O. Müller, also, thinks that the whole number of five thousand seven hundred and forty men, who fought at the first battle of Mantineia, in the thirteenth year of the Peloponnesian war, were furnished by the city of Sparta itself (Hist. of Dorians, iii. 12, 2): and to prove this, he refers to the very passage just cited from the Hellenica of Xenophon, which, as far as it proves anything, proves the contrary of his position. He gives no other evidence to support it, and I think it in the highest degree improbable. I have already remarked that he understands the expression πολιτικὴ χώρα (in Polybius, vi. 45) to mean the district of Sparta itself as contradistinguished from Laconia,—a construction which seems to me not warranted by the passage in Polybius.
[808] Aristotle, Λακώνων Πολιτεία, Fragm. 5-6, ed. Neumann: Photius v. Λόχος. Harpokration, Μόρα. Etymologic. Mag. Μόρα. The statement of Aristotle is transmitted so imperfectly that we cannot make out clearly what it was. Xenophon says that there were six moræ in all, comprehending all the citizens of military age (Rep. Lac. 11, 3). But Ephorus stated the mora at five hundred men, Kallisthenes at seven hundred, and Polybius at nine hundred (Plutarch, Pelopid. 17; Diodor. xv. 32). If all the citizens competent to bear arms were comprised in six moræ, the numbers of each mora must of course have varied. At the battle of Mantineia, there were seven Lacedæmonian lochi, each lochus containing four pentekosties, and each pentekosty containing four enômoties: Thucydidês seems, as I before remarked, to make each enômoty thirty-two men. But Xenophon tells us that each mora had four lochi, each lochus two pentekosties, and each pentekosty two enômoties (Rep. Lac. 11, 4). The names of these divisions remained the same, but the numbers varied.
[809] This is implied in the fact, that the men under thirty or under thirty-five years of age, were often detached in a battle to pursue the light troops of the enemy (Xen. Hellen. iv. 5, 15-16).
[810] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4, 12.
[811] Herodot. vi. 111; Thucyd. vi. 98; Xenoph. Hellen. iv. 2, 19.
The same marshalling of hoplites, according to the civil tribes to which they belonged, is seen in the inhabitants of Messênê in Sicily as well as of Syrakuse (Thucyd. iii. 90; vi. 100).
At Argos, there was a body of one thousand hoplites, who, during the Peloponnesian war, received training in military manœuvres at the cost of the city (Thucyd. v. 67), but there is reason to believe that this arrangement was not introduced until about the period of the peace of Nikias in the tenth or eleventh year of the Peloponnesian war, when the truce between Argos and Sparta was just expiring, and when the former began to entertain schemes of ambition. The Epariti in Arcadia began at a much later time, after the battle of Leuktra (Xenoph. Hellen. vii. 4, 33).
About the Athenian taxiarchs, one to each tribe, see Æschines de Fals. Leg. c. 53, p. 300 R.; Lysias, pro Mantitheo, Or. xvi. p. 147; Demosth. adv. Bœotum pro nomine, p. 999 R. Philippic, i. p. 47.
See the advice given by Xenophon (in his Treatise De Officio Magistri Equitum) for the remodelling of the Athenian cavalry, and for the introduction of small divisions, each with its special commander. The division into tribes is all that he finds recognized (Off. M. E. C. ii. 2-iv. 9); he strongly recommends giving orders,—διὰ παραγγέλσεως, and not ἀπὸ κήρυκος.
[812] Plutarch, Pelopid. c. 23. Πάντων ἄκροι τεχνῖται καὶ σοφισταὶ τῶν πολεμικῶν ὄντες οἱ Σπαρτιᾶται, etc. (Xenoph. Rep. Lac. c. 14) ἡγησαῖο ἂν, τοὺς μὲν ἄλλους αὐτοσχεδιαστὰς εἶναι τῶν στρατιωτικῶν, Λακεδαιμονίους δὲ μόνους τῷ ὄντι τεχνίτας τῶν πολεμικῶν.... Ὥστε τῶν δεομένων γίγνεσθαι οὐδὲν ἀπορεῖται· οὐδὲν γὰρ ἀπρόσκεπτόν ἐστιν.