Kitap 5
The Argives and their allies, on seeing them, occupied a position that was strong and difficult of access, and drew up their troops for action.
The Lacedaemonians and their allies immediately advanced against them, and proceeded to within stone's throw or arrow-shot; when one of the elders called out to Agis, that he was purposing to cure evil with evil; meaning that his present unseasonable eagerness was intended to be a reparation of his culpable retreat from Argos.
He then, whether in consequence of this exclamation, or because he was himself suddenly struck by some resolution different from what he had before adopted, led his army back again with all speed, before the engagement had begun;
and going into the Tegean country, diverted over that of the Mantineans the water about which the Tegeans and Mantineans are continually engaged in hostilities, as it causes a general injury to whichever country it falls into. His object was to bring the Argives and their allies down from the hill, on their coming Though it is true, as Arnold observes, that neither βοηθοῦντας, nor the participle in the other passages quoted by Poppo, is, strictly speaking, a present put for a future; yet the full meaning of those participles appears to be most naturally conveyed in English by the sign of the future, since they are expressive of intention; a force which the present indicative frequently has, and which might therefore be expected in the participle a. well. For other instances of it in Thucydides, compare II. 65. 8, διά τὸ μὴ κτώμενος ἐξ οὐ προσηκόντων τὴν δύναμιν πρὸς ἡδονήν τε λέγειν. IV. 61. 1 χρὴ τὰ μὴ προσήκοντα ἐπικτωμένους μᾶλλον ἢ τὰ ἑτοῖμα βλάπτοντα ξυμμάχους τε ἐπάγεσθαι, κ. τ. λ. to resist the diversion of the water, when they heard of it, and so to fight the battle on the plain. Accordingly, after staying there in the neighbourhood of the water during that day, he turned it off.
The Argives and their allies, on the other hand, were at first amazed at his sudden retreat, when at so short a distance from them, and did not know what to conjecture. Afterwards, when the enemy had withdrawn out of sight, while they themselves remained still, and did not follow them, they then began to blame their generals again; both because, on the former occasion, the Lacedaemonians, when fairly caught near Argos, had been suffered to escape; and now, when they were running away, no one pursued them; but with perfect quiet the enemy were saving themselves, while they were being betrayed.
The generals, then, were at the moment confounded, but afterwards they led them off from the hill, and having advanced on to the plain, pitched their camp, with the intention of advancing against the enemy.
The next day the Argives and their allies formed their line as they intended to engage, should they fall in with their opponents; and the Lacedaemonians, on going back again from the water to the temple of Hercules, into their old encampment, see the enemy at a short distance from them, all by this time in order of battle, and advanced from the hill.
The Lacedaemonians, then, were on this occasion in the greatest consternation they had ever experienced within their memory. For their preparations had to be made on a short notice; and immediately they fell into their ranks in a hurry, Agis, their king, giving all orders, according to their law.
For when a king is at the head of an army, all commands are given by him; and he communicates to the polemarchs what is to be done, they to the lochagi, those to the penteconters, these again to the enomotarchs, and these to their enomoty;
and thus their orders, whatever they wish to be done, pass in the same manner, and quickly reach the troops; for pretty nearly all the army of the Lacedaemonians, a small portion excepted, are officers over officers; and to attend to what is going on is a duty incumbent on many.
On that occasion the Sciritae formed their left wing; who alone of the Lacedaemonians have always that post by themselves. Next to them were the soldiers who had served with Brasidas in Thrace, and the Neodamodes with them. Then came the Lacedaemonians themselves, with their lochi posted one after the other; by their side the Arcadians of Heraea; after them the Maenalians; and on the right wing the Tegeans, with a few of the Lacedaemonians holding the extreme position. Their cavalry was posted on each wing.
The Lacedaemonians, then, were drawn up in this way. On the side of their opponents, their right wing was occupied by the Mantineans, because the action was to be fought in their country; and by their side were the Arcadian allies. Then came the thousand picked men of the Argives, for whom the state had for a long time furnished at the public expense a course of training in military matters; next to them the other Argives; and after these, their allies the Cleonaeans and Orneans; then the Athenians, holding the extreme left, and their own cavalry with them.
Such was the order of battle and the preparation on both sides. The army of the Lacedaemonians appeared the larger of the two;
but as for stating any number, either of the several divisions on each side, or of their collective force, I could not do it with accuracy. For the number of the Lacedaemonians, on account of the secrecy of their government, was not known; and that of the others, in consequence of men's natural tendency to boasting with regard to their own numbers, was regarded with distrust.
