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The Battle of the 300 Champions, known since Herodotus' day as the
Battle of the Champions, was a battle fought in roughly 546 between Argos and
Sparta. Rather than commit full armies both sides agreed to pitting 300 of
their best men against each other. According to Herodotus Sparta had surrounded
and captured the plain of Thyrea. When the Argives marched out to defend it,
the two armies agreed to let 300 champions from each city fight, with the
winner taking the territory. Presumably the idea was to reduce the total number
of casualties. Both armies marched home, so as to prevent either side from
helping their champions and escalating the duel into a full battle. Neither
side would allow for any injured men to be taken. The day called for complete
destruction of the enemy force for victory. The two armies were evenly matched
and neither could gain the upper hand. They fought until nightfall, and after a
bloody battle only three men remained, two Argives and one Spartan. The
Argives, Alcenor and Chromius, believing that they had killed all of the
Spartans, left the battlefield racing home to Argos to announce their victory.
However, they had made one mistake: Othryades, an injured Spartan, had
survived. As he was technically the last man standing on the battlefield from
either army, he too claimed victory. He survived long enough to tell his
baggage handlers of this, and then he committed suicide. By tradition,
Othryades was ashamed to be the only man in his unit to live, and so he killed
himself on the field of battle rather than return to Sparta. The reason for the
suicide is up for debate, but the act is of great importance. Othryades did not
die by an Argive sword, and the Spartans could always claim that he survived
the battle and killed himself in shame, thus gaining an upper hand due to this
act of honor. Both sides were able to claim victory: the Argives because more
of their champions had survived, and the Spartans because their single champion
held the field. Argos did not take too kindly to the Spartans claiming victory
and sent their entire hoplite army which was met by a Spartan force of equal
size. The Spartans won a decisive victory and as a result gained control of
Thyreatis. Pausanias adds that the battle was foretold by the Sibyl, and that
the Argives considered themselves the victors and dedicated a bronze sculpture
of the Trojan horse at Delphi to commemorate the victory. However, Pausanias
says that the sculptor of this horse was Antiphanes of Argos, who dates to ca.
400. Therefore, either Pausanias is mistaken, or he confused this with a battle
at Thyrea in 424. Years later, in 420 during a lull in the Peloponnesian War,
Argos challenged Sparta to a rematch of the Battle of the 300 Champions. Sparta
declined.
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