The Greatest Commanders of Ancient Greece

1 Alexander the Great, 356 to 323 BC

Lived

356 to 323 BC; died at Babylon aged 32

Served

King of Macedon, 336 to 323 BC; at war with Persia from 334 BC

Greatest victory

Gaugamela, 1 October 331 BC: 40,000 foot and 7,000 horse by Arrian’s count, against a Persian army of unknown size (ancient totals about 245,000 to over a million)

Record

Won the Granicus (334 BC), Issus (333), Gaugamela (331) and the Hydaspes (326); never lost a pitched battle

Legacy

Ended the Persian Empire and opened the Hellenistic age

Alexander was 18 when he helped his father Philip II win at Chaeronea in 338 BC, and two years later, when Philip was murdered, he became king of Macedon. In 334 BC he crossed into Asia Minor with 32,000 infantry and 5,100 cavalry, by World History Encyclopedia’s figures, to attack the Persian Empire.²

He beat the Persian satraps at the Granicus that May and King Darius III himself at Issus in November 333 BC, where Darius’ family fell into his hands. At Gaugamela, on 1 October 331 BC, Arrian gives Alexander 7,000 cavalry and about 40,000 infantry, and Darius 40,000 horse and a million foot; other ancient writers give totals from about 245,000 to more than a million, and no reliable modern figure exists. Darius fled, and Babylon and Susa surrendered without a fight. In 326 BC Alexander beat King Porus on the Hydaspes. Myth vs fact: he never reached the Ganges he was aiming for; that same year his worn-out army mutinied and refused to go further, and he had to turn back. He died at Babylon in June 323 BC, and his generals divided the empire.³

World History Encyclopedia credits his phalanx and cavalry with “enabling him to never lose a battle”. Every account of those battles is late: the main one, Arrian, was born between AD 85 and 90 and worked from the lost memoirs of two of Alexander’s officers, Ptolemy and Aristobulus.⁴

Why it ranks here: He is No. 1 because he is the only Greek commander with full marks for recognition, battlefield record, consequence and legacy, three points clear of Themistocles. Only certainty, 3, holds him back: no account of his battles written in his lifetime survives.

Read the full story of Alexander the Great ›

2 Themistocles, c. 524 to c. 459 BC

Lived

About 524 to about 459 BC; died at Magnesia in Asia Minor

Served

Archon of Athens in 493/492 BC; general of the Athenian fleet in 480 BC

Greatest victory

Salamis, 480 BC: some 300 Greek ships against about 500 Persian in a modern estimate (310 against 1,207 in Aeschylus)

Record

Fought the indecisive sea battle off Artemisium and won Salamis (both 480 BC), with the allied fleet formally under the Spartan Eurybiades

Legacy

Built the navy that made Athens a sea power; ostracized, he died in Persian service

Themistocles first appears as archon of Athens in 493/492 BC, a man of middling family. When a rich vein of silver was struck at Laurion, Herodotus says he talked the Athenians out of sharing the money and into building two hundred warships, officially for the war with Aegina; Jona Lendering of Livius thinks they were meant for Persia all along.⁵

In 480 BC the allied fleet sailed under the Spartan Eurybiades, but Athens supplied most of its ships and Themistocles steered the war at sea. After the indecisive fighting off Artemisium and the fall of Athens, he kept the fleet in the narrows off Salamis; Herodotus tells how he sent a messenger to Xerxes to say the Greeks were about to slip away at dawn. At dawn on 29 October the Persian ships rowed into the strait and were beaten. The numbers are disputed. Herodotus counts 378 Greek ships, Aeschylus 310 against 1,207, and World History Encyclopedia estimates about 300 Greek and 500 Persian ships on the day. Xerxes went home, and the Persian offensive was over.⁶

In the 470s Athens ostracized him; condemned as a traitor, he fled to Persia, where the king gave him Magnesia to govern. Myth vs fact: Plutarch repeats the tale that he killed himself with bull’s blood, but Thucydides, writing much closer to the time, says disease was the real cause of his death.⁷

Why it ranks here: Salamis saved Greece, so he has full marks for recognition and consequence. The allied fleet was formally Eurybiades’ and Artemisium was a draw, so battlefield record 4, and his end in Persian service holds legacy at 4.

