A heretic's take on Second Mantinea

[Erpingham]

It might be possible to reconcile the two maps. The original road south from Mantinea led to Pallantium. When Pallantium shrank into insignificance after Second Mantinea it probably made sense to construct another road directly between Mantinea to Tegea as these were now the only two poleis in the area. This is the road Pausanias mentions.

I think it unlikely that there was no road from Mantinaea and Tegea.  Tegea was a much bigger polis than Pallantium.  The Mantinaea/Tegea route goes after Tegea is abandoned, The Pallantium road remains because Tripoli/Tripolitsa becomes the more important local centre in the Middle Ages.

If you look at the black & white map, it does look like it is missing a road exactly where the French map puts the Mantinaea/Tegea road.  It would cross the Skope/Nestane road where that road has a junction with the road down from Louka, providing Nestane and Louka with road access to the city. 

Fascinating though this historical geography is, it doesn't really impact on the battlefield.  Whichever route the Thebans took toward Mantinaea, they converge in the border zone south of the Pelagos wood, in the area we have, for convenience, dubbed "the narrows".  This would be just north of the disputed wetland which probably formed the Mantinaea/Tegea border.

[Cantabrigian]

Why did Epaminondas march at all? My take is that he wanted ground in his favour. High ground is very advantageous to hoplites, especially in othismos which, along with Paul Bardunias and others, I maintain was a physical shoving match, and shoving downhill is always easier than shoving uphill.

I don't think anyone doubts the advantages of being uphill, whatever they think about othismos

[Justin Swanton]

It might be possible to reconcile the two maps. The original road south from Mantinea led to Pallantium. When Pallantium shrank into insignificance after Second Mantinea it probably made sense to construct another road directly between Mantinea to Tegea as these were now the only two poleis in the area. This is the road Pausanias mentions.

I think it unlikely that there was no road from Mantinaea and Tegea.  Tegea was a much bigger polis than Pallantium.  The Mantinaea/Tegea route goes after Tegea is abandoned, The Pallantium road remains because Tripoli/Tripolitsa becomes the more important local centre in the Middle Ages.

If you look at the black & white map, it does look like it is missing a road exactly where the French map puts the Mantinaea/Tegea road.  It would cross the Skope/Nestane road where that road has a junction with the road down from Louka, providing Nestane and Louka with road access to the city. 

Fascinating though this historical geography is, it doesn't really impact on the battlefield.  Whichever route the Thebans took toward Mantinaea, they converge in the border zone south of the Pelagos wood, in the area we have, for convenience, dubbed "the narrows".  This would be just north of the disputed wetland which probably formed the Mantinaea/Tegea border.

The takeaway from this is that the Institute for Geology and Subsurface Research does not indicate a road from Mantinea to Tegea direct which is curious since, as you say, Tegea was a much bigger polis than Pallantium. Why is the road missing? Either the institute doesn't know what it's doing, or the fellow who drew up the map for the Hodkinson article forgot to put in a major arterial road, or possibly this: Tegea and Pallantium were old cities whilst Mantinea was relatively new, being founded only around 500BC. Before its foundation there wasn't need for more than one road from the south to its locale, and that would be served quite well by a single road from Pallantium. When Mantinea became a polis, it would be simpler for Tegea to link to the Mantinea-Pallantium road in order to communicate with Mantinea. There really wasn't any need for two major roads going south from Mantinea. From the start I found that concept odd.

And just to repeat, the Mantinea-Tegea direct road came into existence only after the decline of Pallantium made the Pallantium road pretty much obsolete.

[Erpingham]

The takeaway from this is that the Institute for Geology and Subsurface Research does not indicate a road from Mantinea to Tegea

Well, the map in the article doesn't show it.  If I copy details from an OS map, the OS have no control of what I choose to copy or miss off.  But that's by the by.  The road network and road links to other cities don't feature in the article, so I'm not sure the map was really there to inform us about them rather than the physical shape and nature of the Mantinike.

And just to repeat, the Mantinea-Tegea direct road came into existence only after the decline of Pallantium made the Pallantium road pretty much obsolete.

Although how this conclusion can be drawn from the paper isn't clear, as it doesn't discuss relations with Pallantium as far as I can see, and Tegea mainly features in relation to disputes about water courses on the border.

