History distinguishes the Athenian general Iphicrates for the superlative quality of his leadership, the extent of his martial innovations, and his understanding of the psychological dimension of war. He lived from about 418 B.C. to 353 B.C. We will discuss some of the leadership principles that may be distilled from the writings of two ancient historians, Cornelius Nepos and Polyaenus.
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Today only historians of the sea have heard of the horrific loss of the steam packet Rothsay Castle in 1831. Yet in its day, the tragedy aroused considerable public indignation and mourning in England; and it remains one of the most unsettling of the nineteenth century’s long list of maritime calamities. We will retell the tale.
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Some guys think that they need to wait for some magical confluence of circumstances to exist before they can pursue their goals. The world doesn’t work like this. Sometimes you have to announce yourself, declare your purpose openly, and let your will shape the environment to your own purposes. You have to declare yourself. You’re never going to receive anyone’s permission to succeed. We use the example of Gen. Charles De Gaulle in 1940.
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Theodore Roosevelt was going to Cuba when war with Spain broke out, and no power on earth was going to stop him. As Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he had fought, schemed, and maneuvered to get an officer’s commission, and he had prevailed.
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The Athenian statesman and general Phocion lived from about 402 to 318 B.C. He was famous for his frugal and unassuming personal habits; and he always put the interests of his country first, in stark opposition to his careerist, opportunistic contemporaries.
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General Jacob Bayley remains one of the most obscure figures of American Revolutionary War leadership. Yet in our present age of debilitated moral strength, feeble character, and flexuous purposes, the details of his life and deeds are both instructive and edifying.
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I have lately had the pleasure to read some of John Paul Jones’s correspondence during the American Revolution. It was a surprise to me how many notables he communicated with—not just with his political superiors, but with Benjamin Franklin, the King of France, Lafayette, and many others.
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The emperor Julius Valerius Maiorianus, known to English-speaking posterity as Majorian, was a vigorous and able sovereign. He is conceded to have been one of the last western Roman leaders who made an energetic effort to maintain and improve the empire’s institutions. Even Gibbon, who usually had only snide comments for the later occupants of the Roman throne, condescended to say a good word for him in chapter 36 of his History.
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We do not know the precise location of Charlemagne’s birthplace. He donned the crown at the ripe age of twenty-nine in 771 A.D. upon the death of Carloman II. From that moment he became embroiled in an almost ceaseless series of military campaigns designed both to expand his frontiers and safeguard them; in this turbulent age, kings needed to fight as well as administrate. Historians tell us that he undertook around fifty-three campaigns, and personally commanded most of them.
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The chronicler known to posterity as Notker the Stammerer (“Notker Balbulus”) was born in what is now Switzerland around A.D. 840. He seems to have come from a family that had the means to provide him with the best education his era could offer. We find him in adulthood as a monk at the monastery at St. Gall, where he was able to exercise his considerable musical talents in composing verses and hymns.
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Quintus Curtius 
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