FROM THE FESTIVAL OF OLYMPIAD NINETY DOWN TO THE BATTLE OF MANTINEIA.
Shortly after the remarkable events of the Olympic festival described
in my last chapter, the Argeians and their allies sent a fresh
embassy to invite the Corinthians to join them. They thought it a
promising opportunity, after the affront just put upon Sparta, to
prevail upon the Corinthians to desert her: but Spartan envoys were
present also, and though the discussions were much protracted, no new
resolution was adopted. An earthquake—possibly an earthquake not
real, but simulated for convenience—abruptly terminated the congress.
The Corinthians—though seemingly distrusting Argos, now that she was
united with Athens, and leaning rather towards Sparta—were unwilling
to pronounce themselves in favor of one so as to make an enemy of the
other.[93]
[93] Thucyd. v, 48-50.
In spite of this first failure, the new alliance of Athens and
Argos manifested its fruits vigorously in the ensuing spring. Under
the inspirations of Alkibiadês, Athens was about to attempt the
new experiment of seeking to obtain intra-Peloponnesian followers
and influence. At the beginning of the war, she had been maritime,
defensive, and simply conservative, under the guidance of Periklês.
After the events of Sphakteria, she made use of that great advantage
to aim at the recovery of Megara and Bœotia, which she had before
been compelled to abandon by the thirty years’ truce, at the
recommendation of Kleon. In this attempt she employed the eighth year
of the war, but with signal ill-success; while Brasidas during that
period broke open the gates of her maritime empire, and robbed her of
many important dependencies. The grand object of Athens then became,
to recover these lost dependencies, especially Amphipolis: Nikias and
his partisans sought to effect such recovery by making peace, while
Kleon and his supporters insisted that it could never be achieved
except by military efforts. The expedition under Kleon against
Amphipolis had failed, the peace concluded by Nikias had failed also:
Athens had surrendered her capital advantage, without regaining
Amphipolis; and if she wished to regain it, there was no alternative
except to repeat the attempt which had failed under Kleon. And this
perhaps she might have done, as we shall find her projecting to do in
the course of about four years forward, if it had not been, first,
that the Athenian mind was now probably sick and disheartened about
Amphipolis, in consequence of the prodigious disgrace so recently
undergone there; next, that Alkibiadês, the new chief adviser or
prime minister of Athens—if we may be allowed to use an inaccurate
expression, which yet suggests the reality of the case—was prompted
by his personal impulses to turn the stream of Athenian ardor into
a different channel. Full of antipathy to Sparta, he regarded the
interior of Peloponnesus as her most vulnerable point, especially in
the present disjointed relations of its component cities. Moreover,
his personal thirst for glory was better gratified amidst the centre
of Grecian life than by undertaking an expedition into a distant and
barbarous region: lastly, he probably recollected with discomfort
the hardships and extreme cold, insupportable to all except the iron
frame of Sokrates, which he had himself endured at the blockade of
Potidæa twelve years before,[94] and which any armament destined
to conquer Amphipolis would have to go through again. It was under
these impressions that he now began to press his intra-Peloponnesian
operations against Lacedæmon, with the view of organizing a
counter-alliance under Argos sufficient to keep her in check, and
at any rate to nullify her power of carrying invasion beyond the
Isthmus. All this was to be done without ostensibly breaking the
peace and alliance between Athens and Lacedæmon, which stood in
conspicuous letters on pillars erected in both cities.
[94] Plato, Symposion, c. 35, p. 220. δεινοὶ γὰρ αὐτόθι χειμῶνες,
πάγου οἵου δεινοτάτου, etc.
Coming to Argos at the head of a few Athenian hoplites and bowmen,
and reinforced by Peloponnesian allies, Alkibiadês exhibited the
spectacle of an Athenian general traversing the interior of the
peninsula, and imposing his own arrangements in various quarters, a
spectacle at that moment new and striking.[95] He first turned his
attention to the Achæan towns in the northwest, where he persuaded
the inhabitants of Patræ to ally themselves with Athens, and even to
undertake the labor of connecting their town with the sea by means of
long walls, so as to place themselves within the protection of Athens
from seaward. He farther projected the erection of a fort and the
formation of a naval station at the extreme point of Cape Rhium, just
at the narrow entrance of the Corinthian gulf; whereby the Athenians,
who already possessed the opposite shore by means of Naupaktus, would
have become masters of the commerce of the gulf. But the Corinthians
and Sikyonians, to whom this would have been a serious mischief,
despatched forces enough to prevent the consummation of the scheme,
and probably also to hinder the erection of the walls at Patræ.[96]
Yet the march of Alkibiadês doubtless strengthened the anti-Laconian
interest throughout the Achæan coast.
[95] Thucyd. v, 52. Isokratês (De Bigis, sect. 17, p. 349)
speaks of this expedition of Alkibiadês in his usual loose and
exaggerated language: but he has a right to call attention to it
as something very memorable at the time.
[96] Thucyd. v, 52.
He then returned to take part with the Argeians in a war against
Epidaurus. To acquire possession of this city would much facilitate
the communication between Athens and Argos, since it was not
only immediately opposite to the island of Ægina now occupied by
the Athenians, but also opened to the latter an access by land,
dispensing with the labor of circumnavigating Cape Skyllæum, the
southeastern point of the Argeian and Epidaurian peninsula, whenever
they sent forces to Argos. Moreover, the territory of Epidaurus
bordered to the north on that of Corinth, so that the possession
of it would be an additional guarantee for the neutrality of the
Corinthians. Accordingly it was resolved to attack Epidaurus, for
which a pretext was easily found. As presiding and administering
state of the temple of Apollo Pythäeus (situated within the walls
of Argos), the Argeians enjoyed a sort of religious supremacy over
Epidaurus and other neighboring cities, seemingly the remnant of
that extensive supremacy, political as well as religious, which in
early times had been theirs.[97] The Epidaurians owed to this temple
certain sacrifices and other ceremonial obligations, one of which,
arising out of some circumstance which we cannot understand, was now
due and unperformed: at least so the Argeians alleged. Such default
imposed upon them the duty of getting together a military force to
attack the Epidaurians and enforce the obligation.
[97] Thucyd. v, 53, with Dr. Arnold’s note.
Their invading march, however, was for a time suspended by the news
that king Agis with the full force of Lacedæmon and her allies had
advanced as far as Leuktra, one of the border towns of Laconia on
the northwest, towards Mount Lykæum and the Arcadian Parrhasii. What
this movement meant was known only to Agis himself, who did not even
explain the purpose to his own soldiers or officers, or allies.[98]
But the sacrifice constantly offered before passing the border was
found so unfavorable, that he abandoned his march for the present
and returned home. The month Karneius, a period of truce as well as
religious festival among the Dorian states, being now at hand, he
directed the allies to hold themselves prepared for an out-march as
soon as that month had expired.
[98] Thucyd. v, 54. ᾔδει δὲ οὐδεὶς ὅποι στρατεύουσιν οὐδὲ αἱ
πόλεις ἐξ ὧν ἐπέμφθησαν.
This incident shows that Sparta employed the military force
of her allies without any regard to their feelings, quite as
decidedly as Athens; though there were some among them too
powerful to be thus treated.
