A city of the Peloponnesus, well known for a famous battle fought near
it between the Lacedæmonians and Thebans. The Greeks had never fought
among themselves with more numerous armies. The Lacedæmonians consisted
of twenty thousand foot, and two thousand horse; the Thebans of thirty
thousand foot, and three thousand horse.
The Theban general, Epaminondas, marched in the same order of battle in
which he intended to fight, that he might not be obliged, when he came
up with the enemy, to lose, in the disposition of his army, a time
which cannot be too much saved in great enterprises[346].
He did not march directly, and with his front to the enemy, but in a
column upon the hills, with his left wing foremost, as if he did not
intend to fight that day. When he was over against them at a quarter of
a league's distance, he made his troops halt and lay down their arms, as
if he designed to encamp there. The enemy in effect were deceived by
that stand; and reckoning no longer upon a battle, they quitted their
arms, dispersed themselves about the camp, and suffered that ardour to
extinguish, which the near approach of a battle is wont to kindle in the
hearts of the soldiers. Epaminondas, however, by suddenly wheeling his
troops to the right, having changed his column into a line, and having
drawn out the choicest troops, whom he had expressly posted in front
upon his march, he made them double their files upon the front of his
left wing, to add to its strength, and to put it into a condition to
attack in a point the Lacedæmonian phalanx, which, by the movement he
had made, faced it directly.
He expected to decide the victory by that body of chosen troops which he
commanded in person, and which he had formed in a column to attack the
enemy in a point like a galley, says Xenophon. He assured himself, that
if he could penetrate the Lacedæmonian phalanx, in which the enemy's
principal force consisted, he should not find it difficult to rout the
rest of their army, by charging upon the right and left.
After having disposed his whole army in this manner, he moved on to
charge the enemy with the whole weight of his column. They were
strangely surprised when they saw Epaminondas advance towards them in
this order, and resumed their arms, bridled their horses, and made all
the haste they could to their ranks.
Whilst Epaminondas marched against the enemy, the cavalry that covered
his flank on the left, the best at that time in Greece, entirely
composed of Thebans and Thessalians, had orders to attack the enemy's
horse. The Theban general, whom nothing escaped, had artfully bestowed
bowmen, slingers and dartmen, in the intervals of his horse, in order to
begin the disorder of the enemy's cavalry, by a previous discharge of a
shower of arrows, stones, and javelins, upon them. The other army had
neglected to take the same precaution, and had made another fault, not
less considerable, in giving as much depth to the squadrons as if they
had been a phalanx. By this means their horse were incapable of
supporting long the charge of the Thebans. After having made several
ineffectual attacks with great loss, they were obliged to retire behind
their infantry.
In the mean time, Epaminondas, with his body of foot, had charged the
Lacedæmonian phalanx. The troops fought on both sides with incredible
ardour; both the Thebans and Lacedæmonians being resolved to perish
rather than yield the glory of arms to their rivals. They began by
fighting with the spear; and those first arms being soon broken in the
fury of the combat, they charged each other sword in hand. The
resistance was equally obstinate, and the slaughter very great on both
sides.
The furious slaughter on both sides having continued a great while
without the victory's inclining to either, Epaminondas, to force it to
declare for him, thought it his duty to make an extraordinary effort in
person, without regard to the danger of his own life. He formed,
therefore, a troop of the bravest and most determined about him, and
putting himself at the head of them, he made a vigorous charge upon the
enemy, where the battle was most warm, and wounded the general of the
Lacedæmonians with the first javelin he threw. His troop, by his
example, having wounded or killed all that stood in their way, broke and
penetrated the phalanx. The gross of the Theban troops, animated by
their general's example and success, drove back the enemy upon his right
and left, and made a great slaughter of them. But some troops of the
Spartans, perceiving that Epaminondas abandoned himself too much to his
ardour, suddenly rallied, and returning to the fight, charged him with a
shower of javelins. Whilst he kept off part of those darts, shunned some
of them, fenced off others, and was fighting with the most heroic
valour, to assure the victory to his army, a Spartan, named Callicrates,
gave him a mortal wound with a javelin in the breast across his cuirass.
The wood of the javelin being broken off, and the iron head continuing
in the wound, the torment was insupportable, and he fell immediately.
The battle began around him with new fury; the one side using their
utmost endeavours to take him alive, and the other to save him. The
Thebans gained their point at last, and carried him off, after having
put the enemy to flight.
Epaminondas was carried into the camp. The surgeons, after having
examined the wound, declared that he would expire as soon as the head of
the dart was drawn out of it. Those words gave all that were present the
utmost sorrow and affliction, who were inconsolable on seeing so great a
man about to die, and to die without issue. For him, the only concern he
expressed, was about his arms, and the success of the battle. When they
showed him his shield, and assured him that the Thebans had gained the
victory; turning towards his friends with a calm and serene air; "Do not
regard," said he, "this day as the end of my life, but as the beginning
of my happiness, and the completion of my glory. I leave Thebes
triumphant, proud Sparta humbled, and Greece delivered from the yoke of
servitude. For the rest, I do not reckon that I die without issue;
Leuctra and Mantinea are two illustrious daughters, that will not fail
to keep my name alive, and to transmit it to posterity." Having spoken
to this effect, he drew the head of the javelin out of his wound, and
expired.
Mantinea is also famous for another great battle, viz., that between
Philopoemen and Machanidas, tyrant of Sparta[347]. The time for
beginning the battle approaching and the enemy in view, Philopoemen,
flying up and down the ranks of the infantry, encouraged his men in few
but very strong expressions. Most of them were even not heard; but he
was so dear to his soldiers, and they reposed such confidence in him,
that they wanted no exhortations to fight with incredible ardour. In a
kind of transport they animated their general, and pressed him to lead
them on to battle.
