ABSTRACT
Classical Greeks were conscious that they fought wars in a peculiar way. In the case of Herodotus and Polybius, at least, the description of warfare is itself part of the warfare. That is, understanding how the Persians saw Greek warfare is part of understanding the course of the subsequent Persian invasion of Greece. The wars of archaic Greek history tend to be precisely wars like the one Plutarch describes, in as far as they are wars between neighbours. It is important that the way in which what fifth-century and later Greeks told themselves about archaic wars is that they happened between neighbours and regularly did not lead to the taking over of the defeated enemy. One particularly complicated war between neighbours is that between Sparta and Tegea as told by Herodotus. The conflict between Sparta and Messenia is an exception to the general pattern because it involves subjugation of one party by another.
