Hoplite: The citizen-soldiers of Ancient Greek city-states

Civilized warfare on a grand scale in Greece began with the rise of Mycenaean civilization during the 2nd millennium BC.

In the Archaic periods, weapons, equipment, and tactics changed significantly with the appearance of the Greek hoplite and the invention of the phalanx formation (massed ranks and files of hoplites).

Hoplites were the heavy infantry soldiers of the armies of the Greek city-states from about 650 B.C. until the end of the Hellenistic Age, about 30 B.C. Hoplites were protected usually by helmets; breastplates; greaves (armor worn from the ankle to the knee), and large, round, bronze shields. These shields, called hoplons, were approximately three feet in diameter.

The hoplite was part of a whole formation of phalanx. He did not stand in his chariot literally above the masses of foot soldiers. The phalanx could only succeed insofar as all stood their ground together, insofar as no one stood out from the entire formation. Hoplite:
The citizen-soldiers of Ancient Greek city-states

Battle of Olpae in 426 BC

Olpae was a stronghold near Amphilochian Argos. The battle of Olpae (426 BC) was an Athenian victory that ended a Spartan campaign aimed at the conquest of Acarnania and Amphilochia.

In the winter of 426 BC the Ambraciots invaded Amphilochia and took Olpae. The Acarnanians hastened to the defense of Amphilochia and asked Demosthenes to come from Naupactus to join their central command.

It has been suggested that the Acarnanians were impressed with Demosthenes’ military skills. Soon after the arrival, Demosthenes took part in the battle of Olpae.

Demosthenes gave battle to the enemy between Olpae and Argos and by skillfully contrived ambuscade annulled the advantage which they had in superior numbers.

According to Thucydides, Demosthenes’, generalship was responsible for the major victory of the Acarnanian-Athenian force over the Ambraciot-Peloponnesian enemy.

The victory cost the conquerors about three hundred men. On the other side the loss was great; and Menedaius (Spartan), on whom the command devolved after the death of his colleagues, found himself reduced to the embarrassing alternative of sustaining a blockade both by land and sea.
Battle of Olpae in 426 BC

 

Battle of Plataea

Plataea was a city of southern Boeotia situated in the plain between Mount Cithaeron and the Asopus river.

As a result of an attempt by Thebes to force it into the Boeotia Confederacy, the city joined an alliance with Athens in 519 BC. It subsequently provided support to the Athenians against the Persian at Marathon (490), Artemesium and Salamis (480), before being sacked by the Persian in 479.

Plataea was the scene of the great final battle between the Persian forces and the assembled Greek resistance in 479 BC. The two forces met in Boeotia on the slopes of Mount Cithaeron near Plataea.

In this battle a largely Greek force including Helots, defeated the Persian army of Xerxes I, led by Mardonius, brother in law of King Xerxes; the victory marked this battle as the final Persian attempt to invade mainland Greece.

Location of Plataea

The Persian force numbered about 50,000 men, including 15,000 from northern and central Greece. The Greek army, led by King Pausanias of Sparta, totaled about 40,000 men, including 10,000 Spartans and 8,000 Athenians.

The Persian not only had the advantage in total numbers but also had more cavalry and archers. Two sides faced one another for several days.

Mardonius attempted to force the Greeks to fight on a flat plain, where the Persian cavalry would be most effective. When the Greeks tried to change their position, Mardonius believed they were fleeing.

He attacked but the Greeks proved superior at close quarter fighting. Persian lost and Mardonius was killed.

Causalities are difficult to estimate, but the Persian probably lost about 10,000 non-European warriors and 1000 Medizing Greeks. The Greeks forces suffered causalities of perhaps just over 1000 men.
Battle of Plataea

Fourth Sacred War

In the fourth Sacred War, Philip II of Macedon defeated the Athenians and Thebans. This victory paved the way for domination over Greece by Philip and later by his son Alexander, whose conquests were of vast historical consequence.

Fourth Sacred War (339–338 BC) was short. The Athenians were accused in the Amphictyony in impiety by the Amphissans; Aeschines, representing the Athenians, reacted with a counter charge that the Amphissans had been cultivating the cursed land of Cirrha, dedicated to the god Apollo in the First Sacred War.

A dispute between Athens and Thebes escalated when ambassadors to the Amphictyonic meeting, including Aeschines were attacked by the men of Amphissa during an inspection of the sacred plain. 

The next day the Amphictyony attacked Amphissan houses and port facilities on the sacred plain. Amphictyony declared war on Amphissa and appointed Philip as a military leader of the Amphictionic League in the fall of 339.

