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Osprey's study of one of the most important battles of the Peloponnesian War (431 - 404 BC). In 415 BC Athens launched a large expeditionary force, its goal the rich, grain-producing island of Sicily. This was in response to a call for help in a minor war from an old ally but the true objectives were the powerful city of Syracuse, suspected of supporting Athens' Peloponnesian enemies, and imperial expansion. The Athenians won an inconclusive victory over the Syracusans late in the year and renewed their attack in the spring of 414. After a period of energetic siege warfare and a series of large-scale battles on land and sea, the Syracusans gained the upper hand and the expedition ended in total disaster with grave consequences for the future of Athens.
Nic Fields explores the background of this foolhardy venture in which Athens took on a nation that was militarily and financially strong and over 700 miles distant. Then, following the narrative of Thucydides, the chronicler of the Peloponnesian War, he describes and explains the long and violent campaign that pitted the two largest democracies of the Greek world against each other.
- Sales Rank: #863409 in Books
- Brand: Campaign Series - Ancients Up to 500 A.D.
- Published on: 2008-05-20
- Released on: 2008-05-20
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.70" h x .18" w x 7.25" l, .67 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 96 pages
About the Author
Nic Fields started his career as a biochemist before joining the Royal Marines. Having left the military, he went back to University and completed a BA and PhD in Ancient History at the University of Newcastle. He was Assistant Director at the British School at Athens, Greece, and then a lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Edinburgh. Nic is now a freelance author and researcher based in south-west France. The author lives in St Augustin sur Mer, France.
Peter Dennis was born in 1950. Inspired by contemporary magazines such as Look and Learn he studied illustration at Liverpool Art College. Peter has since contributed to hundreds of books, predominantly on historical subjects. He is a keen wargamer and modelmaker.Peter Dennis lives in Nottinghamshire, UK.
Most helpful customer reviews
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Summary account of downfall of Athenian Empire
By lordhoot
To be honest here, I thought the book rated around 3.5 stars but I gave it a 3 because of certain limitations. Nic Fields' book traces the Athenian campaign against the city of Syracuse in Sicily that ended in total disaster. He make it clear that the campaign was an act of sheer folly since the Athenian leadership clearly wasn't up to the task. A turning event in the Peloponnesian War, this disastrous defeat of the Athenian military directly led to downfall of the their empire and imperial ambitions.
The book follows the typical Osprey Campaign series format. The book comes well illustrated with maps, photos and good artworks that clearly show the author's intents. The author writes about the origins of this campaign, then the commanders, the make up of the opposing armies and their relative plans. All this were well written, well explained and its appears that the author spent considerable amount of time inside the British Museum researching all this. The unfortunate thing lies in the fact that perhaps he went into too much details in this part of the book. Out of 96 pages of the book, the story about the campaign don't start until page 49. And the narrative of the campaign ends at page 86. Rest of the book informed the reader of the consequences of the Athenian defeat that of course, led to the downfall of Athens and her empire.
So that is only 38 pages of campaign narrative of which, many of these pages got illustrations, maps and photographs. So in basic essence, there isn't much written about the actual campaign at all which sound bit ironic since that's suppose to be the key element of this book. The author also don't stray too far from the principle source of this campaign. Author's campaign narrative basically summarized Thucydides' account. In fact, when discussing the campaign from start to finish, he rarely ever stray from Thucydides' accounts. I know that Thucydides is the primary source to all this but couldn't the author add some few original thoughts of his own? He makes no effort to put in his insights into the campaign at all.
I supposed the book could be useful to readers whose knowledge of the Peloponnesian War is totally raw and uninitiated since its clearly written and events clarified. But to anyone's else, you might be better off just reading Thucydides' book.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
When (almost) everything that can go wrong does go wrong
By JPS
This is a good general introduction to the disastrous Athenian-led expedition against Syracuse. However, it is rather better at reporting and describing the events and the campaign itself than it is as explaining the motivations and general background and aftermath of it. In addition, as is often the case with Osprey publications, there are a number of glitches here and there and the author has taken a few "short-cuts", probably because of size constraints.
