Mantinea
Mantinea was an ancient city located in southeastern Arcadia, central Peloponnese, Greece, with origins tracing back to around 500 BC when five villages were unified. Known for its beauty and referenced in Homer’s "Iliad," it held significant military importance, notably sending troops to aid the Spartans at Thermopylae in 480 BC. Mantinea faced ongoing tensions with its neighbor, Tegea, particularly due to boundary disputes and the challenges posed by the river Helisson. Throughout its history, Mantinea experienced fluctuating political alliances, initially aligning with a coalition against Sparta during the Peloponnesian War before falling under Spartan control in 385 BC. The city was later revived after the defeat of Sparta by Thebes in 371 BC and became part of the Arcadian League. However, it faced destruction in 223/2 BC at the hands of Macedonian King Antigonus III Doson, who replaced it with a new city named Antigoneia. Despite periods of decline, Mantinea's legacy continued as it was mentioned by later historians and saw restoration efforts under Roman rule, including notable visits from figures such as Emperor Hadrian. Today, remnants of its ancient structures, including walls, a theater, and agora, provide insight into its historical significance.
Mantinea
A city in southeastern Arcadia (central Peloponnese, southern Greece)
Praised for its beauty in Homer's Iliad, it consisted of five separate villages (round an oracular sanctuary of the Arcadian god Poseidon Hippios) until their amalgamation (synoecism) into a city on the river Ophis (c 500). Mantinea sent five hundred men to help the Spartans hold Thermopylae against the Persians (480), but in the following year its contingent arrived too late for the battle of Plataea.
The relations of the Mantineans with their southern neighbor Tegea were constantly hostile, because of disputes over boundaries, exacerbated by the behavior of the river Helisson (a tributary of the Alpheus) which continually flooded the territory through which Mantinea flowed. During the Peloponnesian War Mantinea, at this time governed by a moderate democracy, joined a coalition of Argos, Athens and Elis against the Spartans (420), but after the Spartan King Agis II had dismayed the population of Mantinea by diverting the water from Tegean territory onto their own, a Spartan victory in the neighborhood caused the coalition to collapse (418). The Spartans took the city c 385 by damming the Ophis, so that its waters caused the sun-dried brick walls to collapse; and then they forced the inhabitants to dismantle their walls and live in villages (that is to say, the property-owning upper class had to stay on their farms).
After Spartan power had been broken by Thebes (371), however, Mantinea was reconstituted and joined the Arcadian League, in rivalry, as always, with Tegea. It was the scene of the last victory of the Theban Epaminondas over the Spartans (362). But after the battle he died of his wounds, the Arcadian League was dissolved, and Mantinea returned to its Spartan allegiance. Subsequently it joined first the Achaean and then the Aetolian Confederations (c 230/229), and after temporary occupation by Cleomenes III of Sparta became a member of the Achaean League for the second time, whereupon the local supporters of Cleomenes slaughtered the Achaeans who had settled in the city. In 223/2 the Macedonian King Antigonus III Doson captured and destroyed Mantinea, transporting its population to Macedonia or selling them into slavery, and superseding it by a new foundation on the same site with the name of Antigoneia, which resumed membership of the Achaean League.
After the Romans had established control (146), Mantinea took the side of Octavian (the future Augustus) in his civil war against Antony culminating in the battle of Actium (31). Strabo, who was alive in AD 21, included it among cities no longer existent; but this appears to have been an exaggeration, since Pausanias, in the following century, was still able to describe the place, and Hadrian paid it a visit (125), restoring its ancient name and receiving official worship from its inhabitants, along with his youthful friend Antinous (d. 130). Moreover, the city's coinage was revived by Septimius Severus (193–211) and Caracalla (211–17). (In the latter's reign a Jewish synagogue received mention in an inscription). Thereafter the name of Mantinea continued to appear in geographers' lists.
The stone bases of its reconstructed inner and outer walls, with more than a hundred towers and nine or ten gates, are preserved; excavations have uncovered the colonnaded agora and remains of a theater—originally dating from the fourth century BC, but remodelled on several later occasions.