Thucydides on the Battle of Mantinea (418 BCE)
Battle of Mantinea (418 BCE): important battle, in which Sparta restored its reputation as superpower, by defeating a coalition of Argos, Mantinea, and Elis, supported by Athens.
In the spring of 421, the Athenians and Spartans concluded the Peace of Nicias. After eight years of fighting and an uneasy truce of two years, the Archidamian War was over. Sparta, which had gone to war "to liberate Greece" had not succeeded in dissolving Athens' Delian League had had, in one word, lost. Even worse, its reputation of invincibility was destroyed when 292 Spartans surrendered at Sphacteria, and it appeared to have abandoned its allies Thebes, Megara, and Corinth, which were deeply disappointed: whereas they had suffered most, Sparta gave up first.
In the next years, Athens concluded a new alliance with the democratic states on the Peloponnese: Argos, Mantinea, and Elis. In 418, the Spartans attacked the allies, and forced Athens to choose between either its Spartan alliance (which meant abandoning its allies), or its treaty with Argos, Mantinea, and Elis (and risking an open war with Sparta in its backyard). As it turned out, Athens preferred the second option, and when the Spartan king Agis II marched to the north, the Athenians supported the democrats. In 418, a battle was fought at Mantinea, and the Spartan king Agis defeated his enemies. Now, Athens and the democratic were discredited.
Thucydides describes the fight. His account is a classical description of a hoplite battle. The translation of History of the Peloponnesian War 5.66-74 was made by Richard Crawley.
The Battle of Mantinea (418 BCE) |
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[5.66.1] The next day the Argives and their allies formed in the order in which they meant to fight, if they chanced to encounter the enemy; and the Spartans [...] suddenly saw their adversaries close in front of them, all in complete order, and advanced from the hill. |
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[5.66.4] In short all orders required pass in the same way and quickly reach the troops; as almost the whole Spartan army, save for a small part, consists of officers underofficers, and the care of what is to be done falls upon many. |
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[5.66.3] For when a king is in the field all commands proceed from him: he gives the word to the polemarchs; they to the lochages; these to the pentecostyes; these again to the enomotarchs, and these last to the enomoties.note |
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[5.66.2] A shock like that of the present moment the Spartans do not ever remember to have experienced. There was scant time for preparation, as they instantly and hastily fell into their ranks, their king Agis directing everything, according to their law. |
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