Machanidas marched his infantry in a kind of column, as if he intended
to begin the battle by charging the right wing; but when he was advanced
to a proper distance, he on a sudden made his infantry wheel about, in
order that it might extend to his right, and make a front equal to the
left of the Achæans; and, to cover it, he caused all the chariots laden
with catapults to advance forward. Philopoemen plainly saw that his
intention was to break his infantry, by overwhelming it with darts and
stones: however, he did not give him time for it. The first charge was
very furious. The light-armed soldiers advancing a little after to
sustain them, in a moment the foreign troops were universally engaged on
both sides; and, as in this attack they fought man to man, the battle
was a long time doubtful. At last the foreigners in the tyrant's army
had the advantage; their numbers and dexterity, acquired by experience,
giving them the superiority. The Illyrians and cuirassiers, who
sustained the foreign soldiers in Philopoemen's army, could not
withstand so furious a charge. They were entirely broken, and fled with
the utmost precipitation towards Mantinea, about a mile from the field
of battle.
Philopoemen seemed now lost to all hopes. "On this occasion," says
Polybius, "appeared the truth of a maxim, which cannot reasonably be
contested, That the events of war are generally successful or
unfortunate, only in proportion to the skill or ignorance of the
generals who command in them. Philopoemen, so far from desponding at the
ill success of the first charge, or being in confusion, was solely
intent upon taking advantage of the errors which the enemy might
commit." Accordingly, they were guilty of a great one. Machanidas, after
the left wing was routed, instead of improving that advantage, by
charging in front that instant with his infantry the centre of that of
the enemies, and taking it at the same time in flank with his victorious
wing, and thereby terminating the whole affair, suffers himself, like a
young man, to be hurried away by the fire and impetuosity of his
soldiers, and pursues, without order or discipline, those who were
flying.
Philopoemen, who had retired to his infantry in the centre, takes the
first cohorts, commands them to wheel to the left, and at their head
marches and seizes the post which Machanidas had abandoned. By this
movement he divided the centre of the enemies' infantry from his right
wing. He then commanded these cohorts to stay in the post they had just
seized, till further orders; and at the same time directed a
Megalapolitan to rally all the Illyrians, cuirassiers, and foreigners,
who, without quitting their ranks, and flying as the rest had done, had
drawn off, to avoid the fury of the conqueror; and with these forces to
post himself on the flank of the infantry in his centre, to check the
enemy in their return from the pursuit.
This Megalapolitan was named Polyinus; but not the historian, as many
writers have imagined.
The Lacedæmonian infantry, elated with the first success of their wing,
without waiting for the signal, advanced with their pikes lowered
towards the Achæans, as far as the brink of the ditch. This was the
decisive point of time for which Philopoemen had long waited, and
thereupon he ordered the charge to be sounded. His troops levelling
their pikes, fell with dreadful shouts on the Lacedemonians. These, who
at their descending into the ditch, had broken their ranks, no sooner
saw the enemy above them, but immediately fled.
To complete the glory of this action, the business now was to prevent
the tyrant from escaping the conqueror. This was Philopoemen's only
object. Machanidas, on his return, perceived that his army fled; when,
being sensible of his error, he endeavoured, but in vain, to force his
way through the Achæans. His troops, perceiving that the enemy were
masters of the bridge which lay over the ditch, were quite dispirited,
and endeavoured to save themselves as well as they could. Machanidas
himself, finding it impossible to pass the bridge, hurried along the
side of the ditch, in order to find a place for getting over it.
Philopoemen knew him by his purple mantle, and the trappings of his
horse: so he passed the ditch, in order to stop the tyrant. The latter
having found a part of the ditch which might easily be crossed, clapped
spurs to his horse, and sprang forward in order to leap over. That very
instant Philopoemen threw his javelin at him, which laid him dead in the
ditch. The tyrant's head being struck off, and carried from rank to
rank, gave new courage to the victorious Achæans. They pursued the
fugitives with incredible ardour as far as Tegea, entered the city with
them, and, being now masters of the field, the very next day they
encamped on the banks of the Eurotas. The Achæans did not lose many men
in this battle, but the Lacedemonians lost four thousand, without
including the prisoners, who were still more numerous. The baggage and
arms were also taken by the Achæans.
The conquerors, struck with admiration at the conduct of their general,
to whom the victory was entirely owing, erected a brazen statue to him
in the same attitude in which he had killed the tyrant; which statue
they afterwards placed in the temple of Apollo at Delphos.
Mantinea[348] was richly decorated with public edifices. It had eight
temples, besides a theatre, a stadium, and hippodrome, and several other
monuments; many of which are enumerated by Pausanias.
Some imperfect remains of the theatre are still visible; the walls of
which resemble those round the town. But none of the sites of the
temples or of the other structures can be identified; and everything,
except the walls which enclose the city, is in a state of total
dilapidation.
These walls were composed of unbaked bricks, which resisted, even better
than stone, the impulse of warlike engines; but were not proof against
the effects of water. For one of the kings of Sparta, forming a ditch
round the town, and carrying the river Ophis to flow into it, dissolved
the fabric of the walls. They enclose a circle, in which the city stood.
They are fortified with towers, most of which are square; others are of
circular forms. The whole exhibits an interesting and very perfect
example of Grecian fortification. There were eight gates; not one of
which, however, retains its lintel. The walls are surrounded by a
fosse, which is still supplied by the Ophis[349].