Laches (person)

Laches ("Gr. Λάχης") (* c.475 BCE in Athens, Greece; † 418 BCE in Mantineia, Greece) was an Athenian aristocrat, the son of the Melanopos, and general during the Peloponnesian War.

In 427 BCE, Laches was sent together with Charoeades with a fleet of 20 ships to Sicily, in order to support Athenian allies against Syracuse. When Charoeades died in 426 BCE, Laches took over the supreme command of the fleet and forced the cities of Mylae and Messana to yield. However due to annual appointment of generals, he was replaced at the beginning of 425 BCE in supreme command by Pythodoros. The first Athenian expedition to Sicily ended badly. Upon Laches return to Athens he was prosecuted by Cleon, but was acquitted of any wrong doing. His trial was satirized by Aristophanes in his play "The Wasps".

In 423 BCE, Laches successfully moved in the Athenian Assembly for an armistice with Sparta. However, it only lasted a year. But after Cleon died in 422 BCE, Laches together with Nicias was able to negotiate a slightly longer peace, the Peace of Nicias. In 418 BCE the peace broke down because of Athens’s support for Spartan rebels. Laches was again appointed general and was killed in the Athenian’s disastrous defeat at the Battle of Mantinea.

There was a later Laches who was Archon 400-399 B.C.E., at the time of the death of Socrates. [Harding, Philip (ed., trans.) (1985) "From the End of the Peloponnesian War to the Battle of Ipsus" Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 1; ]

The Platonic dialogue "Laches" features Laches as a stereotypical conservative general.

References

*"History Of The Peloponnesian War" by Thucydides;
*"The Athenian Empire Restored: Epigraphic and Historical Studies" by Harold B Mattingly, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, ISBN 0-472-10656-2 ;