“Iphicrates was among the finest and most prolific commanders Greece had ever seen.”

By Byron Waldron

AS A tactician, disciplinarian and reformer, the Athenian commander Iphicrates was among the finest in ancient history. Although rarely discussed today, in large part because little has survived in the way of detailed information about him, Iphicrates was praised by ancient authors, especially those interested in the art of command, including Xenophon, Cornelius Nepos, Frontinus and Polyaenus.

Reputedly the son of a shoemaker, Iphicrates came to prominence during the Corinthian War (395-387), which saw Athens and her allies attempting to break Sparta’s hegemony. He first won renown as a marine when he took captive an enemy officer and carried him to his own trireme, possibly at the Battle of Cnidus in 394 BC (Plutarch, Sayings, Iphicrates 1). He was subsequently elected general, aged only 20, and after Sparta’s victory in the Battle of Coronea (394), Athens ordered him to lead an army to assist the Boeotians. The details of the campaign are lost, but Iphicrates helped to ensure that the Boeotians remained a part of the anti-Spartan war effort. The Roman historian Justin (Historiae Philippicae 6.5) writes that never had an Athenian achieved comparable greatness from such an early age.

Iphicrates’ conduct must have impressed his fellow Athenians, for in 393 he was assigned a force of mercenaries garrisoned in Corinth (Philochorus fragm. 150). The campaign around Corinth was no easy task. The Spartan general Praxitas, together with the Sicyonians and Corinthian exiles allied to Sparta were by night admitted into the narrow ground that separated Corinth from its port at Lechaeum, enclosed by double-walls. The Spartans and their allies set up a stockade between the walls, and in the battle that followed, a coalition force of Argives, Corinthians and the mercenaries of Iphicrates failed to evict the intruders. In the tight space, the exiles and their mercenaries bested the mercenaries of Iphicrates, who managed to retreat with minimal casualties, while the Spartans defeated the Corinthians and rolled up the Argives on their flank, inflicting heavy losses. The Spartans then assaulted Lechaeum, defeating its Boeotian garrison (Xenophon, Hellenica 4.4.7-13; Diodorus, Bibliotheca historica 14.86.3-4).

Despite this inauspicious beginning, Iphicrates and his mercenaries soon developed a fearsome reputation. The young commander was vigilant in defending Corinth. On one occasion he is said to have slain a sentry as they slept on the job. In defending his conduct, he said that he had left him as he found him (Frontinus, Strategemata 3.12.2). His peltasts (javelineers) often skirmished with the Lechaeum garrison, and in one attack they provoked Sparta’s Mantinean allies to flee almost immediately (Xenophon 4.4.17). He often took his mercenaries on expeditions. He baited the army of the city of Phlius into an ambush and his peltasts inflicted heavy losses (Xenophon 4.4.15; Diodorus 14.91.3; Polyaenus, Stratagems 3.9.49, 54). He attacked fortified towns in the region of Arcadia, including Stymphalus. Here he supposedly planned to use sponges to flood the plain by blocking the throat of a sinkhole, only to desist due to bad omens (Strabo 8.8). Arcadia’s hoplites refused to give battle (Xenophon 4.4.16). Even Agesilaus, the warrior king of Sparta, avoided attacking Oenoe while Iphicrates’ mercenaries were present (Xenophon 4.5.3).

Greater successes followed. Buoyed by their earlier victories, in 392 the Corinthian exiles attempted to seize Corinth by night, and, as previously, they were admitted into part of the city. However, Iphicrates had a saying, that the worst words a general can utter is “I could not have expected that: (Plutarch, Sayings, Iphicrates 2; Polyaenus 3.9.17). Indeed, anticipating an attack on the city, he had secretly encamped his men in strategic positions around Corinth while maintaining a garrison within the city. As the exiles began to enter, they were assaulted from multiple sides and retreated in disorder, sustaining heavy casualties. Iphicrates had won his revenge for the prior defeat (Diodorus 14.91.2; Polyaenus 3.9.43, 45).