Read the full story of Themistocles ›

3 Philip II of Macedon, 382 to 336 BC

Lived

382 or 383 to 336 BC; murdered at Aegae

Served

King of Macedon, 359 to 336 BC

Greatest victory

Chaeronea, August 338 BC: more than 30,000 foot and 2,000 horse by Diodorus’ count, against Athens, Thebes and their allies

Record

Won the Crocus Field (352 BC) and Chaeronea (338); beaten twice in Thessaly (353) and forced to give up the siege of Perinthus (340)

Legacy

Made Macedon master of Greece and left Alexander the army that conquered Persia

As a youth Philip spent about three years as a hostage in Thebes, where, World History Encyclopedia notes, he watched the army of Epaminondas and Pelopidas. King from 359 BC, he grew the army, by its figures, from 10,000 men to 24,000.⁸

He did not always win. Diodorus says the Phocian general Onomarchus beat him twice in Thessaly; Jona Lendering of Livius dates the defeat to 353 BC and credits it to the Phocian Phayllus and his catapults. In 352 BC Philip came back and crushed Onomarchus on the Crocus Field, where Diodorus counts more than 6,000 Phocians and mercenaries killed. In 340 BC Persian help to the city and an Athenian declaration of war made him give up the siege of Perinthus. In August 338 BC he met Athens and Thebes at Chaeronea with, by Diodorus’ count, more than 30,000 foot and at least 2,000 horse; more than 1,000 Athenians fell and at least 2,000 were taken. He bound the Greek cities into his Corinthian League and was preparing to invade Persia when he was murdered at Aegae in 336 BC.⁹

Myth vs fact: he did not invent the phalanx. The foot companions had been founded by his brother Alexander II; Philip made their ranks deeper and gave them a pike some six meters long.¹⁰

Why it ranks here: Chaeronea made Macedon master of Greece, full marks for consequence, and most lists of Greek generals name him (recognition 4). The defeats in Thessaly hold his battlefield record at 4, his son overshadows him (legacy 3) and Diodorus wrote centuries later (certainty 3). He ties Epaminondas on 39 points and goes above him on consequence.

Read the full story of Philip II of Macedon ›

4 Epaminondas, c. 420 to 362 BC

Lived

About 420 to 362 BC; killed at Mantinea

Served

Boeotarch, one of the federal generals of Thebes and Boeotia, from 371 BC

Greatest victory

Leuctra, 371 BC: about 7,000 hoplites and 600 horse against 10,000 Spartans and allies with 1,000 horse (modern figures); not more than 6,000 men in Diodorus

Record

Won Leuctra (371 BC) and Mantinea (362), where he was mortally wounded; refounded Messene (369)

Legacy

Broke Sparta’s power; the young Philip II learned from his army

Epaminondas came, Diodorus says, from an aristocratic but poor Theban family, and by 371 BC he was a boeotarch, one of the federal generals of Boeotia, when Sparta marched in to break the league Thebes led.¹¹

At Leuctra World History Encyclopedia gives him about 7,000 hoplites and 600 horse against 10,000 Spartans and allies with 1,000 horse; Diodorus says he led out not more than 6,000. Xenophon records the Thebans massed not less than fifty shields deep against a Spartan line of no more than twelve, and Diodorus and Plutarch describe the line drawn up obliquely, the strong left striking first. King Cleombrotus was killed, and Xenophon counts about 400 of the 700 Spartan citizens dead. In 369 BC he refounded Messene, taking from Sparta the land and serfs it lived on. At Mantinea in 362 BC Diodorus puts his side at above 30,000 foot and 3,000 horse against more than 20,000 and 2,000; his column broke the enemy line, but a spear in the chest killed him, and Xenophon wrote that Greece was left in more confusion than before.¹²

Myth vs fact: his tactics were not all new; World History Encyclopedia notes each had been used before, but never combined by plan. The young Philip of Macedon watched his army, yet Diodorus wrote that Theban power died with him.¹³

Why it ranks here: He won the two great land battles of his age, full marks for battlefield record, and Leuctra broke Sparta (consequence 4). Theban power did not outlast him, so legacy 3, and Xenophon leaves him out of his account of Leuctra, so certainty 3. He ties Philip II on 39 points and goes below him on consequence.

5 Leonidas, died 480 BC

Lived

Born in the 540s BC (World History Encyclopedia); killed at Thermopylae in 480 BC

Served

King of Sparta, of the Agiad house, from about 490 BC

Greatest victory

None of note; famous for Thermopylae, 480 BC, a defeat: 4,000 to 7,000 Greeks against about 80,000 in one modern estimate (2,641,610 in Herodotus)

Record

Held the pass for two days; outflanked and killed with his rearguard on the third

Legacy

The model of the last stand, from Simonides’ epitaph to the 1955 statue at the pass

Leonidas, a younger son of King Anaxandrides, was not expected to rule. He became one of Sparta’s two kings around 490 BC, after the death of his half-brother Cleomenes, whose daughter Gorgo he had married. Herodotus traces his line back to Heracles; of any command he held before 480 BC, World History Encyclopedia notes, nothing is known.¹⁴

That summer he led the Greek force sent to hold the Hot Gates while the fleet guarded Artemisium. Herodotus lists 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians, 400 Thebans and contingents from the Peloponnese, Phocis and Locris; modern totals run from 4,000 (Livius) to 6,000 or 7,000 (World History Encyclopedia). Herodotus gives Xerxes 2,641,610 fighting men, an impossible figure; World History Encyclopedia suggests about 80,000. For two days the Persians could not break through. When a mountain path was betrayed to them, Leonidas sent most of the allies away and stayed with the Spartans, the Thespians and the Thebans, whom Herodotus says he kept as hostages. On the third day they were killed, and Xerxes had Leonidas’ head cut off and impaled.¹⁵

Myth vs fact: it was never 300 men alone, and his famous answer to Xerxes, “Come and take them”, is first found in Plutarch, who wrote under the Roman Empire, more than five centuries later. Since 1955 a bronze Leonidas has stood at the pass.¹⁶

Why it ranks here: He is the best known Spartan of all, full marks for recognition and legacy, but his one battle was a defeat that delayed Xerxes rather than stopped him, so battlefield record 2 and consequence 3, and almost everything rests on Herodotus, certainty 2. He ties Miltiades on 37 points and goes above him on recognition.

Read the full story of Leonidas ›

6 Miltiades, c. 555 to 489 BC

Lived

About 555 to 489 BC; died of a gangrenous wound in Athens

Served

Ruler of the Thracian Chersonese from about 520 BC; one of Athens’ ten generals in 490 BC

Greatest victory

Marathon, 490 BC: about 10,000 Athenians and Plataeans against some 25,000 Persians (Lendering), 100,000 foot and 10,000 horse in Nepos

Record

Won Marathon (490 BC); failed before Paros (489), then was tried and fined 50 talents

Legacy

The victor of Marathon, the battle every marathon race recalls

Miltiades, an Athenian aristocrat, inherited his family’s small realm in the Thracian Chersonese, on the Hellespont, around 520 BC. As a vassal of Persia he marched with Darius I against the Scythians; he backed the Ionian revolt, and when it collapsed he fled to Athens in 494 or 493 BC, while his son was carried off to Persia.¹⁷

In 490 BC Datis and Artaphernes landed at Marathon. Miltiades was one of ten Athenian generals; they split five against five on whether to fight, and Herodotus has Miltiades win over the polemarch Callimachus, who cast the deciding vote. Nepos counts 10,000 men, 1,000 of them Plataeans, and gives Datis 100,000 foot and 10,000 horse; Lendering of Livius reckons the Persians at about 25,000. He thinned his center, strengthened the wings and sent his hoplites in at a run; the wings broke the invaders and turned inward. Herodotus counts 6,400 Persian and 192 Athenian dead, and Lendering calls the first figure exaggerated. In 489 BC he besieged Paros, demanding 100 talents, and failed. Carried into court with a festering thigh, he was fined 50 talents and died of gangrene.¹⁸

Myth vs fact: the runner who brought news of the victory and died is a late story from Plutarch, not Herodotus, but it inspired the race first run at the 1896 Athens Olympics.¹⁹

Why it ranks here: Marathon earns him recognition and legacy 4, since every marathon race recalls it. But it threw back a landing rather than ending the war (consequence 4), Paros costs him on battlefield record (3), and Herodotus is almost the only early source (certainty 3). He ties Leonidas on 37 points and goes below him on recognition.