On being informed that Agis had dismissed his troops, the Argeians
prepared to execute their invasion of Epidaurus. The day on which
they set out was already the twenty-sixth of the month preceding
the Karneian month, so that there remained only three days before
the commencement of that latter month with its holy truce, binding
upon the religious feelings of the Dorian states generally, to which
Argos, Sparta, and Epidaurus all belonged. But the Argeians made
use of that very peculiarity of the season, which was accounted
likely to keep them at home, to facilitate their scheme, by
playing a trick with the calendar, and proclaiming one of those
arbitrary interferences with the reckoning of time which the Greeks
occasionally employed to correct the ever-recurring confusion of
their lunar system. Having begun their march on the twenty-sixth
of the month before Karneius, the Argeians called each succeeding
day still the twenty-sixth, thus disallowing the lapse of time,
and pretending that the Karneian month had not yet commenced. This
proceeding was farther facilitated by the circumstance, that their
allies of Athens, Elis, and Mantineia, not being Dorians, were
under no obligation to observe the Karneian truce. Accordingly, the
army marched from Argos into the territory of Epidaurus, and spent
seemingly a fortnight or three weeks in laying it waste; all this
time being really, according to the reckoning of the other Dorian
states, part of the Karneian truce, which the Argeians, adopting
their own arbitrary computation of time, professed not to be
violating. The Epidaurians, unable to meet them single-handed in the
field, invoked the aid of their allies: who, however, had already
been summoned by Sparta for the succeeding month, and did not choose,
any more than the Spartans, to move during the Karneian month itself.
Some allies, however, perhaps the Corinthians, came as far as the
Epidaurian border, but did not feel themselves strong enough to lend
aid by entering the territory alone.[99]
[99] Thucyd. v, 54. Ἀργεῖοι δ’ ἀναχωρησάντων αὐτῶν (the
Lacedæmonians), τοῦ πρὸ τοῦ Καρνείου μηνὸς ἐξελθόντες τετράδι
φθίνοντος, ~καὶ ἄγοντες τὴν ἡμέραν ταύτην πάντα τὸν χρόνον~,
ἐσέβαλον ἐς τὴν Ἐπιδαυρίαν καὶ ~ἐδῄουν~· Ἐπιδαύριοι δὲ τοὺς
ξυμμάχους ἐπεκαλοῦντο· ὧν οἱ μὲν ~τὸν μῆνα προυφασίσαντο~, οἱ δὲ
καὶ ἐς μεθορίαν τῆς Ἐπιδαυρίας ἐλθόντες ἡσύχαζον.
In explaining this passage, I venture to depart from the views
of all the commentators; with the less scruple, as it seems
to me that even the best of them are here embarrassed and
unsatisfactory.
The meaning which I give to the words is the most strict and
literal possible: “The Argeians, having set out on the 26th of
the month before Karneius, and _keeping that day during the whole
time_, invaded the Epidaurian territory, and went on ravaging
it.” By “during the whole time” is meant, during the whole time
that this expedition lasted. That is, in my judgment, they
kept the twenty-sixth day of the antecedent month for a whole
fortnight or so; they called each successive day by the same
name; they stopped the computed march of time; the twenty-seventh
was never admitted to have arrived. Dr. Thirlwall translates
it (Hist. Gr. vol. iii, ch. xxiv, p. 331): “They began their
march on a day which they had _always_ been used to keep holy.”
But surely the words πάντα τὸν χρόνον must denote some definite
interval of time, and can hardly be construed as equivalent
to ἀεί. Moreover the words, as Dr. Thirlwall construes them,
introduce a new fact which has no visible bearing on the main
affirmation of the sentence.
The meaning which I give may perhaps be called in question on the
ground that such tampering with the calendar is too absurd and
childish to have been really committed. Yet it is not more absurd
than the two votes of the Athenian assembly (in 290 B.C.), who
being in the month of Munychion, first passed a vote that that
month should be the month Anthestêrion; next, that it should be
the month Boêdromion; in order that Demetrius Poliorkêtês might
be initiated both in the lesser and greater mysteries of Dêmêtêr,
both at once and at the same time. Demetrius arrived at Athens in
the month Munychion, and went through both ceremonies with little
or no delay; the religious scruple, and the dignity of the Two
Goddesses being saved by altering the name of the month twice
(Plutarch, Demetrius, c. 26).
Besides, if we look to the conduct of the Argeians themselves at
a subsequent period (B.C. 389, Xenophon, Hellen. iv, 7, 2, 5; v,
1, 29), we shall see them playing an analogous trick with the
calendar in order to get the benefit of the sacred truce. When
the Lacedæmonians invaded Argos, the Argeians despatched heralds
with wreaths and the appropriate insignia, to warn them off on
the ground of its being the period of the holy truce,—though it
_really was not so_,—~οὐχ ὅποτε κάθηκοι ὁ χρόνος, ἀλλ’ ὅποτε
ἐμβάλλειν μέλλοιεν Λακεδαιμόνιοι, τότε ὑπέφερον τοὺς μῆνας~—Οἱ
δ’ Ἀργεῖοι ἐπεὶ ἔγνωσαν οὐ δυνησόμενοι κωλύειν, ἔπεμψαν, ὥσπερ
εἰώθεσαν, ἐστεφανωμένους δύο κήρυκας ~ὑποφέροντας σπονδάς~.
On more than one occasion, this stratagem was successful: the
Lacedæmonians did not dare to act in defiance of the summons of
the heralds, who affirmed that it _was_ the time of the truce,
though in reality it was not so. At last, the Spartan king
Agesipolis actually went both to Olympia and Delphi, to put
the express question to those oracles, whether he was bound to
accept the truce at any moment, right or wrong, when it might
suit the convenience of the Argeians to bring it forward as a
sham plea (ὑποφέρειν). The oracles both told him that he was
under no obligation to submit to such a pretence; accordingly, he
sent back the heralds, refusing to attend to their summons, and
invaded the Argeian territory.
Now here is a case exactly in point, with this difference; that
the Argeians, when they are invaders of Epidaurus, falsify the
calendar in order to blot out the holy truce where it really
ought to have come: whereas when they are the party invaded, they
commit similar falsification in order to introduce the truce
where it does not legitimately belong. I conceive, therefore,
that such an analogous incident completely justifies the
interpretation which I have given of the passage now before us in
Thucydidês.
But even if I were unable to produce a case so exactly parallel,
I should still defend the interpretation. Looking to the state
of the ancient Grecian calendars, the proceeding imputed to the
Argeians ought not to be looked on as too preposterous and absurd
for adoption, with the same eyes as we should regard it now.
With the exception of Athens, we do not know completely the
calendar of a single other Grecian city: but we know that the
months of all were lunar months, and that the practice followed
in regard to intercalation, for the prevention of inconvenient
divergence between lunar and solar time, was different in each
different city. Accordingly, the lunar month of one city did not,
except by accident, either begin or end at the same time as the
lunar month of another. M. Boeckh observes (ad Corp. Inscr. t. i,
p. 734): “Variorum populorum menses, qui sibi secundum legitimos
annorum cardines respondent, non quovis conveniunt anno, nisi
cyclus intercalationum utrique populi idem sit: sed ubi differunt
cycli, altero populo prius intercalante mensem dum non intercalat
alter, eorum qui non intercalarunt mensis certus cedit jam in eum
mensem alterorum qui præcedit illum cui vulgo respondet certus
iste mensis: quod tamen negligere solent chronologi.” Compare
also the valuable Dissertation of K. F. Hermann, Ueber die
Griechische Monatskunde, Götting. 1844, pp. 21-27, where all that
is known about the Grecian names and arrangement of months is
well brought together.
The names of the Argeian months we hardly know at all (see K. F.
Hermann, pp. 84-124): indeed, the only single name resting on
positive proof, is that of a month _Hermæus_. How far the months
of Argos agreed with those of Epidaurus or Sparta we do not
know, nor have we any right to presume that they did agree. Nor
is it by any means clear that every city in Greece had what may
properly be called a _system_ of intercalation, so correct as to
keep the calendar right without frequent arbitrary interferences.
Even at Athens, it is not yet satisfactorily proved that the
Metonic calendar was ever actually received into civil use.
Cicero, in describing the practice of the Sicilian Greeks about
reckoning of time, characterizes their interferences for the
purpose of correcting the calendar as occasional rather than
systematic. Verres took occasion from these interferences to make
a still more violent change, by declaring the Ides of January to
be the calends of March (Cicero, Verr. ii, 52, 129).
