Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome
Page 19
2.24; Plutarch Agesilaos 31–32; Pelopidas 24; Diodorus 15.62–65; and Pausanias 4.26–7, 9.13–15. See Hamilton, Agesilaus and the Failure of Spartan Hegemony, 220–31.
9 The size of the Theban-led force and the length of the invasion are under dispute;
see the discussions in Swoboda, Epameinondas, 2687, 40. Ancient estimates ranged from
50,000 to 70,000 troops, both heavy and light infantry along with auxiliaries—one of
114 Hanson
the largest musters in the history of the Greek city-state. For the number of Messenian
helots, see T. Figueira, “The Demography of the Spartan Helots,” in Helots and Their
Masters in Laconia and Messenia: Histories, Ideologies, Structures, ed. Nino Luraghi and
Susan E. Alcock (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 193–239, and in the
same volume, W. Scheidel, “Helot Numbers: A Simplified Model,” 240–47. The prob-
lem is compounded by the existence of helots in both Messenia and Laconia, the pau-
city of historical references, and dispute over agricultural production models. Older
estimates of about 250,000 Messenian helots may be too high.
10 For B. H. Liddell Hart ( Strategy [New York: Praeger, 1967], 34–37), Epaminondas’s
invasion of Messenia was one of the first examples in history of what he labeled the
“indirect approach.” For Hart, the favored way of conducting grand strategy was to
avoid crippling losses in pitched and often serial battles through outflanking enemies’
armies and attacking their infrastructure far to the rear.
11 For a description of the liberation of the helots and the founding of the new fortified
citadel at Messene, see most recently Nino Luraghi, The Ancient Messenians: Constructions
of Ethnicity and Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2008), 209–52. Luraghi
points out that the Messenians may not have been ethnical y or linguistical y al that dis-
tinct from the Spartans, and most likely established the notion of a historical y distinct
Messenian identity right before and after their liberation by Epaminondas.
12 For more ideas about the degree of planning and forethought involved in Epa-
minondas’s decision to continue on to Messene after failing to cross the Eurotas
and storm the Spartan acropolis, see H. Delbrück , History of the Art of War (English
translation by Walter J. Renfroe of Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politschen
Geschichte), 4 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), 1:165–70; G. Roloff,
Problem aus der griechischen Kriegsgeschichte (Berlin: E. Ebering, 1903), 11–59; and Hanson,
Soul of Battle, 72–94.
13 For a good analysis of Xenophon’s ambiguity about the genius of his contem-
porary Epaminondas, see H. D. Westlake, “Individuals in Xenophon’s Hellenica,” in
Essays on the Greek Historians and Greek History, 213–16 (Manchester, UK: Manchester
University Press, 1969).
14 Thucydides 6.18.3, in The Landmark Thucydides, ed. R. Strassler, trans. Richard
Crawley (New York: Touchstone, 1996). Note that the Syracusan democratic leader
Athenagoras, in fear of rumors of an impending Athenian invasion of Sicily, tried in
vain to rally the Syracusans themselves to preempt: “It is necessary to punish an enemy
not only for what he does, but also beforehand for what he intends to do, if the first to
relax precaution would not also be the first to suffer” (6.39.5).
15 A preemptive attack is initiated by one side due to the perceived threat of im-
minent attack by another party. The initiator believes that there is an advantage in
striking first, or at least that striking first is preferable to surrendering the initiative to
the enemy. See D. Reiter, “Exploding the Powder Keg Myth: Preemptive Wars Almost
Never Happen,” International Security 20, no. 2 (Autumn 1995): 6–7. See also J. S. Levy,
“Declining Power and the Preventive Motivation for War,” World Politics 40, no. 1 (Oc-
tober 1987): 90; R. Schweller, “Domestic Structure and Preventive War: Are Democra-
cies More Pacific?,” World Politics 44, no. 2 (January 1992): 247; and G. H. Quester, “200
Years of Preemption,” Naval War College Review 60, no. 4 (Autumn 2007): 16. There is
The Doctrine of Preemptive War 115
a good historical review of the strategies in S. van Evera, “ Offense, Defense, and the
Causes of War , ” International Security 22, no. 4 (Spring 1998): 9.
