Xanthippus

Xanthippus was an Athenian politician and general of the early fifth century BC and the father of Pericles. A member of the city’s aristocratic political world, he became prominent during the Greco-Persian Wars and was recalled from ostracism when Athens faced Xerxes’ invasion. He later commanded Athenian forces at the Battle of Mycale and in the capture of Sestos.

Xanthippus belonged to the Athenian aristocracy and married Agariste, a member of the influential Alcmaeonid family; their son Pericles later became the dominant statesman of fifth-century Athens. Xanthippus prosecuted Miltiades after the failed Paros expedition and was himself ostracised in the 480s. Recalled during the renewed Persian invasion, he went on to command Athenian forces in the final stages of the war.

In Conn Iggulden’s The Gates of Athens, Xanthippus is an Athenian general drawn into the struggle against Persia and the political rivalries surrounding Themistocles. He continues to appear in Protector, while Lion follows his son Pericles as he comes of age under the weight of Xanthippus’s military and political reputation. John Stack’s Master of Rome depicts Xanthippus as the Spartan mercenary commander whose reorganisation of the Carthaginian army helps defeat and capture Regulus in North Africa, after which he continues to press the Roman survivors and fleet.