[767] Strabo. viii. p. 337.
[768] Herodot. ix. 27.
[769] Strabo, 1. c. Mantineia is reckoned among the oldest cities of Arcadia (Polyb. ii. 54). Both Mantineia and Orchomenus had originally occupied very lofty hill-sites, and had been rebuilt on a larger scale, lower down, nearer to the plain (Pausan. viii. 8, 3; 12, 4; 13, 2).
In regard to the relations, during the early historical period, between Sparta, Argos, and Arcadia, there is a new fragment of Diodorus (among those recently published by Didot out of the Excerpta in the Escurial library, Fragment. Historic. Græcor. vol. ii. p. viii.). The Argeians had espoused the cause of the Arcadians against Sparta; and at the expense of considerable loss and suffering, had regained such portions of Arcadia as she had conquered. The king of Argos restored this recovered territory to the Arcadians: but the Argeians generally were angry that he did not retain it and distribute it among them as a reward for their losses in the contest. They rose in insurrection against the king, who was forced to flee, and take refuge at Tegea.
We have nothing to illustrate this fragment, nor do we know to what king, date, or events, it relates.
[770] Μαιναλίη δυσχείμερος (Delphian Oracle, ap. Paus. viii. 9, 2).
[771] Xenophon, in describing the ardor with which Epameinondas inspired his soldiers before this final battle, says (vii. 5, 20), προθύμως μὲν ἐλευκοῦντο οἱ ἱππεῖς τὰ κράνη, κελεύοντος ἐκείνου· ἐπεγράφοντο δὲ καὶ τῶν Ἀρκάδων ὁπλῖται, ῥόπαλα ἔχοντες, ὡς Θηβαῖοι ὄντες· πάντες δὲ ἠκονῶντο καὶ λόγχας καὶ μαχαίρας, καὶ ἐλαμπρύνοντο τὰς ἀσπίδας.
It is hardly conceivable that these Arcadian clubmen should have possessed a shield and a full panoply. The language of Xenophon in calling them hoplites, and the term ἐπεγράφοντο, properly referring to the inscription on the shield, appear to be conceived in a spirit of contemptuous sneering, proceeding from Xenophon’s miso-Theban tendencies: “The Arcadian hoplites, with their clubs, put themselves forward to be as good as the Thebans.” That these tendencies of Xenophon show themselves in expressions very unbecoming to the dignity of history (though curious as evidences of the time), may be seen by vii. 5, 12, where he says of the Thebans,—ἐνταῦθα δὴ οἱ πῦρ πνέοντες, οἱ νενικηκότες τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους, οἱ τῷ παντὶ πλέονες, etc.
[772] Thucyd. v. 33, 47, 81.
[773] Thucyd. 1. c. Compare the instructive speech of Kleigenês, the envoy from Akanthus, addressed to the Lacedæmonians, B. C. 382 (Xen. Hellen. v. 2, 15-16).