16 Thucydides 1.118.2, 4.92.5. Again, preemptive wars are waged out of the expecta-
tion of an imminent attack; preventive wars hinge on the expectation of the relative
decline in a state’s position. Besides the question of the temporal proximity of the
challenge, preemptive threats consist of an opponent’s current capabilities; preventive
threats lie in an opponent’s future resources. And while the preventor is often the stron-
ger state, the preemptor tends to be the weaker
17 Thucydides 2.2 (Theban attack on Plataia), 4.92.5 (Pagondas’s call to strike first).
For the tragic history of Thespiae, see Victor Hanson, “Hoplite Obliteration: The Case
of the Town of Thespiai,” in Ancient Warfare: Archaeological Perspectives, ed. John Car-
men and Anthony Harding (London: Stroud, 1999), 203–18.
18 On the domestic debate whether to preempt, and the financial incentives offered
by the Peloponnesians, see Buckler, Theban Hegemony, 70–76, and J. Roy, “Arcadia and
Boeotia in Peloponnesian Affairs, 370–362 B.C.,” Historia 20 (1971): 569–99; and in gen-
eral, Xenophon Hellenica 6.5.9–20, and see 4.7.11; Diodorus 62–63; Plutarch Agesilaus 30.1; Pelopidas 24. 1–2; and Pausanias 9.14.2.
19 We don’t know at what particular point Epaminondas’s arrival in winter 369 in
Mantineia to help the Arcadians evolved into a subsequent campaign south to attack
the homeland of Sparta, and then, after he failed to storm the Spartan acropolis, to
enter Messenia to free the helots and found Messene. While our sources seems to sug-
gest an ad hoc method of decision making, and a formal conference of allies at Man-
tineia (e.g., Xenophon Hellenica 6.5.22–23; Diodorus 15.62.4–5; Plutarch Agesilaus 31.1–2) at which the Thebans jettisoned their initial worries about the physical difficulties of
entering Laconia, it is likely that the Thebans had some notion before they entered the
Peloponnese that their stay would be a long one and would transcend the initial goal of
guaranteeing the safety of the newly founded fortress at Mantineia.
20 We have very little ancient information about the route, the nature of the march,
or the number of allies who continued on into Messene. On the founding of the city in
369 B.C., see Carl A. Roebuck, A History of Messenia from 369 to 146 b.c. (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1941), 32–40; Christian Habicht, Pausanias’ Guide to Ancient Greece
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), 36–63.
21 On the liberal attitude of Epaminondas of allowing some allied Peloponnesian
states to maintain their oligarchies, and his preference not to create either garrisons
or a formal league of pro-Theban democratic allies, see John Buckler and Hans Beck ,
Central Greece and the Politics of Power in the Fourth Century bc (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2008), 137–39.
22 Tearless battle: Plutarch Agesilaus 33.3–5. For the course of Spartan history, its
/>
steady decline after the liberation of the Messenian helots, and defections among the
perioikoi and helots, see Cartledge, Agesilaos, 384–85, 395–431.
23 See Xenophon Hellenica 7.5.27; Diodorus 15.88.4.
24 While destruction of the Spartan acropolis or the Spartan army would have been
advantageous to Thebes, it would probably only have accelerated a process well un-
der way: started at Leuctra, enhanced by the invasions of Laconia and Mantineia, and
capped by the defeat of the Spartan army again at Mantineia.
116 Hanson
25 There is great controversy over the degree of Theban involvement in both the
creation of Mantineia and Megalopolis (though not Messene), involving both conflicts
in our ancient sources and archaeological examination of the remains of the fortifica-
tions. See Hanson, Soul of Battle, 424–25, n. 3; and especially J. Roy, “Arcadia and Boeotia
in Peloponnesian Affairs, 370–362 B.C.,” Historia 20, nos. 5–6 (4th Quarter, 1971), 569–99.
