Brasidas
Brasidas
Son of Tellis the Spartiate, the most distinguished Spartan field-commander of the Archidamian War (the first phase of the Peloponnesian War, 431–421). Thucydides 4.84.2 calls him 'unusually gifted in speaking, for a Spartan' — the diplomatic register of the Acanthus speech (4.85–87) and the Amphipolitan negotiation (4.103–106) is the clearest evidence. Wounded in 425 trying to force a landing at Pylos when his shield slipped from his arm into the sea and was used by the Athenians for the trophy (Thuc. 4.12.1). In summer 424 marched 1,700 hoplites — seven hundred emancipated helots and a thousand Peloponnesian mercenaries — north through Thessaly to Thrace and detached from Athens the cities of Acanthus, Stagira, Argilos, and most importantly the strategic foundation at Amphipolis (Thuc. 4.78–108). Athens exiled the historian Thucydides for the loss of Amphipolis (Thuc. 5.26.5). Killed in the second battle of Amphipolis in summer 422 — wounded mortally on the field, carried into the town with the breath still in him, lived to hear of his troops' victory (Thuc. 5.10.11). Buried in the city as founder-hero with annual sacrifices and games; the Heroon of Brasidas was excavated at Amphipolis in 1984 with the larnax and the gold wreath of the cult.