with the tools to conduct such an inquiry. who perished in the wheat-bearing land of With only a limited bibliography and a Gela; paucity of notes, however, such an in- of his noble prowess the grove of Marathon quiry would prove daunting. can speak, Despite these minor issues, Horne’s work is instructive, especially because and the long-haired Persian knows it well. of the author’s consistent reminder of the fate awaiting those who ignore the It serves as one more reminder of past. In fact, such a theme could have why the past appears to be of little use to easily taken pride of place in this work. Americans who look forward to a brave Horne’s explanation of how the Battle of new world. Tsushima, the 1940 Blitzkrieg, and the Professor Paul Rahe has directly chal- Battle of Verdun persisted as analogies lenged those assumptions that history for the Japanese at Midway, for Hitler is bunk. His Grand Strategy of Classical during Barbarossa, and for the French in Sparta is a brilliant study of Spartan strat- Indochina, respectively, shows the power egy during the Persian Wars (500 to 479 analogies wield within the mind of the BCE) that deserves to be read by those decisionmaker. In fact, Horne’s examples few still interested in the conduct of grand provide additional evidence of the power strategy and the choices, good and bad, of historical analogy, much as Yuen Foong made by leaders under the pressures of Khong described in Analogies at War. war. He has laid out the obvious as well For Horne, the arrogant not only tend to as the underlying factors that eventually ignore history, but they also are heavily The Grand Strategy of Classical led to victory on the part of the Spartans inclined to extend beyond their abilities. Sparta: The Persian Challenge and their Greek allies against the great Indeed, Horne’s six examples demonstrate By Paul A. Rahe empire of Persia. The victory of the Greek the validity of Clausewitz’s concept of a Yale University Press, 2015 states was by no means inevitable. Their culminating point and the importance $34.95, 424 pp. opponents not only had an immense of reading the strategic context correctly ISBN: 978-0300116427 superiority in numbers, but from the be- to assess when such overreach will prove ginning also possessed an advantage in the detrimental. Given the complexity of the Reviewed by Williamson Murray general disunity of the Greek city-states. strategic environment in the Pacific and Thus, it took extraordinary political and ongoing operations in the Middle East, strategic skill for a few Greek leaders to such reminders are helpful. t the end of the 20th century hold their fragile alliance together. Finally, some may find Horne’s lack of and the beginning of the 21st For Sparta, its leaders, and their any prescriptive counters to the influence century, Americans and their A strategy, the problem was both internal of hubris to be a detriment. Yet this, too, military leaders have had all too little and external. On one side, they con- is a strength. With a prescription, one sense of the importance of history and fronted a deeply hostile population of can easily fall prey to “checking the box,” too little grasp of literature on thinking helots, whom they ruled with a ruthless- all while treading the path of hubris. about strategy and the role of military ness that still echoes through the ages. Instead, Horne cautions that hubris is power in the world. In fact, in the Those helots were essential to Sparta’s insidious. While one is most vulnerable to massive assault by the literati of the military power because they provided its effects during triumphant moments, intellectual world, America’s elites have the sustenance on which the economy the pathogen lingers. Thus, an awareness come to regard the dead men of ancient and warrior polis depended, since the of its presence is, for Horne, the best Greece as thoroughly suspect and not Spartans forbade any kind of industry or medicine of all. The knowledge of hu- worthy of serious study. In that regard, trade to its warrior citizens, whose sole bris’s infectiousness and the willingness to the stele (tombstone) that marked the business was preparation for war. Not admit one’s fallibility may prove the clos- grave of the great Greek dramatist surprisingly, the Spartans confronted the est thing to an inoculation against hubris Aeschylus identifies him as a veteran of potential of massive revolt among the and its most dangerous manifestation, the pitched battle between the Persians helots, revolts that their neighbors were peripeteia. JFQ and the Athenians at Marathon in 490 more than willing to support. Thus, they BCE, with no mention of his dramatic were deeply conscious of the importance triumphs. His memorial reads: Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Sanford, USAF, is