Read the full story of Miltiades ›

7 Pausanias, died c. 470 BC

Lived

Birth date unknown; starved to death in a temple at Sparta, about 470 BC

Served

Regent of Sparta from 480 BC; allied commander on land in 479 BC and at sea in 478 BC

Greatest victory

Plataea, 479 BC: 110,000 Greeks, 38,700 of them hoplites, against 300,000 Persians and some 50,000 Greek allies (Herodotus); Mardonius’ army probably 150,000 (Lendering)

Record

Won Plataea (479 BC); took most of Cyprus and forced Byzantium to surrender (478); later driven from Byzantium by Cimon

Legacy

Accused of plotting with Persia and the helots; remembered more for his fall than his victory

Pausanias was a nephew of Leonidas and the son of King Cleombrotus. Regent for Leonidas’ young son Pleistarchus after his father died in 480 BC, he was given the army sent against Mardonius in 479.²⁰

Herodotus counts 110,000 Greeks, 38,700 of them hoplites, against 300,000 men of Mardonius and Greek allies he guesses at 50,000; Lendering puts Mardonius’ army at probably 150,000. When the Greeks pulled back, the Persians thought the day was won and crossed; the Spartan phalanx broke them, Mardonius was killed, and the Athenians took the Persian camp. Herodotus calls it the most glorious victory he knew; Lendering suggests the night moves may have been Pausanias’ lure and that Herodotus belittled him. In 478 BC he led the allied fleet to Cyprus, subdued most of it and forced Byzantium to surrender.²¹

Accused of dealings with Persia, he was recalled, tried and acquitted; Cimon drove him out of Byzantium, and around 471 BC he was accused again, of Persian sympathies and of plotting with the helots. He fled into the temple of the goddess of the Brazen House, and Thucydides says the ephors shut him in and starved him. Myth vs fact: Diodorus’ tale that his own mother laid the first brick to wall him in comes with a “we are told”, and Thucydides does not mention it.²²

Why it ranks here: Plataea ended the Persian invasion, full marks for consequence, and Herodotus and Thucydides both tell his story (certainty 4), but the accusations of treason and his death buried his name: recognition 3, legacy 2. He ties Lysander on 35, level on recognition and consequence, and goes above him as the older.

8 Lysander, died 395 BC

Lived

Birth date unknown; killed at Haliartus in Boeotia in 395 BC

Served

Sparta, as admiral of its fleet from about 408 BC in the Peloponnesian War, then in the Corinthian War

Greatest victory

Aegospotami, 405 BC: an Athenian fleet of 180 triremes taken on the beach; Conon escaped with nine ships (Xenophon)

Record

Won Notium (406 BC) and Aegospotami (405 BC); blockaded Athens into surrender; killed in a failed attack at Haliartus (395 BC)

Legacy

Ended the Peloponnesian War; the first Greek honored with altars as a god, according to Duris as quoted by Plutarch

Lysander came from a poor Spartan family that claimed descent from Heracles, and became admiral around 408 BC. He won the friendship of the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger and asked him to add an obol to his sailors’ pay, three obols becoming four, so that rowers left the Athenian ships for his.²³

In 406 BC Alcibiades left his helmsman Antiochus in charge of the Athenian fleet at Notium with orders not to fight; Antiochus provoked one anyway, and Lysander took fifteen triremes. Athens dismissed Alcibiades. The decisive blow fell in 405 BC. The Athenians, with 180 triremes, beached each evening on an open shore at Aegospotami, across the Hellespont from his base at Lampsacus. On the fifth day Lysander struck while their crews were scattered and took the fleet on the beach; only Conon’s squadron and the Paralus escaped. Plutarch counts 3,000 prisoners, and the allies voted to kill the Athenians among them. Blockaded and starving, Athens surrendered in 404 BC, pulled down its Long Walls and gave up all but twelve ships. Cities raised altars to him, the first Greek so honored according to Duris, whom Plutarch quotes. In 395 BC he was killed attacking the walls of Haliartus before King Pausanias had joined him.²⁴

Why it ranks here: His victory ended the Peloponnesian War, so consequence 5, and Xenophon and Plutarch document him well, certainty 4. But Aegospotami was a surprise attack on beached ships and he died in a rash assault at Haliartus, so battlefield record 4, and few readers outside Greek history know him: recognition 3, legacy 2. He ties Pausanias on every score and goes below him as the younger.

