Non-Fiction
1 Best Non-Fiction Book About the Battle of Mantinea 362 BCE
Histories, biographies and reference works are listed separately from the historical novels above.
Battle
Second Battle of Mantinea
362 BCE
The Battle of Mantinea in 362 BCE brought Thebes, Sparta, Athens and their allies into a decisive confrontation during the unsettled years after Leuctra. Epaminondas won the field but died, leaving no clear durable settlement.
The battle matters because it exposed the exhaustion and instability of the Greek city-state system. Thebes had broken Spartan dominance, but no polis could create lasting order.
Xenophon’s Hellenica, often printed as History of My Times, ends with Mantinea. The battle marks the book as a source for late classical Greek warfare, shifting alliances and the political fragmentation before Macedonian dominance.
