# History of the Peloponnesian War — Character guide

> Key figures in History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides.

- [Alcibiades](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/alcibiades.md): Alcibiades moves through Athens as its most brilliant and least trusted son—rich, beautiful, eloquent, and utterly unprincipled in the pursuit of glory. His rivalry with Nicias splits Athenian politics, and his hunger fo
- [Nicias](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/nicias.md): Nicias commands Athens' forces with methodical care, taking Minoa to tighten the noose on Megara, and he embodies the old aristocratic virtue of restraint in a city increasingly hungry for conquest. His deep piety and fe
- [Demosthenes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/demosthenes.md): Demosthenes, son of Cratesicles, is the general who thinks in ambushes, night attacks, and improvised fortifications rather than the set-piece battles Athens was raised on. He repeatedly pushes for bold strokes that his 
- [Brasidas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/brasidas.md): Brasidas breaks the Spartan mold: fast-moving, eloquent, and willing to risk his life at the front rather than wait behind walls. He understands that Sparta's strength lies not only in hoplites but in the grievances of A
- [Pericles](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/pericles.md): Pericles leads Athens at the height of its power, urging a defensive strategy of walls, fleet, and patience against Sparta's superior land army. His authority rests on persuasion rather than force, and Thucydides treats 
- [Cleon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/cleon.md): Cleon rises from the tanneries to dominate Athenian politics after Pericles' death, trading aristocratic restraint for a politics of fury and flattery aimed at the crowd. He attacks Nicias, pushes for harsh treatment of 
- [Gylippus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/gylippus.md): Gylippus reaches Sicily when Syracuse is already walled in and half-defeated, and he refuses to accept the cautious verdict of local commanders. A Spartan trained to seize the moment, he rallies allies, breaks the Atheni
- [Hermocrates](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/hermocrates.md): At the congress in Gela, Hermocrates argues that Sicilian Greeks should settle their quarrels before Athens exploits them, and his speech is a masterclass in strategic foresight. He is a democrat by conviction in a city 
- [Tissaphernes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/tissaphernes.md): Tissaphernes enters the war as the Great King's agent in the Aegean, holding the purse strings that both Greek powers covet. He plays Sparta and Athens against each other, trimming subsidies and promising ships he never 
- [Archidamus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/archidamus.md): Archidamus speaks against haste when Sparta's allies clamor for war, arguing that Athens' walls, navy, and wealth make a quick victory impossible. His caution is not cowardice but a soldier's respect for an enemy he know
- [Agis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/agis.md): Agis inherits the leadership of repeated invasions of Attica, but his most consequential campaigns unfold far from Sparta, in the north and eventually against Athens' allies. He is a commander of real initiative whose wi
- [Pausanias](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/pausanias.md): Pausanias is remembered as the general who led the allied Greeks against Persia at Plataea, the great land victory of the Persian Wars. But his later conduct as a semi-independent commander in the Aegean, and his suspect
- [Themistocles](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/themistocles.md): Long before this war, Themistocles persuaded Athens to build the fleet that made it an empire, and Thucydides treats his foresight as the hinge on which Athenian power turned. His restless brilliance won victories abroad
- [Phormio](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/phormio.md): Phormio commands the Athenian naval station in the Corinthian Gulf, where he is outnumbered but never outfought, using cramped waters and disciplined rowing to humble Spartan commanders. His cool professionalism contrast
- [Perdiccas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/perdiccas.md): Perdiccas rules Macedon from the war's northern edge, a kingdom too weak to dominate Greece but strong enough to tip local balances in Chalcidice and Thrace. His loyalty shifts with circumstance, and Athenian envoys find
- [Sitalces](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/sitalces.md): Sitalces rules the Odrysian kingdom, a sprawling Thracian realm whose cavalry and infantry Athens courts as a counterweight to Spartan influence in the north. His alliance with Athens is dynastic and fragile, tied to his
- [Phrynichus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/phrynichus.md): Phrynichus serves Athens as a commander in the Aegean, where he is cautious to the point of paralysis and, after a controversial decision, increasingly isolated from his own city's politics. His secret correspondence wit
- [Astyochus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/astyochus.md): Astyochus arrives in the east to lead Peloponnesian naval operations but quickly earns a reputation for hesitation, refusing battle when opportunity offers and alienating allies like the Syracusans and Chians. He becomes
- [Alcidas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/alcidas.md): Alcidas commands a Peloponnesian fleet dispatched to the Aegean, where his mission is to break Athens' grip on its rebellious subject states. Yet his instinct for self-preservation clashes with the boldness his allies ex
- [Paches](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/paches.md): Paches leads the Athenian force that finally breaks the revolt on Lesbos, a victory that puts an entire city's survival in his hands. He is a soldier caught between the demands of empire and the terrible speed of Athenia
- [Hippias](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/hippias.md): Athenian tyrant who later aided the Persians.
