Mantinea

Mantinea (măn'tĭnē`ə), city of ancient Greece, in E central Arcadia (now Arkadhía). In the Peloponnesian War a coalition led by Mantinea and Argos and urged on by Athens was defeated (418 B.C.) by Sparta at Mantinea. It was also the scene of the victory of Thebes over Sparta in which Epaminondas was killed (362 B.C.).

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Mantineia

 or Mantinea

Ancient Greek city of Arcadia, situated north of modern Trípolis. At the first Battle of Mantineia in 418 BC, Sparta defeated the coalition of Mantineia, Elis, Argos, and Athens. In 362 the Theban army defeated Spartan troops in an encounter nearby. In 207 Philopoemen, the Greek general of the Achaean League, defeated the Spartans at Mantineia. In the later Roman Empire, Mantineia dwindled to a mere village, and it finally disappeared under Ottoman rule.

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Mantinea, Mantineia

(in ancient Greece) a city in E Arcadia; site of several battles

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Mantinea 

an ancient Greek city in the province of Arcadia, in which region on June 27 (or July 3), 362 B.C., a battle took place between the troops of the Boeotian League, headed by Thebes under the command of Epaminondas, and troops of the anti-Boeotian coalition (Sparta, Athens, Mantinea, and other cities), under the command of the Spartan king Agesilaus II.

Epaminondas, developing a new tactic which he had employed at Leuctra, disposed his troops in an oblique battle order with a strong attack group on the left flank opposite the forces of the enemy, which were evenly dispersed along the entire front. The attack group and the cavalry of the Theban forces smashed the right wing of the allies and crowded in their center. The Thebans were close to victory, but at the battle’s decisive moment Epaminondas was mortally wounded, and his troops re-treated in confusion. The battle at Mantinea was the conclusion of the Boeotian League’s ascendancy in Greece (it had begun only in 379 B.C.).