Philip brought his army south through Thessaly into Doris but instead of continuing south to Delphi he turned east and occupied Elateia, close to the border with Boeotia.

This provocation convinced Athens and Thebes to resolve their differences and mount the final resistance to Philip.

A few months later the war was renewed, but was overshadowed by the alliance made between Athens and Thebes and the resulting conflict with Philip at Chaironeia in 338. The alliances which were including Athens, Thebes the Euboean cities, Megara, Corinth, Achaea and several other islands was defeated at the Battle of Chaeronea in August 338.
Fourth Sacred War

Battle of Salamis (September 480 BC)

The Battle of Salamis was the most important naval engagement of the Greco-Persians Wars. When the news came of the Greek defeat at Thermopylae, the remaining Greek triremes sailed south to Salamis to provide security for the city of Athens.

Although outnumbered by the Persians, the Athenian admiral, Themistocles (524-459 BC), lured the Persian fleet into the narrow waters between the mainland and the island of Salamis, while would prevent the Persians from exploiting their numerical advantage. Xerxes also could not make full use of his stronger fleet due to the geographical limitations of the bay.

On August 29 the Persian fleet of perhaps 500 ships appeared off Phaleron Bay, east of the Salamis Channel, and entered the Bay of Salamis.

The Greeks relied on superior fighting qualities, and in a desperate and confused battle they inflicted heavy casualties on the Persians. In this battle, Themistocles fleet sunk about 200-300 Persian ships.

After the setback at Salamis, Xerxes returned to Persia with some of his army, although powerful forces remained in Greece ready to resume the campaign.
Battle of Salamis (September 480 BC)

Third Sacred War

The Third Sacred War was the last great internecine conflict of the classical Greeks, the culmination of continuously series of wars that began as early as 465 BC, only to be ended by Philip of Macedonia in 346 BC.

In the twenty years after the mutually disastrous battle of Mantinea, the leaderless, Greek city-states further exhausted themselves in continued and confused civil warfare.

The so-called Social War (357- 55 BC) or ‘War of the Allies’ of Athens, only weakened the Athenian fleet.

From small beginning, this war threatened to involve all of Greece. Thebans and other Thessalonians in the Amphictyonic League charged their ancient enemy Phocis with cultivating lands sacred to Apollo.

Phocis was fined as was (belatedly) Sparta for its seizure in 382 of the Cadmea at Thebes.  Under Philomelus, Phocis refused to pay; it armed, captured the Delphic shrine and its treasury in 355. The Phocians had taken possession of the sanctuary and were meting down the offerings and the contents of the treasury for their military expenses and the service of the oracle had been almost suspended.

Thebes declared war in 355, defeating Philomelus at Neon in 354 and causing a Phocian retreat in 353. Philip helped Thebes conquer Phocis from 351 to 347, seeking peace with Athens at the same time.

The Third Sacred War lasted until 346 BC, where King Philip II of Macedonia gained control of Delphi. The war was concluded with Peace of Philocrates and Philip II became the chairman of the Amphictyonic League.
Third Sacred War

Battle of Artemisium

The Battle of Artemisium, or Battle of Artemisium, was a series of naval engagements between the Greek and Persian forces early in the Greek campaigns of Xerxes I Shah Achaemenian, in 480 BC.

The Greeks were commanded by the Spartan Eurybiades. The battle of Artemisium was fought nearly simultaneously with the land battle of Thermopylae, 40 miles away and was part of Greek strategy to block the Persian southward advance at two neighboring bottlenecks, on land and sea, north of central Greece.

The battle of Artemisium was fought between an alliance of Greek city-states, including Sparta, Athens, Corinth and others, and the Persian Empire of Xerxes I. The Allied Greek fleet has about 380 ships, with the largest contingent supplied by Athens about 180 ships.

The Persian ships – which in fact were manned by subject peoples, such as Phoenicians, Egyptians and Ionian Greeks may have numbers 450 or more.

The Persian suffered a loss of 400 ships near the coast of Magnesia in a storm which caught them unprepared. In the same manner they lost another 200 ships which has been sent around Euboea to seal the straits separating the island from the mainland.

The fight was something of an infantry battle on the water. The Persian preferred boarding tactics to ramming. They fight by bringing their ships alongside the Greek’s and sending over the thirty Persian foot soldiers who ride aboard each ship. The Greeks fought back with their own ship’s soldiers, about 40 per vessel.

In the final encounter, the Greeks broke the news of the forcing of Thermopylae was received. The Persian failed to capitalize on the situation and so the series of engagements were essentially indecisive.