Iphicrates then led his mercenary peltasts against a mora of Spartan hoplites (a unit of 600 men) as they passed by Corinth on the way to Lechaeum. In the resulting Battle of Lechaeum, Iphicrates’ peltasts showered the Spartans with javelins, targeting their unprotected side, and then retreated as soon as part of the Spartan formation attempted to make contact. Every time Spartan hoplites broke formation in their failed attempts to pursue, they were attacked from the front and against their unprotected flank. Spartan cavalry arrived to assist the hoplites, but they failed to effectively threaten the peltasts. Finally, when Callias, the commander of the Athenian hoplites, marched to Iphicrates’ aid, the Spartans lost hope and fled, losing 250 out of 600 men (Xenophon 4.5.11-18).

The besting of Spartiates in battle was celebrated by the anti-Spartan coalition. Spartan armies in this period consisted of a small core of Spartiates supplemented by large numbers of subjects and allies, and so they could ill afford such a loss. The effect was immediate. Agesilaus had captured the Corinthian supply base of Oenoe, and Boeotian ambassadors had arrived at his camp to sue for peace. But when news arrived of the Battle at Lechaeum, the Boeotians made no further mention of peace (Xenophon 4.5.6-10).

Although Agesilaus managed to replace the defeated mora in Lechaeum with a fresh unit, as he could still send ships via the Gulf of Corinth, Iphicrates proceeded to restore the allied war effort. He recovered control over the Isthmus of Corinth, recapturing Sidus and Crommyon, which had been seized by Praxitas after the fall of Lechaeum, as well as the fortress of Oenoe (Xenophon 4.5.19). In this way he prevented Corinth from being surrounded and protected Athens itself. He also marched west towards the city of Sicyon, the headquarters of the Spartan war effort, where he located and attacked a Sicyonian ambush force, and defeated the Sicyonians in battle (Diodorus 14.91.3; Polyaenus 3.9.24). Consequently, the Spartans ceased to campaign in the Corinth region.

Iphicrates’ mercenaries developed a reputation for discipline and success. According to the Roman historian Nepos (De viris illustribus 11.2.1-2), “no soldiers in Greece were ever better drilled or more obedient to their leader.” He was a great orator reported: the philosopher Aristotle, (Rhetoric 1.7, 2.23, 3.10, 15); the Athenian statesman Demosthenes (49.9); Plutarch, Sayings, (Iphicrates); and Justin (6.5.5), which meant that he could inspire his men to undertake daring feats. But more than that Iphicrates was a clever tactician. He assaulted and captured a camp of the Spartans’ allies at a time when the two sides were expected to send out troops to forage, supposedly having dressed some slaves as soldiers to make it appear as though his men too were foraging, according to Frontinus (2.1.6) and Polyaenus (3.9.52). Near Epidaurus he used the threat of ambush to intimidate an enemy force into retreating and then captured the city. When his plunder-laden mercenaries were intercepted by the Laconian governor encamped on a hill near the city, Iphicrates sent part of his force against the enemy, and when the Laconians marched down from the hill, he seized the high ground and attacked their rear (Polyaenus 3.9.39, 48; Aristotle, Rhetoric 3.10). According to Iphicrates, light infantry were like hands, cavalry like feet, heavy infantry like the chest and breastplate, and the general is the head (Plutarch, Pelopidas 2).

Eventually, Iphicrates returned to Athens after he fell out with the Argives over control of Corinth, having put to death some of their partisans. In 391/0 he may have campaigned in Macedon to restore Amyntas III (the father of Philip II) to his throne. Amyntas was apparently so grateful that he adopted Iphicrates as his son (Aeschines 2.28).