9 Seleucus I Nicator, c. 358 to 281 BC

Lived

Born about 358 BC in Macedonia; murdered near Lysimachia, on the way into Europe, in 281 BC

Served

Alexander the Great, then as satrap of Babylonia (from about 320 BC) and king (from 305 BC)

Greatest victory

Ipsus, 301 BC: the allied victory in which his elephants cut off Demetrius and Antigonus the One-Eyed was killed

Record

Won Gaza (312 BC, with Ptolemy), Ipsus (301 BC, with Lysimachus and Cassander) and Corupedium (281 BC); gave up the lands along the Indus to Chandragupta

Legacy

Founded the Seleucid kingdom, which lasted until Pompey ended it in 63 BC, and cities such as Antioch

Seleucus marched with Alexander as an officer of the Shield-bearers and, after the king’s death, became satrap of Babylonia. In 316 BC Antigonus the One-Eyed drove him out, and he fled to Ptolemy in Egypt.²⁵

In 312 BC he and Ptolemy met Antigonus’ son Demetrius at Gaza. Diodorus says Ptolemy marched with 18,000 foot and 4,000 horse, and that the young prince lost more than 500 dead and over 8,000 prisoners. Ptolemy then gave Seleucus 1,000 foot and 300 horse, and with them he retook Babylon and built a realm that reached the Indus. There he came to terms with the Indian king Chandragupta: Strabo says he gave up the lands along the river in exchange for a marriage alliance and 500 elephants. At Ipsus in 301 BC, Plutarch says, the allies had 400 elephants. When Demetrius chased off the cavalry of Seleucus’ son Antiochus, the elephants blocked his way back, and Seleucus rode around the exposed enemy phalanx until much of it came over to him; Antigonus, over eighty by Appian’s account, fell under a cloud of javelins. In 281 BC he beat and killed Lysimachus at Corupedium, crossed into Europe and was stabbed in the back by Ptolemy Keraunos. His dynasty ruled until Pompey ended it in 63 BC.²⁶

Why it ranks here: Of Alexander’s successors he won the battles that mattered most and founded a kingdom that lasted two and a half centuries, so consequence 5 and battlefield record 4. But he shared Gaza with Ptolemy and Ipsus with his allies, his name means little outside Hellenistic history (recognition 3, legacy 2), and his wars survive mainly in Diodorus, Appian and Plutarch, so certainty 2.

10 Alcibiades, c. 450 to 404 BC

Lived

Born about 450 BC in Athens; killed in Phrygia in 404 BC

Served

Athens; Sparta after 415 BC; the Persian satrap Tissaphernes; the Athenian fleet again from 411 BC

Greatest victory

Cyzicus, 410 BC: 86 Athenian ships against 60; the Spartan admiral Mindarus killed and his fleet taken or burned (Xenophon)

Record

Turned the sea battle off Abydos; won Cyzicus (410 BC); his fleet lost Notium (406 BC) under his deputy

Legacy

The brilliant turncoat of the Peloponnesian War; Thucydides blamed Athens’ distrust of him for its fall

Raised in the house of Pericles and a pupil of Socrates, Alcibiades was rich, handsome and reckless. In 415 BC he talked Athens into the expedition to Sicily and sailed as one of its generals, but he was recalled to face a charge of sacrilege and fled to Sparta. There, Thucydides reports, he urged the Spartans to send a Spartan to command at Syracuse and to fortify Decelea in Attica; they did both.²⁷

Falling out with Sparta, he went over to the Persian satrap Tissaphernes, and in 411 BC the Athenian fleet at Samos made him its general. His masterpiece was Cyzicus in 410 BC. Xenophon says he gathered 86 ships and caught Mindarus’ 60 at exercise. He landed with twenty ships, Mindarus fell fighting on the shore, and the Athenians took every ship but the Syracusans’, which their crews burned. An intercepted Spartan dispatch read: “The ships are gone. Mindarus is dead. The men are starving. We know not what to do.” He came home in triumph in 407 BC, but after his helmsman lost fifteen ships to Lysander at Notium, Athens did not elect him again. In 404 BC Persian agents, sent at Lysander’s request according to Plutarch, burned his house in Phrygia and shot him down as he came out.²⁸

Why it ranks here: Thucydides, Xenophon and Plutarch all tell his story, certainty 4, and he is one of the best known Athenians, recognition 4; Cyzicus earns a record of 3. But he changed sides more than once, his deputy lost Notium and Athens lost the war, so consequence 2, and he is remembered more as a turncoat than as an admiral, legacy 3.

