The west arm of the Theatre shows to the left, and the foreground is occupied by the remains of the Thersilion or Town Hall. The river Helisson sparkles in the distance, which is closed by the mountains of Arcadia. Sunset.
(386 B.C.) Mantinea again incurred the hostility of Sparta and experienced its military skill. The river Ophis (so called from its circuitous windings farther north), which at that time ran through the city, was diverted from its course by the Spartan general Agesipolis, and so dammed up that its waters overflowed the brick-built walls, which soon gave way, compelling the inhabitants to surrender. The community was then dissolved into the five villages of which it had been composed, a high-handed act on the part of Sparta, which was characteristic of its policy when it thought its ascendency to be in danger. One of the first results of the great Theban victory achieved by Epaminondas at Leuctra (371 B.C.) was the reunion of the scattered population. But though the Mantineans were at first in sympathy with the policy of that great soldier and statesman in seeking to create an Arcadian federation for the defence of the country against Spartan aggression, the rise of a new capital at Megalopolis excited their jealousy, and it was partly owing to their defection that Epaminondas had to undertake his last campaign in the Peloponnesus. It was in a great battle fought in the immediate vicinity of Mantinea that he met his death. Never was there a more striking proof of the influence that may be exerted by a master-mind upon an army, than when Epaminondas was suddenly struck down while fighting with heroic energy at the head of his men. As soon as they knew that he had fallen, their victorious advance ceased, and the enemy were allowed to retire without suffering the usual penalties of defeat. He was carried out of the field with a lance sticking in his breast; and a rising-ground is still pointed out (Scopas) from which he is said to have watched the close of the battle. He named two men to succeed him in the command of the forces; but, on learning that they had both fallen, he advised that peace should be concluded with the enemy. Having ascertained that his shield was safe, he ordered the javelin to be extracted, and as the blood rushed out he breathed his last. He was buried on the spot, and a monument was erected over his grave, of which no trace has yet been found.
Even if there were no such names in Greek history as Hesiod, Pindar, Pelopidas, and Plutarch, the memory of Epaminondas would be sufficient to redeem Bœotia from the reproach so often cast upon it as a land of dullards. He was not only a consummate general, whose name will always be associated with the irresistible phalanx which anticipated that of Macedonia,[2] but was in every respect a great man—the greatest of the Greeks, according to Cicero. Distinguished in music and philosophy, he was also a good speaker, and if he had had more opportunities for the practice of eloquence, he would probably have been found a match for the greatest orators of his day. We may judge of his readiness in debate from the answer he gave to Callistratus, the renowned Athenian orator, when the latter, pleading with the Arcadians to form an alliance with Athens rather than with Thebes and Argos, sought to excite prejudice against these states by asking, “Were not Orestes and Alcmæon, who were both murderers of their mothers, natives of Argos? Was not Œdipus, who slew his father and married his mother, a native of Thebes?” “Yes, they were,” said Epaminondas, in his reply, “but Callistratus has forgotten to tell you that these men, while they lived at home, were innocent or were reputed to be so. As soon as their crimes became known they were banished; and then it was that Athens received them, stained with blood.” On another occasion, when he was accused by a demagogue of trying to emulate the glories of Agamemnon at the risk of his country, by sailing from Aulis to the Hellespont at the head of a great fleet, he replied, “By the help of Thebes I have already done more than Agamemnon. He with the forces of Sparta and all Greece besides, was ten years in taking a single city; while I, with the single force of Thebes and on the single day of Leuctra, have crushed the power of the Agamemnonian Sparta.” This was answering a fool according to his folly; but, in general, he was as remarkable for his modesty as for his great powers. It was said of him by one who had been in early life a companion of Socrates that he had never known any one who understood so much and spoke so little; and when he was reduced in rank, even after the great battle which deprived Sparta of its military supremacy, he did not disdain to serve his country for a time in a comparatively humble position. That the Spartans knew how formidable he was as an adversary is evident from the honours which, as Plutarch tells us, they heaped on the man who slew him, even ordaining that his descendants in all time coming should be exempted from the payment of taxes. Like Aristides the “Just” and Delyannis, the recently-assassinated Premier of Greece, Epaminondas was so free from the love of money that he did not leave enough even to pay his funeral expenses.
Very few remains of the ancient city of Mantinea are to be seen, but the lower courses of the encircling walls, measuring more than two and a half miles in circumference, are plainly visible, with eight different gates and more than 120 towers, separated by intervals of fully 80 feet, while the course of the Ophis can also be traced, which served apparently as a moat, with its two arms running round the city. In 1887 three marble slabs were discovered in the floor of a Byzantine church within the walls, with reliefs representing the musical contest between Marsyas and Apollo, which have been identified with those mentioned by Pausanias as adorning a pedestal supporting images of Latona and her children, by Praxiteles. In the present aspect of the place, which is very much of the nature of a swamp, there is little to justify its ancient reputation as the “lovely city” mentioned in Homer.
Tegea and Mantinea and another ancient city in the neighbourhood (Pallantion) are commemorated in the city of Tripoliza (or Tripolis, the threefold city), which was founded by the Turks about two hundred years ago.