Mantineia and the Mantinike: Settlement and Society in a Greek Polis

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to combine an archaeological and a historical analysis of settlement within the territory of thepolisof Mantineia in E. Arkadia during the Archaic and Classical periods. Its aim is twofold: first, to collect and interpret the evidence for settlements and their history; secondly, to examine that evidence in relation to Mantineia's society and economy, in order to assess the significance of changes of settlement patterns for the nature of the Mantineianpolis. The changes in question revolve around the eventful history of the town of Mantineia which was founded sometime in the late Archaic or early Classical period, destroyed by the Spartans and compulsorily abandoned in 385 B.C., and finally refounded in 370, remaining in existence until the sixth to seventh centuries A.D.The significance of these changes for the political and military history of the Peloponnese, especially for the vital interests of Spartan foreign policy, was realized in antiquity and has been discussed in detail in several modern accounts. The location of Mantineian territory within the Peloponnese (Fig. 1) made it a strategic military focus and thoroughfare. Mantineia, together with Tegea and Pallantion, occupied the modern valley of Tripolis, which enclosed the largest plain of E. Arkadia and was linked directly with the valley of Sparta through the N. Lakonian hills by at least two major routes used by military traffic.