The Battle of Artemisium inspired the Greeks the new confidence, and the second naval action at Salamis, two thousand Persian vessels were engaged against three hundred and eighty Greek, terminated in the defeat of the Persian.
Battle of Artemisium

Greco-Persian war (480-479)

It is a second Persian invasion of Greece occurred during the Greco-Persian Wars. It was occurred during the Greco-Persian Wars, as King Xerxes I, Great King of Persia sought to conquer all of Greece.

The invasion began in spring 480 BC, when the Persian army crossed the Hellespont with an army and navy of tremendous size, and marched through Thrace and Macedon to Thessaly, whose cities submitted to Xerxes.

The Persian advance was blocked at the pass of Thermopylae by small Allied force under King Leonidas I of Sparta; simultaneously, the Persian fleet was blocked by and Allied fleet at the straits of Artemisium.

The Spartans was overcome at the Battle of Thermopylae and the successful Persian push allowed their capture of Athens. The Persians burned Athens twice as well as several other Greek cities. The strategy of the Greek coalition paid off when they enticed the Persian fleet into battle at Salamis and crippled it badly enough to forestall further action at that time.

When the Persian navy was soundly defeated, Xerxes and the bulk of the Persian forces returned to the empire, leaving a portion in Greece.

Persian strategy as this point aimed at weakening the Greek coalition by offering peace terms to the Athenians. The Athenian refusal led ultimately to a confrontation at Plataea in 479 BC, in which the Persian commander was killed and the Persian routed.

After Greco-Persian Wars, Athens quickly became a military power, especially at sea. As a result of the Battle of Salamis Athens emerged with more prestige and the dominant naval power in Greece and the Aegean.
Greco-Persian war (480-479)

Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC)

The Battle of Chaeronea was fought in338 BC, near the city of Chaeronea in Boeotia, between the forces of Philip II of Macedon and an alliance of Greek city-states (the principle members of which were Athens and Thebes).

The Battle of Chaeronea was one of the most important battles in the history of Greece, and the last real stand of the old Greek states against the new Macedonian power from the north. Phillip’s victory and his eventual establishment of a unified Greece marked the end of the city-state and beginning of the imperial age.

The battle was the culmination of Philip’s campaign in Greece (339-338 BC) and resulted in a decisive victory for the Macedonians.

The Allies had a large force of more than 35,000 men from Athens, Corinth, Euboea, Megara and Thebes, among others, Philip’s forces numbered a little less at about 30,000 but he had 1,800 cavalry.
The forces of Athens and Thebes were destroyed and continued resistance was impossible; the war therefore came to an abrupt end.

Thousands of the Greek allies lost their lives at Chaeronea, and Philip took several thousand more prisoners.

Philip was able to impose a settlement upon Greek, which all states accepted, with the exception of Sparta.
Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC)

Battle of Corinth (146 BC)

The Battle of Corinth happened in 146 BC was a battle fought between the Roman Republic and the Greek state of Corinth and its allies in the Achaean League.

At the regular meeting of the league in May 146 BC, in Corinth, the Roman delegates were insulted, threated and when they complained of the treatment they received, they were virtually chased out of the meeting by the mob assembled for the occasion by the anti-Roman faction.

Upon received the news, the Roman Senate ordered Lucius Mummius the consul of 146 BC, to lead a fleet and land-force against Achaeans.

The Romans defeated and destroyed their main rival in the Mediterranean, Carthage, and spent the following months in provoking the Greeks.

The Roman consul Mummius, with 23,000 infantry and 3,500 cavalry (probably two legions plus Italian allies) with an unspecified number of Cretans archers and Pergamese contingent sent for Pergamon by King Attalus, advanced into the Peloponnese against the revolutionary Achaean government.

The Achaean general Diaeus prepared to defend Corinth. But popular terror had succeeded to popular passion. Diaeus camped at Corinth with 14,000 infantry and 600 cavalry (plus possibly some survivors of another army that had been defeated earlier).

The overbold and partly untrained army of Diaeus met the Romans in open battles in the isthmus at a place called Leucopetra. The result was an overwhelming defeat for the Achaeans.

Diaeus, who had fought fled in despair to his native city of Megalopolis. He killed his wife that she might not become the slave of a Roman and having himself take poison, he set fire to his house.

Three days after the battle, Mummius entered the defenseless city of Corinth, and ordered it to be plundered and destroyed by fire; all the male inhabitants were put to the sword and all the women and children as well as the remaining slaves were sold.
Battle of Corinth (146 BC)

The Battle of Marathon 490 BC

The most important event of the period 491-488 BC for the Athenian Democracy was the battle of Marathon. It is commonly regarded as one of the most significant wars in all of history.

