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Often appears with: strategy and the aims of war · siege and fortification · battle and tactics · xerxes expedition · the rise and fall of greatness · sparta and lycurgus · siege of lamia · priesthood and religious office · political legitimacy and consent · philip and consul meeting · night march and capture of guard · naval warfare and sea power
Usually: argument (2) · narrative (2) · reflection (1) · crisis of belief (1) · the fall of the great (1) · the test or trial (1) · censure (1) · detachment (1) · exhortation (1) · indignation (1)
“But it is in great undertakings that the truth shines out in all its brilliancy, for here, while the success resulting from knowledge is grand, the consequences of ignorance are disastrous.” Strabo, The Geography of Strabo, Volume 1 (of 3) · insight
“I desire to take one of the enemy alive, that so I may understand what men these are who guard the passage; their number; and with what discipline, order, and preparation they expect us; but this feat must be an act of a great deal of quickness and boldness, such as that of lions, when they dart upon some timorous animal.” Plutarch, Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans · precept
While Heraclea falls, Philip besieges Lamia; he meets the consul at Thermopylae, coordinates simultaneous sieges, uses mines and works, and is induced to relent once Heraclea is reduced.
the Aetolians were encamped there, it should be delivered to him." On account of this presumptuous insolence of his, his surrender was a matter of greater satisfaction to the victors. 25. At the same time, while the Romans were employed in the reduction of Heraclea, Philip, by concert, besieged Lamia. He had an interview with the consul, as he was returning from Boeotia, at Thermopylae, whither he came to congratula…
During the war near Thermopylae, Antiochus fortifies the pass, but Cato leads a night climb, uses marks on Mount Callidromon, captures enemy information, and sends Firmian troops to overwhelm the guards.
of brevity; but on the whole he professed to believe, that the words of the Greeks came only from their lips, whilst those of the Romans came from their hearts. Now Antiochus, having occupied with his army the narrow passages about Thermopylae, and added palisades and walls to the natural fortifications of the place, sat down there, thinking he had done enough to divert the war; and the Romans, indeed, seemed wholly…
He recommends that geographers describe places with celestial and geometric relations, notes that ignorance causes military disasters (Thermopylae, Xerxes’ wrecks), and claims geography aids ethical and political reasoning.
acquainted with the Indies and their various territorial divisions would be useless, as it could lead to no advantage, which is the only criterion of the worth of such knowledge. 17. Even if we descend to the consideration of such trivial matters as hunting, the case is still the same; for he will be most successful in the chase who is acquainted with the size and nature of the wood, and one familiar with the locali…
The work laments lost Books XIX and earlier years, then summarizes B.C. 195–191: Roman actions in Greece, Flamininus’s triumph and advice, renewed Roman war plans, Nabis’s conflicts, Antiochus’s crossing, and Thermopylae’s defeat.
The only fragment we possess of the nineteenth book of Polybius is a statement quoted by Plutarch as to M. Porcius Cato, to the effect that by his orders the walls of all the numerous Spanish cities north of the Baetis were dismantled on the same day. Cato was in Spain B.C. 195. The means taken by him to secure this simultaneous destruction of fortifications are told by Frontinus, *Strateg.* 1, 1, 1. We thus lose th…
He continues his critique, insisting humans cannot lose all human affections, that denying gods and holiness undermines civic life, and he cites Sparta, Lycurgus, Thermopylae, and Athens as examples tied to Stoic-inspired beliefs.
6. _Then must I now be brought to trial, and now must another have a fever, and another sail the seas, another die, another be sentenced?_ Yea, for with such a body, in the bounds of such a universe, in such a throng of inhabitants, it cannot be but that different things of this nature should fall on different persons. This is thy task, then, having come into the world, to speak what thou shouldst, and to order these…