From the following mode of calculating, however, one may see the number of Lacedaemonians that was present on that occasion. There were engaged in the battle seven lochi, exclusive of the Sciritae, who amounted to six hundred; and The regular complement of the enomotia was twenty-four men, besides its captain: the pentecosty was composed of two enomotiae, and the lochus of two pentecostyes. —Arnold. See his whole note on this passage. in each lochus there were four pentecpstyes, and in the pentecosty four enomotiae. In the first rank of the enomoty there were four fighting men. As the number of the ranks must have depended on that of the files, and have been the same throughout the army, if that were, or have differed, because that did; it is evident that any change which the commander-in-chief might have made in the previous dispositions of the several lochagi, must have affected the breadth of the ranks as well as the depth of the files, though the latter only is mentioned, or rather implied, by our author. The supposition of such a change is warranted by the variation in the tenses of the verbs; and is the only way of solving the difficulty noticed by Dobree— that the depth of the line in each lochus appears to be left to the discretion of its commander, even after the number of men in the front rank of all of them has been said to have been uniformly four; though after this had once been settled, the other must, of course, have been no less uniform. See Poppo's note In depth, though they had not all been drawn up alike, but as each lochagus chose, they took their position on the field uniformly eight deep. And thus, along the whole line, the first rank consisted of four hundred and forty-eight men, besides the Sciritae.
When they were now on the point of engaging, the following admonitions were then severally addressed to them by their own generals. To the Mantineans, that the battle would be fought for their country, and to decide on the question of empire and slavery-that they might not be deprived of the former after tasting it, and might avoid again tasting the latter. To the Argives, that they would fight for their original supremacy, and not to brook being for ever deprived of their former equal share of the Peloponnese; and at the same time to avenge themselves on men who were their enemies, and near ones too, for many acts of injustice. To the Athenians, that fighting as they were in concert with many brave allies, it was a glorious thing for them to show themselves inferior to none; and that by defeating the Lacedaemonians in the Peloponnese, they would enjoy their empire more securely, and to a greater extent, while no one else would ever march against their country.
To the Argives and their allies such were the admonitions that were addressed. The Lacedaemonians, on the other hand, both individually amongst themselves, and with their national war-songs, exhorted one another, as brave men, to remember what they had learned before; knowing that actual training for a long time previous was of more benefit than a brief verbal exhortation, however well expressed.
After this the conflict commenced: the Argives and their allies advancing with haste and impetuosity; the Lacedaemonians slowly, and to the music of many flute-players, placed amongst them according to custom, not with a religious object, but that they might advance evenly, stepping in time, and so that their line might not be broken, a thing which large armies are apt to do in their approaches to an enemy.
While they were yet closing in battle, King Agis resolved to execute a manoeuvre, as follows. All armies, on going into battle, are forced out too much on their right wing; because the men, in their fear, each shelter, as far as possible, their exposed side with the shield of the man who is posted next to them on the right, and think that the closer they are locked together, the more effectually they are protected. The man who primarily gives occasion to this is he who stands first on the right wing, through wishing continually to withdraw from the enemy his own unarmed side; and the rest follow him under the influence of the same fear.
And so, on that occasion, the Mantineans reached with their wing far beyond the Sciritae, and the Lacedaemonians and Tegeans farther still beyond the Athenians, inasmuch as their army was larger than theirs.
Agis therefore, being afraid that their left might be surrounded, and thinking that the Mantineans were extending too far beyond it, gave orders for the Sciritae and Brasidean soldiers to advance from their position with a part of their number, and equalize their line to that of the Mantineans; while into the void thus created he ordered Hipponoidas and Aristocles, two of the polemarchs, to move over from the right wing with their lochi, and by throwing themselves into it to fill it up; thinking that their own right would still have an abundance of strength, and that the line opposite the Mantineans would be formed the more firmly.
Now as he gave these orders at the very moment of the charge, and on a sudden, the consequence was, that Aristocles and Hipponoidas would not move on, (they were for this offence afterwards banished from Sparta, being thought to have shown cowardice,) and that so the enemy closed with them before any thing could be done; and moreover, that when he ordered the Sciritae to rejoin their comrades, since the lochi did not move on to their support, neither could these now fill up the line.
But when the Lacedaemonians were most decidedly and in every respect beaten in point of skill, at that very time Or, proved that it was mainly through their courage that they won the victory. they proved themselves no less superior in point of courage.
