Qualla: Battle of Delium https://qualla.com/battle-of-delium en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:30 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/f/battle-of-delium-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Battle of Delium https://qualla.com/battle-of-delium Battle of Delium: Introduction https://qualla.com/battle-of-delium/ Photo credit Wolfymoza, CC BY-SA 3.0. Some of the Athenians at Delium killed each other by mistake. They had circled around a stubborn Thespian contingent that refused to break, and when their two flanking columns met behind it they could not tell each other apart in the dust and confusion. There were no state shield emblems yet - those came later, after lessons like this one - and so Athenians cut down Athenians thinking they were Boeotians. Thucydides recorded it in passing, the way he recorded most catastrophes, and twenty-four centuries later we still call it the first documented friendly fire incident in Western military history.

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Image: Wolfymoza | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/f/battle-of-delium-wp/swbf-battle-of-delium-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Battle of Delium: Pagondas Sees the Trap https://qualla.com/battle-of-delium/ Photo credit Gre regiment, CC BY-SA 4.0. It was 424 BC and the Peloponnesian War was in its seventh year of grinding stalemate. The Athenian generals Demosthenes and Hippocrates planned a coordinated invasion of Boeotia: Demosthenes from the west by sea to Siphae, Hippocrates from the east overland to seize the temple a...

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Image: Gre regiment | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/f/battle-of-delium-wp/swbf-battle-of-delium-pagondas-sees-the-trap.mp3 0:06 2 full Battle of Delium: A New Kind of Phalanx https://qualla.com/battle-of-delium/ Photo credit Nefasdicere at en.wikipedia, CC BY 2.5. Greek hoplite warfare in the fifth century BC was a stubbornly conservative business. Two lines of armored men met in a shoving match, eight ranks deep on each side, and whichever side broke first lost. Pagondas threw out the textbook. He stacked his Theban right wing 25 ranks de...

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Image: Nefasdicere at en.wikipedia | CC BY 2.5

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/f/battle-of-delium-wp/swbf-battle-of-delium-a-new-kind-of-phalanx.mp3 0:06 3 full Battle of Delium: Socrates in the Retreat https://qualla.com/battle-of-delium/ Photo credit AlMare, CC BY-SA 3.0. About 1,000 Athenian hoplites died at Delium, including Hippocrates himself; the Boeotians lost about 500. One of the Athenian survivors was a forty-five-year-old stonemason named Socrates. Plato, in the Symposium, has the young aristocrat Alcibiades describe what he saw of Socra...

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Image: AlMare | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/f/battle-of-delium-wp/swbf-battle-of-delium-socrates-in-the-retreat.mp3 0:06 4 full Battle of Delium: The Flamethrower at the Temple https://qualla.com/battle-of-delium/ Photo credit Javierfv1212 (talk), Public domain. The aftermath was almost stranger than the battle. The Athenian survivors fortified themselves inside the temple at Delium and refused to leave the sacred ground. The Boeotians, joined by 2,000 Corinthian hoplites and other allies, debated how to dislodge them. After two weeks th...

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]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/f/battle-of-delium-wp/swbf-battle-of-delium-the-flamethrower-at-the-temple.mp3 0:06 5 full