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The Battle of Leuctra was a battle fought on 6 July 371 between the
Boeotians led by the Thebans, and the Spartans along with their allies amidst
the post-Corinthian War conflict. The battle took place in the neighbourhood of
Leuctra, a village in Boeotia in the territory of Thespiae.]
Opponents
Boeotian League * Thebes
Sparta
Commanders and leaders
Thebes: Epaminondas
Sparta: Cleombrotus I
Strength:
Thebes: 6,000–7,000 hoplites 1,500 cavalry
Sparta and allies:10,000–11,000 hoplites 1,000 cavalry
Casualties and losses:
Thebes: 300 (according to Diodorus) 47 (according to Pausanias)
Sparta: 1,000 (according to Xenophon) 4,000+ (according to Diodorus)
The Theban victory shattered Sparta's immense influence over the Greek
peninsula, which Sparta had gained long before its victory in the Peloponnesian
War a generation earlier.In 371, the newly established democracy of Thebes had
elected four Boeotarchs, the traditional title of the generals of the Boeotian
League, and so proclaimed their intention of reconstituting the aforementioned
league that Sparta had disbanded. During this period, Thebes had had an ally in
Athens, but Athens was far from happy with the treatment Plataea had received.
When it came to swearing an oath to respect the treaty, Sparta swore on behalf
of itself and its allies. When Epaminondas came forward, asking to swear on
behalf of the whole Boeotian League, the Spartans refused, saying he could
swear as the representative of Thebes or not at all. This Epaminondas refused.
(According to Xenophon, the Thebans signed as "the Thebans", and
asked the next day to change their signature to "the Boeotians", but
one of the Spartan kings, Agesilaus II, would not
allow it.) In this, Sparta saw an opportunity to reassert its shaky authority
in central Greece. Hence, the other Spartan king, Cleombrotus I, marched to war
from Phocis. Rather than take the expected easier route into Boeotia through
the usual defile, the Spartans marched over the hills via Thisbae and took the
fortress of Creusis (along with twelve Theban warships) before the Thebans were
aware of their presence, and then proceeded to Leuctra where they were
confronted by the Boeotian army. Initially, the six Boeotian generals (i.e. the
Boeotarchs) present were divided as to whether to offer battle, with
Epaminondas being the main advocate in favor of battle. Only when a seventh
arrived, who sided with Epaminondas, was the decision made. In spite of
inferior numbers and the doubtful loyalty of their allies, the Boeotians would
offer battle on the plain before the town. The size of the armies Several
ancient writers give figures for one or both of the armies, but, unfortunately,
they are contradictory and, in some cases, unbelievable. Modern scholars'
estimates have varied from 6,000 to 9,000 for the Boeotian force. For the
Spartan side, most modern scholars favor Plutarch's figure of 10,000 in
infantry and 1,000 cavalry.
Battle
The strong left wing advanced more than the weaker right wing. The battle
opened with the Spartans' mercenary peltasts (slingers, javeliniers, and/or
skirmishers) attacking and driving back the Boeotian camp followers and others
who were reluctant to fight. According to Xenophon, the Boeotian camp followers
were trying to leave the field, as they did not intend to fight; this Spartan
action drove them back into the Theban army, inadvertently making the Theban
force stronger. There followed a cavalry engagement, in which the Thebans drove
their enemies off the field. Initially, the Spartan infantry were sent into
disarray when their retreating cavalry hopelessly disrupted Cleombrotus's
attempt to outflank the Theban left column. At this point the Theban left hit
the Spartan right with the Sacred Band of Thebes, led by
Pelopidas, at its head.
The decisive engagement was then fought out between the Theban and Spartan
infantry. The normal practice of the Spartans (and, indeed, the Greeks in
general) was to establish their heavily armed infantry in a solid mass, or
phalanx, some eight to twelve men deep. This was considered to allow for the
best balance between depth (the pushing power it provided) and width (i.e.,
area of coverage of the phalanx's front battle line). The infantry would
advance together so that the attack flowed unbroken against their enemy. In
order to combat the phalanx's famous right-hand drift, Greek commanders
traditionally placed their most experienced, highly regarded and, generally,
deadliest troops on the right wing, as this was the place of honor. By
contrast, the shakiest and/or least influential troops were often placed on the
left wing. In the Spartan battleplan, therefore, the hippeis (an elite force
numbering 300 men) and the king of Sparta would stand on the right wing of the
phalanx. This shows the flank attack that Rüstow and Köchly proposed.
Delbrück rejected such an interpretation. In a major break with tradition,
Epaminondas massed his cavalry and a fifty-deep column of Theban infantry on
his left wing, and sent forward this body against the Spartan right. His
shallower and weaker center and right wing columns were drawn up so that they
were progressively further to the right and rear of the proceeding column, in
an Echelon formation. The Theban center and right were held back, screened by
skirmishers and cavalry. The infantry engaged, and the Thebans smashed the
Spartan right wing. The Spartans' twelve-deep formation on their right wing
could not sustain the heavy impact of their opponents' 50-deep column. The
Spartan right was hurled back with a loss of about 1,000 men, of whom 400 were
some of Sparta's most experienced soldiers, including King Cleombrotus I.