Now where a people are accustomed to get wrong in their calendar,
and to see occasional interferences introduced by authority
to set them right, the step which I here suppose the Argeians
to have taken about the invasion of Epidaurus will not appear
absurd and preposterous. The Argeians would pretend that the
real time for celebrating the festival of Karneia had not yet
arrived. On that point, they were not bound to follow the views
of other Dorian states, since there does not seem to have been
any recognized authority for proclaiming the commencement of the
Karneian truce, as the Eleians proclaimed the Olympic and the
Corinthians the Isthmiac truce. In saying, therefore, that the
twenty-sixth of the month preceding Karneius should be repeated,
and that the twenty-seventh should not be recognized as arriving
for a fortnight or three weeks, the Argeian government would
only be employing an expedient the like of which had been before
resorted to; though, in the case before us, it was employed for a
fraudulent purpose.
The Spartan month _Hekatombeus_ appears to have corresponded
with the Attic month Hekatombæon; the Spartan month following
it, _Karneius_, with the Attic month Metageitnion (Hermann, p.
112), our months July and August; such correspondence being by
no means exact or constant. Both Dr. Arnold and Göller speak of
Hekatombeus as if it were the _Argeian_ month preceding Karneius:
but we only know it as a _Spartan_ month. Its name does not
appear among the months of the Dorian cities in Sicily, among
whom nevertheless Karneius seems universal. See Franz, Comm. ad
Corp. Inscript. Græc. No. 5475, 5491, 5640. Part xxxii, p. 640.
The tricks played with the calendar at Rome, by political
authorities for party purposes, are well known to every one. And
even in some states of Greece, the course of the calendar was so
uncertain as to serve as a proverbial expression for inextricable
confusion. See Hesychius—~Ἐν Κέῳ τις ἡμέρα~; Ἐπὶ τῶν οὐκ
εὐγνώστον· οὐδεὶς γὰρ οἶδεν ἐν Κέῳ τις ἡ ἡμέρα, ὅτι οὐκ ἑστᾶσιν
αἱ ἡμέραι, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἕκαστοι θέλουσιν ἄγουσι. See also Aristoph.
Nubes, 605.
Meanwhile the Athenians had convoked another congress of deputies
at Mantineia, for the purpose of discussing propositions of peace:
perhaps this may have been a point carried by Nikias at Athens, in
spite of Alkibiadês. What other deputies attended we are not told;
but Euphamidas, coming as envoy from Corinth, animadverted even at
the opening of the debates upon the inconsistency of assembling
a peace congress while war was actually raging in the Epidaurian
territory. So much were the Athenian deputies struck with this
observation, that they departed, persuaded the Argeians to retire
from Epidaurus, and then came back to resume negotiations. Still,
however, the pretensions of both parties were found irreconcilable,
and the congress broke up; upon which the Argeians again returned
to renew their devastation in Epidaurus, while the Lacedæmonians,
immediately on the expiration of the Karneian month, marched out
again, as far as their border town of Karyæ, but were again arrested
and forced to return by unfavorable border-sacrifices. Intimation
of their out-march, however, was transmitted to Athens; upon which
Alkibiadês, at the head of one thousand Athenian hoplites, was sent
to join the Argeians. But before he arrived, the Lacedæmonian army
had been already disbanded; so that his services were no longer
required, and the Argeians carried their ravages over one-third of
the territory of Epidaurus before they at length evacuated it.[100]
[100] Thucyd. v, 55. καὶ Ἀθηναίων αὐτοῖς χίλιοι ἐβοήθησαν
ὁπλῖται καὶ Ἀλκιβιάδης στρατηγὸς: πυθόμενοι τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους
ἐξεστρατεῦσθαι· καὶ ὡς οὐδὲν ἔτι αὐτῶν ἔδει, ἀπῆλθον. This is the
reading which Portus, Bloomfield, Didot, and Göller, either adopt
or recommend; leaving out the particle δὲ which stands in the
common text after πυθόμενοι.
If we do not adopt this reading, we must construe ἐξεστρατεῦσθαι,
as Dr. Arnold and Poppo construe it, in the sense of “had already
completed their expedition and returned home.” But no authority
is produced for putting such a meaning upon the verb ἐκστρατεύω:
and the view of Dr. Arnold, who conceives that this meaning
exclusively belongs to the preterite or pluperfect tense, is
powerfully contradicted by the use of the word ἐξεστρατευμένων
(ii, 7), the same verb and the same tense, yet in a meaning
contrary to that which he assigns.
It appears to me the least objectionable proceeding of the two,
to dispense with the particle δέ.
The Epidaurians were reinforced about the end of September by a
detachment of three hundred Lacedæmonian hoplites under Agesippidas,
sent by sea without the knowledge of the Athenians. Of this, the
Argeians preferred loud complaints at Athens; and they had good
reason to condemn the negligence of the Athenians as allies, for not
having kept better naval watch at their neighboring station of Ægina,
and for having allowed this enemy to enter the harbor of Epidaurus.
But they took another ground of complaint, somewhat remarkable. In
the alliance between Athens, Argos, Elis, and Mantineia, it had been
stipulated that neither of the four should suffer the passage of
troops through its territory, without the joint consent of all. Now
the sea was accounted a part of the territory of Athens: so that the
Athenians had violated this article of the treaty by permitting the
Lacedæmonians to send troops by sea to Epidaurus. And the Argeians
now required Athens, in compensation for this wrong, to carry back
the Messenians and Helots from Kephallenia to Pylos, and allow them
to ravage Laconia. The Athenians, under the persuasion of Alkibiadês,
complied with their requisition; inscribing, at the foot of the
pillar on which their alliance with Sparta stood recorded, that the
Lacedæmonians had not observed their oaths. Nevertheless, they still
abstained from formally throwing up their treaty with Lacedæmon, or
breaking it in any other way.[101] The relations between Athens and
Sparta thus remained in name, peace and alliance, so far as concerns
direct operations against each other’s territory; in reality, hostile
action as well as hostile manœuvring, against each other, as allies
respectively of third parties.
[101] Thucyd. v, 56.
The Argeians, after having prolonged their incursions on the
Epidaurian territory throughout all the autumn, made in the winter
an unavailing attempt to take the town itself by storm. Though there
was no considerable action, but merely a succession of desultory
attacks, in some of which the Epidaurians even had the advantage,
yet they still suffered serious hardship, and pressed their case
forcibly on the sympathy of Sparta. Thus importuned, and mortified as
well as alarmed by the increasing defection or coldness which they
now experienced throughout Peloponnesus, the Lacedæmonians determined
during the course of the ensuing summer to put forth their strength
vigorously, and win back their lost ground.[102]
[102] Thucyd. v, 37.
Towards the month of June (B.C. 418) they marched with their full
force, freemen as well as Helots, under king Agis, against Argos.
The Tegeans and other Arcadian allies joined them on the march,
while their other allies near the Isthmus,—Bœotians, Megarians,
Corinthians, Sikyonians, Phliasians, etc., were directed to
assemble at Phlius. The number of these latter allies were very
considerable, for we hear of five thousand Bœotian hoplites, and two
thousand Corinthian: the Bœotians had with them also five thousand
light-armed, five hundred horsemen, and five hundred foot-soldiers,
who ran alongside of the horsemen. The numbers of the rest, or of
Spartans themselves, we do not know; nor probably did Thucydidês
himself know: for we find him remarking elsewhere the impenetrable
concealment of the Lacedæmonians on all public affairs, in reference
to the numbers at the subsequent battle of Mantineia. Such muster of
the Lacedæmonian alliance was no secret to the Argeians, who marching
first to Mantineia, and there taking up the force of that city as
well as three thousand Eleian hoplites who came to join them, met the
Lacedæmonians in their march at Methydrium in Arcadia. The two armies
being posted on opposite hills, the Argeians had resolved to attack
Agis the next day, so as to prevent him from joining his allies at
Phlius. But he eluded this separate encounter by decamping in the
night, reached Phlius, and operated his junction in safety. We do not
hear that there was in the Lacedæmonian army any commander of lochus,
who, copying the unreasonable punctilio of Amompharetus before the
battle of Platæa, refused to obey the order of retreat before the
enemy, to the imminent risk of the whole army. And the fact, that
no similar incident occurred now, may be held to prove that the
Lacedæmonians had acquired greater familiarity with the exigencies of
actual warfare.
