With Sparta’s Third Attic War, Hillsdale history professor Paul Rahe delivers the sixth volume in his epic series on The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta. The project is perhaps more accurately characterized as a history of great power politics in the Greek-speaking world during the 5th century B.C., from the Persian Wars of the 490s and ’80s to the final defeat of the Athenians at Spartan hands. It is a tour de force of historical scholarship, standing alone as an integrated and continuous account of this period based on an impressive mastery of the vast secondary literature it has generated over the years in a variety of languages. This includes detailed topographical information and archeological evidence not always covered in studies of this kind. Also, and not least, Rahe’s narrative stands out for its meticulous and fair-minded attention to the Persian side of the story.
Achaemenid Persia has attracted growing interest from ancient historians in recent years, for reasons not altogether praiseworthy. The glories of Greece and Rome no longer excite the contemporary imagination as they once did, and it is increasingly common to see their histories subsumed in larger categories such as “ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern studies.” The hostility to all things “Western” expressed by many of today’s academics can hardly have failed