However, this is all rather tangential, as most commentators assume use of a road to the west of Tegea, approximating to the current road at the foot of the mountains through Tripoli, by the Thebans. 

Incidentally, the Mantinaea and Mantinike paper does include rather more discussion of the hoplite class of Mantinaea than it does of roads, for those who might be into a bit of military history.  The paper is available for free reading on Jstor.

[RichT]

There's more on the Mantineian watchtowers here:

The Defense Network in the Chora of Mantineia
Matthew P. Maher, Alistair Mowat
Hesperia: 87, 2018, pp. 451-495

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/819893

Executive summary - the Skopi tower is Mantineian, part of a system of watchtowers surrounding Mantineia, built perhaps around 370.

There's also an aside, and map, on the road network:

"As a major polis located on a plain in the center of an extremely large valley, we should expect Mantineia to have a road network more complex than those in areas more tightly restricted by the mountainous topography characteristic of most of Arkadia. Based on the number of gates in the city's fortification circuit and employing the local itinerary of Pausanias, Fougères assumes there must have been a corresponding number of roads leading to the major poleis outside Mantineian territory (see Fig. 1). Based on both the topography of the valley (and Mantineia's position in it), and its relation to eastern Arkadian geography, we can confidently presume the existence of two major roads running south toward Tegea and Pallantion, one road skirting the Anchisia ridge and leading north toward Orchomenos, one heading east toward the plain of Nestane and Argos (via the Skales Pass), one running north–south through the plain of Nestane toward the Portes Pass in the direction of Nemea and Corinth northeast of the city, and at least one other that led toward the Helisson valley and Methydrion to the west."

Note 'assumes' and 'presumes' (albeit confident) - these Greek roads hardly ever survive on the ground, so there is still scope for further dead horse flogging.

And just for fun, here's Mrs T in the Tegean Gate of Mantineia:

You cannot view this attachment.

[Justin Swanton]

Let me make clear that I haven't nailed my colours to the mast as regards Mantinean territory south of the narrows. The only reason for that hypothesis is to explain something to which I am welded: the clear and obvious fact that Xenophon - the only contemporary historian of the battle - puts the battle west of Tegea, not north.

As an alternative approach, putting the sources in date order, when and how did the main engagement come to be called the "Battle of Mantinea"?


Xenophon (430-355BC): He does not affirm it was in Mantinean territory nor does he call it the battle of Mantinea. He does affirm the initial cavalry engagement took place at Mantinea.

Aischenes (389–314 BC): I fought in the battle of Mantineia, not without honour to myself or credit to the city.

Question: which battle is he talking about? Xenophon calls the cavalry engagement a "cavalry battle at Mantinea". In that battle the Athenian cavalry, possibly helped by the 6,000 man contingent of Athenian hoplites, saw off the Theban and Thessalian cavalry. That battle was something for an Athenian to boast of and Aischenes was Athenian. The Athenians did not shine so well at the main battle, being harassed almost to a rout by the Theban cavalry and saved only by the intervention of the Eleian cavalry reserve.

Polybius (200-118BC):  But when he tells the story of the battle of Leuktra between the Thebans and Lakedaimonians, or again that of Mantineia between the same combatants, in which Epameinondas lost his life, if in these one examines attentively and in detail the arrangements and evolutions in the line of battle, the historian will appear quite ridiculous, and betray his entire ignorance and want of personal experience of such matters.

.....

So he exhorted the Thebans to exert themselves; and, after a rapid night march, arrived at Mantinea about mid-day, finding it entirely destitute of defenders.

But the Athenians, who were at that time zealously supporting the Lacedaemonians in their contest with the Thebans, had arrived in virtue of their treaty of alliance; and just as the Theban vanguard reached the temple of Poseidon, seven stades from the town, it happened that the Athenians showed themselves, by design, as if on the brow of the hill overhanging Mantinea. And when they saw them, the Mantineans who had been left behind at last ventured to man the wall and resist the attack of the Thebans. Therefore historians are justified in speaking with some dissatisfaction of these events, when they say that the leader did everything which a good general could, but that, while conquering his enemies, Epaminondas was conquered by Fortune.

Polybius, writing two centuries after the events, is clearly conflating the two battles. Epaminondas wasn't "conquered by fortune" due to the failure of his lightning strike at Mantinea but in the main battle afterwards. Notice how Polybius seems to imply the entire Theban army force-marched to Mantinea, not just the cavalry.