As soon as the Lacedæmonian retreat was known in the morning, the
Argeians left their position also, and marched with their allies,
first to Argos itself; next, to Nemea, on the ordinary road from
Corinth and Phlius to Argos, by which they imagined that the
invaders would approach. But Agis acted differently. Distributing
his force into three divisions, he himself with the Lacedæmonians
and Arcadians, taking a short, but very rugged and difficult road,
crossed the ridge of the mountains and descended straight into the
plain near Argos. The Corinthians, Pellenians, and Phliasians, were
directed to follow another mountain road, which entered the same
plain upon a different point; while the Bœotians, Corinthians, and
Sikyonians, followed the longer, more even, and more ordinary route,
by Nemea. This route, though apparently frequented and convenient,
led for a considerable distance along a narrow ravine, called the
Trêtus, bounded on each side by mountains. The united army under Agis
was much superior in number to the Argeians: but if all had marched
in one line by the frequented route through the narrow Trêtus,
their superiority of number would have been of little use, whilst
the Argeians would have had a position highly favorable to their
defence. By dividing his force, and taking the mountain road with his
own division, Agis got into the plain of Argos in the rear of the
Argeian position at Nemea. He anticipated that when the Argeians saw
him devastating their properties near the city, they would forthwith
quit the advantageous ground near Nemea, to come and attack him in
the plain: the Bœotian division would thus find the road by Nemea
and the Trêtus open, and would be able to march without resistance
into the plain of Argos, where their numerous cavalry would act with
effect against the Argeians engaged in attacking Agis. This triple
march was executed. Agis with his division, and the Corinthians with
theirs, got across the mountains into the Argeian plain during the
night; while the Argeians,[103] hearing at daybreak that he was near
their city, ravaging Saminthus and other places, left their position
at Nemea to come down to the plain and attack him. In their march
they had a partial skirmish with the Corinthian division, which had
reached a high ground immediately above the Argeian plain, and which
lay nearly in the road. But this affair was indecisive, and they soon
found themselves in the plain near to Agis and the Lacedæmonians, who
lay between them and their city.
[103] Thucyd. v, 58. Οἱ δὲ Ἀργεῖοι γνόντες ἐβοήθουν ~ἡμέρας ἤδη~
ἐκ τῆς Νεμέας, etc.
On both sides, the armies were marshalled, and order taken for
battle. But the situation of the Argeians was in reality little
less than desperate: for while they had Agis and his division in
their front, the Corinthian detachment was near enough to take
them in flank, and the Bœotians marching along the undefended road
through the Trêtus would attack them in the rear. The Bœotian
cavalry too would act with full effect upon them in the plain, since
neither Argos, Elis, nor Mantineia, seemed to have possessed any
horsemen; a description of force which ought to have been sent from
Athens, though from some cause which does not appear, the Athenian
contingent had not yet arrived. Nevertheless, in spite of this very
critical position, both the Argeians and their allies were elate
with confidence and impatient for battle; thinking only of the
division of Agis immediately in their front, which appeared to be
inclosed between them and their city, and taking no heed to the other
formidable enemies in their flank and rear. But the Argeian generals
were better aware than their soldiers of the real danger; and just
as the two armies were about to charge, Alkiphron, proxenus of the
Lacedæmonians at Argos, accompanied Thrasyllus, one of the five
generals of the Argeians, to a separate parley with Agis, without
the least consultation or privity on the part of their own army.
They exhorted Agis not to force on a battle, assuring him that the
Argeians were ready both to give and receive equitable satisfaction,
in all matters of complaint which the Lacedæmonians might urge
against them, and to conclude a just peace for the future. Agis,
at once acquiescing in the proposal, granted them a truce of four
months to accomplish what they had promised. He on his part also
took this step without consulting either his army or his allies,
simply addressing a few words of confidential talk to one of the
official Spartans near him. Immediately, he gave the order for
retreat, and the army, instead of being led to battle, was conducted
out of the Argeian territory, through the Nemean road whereby the
Bœotians had just been entering. But it required all the habitual
discipline of Lacedæmonian soldiers to make them obey this order
of the Spartan king, alike unexpected and unwelcome.[104] For the
army were fully sensible both of the prodigious advantages of their
position, and of the overwhelming strength of the invading force,
so that all the three divisions were loud in their denunciations of
Agis, and penetrated with shame at the thoughts of so disgraceful
a retreat. And when they all saw themselves in one united body at
Nemea, previous to breaking up and going home,—so as to have before
their eyes their own full numbers and the complete equipment of one
of the finest Hellenic armies which had ever been assembled,—the
Argeian body of allies, before whom they were now retiring, appeared
contemptible in the comparison, and they separated with yet warmer
and more universal indignation against the king who had betrayed
their cause.
[104] Thucyd. v, 60. Οἱ δὲ Λακεδαιμόνιοι καὶ οἱ ξύμμαχοι εἵποντο
μὲν ὡς ἡγεῖτο διὰ τὸν νόμον, ἐν αἰτίᾳ δὲ εἶχον κατ’ ἀλλήλους
πολλῇ τὸν Ἆγιν, etc.
On returning home, Agis incurred not less blame from the Spartan
authorities than from his own army, for having thrown away so
admirable an opportunity of subduing Argos. This was assuredly
no more than he deserved: but we read with no small astonishment
that the Argeians and their allies on returning were even more
exasperated against Thrasyllus,[105] whom they accused of having
traitorously thrown away a certain victory. They had indeed good
ground, in the received practice, to censure him for having concluded
a truce without taking the sense of the people. It was their custom
on returning from a march, to hold a public court-martial before
entering the city, at a place called the Charadrus, or winter torrent
near the walls, for the purpose of adjudicating on offences and
faults committed in the army. Such was their wrath on this occasion
against Thrasyllus, that they would scarcely be prevailed upon even
to put him upon his trial, but began to stone him. He was forced to
seek personal safety at the altar; upon which the soldiers tried
him, and he was condemned to have his property confiscated.[106]
[105] Thucyd. v, 60. Ἀργεῖοι δὲ καὶ αὐτοὶ ἔτι ἐν πολλῷ πλέονι
αἰτίᾳ εἶχον ~τοὺς σπεισαμένους ἄνευ τοῦ πλήθους~, etc.
[106] Thucyd. v, 60.
Very shortly afterwards the expected Athenian contingent arrived,
which probably ought to have come earlier: one thousand hoplites,
with three hundred horsemen, under Lachês and Nikostratus. Alkibiadês
came as ambassador, probably serving as a soldier also among the
horsemen. The Argeians, notwithstanding their displeasure against
Thrasyllus, nevertheless felt themselves pledged to observe the truce
which he had concluded, and their magistrates accordingly desired the
newly-arrived Athenians to depart. Nor was Alkibiadês even permitted
to approach and address the public assembly, until the Mantineian and
Eleian allies insisted that thus much at least should not be refused.
