After centuries of leadership in Greece, the polis of Athens finally lost its role to rival Sparta in the Peloponnesian War. But a new threat immediately emerged before the winner: Thebes. The Spartan king, Agesilaus II, who also hated the Thebans for personal reasons (they had prevented him from offering a sacrifice in a neighboring port before embarking on one of his campaigns in Asia Minor), decided to place garrisons in the cities of Boeotia near Thebes, and established philo-Spartan governments there. Meanwhile, the Thebans, irritated, waited for the moment to attack Sparta.
It was not long before Thebes reached an agreement with defeated Athens, intending to declare war on Sparta by land or sea. They managed to form with other polis what would be the second Attic League, which provided them with sufficient resources to undertake the war. Athens and Thebes had only one goal: to disrupt Spartan supremacy. So, while the Athenians increased their naval power, the Thebans dedicated themselves to raising the most powerful army in their history.
The core of the army of Thebes was made up of 300 hoplites (heavy infantry soldiers), chosen from among the young men of the most distinguished families of the city and who had already proven their courage, and were given the name “sacred phalanx.” ”. Its members always fought in pairs, whose members swore to win or die together. The phalanx thus acquired such cohesion that it was almost impossible to break it. The Thebans also had something that contributed to the effectiveness of their army: an exceptional leader and strategist, Epaminondas, who inaugurated a new phase in the military history of Greece.
The Spartans verified the effectiveness of the Theban army under the command of Epaminondas. They failed again and again in their attempts to conquer Thebes. And they had no luck at sea against the Athenians and their allies either.
Sparta wanted to annihilate Thebes for basically one reason: the city was beginning to regain its influence over the rest of Boeotia. The key to Sparta’s salvation lay in a cooling of relations between Athens and Thebes. Dissension and envy between both allies were commonplace and, in general, the difficulties began when they saw themselves stronger and more secure, when they realized that they no longer needed each other.
And if. Little by little the divergence between Athenians and Thebans became accentuated. Finally, Athens signed peace with Sparta without counting on her ally, and the Thebans, offended, denounced the treaty. They were alone, and could only hope for help from Boeotia. The Spartans believed the time had come to deliver the final blow to the hated Thebans. But they forgot Epaminondas.
Sparta’s troops invaded Boeotia. However, the political and military talent of Epaminondas managed to ensure that the Thebans did not surrender their weapons. In fact, they already lacked morale when they lined up at Leuctra, near Thebes, to engage the Spartans in the decisive battle, but their desperation gave them the courage to confront an overconfident enemy.
Furthermore, Epaminondas was the best general of his time, and he knew how to compensate for numerical inferiority with superior military tactics. He broke with the traditional strategy, which planned battles by placing one army against another, and for the first time in the history of war he only lined up half of the troops for the first clash.
He divided the phalanx into two wings: a weak, defensive one, and a strong one, with a depth of 50 men, for the offensive. The attacking wing would attack the enemy with violence, and the defensive wing would remain in reserve. At the beginning of the battle, this part of the army had as its first mission to resist the rival attack: when the attacking wing managed to break the enemy lines and put them to flight, the defensive would be launched and envelop these retreating forces. This tactic, the attack in oblique order, was an absolute success.
Epaminondas had reinforced the left wing, because on the enemy’s right wing (the one facing him) were the king, the commanding officers and the Spartan hoplites. The strategist considered it easy to knock out the Spartan left wing after defeating the best troops of the enemy army.
At the head of the Theban attacking lines was Pelopidas, a great friend of Epaminondas, with the “sacred phalanx”, who launched into action with fury, so much so that the Spartan lines could not resist and dispersed. The Spartan general-in-chief fell mortally wounded along with more than half of his best soldiers. After a fierce and bloody fight, the Spartan wing was knocked out, and a few hours later the army gathered in its camp around its dying leader.
Sparta’s losses were enormous, and many of its forced allies did not hide their joy at the defeat of the oppressor. It was time to negotiate an armistice. The Thebans accepted. They were so happy with this unexpected victory that they did not hinder the retreat of the remains of the Spartan army.
