Iphrikates

Iphrikates (b. c.413 bc), Athenian general who first won distinction by boarding an enemy ship during the engagement off Knidos (394 bc). Commanding mercenary peltasts, it was his destruction of a Spartan mora (brigade) outside Corinth that earned him everlasting fame (390 bc). Redeployed, with his command, to the Hellespont by the Athenian authorities, he eliminated Anaxibios of Sparta (388 bc). Following the King's Peace (387 bc) he married the sister of the Thracian chieftain Kotys, spending the next decade in Thrace before joining an unsuccessful Persian invasion of Egypt (374 bc).

Having quarrelled with Pharnabazos, he returned to Athens. Awarded a generalship he sailed to check Spartan interference on Corcyra, which prompted Sparta to negotiate for peace (371 bc). Again named general, he aided Sparta against Epaminondas of Thebes (369 bc). Next, in the north, he secured the Macedonian throne for his adoptive brothers—including Philip II—but failed to recapture Amphipolis (368 bc). Recalled home in disgrace, he sided with Athens' enemies and thus aided Kotys (365 bc). Although pardoned, it was to be several years before he reappeared in Athenian service. The Embata debacle (356 bc) ruined his career, although a robust defence secured his acquittal. In serving Athens or a foreign power, this self-made cobbler's son invariably provided for his own interests. Nevertheless, he was a commander who achieved victory and did so by using his brains: his ingenuity was the subject of many later anecdotes.

Bibliography

• Best, J. G. P., Thracian Peltasts (Gröningen, 1969).
• Pritchett, W. K., The Greek State at War, pt. 2 (Berkeley, 1974)

— N. Fields