Six Glorious Ancient Greeks Who Had an Inglorious End

Ancient Greek history is full of glorious men who have left an indelible mark through their military genius, courage, artistic greatness, political savviness, and exceptional statesmanship.

Their statues grace monuments, city squares, and government buildings. In their portraits, they gaze magisterially from history books, as if expecting future generations to appreciate and laud their feats.

However, some of these men we now revere as heroes did not have an end that was befitting for their importance. Their lives ended in poverty or disgrace and in undignified death.

Socrates drank the conium

Socrates (c. 470-399 BC) is the father of Western philosophy. This is a most appropriate title for one of the most influential philosophers in history. As a sculptor who was told by the Oracle of Delphi that he was the wisest man in the world, he confirmed that by declaring that he knows nothing of importance.

What we have learned about Socrates is through Plato, his most loyal student. There are no texts written by himself, but his philosophy is communicated through Plato’s writings, the famous Plato’s dialogues that have survived. The Socratic method of questioning is dialogues in the form of short questions and answers. The philosophy of Socrates has also been communicated via philosopher and historian Xenophon.

In 399 BC, the ancient Greek philosopher was formally accused of impiety to the gods of Athens and of corrupting youth. The accusations were initiated by a poet named Meletus who asked for the death penalty. Socrates was tried by a jury of hundreds and found guilty.

Although he was given the chance to propose an alternative punishment for himself after being found guilty, he did not choose to do so. He could have requested permission to flee Athens and live in exile, but he decided otherwise.

According to Plato, he proposed receiving free meals from the city on a daily basis in recognition  of his contribution to Athens or receive a fine. Yet, the jurors insisted on the death penalty by making him drink a cup of hemlock poison. On his last day in prison, friends visited him and offered to help him escape, but he rejected their help.

Miltiades: From the marathon victory to the Paros failure

To a large extent, the Battle of Marathon victory belongs to Miltiades (c. 550-489 BC), the Athenian general and politician who led the outnumbered Greeks to defeat the Persians in their first invasion of Greece in 490 BC.

Following this great achievement, he was highly honored by his fellow citizens, and having the consent of the demos in the spring of 489 BC, he headed the campaign to clear the Cycladic islands of the remaining Persian garrisons so as to punish those islands that had allied with the Persians.

Ancient Greek historians such as Herodotus and Plutarch, as well as later historians, do not seem to agree with each other. There is also a version of the event that Miltiades asked the Athenians for seventy ships and an army without telling them against whom he would campaign. He simply promised them that if they followed him, they would be rewarded with riches.

The Athenians thus followed him blindly, enthusiastic after the triumph at Marathon. It seems, however, that after the Athenians landed on several Cycladic islands and drove out the Persian garrisons, they sailed to Paros under the pretense that the islanders helped the Persians at Marathon by giving them a trireme.

The Athenians laid siege to the island, and Miltiades asked the Parians for a hundred talents to break the siege. The islanders declined and resisted bravely for twenty-six days. During the siege, Miltiades was wounded in the knee and was forced to retreat. He returned to Athens without bringing the riches he had promised. This displeased the Athenians.

His opponents, the Alcmaeonidae aristocratic dynasty led by Xanthippos, father of Pericles, found an opportunity to accuse him of lifting the siege of Paros because he was bribed by the Persians.

In the trial that followed, Miltiades was unable to defend himself and was bedridden. His friends who undertook to defend him mentioned both the battle of Marathon and the capture of Lemnos by Athenian troops, led by Miltiades.

The great general escaped the death penalty, but was fined fifty talents. That seems to have been the expenses of the campaign. Miltiades soon died of gangrene. According to Herodotus, it was Kimon’s son who paid the fine. Other sources state it was paid by Kallias, a rich Athenian who married Miltiades’ daughter and Kimon’s sister, Elpiniki. Despite his indictment, Miltiades was honored by the Athenians and buried on the battlefield of Marathon in a separate tomb.

Pausanias: The victorious general of Plataea who was starved to death

The Battle of Plataea in 479 BC was the battle that sealed the end of the Persian Wars and and Persian presence on Greek soil. It was when an allied army of city-states, led by general Pausanias, literally kicked the Asian invaders out of ancient Greece.

