Pammenes can be seen as a link between the time of the Theban ascendancy and the victory of Philip II of Macedonia over the Greek states. He continued the foreign policies of Epaminondas and Pelopidas, the first fruits of which Philip harvested at the end of the Sacred War. The tie between Pammenes and Philip began in 369, only two years after the battle of Leuctra and at a time when the Thebans stood at the height of their power. In this summer Pelopidas first undertook a victorious campaign in Thessaly and later in Macedonia, where King Alexander II defended his crown against the usurper Ptolemy, who would later become regent. In return for Theban support, Alexander II sent his brother Philip, the future king of Macedonia, and other nobles as hostages to Thebes. Philip, then a young man, dwelt with Pammenes, where he doubtless occasionally met Epaminondas and Pelopidas. Pammenes, himself a young man, was nonetheless old enough to command a unit of Boeotian soldiers in Epaminondas' second campaign in the Peloponnesus, where he captured through a ruse the harbor of Sicyon. Having publicly won Epaminondas' and Pelopidas' trust, he also shared their concept of Theban foreign policy. At the same time he gave the young Philip, by his stay in Pammenes' house, his first intimate instruction in Greek politics.

Pammenes' next opportunity to further Epaminondas' foreign policy came in the campaigning season after the battle of Mantinea.