“This is the new hoplite book everyone has been waiting for–punchy, stimulating, up-to-date, and full of excitement and contention, like a hoplite scrum.”–John Ma, University of Oxford

“Controversies of great interest surround the topic of hoplite warfare and its connections to Greek society and culture. The scholars contributing to this excellent volume include some of the best in the world. The chapters present often-divergent views on crucial issues. Scholars of Greek military history, war and society, and archaic Greece will want to consult this important collection.”–Peter Hunt, University of Colorado, Boulder

Donald Kagan is Sterling Professor of Classics and History at Yale University. His most recent books are The Peloponnesian War and Thucydides: The Reinvention of History. Gregory F. Viggiano is associate professor of history at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut. He and Kagan are the authors of Problems in the History of Ancient Greece.

MEN OF BRONZE

Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece

By DONALD KAGAN, GREGORY F. VIGGIANO

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2013 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-14301-9

Contents

LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………viiPREFACE DONALD KAGAN AND GREGORY F. VIGGIANO…………………………ixINTRODUCTION DONALD KAGAN AND GREGORY F. VIGGIANO…………………….xiCHAPTER 1 The Hoplite Debate DONALD KAGAN AND GREGORY F. VIGGIANO……..1CHAPTER 2 The Arms, Armor, and Iconography of Early Greek Hoplite Warfare
GREGORY F. VIGGIANO AND HANS VAN WEES……………………………….57CHAPTER 3 Hoplitai/Politai: Refighting Ancient Battles PAUL CARTLEDGE….74CHAPTER 4 Setting the Frame Chronologically ANTHONY SNODGRASS…………85CHAPTER 5 Early Greek Infantry Fighting in a Mediterranean Context KURT
A. RAAFLAUB……………………………………………………….95CHAPTER 6 The Hoplite Revolution and the Rise of the Polis GREGORY F.
VIGGIANO………………………………………………………….112CHAPTER 7 Hoplite Hell: How Hoplites Fought PETER KRENTZ……………..134CHAPTER 8 Large Weapons, Small Greeks: The Practical Limitations of
Hoplite Weapons and Equipment ADAM SCHWARTZ………………………….157CHAPTER 9 Not Patriots, Not Farmers, Not Amateurs: Greek Soldiers of
Fortune and the Origins of Hoplite Warfare JOHN R. HALE……………….176CHAPTER 10 Can We See the “Hoplite Revolution” on the Ground?
Archaeological Landscapes, Material Culture, and Social Status in Early
Greece LIN FOXHALL………………………………………………..194CHAPTER 11 Farmers and Hoplites: Models of Historical Development HANS
VAN WEES………………………………………………………….222CHAPTER 12 The Hoplite Narrative VICTOR DAVIS HANSON…………………256LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS……………………………………………….277INDEX…………………………………………………………….279

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

The Hoplite Debate

DONALD KAGAN AND GREGORY F. VIGGIANO

The study of war has not only interested military historians from the ancient worldto the modern day; many scholars have held that the way in which societies organizefor and fight war lies at the foundation of civilization itself. Cultural historian LewisMumford has remarked:

War was not a mere residue of more common primitive forms of aggression….In all its typical aspects, its discipline, its drill, its handling of large masses ofmen as units, in its destructive assaults en masse, in its heroic sacrifices, itsfinal destructions, exterminations, seizures, enslavements, war was rather thespecial invention of civilization: its ultimate drama.