26 On the contemporary evocation of Iraq as Sicily, and Thucydides, see Victor Han-
son, A War Like None Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War
(New York: Random House, 2005), 324, n. 1.
27 Thucydides on the fault for the disaster on Sicily: “this failed not so much through
a miscalculation of the power of those against whom it was sent, as through a fault in
the senders in not taking the best measures afterwards to assist those who had gone
out, but choosing rather to occupy themselves with private squabbles for the leader-
ship of the people, by which they not only paralyzed operations in the field, but also
first introduced civil discord at home” (Crawley translation); Pericles’ rebuke of the
Athenians for their fickle support of the war: “I am the same man and do not alter,
it is you who change, since in fact you took my advice while unhurt, and waited for
misfortune to repent of it” (2.61.2).
28 On the influence of the Pythagoreans at Thebes and on Epaminondas in particu-
lar: Nepos Epaminondas 15.2.2; Diodorus 15.39.2; Plutarch Pelopidas 5.3; Xenophon Ag-
esilaus 25 (internal opposition to the aggressive plans of Pelopidas and Epaminondas).
And see Nancy H. Demand, Thebes in the Fifth Century: Heracles Resurgent (London:
Routledge, 1982), 70–76, 132–35. It was the judgment of the historian Ephoros that the
hegemony of Thebes was largely due to the careers of Epaminondas and Pelopidas
(Diodorus 15.79.2, 15.88.4) and passed with their deaths. On the purported ties between
“neocons” and President George W. Bush, see in general Jacob Heilbrunn, They Knew
They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons (New York: Doubleday, 2008).
29 We should remember the supposed inscription on the statue of Epaminondas set
up at Thebes that ended with “And all of Greece became independent and free” (Pausa-
nias 9.15.6). There is an entire corpus of ancient passages attesting to the achievements,
both moral and military, of Epaminondas, and the relationship of Theban hegemony
to his singular leadership: e.g., Aelian Varia Historia 12.3; Nepos Epaminondas 15.10.3;
Plutarch Moralia 194C; Strabo 9.2.2. For a review of the results of Epaminondas’s inva-
sions in the Peloponnese, see Hanson, Soul of Battle, 105–20. Controversy exists over Ep-
aminondas’s ultimate aims, which may well have been pan-Hellenic and transcended
just Theban interests. See George L. Cawkwell, “Epaminondas and Thebes,” The Clas-
sical Quarterly, n.s. 22, no. 2 (November 1972): 254–78.
30 See the assessment of Buckler ( Theban Hegemony, 227) on the campaigns of Epa-
minondas: “Even after Mantineia, Epameinondas and Pelopidas left Thebes the leading
power in Greece, raised their homeland to heights which it had never before attained
and would never see after them; and the history of the Theban hegemony is in no small
measure the story of Epameinondas and Pelopidas.”
The Doctrine of Preemptive War 117
5. Alexander the Great, Nation Building, and the
Creation and Maintenance of Empire
Ian Worthington
Alexander the Great (356–23 bc) fought strategically brilliant
battles and laid sieges against numerically superior foes to estab-
lish one of the greatest geographic empires of antiquity, from Greece
in the west to what the Greeks called India (modern Pakistan) in the
east. When he died he was ready to undertake an invasion of Arabia,
and plausibly after that he would have moved against Carthage. He
created his empire in a little over a decade, invading Asia in 334 and dy-
ing in Babylon in 323. Not even the Romans, who boasted the largest
empire of antiquity, could attribute their empire to just one man, and it
took centuries to reach the extent it did before it fell. Alexander’s cam-
paigns also facilitated the spread of Greek culture in the areas through
which he and his army marched, and they opened new trading avenues
and possibilities between West and East, which forever changed rela-
tions between Greece and Asia.
