Victor Davis Hanson

The Battle of Leuctra (371 B.C.) and its aftermath were one of the great dramas in the history of Classical Greece. Sparta lost, first, its reputation for military invincibility, then most of its allies and satellites, finally over half of its territory. Though one more battle (Mantineia, 362 B.C.) was needed to confirm the verdict, Leuctra was truly "the end of Sparta". The minor state that lingered afterward, eventually a tourist destination for connoisseurs of exotic customs, shared only show more a name with the power that had been the hegemon of Hellas for nearly two centuries.

As Victor Davis Hanson observes in his author's notes, this story is now a blank to almost everyone without a professional (or eccentric personal) interest in Greek history. Most educated readers know something about the Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian War and Alexander the Great. Epaminondas and Pelopidas of Thebes, the destroyers of Spartan power, are not even names. Modern (non)education is not wholly to blame; the surviving sources give Sparta's demise scant attention - the result partly of chance, partly of the pro-Spartan bias of the leading contemporary historical writers, partly of the short duration of Thebes's reign as a dominant power. The End of Sparta is, so far as I know, the first historical novel to delve into this period with any depth or seriousness. It's certainly the only one written by an academic expert.

Knowledge of a subject is not, of course, a sufficient (maybe not even a necessary) condition for writing good fiction about it. Happily, the literary skill displayed in Professor Davis's historical and political works carries over into his debut novel. The book does, however, depart from the mainstream in a few ways, borrowing a number of stylistic devices from the Iliad, particularly in the battle scenes, and conforming to the Greek world view, in which the natural and the supernatural mingled freely. Hence, the fighting is brutal, and some incidents verge on fantasy. If an ancient Greek had been moved to pen a modern novel, this is what it might have read like.

One should note, too, that many issues pertinent to 4th Century B.C. Hellas resonate today. After Leuctra, Thebes undertook what could plausibly be called "nation building" among the former subjects of Sparta. New states emerged in Arcadia and Messenia. The novel's characters robustly debate whether democracy can be "imposed" on these formerly servile populations, pre-echoing arguments that we hear today, albeit in a vastly different context. Also of contemporary interest are the role of the media (represented by rival historians with sharply different points of view) and tensions between "modern" (in this case, Pythagorean) rationalism and traditional religion. On the other hand, some of the era's attitudes, such as casual vindictiveness, are alien to our era, and there is no effort to make them more palatable.

One point will strike many readers as implausible but is plain historical fact. Several characters, including the hero Melon, are in their 60's or older. That they should wield spears in battle may seem incredible. After all, wasn't life expectancy much shorter back then? Yes, it was. But those who made it to an advanced age were tough old birds who tended to go on practically forever. To take just one instance, Antigonos the One-Eyed, among the most famous of Alexander's generals, was killed in battle well after turning 80. Melon and his equally aged enemy, the Spartan Lichas, are relative youths.

Although, as noted, The End of Sparta deals with unfamiliar events, an untutored reader, aided by the historical notes, should have no trouble orienting himself. As for historicity, the author doesn't seem to have distorted the (not exactly abundant) established facts, though he has sometimes, as in the account of the pre-battle planning at Leuctra, chosen an account that makes a good story over the one that he himself believes to be most likely, and he engages in one piece of lexical stretching that I won't be so pedantic as to mention. Invented material is abundant but fits seamlessly, so much so that I'm willing to believe that there actually was a prophecy that putting an apple into their battle line would enable the Thebans to defeat the Spartans and that the architects of the walls of Messene calmed popular doubts about their blueprints by attributing them to a legendary hero. show less

This is a really superb and readable account of one of the most important and fascinating wars of all time. Much like Barry Strauss, at his best Hanson can elucidate the complex historical issues involved and yet write simply enough for the average educated reader interested in the topic yet not possessing a specialist knowledge.

This Greek civil war, between Athens and her allies and Sparta and her allies, lasted 27 years, from 431 to 404 B.C., and ended with the capitulation of Athens and show more its occupation by Sparta. Its interest for Victor Davis Hanson is in comparing Athens to the United States. At the outset of the war, Athens was the richest city in the world and, within Greece, the sole superpower, with an omnipotent navy. Athens was also a democracy, anxious to export her political system and way of life throughout the Greek world, if necessary by force. The war was fought because Sparta, a military oligarchy, feared Athenian imperialism and cultural dominance, and persuaded other Greek cities to join with it in an attempt to cut Athens down to size. Hanson sees the United States as sharing Athenian hubris and inviting nemesis by trying to export democracy to countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. The fact that Hanson himself supports American policy gives his book an ironic twist.

