Arrian (lived approx. 90-173+)
“Most people, if they know they have done wrong, foolishly suppose they can conceal their error by defending it, and finding a justification for it; but in my belief there is only one medicine for an evil deed, and that is for the guilty man to admit his guilt and show that he is sorry for it.”
Around 426 or 425 BCE, an army from the Peloponnesian League set out to conquer Amphilochian Argos, a city founded on the southeast end of the Ambracian Gulf, and not to be confused with the more widely known Argos in the Peloponnesus. This army, according to the historian Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE), had around 3,000 heavy infantry hoplites and was commanded by a Spartan general named Eurylochus. In addition to this, a further 3,000 hoplites invaded Amphilochian Argos from pro-Peloponnesian Ambracia, located just north of the Ambracian Gulf. This Ambraciot army was the faster of the two invading forces, so they seized the stronghold of Olpae without Peloponnesian help, and in doing so, gained a strong position just a few miles from Amphilochian Argos.
Eurylochus and the Peloponnesian army apparently did not launch their invasion until after the Ambraciots had already seized Olpae. As a result, the Amphilochians had time to muster their manpower and call for Athenian help. As the Ambraciots waited for Eurylochus’ army, the Amphilochians reinforced their city of Argos and placed scouts at a region called Crenae, in order to watch for the Peloponnesian army. They also successfully contacted, Demosthenes, one of Athens’ craftiest generals—he answered their plea and arrived with twenty ships. His fleet was only carrying a reported 200 hoplites and 60 archers, but Demosthenes’ knack for odd strategies would make up for the lack of numbers. In addition, the Amphilochians also received military aid from Acarnania, a neighboring region that survived a Peloponnesian invasion between 429 and 428 BCE. Demosthenes was appointed as commander-in-chief of this coalition of forces and he marched their united front to challenge the Ambraciots at Olpae.
While Demosthenes organized his coalition to march for Olpae, Eurylochus and his Peloponnesian army had not been idle. Eurylochus skillfully weaved his army between towns and cities in Acarnania, Phytia, Limnaea, Agraea and, finally, Amphilochia, at which point he somehow managed to unite his force with the Ambraciots without having been noticed by enemy forces. Therefore, when Demosthenes arrived at Olpae, he faced a reported combined force of 6,000 Ambriaciot and Peloponnesian hoplites, all situated on defensible positions.
Demosthenes found that the Peloponnesian and Ambraciot armies, although united, were divided into two camps separated by a ravine. The Athenian general positioned his own troops in the ravine. His camp had both advantages and disadvantages—on the one hand, it drove a wedge between the Ambraciot and Peloponnesian armies, but it also left him open for encirclement by the larger enemy forces. Demosthenes was outnumbered, but possibly not by too much, for the Peloponnesian army was wary enough to wait five days before launching an attack.
On the sixth day of the showdown, the Peloponnesians and Ambraciots poured down into the ravine to face Demosthenes. The Athenian general’s coalition army mainly consisted of Amphilochians and Acarnanians—these he positioned on his left wing and center. Demosthenes, with the 200 hoplites and 60 archers he brought with him on his fleet, was on the right wing. In addition, Demosthenes gathered together a special band of Acarnanians (known for guerilla and skirmishing tactics), as well as 400 hoplites, and sent them on a hiking trip into a brushy area far to the right of the main army.
On the much larger Peloponnesian side, forces were apparently drawn up into two divisions. According to Thucydides, a long continuous line of Ambraciots and Peloponnesians were placed opposite the Amphilochians and Acarnanians. The Spartan general, Eurylochus, with his personal warriors and fighters from Mantinea, lined himself up against the Athenian general, Demosthenes. The Peloponnesian army was so large that, as soon as the two forces formed up their lines, it was immediately apparent that Demosthenes’ right wing, where he was personally stationed, would be easily outflanked and even encircled.
When the battle began, the Peloponnesians did, indeed, begin to encircle Demosthenes’ right wing. In addition to this, the Ambraciots and Peloponnesians also shattered Demosthenes’ left wing, pushing the struggling warriors back toward the nearby city of Argos. Morale and momentum in battle, however, is a very fickle thing—as soon as the Athenian right wing began to be encircled, Demosthenes’ hidden Acarnanians and hoplites suddenly rushed out from the tall brush and pounced on the exposed backs of Eurylochus’ personal band. The Spartan general was killed during the surprise attack, as was his second-in-command, Macarius. The death of Eurylochus and the devastation of the best troops in the Peloponnesian army had a devastating impact on the morale of the rest of the troops. Panic spread like wildfire and, before long, the warriors who had been encircling Demosthenes now lost their discipline and ran for their lives.
