spartan army at Mantinea 418 BC

[Paralus]

Reading elswhere and for something else entirely when this popped out of the text:

Plutarch, Alcibiades, 15.1:

After this fiasco on the part of the Lacedaemonians, Alcibiades was appointed general, and straightway brought the Argives, Mantineans, and Eleans into alliance with Athens. The manner of this achievement of his no one approved, but the effect of it was great. It divided and agitated almost all Peloponnesus; it arrayed against the Lacedaemonians at Mantinea so many warlike shields upon a single day; it set at farthest remove from Athens the struggle, with all its risks, in which, when the Lacedaemonians conquered, their victory brought them no great advantage, whereas, had they been defeated, the very existence of Sparta would have been at stake.

Amidst his often trite, homely and sometimes irrelevant anecdotes Plutarch secretes the occasional perspicacious gem.

Divided and agitated indeed. Inspired irritation on the chameleon's part. The League was already restless and disaffected - as it would remain and worsen.

Just how important was this battle for Sparta? Just how desperate a situation was it? The Spartans were looking the end of life as they knew it in the face. A century and a half of war and assiduos (and one-sided) alliance building on the Mantinean table and the croupier's rateau in the chameleon's hand readying to wipe them from the game. Hence the large call up: city or the bush!

There is another in the Agesilaos (33.3-4) where the Spartans' huge joy is described after the "Tearless Battle"(368). Plturch seasons the story with this little piece of acidity:

This victory, more than anything else, showed the weakness of the city. For up to this time they were wont to think the conquest of their enemies so customary and natural a thing for them to achieve, that no sacrifice for victory was offered in the city to the gods, beyond that of a cock, neither did the winners of the contest exult, nor those who heard of their victory show great joy. Nay, even after the battle at Mantinea, which Thucydides has described, the one who first announced the victory had no other reward for his glad tidings than a piece of meat sent by the magistrates from the public mess. But now, at the news of the Arcadian victory and at the approach of Archidamus, no one could restrain himself, but first his father went to meet him, weeping for joy, and after him the chief magistrates, while the elderly men and the women went down in a throng to the river, lifting their hands to heaven and blessing the gods...

How the overproud had fallen.