Pausanias was born in Sparta between 515 and 510 BC. After the victory at Plataea, he led the Greek fleet first to Cyprus, of which he captured a large part, and then to Byzantium, a rich, heavily-fortified supply base of the Persians. Pausanias brought back to Sparta treasures and several captured prominent Persians.

However, his success made him arrogant and overly ambitious. He chose to live as a Persian magnate. Pausanias surrounded himself with Egyptian and Persian bodyguards, wore lavish Persian clothes, and lived in luxury. Once, he sent a letter to Xerxes, which was preserved by Thucydides, asking him to marry his daughter. He also promised him that he would turn Sparta and the rest of Greece into a Persian province.

Xerxes readily accepted Pausanias’ proposal. This move greatly disturbed the Greek allies and the Spartans acquitted him. At the same time, the Ionians of Asia Minor abandoned Sparta and offered the leadership of their united forces to Athens. This was the beginning of the subsequent naval Athenian hegemony.

In his homeland, the ancient Greek general was accused of being a traitor. He was found guilty of several minor misdemeanors but was acquitted of treason either because he bribed the magistrates with gold or because his arguments that his relations with Xerxes was a stratagem of war were believed

Pausanias continued negotiations with Xerxes. The ephors had strong suspicions of his actions but no proof. He was also accused of trying to incite a revolution among the helots to whom he promised freedom and political rights. The testimony of a helot at the expense of a distinguished Spartan was not well accepted.

Pausanias would have been acquitted again if a servant of his, acting as a messenger in his contacts with Artavazos, did not present a letter from Pausanias to the Persian satrap. Again, the prefects maintained their reservations until they overheard the conversation of Pausanias with his messenger, hidden in the sanctuary of Poseidon at Tainarus.

From that conversation, the guilt of the great general became crystal clear. The ephors  decided to arrest him, but he fled and sought asylum in the temple of Chalkioikos Athena. The ephors built the doors of the sanctuary so Pausanias would starve to death inside. In order for the temple to not be desecrated by his death, they tore down the roof and removed the victor of Plataea just before he died.

Herodotus doubts Pausanias’ guilt while Thucydides takes it for granted. More recent studies have indeed shown that Pausanias had deviated but essentially paid for it with the loss of Sparta’s hegemony in Greece.

The great sculptor Phidias and his gold

Phidias was one of the greatest ancient Greek sculptors of antiquity. He was the creator of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the 41-foot (12.4 meter) tall statue of the seated Zeus at Olympia.

Having risen to great heights around 490 to 430 BC, he was also a painter and architect, and his name was closely connected with that of Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens. Pericles assigned him the general artistic creation, supervision, and decoration of the buildings of the Acropolis and especially the Parthenon.

Phidias was the first who combined ivory and gold in sculpture and used both in the famous chryselephantine statue of the Virgin Athena (438 BC). Furthermore, he most probably designed the sculptures of the Parthenon. It is said of him that he had seen the exact  image of the gods and then revealed it to man.

However, political opponents of Pericles accused Phidias of misappropriating part of the Athena statue’s ivory and gold. Phidias, in turn, detached the golden tunic of the statue—without causing any damage—and weighed it. This way, he proved that the accusations were nothing but slander.

His enemies, however, also sued him for disrespect, accusing him of portraying Pericles and himself on the shield of the goddess. According to Plutarch, he was imprisoned and perished in prison as a result of disease or poison, treacherously given to him by Pericles’ enemies.

According to another version of Phidias’ fall from grace, he was not imprisoned but escaped and went to Ilia, where he built the famous golden-ivory elephant statue of Olympian Zeus. He was then killed by the Ilians after being sentenced to death a second time for basically the same reason as the first.

Once again, problems arose as to which of the two statues—Zeus or Athena—was crafted earlier. The temple of Olympian Zeus was completed in 456 BC. Phidias probably worked in Ilia, returned to Athens at the invitation of Pericles, and spent the last years of his life in Ilia.