When the Ambraciots and other Peloponnesians, the ones who had chased Demosthenes’ left wing toward Argos, finally returned to the battlefield at the ravine, they found that most of their army had been killed or retreated. Demosthenes attacked these bewildered troops, and forced them, too, into retreat. Many of the retreating warriors managed to reach the fortress of Olpae, where a man named Menedaïus took command as a result of the vacancy left by the deaths of Eurylochus and Macarius. Demosthenes besieged Olpae by land and had his twenty ships blockade the fort by sea. Before long, Menedaïus apparently reached out to Demosthenes and they formed a truce—the Peloponnesians were allowed to leave, but the Ambraciots were left to face the siege. It was difficult, however, for Demosthenes’ troops to discern the Ambraciots from the Peloponnesians, so most of the survivors successfully fled from Olpae. Nevertheless, 200 Ambraciots were reportedly killed either in the final storming of the fortress or while attempting to escape.
Even though the Peloponnesians and the Ambraciots from Olpae were retreating, another army of reinforcements had been sent from Ambracia. These troops, unfortunately, arrived on the Amphilochian hills of Idomene after Demosthenes’ victory, and they were unaware of the disaster that had occurred at Olpae. Even worse, scouts that had been posted by Demosthenes witnessed the arrival of this new army in the region. When the scouts reported their findings to Demosthenes, the Athenian general sent his Amphilochian troops into the hillside so that they could use their local knowledge of the geography to occupy all nearby escape routes. Then, with the rest of his army, Demosthenes launched a night attack on the unsuspecting Ambraciots. The attack on the hillside turned into a massacre and any Ambraciot survivors that managed to flee further into the hills ultimately fell into the hands of the watchful Amphilochian troops, who were occupying all of the passes leading out of the region.
Thucydides wrote that Ambracia had lost almost all of its fighting-age men in the battles near Olpae. Speaking about this incident, he wrote, “In fact, this was, in all the war, certainly the greatest disaster that fell upon any single Hellenic city in an equal number of days” (History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 3, section 113). In the aftermath of the battle, Ambracia and Amphilochia made a treaty for a century of peace and Corinth sent a band of 300 hoplites to garrison Ambraciot land.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Picture Attribution: (Greek Warriors. Attic black-figure amphora, ca. 530 BC. From Vulci. [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).
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The Buddha (This quote recorded in the 3rd century BCE)
“There is no fever for the person
who has completed the journey–
free from sorrow,
freed in every respect,
the knots removed.”
People often say that they are “struck” by ideas. Augustus, sole ruler of Rome from 30 BCE to 14 CE, had an experience like this yet; for him, it was less figurative and much more tangible. According to Augustus’ ancient biographers, he had an intense experience in 26 or 25 BCE, around the time that he was fighting the Cantabri and Astures people in Spain. In Cassius Dio’s (c. 163-235) more tame account of the story, Augustus heard a distant crash of thunder, followed by a dream of the god, Jupiter. In Suetonius’ (c. 70-130+) more lively version of the story, Augustus was confronted with much more than the mere sound of rumbling thunder—instead, he watched with horror as a bolt of white-hot lightning smote an unlucky torchbearer who was standing nearby. The lightning not only turned the torchbearer into a crisp, but it also apparently scorched parts of the litter in which the startled Augustus was sitting. According to Suetonius, the experience was so frightening for Augustus that he developed a great fear of lighting and thunderstorms. His fear was allegedly so intense that he wore protective amulets and fled into underground shelters during heavy storms.
Whatever the real truth may have been, Augustus was inspired to construct a temple for Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill in Rome around the time of the Cantabrian campaign. When construction was completed around 22 BCE, it was regarded as one of the most beautiful and impressive architectural works in the capital city. Suetonius included it in his list of the three most magnificent public works produced during the reign of Augustus. The building was fittingly titled the Temple of Jupiter Tonans, or the Temple of Jupiter the Thunderer.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Picture Attribution: (Image of Lightning in a nigh storm, by user Free-Photos [Public Domain] via pixabay.com).
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Sir Winston Churchill (c. 1874-1965)
“The stronger we are, the more upright and free-spoken, the less danger will there be of the civilised and normal nations being drawn into the quarrels of cruel and wicked forces at either extreme of the political gamut.”
