Lamachus
Lamachos
Athenian general of the Oeneid tribe, veteran of the Archidamian War (Aristophanes's *Acharnians* 566–622 of 425 BC ridicules him as the war-party's archetype with the Gorgon-shield). Third co-commander of the Sicilian Expedition alongside Nicias and Alcibiades, proposing at the first war-council in southern Italy that the fleet should sail immediately on Syracuse before the Syracusans could prepare — the boldest and, Thucydides 6.49 implies, the right option, which Nicias and Alcibiades overruled in favour of the diplomatic approach that cost the expedition a year. Killed in a cavalry skirmish on the Syracusan siege-lines in summer 414 BC (Thuc. 6.101.6) — his death removed the one commander of the three willing to take risks, leaving Nicias's passivity and Alcibiades's already-recalled absence to run the siege into the ground.