of balancing their internal dangers with currently an Operations Officer and is a graduate the external threats in the Peloponnesus. Beneath this stone lies Aeschylus, son of of the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies Against Sparta’s ancient opponent, and the Test Pilot School. Euphorion, the Athenian, 116 Book Reviews JFQ 86, 3rd Quarter 2017 Argos, they waged a series of wars over Doing battle with the Medes and crowning were largely responsible for keeping the the centuries to maintain their superiority Athens alliance together, and then in the sum- in the Peloponnesus. For the Arcadians, mer of 479 BCE, the Spartan generals the other independent Peloponnesians, Very few, awaiting and welcoming war at directed the combined force of hoplites the Spartans bound their city-states as the hands of the multitude. to a great victory that ended the Persian tightly as possible to the Spartan regime. threat to Greek freedom. As Rahe underlines, Sparta maintained The Spartans arrived late for the In the largest sense, it was the superi- a highly successful strategy “designed to battle because of a religious festival, but ority of Greek strategy that would allow keep their Argives out, the helots down, it was not due to chance. The Persians’ them to hold onto their freedom. Rahe’s and the Arcadians . in.” intelligence on the Greeks obviously history, then, is crucial because it ties the But Sparta’s strategic approach would knew the Spartans and their religious sen- pressures of war and battles to the execu- work only so long as the Peloponnesus sibilities and struck the Athenians when tion of an effective strategy. Here, both confronted no external threat. And at the the Peloponnesians would not be avail- the Spartans and the Athenians proved end of the 6th century BCE, that threat able. The same factor in Sparta’s deeply far superior to their Persian opponents. appeared with the rise of Persia and the religious commitment to its traditions oc- Rahe sums up what the Spartans and their creation of a great empire lying to the curred a decade later. As Rahe points out, allies had achieved in the following terms: east of the Aegean. Rahe’s story then is Leonidas and the 300 would go down “That an alliance of small cities . should a brilliant account of how the Spartans to defeat in 480 BCE at Thermopylae stand up to and annihilate what was argu- adapted their strategy to an entirely because the main Spartan army was ably the largest army and most formidable different world that they had ruled detained at home celebrating a religious fleet ever assembled—this was and still so successfully in the past. It is a tale of festival in the Peloponnesus. is a wonder well worthy of extended great leadership, the difficulties of mak- Ten years after Marathon, the Persians contemplation.” For those interested in ing effective grand and military strategy returned with a massive land army and understanding strategy in the real world in the face of quarrelsome allies, and the navy. Here, the alliance between the and the price that men have been willing importance of the sharp end of combat. Spartans and the Athenians would hold to pay for their freedom, this is a book The Persian threat to the Greek city- together in spite of the extraordinary dif- well worth reading. JFQ states had begun to emerge at the turn ferences in their cultures and politics. The of the 6th century BCE as the Persians Athenian Themistocles, son of Neocles, spread their control over the Middle East perhaps the greatest strategist of all time, Professor Williamson Murray is the author or editor of over 20 books, most recently A and through Anatolia toward the Aegean. had seen the danger with the greatest Savage War: A Military History of the Civil War The city-states along the western fringes perception. Well before the Persians (coauthored with Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh). of Anatolia resisted, but received insuf- moved in 480 BCE, Themistocles had ficient military aid from the Greeks in the already persuaded his fellow countrymen Western Aegean to fend the Persians off. to spend the whole windfall they had re- It was inevitable that the Persians would ceived from their silver mines at Laurium attempt to spread their power and rule to expand the Athenian fleet instead of across the Aegean into Europe. In the spending it on themselves at a time when late 490s, they moved against the Greek the Persian threat still appeared distant. city-states on the mainland of Europe. It was as if in the present day and age, the Many Greeks “medized” (threw their lot American people agreed to spend their in with the Persians), but the Spartans entire social security payments on buying and the Athenians refused.