Myronides (circa 458 BC), One Of The Best Athenian General

Myronides (MvpwvlSrjs), is a skilful and successful Athenian general. In B. c. 457, the Corinthians invaded Megara with the view of relieving Aegina, by drawing away thence a portion of the Athenian troops, which were besieging the chief city of the island. The Athenians, however, who had at the same time another force in Egypt, acting with Inarus, did not recal a single man from any quarter for the protection of Megara: but the old and young men who had been left behind at home, marched out under Myronides, and met the Corinthians in the Megarian territory. After a battle, in which victory inclined, though not decisively, to the Athenians, the Corinthian troops withdrew, and Myronides erected a trophy. But the Corinthians, being reproached at home for leaving the field, returned ; and were setting up a rival trophy, when the Athenians made a sally, from Megara, and, in the battle which ensued, completely defeated them.

The fugitives, in their retreat, entered an enclosure fenced in by a large ditch, where they were surrounded by the Athenians, who occupied with a part of their force the only egress, and slew with their darts every man within. In the following year, b. c. 456, and sixty-two day after the. battle of Tanagra, Myronides led an Athenian army into Boeotia, and defeated the-Boeotians at Oenophyta, a victory which made his countrymen masters of Phocis, and of all the Boeotian towns, with the single exception of Thebes ; while even there it seems to have led to the temporary establishment of democracy.

After his victory, Myronides marched against the Opuntian Locrians, from whom he exacted a hundred hostages ; and then, according to Diodorus, he penetrated into Thessaly, to take vengeance for the desertion of the Thessalian troops to the Lacedae monians at the battle of Tanagra ; but he failed in his attempt on the town of Pharsalus, and was obliged to return to Athens. It is possible that Myronides may have been the father of archinus, the Athenian statesman, who took a chief part in the overthrow of the thirty tyrants, b. c. 403 ; for Demosthenes mentions a son of Archinus, called Myronides, who may have been named after his grandfather, according to a custom by no means uncommon.

Sources :

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