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Updated: May 19, 2025
Cleander was a man of high birth and great power in the city of Mantinea, but by the chances of the time happened to be driven from thence. There being an intimate friendship betwixt him and Craugis, the father of Philopoemen, who was a person of great distinction, he settled at Megalopolis, where, while his friend lived, he had all he could desire.
No man commended the method by which Alcibiades effected all this, yet it was a great political feat thus to divide and shake almost all Peloponnesus, and to combine so many men in arms against the Lacedaemonians in one day before Mantinea; and, moreover, to remove the war and the danger so far from the frontier of the Athenians, that even success would profit the enemy but little, should they be conquerors, whereas, if they were defeated, Sparta itself was hardly safe.
The Achaeans, therefore, lost Mantinea, which was recovered by Cleomenes, and being beaten in a great fight near Hecatombaeum, so general was the consternation, that they immediately sent to Cleomenes to desire him to come to Argos and take the command upon him.
He had not long been master of Athens before he had formed designs against Lacedaemon; of which Archidamus, the king, being advertised, came out and met him, but he was overthrown in a battle near Mantinea; after which Demetrius entered Laconia, and, in a second battle near Sparta itself, defeated him again with the loss of two hundred Lacedaemonians slain, and five hundred taken prisoners.
Meanwhile Agis, whether in consequence of this halloo or of some sudden new idea of his own, quickly led back his army without engaging, and entering the Tegean territory, began to turn off into that of Mantinea the water about which the Mantineans and Tegeans are always fighting, on account of the extensive damage it does to whichever of the two countries it falls into.
Another expedition was undertaken against the Peloponnesus in 367 B.C., and the cities of Achaia immediately submitted, becoming the allies of Thebes. In 362 the Peloponnesus was invaded for the last time, and at Mantinea Epaminondas defeated the Spartans in the most sanguinary contest ever fought among Grecians; but he fell in the moment of victory, and the glory of Thebes departed with him.
Sparta was now discouraged and helpless, and even many Peloponnesian cities put themselves under the presidency of Athens. None were more affected by the Spartan overthrow than the Arcadians, whose principal cities had been governed by an oligarchy in the interest of Sparta, such as Tegea and Orchomenus, while Mantinea was broken up into villages.
The consequence was that when two armies came into action, the left wing on either side was greatly outflanked by the opponents' right; and the battle of Mantinea affords no exception to this rule, for not even Spartan discipline was able to counteract the overpowering instinct of self- preservation.
He was lodged in the house of Epaminondas’ father, and was much struck with the grand example he there beheld, though he cared more for the lessons of good policy he then learned than for those of virtue. Two years after the battle of Mantinea, Philip heard that his elder brother, the king, was dead, leaving only a young infant upon the throne.
While staying there, he received an invitation from the Lacedaemonians to proceed to Sparta, and made his way thither, having first stipulated for a safe-conduct; for he dreaded the vengeance of the Spartans, to whom he had done much mischief by raising the coalition which led to the battle of Mantinea.
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