The Battle of Mantinea

On This Day in History: July 4

Gerard Butler’s chiseled abs instilled a belief that Spartans could not be defeated. What? You thought I was gonna write about ’Murica for today? After the events of January 6, 2021, when Trump incited the storming of the Capitol Building and still managed to get reelected in 2024, I decided I wanted to examine the death of a different democracy for a change.

--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: July 4, 362 B.C.E.--

In addition to being racist as fuck, the film 300 was only slightly more historically accurate than Star Wars with its “long time ago” stuff. One line that irks me most comes from narrator Dilios, who proclaims the Persians were “ready to snuff out the world’s one hope for reason and justice.” Like, if not for Greece, democracy would never exist.

The word “demos” referred to lower-class citizens, and FYI philosophers Socrates and Plato were not fans of this group’s rise to power. But etymology is not destiny. Democracy has sprung up across an expanse of areas and eras. From 460 to 430 B.C.E., during the time of prominent Greek statesman Pericles, the aristocracy ruled Athens in a golden age of literature, drama, and art. But Pericles died and then Athens got her ass kicked during the Peloponnesian War, and people were like fuck these aristocrats and the demos took over. Athens wasn’t the first democratic city-state in the region by far, but it did become the most famous one. Socrates, via Plato’s Republic, referred to democracy as a chaos of class violence, decadence, and degradation.

Myriad examples across the ages reveal a governmental pattern of monarchy → aristocracy → democracy → dictatorship. Most of humanity’s governments have been oligarchies, where a minority rule via birthright (aristocracy), religion (theocracy), or wealth (democracy). Look at the United States and tell me that last one isn’t true.

Where was I? Oh, on this fucking day, July 4, 362 B.C.E., there was a battle, another one of those historical turning points. It was the Battle of Mantinea, with Thebans and Arcadians and some others on one side, and Spartans, Athenians, etc., on the other. The Spartan/Athenian side lost, but the Theban leader (Epaminondas) was fatally wounded, so both alliances were debilitated.

Afterward, class war ran rampant. Debtors murdered creditors, poor massacred rich. Democracy was seen by upper and middle classes as empowered envy; the poor viewed it as a fraud, because wealth > voting.

In other words, things went to feces.

Meanwhile, this dude Phillip II in a northern Greek kingdom called Macedon looked at the chaos to the south and said, “Gonna conquer that shit.” And conquer he did, completing the circle back toward dictatorship in 338 B.C.E. Many wealthy Greeks welcomed him, seeing authoritarianism as preferable to revolution.

A while later, his son Alexander decided he wanted “the Great” added after his name, looked to Persia, and said, “Payback time, motherfuckers.”

NOTE: This piece was researched and written by a human, not some bullshit “ai” plagiarism software.

Those who cannot remember the past need a history teacher who says “fuck” a lot. Get both volumes of ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY SH!T WENT DOWN.