25. Archilochus, fragment 114. For the idea in Greek literature of the general as a common man, see Hanson, “Greek Warrior,” 112–13. For a different view, cf. Wheeler, “General,” 140–49.
26. For ancient encomia about the two men, see 4.81.1–3 and 4.108.2–3; and cf. Plutarch, Lysander, 30.
27. There is a new notion in literature of the post–Peloponnesian War era concerning the proper tactical role—intellectual or moral?—of the general in the early fourth century. For a discussion of the ancient sources, see Hanson, Other Greeks, 258–61, 308–10, and Wheeler, “General,” 145–53.
28. Xenophon, Memorabilia, 3.1.1; Xenophon, Anabasis, 2.1.7; cf. Plato, Laws, 828E—834A. For the new type of military commanders who appeared after the Peloponnesian War and engaged in plundering and raiding to pay the cost of their operations, see Pritchett, Greek State, 2.59–117.
29. In similar fashion, most in 1861 felt that the Confederacy, given the region’s reputation for chivalry and excellence in arms, would produce superior military leadership in the American Civil War. But for all the tactical excellence of a Lee or Jackson, the South simply did not produce many military minds quite like Grant, Sherman, or Sheridan, who grasped the rare interplay of tactics, strategy, morale, and economic power in choosing where and how to fight.
30. Powell, Athens and Sparta, 200–01, is quite good in collating passages from Thucydides that reflect the historian’s belief that Athens lost rather than Sparta won.
31. For these examples of fear and panic adjudicating state policy, see 2.21 (Athenian empty hopes that the Spartans might turn back and not really ravage Attica as they had threatened) and 4.40–42 (the Spartans worry that after their defeat at Sphacteria, enemies would sense their weakness); cf. 5.102–03 (the Melian reliance on empty hopes that the danger might be still averted). For a list of examples of opportunism during the war and the dangers of perceived weakness, see Powell, Athens and Sparta, 144–47.
32. Pindar on war: fragment 120.5. On the attitudes of old and young about war, see, for example, 1.72.1, 2.8, and 6.24. See also Astymachus and Lacon (3.52–53); Saugenês (see his grave stele in R. Higgins, Tanagra and the Figurines [Princeton, 1986], 52–53); Scirphondas (7.30.3); and Xenares (5.51.2).
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Professors John Heath and Bruce Thornton—
friends and classicists of a quarter century
ALSO BY VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece
The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece
Hoplites: The Ancient Greek Battle Experience (editor)
The Other Greeks: The Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization
Fields Without Dreams: Defending the Agrarian Idea
Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom (with John Heath)
The Wars of the Ancient Greeks
The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day—How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny
The Land Was Everything: Letters from an American Farmer
Bonfire of the Humanities (with John Heath and Bruce Thornton)
Carnage and Culture:
Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power
An Autumn of War
Mexifornia: A Stat
e of Becoming
Between War and Peace
Ripples of Battle: How Wars of the Past Still Determine
How We Fight, How We Live, and How We Think
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON has written extensively about various aspects of classical warfare in The Western Way of War, The Other Greeks, and The Wars of the Ancient Greeks. He has also published the military histories The Soul of Battle and Ripples of Battle, as well as two bestselling collections of essays: An Autumn of War and Between War and Peace. He is a professor of classics emeritus at the California State University and he has been a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, an Onassis Fellow in Greece, a visiting professor of military history at the U.S. Naval Academy, and a recipient of the Eric Breindel Memorial Award for journalism. He lives and works with his wife and three children on their forty-acre tree and vine farm near Selma, California, where he was born in 1953. Hanson is also currently a classicist, military historian, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War Page 52
