previous next

Both sides eagerly drew together for the decisive conflict,1 their armies in battle formation, while the soothsayers, having sacrificed on both sides, declared that victory was foreshadowed by the gods. [2] In the disposition of forces the Mantineians with the rest of the Arcadians occupied the right wing with the Lacedaemonians as their neighbours and supporters, and next to these were Eleians and Achaeans; and the weaker of the remaining forces occupied the centre, while the Athenians filled the left wing. The Thebans themselves had their post on the left wing, supported by the Arcadians, while they entrusted the right to the Argives. The remaining multitude filled the middle of the line: Euboeans, Locrians, Sicyonians, Messenians, Malians, Aenianians, together with Thessalians and the remaining allies. Both sides divided the cavalry and placed contingents on each wing. [3] Such was the array of the armaments, and now as they approached one another, the trumpets sounded the battle charge, the armies raised the battle shout, and by the very volume of their cries betokened their victory. At first they engaged in a cavalry battle on the flanks in which they outbid each other in keen rivalry. [4] Now as the Athenian horse attacked the Theban they suffered defeat not so much because of the quality of their mounts nor yet on the score of the riders' courage or experience in horsemanship, for in none of these departments was the Athenian cavalry deficient; but it was in the numbers and equipment of the light-armed troops and in their tactical skill that they were far inferior to their opponents. Indeed they had only a few javelin-throwers, whereas the Thebans had three times as many slingers and javelin-throwers sent them from the regions about Thessaly. [5] These people practised from boyhood assiduously this type of fighting and consequently were wont to exercise great weight in battles because of their experience in handling these missiles. Consequently the Athenians, who were continually being wounded by the light-armed and were harried to exhaustion by the opponents who confronted them, all turned and fled. [6] But having fled beyond the flanks, they managed to retrieve their defeat, for even in their retreat they did not break their own phalanx, and encountering simultaneously the Euboeans and certain mercenaries who had been dispatched to seize the heights near by, they gave battle and slew them all. [7] Now the Theban horse did not follow up the fugitives, but, assailing the phalanx opposing them, strove zealously to outflank the infantry. The battle was a hot one; the Athenians were exhausted and had turned to flee, when the Eleian cavalry-commander, assigned to the rear, came to the aid of the fugitives and, by striking down many Boeotians, reversed the course of the battle. [8] So while the Eleian cavalry by their appearance in this fashion on the left wing retrieved the defeat their allies had sustained, on the other flank both cavalry forces lashed at one another and the battle hung for a short time in the balance, but then, because of the number and valour of the Boeotian and Thessalian horsemen, the contingents on the Mantineian side were forced back, and with considerable loss took refuge with their own phalanx.

1 The fundamental account of the battle of Mantineia is found in Xen. Hell. 7.5.18-27. For references to maps and special problems see Glotz, Hist. gr. 3.177, note 101.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.

Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Greek (1989)
hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide References (3 total)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: