Caution vs Chaos: The Generals Who Ruined Ancient Athens

From affairs to eclipses, CHARLOTTE GADD-HENDERSON explores the internal reasons behind the destruction of Athens as a great power in Ancient Greece.

What is the first thing you think of when we talk about Ancient Greece? The mythology? The great civilisations and philosophers? Maybe Horrible Histories? For me, the TV adaptation of the Horrible Histories books sparked my interest in Ancient Greece. So, I enrolled on an A-level Ancient History course, assuming it would introduce me to the more serious side of Ancient Greek history. I was surprised to find out that some of the statesmen roughly 2,300 years ago were just as unpopular as today’s politicians. 

Alcibiades and Nicias were two Athenian generals and politicians in the late 400s BC. Alcibiades was known for unruly behaviour, scandals and military genius. He had a range of affairs (including one with the Spartan queen). Alcibiades also wrongly received blame for important statues being defaced. These got him kicked out of several places in Ancient Greece.

Alcibiades being pulled away trying to seduce a woman

Nicias was quite the opposite; he was a cautious general and politician. Despite this, Nicias met a gruesome end during an expedition he had opposed. Both men were from Athens, which during their time in Athenian politics was at war with Sparta. The two states were just as different geographically as they were in politics. Athens was more outward-looking and democratic while Sparta was insular and ruled by two kings with a pinch of democracy. Athens had to be outward-looking because it was on infertile land, so relied heavily on trade. Sparta was on incredibly fertile land so didn’t need to rely on others. The war was known as the Peloponnesian war, because the contemporary historians who wrote about the era (Thucydides and Xenophon) were Athenian. So they named it after the region in which Sparta is located. 

Historical sources?

It can be difficult to find reliable sources about this period because historians often contradict each other. For instance, a peace treaty known as The Peace of Callias was allegedly signed by Athens and Persia to end the conflict between them. However, historians such as Thucydides don’t mention the treaty, while others writing hundreds of years later, such as Diodorus, were adamant it existed. This leaves many aspects of ancient history to interpretation and personal opinion. 

Thucydides and Xenophon are two of the few historians deemed reliable on the subject because they were living through the events they wrote about. Additionally, both wrote in a ‘scientific’ style, writing balanced views and leaving out references to religion and superstition. The exception to this was the relevance to an event they wrote about, such as Nicias’ refusal to withdraw from Sicily (see below for further details). 

The Peloponnesian War

The Great Peloponnesian war (431-404 BC) was the result of a rivalry between Athens and Sparta caused by their differences. Both Athens and Sparta had allies within the conflict: Athens had allies in the Delian League (also referred to as the Athenian Empire) which was founded in 478 BC and Sparta had allies in the Peloponnesian League (founded in 550 BC). The two had been at war between 460 BC and 445 BC. This isn’t often mentioned as it mostly consisted of skirmishes between the allied states. 

A series of minor conflicts between the two states cultivated a major war. A large aggravator was the city state of Corinth which was allied with Sparta. Corinth was leading an attack on Corcyra (where Corfu is today) in 431 BC. At this time, Athens also accepted Corcyra into the Delian League. While it was legal in terms of an existing peace treaty between Athens, Sparta and their allies (as Corcyra had been a neutral state it was allowed to join an alliance), it was a political death sentence, as it entered Athens into conflict with Corinth. Corinth retaliated by getting involved in affairs in the Delian league by aiding states that rebelled against Athens which breached the treaty.  

Corinth argued against the peace with Athens in meetings with the Peloponnesian League. This included the problems mentioned above and the Megarian Decree. This was put in place by Athens against Megara in 432 BC. During the first war, Megara had decided to side with Athens instead of Sparta (leaving the Peloponnesian League) but later swapped back to Sparta. The Megarian Decree was a punishment for this betrayal and left Megara crippled as it blocked essential trade. Arguably, this was also a breach of the treaty as it meant Athens was getting involved in the affairs of Sparta and her allies. And so... the Great Peloponnesian war began in 431 BC. 

Don't mess with the Spartans

Athens eventually lost the Peloponnesian war, and the standard historical explanation was that Sparta was stronger. Sparta’s military was trained essentially from birth, with weak babies being left to die. For men in Sparta, the military was their entire life, they lived and trained in barracks while women and slaves kept the rest of the society thriving.  

However, the Spartan population was in a state of rapid decline. Men only got married towards their 30s meaning they had less time to procreate alongside their military training. And with the period including a large amount of conflict, many soldiers were killed in battle. It was common for Spartans to fight until the last man, meaning if the Spartans lost, there were almost never any survivors. 

General disasters

This leads us to look towards other possible reasons Athens was defeated, one of these being the generals and politicians in charge. Alcibiades (450-404 BC) and Nicias (died 413 BC) are both tied to some of the greatest disasters in the Peloponnesian war. Alcibiades was a rather chaotic figure and ended up being kicked out of virtually everywhere during the Great Peloponnesian war. Nicias was the opposite; he was an unlucky figure known for preferring caution. Yet, both met grizzly ends. 

