The Savior Generals: How Five Great Commanders Saved Wars That Were Lost—From Ancient Greece To Iraq - Plot & Excerpts
See Plutarch, Themistocles, 10.5. In classical literature (much of it reactionary), the older city of Athenian hoplite farmers is associated with virtue—and to be contrasted to the post–Persian War radical democracy of rootless sailors who came into their own after Salamis. 2. On the details of the evacuation of Attica, see Herodotus 8.36–43; Plutarch, Themistocles, 8–12. Cf. Strauss, Salamis, 73–77, for the evacuees on Salamis itself. 3. On the wall at the Isthmus, cf. Herodotus 8.71. 4. Plutarch, Themistocles, 10.2; Herodotus 8.53–57, 60–63. It is rare in military history that the decision how—or even whether—to fight an existential war finally hinged upon an ad hoc, pre-battle shouting match between two rival generals. 5. For a version of the debate, cf. Diodorus, 11.15.2–4; and for Themistocles’ sagacity at Artemisium, 11.12.4–7. See Strauss, Salamis, 11–30, for a review of the Artemisium campaign. The Persians may have lost over half of their fleet of some 1,300 triremes to storms and in battle; the degree to which those losses were made up by eleventh-hour reinforcements from Ionia, or repairs on the damaged hulls coupled with new crews, is unknown.
What do You think about The Savior Generals: How Five Great Commanders Saved Wars That Were Lost—From Ancient Greece To Iraq?
