History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗

the

Arcadians in their league to follow close after them to Tegea, and,

going on themselves as far as Orestheum, from thence sent back the

sixth part of the Spartans, consisting of the oldest and youngest men,

to guard their homes, and with the rest of their army arrived at

Tegea; where their Arcadian allies soon after joined them. Meanwhile

they sent to Corinth, to the Boeotians, the Phocians, and Locrians,

with orders to come up as quickly as possible to Mantinea. These had

but short notice; and it was not easy except all together, and after

waiting for each other, to pass through the enemy’s country, which lay

right across and blocked up the line of communication. Nevertheless

they made what haste they could. Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians with the

Arcadian allies that had joined them, entered the territory of

Mantinea, and encamping near the temple of Heracles began to plunder

the country.

 

Here they were seen by the Argives and their allies, who immediately

took up a strong and difficult position, and formed in order of

battle. The Lacedaemonians at once advanced against them, and came

on within a stone’s throw or javelin’s cast, when one of the older

men, seeing the enemy’s position to be a strong one, hallooed to

Agis that he was minded to cure one evil with another; meaning that he

wished to make amends for his retreat, which had been so much

blamed, from Argos, by his present untimely precipitation. Meanwhile

Agis, whether in consequence of this halloo or of some sudden new idea

of his own, quickly led back his army without engaging, and entering

the Tegean territory, began to turn off into that of Mantinea the

water about which the Mantineans and Tegeans are always fighting, on

account of the extensive damage it does to whichever of the two

countries it falls into. His object in this was to make the Argives

and their allies come down from the hill, to resist the diversion of

the water, as they would be sure to do when they knew of it, and

thus to fight the battle in the plain. He accordingly stayed that

day where he was, engaged in turning off the water. The Argives and

their allies were at first amazed at the sudden retreat of the enemy

after advancing so near, and did not know what to make of it; but when

he had gone away and disappeared, without their having stirred to

pursue him, they began anew to find fault with their generals, who had

not only let the Lacedaemonians get off before, when they were so

happily intercepted before Argos, but who now again allowed them to

run away, without any one pursuing them, and to escape at their

leisure while the Argive army was leisurely betrayed.

The generals, half-stunned for the moment, afterwards led them

down from the hill, and went forward and encamped in the plain, with

the intention of attacking the enemy.

 

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 Lacedaemonians returning from the water to their old encampment by

the temple of Heracles, suddenly saw their adversaries close in

front of them, all in complete order, and advanced from the hill. A

shock like that of the present moment the Lacedaemonians do not ever

remember to have experienced: there was scant time for preparation, as

they instantly and hastily fell into their ranks, Agis, their king,

directing everything, agreeably to the law. 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. In short

all orders required pass in the same way and quickly reach the troops;

as almost the whole Lacedaemonian army, save for a small part,

consists of officers under officers, and the care of what is to be

done falls upon many.

 

In this battle the left wing was composed of the Sciritae, who in

a Lacedaemonian army have always that post to themselves alone; next

to these were the soldiers of Brasidas from Thrace, and the Neodamodes

with them; then came the Lacedaemonians themselves, company after

company, with the Arcadians of Heraea at their side. After these

were the Maenalians, and on the right wing the Tegeans with a few of

the Lacedaemonians at the extremity; their cavalry being posted upon

the two wings. Such was the Lacedaemonian formation. That of their

opponents was as follows: On the right were the Mantineans, the action

taking place in their country; next to them the allies from Arcadia;

after whom came the thousand picked men of the Argives, to whom the

state had given a long course of military training at the public

expense; next to them the rest of the Argives, and after them their

allies, the Cleonaeans and Orneans, and lastly the Athenians on the

extreme left, and lastly the Athenians on the extreme left, and

their own cavalry with them.

 

Such were the order and the forces of the two combatants. The

Lacedaemonian army looked the largest; though as to putting down the

numbers of either host, or of the contingents composing it, I could

not do so with any accuracy. Owing to the secrecy of their

government the number of the Lacedaemonians was not known, and men are

so apt to brag about the forces of their country that the estimate

of their opponents was not trusted. The following calculation,

however, makes it possible to estimate the numbers of the

Lacedaemonians present upon this occasion. There were seven

companies in the field without counting the Sciritae, who numbered six

hundred men: in each company there were four Pentecostyes, and in

the Pentecosty four Enomoties. The first rank of the Enomoty was

composed of four soldiers: as to the depth, although they had not been

all drawn up alike, but as each captain chose, they were generally

ranged eight deep; the first rank along the whole line, exclusive of

the Sciritae, consisted of four hundred and forty-eight men.

