Masters of Command

Review by Dennis Showalter

Cornell University’s Barry Strauss has no superior and few counterparts as a scholar of ancient military history and a student of war. Strauss takes ancient warmaking beyond linguistics and archeology without interpreting it in contemporary contexts. Masters of Command identifies the ancient world’s greatest captains: Alexander of Macedonia, Hannibal Barca of Carthage, and Julius Caesar of Rome. Each was a master of war. In combat they were heroic. In command they were peerless. But lives put at risk in battle were only the price of admission.

These men were not just generals. They were soldier-statesmen, in the process of conquering empires. That meant each was responsible for looking beyond the battlefield. Each had to define a victory, to know when and how to end a war. Here their records become ambiguous. Hannibal’s vaulting plans certainly fell short of his aspirations. Neither Alexander nor Caesar was able to consolidate and stabilize the systems they sought to create. Nevertheless they stand out as military prodigies.

Strauss makes that dramatic case by taking his protagonists through their respective careers, analyzing campaigns and battles in search for common qualities that brought success in the ancient world. He begins with decisiveness: readiness to seek early victories by attacking. When successful attack proved just an opening gambit, all three knew how to overcome resistance by varying combinations of force, guile, and flexibility. In the third stage of war, crisis, Strauss’s protagonists were at their best. Their climactic battles, Gaugamela, Cannae, and Pharsalus, were killing fields that showed both “too much skill not to impress and too much blood not to appall”. They showed as well a heroic determination their opponents were unable or unwilling to match directly.

That led to the process Strauss calls “closing the net:” dealing with enemy leaders, capturing key political centers, financing an end-game and not least sustaining the effectiveness of his own army. Results here were mixed, with Caesar the most successful and Hannibal the least. But Hannibal outdid his competitors in a crucial area. His troops remained loyal to the end. And in an era when fighting men were the ultimate makeweight, Strauss calls that enough to sustain Hannibal’s place as one of history’s most admired generals.

The last stage of greatness is knowing when to stop. None of Strauss’s commanders ended well. After Cannae Hannibal demonstrated stubbornness when flexibility was called for. Alexander overextended his empire to the point of insustainability. Caesar’s war-ending strategy was sound; his domestic managerial skills foundered on his delusions of grandeur. In evaluating his subjects Strauss is balanced, perceptive, and convincing. He admirably sets the discussion’s parameters. Hannibal takes the palm as a battle captain. Alexander earns pride of place as an army commander, in good part because of his star quality. And Caesar stands at the peak because he came closest to making the transition from general to statesman. The rankings and their evidence invite debate. But for all three generals the Greeks had one word: “hubris.”