In 389 he and his mercenaries were sent to the Hellespont to contend against Spartan efforts in Asia Minor, who were seeking to reverse the expansionist gains made by the Athenian war hero Thrasybulus (Xenophon 4.8.34). With 1,200 peltasts, Iphicrates advanced against the Spartan commander Anaxibius, who occupied a strong position near the city of Abydos, at the mouth of a defile by the coast, and intended to block Iphicrates’ march. But on a cold day, when an approach by the coast would not have been expected, the Athenian had his hardiest mercenaries rub oil over themselves and skirt the shoreline, wading and even swimming as they went. Arriving behind the Spartan position, at night they attacked the blockading force, prompting its retreat (Frontinus 1.4.7; Polyaenus 3.9.33).

For a time Iphicrates and Anaxibius raided each other’s allies, but in 388 Iphicrates appeared to put to sea with a fleet, as if to collect tribute elsewhere. It was a ruse. While Anaxibius marched his army down a mountain between the friendly cities of Antandros and Abydos, Iphicrates waited for the Abydene vanguard to reach the plain and rushed upon the Spartans while they were strung out. Anaxibius and a dozen or so pro-Spartan governors fell in the fighting (Xenophon 4.8.35-39; Frontinus 2.5.42). Iphicrates then blockaded the Spartan fleet of Nicolochus in Abydos until the Persian king Artaxerxes II brokered an end to the war in 387 (Xenophon 5.1.3-4, 12, 15).

After the war, the chronology of Iphicrates’ career becomes harder to follow. He restored to the throne Seuthes II, an Odrysian king in Thrace, musing that the Thracians may fight him boldly, as they did not yet know to fear his name (Plutarch, Sayings, Iphicrates 3). He ambushed a Thracian war band as it attacked his baggage train (Frontinus 1.6.3), and he defeated an Odrysian cavalry force (Polyaenus 3.9.60). When his column was attacked by Thracian skirmishers, he had his Odrysian prisoners march between him and the attackers to serve as a deterrent (Polyaenus 3.9.62). Most decisively, he ambushed a Thracian army as it marched towards his camp, having lit fires in the camp to misinform the enemy of his whereabouts (Frontinus 1.5.24, 2.12.4). Forging political connections, Iphicrates married the daughter of Cotys, another Odrysian leader, who presented him with a hundred octopuses among other gifts (Athenaeus 4.131).

One of the most dangerous political players of the 370s was the Thessalian conqueror Jason of Pherae, who was praised for his generalship by Xenophon (6.1.15) and wielded a large army of highly trained mercenaries and expert cavalry. Although we no longer have reliable details, there is evidence to suggest that Iphicrates campaigned successfully against the formidable opponent and secured a favourable treaty (Polyaenus 3.9.40). He is also said to have pressured Chios into an alliance with Athens by threatening to foster a slave revolt (Polyaenus 3.9.23), and he apparently rooted out a pro-Spartan faction in Chios after dressing up his marines as Spartans (Frontinus 4.7.23; Polyaenus 3.9.58).

Although it is unknown who the enemy was, Frontinus and Polyaenus report an incident where Iphicrates had his men fed prior to lunchtime and then deployed them for battle, so that the enemy soldiers had to follow suit and did not have a chance to eat. He then kept both armies in the field, having them wait in the afternoon sun. When he finally appeared to be withdrawing his own army back to his camp, the enemy army also returned to its camp. But almost immediately Iphicrates redeployed and marched against the enemy camp, killing many (Frontinus 2.1.5; Polyaenus 3.9.53).

In 377 the Persian king Artaxerxes requested that Athens send Iphicrates as a general, so that he could command mercenaries in the service of Persia numbering 12,000 or 20,000, depending on the source (Diodorus 15.29.3, 41.1-5). The Athenian proceeded to train the mercenaries so thoroughly that to be considered a ‘soldier of Iphicrates’ became a supreme honour among the Greeks (Nepos 11.2.4). Perhaps while in Persian employ, Iphicrates campaigned in Phoenicia. Here he had his soldiers jump from their triremes and wade in formation towards the shore, where they defeated an army awaiting them on the mudflats (Polyaenus 3.9.63).

