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Thucydides’ classic account of the Peloponnesian War(s) hits one of its dramatic moments (of many) with the siege of Sphacteria. It gets a lot of attention in his history, and William Shepherd spends a lot of time quoting it in this book.

But, there is much more here. First of all, he takes time on occasion to get into the weeds of translation, giving the original Ancient Greek term, and its fuller definition so that we have much better context for that passage. This is in addition to good old fashioned expanding on the text and trying to get at some of the things Thucydides glosses over.

First, we get a fifteen-page background to the actual campaign, which is then followed by the Campaign formula of looks at the armies, leaders, and plans (another fourteen pages). This starts feeling a little excessive in a 96-page book, but does mean it stands alone, and you don’t already need any grounding in the period to understand; it is all laid out for you, and it is well written and presented.

As always, there are maps, starting with one showing the theater of the wars and major battles in the lead up to this campaign, and then one focused on the Peloponnese for the last few years. Then the campaigning along the eastern Adriatic, and finally one of the focus of the book: Pylos, the harbor there, and the island of Sphacteria. This last is essential, and what you will have the most trouble finding elsewhere. There’s then two even more focused maps, one of the main naval battle, and showing the locations of fortifications during the siege (this one feels primitive compared to the others), and then one isometric “showpiece” map for the final battle on Sphacteria.

In addition to the maps, you get all the usual Osprey visual reference. Much, especially at the start is the usual pictures illustrating arms and armor, including some full color pictures of Olympias, the Hellenic Navy’s reconstructed trireme. The real value is in a large number of photos of the area, particularly of Sphacteria, taken by the author. It has to be treated with some caution, as the landscape, and especially the shores have changed a lot in nearly 2500 years, but generally it seems things haven’t changed a lot, and it really helps to get a sense of what the Athenians and Spartans were dealing with.

The part that always gets me is that the Athenians sail around to aid Corcyra, leaving a contingent at a corner of Pylos. The Spartans notice and attack, and are beaten off, and then the Athenian navy returns, and takes control of the waters around Pylos. And suddenly there’s this Spartan force trapped on Sphacteria. The rest of this has been on the mainland, but now we have Spartans on a just-offshore island.

The blink-and-you-miss-it moment is that the Spartans decided they needed to occupy Sphacteria, for a number of good reasons: The channel between it and the Athenian camp on Pylos is very narrow, so it might control access to the Spartan camp and the fleet drawn up in the harbor. If the Athenians were driven away from the fresh water on the mainland, there was a spring on Sphacteria. And it’s a good lookout point.

But the Athenian fleet largely goes south around the island into the harbor and defeats the Spartans, and suddenly this force is cut off. It’s too big to feed easily, even sneaking supplies over at night. Too big to pull off the island. And too big for the Athenians to easily defeat on land.

So we get negotiations; no one wants to let go of an advantage once gained, so that goes nowhere. Reinforcements get sent, and the Athenians finally assault the Spartan camp. Shepherd shows this wasn’t easy either, and the battle was only won by a combination of good tactics (using light troops to harass the enemy, keep him off balance, and unable to get any telling blows in), and getting another force up a cliff side unexpectedly. The Spartans had a good reputation at the time as well as today, and the only thing more surprising to the Greek world than the Athenians defeating them on land, was the Spartans surrendering.

Shepherd does a very good job with all of this, showing how the campaign fits into other events, and demonstrating just how all the events worked. There’s the usual studied look at possible numbers and basic logistics, though it is impossible to go into any detail here.