An assembly was therefore convened, in which these allies took part,
along with the Argeians. Alkibiadês contended strenuously that the
recent truce with the Lacedæmonians was null and void; since it had
been contracted without the privity of all the allies, distinctly at
variance with the terms of the alliance. He therefore called upon
them to resume military operations forthwith, in conjunction with
the reinforcement now seasonably arrived. His speech so persuaded
the assembly, that the Mantineians and Eleians consented at once to
join him in an expedition against the Arcadian town of Orchomenus;
the Argeians, also, though at first reluctant, very speedily followed
them thither. Orchomenus was a place important to acquire, not merely
because its territory joined that of Mantineia on the northward, but
because the Lacedæmonians had deposited therein the hostages which
they had taken from Arcadian townships and villages as guarantee
for fidelity. Its walls were however in bad condition, and its
inhabitants, after a short resistance, capitulated. They agreed to
become allies of Mantineia, to furnish hostages for faithful adhesion
to such alliance, and to deliver up the hostages deposited with them
by Sparta.[107]
[107] Thucyd. v, 62.
Encouraged by first success, the allies debated what they should
next undertake; the Eleians contending strenuously for a march
against Lepreum, while the Mantineians were anxious to attack their
enemy and neighbor Tegea. The Argeians and Athenians preferred
the latter, incomparably the more important enterprise of the two:
but such was the disgust of the Eleians at the rejection of their
proposition, that they abandoned the army altogether, and went home.
Notwithstanding their desertion, however, the remaining allies
continued together at Mantineia, organizing their attack upon Tegea,
in which city they had a strong favorable party, who had actually
laid their plans, and were on the point of proclaiming the revolt
of the city from Sparta,[108] when the philo-Laconian Tegeans just
saved themselves by despatching the most urgent message to Sparta,
and receiving the most rapid succor. The Lacedæmonians, filled with
indignation at the news of the surrender of Orchomenus, vented anew
all their displeasure against Agis, whom they now threatened with
the severe punishment of demolishing his house and fining him in
the sum of one hundred thousand drachmæ, or about twenty-seven and
two-thirds Attic talents. He urgently entreated that an opportunity
might be afforded to him of redeeming by some brave deed the ill name
which he had incurred: if he failed in doing so, then they might
inflict on him what penalty they chose. The penalty was accordingly
withdrawn: but a restriction, new to the Spartan constitution, was
now placed upon the authority of the king. It had been before a part
of his prerogative to lead out the army single-handed and on his
own authority; but a council of ten was now named, without whose
concurrence he was interdicted from exercising such power.[109]
[108] Thucyd. v, 64. ὅσον οὐκ ἀφέστηκεν, etc.
[109] Thucyd. v, 63.
To the great good fortune of Agis, a pressing message now arrived
announcing the imminent revolt of Tegea, the most important ally of
Sparta, and close upon her border. Such was the alarm occasioned by
this news that the whole military population instantly started off
to relieve the place, Agis at their head, the most rapid movement
ever known to have been made by Lacedæmonian soldiers.[110] When they
arrived at Orestheium in Arcadia, in their way, perhaps hearing that
the danger was somewhat less pressing, they sent back to Sparta
one-sixth part of the forces, for home defence, the oldest as well
as the youngest men. The remainder marched forward to Tegea, where
they were speedily joined by their Arcadian allies. They farther sent
messages to the Corinthians and Bœotians, as well as to the Phocians
and Lokrians, invoking the immediate presence of these contingents
in the territory of Mantineia. The arrival of such reinforcements,
however, even with all possible zeal on the part of the cities
contributing, could not be looked for without some lapse of time; the
rather, as it appears, that they could not get into the territory
of Mantineia except by passing through that of Argos,[111] which
could not be safely attempted until they had all formed a junction.
Accordingly Agis, impatient to redeem his reputation, marched at once
with the Lacedæmonians and the Arcadian allies present, into the
territory of Mantineia, and took up a position near the Herakleion,
or temple of Hêraklês,[112] from whence he began to ravage the
neighboring lands. The Argeians and their allies presently came forth
from Mantineia, planted themselves near him, but on very rugged and
impracticable ground, and thus offered him battle. Nothing daunted
by the difficulties of the position, he marshalled his army and led
it up to attack them. His rashness on the present occasion might
have produced as much mischief as his inconsiderate concession to
Thrasyllus near Argos, had not an ancient Spartan called out to him
that he was now merely proceeding “to heal mischief by mischief.” So
forcibly was Agis impressed either with this timely admonition, or by
the closer view of the position which he had undertaken to assault,
that he suddenly halted the army and gave orders for retreat, though
actually within distance no greater than the cast of a javelin from
the enemy.[113]
[110] Thucyd. v, 64. ἐνταῦθα δὴ βοήθεια τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων
γίγνεται αὐτῶν τε καὶ τῶν Εἱλώτων πανδημεὶ ὀξεῖα καὶ οἵα οὔπω
πρότερον. The out-march of the Spartans just before the battle of
Platæa (described in Herodot. vii, 10) seems, however, to have
been quite as rapid and instantaneous.
[111] Thucyd. v, 64. ξυνέκλῃε γὰρ διὰ μέσου.
[112] The Lacedæmonian kings appear to have felt a sense of
protection in encamping near a temple of Hêraklês, their heroic
progenitor (see Xenophon, Hellen. vii, 1, 31).
[113] Thucyd. v, 65. See an exclamation by an old Spartan
mentioned as productive of important consequences, at the moment
when a battle was going to commence, in Xenophon, Hellen. vii, 4,
25.
His march was now intended to draw the Argeians away from the
difficult ground which they occupied. On the frontier between
Mantineia and Tegea—both situated on a lofty but inclosed plain,
drained only by katabothra, or natural subterranean channels in the
mountains—was situated a head of water, the regular efflux of which
seems to have been kept up by joint operations of both cities for
their mutual benefit. Thither Agis now conducted his army, for the
purpose of turning the water towards the side of Mantineia, where
it would occasion serious damage; calculating that the Mantineians
and their allies would certainly descend from their position to
hinder it. No stratagem however was necessary to induce the latter
to adopt this resolution. For so soon as they saw the Lacedæmonians,
after advancing to the foot of the hill, first suddenly halt, next
retreat, and lastly disappear, their surprise was very great: and
this surprise was soon converted into contemptuous confidence and
impatience to pursue the flying enemy. The generals not sharing such
confidence, hesitated at first to quit their secure position: upon
which the troops became clamorous, and loudly denounced them for
treason in letting the Lacedæmonians quietly escape a second time,
as they had before done near Argos. These generals would probably
not be the same with those who had incurred, a short time before,
so much undeserved censure for their convention with Agis: but the
murmurs on the present occasion, hardly less unreasonable, drove
them, not without considerable shame and confusion, to give orders
for advance. They abandoned the hill, marched down into the plain
so as to approach the Lacedæmonians, and employed the next day in
arranging themselves in good battle order, so as to be ready to fight
at a moment’s notice.
Meanwhile it appears that Agis had found himself disappointed in his
operations upon the water. He had either not done so much damage, or
not spread so much terror, as he had expected: and he accordingly
desisted, putting himself again in march to resume his position
at the Herakleion, and supposing that his enemies still retained
their position on the hill. But in the course of this march he
came suddenly upon the Argeian and allied army where he was not in
the least prepared to see them: they were not only in the plain,
but already drawn up in perfect order of battle. The Mantineians
occupied the right wing, the post of honor, because the ground was in
their territory: next to them stood their dependent Arcadian allies:
then the chosen Thousand-regiment of Argos, citizens of wealth and
family, trained in arms at the cost of the state: alongside of them,
the remaining Argeian hoplites, with their dependent allies of Kleônæ
and Orneæ: last of all, on the left wing, stood the Athenians, their
hoplites as well as their horsemen.