In 374 Iphicrates and the Persian general Pharnabazus sailed to the Nile Delta to reconquer Egypt for Artaxerxes. The Pharaoh had heavily fortified the nearest entrance to the Delta, and so the Persian fleet kept to the open sea to avoid being detected and sailed further west. Landing his vanguard at the Mendesian Mouth, a different entrance to the Delta, Iphicrates took the local garrison by surprise and surrounded them in a battle outside their fortress. Having captured the fortress, Iphicrates urged Pharnabazus to march on the Egyptian capital of Memphis while it was relatively undefended, but Pharnabazus was suspicious of him and opted to wait for the rest of the army. The opportunity was lost. Memphis was garrisoned, the Nile flooded, and the Egyptians attacked the Persians with increasing confidence. Iphicrates and Pharnabazus withdrew. On the return voyage they continued to quarrel, and Iphicrates fled to Athens to avoid being arrested (Diodorus 15.42-43).

Having finished his service in the Persian army, Iphicrates developed ways to improve the efficacy of phalanx infantry. He replaced their large round shields with the light crescent-shaped shields of the peltasts, and he had them adopt linen armour (linothorax) instead of bronze breastplates and chainmail. Perhaps influenced by his father’s profession, he even invented light boots that were easy to untie, which became known as Iphicratids. These reforms allowed soldiers to be nimble on the battlefield while remaining protected. Moreover, he almost doubled the length of their swords, and he increased the length of their spears by half, to increase their range of attack (Diodorus 15.44; Nepos 11.1.2-4). Frustratingly, Diodorus adds that he “introduced many other useful improvements into warfare, but it would be tedious to write about them.”

These changes appear to have inspired the Macedonians, who, by the reign of Philip II, were equipping their phalanx infantry with long pikes and small shields. Perhaps not coincidentally, in the 360s Philip had taken refuge with Iphicrates, who was, after all, Philip’s adoptive brother (Aeschines 2.28-29; Nepos 11.3.2).

In 373 Athens again awarded Iphicrates a command against the Spartans. Sparta was besieging Athens’ ally, the island of Corcyra, and the previous Athenian general Timotheus had already been dismissed for taking too long to muster a fleet. The contemporary Xenophon, a commander himself, praises Iphicrates for mustering the fleet quickly and for keeping the fleet battle-ready and well-protected while never delaying the voyage (6.2.27-32): he had the sailors row rather than sail; he made the ships race each other and had the fleet change between formations as it travelled; he rested his sailors at sea; and whenever they needed to make landfall, he posted sentries not just on land but in the masts, and he kept fires burning in front of his camp, so that no-one could approach unobserved.

The Spartans lifted the siege before Iphicrates’ arrival, but the Athenian seized the towns on the island of Cephallenia, and intercepted and captured a Syracusan flotilla headed for Corcyra, making the commander his prisoner (Xenophon 6.2.33-39; Diodorus 15.47.7, 16.57.2-3; Polyaenus 3.9.55). He then campaigned against the Thyrians in Acarnania, and in 372/1 he captured locations in Lacadaemonia itself, the Spartan homeland (Xenophon 6.2.38, 4.1).

In 371 Epaminondas of Thebes won a crushing victory over the Spartans in the Battle of Leuctra, and in 370, on the invitation of the Arcadians, he and Pelopidas invaded the Peloponnese. With that, the geopolitical strategy of Athens changed. It was now necessary to prevent Thebes from becoming too powerful, and the Athenian Assembly chose Iphicrates to campaign on Sparta’s side. The details of the campaign are uncertain. Iphicrates attacked fortified towns in Arcadia (Xenophon 6.5.49), and according to Nepos (11.2.5, 17.6.1), he thwarted the plans of Epaminondas, as his imminent arrival, together with the defensive efforts of Agesilaus, persuaded the Theban not to attempt an attack on Sparta itself. Iphicrates was criticized for not attacking Epaminondas, but he noted that the Thebans outnumbered them, and that Theban morale was high (Polyaenus 3.9.28).

