Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/459

 TEGJ;A AND MANTIXEIA. 443 armaments, which was second in distinction only to that of the Lacedaemonians.* If it be correct, as Strabo asserts,2 that the incorporation of the town of Mantineia, out of its five separate denies, was brought about by the Argeians, we may conjecture that the latter adopted this proceeding as a means of providing some check upon their powerful neighbors of Tegea. The plain common to Tegea and Mantineia was bounded to the west by the wintry heights of Ma2nalus,3 beyond which, as far as the boundaries of Laconia, Messenia, and Triphylia, there was noth- ing in Arcadia but small and unimportant townships, or villages, without any considerable town, before the important step taken by Epameinondas in founding Megalopolis, a short time after the battle of Leuktra. The mountaineers of these regions, who joined Epameinondas before the battle of Mantineia, at a time when Mantineia and most of the towns of Arcadia were opposed to him, were so inferior to the other Greeks in equipment, that they still carried as their chief weapon, in place of the spear, nothing better than the ancient club. 4 1 Herodot. ix. 27. (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. Grsecor. vol. ii. p. viii.}. The Argeians had espoused the cause of the Arcadians against Sparta ; and at the expense of consider- able 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. a MaivaMrj SvaxEififpos (Delphian Oracle, ap. Paus. viii. 9, 2). 4 Xenophon, in describing the ardor with which Epameinondas inspired his soldiers before this final battle, says (vii. 5, 20), Kpodiipus [ilv eXevKovvra ol /7r;rf ru upavij, KeTiEvovrof EKELVOV ETTeypaijiovTode Kal T&v 'Ap/ca- duv dTrTilrai. poira'ka I o v T e c, we Qij [3aioi ovref iravr !f it IKOVUVTO Kal Myxat; Kal //a,t;a<pac, Kal &aftirpvvovro ruf u
 * Strabo, 1. c. Mantineia is reckoned among the oldest cities of Arcadia