THE BOGEYMEN WITH JAVELINS

It was not the largest battle during the so-called Corinthian War - the conflict between Sparta and the coalition of Thebes, Athens, Corinth and Argos that raged in Greece from 395 after the end of the long-running Peloponnesian War (431 - 404 BC). Although the battle did not have any long-lasting political consequences, it certainly made headlines and caused a great sensation among the Greeks of the time.

Bogdan Burliga

Here is half of a Spartan regiment (Greek: mora) of heavy-armed infantry, the always awe-inspiring hoplites, being massacred by mercenary light-armed men led by the Athenian Iphicrates. Apart from short notices in Diodorus (14.91.2) and Nepos (Iphicrates 2.1), only Xenophon provides a comprehensive story in his invaluable History of Greece (Hellenica, 4.5.7-18; further Hell.). Although he did not participate in the battle itself, he was not far from the site of the Spartans' defeat, at the camp of King Agesilaus in a settlement called Peiraeum (modern Perachora). Xenophon heard the account of the defeat from an eyewitness who came from the battlefield and recounted the course of this unusual massacre. Xenophon describes it with the highly emotional term pathos – ‘misfortune’, or ‘suffering’, probably also because the loss of so…

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Ancient Warfare (Digital) - 1 Issue, AW XVIII.1

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