Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- Ctesias and the Importance of His Writings Revisited
- Thessaly and Macedon at Delphi
- The Importance of the Hoplite Army in Aeneas Tacticus’ Polis
- The Ptolemies versus the Achaean and Aetolian Leagues in the 250s-220s BC
- Documentary Contexts for the ‘Pistiros Inscription’
- The Alleged Failure of Athens in the Fourth Century
- How Many Companions did Philip II have?
- Remarks on Aristotle's Thettalon politeia
- Internal Politics in Syracuse, 330-317 BC
- Notes on a Stratagem of Iphicrates in Polyaenus and Leo Tactica
- Discussions
Notes on a Stratagem of Iphicrates in Polyaenus and Leo Tactica
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- Ctesias and the Importance of His Writings Revisited
- Thessaly and Macedon at Delphi
- The Importance of the Hoplite Army in Aeneas Tacticus’ Polis
- The Ptolemies versus the Achaean and Aetolian Leagues in the 250s-220s BC
- Documentary Contexts for the ‘Pistiros Inscription’
- The Alleged Failure of Athens in the Fourth Century
- How Many Companions did Philip II have?
- Remarks on Aristotle's Thettalon politeia
- Internal Politics in Syracuse, 330-317 BC
- Notes on a Stratagem of Iphicrates in Polyaenus and Leo Tactica
- Discussions
Summary
Abstract: Proper understanding of Iphicrates’ stratagem at Polyaenus 3.9.38, marred by a lacuna, can be derived from Leo Tact. 20.196, where anchoring a fleet off a harborless coastline is described. Emending Polyaenus’ text from the reading of a later MS also clarifies the anecdote's meaning. Leo knew the full text of Polyaenus, since Polyaenus 3.9.38 does not occur in the abbreviated Excepta Polyaeni, which some recently suggest replaced the Strategica in Byzantine use of Polyaenus.
Keywords: Iphicrates, Polyaenus, Leo, Strategica.
Artaxerxes II's attempt to recover Egypt in 374-373 B.C. with a combined force of Greek mercenaries and Persians fell victim to the bickering of its commanders, Iphicrates and Pharnabazus. A major joint military and naval expedition it was. From 377 or 376 B.C. there assembled at Ace (Acco, Acre, Ptolemais) in Phoenicia (allegedly) 200,000 Persians, 20,000 Greek mercenaries, 300 triremes and 200 triaconters. Diodorus (15.41-45) provides the fullest narrative (from Ephorus?), to be supplemented by tidbits of Trogus (Prol. 10), Nepos (Iphic. 2.4), Plutarch (Aratax. 24.1), and Polyaenus’ Strategica. Iphicrates, the most ruse of all generals in Polyaenus with 63 stratagems to his credit, distinguished himself in four exempla from this campaign in the stratagem collector's compendium (3.9.38, 56, 59, 63). Polyaenus 3.9.38, marred by a lacuna and misinterpreted in two recent translations, demands re-examination.
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- The Greek World in the 4th and 3rd Centuries BC , pp. 157 - 164Publisher: Jagiellonian University PressPrint publication year: 2012