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Sto caricando le informazioni... The Battle of Arginusae: Victory at Sea and Its Tragic Aftermath in the Final Years of the Peloponnesian War (Witness to Ancient History)di Debra Hamel
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Part of the Witness to Ancient History series edited by Greg Aldrete, Debra Hamel’s The Battle of Arginusae is a great little book. The subject, Arginusae, which the Athenians famously won in 406 BC, was, without a doubt, one of the most important naval engagements of the Peloponnesian War. That long war, as Thucydides stresses, was a peculiar, asymmetric contest between states whose chosen means of power projection were diametrically divergent: Athens, with her maritime empire, developed into a naval superpower, whilst Sparta, as the head of the Peloponnesian League, maintained the only professional army in Greece. To complement further the oppositional nature of the protagonists, Thucydides also emphasises their very different characters: the Spartans are conservative, traditional, predictable, whereas the Athenians are restless and innovative.
A pivotal skirmish involving nearly three hundred Athenian and Spartan ships toward the end of the Peloponnesian War, the Battle of Arginusae was at the time the largest naval battle ever fought between warring Greeks. It was a crucial win for the Athenians, since losing the battle would have led to their total defeat by Sparta and, perhaps, the slaughter and enslavement of their entire population. Paradoxically, the win at Arginusae resulted in one of the worst disasters to befall the Athenians during the brutal twenty-seven-year war. Due to a combination of factors--incompetent leadership, the weariness of the sailors, a sudden storm--the commanders on the scene failed to rescue the crews of twenty-five Athenian ships that had been disabled during the battle. Thousands of men, many of them injured, were left clinging to the wreckage of their ships awaiting help that never came. When the Athenians back home heard what had happened, they deposed the eight generals who had been in command during the battle. Two of these leaders went into exile; the six who returned to Athens were tried and eventually executed. The Battle of Arginusae describes the violent battle and its horrible aftermath. Debra Hamel introduces readers to Athens and Sparta, the two thriving superpowers of the fifth century B.C. She provides a summary of the events that caused the long war and discusses the tactical intricacies of Greek naval warfare. Recreating the claustrophobic, unhygienic conditions in which the ships' crews operated, Hamel unfolds the process that turned this naval victory into one of the most infamous chapters in the city-state's history. Aimed at classics students and general readers, the book also provides an in-depth examination of the fraught relationship between Athens' military commanders and its vaunted sovereign democracy. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)938.05History and Geography Ancient World Greece to 323 Greece to 323 Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC)Classificazione LCVotoMedia:
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