band, three hundred picked men, and broke the legend that Sparta could not be beaten, at Tegyra and then at Leuctra. He went north against a Thessalian tyrant, was taken, was freed, and died charging too far ahead of the line. Thebes buried him as the man who had taught Lacedaemon — Sparta — that it could lose. You are walking into a short life of nerve, friendship, and a death that matches the style.