Lamachus

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Lamachus (Greek: Λάμαχος) was an Athenian general in the Peloponnesian War. He commanded as early as 435 BC, and was prominent by the mid 420s.^[1] Aristophanes caricatured him in The Acharnians.^[2] He was one of the three generals (alongside Nicias and Alcibiades placed in command of the Sicilian Expedition; he proposed an aggressive strategy against Syracuse, which was rejected in favor of the more cautious strategy of Nicias. Donald Kagan has suggested that Lamachus's strategy might well have brought Athens a quick victory instead of the disaster that ensued.^[3] Lamachus died fighting in Sicily, after he and a handful of his men were trapped on the wrong side of a ditch and overwhelmed.

[edit] References

Aristophanes, The Acharnians. From the Perseus Project
Kagan, Donald. The Peloponnesian War (Penguin Books, 2003). ISBN 0-670-03211-5
Fine, John V.A. The Ancient Greeks: A critical history (Harvard University Press, 1983) ISBN 0-674-03314-0
Hornblower, Simon, and Anthony Spawforth ed., The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 2003) ISBN 0-19-866172-X

[edit] Footnotes

^ Henry Dickinson Westlake and Simon Hornblower, "Lamachus," from The Oxford Classical Dictionary, Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth ed.
^ Aristophanes, The Acharnians
^ Kagan, The Peloponnesian War