Encyclopedia › Peoples

The Tegeans

Arcadian Greeks of Tegea, allies of Sparta at Thermopylae and Plataea, 480-479 BCE

In the game: Level 11: The Finale

The Tegeans were the people of Tegea, a city in Arcadia in the central Peloponnese. Long a rival of Sparta, Tegea came under Spartan leadership, and its hoplites stood beside the Spartans in the Greek line at Plataea. Herodotus gives them the first entry into Mardonius's camp and the plunder of his bronze manger.

In the game: The game names the Tegeans in the Chronicle, the decrees and the field briefings, as Greeks at Plataea under Pausanias and the first into Mardonius's fort. They have no mechanic of their own beyond what these texts show.

A city of Arcadia

Ancient account

Tegea lay in Arcadia, north of Sparta. Herodotus says the Spartans fought the Tegeans for a long time without success, until they recovered the bones of Orestes, after which they mastered Tegea in war. Tegea then served as a Spartan ally in the Peloponnesian forces.

Herodotus 1.65-68

Thermopylae and the muster at Plataea

Ancient account

Herodotus lists 500 Tegeans among the Greeks who held Thermopylae in 480. For Plataea in 479 he gives them 1,500 hoplites, stationed beside the Spartans. Pausanias, regent for Leonidas's young son Pleistarchus, commanded the whole army.

Herodotus 7.202; 9.10; 9.28

The place of honour

Ancient account

Herodotus says the Tegeans and Athenians argued before the battle over who should hold the second wing, opposite the Spartans' own place. Each side cited past deeds, and the Spartan side decided for the Athenians on the left, leaving the Tegeans next to the Spartans. The speeches are probably Herodotus's own composition and reflect the later pride of both cities, so the exact words cannot be trusted.

Herodotus 9.26-28

The battle and the camp

Ancient account

Herodotus says the Spartans and Tegeans bore the main Persian attack at the shield barrier. When the sacrifices were unfavourable and Pausanias held back, the Tegeans advanced first and the Spartans followed. After the Spartan Arimnestus killed Mardonius, the Persians broke and fled to their timber-walled camp. Herodotus says the Tegeans were first over the wall and plundered Mardonius's tent.

Herodotus 9.61-65; 9.70

The bronze manger

Ancient account

Herodotus says the Tegeans took a bronze manger from Mardonius's quarters and dedicated it in the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea. He describes it as a piece worth seeing. Whether it survived is unknown, and no excavated trace of it has been identified.

Herodotus 9.70

Origin myths of the contest

Later legend

In the pre-battle argument, Herodotus has the Tegeans recall a single combat in which their king Echemus killed Hyllus, a son of Heracles. This belongs to the Greek heroic past. It served as a claim to honour in the fifth century and is not evidence for events in the Persian wars.

Herodotus 9.26