Manœuvres of Agis to

bring on a fair ground.

battle on

His march was now intended to draw the Argeians away from the difficult ground which they occupied. On the frontier between Mantineia and Tegeaboth situated on a lofty, but enclosed 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 pre

as productive of important consequences, at the moment when a battle was going to commence, in Xenophon, Hellen. vii. 4, 25.

sent 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 honour, 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

Forward new posiArgeians.

march and

tion of the

The Lace

are sur

prised:

their sudden and

ready for

battle

order.

dæmonians 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 mation into Lacedæmonians, on this occasion, underwent a momentary shock unparalleled in their previous experience'. 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 recognised. 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 ensuring the execution of orders2. Every order emanated from the Spartan king when he was present, and was given to the Polemarchs,

1 Thucyd. v. 66. μάλιστα δὴ Λακεδαιμόνιοι, ἐς ὃ ἐμέμνηντο, ἐκ τούτῳ τῷ καιρῷ ἐξεπλάγησαν· διὰ βραχείας γὰρ μελλήσεως ἡ παρασκευὴ αὐτοῖς ἐγίγνετο, &c.

* 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. Ai napaywуaì ❀σжеρ vñò кýрUKOS ὑπὸ τοῦ ἐνωμοτάρχου λόγῳ δηλοῦνται : compare xi. 8. τῷ ἐνωμοτάρχῃ παρεγγυᾶται εἰς μέτωπον παρ' ἄσπιδα καθίστασθαι, &c.

of com

responsibi

liar to the

nian army.

(each commanding a Mora, the largest military di- Gradation vision) who intimated it to the Lochagi, or colonels mand and of the respective Lochi. These again gave com- lity pecumand to each Pentekontêr, or captain of a Pente- Lacedæmokosty; 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' 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.

nian line:

post of the

The extreme left of the Lacedæmonian line be- Lacedæmolonged by ancient privilege to the Skirita; moun- privileged taineers of the border district of Laconia skirting Skirita on the Arcadian Parrhasii, seemingly east of the Eurotas the left. near its earliest and highest course. These men,

1 Thucyd. v. 66. εὐθὺς ὑπὸ σπουδῆς καθίσταντο ἐς κόσμον τὸν ἑαυτῶν, "Αγιδος τοῦ βασιλέως ἕκαστα ἐξηγουμένου κατὰ τὸν νόμον, &c.

Uncertain numbers of both armies.

originally Arcadians, now constituted a variety of Laconian Pericki, 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'. Next to the Skiritæ, who were 600 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 honour. On each flank there were some Lacedæmonian horsemen2.

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 ariny. 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 num bers, while the empty numerical boasts of other Greeks served only to mislead. In the absence

1

Xenophon, Cyrop. iv. 2, 1: see Diodor. xv. c. 32; Xenophon, Rep. Laced. xiii. 6. 2 Thucyd. v. 67.