5 Greek Warrior-Generals Whose Biographies Will Make You Feel Like a Massive Underachiever

We all know the great heroes of Greek epic - the wily Odysseus, the invincible Achilles, the unrivalled Diomedes who cut a swathe through the Trojans and defeated multiple actual gods in single combat. But what about the heroes of history? It turns out all the little Greeks who grew up reading Homer thought of it as more than a kick-ass bedtime story. They saw a benchmark of badassery. Then they grew up and lived up to it.

Here are some Greek warriors you won't read about in mythology - but you should.

 

1. Pelopidas ain't afraid of no Spartans

It's a hard life growing up in a world where Spartans call the shots. Especially if you're from Thebes and the Spartans straight up overthrow your government, put a garrison on your acropolis, and strut around like they own the place. Most Thebans might have thought that these grim-faced sourtherners were a bit much to handle, but Pelopidas wasn't impressed.

To get rid of the Theban oligarchs who acted as the Spartan puppet government, he got together his hottest friends, dressed them all up like girls, and crashed the oligarchs' drinking party when they were too drunk to tell a jacked young badass from a sexy lady. The oligarchs were delighted to see that the evening's entertainment had arrived. They were less delighted when Pelopidas and his sultry pals cast off their dresses and stabbed them all to death.

So Thebes was liberated. But the Spartans were pissed, and they weren't going to stand for this shit. Thebes needed soldiers. So Pelopidas formed the most badass hoplite unit ever to grace the battlefields of Classical Greece: the Theban Sacred Band.

Here's where the badass meter hits the red. In 375 BC, Pelopidas and his Sacred Band were marching around guarding the countryside when he was told there was a force of Spartans up ahead that outnumbered him 4 to 1. Being outnumbered 4 to 1 by literal Spartans would be enough to make any lesser general crap his himation. Pelopidas, though? When his men told him in despair, "We've fallen into our enemies' hands!" did he throw up his hands and surrender? Of course not. He replied, "Why any more than they have fallen into ours?" Then he attacked. Then he broke and routed a Spartan army 4 times as large as his own.

Pelopidas' reckless bravery became the stuff of legend. When Plutarch wrote his biography centuries later, the main message he wanted to impart on his readers was "be badass, but don't try to be as badass as Pelopidas, because you'll die." Important lessons from history.

 

2. Timoleon is here to play bingo and kick ass

Timoleon was just minding his own business as a regular citizen of Corinth when all of a sudden, his brother decided to try and seize the government. Did he back his own kin, for the sake of blood and loyalty? Of course not. He took up arms for his city and personally killed his brother in battle.

Because of this act of stone-faced championry, Timoleon was something of a local hero. So when the people of Syracuse called upon their mother city of Corinth to help them overthrow the tyrants who were oppressing Sicily, they were overjoyed to hear that Corinth would send Timoleon. There were just 2 tiny problems. First, Timoleon was already pushing 80, and couldn't see so well anymore. Second, the Corinthians sent him over with just 1200 men. Really, they were giving token aid to the people of Sicily, and the Syracusans had every right to be pretty annoyed at Corinth' lack of commitment.

Until Timoleon started to do his thing.

Not at all deterred by the fact that he was a decrepit senior citizen with failing eyesight and a sad excuse for an army, Timoleon marched around Sicily deposing one tyrant after another, eschewing no trick or device to crush them and to restore democracies everywhere. Then the Carthaginians invaded with a massive army, and Timoleon went and crushed them, too.

After this, the Syracusans accepted that Timoleon could basically do no wrong. Plutarch's biography tells us that when he eventually went fully blind, they continued to consult him on all their public matters until the day he died. Also, from then on, whenever they had a problem they couldn't handle, they knew what to do: send to Corinth for help.

