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Almost finished reading Plutarch's The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives (which is taken from Parallel Lives I think, but it's just the Greeks). It's a really good follow up to Kagan's Peloponessian War. It's also pretty easy to read which sort of surprised me. I like Plutarch. He'd make a good adventure novelist.Anyway, his section on Lysander is amazing. Plutarch gives a really good, detailed account of the naval battle in the Hellespont. If anyone needs a good alternate source for the Peloponessian War besides Thucydides, this is it. To those interested in military, especially naval, history (scout, vulture) read Alcibiades and Lysander. It's pretty cool. (BTW, Alcibiades was a genius IMO. He sure knew his stuff and how to play all sides)
Sounds interesting. That's something to love about Greek and Roman historians – they tell a good story which makes you forget they're telling you about history. Ok, so maybe sometimes they are telling more story than history, but what historian doesn't? ;D
lol yes Herodotus and Thucydides both star off roughly with “Hi I'm so-and-so writing about the history of my people or this or that war” and then the rest goes right off into often incredible details, particularly with families and lineage and where they're from etc. I like both of their works because of this, it feels like they are unencumbered to say whatever they want
