Battle of Sepeia
The Battle of Sepeia was a military clash between the two Doric powers Sparta and Argos for local hegemony in the Peloponnese . It took place during the campaign season of 494 BC. Instead of. The main source for the events is the representation of Herodotus .
The Spartan army under King Cleomenes I bypassed the fixed position of the Argives in an amphibious operation and forced them to battle near the town of Sepeia south of Argos. However, the Argives seem to have fled before the clash and to have hidden in a forest that was surrounded and set on fire by the Spartans. It appears that thousands of Argive hoplites perished this way.
Cleomenes withdrew after the advance against the city of Argos in view of the occupied walls, as he did not want to enter a siege. According to Herodotus, the walls were occupied exclusively by old people, children and, above all, women, which the Spartans apparently could not see.
Sparta had once again shown that it was the stronger of the adversaries and remained in possession of the disputed Thyreatis landscape . An upheaval took place in Argos that brought previously underprivileged sections of the population to power, which a few years later was at least partially reversed by the sons of those who fell in the battle. The two cities remained hostile and Argos did not take part in the Persian Wars.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Herodotus: Historien , 6, 76-80
- ^ Pausanias : Travels in Greece , 2, 20, 8.
- ↑ Richard Allan Tomlinson: Argos and the Argolid , 2014, ISBN 978-1-138-01993-5 , pp. 93-100