Tian Heng was one of many unlucky kings of ancient Qi. His family had successfully rebelled against the Qin Dynasty during the widespread rebellions of 209 BCE, and they had managed to stake their claim to the region of Qi even though the powerful hegemon of the rebel forces, Xiang Yu, tried to take the kingdom away from the Tian clan and hand it over to another prominent rebel.
In the struggle to keep Qi independent, Tian Heng lost several kinsmen. King Tian Rong, the first Tian king of Qi, was defeated by Xiang Yu in a battle at Chengyang around 205 BCE. Power then passed to Tian Guang, but his land was quickly invaded by the Kingdom of Han in 204 BCE. King Tian Guang was captured and executed by the general, Han Xin, and Han forces consequently occupied the kingdom of Qi during 203 BCE. Tian Heng assumed power after the fall of his kinsmen and tried to push the Han forces out of Qi. Nevertheless, he was defeated by a Han Army at Yingxia and was forced to flee from his kingdom.
Tian Heng received shelter from Peng Yue, another rebel warlord who was trying to keep his claim to Liang intact during the civil war between the king of Han (future Emperor Gaozu) and the king of Chu (Xiang Yu). When Tian Heng learned that the forces of Han had defeated and killed Xiang Yu in the battle of Gaixia (202 BCE), he fled to an island off the coast of Peng Yue’s domain, as he feared that Emperor Gaozu would label him an enemy of the state. Just over 500 loyal followers reportedly journeyed with Tian Heng to stay with him on his island refuge.
According to the Han historian, Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE), Emperor Gaozu eventually sent a messenger with a pardon to the island, clearing the refugee king of any wartime transgressions. Tian Heng did not believe the pardon—during his heyday, he had once participated in the boiling alive of a Han diplomat—and he refused to leave the island. When Emperor Gaozu heard of Tian Heng’s reservations, he sent the messenger back to the island with even more incentives to lure the king out of hiding. Tian Heng was told that the emperor’s pardon was genuine and that he could expect to be granted the noble title of marquis. The messenger also hinted that the Emperor might even have been willing to restore Tian Heng as king of Qi.
The messenger finally coaxed Tian Heng to leave the island refuge, but the king of Qi had no intention of acknowledging Emperor Gaozu as his ruler. Accompanied by two loyal followers, Tian Heng traveled by carriage to meet the emperor at Luoyang. He halted his carriage, however, when he was still a short distance away from the city. As the story goes, Tian Heng pulled his two followers aside and instructed them to bring his head to the emperor. After giving them their orders, the fallen king of Qi proceeded to cut his own throat.
After the deed was done, the two followers finished the job of removing Tian Heng’s head and brought the macabre trophy to Emperor Gaozu. The emperor, for his part, was apparently moved by Tian Heng’s final actions. The two followers who delivered the head were promoted to the rank of colonel in the Han Army. Furthermore, Emperor Gaozu tasked 2,000 soldiers with constructing a kingly burial mound for Tian Heng. The two followers who had brought the head watched as their king was entombed, and, once the funeral was complete, they allegedly dug two holes in the side of the mound. When the holes were complete, the followers supposedly killed themselves so as to stay with their leader.
Later on, Emperor Gaozu sent another envoy to Tian Heng’s island, thinking that if the rest of the followers were like the two who had brought the head, then the island would be a treasure trove of worthy men. Unfortunately, Emperor Gaozu had correctly predicted that the men on the island would have the same resolve as the two that had accompanied Tian Heng. When the emperor’s envoy arrived on the island, he allegedly discovered that news of Tian Heng’s death had already reached the island and that all of the 500 refugees living there had committed suicide.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Picture Attribution: (Image from “An authentic account of an embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China,” c. 1797, [Public Domain] via Flickr and Creative Commons).
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Emperor Tiberius (r. 14-47)
“A good shepherd shears his flock; he does not flay them.”
Grifo was one of four known sons fathered by Charles Martel, the powerful mayor of the palace who held more influence and might than the Merovingian monarchs he supposedly served. When Charles Martel died in 741, his lands and influence were split between his sons. One of the sons, a certain Bernard, was, for the most part, excluded from succession as he had joined the church. That left three other sons, Pippin (III) the Short, Carloman and Grifo, to jostle for their inheritance.
It is unknown how much land, if any, was formally allotted to Grifo, Charles Martel’s youngest son. Nevertheless, the author of the continuation of the Chronicle of Fredegar reported that Charles Martel had a special affection for Grifo. Possibly inspired by this relationship, and backed by his mother Swanahilde, Grifo raised an army in an attempt to become the sole ruler of the Franks, or at least to seize more land and influence for himself.
