Old Civs, New Leaders

[Patine]

Who would be good leaders for a classical Greek civilization, preferably those who haven't appeared before in the series?

Leonidas II.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Leonidas II.

I've gone through his Wikipedia page, but I can't seem to find anything remarkable about him?

 

[Patine]

I've gone through his Wikipedia page, but I can't seem to find anything remarkable about him?

The King of Sparta who led the 300 at the Battle of Thermopylae against the Persians is not remarkable or noteworthy?

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

The King of Sparta who led the 300 at the Battle of Thermopylae against the Persians is not remarkable or noteworthy?

So you meant Leonidas I instead of II?

 

[Patine]

So you meant Leonidas I instead of II?

Yes, sorry, wrong regnal number.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Thanks, but I was looking for more of a less pop-culturey figure. How's Pheidon of Argos?

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Thanks, but I was looking for more of a less pop-culturey figure. How's Pheidon of Argos?

Two other Greek leaders: Epaminondas, Pisistratus

 

[Caesar of Bread]

Who would be good leaders for a classical Greek civilization, preferably those who haven't appeared before in the series?

Three words: THIS IS SPARTA!
In other words, my first history lesson was on the Battle of Thermopylae (I went and go to a Greek Orthodox school). In third grade my "Greek culture/myth" (that's what I thought of her class as) teacher decided to pause on the language lessons and give us a lesson on Greek history. She told us about how Leonidas had valiantly lost his life alongside his soldiers against Persia. She had talked about how the numbers reduced to 300, and how Ephialtes became a traitor. (Then, next lesson, we had to learn some songs created during Ottoman rule [the Greek independence song?] and somewhat learned about Turkish rule in Greece)

My current history teacher has a flag in his classroom saying "Molon Labe", and I probably still want Leonidas for Greece, as he was a honorable hero who fought to the end.

 

[FishFishFish]

Who would be good leaders for a classical Greek civilization, preferably those who haven't appeared before in the series?

Cleisthenes (father of Athenian democracy), Solon (a law giver and reformist who enacted the Seisachtheia) or Peisistratos the tyrant (one of the first populists and founder of the Panathenaic Games) would be interesting Athenian leaders for Greece.

 

[AspiringScholar]

Three words: THIS IS SPARTA!
In other words, my first history lesson was on the Battle of Thermopylae (I went and go to a Greek Orthodox school). In third grade my "Greek culture/myth" (that's what I thought of her class as) teacher decided to pause on the language lessons and give us a lesson on Greek history. She told us about how Leonidas had valiantly lost his life alongside his soldiers against Persia. She had talked about how the numbers reduced to 300, and how Ephialtes became a traitor. (Then, next lesson, we had to learn some songs created during Ottoman rule [the Greek independence song?] and somewhat learned about Turkish rule in Greece)

My current history teacher has a flag in his classroom saying "Molon Labe", and I probably still want Leonidas for Greece, as he was a honorable hero who fought to the end.

That would be cool in my opinion stylistically and in the spirit of OP's query, but don't you think that Leonidas would be too much of a stretch, since Sparta's political system normally had two kings ruling simultaneously? Also, while still the figurehead and leader of the Spartans at Thermopylae, did Leonidas actually make any decisions himself other than to fight to the death which paint him as a character in any interesting way? I mean, we have Dienekes, Aristodemos and others who were named by Herodotus and also fought to the death (not the latter, but still), so putting Leonidas in feels a little bit hollow, because, while symbolic of great heroism, there's still little we can know about his personality, thoughts and actions, which otherwise color a leader and make interacting with fictional representations of them interesting.

Not trying to shoot down your suggestion by the way, but those are some questions about Leonidas which come to mind. Maybe someone like Themistocles or even Miltiades would be interesting replacements for Pericles, who feels a little worn-out at this point (and possibly overrated anyway)?

 

[Evie]

Thermopylae is one of the most overrated battles in history, in every imaginable way a *bad* defeat for the Greeks that all the Spartans did was keep from turning from a major disaster to a complete disaster. Its tangible military benefits to the Greeks overall were almost non-existent: three thousand men saved (armies measured in the high tens of thousands and low hundreds of thousands decided the Persian Wars, not a couple thousand survivors of Thermopylae), a couple days gained (out of a month-long delay between Thermopylae and Salamis). In most ways, the naval stalemate at Artemisium (where most of the Greek fleets escaped) did far more to prepare the Greeks for the decisive battle at Salamis than Thermopylae had ever done.

