The Plague of War: Athens, Sparta, and the Struggle for Ancient Greece by Jennifer T. Roberts (review)

This volume tells the story of the Peloponnesian war but takes that tale down to the battle of Leuktra in 371 because "only then did the Peloponnesian War really end" (369). The book includes nineteen chapters (plus introduction and epilogue) covering events from the Ionian rebellion to Leuktra. Each chapter begins with a longish paragraph providing either an introduction to or précis of the coming material. Chapters range from ten and a half pages ("Moving Towards Peace" on the years 423–421 and the adoption of the Peace of Nikias) to twenty-six and a half pages ("A Seeming Victory" on the last years of the conventional "Peloponnesian War") and cover periods ranging from about a year ("The Fortunes of War" on the Pylos campaign) to 34 years ("The Greek City-States at War and Peace" on the main part of the pentakontaetia). The volume includes a useful timeline of events from Marathon to the Battle of Chaironeia as well as a glossary and "Cast of Characters." There are 15 black-and-white illustrations of items such as one of the Spartan shields recovered at Pylos and the fragments of the decree of Aristoteles. In addition, there are 11 maps. The maps curiously exhibit a variety of different graphic styles, and the more detailed ones (for example, that depicting the disposition of forces for Phormion's victory in the gulf of Corinth) would have benefitted from a small inset map locating the area of detail in the wider Greek world. Furthermore, the map of the Athenian and Syracusan walls at Syracuse appears to be a bad scan of the map in Gomme et al. The choice of what to cover in the maps is excellent, but execution leaves something to be desired.

Roberts' decision to cover more than the conventionally dated Peloponnesian war makes sense in that although Athens seemed utterly defeated in 404, it was not, and it relatively soon joined with Thebes against Sparta in the Corinthian war. That is, readers who stop at 404 would get a wrong picture of an Athens utterly defeated and a Sparta wholly triumphant. To find one of the two main combatants of the Peloponnesian war finally prostrate, one has to read on to Sparta's defeat by Thebes at Leuktra. That defeat justifies Roberts' conclusion that in the Greek wars of the fifth and fourth centuries, "there were no winners, only losers" (369). But is it correct—or, more importantly, useful—to judge this fourth-century fighting part of "the" Peloponnesian war? That Thebes was now a main opponent to Sparta rather than a sometimes fractious ally indicates that the wars of the fourth-century were something separate from (even if derived from) "the" Peloponnesian war; Roberts' own text actually underscores this. She covers the 32 years from the Thirty Tyrants to Leuktra in a mere two chapters while the 27 years of the traditionally dated Peloponnesian war get 13. She also separates the narrative of "the" Peloponnesian war from that of the rest of what she claims is one war with a chapter ("Athens After the Amnesty") on the trial of Socrates and Greek philosophy. Inevitably, then, the fighting of the fourth century gets short shrift, is hard to follow, and seems an afterthought. Indeed, Roberts' own text cannot decide when the Peloponnesian war ended. After the battle of Leuktra she writes that "the Peloponnesian War seemed, at last, to have ended" (361), but she also says that "only" after the Battle of Knidos "did the Peloponnesian War truly come to an end" (367) and that "the wars of the fourth century grew out of the Peloponnesian war" (368). There is nothing wrong with continuing the narrative of classical Greek warfare down to Leuktra (or even down to Chaironeia, for that matter), but not much is served...