Wilhelm Rüstow and Hermann Köchly, writing in the 19th century,
believed that Pelopidas led the Sacred Band out from the column to attack the
Spartans in the flank. Hans Delbrück considered this to be a mere
misreading of Plutarch. Plutarch does indeed describe Pelopidas leading the
Band and catching the Spartans in disorder, but there is nothing in his account
that conveys anything other than the Sacred Band being the head of the column,
and the Spartans were disordered not because they were taken in the flank but
because they were caught in mid-maneuver, extending their line. Seeing their
right wing beaten, the rest of the Peloponnesians, who were essentially
unwilling participants, retired and left the enemy in possession of the field.
Aftermath
he arrival of a Thessalian army under
Jason of Pherae
persuaded a relieving Spartan force under
Archidamus not to heap
folly on folly and to withdraw instead, while the Thebans were persuaded not to
continue the attack on the surviving Spartans. The Thebans somewhat bent the
rules by insisting on conditions under which the Spartans and allies recovered
the dead and by erecting a permanent rather than perishable trophy - something
that was criticized by later writers.
Historical significance:
The battle is of great significance in Greek history. The use of these tactics
by Epaminondas was, perhaps, a direct result of the use of some similar
maneuvers by Pagondas, his countryman, during the Battle of
Delium. Further,
Philip II of Macedon, who studied and lived in Thebes, was no doubt heavily
influenced by the battle to develop his own, highly effective approach to
tactics and armament. In turn, his son, Alexander, would go on to develop his
father's theories to an entirely new level. Many innovations of Philip and
Alexander are traced to this battle. Concentration of force, refused flank, and
combined arms were tactics that they used in many of their battles. Philip's
victories against the Illyrians and at Chaeronea and Alexander's triumphs at
the Granicus, Issus, Gaugamela, and the Hydaspes owe credit to the tactical
maneuver used to vanquish the Spartans. Historians Victor Davis Hanson and
Donald Kagan have argued that Epaminondas' oblique formation was not an
intentional and preconceived innovation in infantry tactics, but was rather a
clever response to circumstances. Because Epaminondas had stacked his left wing
to a depth of fifty shields, the rest of his units were naturally left with far
fewer troops than normal. This means that their maintenance of a depth of eight
to twelve shields had to come at the expense of either number of companies or
their width. Because Epaminondas was already outnumbered, he had no choice but
to form fewer companies and march them diagonally toward the much longer
Spartan line in order to engage as much of it as possible. Hanson and Kagan's
argument is therefore that the tactic was more dilatory than anything else.
Whatever its motivation, the fact remains that the tactic did represent an
innovation and was undoubtedly highly effective. The battle's political effects
were far-reaching: the losses in material strength and prestige (prestige being
an inestimably important factor in the Peloponnesian War) sustained by the
Spartans at Leuctra and subsequently at the Battle of Mantinea were key in
depriving them forever of their supremacy in Greece. Therefore, the battle
permanently altered the Greek balance of power, as Sparta was deprived of its
former prominence and was reduced to a second-rate power among the Greek
city-states. Theban supremacy in Greece was short-lived, as it was subsequently
lost to the Macedonians, led by
Philip II.
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The battle of Leuctra in 371 was the first major defeat suffered by the
main Spartan hoplite army, and played a major part in the collapse of Spartan
power after their triumph in the
Peloponnesian
War. In 379 Epaminondas helped lead a
revolt that expelled a Spartan garrison from Thebes (Theban-Spartan War,
379-371). A series of Spartan invasions of Boeotia failed, although Spartan
armies did get close to Thebes in 378 and 377. The campaign of 376 failed to
even reach Boeotia, and in the same year the Spartan fleet was defeated at
Naxos. In 375 the Spartans suffered another naval defeat at Alyzeia, and an
embarrassing defeat on land at Tegyra, with a force of 1,000 Spartan hoplites
was defeated by a Theban force half its size. These defeats were followed by a
short period of peace, but by 373 the fighting had resumed. A Spartan attempt
to seize Corcyra failed after the besieging army was defeated in battle between
the city and its camp. The Thebans took advantage of the resumption of the war
to attack their enemies in Boeotia. Plataea was captured and the city
destroyed, and the walls of Thespiae were pulled down. This angered Thebe's
Athenian allies, and peace negotiations began once again. These negotiations
involved Sparta, Athens, Thebes and their allies. They produced a fairly
typical agreement for the period, in which each side agreed to remove their
governors and garrisons from other cities and allow every Greek polis to enjoy
autonomy. This last clause caused the partial failure of the negotiations.
According to Xenophon, on the day after the treaty was agreed the Thebans
wanted it changed so that they could sign on behalf of the Boeotian
Confederacy. King Agesilaus II of Sparta
refused to agree to this, and struck Thebes's name off the treaty. The Spartans
then demanded that Thebes allow the cities of the Boeotian Confederacy their
autonomy (conveniently ignoring their own dominance of the Peloponnesian
League). Thebes refused to accept this new demand, and as a result the second
Spartan king, Cleombrotus, was ordered
to invade Boeotia from the west, using troops already available in Phocis.
Cleombrotus invaded Boeotia at the head of 10,000 Spartan and allied hoplites
and 1,000 cavalry.
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