In the year 490 BC, Darius launched a new attempt to conquer Greece. The historian Herodotus presents the campaign as having been initiated against the Greek cities of Athens and Eretria by Darius I in revenge for their support of a revolt within the Persian empire of the Ionian cities of Asia Minor in 499-494 BC.

The Persians decided to invade Greece by crossing the Aegean. After crossing the Aegean Sea, their large force reached Euboea and after a short siege, they captured Eretria.

When the Athenians heard the news, they too marched out to Marathon. Before leaving Athens for Marathon, the generals sent a herald to ask Sparta for help.

The battle took place at Marathon, a plain on Athenian territory 40 km northeast of Athens.

The Greeks emerged victorious and put an end to the possibility of Persian despotism.

The Battle of Marathon marked the first military encounter between Greeks and Persians on the Greek mainland, and although it was won through favorable circumstances and good fortune rather than by military superiority it had a huge ideological impact on the Greeks.
The Battle of Marathon 490 BC

Revolt of the Greeks

Revolt of the Greeks
One of the organizations the Ottoman Empire was Hitaria which was form in 1814 by three Greek Patriots in Odessa. This was political organization with the object of revival of ancient Greek Empire.

Disintegration of the Ottoman Empire was necessary to achieve their object. Hitaria accordingly prepared destructive plans against Ottoman Empire. As a result of the French Revolution, along with other regions patriot feeling developed in Greece also.

The revolt broke out in 1821. From political point of view, it was a national revolt. From economic point of view it was a revolt of the peasants, against the feudal land lords.

The revolt broke out in Morea and soon spread out to the whole of the Empire. The feudal land lords most of whom were Greeks were killed by the peasants.

The first confrontation between the Ottoman forces and the Greek peasants took place in the neighborhood of the Capital of Morea, in which the Ottoman army was defeated.

The capital city and adjoining territory was thus occupied by the rebels and the Muslims were ruthlessly murdered. The Greeks living in Istanbul and other cities of the Empire like Izmir and Salonika were killed in retaliation. The Greek set up a national government in liberated parts of Morea.
Revolt of the Greeks

Battle of Cunaxa

The battle of Cunaxa fought by Cyrus against Artaxerxes II is interesting as showing the discipline of which a Greek phalanx was capable, when compared with the heterogeneous troops of Persia and as being the initiation of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand.

Artaxerxes II, Great King of the Persian Empire, commanded Persian army while the other side was led by his younger brother Cyrus, who intended to commit fratricide and rule in Artaxerxes’s place.

Artaxerxes had an army to be 45 000 strong, while Cyrus had, including the Greeks, ranging between 10 000 to 14 000. The majority of these were Spartans; the rest 25000 Thracian and Greek peltasts and 200 excellent Cretan archers.

Late in September 401 BC, these two huge faced each other on a dusty plain, on the eastern bank of the River Euphrates.

The battle was the climax of the Cyrus campaign, long plotted from his domain in what is now western Turkey.

The battle of Cunaxa was hard fought and could have been won by Cyrus had he had not been killed. The Greek troops of Cyrus right wing were victorious against Artaxerxes’s Egyptian recruits, archers and cavalry led by Chithrafarna.

The Greek mercenary troops were now stranded and their commanders taken hostage by Chithrafarna.
Battle of Cunaxa

Corinthian War

Name given by modern historians to the conflict of 395-387 BC fought between Sparta with allies and an alliance of Corinth, Athens, Boeotia, Argos, Euboea and the kingdom of Persia. It was so named because much of the war occurred in Corinthian territory.

The grand alliance was remarkable for combining traditional enemies in a united campaign against Spartan supremacy.

The background of the Corinthian War is Sparta’s victory over Athens on the huge Peloponnesian War (404 BC), and established herself as hegemon of the Greek world and marked the beginning of Sparta’s oppressive rule over all the Greek states, former friend and foe alike.

Corinth and Thebes rejected hegemony and openly refused to participate in Peloponnesian League activities. In 395 Thebes maneuvered Locris into conflict with Phocis, which was still an Ally of Sparta. The Spartan response, triggered what became the Corinthian War. Thebes, Corinth and Locris were joined by Athens, Argos and cities in Euboea and Thessaly against Sparta.

Sparta eventually won the war, but only after the Persian had switched support from Athens to Sparta. In fact, the winning side was the old combination that had proved victorious in the Peloponnesian War.

The treaty called King’s Peace which was signed in 387 BC, ending the Corinthian War.

