Was the Sicilian Expedition the biggest idiocy in history?

Both turned out rather poorly. I wonder if the crusade had a higher percentage of fatalities.

the situation they thought they were walking into was way different from what it was. they thought their ally was super rich and would help them out, but in reality they were pretty helpless.

Problem was not giving enough power to Alcibiades or someone else. Athenian democracy needed a strong man in the lead, without is was just the rule of the mob.

It should be pointed out that this was definitely Thucydides' view as well; whether this coloured his depiction or not, he difinitely had a bias in revealing the flaws of the Athenian democracy.

And he was probably right. In fact I would call the Athenian judicial system a pretty big idiocy in history as well; if Alcibiades didn't face potential capital punishment, he might not have defected.

New to the thread, but I don't know. Sicily enjoyed a massive local cavalry advantage, and while that doesn't mean a huge deal in a pitched battle, Greek cav being what it is, it means a hell of a lot in the circumvellation game that was the war in Sicily.

Yeah, maybe someone like Alcibiades could have overcome it, but the Sicilians aren't exactly pushovers, and he would definitely have his work cut out for him.

tl;dr, I think you're making too much of individual commander,s and not looking at the practical problems in a Sicilian expedition.

The lesson is, don't name things you want to succeed "Barbarossa" - you're just asking for trouble.

kek

He broke the dicks off the herms, sacrilege of that magnitude can't go unpunished.

Seriously?

The herm statue desecration was done by a group of aristocratic youth, but I don't know if it was ever proven Alcibiedes had a part in it.

It is interesting that the Greeks thought small penises were more aesthetically pleasing.

Well only animals have huge dongs. Go ask /pol/ what beasts masquerading as men have the largest dongs.

Someone broke the dicks off, Alcibiades got charged for it by his personal enemies while he was away.

It wouldn't have been if Alkibiades was the commander.

And how would he have prevented the Sicilians from outbuilding his own walling attempts what with them having close to a 3:1 cavalry advantage, perfect for sniping at wall-building parties?

Probably side-by-side with the Maginot Line.

Did you even read Thucydides? He almost one but then the cool and sober Nicias messed everything up and Athens called Alcibiades to trial.

Why a k? Can you explain to me the ancient Greek pronunciation of their letters. I looked into Latin enough to find out that v's were w's and that c's and g's are always hard but old Greek pronunciation eludes me.

Allegedly, although in all fairness I don't believe any primary sources mention what kind of desecration was done. I believe that modern scholars believed this to be the most obvious thing that happened or had their arguments.

There is no letter "c" in the Greek alphabet. Any name or place spelled with a c is Latinized and can be written with a kappa instead.

But how is it pronounced? Always hard? What about the rest of the gang?

You ever read modern historiography as opposed to a guy who has biases all over the place? I'd recommend A War Like No Other, by VDH, for starters. Even before the arrest, the local forces joining and especially supplying the expedition never turned up, and Alcibiedes's plan at this point centered on trying to create an internal revolt in Syracuse, of which we have no information whatsoever if that was a plausible plan.

They were never close to investing the city, and their best hope was that as long as the fleet remained intact, they'd always be able to pull out; when that fleet was beaten, they were done for, siege or no.

Well, if you want to get technical the word Alkibiades is still miles away from the original greek.

Fair enough, I should probably read a modern historian on this. I think I only have Kagan on my backlog, soon I'll read him InshaAllah.

So could you explain how ancient Greek was pronounced? It is difficult to find information on this topic. If anyone can point me to a book or video, that would be good too.

The name is pronounced Al-ki-vi-a-thees ('th' as in 'then' or 'this') Anglo-Saxons tend to turn v into b and th into d when translating greek words.

desu I'm not sure where you can find recources on ancient greek. The only reason I can pronounce it right is by being greek myself. I would start by looking it up personally.

But I'm sure ancient and modern Greek are very different, no? Especially when it comes to pronunciation.

Stop using "idiocy" like you understand all the context

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme

Hilarious. Biggest fuck up in history.

I can't think of one time the waging more war to better wage the existing wars strategy ever worked

Fun fact: none of them ever said that. Just because their body statues, most of which don't depict them doing sexual acts as that was even considered obscene back-then, don't have large erect dicks going on doesn't mean they loved small benises. Reason why they were so large in vase-paintings is because many of them were influenced and depict scenes of popular comedies and satyr plays of their day, both of which used overly large dick-props so everyone in the theatre (which ones like the one in Athens during the Dionysius festival drew crowds of 10,000 - 15,000) could see it -- same reason why they wore large masks that typically visually depicted emotions of what the character in the play would act like.

It's up there on the list. I always cringe at the thought of the Athenians gambling thousands of their citizens away. I also feel sorry for all those Athenian soldiers enslaved away in the marble pits of Syracuse where they all died.