It was with the greatest surprise that Agis and his army beheld this
unexpected apparition. To any other Greeks than Lacedæmonians, the
sudden presentation of a formidable enemy would have occasioned a
feeling of dismay from which they would have found it difficult to
recover; and even the Lacedæmonians, on this occasion, underwent
a momentary shock unparalleled in their previous experience.[114]
But they now felt the full advantage of their rigorous training
and habit of military obedience, as well as of that subordination
of officers which was peculiar to themselves in Greece. In other
Grecian armies orders were proclaimed to the troops in a loud voice
by a herald, who received them personally from the general: each
_taxis_, or company, indeed, had its own taxiarch, but the latter
did not receive his orders separately from the general, and seems
to have had no personal responsibility for the execution of them by
his soldiers. Subordinate and responsible military authority was not
recognized. Among the Lacedæmonians, on the contrary, there was a
regular gradation of military and responsible authority, “commanders
of commanders,” each of whom had his special duty in insuring the
execution of orders.[115] Every order emanated from the Spartan king
when he was present, and was given to the polemarchs (each commanding
a mora, the largest military division), who intimated it to the
lochagi, or colonels, of the respective lochi. These again gave
command to each pentekontêr, or captain of a pentekosty; lastly,
he to the enômotarch, who commanded the lowest subdivision, called
an enômoty. The soldier thus received no immediate orders except
from the enômotarch, who was in the first instance responsible for
his enômoty; but the pentekontêr and the lochage were responsible
also each for his larger division; the pentekosty including four
enômoties, and the lochus four pentekosties, at least so the numbers
stood on this occasion. All the various military manœuvres were
familiar to the Lacedæmonians from their unremitting drill, so
that their armies enjoyed the advantage of readier obedience along
with more systematic command. Accordingly, though thus taken by
surprise, and called on now for the first time in their lives, to
form in the presence of an enemy, they only manifested the greater
promptitude[116] and anxious haste in obeying the orders of Agis,
transmitted through the regular series of officers. The battle array
was attained with regularity as well as with speed.
[114] Thucyd. v, 66. μάλιστα δὴ Λακεδαιμόνιοι ἐς ὃ ἐμέμνηντο,
ἐν τούτῳ τῷ καιρῷ ἐξεπλάγησαν· διὰ βραχείας γὰρ μελλήσεως ἡ
παρασκευὴ αὐτοῖς ἐγίγνετο, etc.
[115] Thucyd. v, 66. Σχεδὸν γάρ τι πᾶν, πλὴν ὀλίγου, τὸ
στρατόπεδον τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων ἄρχοντες ἀρχόντων εἰσὶ, καὶ τὸ
ἐπιμελὲς τοῦ δρωμένου πολλοῖς προσήκει.
Xenophon, De Republ. Laced. xi, 5. Αἱ παραγωγαὶ ὥσπερ ὑπὸ κήρυκος
ὑπὸ τοῦ ἐνωμοτάρχου λόγῳ δηλοῦνται: compare xi, 8, τῷ ἐνωμοτάρχῃ
παρεγγυᾶται εἰς μέτωπον παρ’ ἄσπιδα καθίστασθαι, etc.
[116] Thucyd. v, 66. εὐθὺς ὑπὸ σπουδῆς καθίσταντο ~ἐς κόσμον τὸν
ἑαυτῶν~, Ἄγιδος τοῦ βασιλέως ἕκαστα ἐξηγουμένου κατὰ τὸν νόμον,
etc.
The extreme left of the Lacedæmonian line belonged by ancient
privilege to the Skiritæ; mountaineers of the border district of
Laconia, skirting the Arcadian Parrhasii, seemingly east of the
Eurotas, near its earliest and highest course. These men, originally
Arcadians, now constituted a variety of Laconian Periœki, with
peculiar duties as well as peculiar privileges. Numbered among the
bravest and most active men in Peloponnesus, they generally formed
the vanguard in an advancing march; and the Spartans stand accused
of having exposed them to danger as well as toil with unbecoming
recklessness.[117] Next to the Skiritæ, who were six hundred in
number, stood the enfranchised Helots, recently returned from serving
with Brasidas in Thrace, and the Neodamôdes, both probably summoned
home from Lepreum, where we were told before that they had been
planted. After them, in the centre of the entire line, came the
Lacedæmonian lochi, seven in number, with the Arcadian dependent
allies, Heræan and Mænalian, near them. Lastly, in the right wing,
stood the Tegeans, with a small division of Lacedæmonians occupying
the extreme right, as the post of honor. On each flank there were
some Lacedæmonian horsemen.[118]
[117] Xenophon, Cyrop. iv, 2. 1: see Diodor. xv, c. 32; Xenophon,
Rep. Laced. xiii, 6.
[118] Thucyd. v, 67.
Thucydidês, with a frankness which enhances the value of his
testimony wherever he gives it positively, informs us that he cannot
pretend to set down the number of either army. It is evident that
this silence is not for want of having inquired; but none of the
answers which he received appeared to him trustworthy: the extreme
secrecy of Lacedæmonian politics admitted of no certainty about
_their_ numbers, while the empty numerical boasts of other Greeks
were not less misleading. In the absence of assured information about
aggregate number, the historian gives us some general information
accessible to every inquirer, and some facts visible to a spectator.
From his language it is conjectured, with some probability, by Dr.
Thirlwall and others, that he was himself present at the battle,
though in what capacity we cannot determine, as he was an exile
from his country. First, he states that the Lacedæmonian army
_appeared_ more numerous than that of the enemy. Next he tells us,
that independent of the Skiritæ on the left, who were six hundred in
number, the remaining Lacedæmonian front, to the extremity of their
right wing, consisted of four hundred and forty-eight men, each
enômoty having four men in front. In respect to depth, the different
enômoties were not all equal; but for the most part, the files were
eight deep. There were seven lochi in all (apart from the Skiritæ);
each lochus comprised four pentekosties, each pentekosty contained
four enômoties.[119] Multiplying four hundred and forty-four by
eight, and adding the six hundred Skiritæ, this would make a total
of four thousand one hundred and eighty-four hoplites, besides a few
horsemen on each flank. Respecting light-armed, nothing is said.
I have no confidence in such an estimate—but the total is smaller
than we should have expected, considering that the Lacedæmonians
had marched out from Sparta with their entire force on a pressing
emergency, and that they had only sent home one-sixth of their total,
their oldest and youngest soldiers.
[119] Very little can be made out respecting the structure of the
Lacedæmonian army. We know that the enômoty was the elementary
division, the military unit: that the pentekosty was composed
of a definite (not always the same) number of enômoties: that
the lochus also was composed of a definite (not always the same)
number of pentekosties. The mora appears to have been a still
larger division, consisting of so many lochi (according to
Xenophon, of four lochi): but Thucydidês speaks as if he knew no
division larger than the lochus.
Beyond this very slender information, there seems no other
fact certainly established about the Lacedæmonian military
distribution. Nor ought we reasonably to expect to find that
these words _enômoty_, _pentekosty_, lochus, etc., indicate
any fixed number of men: our own names _regiment_, _company_,
_troop_, _brigade_, _division_, etc., are all more or less
indefinite as to positive numbers and proportion to each other.
That which was peculiar to the Lacedæmonian drill, was, the
teaching a small number of men like an enômoty (twenty-five,
thirty-two, thirty-six men, as we sometimes find it), to perform
its evolutions under the command of its enômotarch. When this
was once secured, it is probable that the combination of these
elementary divisions was left to be determined in every case by
circumstances.
Thucydidês states two distinct facts. 1. Each enômoty had _four
men in front_. 2. Each enômoty _varied in depth_, according as
every lochagus chose. Now Dobree asks, with much reason, how
these two assertions are to be reconciled? Given the number of
men in front, the depth of the enômoty is of course determined,
without any reference to the discretion of any one. These two
assertions appear distinctly contradictory; unless we suppose
(what seems very difficult to believe) that the lochage might
make one or two of the four files of the same enômoty deeper
than the rest. Dobree proposes, as a means of removing this
difficulty, to expunge some words from the text. One cannot have
confidence, however, in the conjecture.
