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Mindarus
Mindarus ( grc, Μίνδαρος) was a Spartan navarch who commanded the Peloponnesian fleet in 411 and 410 BC, during the Peloponnesian War. Successful in shifting the theatre of war into the Hellespont, he then experienced a string of defeats; in the third and final of these, he was killed and the entire Peloponnesian fleet was captured or destroyed. Relocation and early battles :''Main articles: Battle of Cynossema, Battle of Abydos'' Mindarus first took command of the fleet at Miletus, where the satrap Tissaphernes had promised the Spartans they would be joined by the sizeable Phoenician fleet under his command. After several months of waiting, Mindarus realized that no such fleet would be forthcoming, and made the strategic decision to relocate his fleet to the Hellespont, where the satrap Pharnabazus had promised him greater support than he was receiving from Tissaphernes. Mindarus set out from Miletus with 73 ships; a storm forced him ashore at Chios, but he remained ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Abydos
The Battle of Abydos was an Athenian naval victory in the Peloponnesian War. In the battle, the Spartan fleet, under Mindarus, attempted to rescue a small allied fleet that had been driven ashore at Dardanus, but was attacked by the Athenian fleet, under Thrasybulus. The fighting was evenly contested for a great length of time, but towards evening, the arrival of Alcibiades with Athenian reinforcements tipped the balance in favor of the Athenians, and the Peloponnesians were forced to flee back to their base at Abydos, suffering heavy losses along the way. Prelude After the Athenian victory at Cynossema, the Athenian fleet established a base at Sestos, from where it could quickly respond to any moves by the Spartan fleet at Abydos. Mindarus, the Spartan navarch, summoned the Rhodian commander Dorieus, with his 14 ships, to join him at Abydos, hoping to end the war with a decisive victory.Kagan, ''The Peloponnesian War'', 407 Dorieus, accordingly, sailed north from Rhodes t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alcibiades
Alcibiades ( ; grc-gre, Ἀλκιβιάδης; 450 – 404 BC) was a prominent Athenian statesman, orator, and general. He was the last of the Alcmaeonidae, which fell from prominence after the Peloponnesian War. He played a major role in the second half of that conflict as a strategic advisor, military commander, and politician. During the course of the Peloponnesian War, Alcibiades changed his political allegiance several times. In his native Athens in the early 410s BC, he advocated an aggressive foreign policy and was a prominent proponent of the Sicilian Expedition. After his political enemies brought charges of sacrilege against him, he fled to Sparta, where he served as a strategic adviser, proposing or supervising several major campaigns against Athens. However, Alcibiades made powerful enemies in Sparta too, and defected to Persia. There he served as an adviser to the satrap Tissaphernes until Athenian political allies brought about his recall. He served as an Ath ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Cynossema
The naval Battle of Cynossema (Ancient Greek: ) took place in 411 BC during the Second Peloponnesian War. In the battle, an Athenian fleet commanded by Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, although initially thrown on the defensive by a numerically superior Spartan fleet, won a narrow victory. This victory had an impact out of proportion to its tactical significance, coming when Athens' traditional democratic government had been replaced by an oligarchy and an Athenian defeat could have ended the war. The newly confident Athenian fleet proceeded to win two more victories in the Hellespont in quick succession, the second being the dramatic rout at Cyzicus, which ended the immediate Spartan threat to Athens' Black Sea lifeline. Prelude In the wake of Athens' defeat in the Sicilian Expedition in 413, a small Spartan fleet commanded by Chalcideus, who was advised and assisted by Alcibiades, succeeded in bringing a number of critical Ionian cities into revolt from the Athenian Empire. After ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theramenes
Theramenes (; grc-gre, Θηραμένης; died 404 BC) was an Athenian statesman, prominent in the final decade of the Peloponnesian War. He was particularly active during the two periods of oligarchic government at Athens, as well as in the trial of the generals who had commanded at Arginusae in 406 BC. A moderate oligarch, he often found himself caught between the democrats on the one hand and the extremist oligarchs on the other. Successful in replacing a narrow oligarchy with a broader one in 411 BC, he failed to achieve the same end in 404 BC, and was executed by the extremists whose policies he had opposed. Theramenes was a central figure in four major episodes of Athenian history. He appeared on the scene in 411 BC as one of the leaders of an oligarchic coup, but, as his views and those of the coup's other leaders diverged, he began to oppose their dictates and took the lead in replacing the narrow oligarchy they had imposed with a more broadly based one. He served as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laconic
A laconic phrase or laconism is a concision, concise or wikt:terse, terse statement, especially a wikt:blunt, blunt and wikt:elliptical, elliptical rejoinder. It is named after Laconia, the region of Greece including the city of Sparta, whose ancient inhabitants had a reputation for verbal austerity and were famous for their often wikt:pithy, pithy remarks. Uses A laconic phrase may be used for efficiency (as during military training and operations), for emphasis, for philosophical reasons (especially among thinkers who believe in minimalism, such as Stoicism, Stoics), or to deflate a pompous interlocutor. A prominent example involves Philip II of Macedon. After invading southern Greece and receiving the submission of other key city-states, he turned his attention to Sparta and asked menacingly whether he should come as friend or foe. The reply was "Neither." Losing patience, he sent the message: If I invade Laconia, I shall turn you out. The Spartan ephors again replied with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spartan Navarch