As it was already late in the campaigning season, Epaminondas allowed his allies to return to their homes, and he withdrew from the Peloponnese. Iphicrates attempted to trap them in the Peloponnese, outmarching Epaminondas and seizing the passes of the Isthmus of Corinth. However, due to the small size of his force, he posted most of his men on the hill of Oneum, which allowed Epaminondas to march along a coastal route at Cenchreae (Xenophon 6.5.50-52). Ultimately, neither general sought to bring the other to battle, as they likely had a healthy respect for each other’s talents and understood the risks.

In c. 367 the Athenians tasked the aging Iphicrates with making war on their old ally Amphipolis, a city on the Thracian coast. However, the Macedonian usurper Pausanius had seized numerous cities in Macedon and enjoyed the support of most Macedonians. The Macedonian queen Eurydice and her sons Perdiccas and Philip (the future Philip II) took refuge with the general, and Iphicrates agreed to again lead an army into Macedon, where he defeated and ousted Pausanius (Aeschines 2.26-29).

He then marched on Amphipolis and took Amphipolitan hostages from a figure named Harpalus. However, he appears to have failed to secure Amphipolitan obedience, and in c. 364 he was replaced by Timotheus, who continued to campaign unsuccessfully against the city (Demosthenes 23.149). Perhaps because of his failure, or because his familial connections in Macedon and Thrace prompted suspicion in Athens, Iphicrates did not return to Athens.

Instead, he joined the service of Cotys, his Odrysian father-in-law. Cotys had become an enemy of Athens, and Iphicrates defeated an Athenian fleet sent against him. However, when Iphicrates, out of patriotism, refused to march against Athenian strongholds, he fell out with the Thracian and withdrew from the Odrysian court (Demosthenes 23.129-136; Athenaeus 12.532).

Eventually, Iphicrates returned to Athens, although the details are obscure. Timotheus vowed to indict him for usurping civic rights, but instead he forged an alliance with Iphicrates, having his daughter marry Iphicrates’ son Menestheus (Demosthenes 49.66).

Iphicrates is last attested as a commander in 356, when Menestheus was tasked with assisting the Athenian general Chares against the rebellion of Chios. Menestheus received his father as an advisor or co-commander as well as his father-in-law Timotheus, but due to bad weather, the three men refused to follow Chares into a naval battle at Embata (Diodorus 16.21; Nepos 13.3.2-5). Chares was defeated, and in 355 he prosecuted his fellow generals for treason. Iphicrates accepted responsibility but successfully defended himself, not just because of the speech he made in his defence, but apparently because he placed armed men among the audience and brandished his sword (Ten Orators 3d; Polyaenus 3.9.15, 29).

Iphicrates died between 355 and 348 (Demosthenes 21.62). One can only speculate on how he might have navigated the wars that were fought between Athens and his adoptive brother Philip. During his trial he noted that war surrounded Athens, and he questioned why the state was deliberating against him rather than with him (Plutarch, Iphicrates 4). This may reflect an awareness that the geopolitical situation was becoming more fraught. But by the time of his death, there was no denying that Iphicrates was among the finest and most prolific commanders Greece had ever seen. A self-made man, he had joined the families of royalty, and his fame had reached the king of Persia. In the view of Nepos (9.1.1), Iphicrates was comparable to the greatest leaders of the period, and no-one from earlier times surpassed him.

 

Byron Waldron is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Cyprus. Here he conducts research for the project ‘Group Minds in Ancient Narrative’, which is funded by the European Research Council. Byron is the author of Dynastic Politics in the Age of Diocletian, AD 284-311 (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), and has written articles on Latin literature, Roman history and Persian history for edited volumes and journals, including the Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, the Journal of Late Antiquity and Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik. He has also written documentaries for HistoryMarche, including popular series on Aurelian and the Third Samnite War.