Song of Wrath
The Peloponnesian War Begins
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Song of Wrath tells the story of Classical Athens' victorious Ten Years' War (431-421 BC) against grim Sparta -- the first decade of the terrible Peloponnesian War that turned the Golden Age of Greece to lead. Historian J.E. Lendon presents a sweeping tale of pitched battles by land and sea, sieges, sacks, raids, and deeds of cruelty and guile -- along with courageous acts of mercy, surprising charity, austere restraint, and arrogant resistance. Recounting the rise of democratic Athens to great-power status, and the resulting fury of authoritarian Sparta, Greece's traditional leader, Lendon portrays the causes and strategy of the war as a duel over national honor, a series of acts of revenge. A story of new pride challenging old, Song of Wrath is the first work of Ancient Greek history for the post-cold-war generation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In an exceptionally well-written account of the first 10 years of the Peloponnesian War (431 421 B.C.E.), University of Virginia historian Lendon (Soldiers and Ghosts) brings the Greek city-states to life. Crediting Thucydides with the humanizing of military history, Lendon emphasizes the extraordinary importance of worth or glory to the typical Greek and casts the long, bloody conflict between Athens and Sparta in the light of the concepts of honor and hubris. Political differences, characterized by the "democracy" of Athens and her sea-borne commercial supremacy in Attica, and by the stern militarism of Sparta, which ensured her dominance in Laconia and the Peloponnesian peninsula, inevitably resulted in war. In dramatic fashion, battles of conquest were waged from Boeotia to the Gulf of Corinth, and to Laconia and Attica themselves. Mutual exhaustion and disillusionment with allies led to a remarkable peace treaty that was soon broken. An excellent story, this account is further strengthened by the frequent use of maps and illustrations. But more information on the social and economic realities of the time would have been helpful. Illus.
