Battle of Mantinea (362 BC)

The Battle di Mantinea It was fought in the summer of 362 BC ^[first] by the Spartans and the Athenians, together with the Peloponnesian contingents of the Acaia and Mantinea, against the Theban army of Epaminonda flanked by contingents from Arcadia, Messenia and the cities of Sicione and Argo.

Faced with the growing opposition to the Thebans, whose domain on Greece was poorly endured by some of the peoples who, previously, had been freed from the Spartan yoke by the same Thebes, in 362 BC. Epaminonda decided to make an expedition to the Peloponnese to submit Mantinea, who had opposed the dominance of Tebano on the region.
Epaminonda was the head of an army composed of beotes, fabric and eubbean, to whom Tegea had also joined (the main enemy of Mantinea); Mantinea, on the other hand, had asked for the help of Sparta and Athens, of the Acaia and the rest of Arcadia. In short, all Greece was involved in this clash. ^{[2] [3]}

After learning that a large Spartan army was marching on Mantinea, and that Sparta was practically defenseless, Epaminonda planned a black night march towards Sparta; The king of Sparta Archidamo, however, was warned of this move by a spy, probably a Cretan runner, and when Epaminonda arrived there, found the city very well garnished. After attacking the city several times, Epaminonda understood that he had not caught her by surprise and, given that the troops of Sparta and Mantinea had marched towards Sparta during the course of the day, ceased the siege. ^{[4] [5] [6]}

Then Epaminonda postponed his troops to the base of Tegea and sent the cavalry to Mantinea, but a clash with the Athenian cavalry outside the walls blocked the Tebano contingent; ^[7] Knowing that the time granted to the campaign was turning to the end, and understanding that if he had retired without defeating the enemies of Tegea, the teban influence would have significantly decreased, Epaminonda decided to play everything with a pitcher battle, near Mantinea. ^[8]

The one that followed, in the plain in front of Mantinea, was the largest battle between the Opelites in Greek history. Epaminonda had the most consistent army, with thirty thousand heavy infantrymen and three thousand knights, while his opponents had twenty thousand infantrymen and two thousand knights. ^[9] Senofonte writes that Epaminonda sided the army in battle order, and then made him march in the column parallel to the enemy lines, so that he appeared direct elsewhere; At a certain point, however, he brought up the weapons to the soldiers in order to make it believe that the army was preparing for the battle; The historian comments that, “in doing so, he induced most of the enemies to loosen their mental readiness, and in the same way to disunite the ranks of the deployment”. ^[ten]

The entire Tebana column, which had marched to the left beyond the front of the enemy army, then returned to the right, so that he could face him. Epaminonda, who had been head of the column (now the left wing), brought some infantry departments from the far right, behind the battle line, to reinforce the left wing: doing this, re -proposed the reinforced left already put in Field in Leutra (this time also made up of all the beotes, not only by the Thebans as in the first battle). On the wings posted consistent cavalry forces strengthened by light infantry. ^{[11] [twelfth]}

Epaminonda then gave the order to advance, taking the enemy of surprise and causing a great confusion in his ranks, as expected. The Theban Knights, placed on the wings, rejected the cavalry of Athens and Mantinea; Diodorus says that on the right side the Athenian cavalry Tebano, despite not being lower than the enemy, could not bear the bullets thrown by the teabane light troops.
In the meantime, the Tebana infantry advanced: Senofonte suggestively describes the thought of Epaminonda: “[he] carried on his army on the bow, like a trireme, believing that, if he had been able to hit and cut anywhere, he would have destroyed the entire army of the his opponents. ” As in Leutra, the weak right wing was ordered to avoid combat. ^{[13] [14]}

In the infantry clash the events remained for a while uncertain, but then the left wing of the Thebans broke through the right of the Spartan line and the entire enemy phalanx was put on the run; However, at the height of the battle, Epaminonda was wounded to death and pushed shortly after. After his departure, the Thebans and the allies made no effort to pursue the enemies on the run, therefore the battle was resolved without a complete victory. ^{[15] [16]}

Senofonte, which ends the Hellenic With the battle of Mantinea, it tells the results of the fight:

The battle of Mantinea marked the end of the Thebangemony and the beginning of the military decline of Greece, which, now without great leaders, ^[17] In 338 BC He passed under the Macedonian domination. One of the indirect consequences of the battle, in this sense, was the resentment that the Spartans nourished for the Thebans from that moment on: it was for this reason that, probably, the Spartans did not participate in the battle of Cheronea, which marked the end of independence from the poleis .

Primary sources

Secondary sources

• Domenico Musti, Greek history , 3A, Rome, Laterza, 2006, 80-222-647-5937-3.