Chapter LVI (1)

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.