It does not appear that the generals on the Argeian side made any
attempt to charge while the Lacedæmonian battle-array was yet
incomplete. It was necessary for them, according to Grecian practice,
to wind up the courage of their troops by some words of exhortation
and encouragement: and before these were finished, the Lacedæmonians
may probably have attained their order. The Mantineian officers
reminded their countrymen that the coming battle would decide whether
Mantineia should continue to be a free and imperial city, with
Arcadian dependencies of her own, as she now was, or should again
be degraded into a dependency of Lacedæmon. The Argeian leaders
dwelt upon the opportunity which Argos now had of recovering her
lost ascendency in Peloponnesus, and of revenging herself upon her
worst enemy and neighbor. The Athenian troops were exhorted to show
themselves worthy of the many brave allies with whom they were now
associated, as well as to protect their own territory and empire by
vanquishing their enemy in Peloponnesus.
It illustrates forcibly the peculiarity of Lacedæmonian character,
that to them no similar words of encouragement were addressed either
by Agis or any of the officers. “They knew (says the historian[120])
that long practice beforehand in the business of war, was a better
preservative than fine speeches on the spur of the moment.” As among
professional soldiers, bravery was assumed as a thing of course,
without any special exhortation: but mutual suggestions were heard
among them with a view to get their order of battle and position
perfect, which at first it probably was not, from the sudden and
hurried manner in which they had been constrained to form. Moreover,
various war-songs, perhaps those of Tyrtæus, were chanted in the
ranks. At length the word was given to attack: the numerous pipers
in attendance—an hereditary caste at Sparta—began to play, while the
slow, solemn, and equable march of the troops adjusted itself to the
time given by these instruments without any break or wavering in the
line. A striking contrast to this deliberate pace was presented by
the enemy: who having no pipers or other musical instruments, rushed
forward to the charge with a step vehement and even furious,[121]
fresh from the exhortations just addressed to them.
[120] Thucyd. v, 69. Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ καθ’ ἑκάστους τε καὶ
μετὰ τῶν πολεμικῶν νόμων ἐν σφίσιν αὐτοῖς ὧν ἠπίσταντο τὴν
παρακέλευσιν τῆς μνήμης ἀγαθοῖς οὖσιν ἐποιοῦντο, εἰδότες ἔργων ἐκ
πολλοῦ μελέτην πλείω σώζουσαν ἢ λόγων δι’ ὀλίγου καλῶς ῥηθέντων
παραίνεσιν.
[121] Thucyd. v, 70. Ἀργεῖοι μὲν καὶ οἱ ξύμμαχοι, ἐντόνως καὶ
ὀργῇ χωροῦντες, Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ, βραδέως καὶ ὑπὸ αὐλητῶν πολλῶν
νόμῳ ἐγκαθεστώτων, οὐ τοῦ θείου χάριν, ἀλλ’ ἵνα ὁμαλῶς μετὰ
ῥυθμοῦ βαίνοντες προσέλθοιεν καὶ μὴ διασπασθείη αὐτῶν ἡ τάξις,
ὅπερ φιλεῖ τὰ μεγάλα στρατόπεδα ἐν ταῖς προσόδοις ποιεῖν.
It was the natural tendency of all Grecian armies, when coming into
conflict, to march not exactly straight forward, but somewhat
aslant towards the right. The soldiers on the extreme right of
both armies set the example of such inclination, in order to avoid
exposing their own unshielded side; while for the same reason every
man along the line took care to keep close to the shield of his
right-hand neighbor. We see from hence that, with equal numbers,
the right was not merely the post of honor, but also of comparative
safety. So it proved on the present occasion, even the Lacedæmonian
discipline being noway exempt from this cause of disturbance. Though
the Lacedæmonian front, from their superior numbers, was more
extended than that of the enemy, still their right files did not
think themselves safe without slanting still farther to the right,
and thus outflanked very greatly the Athenians on the opposite left
wing; while on the opposite side the Mantineians who formed the
right wing, from the same disposition to keep the left shoulder
forward, outflanked, though not in so great a degree, the Skiritæ and
Brasideians on the Lacedæmonian left. King Agis, whose post was with
the lochi in the centre, saw plainly that when the armies closed,
his left would be certainly taken in flank and perhaps even in the
rear. Accordingly, he thought it necessary to alter his dispositions
even at this critical moment, which he relied upon being able to
accomplish through the exact discipline, practised evolutions, and
slow march, of his soldiers.
The natural mode of meeting the impending danger would have been to
bring round a division from the extreme right, where it could well be
spared, to the extreme left against the advancing Mantineians. But
the ancient privilege of the Skiritæ, who always fought by themselves
on the extreme left, forbade such an order.[122] Accordingly, Agis
gave signal to the Brasideians and Skiritæ to make a flank movement
on the left so as to get on equal front with the Mantineians; while
in order to fill up the vacancy thus created in his line, he sent
orders to the two polemarchs Aristoklês and Hipponoidas, who had
their lochi on the extreme right of the line, to move to the rear
and take post on the right of the Brasideians, so as again to close
up the line. But these two polemarchs, who had the safest and most
victorious place in the line, chose to keep it, disobeying his
express orders: so that Agis, when he saw that they did not move,
was forced to send a second order countermanding the flank movement
of the Skiritæ, and directing them to fall in upon the centre, back
into their former place. But it had now become too late to execute
this second command before the hostile armies closed: and the Skiritæ
and Brasideians were thus assailed while in disorder and cut off from
their own centre. The Mantineians, finding them in this condition,
defeated and drove them back; while the chosen Thousand of Argos,
breaking in by the vacant space between the Brasideians and the
Lacedæmonian centre, took them on the right flank and completed their
discomfiture. They were routed and pursued even to the Lacedæmonian
baggage-wagons in the rear; some of the elder troops who guarded the
wagons being slain, and the whole Lacedæmonian left wing altogether
dispersed.
[122] Thucyd. v, 67. Τότε δὲ κέρας μὲν εὐώνυμον Σκιρῖται αὐτοῖς
καθίσταντο, ~ἀεὶ ταύτην τὴν τάξιν μόνοι Λακεδαιμονίων ἐπὶ σφῶν
αὐτῶν ἔχοντες~, etc.
The strong and precise language, which Thucydidês here
uses, shows that this was a privilege pointedly noted and
much esteemed: among the Lacedæmonians, especially, ancient
routine was more valued than elsewhere. And it is essential to
take notice of the circumstance, in order to appreciate the
generalship of Agis, which has been rather hardly criticized.
But the victorious Mantineians and their comrades, thinking only
of what was immediately before them, wasted thus a precious time
when their aid was urgently needed elsewhere. Matters passed very
differently on the Lacedæmonian centre and right; where Agis, with
his body-guard of three hundred chosen youths called Hippeis, and
with the Spartan lochi, found himself in front conflict with the
centre and left of the enemy;—with the Argeians, their elderly troops
and the so-called Five Lochi, with the Kleonæans and Orneates,
dependent allies of Argos, and with the Athenians. Over all these
troops they were completely victorious, after a short resistance,
indeed, on some points with no resistance at all. So formidable was
the aspect and name of the Lacedæmonians, that the opposing troops
gave way without crossing spears; and even with a panic so headlong,
that they trod down each other in anxiety to escape.[123] While
thus defeated in front, they were taken in flank by the Tegeans
and Lacedæmonians on the right of Agis’s army, and the Athenians
here incurred serious hazard of being all cut to pieces, had they
not been effectively aided by their own cavalry close at hand.
