History of the Peloponnesian War

After this followed the battle. The Argives and their confederates marched to the charge with great violence and fury. But the Lacedaemonians slowly and with many flutes, according to their military discipline, not as a point of religion, but that, marching evenly and by measure, their ranks might not be distracted, as the greatest armies, when they march in the face of the enemy, use to be.

Whilst they were yet marching up, Agis, the king thought of this course. All armies do thus. In the conflict they extend their right wing so as it cometh in upon the flank of the left wing of the enemy: and this happeneth for that every one, through fear, seeketh all he can to cover his unarmed side with the shield of him that standeth next to him on his right hand, conceiving that to be so locked together is their best defence. The beginning hereof is in the leader of the first file on the right hand, who ever striving to shift his unarmed side from the enemy, the rest upon like fear follow after. And at this time, the Mantineans in the right wing had far encompassed the Sciritae;

and the Lacedaemonians on the other side, and the Tegeats, were come in yet further upon the flank of the Athenians, by as much as they had the greater army.

Wherefore Agis, fearing lest his left wing should be encompassed, and supposing the Mantineans to be come in far, signified unto the Sciritae and Brasideians to draw out part of their bands, and therewith to equalise their left wing to the right wing of the Mantineans; and into the void space he commanded to come up Hipponoidas and Aristocles, two colonels, with their bands out of the right wing, and to fall in there and make up the breach, conceiving that more than enough would still be remaining in their right wing, and that the left wing opposed to the Mantineans would be the stronger.

But it happened (for he commanded it in the very onset and on the sudden) both that Aristocles and Hipponoidas refused to go to the place commanded (for which they were afterwards banished Sparta, as thought to have disobeyed out of cowardice), and that the enemy had in the meantime also charged; and when those which he commanded to go to the place of the Sciritae went not, they could no more reunite themselves nor close again the empty space.

But the Lacedaemonians, though they had the worst at this time in every point for skill, yet in valour they manifestly showed themselves superior.

For after the fight was once begun, notwithstanding that the right wing of the Mantineans did put to flight the Sciritae and Brasideians, and that the Mantineans together with their confederates and those thousand chosen men of Argos, falling upon them in flank by the breach not yet closed up, killed many of the Lacedaemonians, and put to flight and chased them to their carriages, slaying also certain of the elder sort left there for a guard, so as in this part the Lacedaemonians were overcome, yet with the rest of the army, and especially the middle battle where Agis was himself, and those which are called the three hundred horsemen about him, they charged upon the eldest of the Argives, and upon those which are named the five cohorts, and upon the Cleonaeans and Orneates, and certain Athenians arranged amongst them, and put them all to flight;

in such sort as many of them never struck stroke, but as soon as the Lacedaemonians charged gave ground presently, and some for fear to be overtaken were trodden under foot.