The Corinthian War resulted in the appearance of several new features in relations between the Greeks and Persian, including , diplomacy by conference in the form of peace negotiation at Sardis and Sparta of 393-392 BC.
Corinthian War

Aeneid

Aeneid

Virgil’s Aeneid is arguably the most influential and celebrated work of Latin literature. Written in the epic meter, dactylic hexameter, the Aeneid follows the journey of Aeneas, son of Venus, after the fall of Troy. According to an ancient mythical tradition, Aeneas fled the burning city and landed in Italy, where he established a line of descendants who would become the Roman people.

Virgil (70–19 b.c.e.) draws on the works of numerous authors, such as Lucretius, Ennius, Apollonius of Rhodes, and, especially, Homer. Virgil consistently adopts Homeric style and diction (a good example of this is the first line of the poem: “I sing of arms and a man ...”).

He also re-creates entire scenes from the Iliad and the Odyssey. Books 1 to 6 of the Aeneid show such close parallels to the Homeric epics that they are often called the “Virgilian Odyssey.”


Books 7 to 12, meanwhile, closely echo the Iliad. Virgil’s use of Homeric elements goes beyond mere imitation. Virgil often places Aeneas in situations identical to those of Odysseus or Achilles, allowing Aeneas’s response to those situations to differentiate him from (and sometimes surpass) his Homeric counterparts.

Virgil constructs his epic in relation to the Roman people and their cultural ideals. He defines Aeneas by the ethical quality of piety, a concept of particular importance for Rome at the time of the Aeneid’s composition. The Aeneid also contains several etiological stories of interest to the Roman people, most notably that of Dido and the origin of the strife between the Romans and the Carthaginians.

The Dido episode is one of the most famous vignettes of the Aeneid. Dido, the queen of Carthage—also known by her Phoenician name, Elyssa—aids Aeneas and his shipwrecked Trojans in Book 1. Through Venus’s intervention, Dido falls desperately in love with Aeneas and wants him and his men to remain in Carthage.

But a message from Jove reminds Aeneas that his fated land is in Italy. Immediately, he orders his men to depart. Dido is heartbroken over Aeneas’s leaving: She builds a pyre out of Aeneas’s gifts and commits suicide on it, prophesying the coming of Hannibal before she dies. When Aeneas descends to the Underworld in Book 4, Dido’s shade refuses to speak with him.

Dido’s character shows a great deal of complexity. She appears first as an amalgam of Alcinous and Arete as she hospitably receives her Trojan guests but soon becomes a Medea figure, well acquainted with magic and arcane knowledge.

Aeneid and the sibyl

Dido is a sympathetic character throughout the epic, though much of how Virgil describes her would have brought to the Roman reader’s mind the Egyptian queen Cleopatra (associated with Mark Antony and the civil war).

Interpretations of the Aeneid are numerous and far from unanimous. The Aeneid’s composition coincides with the end of the civil wars and the beginning of Augustus’s regime. Virgil ostensibly endorses the new princeps by referring to him as the man who will usher in another golden age.

Yet several elements of the epic might suggest that Virgil did not wholeheartedly support Augustus. Much of the debate centers on the war in Italy that occupies the second half of the epic, in which some scholars see a reference to the Battle of Perusia in 41 b.c.e., an event Augustus would have preferred to forget.


Scholars also point to the end of the Aeneid, where Aeneas kills Turnus as he pleads for his life, as unambiguously criticizing the new leadership. This anti-Augustan view of the Aeneid has, however, met with opposition.

Many scholars find more evidence of the Iliad than of Augustus’s campaign in the latter half of the Aeneid. Others suggest that in killing Turnus, Aeneas acted appropriately for his cultural circumstances.

The Aeneid has also been proposed to represent, not Virgil’s view of Augustus, but rather the condition of the Roman people. Virgil seems to offer conflicting evidence for his perspective on Augustan Rome and may intentionally leave the matter ambiguous so that the reader may decide for him- or herself.

The Aeneid was highly anticipated even before publication and has since enjoyed immense popularity. Quintilian regarded Virgil as nearly equal to Homer and credits him with having the more difficult task. Latin epic writers after Virgil looked to the Aeneid as their model. Statius even acknowledges that his epic, the The baid, cannot surpass that of Virgil.

The Aeneid became a standard school text of the ancient world and was a critical part of a good education. Virgil, however, considered the work unfinished. At the time of his death he famously called for the Aeneid to be burned rather than published. Augustus saved the Aeneid from the flames and ordered its publication.

Aeschylus - Greek Playwright

Aeschylus - Greek Playwright

The son of a wealthy family in sixth century b.c.e. Attica, Aeschylus was a tragedian at a time when Greek theater was still developing from its beginnings as a form of elaborate dance.

In contrast to the first dramas, performed in honor of Dionysus and under the influence of copious amounts of wine, Aeschylus’s work emphasized natural law and punishment at the hands of the gods, by examining the role of his characters in a larger world.

