Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/58

a6 HISTORY OF GREECE. They intrusted the command to king Agesipolis, since Agesilaus excused himself from the duty, on the ground that the Mantineana had rendered material service to his father Archidamus in th dangerous Messenian war which had beset Sparta during the early part of his reign. 1 Having first attempted to intimidate the Mantineans by ravaging their lands, Agesipolis commenced the work of blockade by dig- ging a ditch around the town ; hah of his soldiers being kept on guard, while the rest worked with the spade. The ditch being completed, he prepared to erect a wall of circumvallation. But being apprised that the preceding harvest had been so good, as to leave a large stock of provision in the town, and to render the process of starving it out tedious both for Sparta and for her al lies, he tried a more rapid method of accomplishing his object. As the river Ophis, of considerable breadth for a Grecian stream, passed through the middle of the town, he dammed up its efflux on the lower side ; 2 thus causing it to inundate the interior of the 1 Xen. Hellen. v 2, 3. 2 In 1627, during the Thirty years' War, the German town of Wolfenbiit- tel was constrained to surrender in the same manner, by damming up the river Ocker which flowed through it ; a contrivance of General Count Pap- penheim, the Austrian besieging commander. See Colonel Mitchell's Life of Wallenstein, p. 107. The description given by Xenophon of Mantinea as it stood in 385 B. c., with the river Ophis, a considerable stream, passing through the middle of it, is perfectly clear. When the city, after having been now broken up, was rebuilt in 370 B. c., the site was so far changed that the river no longer ran through it. But the present course of the river Ophis, as given by excel- lent modern topographical examiners, Colonel Leake and Kiepert, is at a very considerable distance from the Mantinea rebuilt in 370 B. c. ; the situ- ation of which is accurately known, since the circuit of its walls still re- mains distinctly marked. The Mantinea of 370 B. c., therefore, as compared with the Mantinea in 385 B. c., must have been removed to a considerable distance or else the river Ophis must have altered its course. Colonel Leake supposes that the Ophis had been artificially diverted from its course, in order that it might be brought through the town of Mantinea ; a suppo- sition, which he founds on the words of Xenophon, aotyurepuv yevofiivuv TavTj ye ruv uv&puKuv, rd fj,r) 6iu. rei%uv TroTa/ibv noielcr&ai (Hellen. v, 2, 7). But it is very difficult to agree with him on this point, when we look at his own map (annexed to the Peloponnesiaca) of the Mantinice and Te- geatis, and observe the great distance between the river Ophis and Manti- iiea ; nor do the words of Xenophon seem necessarily to imply any artificial