Leuctra
Village in GreeceWikipedia
23
MENTIONS
10
EPISODES
9
PODCASTS
Search complete. 23 mentions across 10 episodes found for "Leuctra".
Sep 30, 2026
Geoffrey EdwardsNARRATOR
When, on the other hand, we wish to pay a compliment, we somehow or other praise in more eloquent strain the brave and noble work of some great soul.
Geoffrey EdwardsNARRATOR
Hence there is an open field for orators on the subjects of Marathon, Salamis, Plataea, Thermopylae, and Leuctra, and hence our own Cocles the Decii, Gnaeus and Publius Scipio, Marcus Marcellus, and countless others, and above all, the Roman people as a nation are celebrated for greatness of spirit.
Geoffrey EdwardsNARRATOR
Their passion for military glory, moreover, is shown in the fact that we see their statues usually in soldier's garb.
Geoffrey EdwardsNARRATOR
19.
2 HRS 10 MINS LATER
Geoffrey EdwardsNARRATOR
Witness Phalaris, whose cruelty is notorious beyond that of all others.
Geoffrey EdwardsNARRATOR
He was slain, not treacherously like that Alexander whom I named but now, not by a few conspirators like that tyrant of ours, but the whole population of Agrigentum rose against him with one accord.
Geoffrey EdwardsNARRATOR
Again, did not the Macedonians abandon Demetrius and march over as one man to Pyrrhus? And again, when the Spartans exercised their supremacy tyrannically, did not practically all the allies desert them and view their disaster at Leuctra as idle spectators? I prefer in this connection to draw my illustrations from foreign history rather than from our own.
Geoffrey EdwardsNARRATOR
Let me add, however, that as long as the empire of the Roman people maintained itself by acts of service, not of oppression, wars were waged in the interest of our allies or to safeguard our supremacy.
A. RodrigoNARRATOR
But once we produce in them a general agreement on this point, they will give ear to all the subsequent narrative.
A. RodrigoNARRATOR
End of chapter 5 Chapter 6 It was then the 19th year after the battle of Aegospotami and the 16th before that of Leuktra, 387-385 BC.
A. RodrigoNARRATOR
The year in which the Spartans made the peace known as that of Antokidas with the king of Persia, that in which also Dionysius the Elder, after defeating the Italiat Greeks in the battle at the river Helleporos, was besieging Rhegium, and that in which the Gauls, after taking Rome itself by assault, occupied the whole of that city except the capital.
A. RodrigoNARRATOR
The Romans, after making a truce on conditions satisfactory to the Gauls and being thus, contrary to their expectation, reinstated in their home and as it were now started on the road of aggrandizement, continued in the following years to wage war on their neighbors.
Donald KaganHOST
This was just carrying forward the principle that the Spartans had used in one way and another, and it turned out to be equally successful.
Donald KaganHOST
This sacred man was a tremendous fighting force and will play a critical role in the important battle of Leuctra.
Donald KaganHOST
Anyway, they managed to defeat in a hoplite battle, a Spartan force that is greater than they are.
Donald KaganHOST
It's not a real hundred percent hoplite battle.
Donald KaganHOST
There is a pressure from the Persians for a general peace.
Donald KaganHOST
The Athenians are not against that idea, but the same tale I told you last time.
Donald KaganHOST
There's no question that it happened at Leuctra, nobody doubts that, and the result was a renewal of the war with the Spartans taking the lead, aggressively moving into Boeotia as they had done every time before.
Donald KaganHOST
I think it's very worth mentioning that we don't have any case up to now, up to 371, in which the Boeotians and their friends and allies march into the Peloponnesus.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
Her haughtiness and high-handedness led to a revulsion of feeling which armed Athens and Thebes and their allies against her, 378, and made many a good Greek rejoice in the humiliation of this tyrant city, the friend of the great king, of the despot of Syracuse, and of the king of Macedon.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
With the defeat of Leuctra, three seventy-one, her influence in the north was at an end.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
New combinations brought other powers to the front and to Amyntas fresh troubles.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
The contest of seven years, three seventy-eight to three seventy-one, between Sparta on the one hand and Athens and Thebes on the other, left the field in northern Greece open to adventurers; and it was from Thessaly that Amyntas was next beset with danger.
38 MINS LATER
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
The principle of Epaminondas, to strike the enemy always in superior force, he so far improved upon that his main line of battle was always and everywhere superior in weight to that of the enemy, and the success of his application of it is seen in the fact that the Macedonian formation remained in vogue as the fighting system of the world until superseded by the Roman legion.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
The object proposed was so to strengthen the main line of infantry as to enable them to withstand and break any attacking force which they were likely to meet in the field.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
The ordinary depth of Greek battle array seems to have been from eight to twelve files, while the battle of Leuctra was won by the Theban left wing of fifty files crashing through the Spartans, only twelve files deep, and sweeping all before it.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
Now Thebans were of all others most likely to meet Philip in the field, and the problem was how to resist such a charge, how to meet the weight of a mass of men fifty deep.
Nick BarkerHOST
He has written more than 100 articles on various aspects of ancient and medieval military history as well as other historical topics from all periods, ranging from the history of opera to the runic alphabet to and recipients of the Victoria Cross.
Nick BarkerHOST
He is the author of Macedonian Phalangite versus Persian Warrior, Athenian Hoplite versus Spartan Hoplite, and Leuctra 371 BC, all from Osprey Publishing.
Nick BarkerHOST
He is, of course, a regular writer on here, and a regular on the Ancient Warfare podcast.
Nick BarkerHOST
The Persian king who invaded Greece in 480 BC is remembered for his defeat at the Battle of Salamis, but he was much more than that.
A. RodrigoNARRATOR
End of chapter five.
A. RodrigoNARRATOR
Chapter 6 It was then the nineteenth year after the battle of Aegospotami, and the sixteenth before that of Leuktra, 387-385 B.C., the year in which the Spartans made the peace known as that of Antalkidas with the king of Persia, that in which also Dionysius the elder, after defeating the Italiat Greeks in the battle at the river Helleporos, was besieging Rhegium, and that in which the Gauls, after taking Rome itself by assault, occupied the whole of that city except the capital.
A. RodrigoNARRATOR
The Romans, after making a truce on conditions satisfactory to the Gauls, and being thus, contrary to their expectation, reinstated in their home and as it were now started on the road of aggrandizement, continued in the following years to wage war on their neighbors.
A. RodrigoNARRATOR
After subduing all the Latins by their valor and the fortune of war, they fought first against the Etruscans, then against the Celts, and next against the Samnites, whose territory was conterminous with that of the Latins on the east and north.