Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/362

 Jr,40 HISTORY OF GREECE. fall into disorder, and scattered about the field. Many ol the horse- men even took off their breast-plates and unbridled their horses. And what was of hardly less consequence, that mental prepara- tion of the soldier, whereby he was wound up for the moment of action, and which provident commanders never omitted, if possible, to inflame by a special harangue at the moment, was allowed to slacken and run down. 1 So strongly was the whole army per- suaded of the intention of Epaminondas to encamp, that they suf- fered him not only without hindrance, but even without suspicion, to make all his movements and dispositions preparatory to imme- diate attack. Such improvidence is surprising, when we recollect that the ablest commander and the best troops in Greece were so close upon the right of their position. It is to be in part explained, probably, by the fact that the Spartan headship was now at an end, and that there was no supreme chief to whom the whole body of Lacedaemonian allies paid deference. If either of the kings of Sparta was present, a point not distinctly ascertainable, he would have no command except over the Lacedaemonian troops. In the entire allied army, the Mantineans occupied the extreme right, (as on a former occasion, because the battle was in their ter- ritory, 2 and because the Lacedaemonians had lost their once- recognized privilege), together with the other Arcadians. On the right-centre and centre were the Lacedaemonians, Eleians, and Achans ; on the extreme left, the Athenians. 3 There was cav- alry on both the wings ; Athenian on the left, Eleian on the right ; spread out with no more than the ordinary depth, and with- out any intermixture of light infantry along with the horsemen. 4 In the phalanx of Epaminondas, he himself with the Thebaua and Boeotians was on the left ; the Argeians on the right ; the 1 Xen. Hellen. vii, 5, 22. Kal yap 6%, (if Trpdf TV opei tyevero, &re2 eferu- ri ai>T 7i 0a/layf, imb role vipijTiolf et9-ero ret 6;rAa' wore eiKua-di] arparo- . TOVTO fo Troir/aaf, I/Ivor /J.EV ruv irXeiaruv iroAefiiuv TTJV kv ?rpdf fia^riv irapaffKEV^v, ikvae 6e rfjv v ralf avvru^eaiv. 3 Diodor. xv, 85. That the Athenians were on the left, we also know from Xenophon (HelL rii, 5, 24), though he gives no complete description of the arrangement of the allies on either side. 4 Xen. Hellen. vii, 5 23.
 * Thucyd. v, 67 ; Paasanias, viii, 9, 5 ; viii, 10, 4.