But the romantic last stand gave the Greeks a rallying cry, and that kind of rallying cry begs for legend-building, and for people giving *meaning* to the sacrifice.

 

[Caesar of Bread]

Thermopylae is one of the most overrated battles in history, in every imaginable way a *bad* defeat for the Greeks that all the Spartans did was keep from turning from a major disaster to a complete disaster. Its tangible military benefits to the Greeks overall were almost non-existent: three thousand men saved (armies measured in the high tens of thousands and low hundreds of thousands decided the Persian Wars, not a couple thousand survivors of Thermopylae), a couple days gained (out of a month-long delay between Thermopylae and Salamis). In most ways, the naval stalemate at Artemisium (where most of the Greek fleets escaped) did far more to prepare the Greeks for the decisive battle at Salamis than Thermopylae had ever done.

But the romantic last stand gave the Greeks a rallying cry, and that kind of rallying cry begs for legend-building, and for people giving *meaning* to the sacrifice.

Yeah. That's probably why (the last sentence) we learned about Thermopylae

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Thermopylae is one of the most overrated battles in history, in every imaginable way a *bad* defeat for the Greeks that all the Spartans did was keep from turning from a major disaster to a complete disaster. Its tangible military benefits to the Greeks overall were almost non-existent: three thousand men saved (armies measured in the high tens of thousands and low hundreds of thousands decided the Persian Wars, not a couple thousand survivors of Thermopylae), a couple days gained (out of a month-long delay between Thermopylae and Salamis). In most ways, the naval stalemate at Artemisium (where most of the Greek fleets escaped) did far more to prepare the Greeks for the decisive battle at Salamis than Thermopylae had ever done.

But the romantic last stand gave the Greeks a rallying cry, and that kind of rallying cry begs for legend-building, and for people giving *meaning* to the sacrifice.

Thermopolae is one of the two greatest 'Myth-making' battles in history. Without it, I doubt that more than a handful of us would know anything about Lacaedemonia as other than 'another Greek city state'. It is also one of my personal prime examples of the fact that winning or losing is immaterial to the Legacy or Myths surrounding a battle, and all too frequently 'losing well' (however that is defined) is more important in that context than winning.

All part of the larger context that Battle is not a rational act: as Frederick the Great succinctly put it: "A rational army would run away." Or as Louis XI of France commented when asked about his reluctance to fight battles: "I refuse to wager my kingdom to Chance."

But nothing stirs the blood like blood spilled and the observations of a conveniently-dead General.

The Game Problem is that it makes it very difficult to come up with a mechanism for getting Cultural or other non-concrete results out of a given battle, because the physical results of the battle may have no direct bearing on the mythological, social, or cultural effects from the battle.

 

[Evie]

And wouldn't we be *so much better off* if fewer people knew about Sparta/Lacademonia.

Or rather, if fewer people knew of the Spartan myth.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

And some other Leaders for Classical Greeks:
Brasidas - a far more successful Spartan than Heroic Legend Leonidas
Dionysius of Syracuse - Leader of the largest city in the Greek-speaking world.
Kleopatra of Epirus - I use the alternate spelling to remind everyone that this is NOT that simpering Ptolemaic 'Egyptian' - she's also one of the only legitimate female rulers of Classical Greece.

OR, something to think about, we could drop back and try one of the Mycenean Pre-Classical/Bronze Age (academically, the Helladic Period of Greek history) Greek Leaders: Nestor or Agamemnon, and put together a 'Greek' Civ that more closely resembles the Vikings than Periclean Athens!

 

[AspiringScholar]

OR, something to think about, we could drop back and try one of the Mycenean Pre-Classical/Bronze Age (academically, the Helladic Period of Greek history) Greek Leaders: Nestor or Agamemnon, and put together a 'Greek' Civ that more closely resembles the Vikings than Periclean Athens!

That would be pretty cool actually. Those who protest that Iliadic figures weren't properly "Greek" might be persuaded by the fact that Homer's poem basically constituted classical Greek cultural self-consciousness later anyway.

I would personally vote for Achilles, if dipping into the territory of legendary figures fits the ethos of the game elsewhere; then you could have something like Romulus or Numa Pompeius for Rome. That would give a lot of new flavor, since the actual historical civilizations as we know them did believe in the literal existence of these people and regarded them as "founding fathers."