For generations scholars have examined the relationship between how the Greeksfought and their social, political, and cultural development. The Greeks themselvesconsidered war both part of the nature of human society and terrible. “Peace,” Platosaid, “is merely a name; in truth an undeclared war always exists by nature amongall city-states.” The poet Pindar (F 15) called battle “a sweet thing to him who doesnot know it, but to him who has made trial of it, it is a thing of fear.” For Thucydideswar was “a violent schoolmaster.” Aristotle, in his Politics (1297b16–28), on the otherhand, provided the first known theory to connect the evolution of the political institutionsof the polis with the rise of heavy infantry. Modern historians of ancientGreece in turn have developed a grand narrative. This “orthodoxy” explains the riseof the early polis in terms of a dramatic change or “revolution” in arms, armor, andtactics; the military revolution became a driving force behind the emergence of thecharacteristic political and social structures of the Greek state. A central part of thethesis is that the change in fighting style was directly related to recent innovations inarms and armor. Second, the phalanx depended on the weight and the cohesion ofheavily armed men who employed “shock” tactics in brief but decisive battles. Third,it has been critical to identify the greatest number of hoplites with a middling groupwithin the polis, which had the wealth to provide its own arms. Fourth, this middlinggroup transformed Greek values.

By the mid-nineteenth century, scholars had already recognized the basic elementsof what was to become the hoplite orthodoxy. For example, George Grote, inhis famous twelve-volume History of Greece, made a sharp distinction between heroicand historical Greece, and the emergence of the hoplite warrior marked the point ofdeparture for the beginning of the age of history. “The mode of fighting among theHomeric heroes is not less different from the historical times, than the material ofwhich their arms were composed.” He described the essentials of the ancient Greekphalanx:

The Hoplites, or heavy-armed infantry of historical Greece, maintained a closeorder and well-dressed line, charging the enemy with their spears protended ateven distance, and coming thus to close conflict without breaking their rank:there were special troops, bowmen, slingers, etc. armed with missiles, but thehoplite had no weapon to employ in this manner.

Grote compared the close-in approach of the hoplites with the long-range fightingstyle of the legendary figures of Homer:

The heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey, on the contrary, habitually employ thespear as a missile, which they launch with tremendous force: each of them ismounted in his war-chariot, drawn by two horses, … advancing in his chariotat full speed, in front of his own soldiers, he hurls his spear against the enemy:sometimes, indeed, he will fight on foot, and hand to hand, but the chariotis near to receive him if he chooses, or to ensure his retreat. The mass of theGreeks and Trojans, coming forward to the charge, without any regular stepor evenly-maintained line, make their attack in the same way by hurling theirspears.

The champions of Homer enjoy several advantages over the common soldier: “Everyman is protected by shield, helmet, breastplate, and greaves: but the armor of thechiefs is greatly superior to that of the common men, while they themselves are bothstronger and more expert in the use of their weapons.” The weapons used included along sword, a short dagger, and two throwing spears, which on occasion could be employedas a thrusting weapon. The few bowmen are rare exceptions to the equipmentand tactics described above.

The loose battle array of the Iliad contrasts sharply with the inflexible ranks thatattacked the Persian king at Plataea or Cunaxa, and “illustrates forcibly the generaldifference between heroic and historical Greece. While in the former, a few splendidfigures stand forward, in prominent relief, the remainder being a mere unorganizedand ineffective mass, —in the latter, these units have been combined into a system,in which every man, officer and soldier, has his assigned place and duty, and the victory,when gained is the joint work of all.” With the introduction of the phalanx, thedifference in the role of the individual and the military effectiveness of the group isremarkable: “preeminent individual prowess is indeed materially abridged, if notwholly excluded, —no man can do more than maintain his station in the line: buton the other hand, the grand purposes, aggressive or defensive, for which alone armsare taken up, become more assured and easy, and long-sighted combinations of thegeneral are rendered for the first time practicable when he has a disciplined body ofmen to obey him.”

Grote derives his picture of how the classical phalanx engaged the enemy fromThucydides’ account of the battle of Mantinea:

It was the natural tendency of all Grecian armies, when coming into conflict,to march not exactly forward, but somewhat aslant to the right. The soldierson the extreme right of both armies set the example of such inclination, inorder to avoid exposing their own unshielded side; while for the same reasonevery man along the line took care to keep close to the shield of his righthand neighbor. We see from hence that, with equal numbers, the right wasnot merely the post of honor, but also of comparative safety. So it proved onthe present occasion, even the Lacedaemonian discipline being noway exemptfrom this cause of disturbance. Though the Lacedaemonian front, from theirsuperior numbers, was more extended than that of the enemy, still their rightfiles did not think themselves safe without slanting still farther to the right,and thus outflanked greatly the Athenians on the opposite left wing; while onthe opposite side the Mantineans who formed the right wing, from the samedisposition to keep the left shoulder forward, outflanked, though not in sogreat a degree, the Skiritae and Brasideians on the Lacedaemonian left.

