Read Online The Savior Generals: How Five Great Commanders Saved Wars That Were Lost—From Ancient Greece to Iraq by Victor Davis Hanson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Victor Davis Hanson
Tags: Non-Fiction
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necessary to defeat a nearby widely hated and tangible enemy like Aegina—Pericles later called the nearby island the “eyesore” of the Piraeus—perhaps made the radical measure more palatable. In short, Themistocles alone appropriated the money, invested it in a navy, and so had a fleet on hand ready to save Athens.
2.
The abandonment of the city.
Had Themistocles not persuaded the Athenians in September 480 to evacuate Athens and the surroundingAttic countryside, their hoplite land army would have been wiped out in a futile Thermopylae-like last stand. An orphaned fleet would have retreated southward or westward. Had the Athenians stayed inside the largely indefensible city to withstand a siege, they would have likewise perished in toto or been forced to join the Persians. Nor after Thermopylae did Themistocles try to persuade the Greek allies to march northward to stop the Persians in the plains of Boeotia or Attica. Of course, Themistocles had fought at Marathon and co-commanded the failed defense at Tempe in the summer of 480. Yet he knew by mid-September that the gallant veterans of Marathon could not overcome ten-to-one odds. Even the infantry fight the next year at Plataea was a close-run thing—and winnable only after tens of thousands of Persians had been killed at Salamis or retreated home. The victory was also predicated on a massive mobilization of tens of thousands of Panhellenic soldiers, most of whom mustered only after hearing that Xerxes had fled Greece in defeat.
There were no other Athenians in the historical record who had advocated so radical a measure as trying to save the city by allowing it to be burned—twice. Later Athenians, most notably the general Nicias on Sicily, would rally their troops with reminders that “Men make a city, not walls,” calling on the miraculous tradition of Athenian victory. Themistocles’ postwar efforts to fortify Athens were followed by the efforts of Pericles after his death to build two extensive Long Walls connecting the city to the Piraeus. Both projects emphasized how determined subsequent generations were never to repeat the horror of 480 in abandoning the city along with its surrounding countryside.
The leader Pericles was a Themistoclean at heart. He argued that the best way to defeat Sparta in the Peloponnesian War (431–404) was to fight at sea after abandoning the defense of Athenian farmland against Spartan ravagers. But unlike Themistocles, Pericles advocated such a strategy only with the reassurance that the city and its port at Piraeus were safe behind stout walls, inside which the entire Attic population could find safety from enemy invasion.
3.
Drawing the line at Salamis.
Although most southern Greeks came to understand at the eleventh hour that Themistocles’ logic was in their own interests in providing a forward defense for the Peloponnese and in keeping the Athenian fleet engaged in the Greek defense, there was still no guarantee that the Peloponnesians would fight at Salamis—given their near completion of a massive wall at the Isthmus. To read Plutarch’s
Life of Themistocles
is to review a list of ancient attacks on both the character and wisdom of Themistocles on the eve of battle. So two further actions of Themistocles were required to guarantee a fight at Salamis and then to achieve victory there. 48
The ruse of Sicinnus persuaded the Persians immediately to rush into battle and thereby to force the wavering non-Athenian Greeks to stay and fight. Scholars are divided over the authenticity of the tale. But there is reason to accept the general truth of the ancient account: At the point when the alliance was about to break up, the news was announced to the Greek admirals that the Persians were already launching their triremes and thus all approaches in and out of the Salamis channel were to be blocked. Only then did the galvanized Greeks discover that they could no longer retreat to the Isthmus. The sole choice was either to
2.
The abandonment of the city.
Had Themistocles not persuaded the Athenians in September 480 to evacuate Athens and the surroundingAttic countryside, their hoplite land army would have been wiped out in a futile Thermopylae-like last stand. An orphaned fleet would have retreated southward or westward. Had the Athenians stayed inside the largely indefensible city to withstand a siege, they would have likewise perished in toto or been forced to join the Persians. Nor after Thermopylae did Themistocles try to persuade the Greek allies to march northward to stop the Persians in the plains of Boeotia or Attica. Of course, Themistocles had fought at Marathon and co-commanded the failed defense at Tempe in the summer of 480. Yet he knew by mid-September that the gallant veterans of Marathon could not overcome ten-to-one odds. Even the infantry fight the next year at Plataea was a close-run thing—and winnable only after tens of thousands of Persians had been killed at Salamis or retreated home. The victory was also predicated on a massive mobilization of tens of thousands of Panhellenic soldiers, most of whom mustered only after hearing that Xerxes had fled Greece in defeat.
There were no other Athenians in the historical record who had advocated so radical a measure as trying to save the city by allowing it to be burned—twice. Later Athenians, most notably the general Nicias on Sicily, would rally their troops with reminders that “Men make a city, not walls,” calling on the miraculous tradition of Athenian victory. Themistocles’ postwar efforts to fortify Athens were followed by the efforts of Pericles after his death to build two extensive Long Walls connecting the city to the Piraeus. Both projects emphasized how determined subsequent generations were never to repeat the horror of 480 in abandoning the city along with its surrounding countryside.
The leader Pericles was a Themistoclean at heart. He argued that the best way to defeat Sparta in the Peloponnesian War (431–404) was to fight at sea after abandoning the defense of Athenian farmland against Spartan ravagers. But unlike Themistocles, Pericles advocated such a strategy only with the reassurance that the city and its port at Piraeus were safe behind stout walls, inside which the entire Attic population could find safety from enemy invasion.
3.
Drawing the line at Salamis.
Although most southern Greeks came to understand at the eleventh hour that Themistocles’ logic was in their own interests in providing a forward defense for the Peloponnese and in keeping the Athenian fleet engaged in the Greek defense, there was still no guarantee that the Peloponnesians would fight at Salamis—given their near completion of a massive wall at the Isthmus. To read Plutarch’s
Life of Themistocles
is to review a list of ancient attacks on both the character and wisdom of Themistocles on the eve of battle. So two further actions of Themistocles were required to guarantee a fight at Salamis and then to achieve victory there. 48
The ruse of Sicinnus persuaded the Persians immediately to rush into battle and thereby to force the wavering non-Athenian Greeks to stay and fight. Scholars are divided over the authenticity of the tale. But there is reason to accept the general truth of the ancient account: At the point when the alliance was about to break up, the news was announced to the Greek admirals that the Persians were already launching their triremes and thus all approaches in and out of the Salamis channel were to be blocked. Only then did the galvanized Greeks discover that they could no longer retreat to the Isthmus. The sole choice was either to
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