This is the second in a series of biographical profiles from alternate histories.
Go to Part 1
By the time he was twenty-five Aurelieus had established himself as a philosophical genius, composing several important works which survive to the modern day. More importantly, however, was his ability as a military leader, because the year was 430 B.C. and the first skirmishes in the Peloponnesian War were just beginning. Under his adept leadership (using tactics which would later be immortalized in his Art of War) the Athenian forces quickly overwhelmed those of Sparta, cementing Athens preeminence in Greece for centuries to come.
Aurelieus died in 398 B.C., but he left behind him a unified Grecian state based around the power of Athenian rule. Within a hundred years Greece had come to dominate the eastern Mediterranean. In the third century, the Greek general Pyrrhus would invade the burgeoning Roman state. In reference to that campaign, the phrase “Pyrrhic Victory” has come to signify tremendous success, as Pyrrhus and his forces crushed any and all resistance. The only block to Athenian hegemony over the entirety of the known world was in the city-state of Carthage. Greece would eventually crush Carthagenian resistance during the Punic Wars, despite the tremendous success of Hannibal (who succeeded, through the use of his elephant-mounted troops, at coming to the very walls of Athens before being driven back).
So because of the way my feed presents articles, I read this one before #2 and experienced some severe cognitive dissonance due to not realizing your altered meaning for Pyrrhic Victory was intentional. It might be worth adding a brief sentence or two at the start of each article so that someone who comes across them without having read the Hans Adolpho one already won’t be similarly confused.
Good idea. Consider it done. Thanks!