11 Brasidas, died 422 BC

Lived

Birth date unknown; son of Tellis; died of wounds at Amphipolis in 422 BC

Served

Sparta in the first ten years of the Peloponnesian War

Greatest victory

Amphipolis, 422 BC: about 600 Athenians killed, their general Cleon among them, against 7 of his own men (Thucydides)

Record

Saved Methone (431 BC); wounded and beaten back at Pylos (425 BC); won over Amphipolis (424 BC) and beat Cleon there (422 BC)

Legacy

Honored at Amphipolis as its founder; his death cleared the way for the Peace of Nicias (421 BC)

Brasidas, son of Tellis, first appears in Thucydides in 431 BC, when he cut through an Athenian landing force with a hundred hoplites to save Methone and became the first Spartan praised for a feat in the war. At Pylos in 425 BC he ran his own trireme aground to force a landing and was carried off unconscious.²⁹

In 424 BC he took the war where Athens was weakest. Sparta would not risk its citizens, so he marched north through Thessaly with 1,700 hoplites: 700 armed helots and the rest hired in the Peloponnese. He won over Acanthus and Stagira, and in a winter snowstorm he seized the bridge at Amphipolis and offered terms so mild that the city opened its gates before the Athenian commander arrived. That commander, the historian Thucydides, reached nearby Eion the same evening and was exiled for twenty years. In 422 BC Cleon came to win the city back. As the Athenians turned away from the walls, Brasidas burst out of the gates; about 600 Athenians died, Cleon among them, against seven of his men, but Brasidas was wounded and died soon after hearing that he had won. With Brasidas and Cleon dead, Thucydides judged, the two men most opposed to peace were gone; the Peace of Nicias followed in 421 BC.³⁰

Why it ranks here: Thucydides, the commander he outran at Amphipolis, is a contemporary witness, so certainty 4, and Brasidas won nearly every fight he chose, record 4. But the peace his death opened the way to did not hold, so consequence 3, and he is little known outside the history of the war: recognition 3, legacy 2.

12 Pericles, c. 495 to 429 BC

Lived

Born about 495 BC in Athens; died of the plague there in 429 BC

Served

Athens, elected general year after year, by Plutarch’s count for fifteen years without a break

Greatest victory

Samos, 440 to 439 BC: 70 Samian ships beaten with 44, then the city taken in the ninth month of a siege (Thucydides)

Record

Routed the Sicyonians at Nemea, recovered Euboea, took Samos; never fought a battle that decided a war

Legacy

Gave his name to Athens’ golden age; his plan to refuse battle on land shaped the Peloponnesian War

From about 461 BC until his death Pericles led Athens as its most persuasive voice in the assembly, and Plutarch says he held the office of general for fifteen years in a row. As a soldier he was known for caution: Plutarch writes that he never willingly fought a battle of great uncertainty or danger.³¹

His campaigns were real but small. Sailing from Pegae with a thousand Athenians, he landed in the territory of Sicyon and routed the Sicyonians who stood against him at Nemea, and he crushed the revolt of Euboea. His largest operation came against Samos in 440 BC: with 44 ships he beat 70 Samian ships, walled the city in, and in the ninth month of the siege it surrendered, gave up its fleet and agreed to pay for the war. When the Peloponnesian War began in 431 BC, his plan was to avoid a battle, not to win one: bring the people inside the walls, leave the fields to the Spartan army, and rely on the fleet and the empire’s money. The plague that swept the crowded city killed him in 429 BC, two years and six months into the war. Thucydides thought Athens lost because his successors did the opposite of what he had advised.³²

Why it ranks here: The best known Athenian of the golden age, recognition 4, with Thucydides as a contemporary witness, certainty 4; but he won no battle that changed a war, and his plan for the Peloponnesian War was to avoid battle on land, so record 2 and consequence 2. He ties Xenophon and Pyrrhus on 30 points, matches Xenophon on recognition and consequence, and goes first as the older.