The self-exiled historian, Thucydides

Thucydides, the greatest historian of all time, according to many, was born in Alimos, Attica around 460 BC and was the son of Olorus. His family must have had Thracian blood, judging by his father’s (Thracian) name and the large tracts of land with ores that he owned in Skapti Yli.

In 424 BC, the ancient Greek historian assumed the office of general. As a general, he was sent to defend Amphipolis by the Lacedaemonian General Brasidas. However, he did not succeed and saved only the port of Amphipolis, Iona. He was then accused of treason and sentenced to death. That is why he was forced to self-exile in his estates in Skapti Yli.

The ancient Greek historian remained in exile for twenty years and traveled to Macedonia, the Peloponnese, and probably to all the battle sites of the Peloponnesian War. With his twenty-year stay in exile, he was able to witness events from a detached and independent perspective and judge the Athenian state objectively.

In 404 BC, a general amnesty was granted to all exiles, and Thucydides returned to Athens. According to one version of events, he remained in the city until his death (between 399 and 396 BC), while according to another, disappointed by what he encountered, he returned to Skapti Yli, where he passed away.

Pyrrhus: The king of Epirus who died in Argos

According to Plutarch, Hannibal ranked Pyrrhus as the greatest commander in the world. His victorious battles are to thank for the phrase “Pyrrhic victory,” meaning a victory with great losses for the winner.

The ancient Greek king of Epirus, Pyrrhus, was born in 319 BC. This was during the Hellenistic period. He became ruler at the age of twelve and allied himself with Demetrius, son of Antigonus I Monophthalmus of Macedonia.

After he was dethroned by an uprising in 302 BCE, Pyrrhus fought beside Demetrius in Asia and was sent to Alexandria as a hostage under the treaty between Ptolemy I Soter and Demetrius. Ptolemy became friends with Pyrrhus, and in 297, helped him get his kingdom back. Pyrrhus reigned along with a relative, Neoptolemus, but soon had him assassinated.

In 294, he took advantage of a dynastic quarrel in Macedonia and managed to obtain several frontier areas. He later had Corcyra and Leucas given to him in a marriage dowry. Pyrrhus went to war against his former ally, now Demetrius I Poliorcetes of Macedonia, and took Thessaly and the western half of Macedonia while he relieved Athens from Demetrius’ siege. He was driven back into Epirus by Lysimachus in 284.

When Tarentum (in southern Italy) asked for Pyrrhus’s assistance against Rome, he crossed the Ionian with about twenty-five thousand men and won a complete, if costly, victory over a Roman army at Heraclea.

In 279, the ancient Greek king beat the Romans once again in Ausculum. He then crossed to Sicily and conquered most of the Punic province except Lilybaeum. The Sicilian Greeks, however, revolted against him, and Pyrrhus returned to Italy. In 275, he suffered heavy losses in a battle against Rome at Beneventum.

When he left Italy to return to Epirus, Pyrrhus saw his army dwindling down while all the spoils of war had been wasted. He continued, however, to wage wars. The next year, he defeated the new Macedonian ruler, Antigonus II Gonatas in the Battle of the Aous. His strategy had the enemy troops hailing Pyrrhus as king.

In 272 BC, he was summoned to Sparta by Cleonymus, an unpopular royal who wanted to reclaim the throne. Cleonymus promised him that, in return, he would let him take control of the Peloponnese. However, the Spartans fought bravely and did not allow Pyrrhus to win. In addition, the Epirote lost his firstborn son, Ptolemy, in the battle.

Immediately after, Pyrrhus was called to Argos to intervene in a civil dispute. Since Antigonus Gonatas was approaching too, the Epirote king took his soldiers to the narrow streets of Argos, which were crowded by hostile troops.

While Pyrrhus was fighting an Argive soldier, the soldier’s mother, who was watching from a rooftop, threw a tile which knocked him off his horse and broke part of his spine, thereby paralyzing him. A Macedonian soldier named Zopyrus saw him down and beheaded Pyrrhus, according to Plutarch.

When Antigonus arrived in Argos, he cremated Pyrrhus’ body with all the honors.