His participation as a soldier in the Battle of marathon in 490 b.c.e., when the invading Persians were successfully repelled by vastly outnumbered Greek forces, probably informed his approach. The Persians told the story of the battle and was first performed 18 years later.


Of Aeschylus’s 70-some plays, only seven survive. They are the earliest known Greek tragedies, as he is one of only three tragedians (with Euripides and Sophocles) whose works have survived to the modern era. Seven against Thebes is another battle narrative, concerning that of “the Seven” mythic heroes against Thebes in the aftermath of the death of the sons of Oedipus.

The Suppliants is a simpler story about the daughters of Danaus fleeing a forced marriage, while the Oresteia is a trilogy of plays about the house of Atreus, starting with the return of Agamemnon from the Trojan War.

The Oresteia has had enduring appeal in the modern world: 20th-century playwright Eugene O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra was based on it, substituting the Civil War for the Trojan War in the backstory of O’Neill’s trilogy.

Composers Richard Strauss and Sergey Taneyev each based operas on the Oresteia, and many more writers and artists have found compelling the idea of the Furies who in Aeschylus’s trilogy bring down the wrath of the gods upon Orestes for having killed his mother.

In a sense the Oresteia is not just the earliest surviving trilogy of Greek plays. It is also one of the earliest horror stories, with the Furies tracking Orestes by following the scent of his mother Clytemnestra’s blood, and the play’s emphasis on the idea, so resonant in horror literature and ghost stories, of the supernatural exacting horrible justice on transgressors.

Legend claims that Aeschylus met his death under the strangest of circumstances, when a passing eagle dropped a turtle on his head.

Aesop

Aesop

A slave in ancient Greece in the sixth century b.c.e., Aesop was the creator or popularizer of the genre of fables that bear his name. Little about him is known: More than half a dozen places have claimed him as a native son, and although Herodotus records that he was killed by citizens of Delphi, he gives no indication of motive.

Aesop’s fables were brief stories, appropriate for children and structured around a simple moral lesson. Most of them featured anthropomorphized animals—animals who spoke and acted like humans, often motivated by some exaggerated human characteristic.

Unlike the animal tales of many mythic traditions—the Coyote stories of North America, for instance—Aesop’s animals did not represent spiritual or divine beings, nor did they explain the nature of the world. They were comparable instead to modern children’s literature and cartoons, though with an educational bent.


The fables remain some of the best-known stories in the Western world, often lending themselves to proverbs. Some of the most famous include The Fox and the Grapes, from which the idiom sour grapes is derived, to refer to something that, like the grapes the fox cannot reach, is assumed to be not worth the trouble.

The Tortoise and the Hare, which concludes that “slow and steady wins the race” and has been adapted to a number of media, including a Disney cartoon; The Ant and the Grasshopper, the latter of which suffers through a harsh winter he had not prepared for as the ant did; and perhaps most evocatively, The Scorpion and the Frog.

In this tale a scorpion asks a frog to carry him across the river, and when the frog refuses out of fear of being stung, the scorpion brushes the concern aside, pointing out that should he sting the frog, both will die as the scorpion drowns. Nonetheless, the frog’s fear proves warranted—when the scorpion stings him partway across the river, he reminds the frog that such behavior is plainly the nature of a scorpion.

Alcibiades

Alcibiades return to Athens

Alcibiades was an Athenian who was influential in the creation of turmoil in his home city that went a long way to explaining the defeat by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War (431–404 b.c.e.). Alcibiades was a controversial and divisive figure, and his legacy in part continues to be colored by his character flaws even millennia after his death. Thucydides, Plato, and Plutarch recount the adventures of Alcibiades in their histories.

Alcibiades was born into a powerful family, and his father commanded the Athenian army at the battle in which he was killed. Alcibiades was then only about seven years old, and he became the ward of the statesman Pericles. He subsequently entered into Athenian public life in the political and military fields. Owing in part to his background, he quickly achieved high office and served with distinction.

At the Battle of Delium, he assisted Socrates who had been wounded and in turn benefited from the older man’s advice. However, Alcibiades was too extravagant a personality to abide by the moral strictures that Socrates required of his pupils. Indeed, association with Alcibiades was later part of the charge brought against Socrates for corrupting the youth.


Alcibiades was busy establishing himself as a leading personality in the Athenian assembly, the Ekklesia, while also becoming known as a budding socialite. His family had enjoyed personal relations with Spartan interests, and he had anticipated that he could call on these connections to broker a peace agreement to end the Peloponnesian War.