The navarch ( gr, ναύαρχος, nauarchos) was the magistrate who commanded the fleet in Ancient Sparta. History and role The powers of the navarch were extensive and were not subordinate to the two Spartan kings.Thommen, "Xenophon und die spartanische Nauarchie", p. 314. The navarch commanded the fleet, but could also lead his embarked troops on land, performed the sacrifices, distributed wages and booty, negotiated with foreign states, and even administered the territories he captured. An ambitious man such as Lysander could therefore yield formidable influence in Sparta through his time as navarch at the end of the Peloponnesian War (431–404). As a result, Aristotle rightly described the navarchy as another kingship.Sealey, "Die spartanische Nauarchie", p. 337. Indeed, the navarch's powers were probably taken away from the kings at some point during the 6th century, because they had no authority on the sea. For example, Herodotus writes that in 480 king Leotychidas was als ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyzicus
Cyzicus (; grc, Κύζικος ''Kúzikos''; ota, آیدینجق, ''Aydıncıḳ'') was an ancient Greek town in Mysia in Anatolia in the current Balıkesir Province of Turkey. It was located on the shoreward side of the present Kapıdağ Peninsula (the classical Arctonnesus), a tombolo which is said to have originally been an island in the Sea of Marmara only to be connected to the mainland in historic times either by artificial means or an earthquake. The site of Cyzicus, located on the Erdek and Bandırma roads, is protected by Turkey's Ministry of Culture. History Ancient The city was said to have been founded by Pelasgians from Thessaly, according to tradition at the coming of the Argonauts; later it received many colonies from Miletus, allegedly in 756 BC, but its importance began near the end of the Peloponnesian War when the conflict centered on the sea routes connecting Greece to the Black Sea. At this time, the cities of Athens and Miletus diminished in impo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thrasybulus
Thrasybulus (; grc-gre, Θρασύβουλος ; 440 – 388 BC) was an Athenian general and democratic leader. In 411 BC, in the wake of an oligarchic coup at Athens, the pro-democracy sailors at Samos elected him as a general, making him a primary leader of the ultimately successful democratic resistance to the coup. As general, he was responsible for recalling the controversial nobleman Alcibiades from exile, and the two worked together extensively over the next several years. In 411 and 410, Thrasybulus was in command along with Alcibiades and others at several critical Athenian naval victories. After Athens' defeat in the Peloponnesian War, Thrasybulus led the democratic resistance to the new oligarchic government, known as the Thirty Tyrants, imposed by the victorious Spartans upon Athens. In 404 BC, he commanded a small force of exiles that invaded the Spartan-ruled Attica and, in successive battles, first defeated a Spartan garrison and then the forces of the oli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sparta
Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement on the banks of the Eurotas River in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. Around 650 BC, it rose to become the dominant military land-power in ancient Greece. Given its military pre-eminence, Sparta was recognized as the leading force of the unified Greek military during the Greco-Persian Wars, in rivalry with the rising naval power of Athens. Sparta was the principal enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), from which it emerged victorious after the Battle of Aegospotami. The decisive Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC ended the Spartan hegemony, although the city-state maintained its political independence until its forced integration into the Achaean League in 192 BC. The city nevertheless ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus, or Diodorus of Sicily ( grc-gre, Διόδωρος ; 1st century BC), was an ancient Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty books, fifteen of which survive intact, between 60 and 30 BC. The history is arranged in three parts. The first covers mythic history up to the destruction of Troy, arranged geographically, describing regions around the world from Egypt, India and Arabia to Europe. The second covers the time from the Trojan War to the death of Alexander the Great. The third covers the period to about 60 BC. ''Bibliotheca'', meaning 'library', acknowledges that he was drawing on the work of many other authors. Life According to his own work, he was born in Agyrium in Sicily (now called Agira). With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about his life and doings beyond his written works. Only Jerome, in his ''Chronicon'' under the "year of Abraham 1968" (49 BC), w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donald Kagan
Donald Kagan (; May 1, 1932August 6, 2021) was a Lithuanian-born American historian and classicist at Yale University specializing in ancient Greece, notable for his four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War. He formerly taught in the Department of History at Cornell University. Kagan was considered among the foremost American scholars of Greek history. Early life and education Kagan was born in Kuršėnai, Lithuania, on May 1, 1932. His father, Shmuel, died before Kagan turned two years old, and his mother, Leah (Benjamin), consequently emigrated to the United States with Kagan and his sister. He grew up in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. He attended Thomas Jefferson High School, where he played football, before becoming the first person in his family to go to college. He graduated from Brooklyn College in 1954, received an MA in classics from Brown University in 1955, and a PhD in history from the Ohio State University in 1958. Career Once a liberal Democrat, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
