Maximilian Otto Bismarck Caspari and Ernest Arthur Gardner

“ MANTINEIA, or Mantinea, an ancient city of Arcadia, Greece, situated in the long narrow plain running north and south, which is now called after the chief town Tripolitsa. Tegea was in the same valley, about 10 m. S. of Mantineia, and the two cities continually disputed the supremacy of the district. In every great war we find them ranged on opposite sides, except when superior force constrained both. The worship and mysteries of Cora at Mantineia were famous. ”

“ Mantineia is mentioned in the Homeric catalogue of ships, but in early Greek times existed only as a cluster of villages inhabited by a purely agricultural community. In the 6th century it was still insignificant as compared with the neighbouring city of Tegea, and submitted more readily to Spartan overlordship. The political history of Mantineia begins soon after the Persian wars, when its five constituent villages, at the suggestion of Argos, were merged into one city, whose military strength forthwith secured it a leading position in the Peloponnesus. ”

“ Within the walls the most conspicuous landmark is the theatre, which, unlike the majority of Greek theatres, consists entirely of an artificial mound standing up from the level plain. Only about a quarter of its original height remains. Its scena is of rather irregular shape, and borders one of the narrow ends of the agora. Close to it are the foundations of several temples, one of them sacred to the hero Podaros. The agora is of unsymmetrical form ”