From its start, the proto-orthodoxy posited a close link between military, political,and cultural developments in archaic Greece. Grote details the political revolution—thesubstitution of one or more temporary and accountable magistrates in the place ofthe Homeric king—that accompanied the emergence of the hoplite phalanx.

It was always an oligarchy which arose on the defeasance of the heroic kingdom:the age of the democratical movement was yet far distant, and the conditionof the people—the general body of freemen—was not immediatelyaltered, either for better or worse, by the revolution; the small number ofprivileged persons, among whom the kingly attributes were distributed andput in rotation, being those nearest in rank to the king himself, perhaps membersof the same large gens with him, pretending to a common divine or heroicdescent.

The composition of Homer’s epics and the celebration of the first Olympiad were essentialfor dating the revolution. Consistent with Herodotus, who placed Homer fourhundred years before his own time, Grote assigned the composition of the HomericIliad and Odyssey to the second half of the ninth century—the poems having reachedtheir final form before the first Olympiad of 776 BC. His method for dating thepoems reflects the great debate surrounding the Homeric Question in the nineteenthcentury. He argues against Wolf and Lachmann’s contention that the epics representedan amalgamation of many distinct poems brought about by Peisistratus in the middleof the sixth century in Athens. Lachmann, for instance, identified sixteen separatesongs in the first twenty-two books of the Iliad. Grote, on the other hand, contendsthat, far from producing an original poem, Peisistratus simply enhanced the solemnityof the Great Panathenaic festival by selecting, among the divergences of rhapsodesin different parts of Greece, “that order of text which intelligent men could approveas a return to the pure and pristine Iliad.” For Grote, the poems have no historicalvalue, because they contain no verifiable evidence. However, since Homer reflects thecontemporary society of the ninth century, the Iliad and Odyssey have immense valuefor assessing the achievements of the Greeks in the eighth and seventh centuries. Civilsociety makes a transition similar to that of the military: “we pass from Herakles, Theseus,Jason, Achilles, to Solon, Pythagoras, and Perikles—from ‘the shepherd of hispeople,’ (to use the phrase in which Homer depicts the good side of the heroic king,)to the legislator who introduces, and the statesman who maintains, a preconcertedsystem by which willing citizens consent to bind themselves.”

There was for Grote a parallel between the individual who knows his place in thehoplite phalanx and the citizen who understands his predetermined rights and dutiesin the social order according to established principles. The result is that even withoutcommanding individual talent, “the whole community is so trained as to be able tomaintain its course under inferior leaders.” Grote had no doubt about the significanceof these developments: “the military organization of the Grecian republic is anelement of the greatest importance in respect to the conspicuous part they have playedin human affairs,— their superiority in this respect being hardly less striking than it isin many others.” In the historical period following the first Olympiad, the emergenceof hoplite warfare had dramatic implications for many of the major cities in Greece,especially Argos, Sparta, Corinth, Sicyon, Megara, and eventually Athens.