For when they had come to close quarters with their opponents, though the right wing of the Mantineans broke their Sciritan and Brasidean corps, and the Mantineans and their allies, with the thousand picked men of the Argives, rushing in through the open and unclosed part of the line, cut up the Lacedaemonians, having surrounded and broken them, and drove them to the baggage waggons, and killed some of the veterans who were posted as a guard over them:
though in this part of the field, I say, the Lacedaemonians were worsted, yet with the rest of their forces, and especially the centre, where was King Agis, and around him the three hundred horsemen, "He adds καλούμενοι, because, though called horsemen, they were really infantry. The actual cavalry were on the wings, as had been already stated, ch. 67. 1. These three hundred horsemen, as they were called, were originally, we may suppose, so many chiefs, who fought round their king, not on foot, but in their chariots; this being the early sense of ἱππεύν and ἱππότης as we find from Homer. —Arnold. as they are called, they fell on the veterans of the Argives, and what are named the five lochi, with the Cleonaeans, the Orneans, and those of the Athenians who were posted next to them, and put them to flight; the majority not having even waited to close with them, but having, on the approach of the Lacedaemonians, immediately given way, and some of them having been even trodden under foot, Literally, that the overtaking might not anticipate them. For the different explanations of this very doubtful expression, see Poppo's or Arnold's note. I have followed Heilman and Haack in considering τὴν ἐγκατάληψιν as the subject of φθῆναι, (though it is, what Poppo calls it, durior explanatio; ) because in every other instance that I have observed, in which Thucydides uses the article τοῦ with an infinitive, whether with μὴ or without it, it expresses purpose, and not effect, or cause. See I. 4; II. 4. 2; 32. 1; V. 27. 2; VIII. 14. 1; 39. 4. The only one of these passages which might seem an exception to what has been stated, is the second; and that is not really one, if τοῦ μὴ ἐκφεύγειν be joined with διώκοντας, as Poppo takes it. in their hurry to avoid being anticipated and overtaken.
When the army of the Argives and their allies had given way on this side, i. e. by one part of it having advanced beyond it to pursue the enemy and by another part having been beaten back behind it. —Arnold. their line was now broken off both ways; while at the same time the right wing of the Lacedaemonians and Tegeans was surrounding the Athenians with the troops which outflanked them, and they were encompassed with danger on both sides, as they were being surrounded on one, and were already beaten on the other. Indeed they would have suffered most severely of all the army, if the presence of their cavalry had not been of service to them.
It happened too, that Agis, on perceiving the Lacedaemonian left wing, which was opposed to the Montineans and the thousand Argives, to be hard pressed, gave orders for the whole army to advance to the support of the division which was being defeated.
And when this was done, the Athenians meanwhile, as the enemy's forces passed on and withdrew from them, escaped at their leisure, and with them the beaten division of the Argives. The Mantineans and their allies, on the other hand, and the picked men of the Argives, were no longer disposed to press on their adversaries; but seeing their own side defeated, and the Lacedaemonians advancing against them, they took to flight.
And of the Mantineans many were slain, but of the picked Argives the great majority escaped. However, the flight and retreat were not hard pressed, nor to any great distance; for though the Lacedaemonians, until they have routed their enemies, fight for a long time, and stubbornly, as regards standing their ground; yet when they have routed them, they pursue but for a short time and for a little distance.
Of such a character then, and answering as nearly as possible to this description, was the battle—the greatest that had occurred for a very long time amongst the Greeks, and fought by the most considerable states.
The Lacedaemonians, after piling their arms in front of the enemy's dead, immediately erected a trophy, and stripped the slain; and taking up their own dead carried them back to Tegea, where they were buried, while they restored the enemy's under truce.
There were killed, of the Argives, Orneans, and Cleonaeans, seven hundred; of the Mantineans, two hundred; and the same number of the Athenians including the Aeginetans, with their generals. On the side of the Lacedaemonians, the allies did not suffer to such an extent that any number worth mentioning were killed; and of themselves it was difficult to learn the truth, but about three hundred were said to have fallen.
Now when the engagement was about to take place, Pleistoanax also, the other king, set out to their aid with those who were above and below the usual age for service, and reached as far as Tegea, but went back again on hearing of the victory.
The Lacedaemonians sent, too, and turned back the allies from Corinth and from beyond the Isthmus; and having themselves returned and dismissed their allies, they kept the festival; (for it happened to be the time of their Carnea).
And the imputations which at that time were urged against them by the Greeks, both on the score of cowardice in consequence of their disaster in the island, and of their bad management and dilatoriness in other respects, they wiped out by this one action; having been, as was now thought, reduced by fortune, but still the same men at heart.
Now the day before this battle it also happened that the Epidaurians with all their forces invaded the Argive territory, and cut off in great numbers, when they came out to give them battle, those of the Argives who were left behind to keep
guard. Moreover, when three thousand of the Elean heavy-armed had come after the battle to the succour of the Mantineans, and a thousand Athenians in addition to their former force, all these allies at once marched against Epidaurus, while the Lacedaemonians were keeping the Carnea; and dividing the work between them, they began a wall of circumvallation round the
city. And though the rest abandoned the work, the Athenians finished it round the promontory called the Heraeum, the part which had been assigned to them. And having all joined in leaving a garrison in this fortress, they returned to their several cities. And so the summer ended.
At the beginning of the following winter, the Lacedaemonians, after they had celebrated the Carnean festival, immediately took the field; and on arriving at Tegea, sent on to Argos proposals for an accommodation.
For there had been there previously a party in their interest, and desirous of putting down the democracy at Argos; and since the battle had been fought, they were much better able to persuade the people at large to the proposed arrangement. Their wish was, after first concluding a treaty with the Lacedaemonians, then, in the second place, to enter into alliance with them; and so at length to attack the democracy.