Hanson compares the conflict to World War I as a tragic and needless event that had nothing inevitable about it and might have been avoided by wiser counsels, and that exacted a huge human price from the participants. The fact that this was a civil war fought between belligerents who shared a common language and (to some extent) culture, added an extra dimension of bitterness. In the American Civil War, Hanson notes, 600,000 Union and Confederate troops died from combat or disease, that is 1 in 50 of a population of 32 million. But Athens, in the Sicilian expedition alone in the years 415-413 B.C., lost one in 25 of the people of her entire empire. The cost of this one campaign was four times what it took to build the Parthenon. Hundreds of triremes were sunk, normally with all their crews, as Hanson explains in a fascinating chapter on sea warfare. He says that, to keep 100 triremes at sea for a month required as much money as to stage in Athens a thousand tragedies, three times the number of plays written by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides in their entire careers combined.

Hanson rightly dwells on the cultural cost of the war because the fifth century B.C. was the golden age of Athenian culture. Not only were great statesmen like Pericles involved in the war, but so were writers and philosophers. Socrates had doubts about the wisdom of the war but, Hanson says, "those worries were not enough to prevent him from fighting heroically in her cause in his potbellied middle age." Euripedes criticized Athenian atrocities but still wanted Athens to win. Aristophanes, the great comic genius, denounced the folly of the war but remained patriotic. The war took a heavy toll on the Athenian political and military elite: a majority were killed or executed on campaign, died of wounds, or (like Pericles) of the plague that swept through overcrowded Athens, or were exiled for failure. It is hard to think of anyone, on either side, who "had a good war." The war seems to have ended forever that splendid Athenian self-confidence that was behind her extraordinary achievements in the fifth century B.C. It was "never glad confident morning again." show less

Victor Davis Hanson is one of the most preeminent military historians of our day and often when scholars switch gears to novels the end result is less than stellar. However, Hanson is one of those gifted historians who writes with elan and verve so he is well prepared for the transition to a literary work. He plunges us into a mysterious yet intriguing little known period in ancient Greece which is sound fodder for a novelist since we have little actual historical evidence to cull. The show more ancient historian, such as Hanson, is particularly adept at teasing out the implications of a little known historical account so he is well equipped for this work.

"The End of Sparta" recreates the largely unknown story of one of ancient Greece's greatest generals Epaminondas. In the mid 300s B.C., he led an army of several thousand Thebans, made up mostly of part-time warriors and full-time farmers, in a series of heroic battles against Sparta, the highly militaristic city-state whose economy presumed the labor of slaves. The Thebans were fighting for what they understood to be in the ancient word, freedom. The Spartans were fighting for their own self-preservation and to maintain their dominance of the surrounding region and status quo.

The work is epic in scope and Hanson succeeds in explaining and creatively expounding about what could have happened in the historical Epaminondas. General readers of historical fiction would likely enjoy this work and readers who enjoy history would likely read this work with profit as well. I am glad to see that Hanson did not disappoint here with his first attempt at a novel.

The work builds in tension and Hanson involves the reader in learning some Greek along the way. A first-time novelist might be pedantic but Hanson rightly concentrates on writing an intriguing story. One additional positive note is that he simply includes the Sacred Band within the story without highlighting or allowing their existence to waylay the story into a direction that detracts from the plot. Hanson is not wearing modern, political positions on his sleeve and then imposes his ideas on the reader. The story is strong enough and compelling on its own merits.

As a side note, Hanson also has had direct experience as a farmer so he is in a unique position to write about a largely agricultural society and this lends to his voice of authenticity. show less

An excellently readable account of ancient military histories, it almost reads like a narrative and pulls you in - so from this perspective: a great book. However, I have to admit, the author did not deliver on the implied thesis - how victim states of war end up completely annihilated by the victors. The majority of the discussion is about military strategy/tactics and political attitudes, even the end discussion gives reasons for military loss, which don't speak to annihilation. What show more reference is made feels a bit like victim-blaming - each case is somehow an example of naïveté (a word that's way overused in the text), or overconfidence, etc. Despite passing references to extremely similar cases which did not end in annihilation, we're not really given a core reason for what made these cases different, I feel. I mean, we get that maybe they made a decision not to capitulate, but again, that seems to be victim-blaming. The strangest explanation is that somehow foot soldiers went out of control, but I'm sorry, paving over the streets is a command decision. It makes little sense. In the end, we get analogies to present-day situations, Ukraine makes some sense (but, it's not over), other cases, less so. It also doesn't seem to dawn on the author that, if anything, we resemble Alexander, Rome, and Cortez more than Thebes, Carthage, or the Aztecs. So, thought provoking but less satisfying as a thesis, but great fun reading about ancient history. show less