 

3. Alexander the Great is exactly what it says on the tin

Is there any need to recount what makes Alexander earn his title? Where do we begin? Well, we could point out that he personally destroyed the Theban Sacred Band in battle when he wasn't even old enough to buy beer. We could also point out that he overthrew the most powerful empire that the world had ever seen, in about as much time as it took for him to walk from one end to the other. We could stress that he did all this while leading his armies from the front and repeatedly getting himself almost killed by enemy swords, spears, arrows, and catapult bolts, sustaining himself on pure visceral death-seeking bloodlust. He ragequit life in his mid-30s, probably because he'd gotten bored of the Ancient scenario and wanted to play a different level.

You can read Plutarch's version of his life here; there are also surviving biographies by Arrian and Curtius Rufus, who all cite many others, because the next best thing to living Alexander's life was apparently describing it in awestruck wonder.

 

4. Agesilaos is short and lame and still beats up everyone

Being king of Sparta comes with a few expectations. Agesilaos, to be fair, never thought he would be king of Sparta, and went through the ruthless Spartan education like a regular citizen. But then shenanigans happened and bam! The crippled little kid brother became king. And did Agesilaos spend his time nursing his lame leg and enjoying the fruits of kingship? Hell no. He went out and kicked ass from Akarnarnia to Egypt, leading armies against Greeks and Persians and anyone else who stared at his leg funny, remaining entirely undefeated in battle until he died at age 84 from carrying too much loot back to Sparta.

He went to Asia to fight the Persians, and defeated the Persians, "liberating" a great deal of money and a herd of camels. He went to Thessaly and defeated the Thessalians, pitting his cavalry against the finest horsemen of Greece and winning. He went to Boiotia and defeated the Boiotians, taking the Thebans head-on while in the front rank of his phalanx, and igoring his wounds until the enemy was completely broken. He spent decades marching all over Greece and wiping the floor with anyone who dared to face him. And when Sparta needed money, Agesilaos went to Egypt to fight the Persians and the local rebels there, and beat them too.

Meanwhile, in the rare moments when he was at home, he defused two separate uprisings in Sparta, and backed his sister, who ended up being the first woman ever to win the Olympic chariot race. Because why would you be badass in just one way, if you can be a disabled old omni-badass?

We know a lot about Agesilaos because his friend Xenophon wrote his eulogy. Plutarch, not to be outdone, wrote another one.

 

5. Iphikrates is the memetic badass of Antiquity

At the start of his career, Iphikrates was just a regular dude serving as a deck-fighter in the Athenian fleet. Like any regular dude, during the battle of Knidos in 394 BC (probably), when he fell wounded, he dragged his enemy overboard and hauled him over to his own ship, while both of them were wearing full armour.

Actually, wait, that's not like any regular dude, that's monumentally badass.

When we read about antiquity, we might hear about great commanders like Perikles, Epameinondas and Alexander. But when Polyainos compiled his book of military stratagems to present to the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, there was no doubt in his mind as to which should be the most prominent: Iphikrates son of Timotheos. While people like Alexander get only a handful of stratagems to their name, and many generals get just 1 or 2, Iphikrates' chapter has a whopping sixty-one entries - nearly 3 times as many as the second place (which is, of course, Agesilaos). Iphikrates was just that good.

He once obliterated an entire Spartan army without losing a single man, which persuaded the Athenians that he was pretty good as a general. From then on, until the end of his life, whenever things got particularly sticky at Athens, they called on Iphikrates to sort their shit out. Plutarch tells us that his enemies learned to get the hell out when they heard his name. Even his own people were scared shitless of Iphikrates; one time when they dared to put him on trial for treason, he persuaded them to let him off by simply walking into the courtroom and showing the jury a knife.

Allegedly he was once negotiating with Iason of Pherai on a neutral barge in the middle of a river when he figured out that Iason was trying to fleece him. As Iason was watching his priest prepare to sacrifice a bull to ratify the treaty, Iphikrates got out of the boat, climbed up on the nearby bridge unseen, then jumped down suddenly onto the barge, snatched the knife from the hand of the priest, and held it against Iason's throat. Negotiation, Iphikrates style.

There are endless stories cementing Iphikrates' relentless badassery. Nepos wrote a short biography and Plutarch gathered some choice quotes.