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Hamel ( D. ) The Battle of Arginusae. Victory at Sea and its Tragic Aftermath in the Final Years of the Peloponnesian War . Pp. xx + 125, ills, maps. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press , 2015. Paper, £13, US$19.95. ISBN: 978-1-4214-1681-6 (978-1-4214-1680-9 hbk).
Reviews
The following is a compliment: this is not a scholarly book. H. presents a thoroughly readable, lucidly written account and analysis of two related events in the history of the Peloponnesian War and in the history of democracy - the Athenian victory over the Spartan fleet at the Arginusae islands in 406 and the Athenian people's subsequent decision to condemn and execute their victorious generals. These strategoi, in the view of the demos, had failed in their duty to secure the bodies or to effect the rescue of the Athenians killed or shipwrecked in the course of the engagement.
The book successfully elucidates the circumstances surrounding the battle and the generals' subsequent 'prosecution', and the non-specialist reader should find the work thoroughly accessible. The style is light and welcoming, verging on the informal and treating the reader as an intelligent partner in the enquiry rather than as an insensate vessel into which data and conclusions may be poured. Especially welcome are the succinct but hardly skimpy treatments of the risks run by late fifth-century Athenian leaders (who often fell foul of the demos and found themselves in precarious circumstances) and of the nature of the ancient trireme and the type of naval warfare it inspired...