For me, the main merit of this book was to show the long string of misguided decisions and strategic failures that plagued the expedition almost from the very beginning. As mentioned in the title of this review, almost everything that could go wrong did go wrong. However, and contrary to the author's explanations who seems to follow Thucydides rather uncritically at times, the expedition itself, while certainly ambitious, was not as hubristic and foolhardy. This is what Thucydides states, but his bias is rather obvious here: he uses it to condemn the radical form of Athenian democracy that he was opposed to, while also showing, just like Nic Fields does, that the expedition very nearly took Syracuse.
Moreover, the speech and objectives that Thucydides ascribes to Alcibiades and which was supposedly made before the Athenian Assembly should also not be taken at face value, contrary to what the author does. The substance of it was to stir things up so the expedition's objectives are suitably grandiose: to conquer Sicily as a first step towards attacking Carthage before coming back to crush Sparta and its allies with overwhelming force. This could be the king of "jingoist" glorious speech that a talented politician might make to stir the crowds by appealing to their pride to get what he wants - for the expedition to go ahead. It does not imply that he really believed in it, neither does it mean that the stated objectives for the expedition were the real ones. Moreover, as some modern historians have mentioned, it is even likely that these grand objectives were never disclosed in front of the Athenian Assembly but were mentioned by Alcibiades later on, when in exile in Sparta, this time to stir the reluctant Spartans into resuming the war against Athens. Anyway, as mentioned, the objectives do not make strategic or military sense. What is more likely, however, was that the expedition's objective was intended to conquer Syracuse to secure its corn for Athens because the need to import large amounts of grain through the Hellespont was always Athens major weakness. Controlling directly one of the main areas of supply would therefore help ensure Athens ability to withstand any war, regardless of the state of its finances since the grain could be obtained as tribute.
There are other tensions in Thucydides' story which are replicated by the author and neither discussed nor addressed. One is the idea that this was a massive expedition, and even the biggest one ever sent by Athens. This is in fact incorrect - the expedition sent to Egypt in 460 BC was larger - but Thucydides uses this exaggeration to create dramatic effect. Moreover, the composition of the initial fleet, as shown by Nic Fields, is interesting and it is a pity he does not draw conclusions from it. The Athenians only provided slightly less than 30% of the hoplites (1500 out of 5100) and only a very small number of cavalry (30). Their major contributions was in ships (100 triremes out of 134) and in rowers and crews, precisely those that were the support for the radical democratic faction. You cannot help wondering whether the low proportion of wealthier Athenian hoplites and the ridiculously small number of Athenian cavalry (2.5% of the total number of cavalry that Athens could field) simply reflects the relative lack of enthusiasm of these property classes with regards to what they would have perceived as foreign and foolhardy adventure.
Then there is another significant point that the author does not really explain. While he does mention that recalling Alcibiades to make him stand trial was a major blunder, at least in military terms, he does not show how this was linked with the nomination and role of Nikeas. The latter was the head of the conservative faction. Both his faction's position, against foreign adventures, and his own ultra-cautious and ultra-prudent character made him particularly ill-suited to lead the expedition. His nomination at the head of the expedition alongside Alcibiades and Lamachon, however, should be seen as one of the typical compromises that the Athenian democracy came up with: the leader of the conservatives, plus the leader of the radicals, plus an experienced no-nonsense soldier. The removal of Alcibiades, possibly the most dynamic and boldest of the three and certainly the one who was the most strongly in favour of the expedition was certainly disastrous. So, from the very beginning, and this is something that Nic Fields hints at several times, the expedition was plagued by inadequate leadership which delayed and squandered any strategic advantage and many tactical advantages that the expedition may have had to begin with.
Another element that appears throughout the story is Nikeas' ineptitude and hugely uninspiring leadership as a soldier even on a tactical level. At a time when generals lead from the front and often got killed in the process, as happened to both Lamachon and Eurymedon, there is no mention whatsoever as to what Nikeas might have been up to during any of the major attacks or battles. So when the author mentions "the lunacy of Nikeas" who refused to withdraw without the permission of the Assembly and delayed for a month instead of saving what could be saved, this mention, while strictly correct, comes rather late in the day. At every stage, Nikeas' behaviour was so inept that we probably could not have done any worse had his intention been to sabotage the whole expedition from the beginning.
