12-14-2009, 09:26 PM
I'd like to see this thread returned to the original question and discourse that followed. I was with you up until Pyrrhos attacking Sparta and then we got into elephants and catapults and I nodded off ...
Makhanidas (like Nabis) isn't an attractive character, nor a particularly successful one - acting as a self-imposed/mercenary-backed regent as he did. I don't think anybody is quite certain how he first arrived, but he was clearly a leader of sorts of Tarentine mercenaries. He met his match at 4th Mantineia and I doubt many Spartans were really very sorry to see him fall at the hand of Philopoimen.
Sixty years previously, Areos and Acrotatos are far more interesting characters, as indeed is the attack on Sparta by Pyrrhos of Epeiros. I've just finished reading Jeff Champion's book which I will review elsewhere sometime.
Makhanidas (like Nabis) isn't an attractive character, nor a particularly successful one - acting as a self-imposed/mercenary-backed regent as he did. I don't think anybody is quite certain how he first arrived, but he was clearly a leader of sorts of Tarentine mercenaries. He met his match at 4th Mantineia and I doubt many Spartans were really very sorry to see him fall at the hand of Philopoimen.
Sixty years previously, Areos and Acrotatos are far more interesting characters, as indeed is the attack on Sparta by Pyrrhos of Epeiros. I've just finished reading Jeff Champion's book which I will review elsewhere sometime.
[size=75:2kpklzm3]Ghostmojo / Howard Johnston[/size]
![[Image: A-TTLGAvatar-1-1.jpg]](http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d162/Ghostmojo/Argus%20-%20TTLG/A-TTLGAvatar-1-1.jpg)
[size=75:2kpklzm3]Xerxes - "What did the guy in the pass say?" ... Scout - "Μολὼν λαβέ my Lord - and he meant it!!!"[/size]
[size=75:2kpklzm3]Xerxes - "What did the guy in the pass say?" ... Scout - "Μολὼν λαβέ my Lord - and he meant it!!!"[/size]