The Battle of Leuctra marks a milestone in the history of strategy. The tactics developed by Epaminondas earn him a place of honor among the great generals of all time. In the old tactic of parallel fronts, the entire army participated in combat with the same mission. Although it was divided into three parts (center and wings), it was not articulated in movements or objectives.
Epaminondas created an organization in which several groups performed different functions. From then on the battles would develop according to preconceived plans, and their outcome would not depend only on the strength and courage of the antagonists, but above all on the intelligence and skill of their leaders. Later Alexander the Great would perfect the oblique attack order, which would play a great role until the 18th century, in the strategy of Frederick II of Prussia.
But Leuctra signals a turn not only in the history of war, but also in Greek politics. Sparta ceded hegemony to Epaminondas’ Thebes. Virtually all of central Greece except Athens would form part of the Theban League, an alliance that soon made its influence felt in the Peloponnese, the peninsula until then dominated by Sparta.
Epaminondas, leading an army, invaded the Peloponnesian region of Laconia and devastated it. The helots, slaves of the Spartans, revolted in the city of Messenia. From Italy, Sicily and Africa, ships packed with Messenians, who had long ago fled their country, arrived and were now returning to their ancient homes to worship their gods in the land of their ancestors.
The Messenians achieved their freedom and formed a state led by Epaminondas. With his help, a confederated Arcadian state was also organized in the interior of the Peloponnese. The strategist thus created a double containment wall against Sparta.
Athens now looked with suspicion and envy at the growing power of Thebes. And not without reason, because it was increasingly evident that Epaminondas was pursuing hegemony in Greece. In 362 BC C., the strategist headed south with the idea of ??subduing Mantinea, which was hindering Theban influence in the area. On the way he learned that Agesilaus was also heading there to confront him, which meant that all the Spartans of fighting age were at his side, and his city, therefore, unprotected.
Epaminondas wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to crush Sparta, but the octogenarian king found out and returned in time to reject the Theban from the first moment. The plan to take Sparta by surprise had failed. Epaminondas did not want to besiege it, and he launched against Mantinea with forced marches, but the Athenian cavalry preceded him and was able to help this city.
Next to the walls of Mantinea, the Athenian and Theban cavalry faced each other, in a fight that became a pitched battle when the Spartan army arrived and took part in the fight. Epaminondas managed to place himself in a favorable position and moved his troops pretending that he wanted to avoid combat. The enemy forces fell into the trap, broke ranks and the Spartans scattered across the battlefield.
Epaminondas used the same tactics at Mantinea as he had used at Leuctra nine years earlier. He personally led the offensive wing with a section of selected hoplites. Epaminondas stopped feigning retreat and suddenly launched himself against the enemy before he could reorganize. The Theban managed to disperse the Spartan troops before they lined up for the attack. They ended up fleeing after an all-out fight.
It was an absolute triumph for the Thebans. But they experienced the greatest misfortune that could befall them: Epaminondas was mortally wounded by a spear while he was pursuing the rout of the enemy. Very soon the entire army knew about him.
The influence of this man on his troops was so great that the news paralyzed military action. The hoplites lost their courage and no longer pursued the enemy, stuck in the place where they were. The cavalry even retraced their steps and left the battlefield as if they had been defeated.
The dying man asked his officers what the result of the battle had been. “He has conquered Thebes,” they replied. Epaminondas then called the two officers whom he desired as successors, but they told him that they had died. “Then make peace with the enemy,” he advised, and ordered the tip of the spear to be removed. “I have lived enough already,” he said. I die without being defeated.” The Thebans signed peace. They obtained it at the cost of losing their hegemony.
The death of Epaminondas was for Thebes the hardest blow it could receive. From the political point of view, the strategist did not achieve any permanent results, nor did he contribute effectively to the unity of Greece. However, he managed to humiliate the hegemony of Sparta and free Greece from its greatest outrage.
The short-lived glory of Thebes only served to curb the power and influence of Sparta and Athens. Like them before, Thebes also managed to weaken its rivals more easily than to aggrandize itself. After three decades, the Greek polis lost their independence to the push of the kingdom of Macedonia.
This text is part of an article published in number 473 of the magazine Historia y Vida. Do you have something to contribute? Write to us at redaccionhyv@historiayvida.com.