Cornelius Nepos: (110-25BC) Finally, when commander at Mantinea, in the heat of battle he charged the enemy too boldly.

Nepos was a Roman biographer writing about three centuries after the battle.

Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC): For just as he was approaching the unprotected city, one opposite side of Mantineia there arrived the reinforcements sent by Athens, six thousand in number with Hegesileôs their general, a man at that time renowned amongst his fellow citizens. He introduced an adequate force into the city and arrayed the rest of the army in expectation of a decisive battle. [3] And presently the Lacedaemonians and Mantineians made their appearance as well, whereat all got ready for the contest which was to decide the issue and summoned their allies from every direction.

A first impression of this text is that the Battle of Mantinea was fought just outside the city walls and is one and the same as the cavalry engagement. Some serious telescoping took place - Hegesileôs foiled the Theban mounted strike against the city (or the lands around it) but there was a lapse of time before the Spartans and Mantineans arrived and everyone deployed for the main battle, wherever that took place. Thus, Diodorus does not affirm the battle took place at Mantinea or even in Mantinean territory.

Plutarch (AD46-119):  A few days afterwards a battle was fought near Mantinea, in which Epaminondas had already routed the van of the Lacedaemonians, and was still eagerly pressing on in pursuit of them, when Anticrates, a Spartan, faced him and smote him with a spear, as Dioscorides tells the story.

In the battle of Mantineia he (Agesilaos) urged the Spartans to pay no attention to any of the others, but to fight against Epameinondas, for he said that only men of intelligence are valiant and may be counted upon to bring victory; if, therefore, they could make away with that one man, they would very easily reduce the others to subjection; for these were unintelligent and worthless.

This is nearly half a millennium after the battle.

Pausanias (110-180AD): On reaching Mantineia with his army, he was killed in the hour of victory by an Athenian. In the painting at Athens of the battle of the cavalry the man who is killing Epaminondas is Grylus, the son of the Xenophon who took part in the expedition of Cyrus against king Artaxerxes and led the Greeks back to the sea.

Pausanias clearly conflates the cavalry battle with the main battle.

Diogenes Laertius (3rd century AD): Gryllus was posted with the cavalry and in the battle which took place about Mantinea, fought stoutly and fell, as Ephorus relates in his twenty-fifth book, Cephisodorus being in command of the cavalry and Hegesilaus the strategos. In this battle Epaminondas also fell.

Diogenes conflates the cavalry fight with the main battle.


Of the authors who were contemporaries of the battle, Xenophon does not affirm the battle took place at Mantinea whilst Aischenes is probably referring to the earlier cavalry engagement. Writing two centuries later, Polybius appears to conflate the two battles as does Diodorus (though Diodorus does not categorically do so). Pausanias and Diogenes also conflate the two battles. Nepos and Plutarch may be repeating this conflation.

I'm not a fan of interpreting sources like this but it is necessary to align them with Xenophon. And there's a real problem with the conflation of the cavalry and main battle. Why did so many authors think they were the same battle? I propose that many of the authors saw the cavalry fight as the initial engagement of the main battle, and the name given to the cavalry fight was extended to the main battle, resulting in both melding into one.


PS: I haven't abandoned the hypothesis of Mantinean territory south of the narrows as nothing has appeared that refutes it.

[RichT]

the clear and obvious fact that Xenophon - the only contemporary historian of the battle - puts the battle west of Tegea, not north.

But that's where you go wrong - right at the first step - and all the pages of motivated reasoning that follow flow from this.

[Justin Swanton]

the clear and obvious fact that Xenophon - the only contemporary historian of the battle - puts the battle west of Tegea, not north.

But that's where you go wrong

Fine, prove it.

BTW the lady looks like she was having fun. 

[Justin Swanton]

There's more on the Mantineian watchtowers here:

The Defense Network in the Chora of Mantineia
Matthew P. Maher, Alistair Mowat
Hesperia: 87, 2018, pp. 451-495

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/819893

Executive summary - the Skopi tower is Mantineian, part of a system of watchtowers surrounding Mantineia, built perhaps around 370.

Just briefly, the Skopi site is natural for a watchtower that surveys the valley south of the narrows, regardless of how much territory in that valley is or isn't Mantinean.

[Jon Freitag]

And just for fun, here's Mrs T in the Tegean Gate of Mantineia:

Excellent photo, Rich! I enjoy seeing others' travel photos of ancient ruins and battlefields.

