Roma Numismatics Ltd
E-Live Auction 3 25 Oct 2018
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Boiotia, Thebes AR Stater. Circa 364-362 BC. Epaminondas, magistrate. Boeotian shield / Amphora; rosette above, EΠ-AM-I across central field; all within incuse circle. Hepworth, Epaminondas pl. 3, 5; Hepworth 33; BCD Boiotia 544; HGC 4, 1333. 12.25g, 22mm.
Good Very Fine. Attractive light cabinet tone.
From a private British collection.
Epaminondas was held by the French statesman and intellectual Michel Eyquem de Montaigne as being a man 'in the first class of excellent men' and 'one of the three worthiest' that ever lived; Cicero referred to Epaminondas as the 'first man of Greece', 'and to be the first and chief man of Greece' Montaigne tells us, 'is without question to be chief and first man of all the world'. Truly these are judgements neither idly given nor lacking in the gravest sincerity. For Epaminondas was the idealist, the liberator of his age, a statesman, general and tactician beyond par in his own time.
Today he is upheld in military circles as a paragon of tactical innovation and application; at the Battle of Leuktra he shattered the Spartan hegemony of Greece, leaving the way open for Theban supremacy. The normal practice of the Greeks (and the Spartans in particular) was to concentrate their elite forces on the right wing of their battle line, the position of honour. Epaminondas broke with tradition, instead massing on the left his cavalry and a fifty-deep column of Theban infantry with the Sacred Band at its vanguard. Epaminondas staggered his battle line so that his left would be the first to engage the Spartans and his weaker right remain disengaged for as long as possible. The Spartan twelve-deep right flank could not withstand the onslaught of the Theban column, and was overwhelmed and thrown back with the loss of a thousand men, of whom at least four hundred were irreplaceable Spartiates, including the king Kleombrotos I. Seeing the right flank crumble, the rest of the Spartan force withdrew from the field.
Tragically for Thebes, Epaminondas was wont to fight in the phalanx as was then the custom of Greek generals, and nine years after Leuktra he was killed at Mantineia, struck by a spear in the chest. The ambitions of Thebes died with him, and a weakened Greece was soon subdued by Philip II of Macedon, who had received a military and diplomatic education from none other than Epaminondas himself.
Good Very Fine. Attractive light cabinet tone.
From a private British collection.
Epaminondas was held by the French statesman and intellectual Michel Eyquem de Montaigne as being a man 'in the first class of excellent men' and 'one of the three worthiest' that ever lived; Cicero referred to Epaminondas as the 'first man of Greece', 'and to be the first and chief man of Greece' Montaigne tells us, 'is without question to be chief and first man of all the world'. Truly these are judgements neither idly given nor lacking in the gravest sincerity. For Epaminondas was the idealist, the liberator of his age, a statesman, general and tactician beyond par in his own time.
Today he is upheld in military circles as a paragon of tactical innovation and application; at the Battle of Leuktra he shattered the Spartan hegemony of Greece, leaving the way open for Theban supremacy. The normal practice of the Greeks (and the Spartans in particular) was to concentrate their elite forces on the right wing of their battle line, the position of honour. Epaminondas broke with tradition, instead massing on the left his cavalry and a fifty-deep column of Theban infantry with the Sacred Band at its vanguard. Epaminondas staggered his battle line so that his left would be the first to engage the Spartans and his weaker right remain disengaged for as long as possible. The Spartan twelve-deep right flank could not withstand the onslaught of the Theban column, and was overwhelmed and thrown back with the loss of a thousand men, of whom at least four hundred were irreplaceable Spartiates, including the king Kleombrotos I. Seeing the right flank crumble, the rest of the Spartan force withdrew from the field.
Tragically for Thebes, Epaminondas was wont to fight in the phalanx as was then the custom of Greek generals, and nine years after Leuktra he was killed at Mantineia, struck by a spear in the chest. The ambitions of Thebes died with him, and a weakened Greece was soon subdued by Philip II of Macedon, who had received a military and diplomatic education from none other than Epaminondas himself.