General, defector, seducer: the self-destructive career of Alcibiades 

Alcibiades had quite the reputation in ancient Greece, for all the wrong reasons. He was known for being extravagant, irresponsible and self-centred. Britannica’s article about Alcibiades claims he “provoked the sharp political antagonisms at Athens that were the main causes of Athens’ defeat by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War.” So the question is, what did he do? 

The main problems started in 415 BC when he won a debate in Athens to launch an expedition in Sicily (on the toe of the boot of Italy) to aid the city of Segesta (northwest coast of Sicily) against the city of Syracuse (southeast coast of Sicily). Before the fleet left, it was found that the statues of Hermes the messenger god (called the ‘hermae’) had been vandalised throughout Athens. Alcibiades was immediately blamed due to his reputation. The World History Encyclopaedia states that “perhaps confident he would prove his innocence, Alcibiades called for an immediate trial, but the city procrastinated and he was sent to Sicily anyway.” 

Upon arriving in Sicily, Alcibiades was recalled to Athens to face punishment by death for his charges, so Alcibiades fled to Sparta. There, he aided the Spartans, whom he was originally supposed to be fighting, by telling them to take the fort of Decelea (a major part of the Athenian trade route) and to send General Gylippus to aid Syracuse. 

His time in Sparta was short lived because he seduced the wife of the Spartan King Agis II. As a result, Alcibiades was forced out of Sparta and went to Sardis in the Persian empire. There, he tried to persuade the governor, Tissaphernes, to aid Athens. In 411 BC, he was invited back into the Athenian military and back into Athens in 407 BC after turning the tide of the war in the favour of the Athenians. 

Partying on the job!

However, in 406 BC he fell out of favour in Athens for the last time. While his fleet was at Samos, Alcibiades left Antiochos (a lesser Athenian commander) in charge while he went to a party. This resulted in an embarrassing naval defeat for Athens as the Spartan general Lysander took advantage of his rival (and equal in ability) being absent. In the final major battle at Aegospotami in the northeast of the Aegean in 404 BC, Alcibiades tried to advise the Athenian commanders as they were in a weak position. After everything that Alcibiades had done, they turned a blind eye to him, resulting in a crushing defeat for the Athenians that cost them the war. 

Alcibiades was murdered in 404 BC while taking refuge in Phrygia in the Persian empire. The exact details of his murder are unknown. Using both World History Encyclopaedia and Britannica, it suggested different motives behind the act. The first claimed that Spartan general Lysander and the Thirty Tyrants of Athens imposed at the end of the war were behind the murder. The latter claims the Persian governor of the area was enticed by the Spartans to have him murdered. 

Nice he is, bad luck he has 

Nicias, another Athenian general and politician, was known for his caution and pragmatism alongside his devotion to superstition. He prayed to the Gods daily and took something as simple as an eclipse as an important sign. This was his undoing as it led to a major Athenian defeat in Sicily. 

Despite his reputation, in 424 BC, Nicias successfully led 60 ships against the island of Cythera, an important Spartan trading post.  Athens then used this for raids against Spartan territory as it was off the south coast of the Peloponnese. In 422 BC, the leading pro-war figures in Sparta and Athens (Brasidas and Cleon) were killed during the battle of Amphipolis, leading the way for Nicias to sign a peace treaty in 421 BC, bringing a temporary end to the Great Peloponnesian war. 

Unfortunately for Nicias, the war resumed after six years of peace.

Nicias unsuccessfully argued against the expedition that Alcibiades had proposed in Sicily, which was rich with forests that would be useful for building ships for the Athenian navy. However, Syracuse was allied with Sparta which meant an attack would bring an end to the peace which Nicias had engineered. He argued that Sicily wasn’t beneficial to Athens and that they would need a fleet twice the size of the one proposed to successfully take it. The World History Encyclopaedia states that “his plan backfired spectacularly” and “the assembly decided that if even the famously cautious Nicias believed that the conquest of Sicily was possible, then it must be so.” The Athenian assembly was the voting body in Athens who would listen to the arguments posed and vote for the better outcome. 

Leadership eclipsed

So Nicias was sent to Sicily alongside Alcibiades and Lamachus as the commanders of the expedition. In 414 BC Nicias decided to besiege Syracuse on the southeast coast of Sicily. The following year Nicias fell ill and Lamachus had been killed during a skirmish with the Syracusans, so he requested to be relieved of command. Instead, he received reinforcements from another general, Demosthenes. 

As the Athenian position worsened, an eclipse and a superstitious general led to defeat. Demosthenes wanted to withdraw, but an eclipse on 27 August 413 BC was interpreted by the superstitious Nicias as a warning from the Gods so he refused.

Consequently, the Athenians lost the option of escaping via the harbour, forcing them to retreat via land. Eventually, the Athenians were cut off and surrendered. Nicias and Demosthenes were crucified by the Syracusan leaders, and the Athenian soldiers were sold into slavery. The extreme losses of ships, generals and men sealed the expedition as a defeat that could cost Athens the war. 

Written by CHARLOTTE GADD-HENDERSON (BA Creative and Professional Writing student, University of Chester, UK)