Finally, there are a number of glitches in the book. One quibble, which makes this book a bit difficult to use for wargaming purposes is that while there are numbers for the besiegers, there are none provided for the Syracusans and their allies. However, the estimates provided for the Athenian losses and the state of their remaining manpower after the disaster are great. Another glitch, one of the most glaring ones, are the mistakes in the map page 88 in the aftermath section and which summarizes the war in the Agean between 413 and 411 BC. The two red arrows at the bottom should be blue ones since they are obviously Peloponnesian expeditions. Also, the trireme showing Samos should be a red one and not a blue one, since the main Athenian naval base was based on this island, as mentioned in the text. There are also a few other editorial glitches, such as repetitions. The plates are mostly good, or even great. The illustrator has chosen to show both sides with linen corselets, rather than leather ones, although this is a bit controversial. He has also, more to my surprise, show Gylippos and his relief force arriving bare-footed (after marching for dozens of miles) while the crowd of Syracusans are all wearing sandals. I am not sure how accurate this really is.
For those wanting to read more on this topic, or go into more detail, the two best books I have come across are Donald Kagan's "The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition" and the still older "Armada from Athens", by Peter Green, although the latter is, sadly, out of print.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
No Ordinary Defeat
By R. A Forczyk
It is rare that a great nation at the height of its power commits all its military and financial resources to accomplish a single task - and fails - but this is what happened to Athens in 413 BC. Author Nic Fields recounts the story of the disastrous Athenian expedition to conquer the city of Syracuse in Sicily during the Peloponnesian War in Osprey's Campaign series No. 195, entitled Syracuse 415-413 BC. Readers who have already tackled Thucydides' classic account of the war can still appreciate this summarized narrative, thanks to its maps, battle scenes and color photographs of the extant sites today.
The author begins with the standard sections, outlining the origins of the campaign and providing capsule biographies on the main leaders of each side. The section on opposing armies (which includes naval forces) is much longer than usual - 18 pages - and covers hoplite militia, infantry tactics, cavalry, light troops and navies. The main point made here, is that while the Athenians had a strong infantry force, they were deficient in cavalry and the author cites this as a major contributor to their defeat. A section on opposing plans further defines each sides' campaign objectives.
It is not until page 49 that the author actually begins the campaign narrative, but his description of the siege itself does not start until page 57. It seemed as if he was running out of space before he even got to the main event. Athenian siegecraft was extremely crude - they had no catapults, no archers - and relied upon building simple walls around the city and then let starvation due the rest. With luck, the whole process took about two years. However, the Athenians were unable to complete the siege walls around the city due to aggressive sorties by the defenders, so Syracuse was never really under full siege. Eventually, the defenders began to turn the tide against the would-be besieging force and faulty Athenian leadership contributed to a rapid decline in their position. Even as the campaign was going sour, the Athenians decided to reinforce failure and sent their remaining reserves from home to augment the first expedition. Instead, the Syracusan/Spartan forces managed to eliminate first the Athenian fleet, then routed their army and then forced it to surrender. The author estimates that Athens lost about 25% of its ground troops and 65% of its naval forces, as well as expending over 90% of its treasury. Obviously, the expedition to Syracuse was no ordinary disaster, it was a catastrophe of the sort that radically changes existing power balances.
In the final section, the author notes that the Spartans fumbled in their efforts to take advantage of the Athenian weakness at sea immediately after Syracuse, but Athenian financial weakness undermined their effort to rebuild their fleet. Persian financial intervention on the Spartan side, providing funds to build new fleets, gradually sealed the fate of Imperial Athens. In terms of balance, this volume appears to represent both sides fairly well, although their might be a trace of anti-imperialist bias against Athens (it's also easier to root for the victors in historiography, too).
The volume has six 2-D maps (the allies of Athens and Syracuse, 413 BC; Sicily and the toe of Italy; the route of the Athenian armada; Syracuse, Epipolai and the key battles, 414-413 BC; the Athenian retreat from Syracuse; the aftermath in the Aegean, 413-411 BC), but only two 3-D BEV maps (the Battle of the Anapos, 415 BC; the battle for control of Epipolai). I was a bit disappointed in the level of detail shown in the maps, since the battle area was so small (about 4 x 5 kms); I remember a 3-D type map of the siege that appeared in National Geographic decades ago that was far superior to these. The excellent battle scenes by Peter Dennis (arrival of Spartan warrior Gylippos in Syracuse; night attack on the Epipolai; the final sea battle) partly make up for the pedestrian maps. In addition, the author provides a decent bibliography and a chronology, but omits the usual section on the battlefield today.
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