DECISIONS ABOUT DELIUM
I was not interested in conducting an exercise of the not very well known but quite important engagement that took place in 424 BC between an army of Boeotians commanded by Pagondas and an army of Athenians led by Hippocrates. [1] However, I do think that a demonstration of the historical battle of Delium, in the capable and talented hands of someone like Simon Miller, or Simon MacDowall, or James Roach, or Ron Ringrose, or Rick Priestley, or the Perry brothers, would certainly be a crowd pleaser as well as offer an excellent showcase of the hobby. [2] What did attract my interest was staging a refight of Delium wherein, if I may borrow the words of the venerable Donald Featherstone, I would try to "follow the original course of events reasonably well, but allow some leeway, without too much imaginative stretch, for a reversed result". (Battle Notes for Wargamers, 11) To develop a certain level of knowledge—always subject to correction and expansion—about what happened at Delium in 424 BC, I secured the online translations of the narrative accounts written by Thucydides and Diodorus, and then read, studied, and annotated the printed copies of these versions until the pages were rather crowded with highlighter markings as well as scribbled notes. [3]
To the extent that a battle from the pages of history can be divided neatly into episodes or phases, the following is a numbered summary of Thucydides' narrative account. As to presentation, I elected to adapt the format used by Aaron Bell in his well-written and well received article on the battle of Thapsus, which appeared in the March-April 2019 issue of Slingshot, The Journal of The Society of Ancients.
The new post may be found here: link
Thanks for stopping by.
Chris