However, Spartan leaders refused to countenance this personal approach and insisted on formal arrangements. Subsequently, Alcibiades pursued an anti-Sparta policy that probably perpetuated the war, arguably from a sense of pique.

He organized the alliance with the Peloponnesian city-states of Argos, Elis, and Mantineia. The alliance was defeated at the Battle of Mantineia in 418, which led to Spartan dominance of the land and forced the Peloponnesian League to seek new fronts in the war.

Alcibiades being taught by Socrates

It was the necessity of opening a new front that led to the Syracusan campaign in Sicily. Alcibiades positioned himself to be one of the leaders of this campaign, but on the verge of the expedition leaving, statues of the god Hermes were found to have been mutilated and, on rather circumstantial evidence, Alcibiades became accused of violating the Eleusinian Mysteries.

He sailed with the expedition, but inquiries continued during his absence. When it was determined that he should return to Athens to answer the charges against him, Alcibiades fled to Sparta and ensured his safety by providing the Spartans with valuable military advice. He made himself less popular by supposedly seducing the wife of the king of Sparta.

Eventually the Spartans tired of Alcibiades, and he sought to make a new career for himself by courting the Persians, who saw the turmoil on the Greek mainland as a possible opportunity to expand their influence.


For several years Alcibiades switched sides from Persia, to Athens, to neutrality, depending on the political winds. Brilliance of expression and savoir-faire were combined with total lack of scruples as he sought for the best advantage for himself.

Finally Spartan naval victories secured a decisive advantage, and they took the opportunity to cause the governor of Phrygia, where Alcibiades had been taking shelter, to have him killed. Thus ended the life of one of the most vivid personalities of ancient Athens, who could surely have achieved genuine greatness if he could have married his gifts with some sense of personal integrity.

The death of Alcibiades

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great was born in a town called Pella in the summer of 356 b.c.e. His father was Philip of Macedon, and his mother was Olympias. Philip II ascended to the throne in 359 b.c.e., at the age of 24. Under Philip II, Macedonia thrived and emerged as a strong power.

Philip reorganized his army into infantry phalanx using a new weapon known as the sarissa, which was a very long (18-foot) spear. This was a devastating force against all other armies using the standard-size spears of the time.

Alexander’s birth and early childhood are unclear, related only by Plutarch, who wrote his Life of Alexander around 100 c.e., many centuries later. In his youth Alexander had a classical education, with Aristotle as one of his teachers. One of his tutors, Lysimachus, promoted Alexander’s identification with the Greek hero Achilles.


Later, Philip II took another wife, Cleopatra, who bore him a son named Caranus and a daughter. This created a second heir to the throne. Olympias was a strong-willed woman who jealously guarded her son’s right to succession. She had given Philip his eldest son, however, she was no longer in favor with Philip.

At the age of 18, Alexander and his father led a cavalry against the armies of Athens and Thebes, which were fighting the last line of Greek defenses against Philip’s conquest. Philip had set a trap with his maneuver and at the decisive moment, Alexander, with his cavalry, sprung the trap.

This victory at the Battle of Chaeronea in August 338 completed Philip’s conquest of Greece. In 336 Philip was murdered by Pausanias, a bodyguard. Upon the death of his father, Alexander and his mother, Olympias, did away with any of his political rivals who were vying for the throne. Philip’s second wife and children were slain.

Alexander the King

Alexander became king in 336. He was an absolute ruler in Macedonia and king of the city-states of Athens, Sparta, and Thebes. As a new king, he had to prove that he was as powerful a ruler as his father, Phillip II, had been. Revolts against his rule first occurred in Thrace.

In the spring of 335, Alexander and his army defeated the Thracians and advanced into the Triballian kingdom across the Danube River. Alexander faced the challenge of placating the recently conquered Greek city-states. While Alexander was in the Triballian kingdom, the Greek cities rebelled against the Macedonian rule.

Alexander journey

The Athenian orator Demosthenes spread a rumor that Alexander had been fatally wounded in an attack. News of Alexander’s death sparked rebellions in other Greek states, such as Thebes. The Thebans attacked the Macedonian garrison of their city and drove out the Macedonian general Parmenio.

Their victory was due to a Greek mercenary named Memnon of Rhodes. Memnon defeated Parmenio at Magnesia and pushed him back to northwest Asia Minor. Alexander returned to Thebes after his victories and faced strong opposition from the Thebans, but Alexander defeated them swiftly.

Campaign Against Persia

Alexander embarked on a campaign against Persia in the spring of 334. The Persians had attacked Athens in 480, burning the sacred temples of the Acropolis and enslaving Ionian Greeks. Alexander, a Macedon, won great favor with the Greeks by uniting them against Persia.