Moreover Agis, having decidedly beaten and driven them back was
less anxious to pursue them than to return to the rescue of his own
defeated left wing; so that even the Athenians, who were exposed
both in flank and front, were enabled to effect their retreat in
safety. The Mantineians and the Argeian Thousand, though victorious
on their part of the line, yet seeing the remainder of their army
in disorderly flight, had little disposition to renew the combat
against Agis and the conquering Lacedæmonians. They sought only to
effect their retreat, which however could not be done without severe
loss, especially on the part of the Mantineians; and which Agis
might have prevented altogether, had not the Lacedæmonian system,
enforced on this occasion by the counsels of an ancient Spartan named
Pharax, enjoyed abstinence from prolonged pursuit against a defeated
enemy.[124]
[123] Thucyd. v, 72. (Οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι τοὺς Ἀργείους) Ἔτρεψαν
οὐδὲ ἐς χεῖρας τοὺς πολλοὺς ὑπομείναντας, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἐπῇσαν οἱ
Λακεδαιμόνιοι εὐθὺς ἐνδόντας, καὶ ἐστὶν οὓς καὶ καταπατηθέντας,
τοῦ μὴ φθῆναι τὴν ἐγκατάληψιν.
The last words of this sentence present a difficulty which has
perplexed all the commentators, and which none of them have yet
satisfactorily cleared up.
They all admit that the expressions, ~τοῦ, τοῦ μὴ~, preceding the
infinitive mood as here, signify _design_ or _purpose_; ἕνεκα
being understood. But none of them can construe the sentence
satisfactorily with this meaning: accordingly they here ascribe
to the words a different and exceptional meaning. See the notes
of Poppo, Göller, and Dr. Arnold, in which notes the views of
other critics are cited and discussed.
Some say that τοῦ μὴ in this place means the same as ὥστε μή:
others affirm, that it is identical with διὰ τὸ μὴ or with τῷ
μή. “Formula ~τοῦ, τοῦ μὴ~ (say Bauer and Göller), plerumque
_consilium_ significat: interdum _effectum_ (_i. e._ ὥστε μή);
hic _causam_ indicat (i. e. διὰ τὸ μὴ, or τῷ μή).” But I agree
with Dr. Arnold in thinking that the last of these three alleged
meanings is wholly unauthorized; while the second, which is
adopted by Dr. Arnold himself, is sustained only by feeble and
dubious evidence; for the passage of Thucydidês (ii, 4. τοῦ μὴ
ἐκφεύγειν) may be as well construed, as Poppo’s note thereupon
suggests, without any such supposed exceptional sense of the
words.
Now it seems to me quite possible to construe the words τοῦ μὴ
φθῆναι here in their regular and legitimate sense of ~ἕνεκα τοῦ~,
or _consilium_. But first an error must be cleared up which
pervades the view of most of the commentators. They suppose that
those Argeians, who are here affirmed to have been “_trodden
under foot_,” were so trodden down by _the Lacedæmonians_
in their advance. But this is in every way improbable. The
Lacedæmonians were particularly slow in their motions, regular
in their ranks, and backward as to pursuit, qualities which are
dwelt upon by Thucydidês in regard to this very battle. They were
not at all likely to overtake such terrified men as were only
anxious to run away: moreover, if they did overtake them, they
would spear them, not trample them under foot.
To be trampled under foot, though possible enough from the
numerous Persian cavalry (Herodot. vii, 173; Xenoph. Hellen.
iii, 4, 12), is not the treatment which defeated soldiers meet
with from victorious hostile infantry in the field, especially
Lacedæmonian infantry. But it is precisely the treatment which
they meet with, if they be in one of the hinder ranks, from their
own panic-stricken comrades in the front rank, who find the enemy
closing upon them, and rush back madly to get away from him. Of
course it was the Argeians in the front rank who were seized
with the most violent panic, and who thus fell back upon their
own comrades in the rear ranks, overthrowing and treading them
down to secure their own escape. It seems quite plain that it
was the Argeians in front—not the Lacedæmonians—who trod down
their comrades in the rear (there were probably six or eight
men in every file), in order to escape themselves before the
Lacedæmonians should be upon them: compare Xen. Hellenic. iv, 4,
11; Œconomic. viii, 5.
There are therefore in the whole scene which Thucydidês
describes, three distinct subjects: 1. The Lacedæmonians 2.
The Argeians soldiers, who were trodden down. 3. Other Argeian
soldiers, who trod them down in order to get away themselves. Out
of these three he only specifies the first two; but the third
is present to his mind, and is implied in his narrative, just
as much as if he had written καταπατηθέντας ~ὑπ’ ἄλλων~, or ὑπ’
ἀλλήλων, as in Xenoph. Hellen. iv. 4, 11.
Now it is to this third subject, implied in the narrative, but
not formally specified (_i. e._ those Argeians who trod down
their comrades in order to get away themselves), or rather to the
second and third conjointly and confusedly, that the _design_ or
_purpose_ (_consilium_) in the words τοῦ μὴ φθῆναι refers.
Farther, the commentators all construe τοῦ μὴ φθῆναι τὴν
ἐγκατάληψιν, as if the last word were an accusative case coming
_after_ φθῆναι and governed by it. But there is also another
construction, equally good Greek, and much better for the sense.
In my judgment, τὴν ἐγκατάληψιν is here the accusative case
coming _before_ φθῆναι and forming the _subject_ of it. The words
will thus read (ἕνεκα) τοῦ τὴν ἐγκατάληψιν μὴ φθῆναι (ἐπελθοῦσαν
αὐτοῖς): “in order that the actual grasp of the Lacedæmonians
might not be beforehand in coming upon them;” “might not come
upon them too soon,” _i. e._ “sooner than they could get away.”
And since the word ἐγκατάληψις is an abstract active substantive,
so, in order to get at the real meaning here, we may substitute
the concrete words with which it correlates, _i. e._ τοὺς
Λακεδαιμονίους ἐγκαταλαβόντας, subject as well as attribute, for
the active participle is here essentially involved.
The sentence would then read, supposing the ellipsis filled up
and the meaning expressed in full and concrete words—ἔστιν οὓς
καὶ καταπατηθέντας ὑπ’ ἀλλήλων φευγόντων (or βιαζομένων), ἕνεκα
τοῦ τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους μὴ φθῆναι ἐγκαταλαβόντας αὐτοὺς (τοὺς
φεύγοντας): “As soon as the Lacedæmonians approached near, the
Argeians gave way at once, without staying for hand-combat:
and some were even trodden down by each other, or by their own
comrades running away in order that the Lacedæmonians might not
be beforehand in catching them sooner than they could escape.”
Construing in this way the sentence as it now stands, we have τοῦ
μὴ φθῆναι used in its regular and legitimate sense of _purpose_,
or _consilium_. We have moreover a plain and natural state of
facts, in full keeping with the general narrative. Nor is there
any violence put upon the words. Nothing more is done than to
expand a very elliptical sentence, and to fill up that entire
sentence which was present to the writer’s own mind. To do this
properly is the chief duty, as well as the chief difficulty, of
an expositor of Thucydidês.
[124] Thucyd. v, 73; Diodor. xii, 79.
There fell in this battle seven hundred men of the Argeians,
Kleonæans, and Orneates; two hundred Athenians, together with both
the generals Lachês and Nikostratus; and two hundred Mantineians.
The loss of the Lacedæmonians, though never certainly known, from
the habitual secrecy of their public proceedings, was estimated at
about three hundred men. They stripped the enemy’s dead, spreading
out to view the arms thus acquired, and selecting some for a trophy;
then picked up their own dead and carried them away for burial at
Tegea, granting the customary burial-truce to the defeated enemy.
Pleistoanax, the other Spartan king, had advanced as far as Tegea
with a reinforcement composed of the elder and younger citizens; but
on hearing of the victory, he returned back home.[125]
[125] Thucyd. v, 73.