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 strategy of Alcibiades, which consisted of gathering allies around Sicily prior to engagement. 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