He set out with an army of 30,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry, and a fleet of 120 warships. The core force was the infantry phalanx, with 9,000 men armed with sarissa. The Persian army had about 200,000 men, including Greek mercenaries. Memnon, the Greek mercenary general, led the Persian force.

Alexander had an excellent knowledge of Persian war strategy from an early age. In the spring of 334 he crossed the Hellespont (Dardanelles) into Persian territory. The Persian army stationed themselves uphill on a steep, slippery rocky terrain on the eastern bank of the river Granicus. Here they met Alexander’s army for the first time in May 334. Alexander was attacked on all sides but managed to escape, though he was wounded.

The Persians left the battle, thinking they had claimed victory, and left behind only their Greek mercenaries to fight, resulting in a very high casualty rate on the Persian side. Alexander’s armies advanced south along the Ionian coast. Some cities surrendered outright. Greek cities, such as Ephesus, welcomed him as a liberator from the Persians.

Memnon’s forces still presented a threat to Alexander. They stationed themselves at sea, and as Alexander did not wish to join in a sea battle, they were unable to stop his advances on land. In the city of Halicarnassus, Alexander and Memnon met in battle again.

Alexander took the city, burned it down, and installed Ada, his ally, as queen. The Persian cities Termessus, Aspendus, Perge, Selge, and Sagalassus were taken afterward without much difficulty. This ease of conquest continued until he reached Celaenae, where he ordered his general Antigonus to placate the region.

“Divine” Ruler of Asia

Throughout his military campaign people perceived Alexander to be divine. Even the ocean, according to legend, seemed to be servile toward him and his armies. There was a legend involving a massive knot of rope, stating that he who could unravel the knot would rule the world. Many had tried, while Alexander merely cut through the knot with his sword.

Upon hearing this, King Gordius of Gordium surrendered his lands. The story of this divine prophecy being fulfilled spread quickly. Memnon’s death was also regarded as proof of Alexander’s divine quality. This hastened Alexander’s progress through the Persian territories of the eastern Mediterranean, which were long-held, conquered Greek states.

The Battle of Issus in the gulf of Iskanderun was a decisive battle fought in November 333. The Persian king Darius himself led the Persians forces. Darius had a massive force, much larger than Alexander’s army. Darius was brilliant, approaching Alexander’s army from the rear and cutting off the army’s supplies.

The battle occurred on a narrow plain not large enough for the massive armies; it was fought across the steep-sided river Pinarus. This lost the advantage for the Persians, and Alexander emerged victorious as King Darius III fled.

The Battle of Issus was a turning point. Alexander moved from the Greek states that he liberated to lands inhabited by the Persians themselves. He conquered Byblos and Sidon unopposed. In Tyre he faced real opposition.

The city fortress was on an island in the sea, and his prospects were worsened by his lack of a fleet. To his aid came liberated troops, defected from the Persian fleet. The army and the people of Tyre were defeated—most were tortured and slain, some were sold into slavery. Other coastal cities then readily surrendered.

In 331 Alexander marched on to Egypt. Egyptians welcomed him as he was freeing them from Persian control, and the city of Alexandria was founded in his name. Alexander took a journey across the desert to the temple of Zeus Ammon, where an oracle told him of his future and that he would rule the world. From Egypt, Alexander corresponded with Darius, the Persian king. Darius wanted a truce, but Alexander wanted the whole of the Persian Empire.

The same year he marched into Persia to pursue Darius. He conquered the lands around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Alexander encountered Darius at Gaugamela and defeated the Persian army. Babylon and Susa fell, and he reaped their riches. After conquering the Persian capital of Persepolis, he rested there for a few months and then continued his pursuit of Darius. However, his own men had already assassinated Darius.

Alexander started to adopt Persian dress and customs in order to combine Greek and Persian culture as a new, larger empire. He married Roxane, creating a queen who was not Greek, and this lost some of his Greek supporters. Still he gathered enough military support to invade India in 327.

After many conquests he encountered Porus, a powerful Indian ruler, who put up a great battle near the river Hydaspes. After this his men were then reluctant to advance further into India. Alexander was seriously injured with a chest wound, and his armies retreated from India.

Alexander died on June 10, 323 b.c.e., at the age of 33. Different scenarios have been proposed for the cause of his death, which include poisoning, illness that followed a drinking party, or a relapse of the malaria he had contracted earlier.

Rumors of his illness circulated among the troops, causing them to be more and more anxious. On June 9, the generals decided to let the soldiers see their king alive one last time, and guests were admitted to his presence one at a time. Because the king was too sick to speak, he just waved his hand. The day after, Alexander was dead.