Argos: One Day back in 547 B.C.

Once upon a time, in 547 B.C., Argos tried to recover Kynouria territory from the Spartan occupation. Instead of declaring a full war against each other, the two sides agreed to fight a mini battle, and the winner would take control over the territory.

So each side selected three hundred warriors: the Spartans armed with their usual greaves and shields and short swords, the Argives with the usual Hoplites’ weapons, a full length shield (called "hoplon" and the soldier was called "hoplites" on the basis of this shield), a long sword and a heavy spear. 

Fighting went on the whole day.  When darkness fell, all Spartan soldiers were down, whereas two Argives, Alcinor and Chromios, were left alive and standing.  The two soldiers of Argos, believing that they were the winners, went back to Argos to announce their victory.

In the meantime, Othryades, one of the Spartan soldiers, wounded but alive, recovered his senses and managed to stand up, strip some enemy soldiers of their armature and weapons, and raise a trophy in the Spartan camp.  With his own blood he wrote “nenikika” (= I have won) on his shield and, unwilling to survive the loss of all his fighting comrades, he committed suicide on top of his trophy.

The next day, both sides declared themselves as winners: the Argives because more of their soldiers survived the battle, the Spartans because their own warrior, before he put an end to his life, had stripped his opponents and collected their weapons in the Spartan camp, and anyway, he had been the last soldier standing on the field after the Argives had left; they actually accused the two Argive soldiers as having fled the battle.  Of course, this dispute led to a full size war, which the Spartans eventually won. 

This defeat resulted in a long period of decline for Argos; the city was eventually taken by Cleomenes I of Sparta (c. 494 B.C.).  Much later, during the almost 30-year long (431-404 B.C.) period of hostilities between Athens and their allies on one side, and Sparta and their allies on the other (known as the  Peloponnesian War), Argos remained a weak or inactive ally of Athens.