Thus in 362 Thebes was driven to choose between reasserting her authority and sacrificing her prestige. Her move against Arcadia caused Greece to divide afresh into two hostile coalitions. Once more Epameinondas made a surprise spring at Sparta, but he was deprived of the fruits of his night march through a de serter warning the Spartan main army in time for it to hurry back and safeguard the capital. Epameinondas then stood on guard at Tegea while the enemy forces concentrated at Mantineia. The valley in which these places lay is shaped like an hour-glass by the surrounding mountain ranges, and at the mile-wide waist the Spartans and their allies took up a strong position. He determined to seek a decision by battle, but as in his strategy so in his grand tactics showed his art by an indirect approach.
At first Epameinondas marched direct towards the Spartan camp, causing the enemy to form up in battle order facing his line of approach. But when still several miles distant, he sud denly changed direction to the left, turning in beneath a pro jecting spur. This surprise manoeuvre threatened to take in enfilade the Spartan right, and to dislocate still further the Spartans' battle dispositions he halted his troops and made them ground arms as if to encamp. The deception succeeded ; the enemy were induced to relax their battle order, allowing men to fall out and the horses to be unbridled. Meanwhile Epameinondas was actually completing his battle dispositions behind a screen of light troops.
Then, on a signal, the Theban army took up its arms and swept forward. Caught by surprise the enemy made haste to reform, but their cavalry were driven back by the Theban cavalry cov ering the left flank of the massed column, and this striking the Spartan line "like the prow of a galley" pierced it in two. But in the moment of decision Epameinondas himself was mortally wounded, and with his fall the advance came to a stop and failed to complete the victory already won. (See XENOPHON, Hellenica, vii. 5; Cambridge Ancient History, vi. 89-102.) (3). The third battle for which Mantineia is notable was that of 207 B.C., in which Philopoemen, the commander of the forces of the Achaean League, routed Machanidas, tyrant of Sparta. As Cicero acclaims Epameinondas as "the first man of Greece" —and might justly have acclaimed him, in a time sense, as the first great captain of history—so Plutarch refers to Philopoemen as "the last of the Greeks." As a military artist he was worthy
to take a place in the illustrious company of Epameinondas and Xenophon, with Alexander and Pyrrhus. Mantineia was his first battle in chief command, and before beginning operations he had devoted eight months to the preparation and training of his forces. On the approach of Machinadas from Tegea he moved out from Mantineia to accept battle and drew up in order behind a shallow ravine. The interesting feature of his formation was that his phalanx of heavy foot was broken up into small com panies with intervals between, and formed in two lines, the rear companies apparently covering the intervals in the front line. This is clearly a modification inspired by Roman practice.
Machinadas advanced in three columns directed on the Achaean right, but on nearing his enemy deployed into line to the right. He then arrayed his catapults for an artillery "preparation," intended to demoralize and disorganize the Achaean ranks, but this move was interrupted by Philopoemen, who launched his light horse. This led to a general engagement of the light troops on both sides in which Machanidas's mercenaries gradually gained the upper hand. The Achaeans on the left wing broke, and Machanidas rashly threw himself into the pursuit, which swept like a tide past the firm rock formed by the Achaean phalanx. Philopoemen thereupon wheeled the forward companies of the phalanx to the left and moved them swiftly to occupy the aban doned flank position, thus cutting off the pursuers and at the same time preventing his flank being turned by the Spartan phalanx, which now advanced. But at the moment when crossing the ravine, and their ranks inevitably becoming disordered, Philo poemen launched his own more flexible phalanx in a decisive riposte. Having dispersed the Spartan phalanx, Philopoemen, while part of his army followed them up, turned with the rest to bar Machanidas's expected return. Thus when the Spartan light troops came in sight of the strongly held ravine they lost heart and melted away, leaving Machanidas himself to fall, according to the reliable Polybius, in personal combat with Philopoemen.
As Rome, on intervening in Greece, recognized the independence of the Achaean League, her generals never had to meet this one accomplished Greek leader. (See Polybius, xi. 8-18; Plutarch, Philopoemen.) (B. H. L. H.)