Grifo, however, was no match for Pippin and Carloman, especially when the two brothers worked together. They mustered their own armies and coordinated a siege against Grifo’s headquarters at Laon. Before 741 ended, Pippin and Carloman successfully crushed their brother’s army and took Grifo into custody. Carloman took responsibility for keeping an eye on his brother—he sent Grifo to Neufchâteau, in the Ardennes Mountains, where he remained under arrest for years. Swanahild, Grifo’s supportive mother, was also seized and locked away in a convent at Chelles.
Grifo was finally released around the year 747, when Carloman retired from political life and became a monk. Upon his release, Grifo quickly showed that he had not lost any of his ambition during his years of captivity. According to the Royal Frankish Annals, Grifo immediately traveled to Saxony, a constant hotbed of resistance to the Franks. When Pippin the Short learned that his brother was raising another army, he mobilized his own force and confronted Grifo in 747. The two brothers had a standoff at the River Oker, but they made peace before any blood was reportedly spilled.
Even after being thwarted for a second time by his brother, Grifo still was not willing to give up on his ambitions. In 748, with the forces he had gathered in Saxony and support from a count named Suidger, Grifo invaded the region of Bavaria, where he usurped power from his nephew, Duke Tassilo III, and captured his own sister, Hiltrude, the duke’s mother.
This was too much for Pippin to condone—before the end of 748, he marched his army into Bavaria, removed Grifo from power and restored Tassilo to his position as duke. Interestingly, Pippin the Short still was willing to show a little generosity to his brother. Although he removed Grifo from Bavaria, Pippin reportedly softened the blow by granting his brother a fiefdom of twelve counties in Neustria.
Grifo, however, could not be contained to Neustria. Still in 748, he fled to Duke Waifar of Aquitaine, a man who would later prove to be one of Pippin’s greatest rivals. After that, little is known about Grifo’s actions. His name finally made a reappearance in the records around 753, at which time the wayward prince met with a violent end in Gascony, or while allegedly trying to travel to Lombardy.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Picture Attribution: (Painting of 9th century Franks, by Albert Kretschmer c. 1882, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).
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Edgar Allan Poe (c. 1809-1849)
“Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence–whether much that is glorious–whether all that is profound–does not spring from disease of thought–from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.”
According to the Roman biographer, Suetonius (c. 70-130+), Emperor Tiberius (r. 14-37) read daily and liked to quiz his dinner guests on trivia from the subjects he had studied that day. Apparently, a certain scholar named Seleucus was a frequent guest at Tiberius’ table and he would astound the emperor by being able to answer every question that Tiberius asked. Such knowledge and memory, however, did not come naturally to Seleucus. Instead, before he ever had a meal with Tiberius, Seleucus reportedly talked to the emperor’s servants and questioned them about what Tiberius was currently reading. With these helpful tips from the servants, Seleucus would then thoroughly study the books in question so he could answer any of the emperor’s questions. Unfortunately for the scholar, word of Seleucus’ pre-dinner studies reached Tiberius’ ear. The emperor interpreted this as cheating and promptly cut off all contact with the scholar. Suetonius even alleged that Tiberius later forced Seleucus to commit suicide.
As for the identity of the Seleucus in the story, there happened to have been a prominent scholar with that name who likely lived during the reign of Tiberius. His name was Seleucus “Homericus” of Alexandria. He seemed to have been best known as a scholar of language—he wrote a piece on the Greek language and another on proverbs that could be found in Alexandria. Seleucus of Alexandria was also a prolific biographer and a writer of literary critiques who commented on the works of many scholars and poets. Nevertheless, other than his name and bibliography, most of his writings only remain in fragments, and little is known about the actual life of Seleucus of Alexandria. As a result, he is a plausible, but not proven, fit for Suetonius’s story.
It is possible that this story is simply folklore or rumor about Tiberius’ strange reign. After all, Suetonius’ style was dominated by stories that portrayed the personalities of his subjects, and he sometimes used rumor and satirical songs as a source to get a glimpse of public opinion toward a figure. Furthermore, Suetonius’ enthusiasm and focus seemed to decrease after he completed his biographies of Julius Caesar and Augustus—his accounts on the rest of The Twelve Caesars are shorter and less detailed. Nevertheless, much of the information recorded by Suetonius was truthful, either as historical fact, or, at least, it was genuinely what many Romans believed.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Picture Attribution: (The Great Library of Alexandria, c. 19th century, by O. Von Corven [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).
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