I will ask (what seems to me) the obvious question.

If there was no road between Mantineia and Tegea, why was this feature called the Tegean Gate?  If the main road was to Pallantium, should it not be the Pallantium Gate?

[Orc65]

If there was no road between Mantineia and Tegea, why was this feature called the Tegean Gate?  If the main road was to Pallantium, should it not be the Pallantium Gate?

Was it called the Tegean Gate in antiquity or is that a modern label?

[Justin Swanton]

I will ask (what seems to me) the obvious question.

If there was no road between Mantineia and Tegea, why was this feature called the Tegean Gate?  If the main road was to Pallantium, should it not be the Pallantium Gate?

Could the Tegean gate have been added later when a road was created between Mantinea and Tegea? We are in hypothetical territory here but it does reconcile the two maps. When exactly the Mantinea-Tegea road came into existence would decide the question. The map from the Hodkinson article does seem to take trouble over its road network: "Roads", "Principal tracks". If it was such an important road why was it left out? The French survey map for its part superimposes roads that were unlikely to have existed at the same time:



I'll leave the whole question of the Mantinea-Tegean border there and look at the deployment next. To repeat my earlier question, why did Epaminondas get the Argives to paint clubs on their shields so as to resemble Thebans? $10,000,000 for the right answer.* 

* Payable in Zimbabwean currency

[Erpingham]

If there was no road between Mantineia and Tegea, why was this feature called the Tegean Gate?  If the main road was to Pallantium, should it not be the Pallantium Gate?

Was it called the Tegean Gate in antiquity or is that a modern label?

I think the name Tegean gate is modern, from what I've read. I don't think we know the actual names.

[Erpingham]

Fine, prove it.

Come now, Justin, you are well aware we are dealing not dealing with things that can be proven with the current state of knowledge.  We are dealing with plausible speculation.  Hence you are introducing new speculations to interpret the battle and Richard is disputing them.

For what it's worth, having reread the translation of Xenophon, I don't think he says where the battle was fought.  He does say that the Thebans marched westwards rather than towards the enemy and that they looked like they would camp by the mountains, which certainly places them on that side of the plateau before the battle.  Where on that side isn't mentioned, as far as I can see, but their reorganisation (that deceives the mantineans they are camping) is said to take place "as soon as" they get to the mountains.  They move to attack from this position.  Xenophon implies that the Mantinaeans are in a position not far from the Thebans, as they have to rush to deploy when the see them start moving.  He is, however, quiet on any supposed Mantinaean advance against Tegea, so we would expect to find them in a blocking position toward the city - by the border perhaps, or maybe covering the two roads coming up from the south.

[Justin Swanton]

Fine, prove it.

Come now, Justin, you are well aware we are dealing not dealing with things that can be proven with the current state of knowledge.  We are dealing with plausible speculation.  Hence you are introducing new speculations to interpret the battle and Richard is disputing them.

I'm not much of a fan of being told I'm wrong without any attempt to demonstrate why I am wrong. Ricardus locutus est, causa finita est. Thus far nobody has rebutted my analysis of Xenophon. Richard is welcome to, and if he proves his case I'll be happy to accept it. My job isn't on the line if I'm proved wrong. 

For what it's worth, having reread the translation of Xenophon, I don't think he says where the battle was fought.  He does say that the Thebans marched westwards rather than towards the enemy and that they looked like they would camp by the mountains, which certainly places them on that side of the plateau before the battle.  Where on that side isn't mentioned, as far as I can see, but their reorganisation (that deceives the mantineans they are camping) is said to take place "as soon as" they get to the mountains.  They move to attack from this position.  Xenophon implies that the Mantinaeans are in a position not far from the Thebans, as they have to rush to deploy when the see them start moving.  He is, however, quiet on any supposed Mantinaean advance against Tegea, so we would expect to find them in a blocking position toward the city - by the border perhaps, or maybe covering the two roads coming up from the south.

Fine. Let's take your reconstruction. The Thebans and Mantineans in this initial and final position:




That puts both armies firmly in Tegean territory. If that's the case then why the "Battle of Mantinea"?

You can move the Tegea-Mantinean frontier south to allow the armies to fight in Mantinean territory:




But in that case what stops you moving it further south to accommodate a battlefield west of Tegea?