- [Harmodius](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/harmodius.md): Assassin of the tyrant Hipparchus, celebrated as a liberator.
- [Aristogiton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/aristogiton.md): Co-conspirator with Harmodius in the assassination of Hipparchus.
- [Lamachus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/lamachus.md): Lamachus is the soldier's soldier among the three commanders sent to Sicily, urging swift action while his colleagues dither over strategy and reputation. His willingness to risk everything for a decisive stroke contrast
- [Eurymedon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/eurymedon.md): Eurymedon is one of Athens' workhorse commanders, entrusted with fleets that carry both troops and the assembly's shifting instructions to distant fronts. His missions repeatedly place him at the hinge of events, where a
- [Laches](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/laches.md): Laches moves between the battlefield and the bargaining table, one of the men Athens trusts to sound out Sparta when both sides need breathing room. His measured temperament makes him a natural foil to more aggressive co
- [Thrasybulus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/thrasybulus.md): Thrasybulus serves Athens as a trierarch and general, a man whose loyalty to the democracy is as steady as his seamanship. He appears at moments when the city's internal factions threaten to undo its war effort, quietly 
- [Theramenes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/theramenes.md): Theramenes moves through Athens's darkest years as a man who can negotiate with oligarchs, democrats, and Spartans alike, always seeming to land on the winning side of a collapsing city. His gift for compromise is also h
- [Antiphon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/antiphon.md): Athenian orator and architect of the Four Hundred oligarchy.
- [Pisander](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/pisander.md): Athenian oligarch who helped establish the Four Hundred.
- [Charicles](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/charicles.md): Athenian general and member of the oligarchic regime.
- [Diomedon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/diomedon.md): Athenian general executed after the Battle of Arginusae.
- [Pharnabazus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/pharnabazus.md): Pharnabazus governs the rich northwestern provinces of the Persian empire, where Greek cities, Spartan generals, and Athenian envoys all compete for his favor and his treasury. He is a patient diplomat who understands th
- [Artabazus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/artabazus.md): Persian general and satrap involved in the war.
- [Xerxes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/xerxes.md): Persian king who invaded Greece in the earlier war.
- [Agamemnon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/agamemnon.md): Mythical king of Mycenae, leader of the Trojan War.
- [Theseus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/theseus.md): Legendary Athenian king and founder of the city.
- [Minos](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/minos.md): Mythical king of Crete, first to control the sea.
- [Eurystheus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/eurystheus.md): Mythical king of Mycenae who set Hercules' labors.
- [Atreus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/atreus.md): Mythical king of Mycenae, father of Agamemnon.
- [Cimon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/cimon.md): Athenian statesman and general, son of Miltiades.
- [Hagnon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/hagnon.md): Athenian general and founder of Amphipolis.
- [Hippocrates](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/hippocrates.md): Athenian general who died at the Battle of Delium.
- [Pagondas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/pagondas.md): Boeotian general who won the Battle of Delium.
- [Aristaeus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/aristaeus.md): Corinthian general who fought at Potidaea.
- [Melesippus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/melesippus.md): Spartan envoy to Athens before the war.
- [Clearidas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/clearidas.md): Spartan commander at Amphipolis under Brasidas.
- [Pedaritus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/pedaritus.md): Spartan governor of Chios who died in battle.
- [Therimenes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/therimenes.md): Spartan commander who died in battle.
- [Leon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/leon.md): Spartan commander sent to Chios.
- [Ramphias](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/ramphias.md): Spartan general sent to Thrace.
- [Philocharidas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters/philocharidas.md): Spartan signatory to the Peace of Nicias.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/history_of_the_peloponnesian_war_se/characters