Battle of Nemea

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A Greek hoplite

The Battle of Nemea was a battle in the Corinthian War and took place in 394 BC. Chr. Instead.

After the Spartans began the war in 395 BC. BC in Boeotia suffered a defeat in the battle of Haliartus , the opponents advanced on the Peloponnese peninsula . At Nemea in Argolis , where there was an old sanctuary, there was then a battle between the Spartans and a coalition of Athenians , Thebans , Corinthians and Argives . The Spartans emerged victorious from this battle.

Before the battle

Using the campaign of a Spartan army in Asia Minor and probably not entirely unresponsive to the financial offers of the Persians , who were embarrassed by King Agesilaos' colorful troop of mercenaries and Neodamodei , formed numerous strong poleis , including Athens , Argos and Thebes / Boiotia , an alliance against Sparta . The Thebans and Argives conquered in 394 BC. The Peloponnesian colony Herakleia Trachinia in Malis in a coup. This made the conflict inevitable for Sparta and consequently Agesilaus was ordered back from Asia Minor.

Before he could appear on the scene, the league of opponents was to be brought to reason, and an army under the agiad Aristodemus , guardian of King Agesipolis I , marched north from Sparta. The Bund, on the other hand, wanted to use the time until the famous Spartan military leader could be back home and advanced with his army in the direction of the territory of the Lacedaemon allies.

The contingents of the opponents

The armies met between Sicyon and Corinth , the Spartan armies coming from the west, the opposing armies from the east. Xenophon gives us some detailed indications of the troops and their formation; other things can be reconstructed with some plausibility.

The Spartan army comprised from right to left about 6000 Lacedaemonian hoplites , about 2400 Tegeates , 3000 men allies from the Argolic cities of Epidauros , Troizen , Hermione and Halieis , about 3000 Mantine eggs , then 3000 hoplites from Elis and the Achaeans , including 1500 from Sikyon and other contingents, v. a. that from Pellene . The battle line numbered around 18,000 hoplites. There were also around 600 men of Lacedaemonian cavalry, 300 Cretan archers and 400 Elean slingers.

The Spartan front line was apparently wider than that of the enemy because of the lower depth of 12 men, although the enemy had called up more hoplites: from right to left there were 5000 men from Boiotia (besides Thebes probably especially from Thespiai ), 3000 Corinthians, about 7000 from Argos, then 3000 Euboians and outside 6000 Athenians. There were also 1,550 cavalry men and a non-reconstructible number of lightly armed men. The hoplites were 16 men deep, only the Boioters were staggered deeper, perhaps 24. The front was about 1,400 shields wide.

Course of the battle

As the armies marched towards each other, both obviously moved more to the right than the usual tendency. Both sides wanted to embrace the enemy. Shortly before the collision, Aristodemus had the overlapping part of the Spartans swiveled forward until they were at right angles to their own row - a surprising maneuver that was difficult to accomplish in battle, which required the battle line to advance slowly and the wing to swivel quickly and evenly. The Athenians thus embraced and probably also the Euboians fled before the clash. Presumably they did this early enough that it could be done in an orderly fashion. Meanwhile the lines of battle clashed. All allies of the Lacedaemonians except for the Achaeans on the far left fled back in part. The troops facing them loosened their formation in pursuit. The Spartan civil army then rolled up the opposing phalanx from the side and ended the battle with a great victory.

According to Xenophon, they themselves had almost no casualties, but their allies "quite a few" and their opponents "very many". Diodorus estimates 1100 vs. 2800 fallen hoplites. Aristodemus apparently accepted the losses on the left wing in order to decide the battle with a maneuver that would hardly have been possible for another phalanx. At that time, the armies generally did not know how to use a breakthrough tactically, but instead disbanded their formation in order to catch up with fleeing opponents. Taking advantage of this typical reaction seems incredibly serene. Since - as it turned out - "quite a few" losses of the allies had to be taken into account, this will hardly have contributed to the loyalty of the allies.

The maneuver on the Nemeabach with an increased shift to the right and swinging in of the then overlapping wing is possibly the result of an evaluation of the events of Mantineia over 20 years earlier. The encircling maneuver that finally saved the victory there was probably not planned in advance, but ordered from the emergency situation. Now it was brought about in a targeted manner, which was only possible because the Lacedaemonians, unlike other armies , knew how to carry out such maneuvers in combat situations.

Consequences of the battle

The battle prevented the Spartans from losing the war prematurely in the absence of their most important general. But it did not end the war, which lasted until the peace of the king in 386 BC. Should last.

Tactically, both sides tried to learn from the results of the battle: the Spartans apparently tried the same encircling maneuver at Leuktra . But the Thebans also learned from the experience of the battle. At the Nemeabach they used their deepened battle line for the first time against a Peloponnesian army. Even if the whole meeting did not work out in their favor, they seem to have seen the advantages of this measure, which they had already successfully used against the Athenians at the Delion in 424 , and expanded them in the years to come until they gained hegemony at Leuktra the Spartans broke and took over themselves.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Xenophon, Hellenika IV, 2.9ff.
  2. ^ John F. Lazenby: The Spartan army. Aris & Phillips, Warminster 1985, ISBN 0-85668-142-3 .