Pagondas

This article deals with the Greek general Pagondas. Pagondas is also the name of a village on the Greek island of Samos , see Pagondas (Samos) .

Pagondas was a Greek general of the 5th century BC. He became known as a strategist for the Boeotian troops during the Battle of Delion in the Peloponnesian War .

Pagondas was a son of Aiolidas and came from a respected Theban family. Nothing is known about his early military career; at the time of the Battle of Delion he was in his early sixties. Thucydides describes him as a belligerent orator who succeeds in re-motivating the weakened Theban troops in the fight against the Athenians . At Delion, the Thebans faced the Athenian troops under Hippocrates. Pagondas commanded the right wing while troops from Thespiai fought on the left. Pagondas decided to use a 25-man-deep arrangement on his wing instead of the 8-man-deep structure that was customary up to that time, so that the right wing was clearly more powerful. This asymmetrical arrangement of the army paved the way for the later crooked order of battle . With this the Thebans achieved a quick breakthrough through the Athenian ranks, who on the other hand succeeded in defeating the Thespiainers. The decision was made by the Pagondas ordered the deployment of a reserve cavalry unit against the Athenian right wing.

Through his tactics in the Battle of Delion, Pagondas paved the way for several crucial tactical developments:

• Pagondas' asymmetrical setup became the model for the Theban general Epaminondas , who gave it a decisive modification (reinforcement of the left instead of the right wing), with which he would later achieve a brilliant success in the Battle of Leuctra .
• It was the first proven battle-decisive deployment of a reserve
• Through the use of cavalry to defend against a hoplite formation, the role of cavalry was sustainably upgraded and the later development of the cavalry by the Macedonians was prepared.