ABSTRACT
Thucydides seems to have given us strangely distorted portraits of leading military figures in the Peloponnesian War—Brasidas, Demosthenes, Pericles, Nicias, Cleon. The Thucydidean Brasidas, romanticized as a war-hero, has fired the imagination of modern historians, rather at the expense of his Athenian contemporaries. In August 427 Brasidas, again as "adviser", joined the admiral Alcidas as he lay before Corcyra with 53 ships, preparing to crush a democratic revolt there while the main Athenian fleet was out of the way. Alcidas attacked the large Corcyrean fleet which came out to meet him, and threw it into confusion, but was prevented from following up his advantage by the 12 Athenian ships present. Brasidas' reaction was quick and decisive. When Brasidas returned to Torone with his army he found his new allies immobilized. The lack of a larger strategic vision, indeed, would seem to be where Brasidas himself fell short of real greatness.