 

The armies being now on the eve of engaging, each contingent

received some words of encouragement from its own commander. The

Mantineans were, reminded that they were going to fight for their

country and to avoid returning to the experience of servitude after

having tasted that of empire; the Argives, that they would contend for

their ancient supremacy, to regain their once equal share of

Peloponnese of which they had been so long deprived, and to punish

an enemy and a neighbour for a thousand wrongs; the Athenians, of

the glory of gaining the honours of the day with so many and brave

allies in arms, and that a victory over the Lacedaemonians in

Peloponnese would cement and extend their empire, and would besides

preserve Attica from all invasions in future. These were the

incitements addressed to the Argives and their allies. The

Lacedaemonians meanwhile, man to man, and with their war-songs in

the ranks, exhorted each brave comrade to remember what he had

learnt before; well aware that the long training of action was of more

saving virtue than any brief verbal exhortation, though never so

well delivered.

 

After this they joined battle, the Argives and their allies

advancing with haste and fury, the Lacedaemonians slowly and to the

music of many flute-players—a standing institution in their army,

that has nothing to do with religion, but is meant to make them

advance evenly, stepping in time, without break their order, as

large armies are apt to do in the moment of engaging.

 

Just before the battle joined, King Agis resolved upon the following

manoeuvre. All armies are alike in this: on going into action they get

forced out rather on their right wing, and one and the other overlap

with this adversary’s left; because fear makes each man do his best to

shelter his unarmed side with the shield of the man next him on the

right, thinking that the closer the shields are locked together the

better will he be protected. The man primarily responsible for this is

the first upon the right wing, who is always striving to withdraw from

the enemy his unarmed side; and the same apprehension makes the rest

follow him. On the present occasion the Mantineans reached with

their wing far beyond the Sciritae, and the Lacedaemonians and Tegeans

still farther beyond the Athenians, as their army was the largest.

Agis, afraid of his left being surrounded, and thinking that the

Mantineans outflanked it too far, ordered the Sciritae and

Brasideans to move out from their place in the ranks and make the line

even with the Mantineans, and told the Polemarchs Hipponoidas and

Aristocles to fill up the gap thus formed, by throwing themselves into

it with two companies taken from the right wing; thinking that his

right would still be strong enough and to spare, and that the line

fronting the Mantineans would gain in solidity.

 

However, as he gave these orders in the moment of the onset, and

at short notice, it so happened that Aristocles and Hipponoidas

would not move over, for which offence they were afterwards banished

from Sparta, as having been guilty of cowardice; and the enemy

meanwhile closed before the Sciritae (whom Agis on seeing that the two

companies did not move over ordered to return to their place) had time

to fill up the breach in question. Now it was, however, that the

Lacedaemonians, utterly worsted in respect of skill, showed themselves

as superior in point of courage. As soon as they came to close

quarters with the enemy, the Mantinean right broke their Sciritae

and Brasideans, and, bursting in with their allies and the thousand

picked Argives into the unclosed breach in their line, cut up and

surrounded the Lacedaemonians, and drove them in full rout to the

wagons, slaying some of the older men on guard there. But the

Lacedaemonians, worsted in this part of the field, with the rest of

their army, and especially the centre, where the three hundred

knights, as they are called, fought round King Agis, fell on the older

men of the Argives and the five companies so named, and on the

Cleonaeans, the Orneans, and the Athenians next them, and instantly

routed them; the greater number not even waiting to strike a blow, but

giving way the moment that they came on, some even being trodden under

foot, in their fear of being overtaken by their assailants.

 

The army of the Argives and their allies, having given way in this

quarter, was now completely cut in two, and the Lacedaemonian and

Tegean right simultaneously closing round the Athenians with the

troops that outflanked them, these last found themselves placed

between two fires, being surrounded on one side and already defeated

on the other. Indeed they would have suffered more severely than any

other part of the army, but for the services of the cavalry which they

had with them. Agis also on perceiving the distress of his left

opposed to the Mantineans and the thousand Argives, ordered all the

army to advance to the support of the defeated wing; and while this

took place, as the enemy moved past and slanted away from them, the

Athenians escaped at their leisure, and with them the beaten Argive

division. Meanwhile the Mantineans and their allies and the picked

body of the Argives ceased to press the enemy, and seeing their

friends defeated and the Lacedaemonians in full advance upon them,

took to flight. Many of the Mantineans perished; but the bulk of the

picked body of the Argives made good their escape. The flight and

retreat, however, were neither hurried nor long; the Lacedaemonians

fighting long and stubbornly until the rout of their enemy,