This plan of exhaustion—the enemy would tire itself out without getting inside the Long Walls of Athens or disrupting its empire—counted on time and patience insidiously to do their work.52 If Athens’ immediate strategy did nothing to prevent a war, its ultimate logic might at least achieve a stalemate that, in turn, would be defined as victory: (1) evacuate the rural population and infantrymen inside the walls for a month or so during the annual Spartan invasions; (2) keep morale high, mitigate losses, and defend the countryside through cavalry patrols and rural garrisons; (3) launch naval
...more
