The general war in Greece is ended at a Panhellenic peace conference in 371 BCE (which, in fact, results in another King's Peace), but Sparta and Athens combine to refuse recognition to the Theban federation by insisting that each city of Boeotia should be a separate party to the treaty, while Thebes claims that its federation should be treated as a single unit.

Epaminondas, who is boeotarch (one of the five magistrates of the federation), maintains this position, even when it leads to the exclusion of Thebes from the peace treaty.

The Spartans have an army stationed on Thebes's western frontier, waiting to follow up their diplomatic success by a crushing military attack.

After a breach in the negotiations, signaled by a rhetorical duel between Epaminondas (“a man famous for culture and philosophy,” as his fellow Boeotian Plutarch will describe him half a millennium later) and Agesilaus, who refuses to recognize him as the representative of all Boeotia, the Spartans, led by their other king, Cleombrotus, invade.