Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/103

85 BATTLE OF MANTINKIA. 82 up the vacancy thus created in his line, he sent orders to the two polemarchs Aristokles and Hipponoidas, who had their lochi on the extreme right of the line, to move to the rear and take post on the right of the Brasideians, so as again to close up the line. But these two polemarchs, who had the safest and most victorious place in the line, chose to keep it, disobeying his express orders : so that Agis, when he saw that they did not oiove, was forced to send a second order countermanding the flank movement of the Skiritae, and directing them to fall in upon the centre, back into their former place. But it had now become too late to execute this second command before the hos- tile armies closed : and the Skiritae and Brasideians were thus assailed while in disorder and cut off from their own centre. The Mantineians, finding them in this condition, defeated and drove them back ; while the chosen Thousand of Argos, breaking in by the vacant space between the Brasideians and the Lacedce- monian centre, took them on the right flank and completed their discomfiture. They were routed and pursued even to the Lace- daemonian baggage- wagons in the rear ; some of the elder troops who guarded the wagons being slain, and the whole Lacedaemo- nian left wing altogether dispersed. But the victorious Mantineians and their comrades, thinking only of what was immediately before them, wasted thus a precious time when their aid was urgently needed elsewhere. Matters passed very differently on the Lacedasmonian centre and right ; where Agis, with his body-guard of three hundred chosen youths called Hippeis, and with the Spartan lochi, found himself in front conflict with the centre and left of the enemy ; with the Argeians, their elderly troops and the so-called Five Lochi , with the Kleonseans and Orneates, dependent allies of Argos, and with the Athenians. Over all these troops they were com- pletely victorious, after a short resistance ; indeed, on some points with no resistance at all. So formidable was the aspect and name of the Lacedaemonians, that the opposing troops gave way without crossing spears ; and even with a panic so headlong, that they trod down each other in anxiety to escape. 1 While thua 1 Thucyd. v, 72. (Oi AaKedaipovioi roi'f 'Apydovf) "Erpe^iav, oiiSs tj Tffipaf roi>f n-o?./lo{!f vTro/LteivavTac, u/U,', (if iiryeaav ot AaneAaijuoviot, ei>&i)t