Read the full story of Pericles ›

13 Xenophon, c. 430 to c. 355 BC

Lived

Born about 430 BC in Athens; died about 355 BC

Served

The Greek mercenaries of Cyrus the Younger (401 to 400 BC), then the Spartan king Agesilaus II

Greatest victory

No pitched victory: the fighting retreat of the Ten Thousand from Cunaxa to the Black Sea, 401 to 400 BC

Record

One of the generals elected after the Persians seized the Greek commanders; 8,600 men reached Cerasus on the Black Sea (his count)

Legacy

His Anabasis, still read; Arrian and Cicero name commanders who drew on him

Xenophon, an Athenian pupil of Socrates, joined the march of the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger against his brother, King Artaxerxes II. At the last review he counted 10,400 Greek hoplites and 2,500 light troops. In 401 BC Cyrus was killed at Cunaxa, and soon after the Persians seized the Greek generals at a truce meeting and put them to death.³³

Xenophon was elected a general in place of his friend Proxenus. The retreat led north through hostile mountains and the snowfields of Armenia until, near Trapezus, the vanguard saw the Black Sea and shouted “The sea! The sea!” At Cerasus, he writes, 8,600 men were still alive; the rest had died in battle, in the snow or of disease. Myth vs fact: in his own book Xenophon is the hero of the retreat, but he was one of several generals, and Diodorus says the army gave the supreme command to the Spartan Cheirisophus; his account of the march never names Xenophon. He later served Sparta’s King Agesilaus, and Athens banished him for it. Before Issus, Arrian says, Alexander is said to have reminded his men of Xenophon and the Ten Thousand, and Cicero writes that Scipio Africanus always had Xenophon in his hands.³⁴

Why it ranks here: The Anabasis keeps him famous and read, recognition 4 and legacy 4; but a fighting retreat is not a victory, so record 2 and consequence 2, and nearly all we know of his command comes from his own book, certainty 2. He ties Pericles and Pyrrhus on 30 points; level with Pericles on recognition and consequence, he goes below him as the younger, and above Pyrrhus on recognition.

14 Pyrrhus of Epirus, 319 to 272 BC

Lived

Born in 319 or 318 BC; killed in a street fight at Argos in 272 BC

Served

King of Epirus (306 to 302 and 297 to 272 BC) and twice of Macedonia; fought Rome for Tarentum and Carthage for the Sicilian Greeks

Greatest victory

Heraclea, 280 BC: 7,000 Romans killed for fewer than 4,000 of his men by Hieronymus’ count, 15,000 and 13,000 by Dionysius’ (Plutarch)

Record

Won Heraclea (280 BC) and Asculum (279 BC); beaten at Beneventum (275 BC); killed at Argos (272 BC)

Legacy

The “Pyrrhic victory”; Hannibal ranked him among the greatest generals, according to Plutarch and Livy

Pyrrhus was made king of Epirus as a boy and while still in his teens fought beside his brother-in-law Demetrius at Ipsus, where, Plutarch says, he routed the troops facing him. Hannibal reputedly ranked him among the greatest of all generals: first in Plutarch’s version, second after Alexander in Livy’s.³⁵

In 280 BC Tarentum called him to Italy against Rome, and he crossed with 20 elephants, 3,000 horse and more than 20,000 foot. At Heraclea his phalanx held the legions while his cavalry and elephants broke the Roman wings; Plutarch cites Hieronymus for 7,000 Roman and fewer than 4,000 Epirote dead, and Dionysius for 15,000 and 13,000. At Asculum in 279 BC the Romans lost 6,000 men and he 3,505, by Hieronymus’ count from the king’s own records; Dionysius records no admitted Roman defeat, only a fight that lasted until sunset. When a friend congratulated him, Plutarch reports, Pyrrhus answered that one more such victory over the Romans would ruin him, the remark behind the phrase “Pyrrhic victory”. He came back to Italy in 275 BC with a third of the army he had first brought and was beaten at Beneventum. In 272 BC, fighting in the streets of Argos, he was struck by a roof tile thrown by an old woman and killed.³⁶

Why it ranks here: Same scores as our by-era guide: the Pyrrhic victory keeps him in the language, legacy 4, and he beat Rome twice, record 3; but he lost at Beneventum and left nothing lasting, so consequence 2, and Plutarch’s sources disagree on his losses, certainty 3. He ties Pericles and Xenophon on 30 points and goes last on recognition, 3 to their 4.