Background
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After the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC had shattered the foundations of Spartan hegemony, Thebes' chief politician and general Epaminondas attempted to build a new hegemony centered on his city. Consequently, the Thebans had marched south, into the area traditionally dominated by the Spartans, and set up the Arcadian League, a federation of city-states of the central Peloponnesian plateau, to contain Spartan influence in the Peloponnese and thereby maintain overall Theban control. In years prior to the Battle of Mantinea, the Spartans had joined with the Eleans (a minor Peloponnesian people with a territorial grudge against the Arcadians) in an effort to undermine the League. When the Arcadians miscalculated and seized the Pan-Hellenic sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia in Elis, one of the Arcadian city-states, Mantinea, detached itself from the League. The Spartans and Eleans joined the Mantineans in a military attack on the Arcadian League. Athens decided to support the Spartans, as she resented the growing Theban power. The Athenians also recalled that at the end of Peloponnesian War, the Thebans demanded that Athens be destroyed and its inhabitants enslaved; the Spartans had resisted these demands. An Athenian army was sent by sea to join the Spartan-led forces, in order to avoid being intercepted on land by Theban forces. Epaminondas then led a Theban army into the Peloponnese to restore order and re-establish Theban/Arcadian hegemony there.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Mantinea (362 BC)
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