The Fall of the Athenian Empire

Rating:
Summary: Coup De Grace
Review: Athens had already been bled white by the Archidamian war; it had lost its fleet and the flower of its youth in the Sicilian expedition. Here, Sparta rejoins the conflict as a full-blooded belligerent, and Persia weighs in as a sponsor. For all that, Athens still puts up a hell of a fight, scratching together a new fleet and defending its Aegean and Black Sea possessions with vitality and imagination. Yet, like Napoleon's armies after the Russian winter, a brilliant victory only defers the outcome, whereas it will only take one serious defeat for the whole war effort to collapse. At length, this defeat arrives when the Spartans get serious about naval tactics and recall Lysander to administer the decisive blow. Another great character in this saga, the Athenian exile Alcabiades, reappears, first as a Spartan advisor, then as a friend to the Persian King, then back to Athens as the prodigal son. Not until Talleyrand will one encounter such a serial turncoat.

Rating:
Summary: Coup De Grace
Review: Athens had already been bled white by the Archidamian war; it had lost its fleet and the flower of its youth in the Sicilian expedition. Here, Sparta rejoins the conflict as a full-blooded belligerent, and Persia weighs in as a sponsor. For all that, Athens still puts up a hell of a fight, scratching together a new fleet and defending its Aegean and Black Sea possessions with vitality and imagination. Yet, like Napoleon's armies after the Russian winter, a brilliant victory only defers the outcome, whereas it will only take one serious defeat for the whole war effort to collapse. At length, this defeat arrives when the Spartans get serious about naval tactics and recall Lysander to administer the decisive blow. Another great character in this saga, the Athenian exile Alcabiades, reappears, first as a Spartan advisor, then as a friend to the Persian King, then back to Athens as the prodigal son. Not until Talleyrand will one encounter such a serial turncoat.