Grote envisioned the political transformation in the Greek world from the heroickingdoms to the poleis taking place through two revolutions. The first involved theintellectual revolution that accompanied the transition from the world of legend tothe development of history. This upheaval resulted in the emergence of oligarchiesout of the divine kingships, and demonstrated to Grote the progressive character ofthe Greek mind and all its superiority over the “stationary and unimproving” Orientalmind. The abolition of kingship came about through natural change and withoutviolence. For example, sometimes the royal lineage died out or, after the deathof the king, the king’s son became acknowledged as archon only, or he gave way toa prytanis chosen from the aristocrats. These primitive oligarchies were commonthroughout Greek cities and colonies of the seventh century, and they represent anadvance on heroic government. The primary characteristic of the heroic age had been”the omnipotence of private force, tempered and guided by family sympathies, andthe practical nullity of that collective sovereign afterwards called The City,—who inhistorical Greece becomes the central and paramount source of obligation.” Grotedescribes the rise of the poleis: “Though they [the poleis] had little immediate tendencyto benefit the mass of the freemen, yet when we compare them with the antecedentheroic government, they indicate an important advance,—the first adoptionof a deliberate and preconceived system in the management of public affairs.” Thepolis invented the concept of citizenship, the rule of law, and the accountability ofelected magistrates.

[The poleis] exhibit the first evidences of new and important political ideas inthe Greek mind,—the separation of legislative and executive powers; the formervested in a collective body, not merely deliberating but finally deciding,—whilethe latter is confided to temporary individual magistrates, responsible tothat body at the end of their period in office. We are first introduced to a communityof citizens, according to the definition of Aristotle,—men qualified,and thinking themselves qualified, to take turns in command and obedience:the collective sovereign, called The City, is thus constituted.

The second revolution took place when the usurpers Grote calls Despots subvertedthe first oligarchies. This period, which contemporary scholars refer to as the age oftyrants, involved “the gradual rise of the small proprietors and town-artisans” and “wasmarked by the substitution of heavy-armed infantry in place of cavalry.”

Cities such as Corinth, Sicyon, and Megara required the figure of the despot,backed by the hoplites, to bring about decisive political change. This period occurredduring the progress of the seventh and sixth centuries, with the expansion of wealth,power, and population. Grote distinguishes these early despots from those of laterperiods by their use of armed force. Notwithstanding the benefits tyrannies broughtto their respective poleis, the age of the despots worked against the principles of theCity: “this rooted antipathy to a permanent hereditary ruler stood apart as a sentimentalmost unanimous.” The hoplites enabled the tyrant to overthrow the narrowoligarchies of the seventh century in many cities. These figures made possible the transitionto broader oligarchies and later to democracies; but the tyrant’s success couldonly be temporary.

The people by their armed aid had enabled him [the despot] to overthrow theexisting rulers … but they acquired no political rights and no increased securitiesfor themselves…. The rise of these despots on the ruins of the previousoligarchies was, in appearance, a return to the principles of the heroic age,—therestoration of a government of personal will in place of that systematica rrangement known as the City. But the Greek mind had so far outgrownthose early principles, that no new government founded thereupon couldmeet with willing acquiescence, except under some temporary excitement.

The military force in the early days had been in the hands of the great landowners inthe form of cavalry; these include the primitive oligarchical militia in seventh-andsixth-century Chalkis and Eretria on Euboea. But such states lacked the egalitarianethos and the rule of law that Grote associates with heavy infantry. He remarks on theThessalians, “Breeding the finest horses in Greece, they were distinguished for theirexcellence as cavalry; but their infantry is little noticed, nor do the Thessalian citiesseem to have possessed that congregation of free and tolerably equal citizens, eachmaster of his own arms, out of whom the ranks of the hoplites were constituted.” Onthe other hand the rise of the polis saw the emergence of the independent farmer.

As a general rule, every Greek city-community included in its population, independentof bought slaves, the three elements above noticed,—considerableland proprietors with rustic dependents, small self-working proprietors, andtown-artisans,—the three elements being found everywhere in different proportions.But the progress of Greece, from the seventh century B.C. downwards,tended continually to elevate the comparative importance of the twolatter, while in those early days the ascendency of the former was at its maximum,and altered only to decline.

The development of a new class of middling farmers led to the transformation of thepolitical and social relations in the Greek world. “All the changes which we are ableto trace in the Grecian communities tended to break up the close and exclusive oligarchieswith which our first historical knowledge commences, and to conduct themeither to oligarchies rather more open, embracing all men of a certain amount ofproperty, or else to democracies. But the transition in both cases was usually attainedthrough the interlude of the despot.”
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