Victor Davis Hanson - A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War

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A LCIBIADES (450404) the most controversial general at Athens; his tragic fate mirrored the decline of Athens itself. The architect of the ill-fated Sicilian expedition, he fled a sure Athenian death sentence only to urge the Spartans to build a fleet and fortify Decelea outside the walls of Athens. Later he sought to ingratiate himself with the Persians by harming the interests of both Athens and Sparta, and was variously championed and exiled by the Athenians for an assortment of purported crimes before being murdered in Phrygia shortly after the end of the war.

A RCHIDAMUS (ruled 467427) one of the two hereditary kings at Sparta at the outbreak of the war. He led the first invasion into Attica; thus the ten-year fighting from 431 to 421 later came to be known as the Archidamian War. Thucydides records a number of insightful speeches by Archidamus; yet his record in the field reveals Spartan conservatism rather than the lan of a later Brasidas or Lysander.

A RISTOPHANES (ca. 450386?) Athenian comic poet whose eleven surviving plays caricatured many of the prominent Athenians of the later fifth century and often provide valuable information about wartime life in imperial Athens during the Peloponnesian War.

B RASIDAS (d. 422) perhaps the most gifted foot soldier that Sparta produced; his expeditionary forces of Spartiates, allies, freed serfs, and helots caused havoc for the Athenians in northeastern Greece. His sudden death at Amphipolis curtailed Spartan offensive efforts abroad for nearly a decade and helped lead to the stalemate of 421415.

C LEON (d. 422) the infamous Athenian demagogue who, Aristophanes and Thucydides felt, was emblematic of the dangerous rabble-rousers coming to the fore following the death of Pericles. He was a vigorous supporter of imperialism, won a stunning victory at Sphacteria over the Spartans, and opposed Nicias efforts at the armistice in 422 before dying in battle at Amphipolis.

C YRUS THE Y OUNGER (d. 401) second son of King Darius II and a claimant to the Persian throne. At the close of the Peloponnesian War, Cyrus exercised authority over much of Asia Minor, and his close association with and subsidies to Lysander explain the miraculous creation of the Spartan fleet that eventually won the war.

D EMOSTHENES (d. 413) innovative Athenian general (not to be confused with the fourth-century orator of the same name) whose daring and unconventional tactics brought stunning success at Amphilochia, Pylos, and Sphacteria but contributed to disaster during the Aetolian, Delium, and Sicilian campaigns. He was unceremoniously executed by the Sicilians after the Athenian surrender in 413.

D IODORUS a Sicilian historian of the Roman Age who wrote circa 6030 B.C . His universal history in forty books is mostly a compilation from lost Greek historians (most notably Ephorus) but often offers detail about the fighting of the Peloponnesian War otherwise unknown from Thucydides.

G YLIPPUS the gifted Spartan general whose sudden arrival at Syracuse in 414 with a Peloponnesian relief force turned the tide against the Athenian efforts to take the city.

L AMACHUS d. 414) the epitome of tough, soldierly competence at Athens, he often led Athenian troops successfully in the field before dying heroically in the battle for Syracuse.

L YSANDER (d. 395) the brutal Spartan admiral most responsible for the competence of the Spartan fleet during the Ionian War and the ultimate victory over the Athenians in a series of bloody sea battles in the Hellespont and off the coast of Asia Minor. He survived the war but was slain in a minor clash against the Boeotians nine years later at Haliartus.

M INDARUS (d. 411) successful Spartan admiral who transferred his base of operations from Ionia to the Hellespont to garner more Persian subsidies and disrupt Athenian grain importation. His death in battle at Cyzicus was a setback for Spartan hopes of maritime supremacy.

N ICIAS (470413) a sober, conservative Athenian statesman who opposed the radical democrats in the power struggle following Pericles death; the peace of 421415 bears his name. His legendary caution led him to oppose the Sicilian expedition. Yet once he was chosen general, his initial demands for massive forces, coupled with his timidity in using them, turned a probable tactical defeat into an unnecessary strategic catastrophe.

P ERICLES (ca. 495429) as an annually elected general and political leader, he led the Athenians for almost thirty years, and was most responsible for the decision to build the monuments on the Acropolis, expand the Athenian empire, and go to war with Sparta. He died from the plague in the second year of the war, with disastrous consequences for the empire he had helped create.

P HARNABAZUS (d. 370) Persian satrap of the Dascylium area around the Hellespont who took a more actively pro-Spartan stance than his rival provincial governor Tissaphernes, to the south.

P LUTARCH (ca. A.D . 50120) Greek biographer of the Roman period whose Parallel Lives compares illustrious Greek statesmen and generals with their likely Roman counterparts. His Alcibiades, Lysander, Nicias, and Pericles are valuable ancillaries to Thucydides history.

T HUCYDIDES (460395?) the great Athenian historian whose narrative covers the origins of the war, its outbreak, and each years events, from 431 until 411, where it abruptly breaks off. Thucydides himself was an elected Athenian general but was exiled in 424 for twenty years, ostensibly for allowing Brasidas to capture Amphipolis.

T ISSAPHERNES (d. 395) Persian satrap, or governor, at Sardis of the central coastal provinces of Asia Minor who championed the policy of playing Sparta and Athens off against each other, while professing support for the creation of a Spartan grand fleet.

XENOPHON (428354) Greek historian, philosopher, and military writer whose Hellenic history continues the narrative of Thucydides from 411 to the end of the war in 404, and then continues Greek history until the second battle of Mantinea (362).

ACROPOLIS the fortified hill and center of a city-state; most often used in reference to Athens and the great temples built by Pericles.

ARGOS the renowned large city-state in the northeastern Peloponnese that for most of the war was democratic, independent of Sparta, and often allied with Athens. The surrounding peninsula that extends from the northeastern coast of the Peloponnese into the Aegean is known as the Argolid.

A TTICA the geographical area surrounding and controlled by Athens, a hinterland encompassing one thousand square miles.

BOEOTIA a large agricultural region north of Attica in central Greece. Most of the cities of its nearly one-thousand-square-mile countryside were united politically into an oligarchic confederation headed by its largest city, Thebes. Throughout the fifth century Athens sought to weaken its neighboring rival by periodic occupation, fomenting democratic revolution, and encouraging Boeotian states like Plataea and Thespiae to remain autonomous.