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+--- Thread: What Greek military hero do you admire most? (/showthread.php?tid=19688)
Re: What Greek military hero do you admire most? - qcarr - 11-14-2011
This will be controversial, but I admire Agesilaus II most, followed by Leonidas I.
Re: What Greek military hero do you admire most? - Vindex - 11-15-2011
Good call on Agesilaus II...
Xenophon
...and someone who I always wanted to know about, Adiemantos of Corinth (Battle of Salamis)
Re: What Greek military hero do you admire most? - Gaius Julius Caesar - 11-15-2011
What was his part in the battle again? It's been a few years since I read about it!
Re: What Greek military hero do you admire most? - Ghostmojo - 11-15-2011
Agesilaos II ...
Now there is a subject in itself. If ever the rise and fall of a city could be laid at one man's feet - it is arguably the lame Spartan King.
Best to wade (as I have) through Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta by Paul Cartledge. It is a fascinating, if somewhat heavy (and occasionally plodding) read.
His unremitting hatred of Thebes was a serious foible and led to disaster ...
Re: What Greek military hero do you admire most? - joeandmich - 11-15-2011
So which Greek leader gave Rome the most trouble?
Re: What Greek military hero do you admire most? - Eleatic Guest - 11-15-2011
Quote:How about Mithradates?
Mommsen holds him in pit-deep esteem, characterizing him as an eccentric and egomanical despot, really a kind of ancient Gaddafi, who commands through his minion generals oriental rag-tags who hold only one advantage over the splendid Roman legionary: mass.
But he does give him the credit of being the first oriental to fight back against the onslaught of the Greeks and Romans, an early forerunner of the Parthians and Sassanids do to say. Monumentally incompetent, but persistent and annoying to the Romans he thinks Mithradates was.
Re: What Greek military hero do you admire most? - Eleatic Guest - 11-15-2011
Quote:Pericles, for his (mostly) astute management of the Peloponesean war, until he succumbed to the plague!
As far as I remember, the Athenians burnt up the larger part of their immense treasury in the few years during which Pericles coordinated their war effort, so costly was his conduct of war. His way of war would have bankrupted Athens many times before they would have won.
I agree with Christopher that Iphicrates' achievement is largely overlooked. He was largely responsible for the introduction of lighter troops into Greek warfare which further softened up Sparta's military hegemony and made Greek warfare at large more flexible and mobile, both developments which contributed to Alexander's successes in the vast eastern theatre.
Re: What Greek military hero do you admire most? - Eleatic Guest - 11-15-2011
Quote:So which Greek leader gave Rome the most trouble?
Clearly Pyrrhus who was a great tactician, albeit a bit naive as a strategist.
He could have won against Rome if the Sicilian polis had thrown their full weight and military potential against the Romans and would not have conspired behind his back against him instead.
It was this proverbial egoism of the Greek polis and its chronic political short-sightedness which made its downfall in the end unavoidable. The Romans simply had the better polity.
Re: What Greek military hero do you admire most? - Theodosius the Great - 11-15-2011
Cleopatra! Just kidding
mile: Although I think she caused the most trouble for Rome after Pyrrhus.
For a hero I'm thinking Antipater. A loyal, capable, and popular general who held Macedonia together. He seems to have been the most repected man in his time. It's hard to see who else could have secured the homeland as well as he did while sending Alexander reenforcements.
I have to agree with Mommsen. Mithradates was a wild-eyed old man who only brought about the destruction of his kingdom. Besides, wasn't he half Iranian? Why should he be considered Greek in the first place? :razz:
~Theo
Re: What Greek military hero do you admire most? - joeandmich - 11-15-2011
Quote:Cleopatra! Just kidding
Although I think she caused the most trouble for Rome after Pyrrhus.
For a hero I'm thinking Antipater. A loyal, capable, and popular general who held Macedonia together. He seems to have been the most repected man in his time. It's hard to see who else could have secured the homeland as well as he did while sending Alexander reenforcements.
I have to agree with Mommsen. Mithradates was a wild-eyed old man who only brought about the destruction of his kingdom. Besides, wasn't he half Iranian? Why should he be considered Greek in the first place? :razz:
~Theo
For some reason I thought he lead a semi successful revolt in Greece during the time of Marius when Julius Ceasar was a young man. My bad
Re: What Greek military hero do you admire most? - Gaius Julius Caesar - 11-15-2011
For some reason I thought he lead a semi successful revolt in Greece during the time of Marius when Julius Ceasar was a young man. My bad
Unless the book's I read are wrong, he did...
Being half Iranian, would mean he was possibly half Greek??
Much like myself...
Re: What Greek military hero do you admire most? - Theodosius the Great - 11-16-2011
Quote:For some reason I thought he lead a semi successful revolt in Greece during the time of Marius when Julius Ceasar was a young man. My badWell, Mithradates was behind the Asiatic Vespers incident. And he invaded European Greece with large armies. So, I don't think you're mistaken either, Joe.
Marius was semi-retired at the time of the massacre in Asia. He was reemerging into public life but he fled Italy after Sulla marched on Rome. So, Marius never encountered Mitradates or dealt with the war except maybe when he briefly seized the consulship for the last time.
Quote:Being half Iranian, would mean he was possibly half Greek??I just think it's ironic that a half Persian who openly boosts of his ancestry would be seen as a champion of Hellenic culture. I haven't explored his ancestry too closely but I'm guessing he's a product of Alexander's social engineering policy when he ordered his men to take Persian wives.
Much like myself...
~Theo
Re: What Greek military hero do you admire most? - joeandmich - 11-16-2011
That's right. It was Sulla who put down the revolt.
Re: What Greek military hero do you admire most? - M. Caecilius - 11-16-2011
Quote:So which Greek leader gave Rome the most trouble?
Achilles and Odysseus, if you believe the Roman claim of being descended from the Trojans. :grin: Seriously, though:
Quote:Clearly Pyrrhus who was a great tactician, albeit a bit naive as a strategist.
I agree.
Another Greek who caused the Romans some problems was Philip V. Not during the Macedonian War, but during the Hannibalic War. His juncture with and support of Hannibal could have struck the death blow to Rome. Fortunately for them, the Romans could turn the Aetolian League loose on Philip V, but there was enough heartfelt hatred left to start a war within two years after the very costly Second Punic War.
Other than those, Cleopatra and Mithridates, it seems the Greeks were rather tame when compared to the revolts you get on the Iberic peninsula, in Gaul, in Mauretania, in Judaea, to the foreign enemies in Parthia-Persia, and to the ultimately greatest threat the Romans posed to each other.
The struggles between individual cities or groups within cities (stasis) seems to have caused a lot of headaches to the governor (and Emperor) though.
Re: What Greek military hero do you admire most? - Eleatic Guest - 11-16-2011
Quote:Other than those, Cleopatra and Mithridates, it seems the Greeks were rather tame ...
I think no individual country put up more resistance than the Macedonians: Three wars against Rome and one final revolt. I have always had the impresssion that their resilience and resistance was so fierce and irreconcilable, their pride and unity so intact, and their view of the Romans as 'national' enemies so undiluted that one can almost speak of a Macedonian proto-nationalism.