Thucydides

Ancient Warrior Culture - Ancient Greece, Rome, Israel
History

Ancient Warrior Societies, Blog 3, Warfare in the Old Testament

Bruce Strom 7

Warfare is mentioned over three hundred times in the Old Testament, swords four hundred times. Ancient Israel was caught in many of the ancient wars since it was in the cross-roads of trade routes between Mesopotamia and Egypt. Since Judah was mountainous, its armies relied heavily on infantry, but the Bible mentions that King Ahab of the Northern Kingdom had chariots, and that he was felled by arrow probably shot by a composite bow. Assyria and Babylon had cavalry archers on horseback, but not Egypt or Israel. An Israeli chariot had three horses pulling three men, a driver with a spear, an archer, and a shield bearer. We know from our Sunday School stores King David slew Goliath with a sling, but the ancient slings were not the puny toys we imagine, the sling in the ancient world was a deadly combat weapon. A skilled slinger could sling a rock over 120 miles per hour, faster than the fastest fast ball. […]

Ancient Warrior Culture - Ancient Greece, Rome, Israel
History

Ancient Warrior Societies, Blog 2, Ancient Greek and Roman Armies and Navies

Bruce Strom 9

The Greek innovation to ancient warfare was their hoplite warrior phalanx, a formation eight to ten rows of a hundred or more warriors, sometimes extending a quarter of a mile. The shields of the front row would interlock, and the entire formation would press upon the enemy, the soldiers would first throw their spears then jab with their swords from behind their shields, strictly maintaining their position. This required training and practice, the Athenians expected their nobles to drill during the year, the Spartans had a year-round military the practiced year-round. […]

The Life, Adventures, and Philosophy of Xenophon, General and Student of Socrates
Greek and Roman History

The Life, Adventures, and Philosophy of Xenophon, General and Student of Socrates

Bruce Strom 0

Was Xenophon a warrior, a historian, or a philosopher? Xenophon is one of the rare ancient authors whose entire corpus of major works have survived, putting him in the company of Plato and St Augustine, he was highly regarded among ancient and medieval scholars, though hyper-critical modern scholars tend to deprecate him. He was a student of Socrates and wrote several works featuring Socrates, including a fascinating collections of his Stoic-like sayings in the Memorabilia. […]

Greek and Roman History

Summary of the Peloponnesian Wars Between Athens and Sparta

Bruce Strom 4

Why study the Peloponnesian wars? One main reason is: You cannot understand the Platonic dialogues without first understanding the history of the Peloponnesian Wars, because so many of the leading figures of this period are referenced in the Platonic dialogues, and we can learn many moral lessons from the war, which changed the Greek city-states forever.
The history of the war includes many interesting personalities, including Pericles, the founder of the radical democracy of Athens who died in the first years of the war, and Alcibiades, the ladies’ man and charismatic personality who was a leader of all three sides of the antagonists of the war, and we have the Spartan general Lysander who spared Athens from destruction when she lost the war. […]

Greek and Roman History

Spartan Women, Marriage, Family Life and Sayings, From Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus

Bruce Strom 1

Seizing women for marriage was part of many ancient cultures. When in war a particularly hated city-state was conquered, it was common practice to slaughter the military age men and enslave the women and children, and many of the women would be enslaved as concubines. Early in the Peloponnesian Wars, Thucydides tells us the dramatic of how first the Athenian Assembly condemned the city-state of Mytilene to this fate, then changed their mind the next day, and how a furiously rowed trireme bearing this good news beat the previous day’s trireme just in the nick of time, saving the city of Mytilene!

Thucydides also tells of the siege of the Melians, whose men were executed, and her women and children sold into slavery at the hands of the Athenians late in the war, and how the Athenians worried they would suffer the same fate when they lost the war to Sparta. […]

Greek and Roman History

Unique Spartan Warrior Culture and History, Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, Lawgiver of Sparta

Bruce Strom 1

Sparta was the city-state that dominated the Peloponnese, the region that is separated from Athens and the rest of Greece by the narrow Isthmus at Corinth, and without that isthmus it would be an island to itself. Sparta was a traditional and conservative agricultural society that was not welcoming to foreigners, other than aristocratic guest-friends. […]

History

Thirty Tyrants Ruling Athens After Spartan Victory in the Peloponnesian Wars

Bruce Strom 0

After the end of the Peloponnesian Wars, the victorious Spartan commander Lysander insisted that, as part of the terms of peace, the Athenians set up an aristocracy under the rule of the Thirty Tyrants. Although the previous tyrants in the sixth century BC were benevolent tyrants, the Thirty were Tyrants of the worst kind, dominated by the vicious Critias, a tyranny that quickly descended into an orgy of bloodshed directed first against their enemies, and then against their fellow aristocrats so they could seize their property. This misrule preceded the reestablishment of the Radical Democracy of Athens, and the events of the Thirty Tyrants cast a long shadow over Athenian history and the Platonic dialogues. […]

Greek and Roman History

Spartan Lysander Shows Mercy on Athens, Ending the Peloponnesian Wars

Bruce Strom 0

Lysander was appointed as the Spartan naval commander near the end of the war. He was both an effective military leader and an able diplomat, negotiating Persian assistance from Cyrus the Younger in building and funding the fleet of triremes that would check Alcibiades and the generals who succeeded him, eventually winning the Peloponnesian Wars. We will consult Plutarch’s Life of Lysander, and also Thucydides and Xenophon, since Thucydides’ history ends soon after the Oligarchic coup, where it is picked up by Xenophon. […]

Greek and Roman History

Comeback of Alcibiades in Peloponnesian War, according to Plutarch, Thucydides, and Xenophon

Bruce Strom 0

Thucydides quotes the comic playwrights who say that regarding Alcibiades, the Athenians Love Him, Hate Him, and Can’t Do Without Him. During the war, he first advises the Athenians, then the Spartans, then the Persians, then he advises and leads the Athenians again, and everyone who takes his advice is successful in the war, but he manages to irritate so many Greeks and, after the war ends, is eventually slain by the Persians and Spartans. […]

Greek and Roman History

Athens’ Disastrous Defeat at Syracuse in Sicilian Expedition, Peloponnesian Wars

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We cannot improve on Will Durant’s summary of this ignoble defeat:
“The disaster broke the spirit of Athens. Nearly half the citizen body was enslaved or dead; half the women of the citizen class were widows, and their children were orphans.”

With modern scholarship, Professor Kenneth Harl estimates that only a quarter to a third of the male citizens of Athens were lost at Syracuse, which makes more sense, but is still a devastating blow. […]