Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/99

81 BATTLE OF MANTINKIA. &] pendent allies, Heraean and Macnalian, near them. Lastly, in the right wing, stood the Tegeans, with a small division of Lacedaemonians occupying the extreme right, as the post of honor. On each flank there were some Lacedaemonian horse- men.i Thucydides, with a frankness which enhances the value of his* testimony wherever he gives it positively, informs us that he can- not pretend to set down the number of either army. It is evident that this silence is not for want of having inquired ; but none of the answers which he received appeared to him trustworthy : the extreme secrecy of Lacedaemonian politics admitted of no cer- tainty about their numbers, while the empty numerical boasts of other Greeks were not less misleading. In the absence of as- sured information about aggregate number, the historian gives us some general information accessible to every inquirer, and some facts visible to a spectator. From his language it is conjec- tured, with some probability, by Dr. Thirlwall and others, that he was himself present at the battle, though in what capacity we cannot determine, as he was an exile from his country. First, he states that the Lacedaemonian army appeared more numerous than that of the enemy. Next he tells us, that independent of the Skiritse on the left, who were six hundred in number, the remaining Lacedaemonian front, to the extremity of their right wing, consisted of four hundred and forty-eight men, each en- omoty having four men in front. In respect to depth, the differ- ent enGmoties were not all equal ; but for the most part, the files were eight deep. There were seven lochi in all (apart from the Skiritae) ; each lochus comprised four pentekosties, each pente- kosty contained four enomoties. 2 Multiplying four hundred and 1 Thucyd. v, 67. 2 Very little can be made out respecting the structure of the Lacedaemo- nian army. We know that the enomoty was the elementary division, the military unit : that the pentckosty was composed of a definite (not always the same) number of enomoties: that the lochus also was composed of a definite (not always the same) number of pentekosties. The mora appears to have been a still larger division, consisting of so many lochi (according to Xenophon. of four lochi) : but Thucydides speaks as if he knew no di- vision larger than the lochus. Beyond this very slender information, there seems no other fact certainly VOL. vii. 4* 6oc.