This chapter shows how Alexander established his empire, discusses
the problems he faced in ruling a large, multicultural subject popu-
lation, and examines the approaches and strategies he took to what
might be called nation building. In doing so, it allows us also to praise
and critique his actions. Alexander’s experiences in Asia arguably can
inform present makers of modern strategy and shed light on contem-
porary problems in this or any culturally different region of the world.
At the same time, the argument can be made that Alexander’s failings
(sometimes his fault, at other times not) show how little the modern
world learns from, or even ignores, the past.
u
Alexander succeeded to the Macedonian throne on the assassination
of his father, Philip II, in 336. He had already proved himself on the
battlefield. In 340, when he was sixteen, his father appointed him regent
of Macedon, and during his tenure of power Alexander successfully
marched against and defeated the Maedians on the upper Strymon
River. Philip was impressed, for two years later, in 338, he gave his son
the command of the Macedonian left flank, and of the Companion
Cavalry, no less, at the Battle of Chaeronea. This was the battle by
which the Greeks lost their autonomy and in the following year be-
came members of the so-called League of Corinth, which was headed
by the Macedonian king and used to enforce Macedonian hegemony. In
fierce fighting at Chaeronea, Alexander distinguished himself by help-
ing to annihilate the famous 300-strong Theban Sacred Band.
When Alexander became king, he immediately had to deal with a
number of problems, not least a revolt of the Greeks from Macedonian
rule, which he easily ended. Afterward he revived his father’s League
of Corinth, and with it his plan for a pan-Hellenic invasion of Asia
to punish the Persians for the suffering of the Greeks, especially the
Athenians, in the Greco-Persian Wars and to liberate the Greek cities of
Asia Minor. However, it was not until the spring of 334 that Alexander
led an army of some 48,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry, supported by
a fleet o
f 120 warships, from Greece to Asia. Before landing, the story
goes, he threw a spear into Asian soil to indicate he regarded all of Asia
as his spear-won territory.1
In three major battles against far numerically superior Persian
armies (at the Granicus River in 334, Issus in 333, and Gaugamela in 331),
Alexander defeated the Persians. He did so thanks to a better trained
army, inherited from his father Philip II, than the Persian one, and by
a combination of strategic brilliance, daring, and luck.2 Darius III, the
Great King, had not been present at Granicus (the Persian side was
commanded by Arsites, the satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia), but he
fought Alexander at Issus and Gaugamela, and on both occasions Alex-
ander, the heart of his strategy being to kill or capture him, had forced
him off the battlefield. The demoralizing effect this had on the Persian
Alexander the Great and Empire 119
troops had turned the tide of battle in favor of Alexander both times.
Also demoralizing, and taking place before both Issus and Gaugamela,
must have been Alexander’s visit to Gordium (close to the modern An-
kara) in 333. Here was the wagon dedicated by Midas, son of Gordius,
who allegedly left Macedon and became king of Gordium. The wagon
was famous for the knot made of cornel wood on its yoke, and the
accompanying prophecy that whoever untied it would rule Asia. Need-
less to say, the king undid it, either by slashing it with his sword or by
unraveling it.3 His visit to Gordium, then, was political: to show every-
one he was the next ruler of Asia.
In between Granicus and Issus, Alexander had marched down the
coastline of Asia Minor and Syria, in some cases receiving the immedi-
ate surrender of the cities, in other cases having to besiege them (his
most famous sieges are probably at Halicarnassus, Tyre, and Gaza). In
332 he had entered Egypt, where the satrap, Mazaces, immediately sur-
rendered the capital, Memphis, and hence all Egypt to him. Mazaces
had no choice, for the Egyptians were tired of Persian rule and wel-
comed the Macedonian army as liberators; if Mazaces had resisted, the
Egyptians would have risen up against him. While in Egypt, Alexander
made his famous trek to consult the Oracle of Zeus Ammon at the