I had enormous support in writing these books. First, I’d like to thank Aliki Hamosfakidou of Dolfin Hellas travel, the best friend and travel agent I could have, and without whom I would have done no research, drunk no wine, eaten poor quality food, etc. Aliki does all the detail work on my Greek tours (which are also research trips … you should come!) and none of this would have happened without her.
I was also supported by a variety of Greek academics and history professionals: Nikos Lanser (who discovered the battlefield of Sellasia) and Aristotelis Koskinas (who knows more about the Battle of Plataea then anyone I’ve met); Dr Maria Girtzi, who led me through the Macedonian tombs and Bulgaria as well and without whom this would have been a different book; as well as the staff of the New Acropolis Museum (best museum in the world), and the Greek National Archaeological Museum, and the Archaeological Museums of Olympia and Delphi as well as the historical sites at Zone near Alexandroupolis (Archeologikos Choros Archea Mesimvria Zoni to be precise) and the Archaeological Museum of Pella and the Archaeological Site of Aigai – Macedonian Royal Tombs at Vergina. I was at those last sites a year ago today, imagining Philip’s Macedon. I also managed to visit a number of tombs and historical sites in Bulgaria that, while not directly related to the events of Philopoemen’s life, helped me understand the breadth and riches of the Hellenistic world.
I’d also like to thank my many friends in the world martial arts community, from Aikido to Armizare – most especially my own Hoplologia and my friend Greg Mele’s Chicago Swordplay Guild. Fight scenes are enriched by regular fighting, despite the many artificialities of safe simulation. This year we had sixty people in a phalanx learning to use the weapons of the Hellenistic phalangite; next year, at the Hoplite Experiment, we hope to pit two groups of trained martial artists against each other in carefully controlled conditions to try and replicate phalanx combat in the early Classical period. Thanks to all of you, martial artists and re-enactors!
And last but by no means least, my wife Sarah and my daughter Beatrice, who ask questions and accept strange ‘vacations’ so that we can visit this or that site or maybe help someone plan a re-enactment that’s really an experiment or an immersion …
Actually, I also owe thanks to the vast team that helps me: my copy editor Steve O’Gorman; my editor Craig Lye; my agent Shelley Power; my map artist Steve James, and my friend and sometime research assistant, sparring partner, and general willing listener, Aurora Simmons.
Ah, and all of you who buy my books. I appreciate it deeply.
Christian G. Cameron
Toronto, October 2018
GLOSSARY
I am an amateur Greek scholar. My definitions are my own, but taken from the LSJ or Routledge’s Handbook of Greek Mythology or Smith’s Classical Dictionary. On some military issues I have the temerity to disagree with the received wisdom on the subject. Also check my website at www.christiancameronauthor.com for more information and some helpful pictures.
Agema: An elite Macedonian military unit; in Sparta, merely a detachment.
Agrianios: A month in the Rhodian calendar. In the ancient world, every city and state had a different calendar with different names for months, and feasts.
Andron: The ‘men’s room’ of a proper Greek house – where men have symposia. Recent research has cast real doubt as to the sexual exclusivity of the room, but the name sticks.
Apobatai: The Chariot Warriors. In many towns – towns that hadn’t used chariots in warfare for centuries – the Apobatai were the elite three hundred or so. In Athens, they competed in special events; in Thebes, they may have been the forerunners of the Sacred Band.
Archon: A city’s senior official, or in some cases, one of three or four. A magnate.
Archon Basileus: The ‘king archon’ or chief magistrate, at least in Athens and some other cities, but not, for example, in the Achaean League.
Artemon: A sail, usually on the ‘fore’ mast of a trireme.
Aspis: The Greek hoplite’s shield. (Which is not called a hoplon!) The aspis is about a yard in diameter, is deeply dished (up to six inches deep) and should weigh between eight and sixteen pounds.
Basilieus: An aristocratic title from a bygone era (at least in 500 BCE) that means ‘king’ or ‘lord’.
Bireme: A warship rowed by two tiers of oars, as opposed to a trireme which has three tiers.
Boeotarch: A military commander of the Boeotian Federation.
Boule: One of the councils of Athens.
Causia/kausia: A Macedonian hat, flat brimmed and rolled, which resembles the modern Afghan pakol.
Chiton: The standard tunic for most men, made by taking a single continuous piece of cloth and folding it in half, pinning the shoulders and open side. Can be made quite fitted by means of pleating. Often made of very fine quality material—usually wool, sometimes linen, especially in the upper classes. A full chiton was ankle length for men and women.
Chitoniskos: A small chiton, usually just longer than modesty demanded – or not as long as modern modesty would demand! Worn by warriors and farmers, often heavily bloused and very full by warriors to pad their armour. Usually wool.
Chlamys: A short cloak made by a rectangle of cloth roughly 60 by 90 inches – could also be worn as a chiton if folded and pinned a different way. Or slept under as a blanket.
Corslet/Thorax: In 200 BCE, the best corslets were still made of bronze, and the ‘muscle’ style predominated. Another style is the ‘white’ corslet seen to appear just as the Persian Wars begin – re-enactors call this the ‘Tube and Yoke’ corslet and some people call it (erroneously) the linothorax. Some of them may have been made of linen – we’ll never know – but the likelier material is Athenian leather, which was often tanned and finished with alum, thus being bright white. Yet another style was a tube and yoke of scale, which can be seen in Hellenistic Scythian and Bulgarian tombs. A scale corslet would have been the most expensive or all, and probably provided the best protection.
Daimon: Literally ‘a spirit’, the daimon of combat might be adrenaline, and the daimon of philosophy might simply be native intelligence. Suffice it to say that very intelligent men – like Socrates – believed that god-sent spirits could infuse a man and influence his actions.
Daktyloi: Literally ‘digits’ or ‘fingers’, in common talk, ‘inches’ in the system of measurement. Systems for measurement differed from city to city. I have taken the liberty of using just one, the Athenian units of measurement.
Dekarch: A military officer commanding at least ten men.
Despoina: Lady. A term of formal address.
Diekplous: A complex naval tactic about which some debate remains. In this book, the Diekplous or through stroke is commenced with an attack by the ramming ship’s bow (picture the two ships approaching bow to bow or head-on) and cathead on the enemy oars. Oars were the most vulnerable part of a fighting ship, something very difficult to imagine unless you’ve rowed in a big boat and understand how lethal your own oars can be – to you! After the attacker crushed the enemy’s oars, he passes, flank to flank, and then turns when astern, coming up easily (the defender is almost dead in the water) and ramming the enemy under the stern or counter as desired.
Doru or Dory: A spear, about ten feet long, with a bronze butt spike and a spearhead.
Eleutheria: Freedom
Ephebe: A young, free man of property. A young man in training to be a hoplite. Usually performing service to his city, and in ancient terms, at one of the two peaks of male beauty.
Eromenos: The ‘beloved’ in a same sex-pair in ancient Greece. Usually younger, about seventeen. This is a complex, almost dangerous subject in the modern world – were these pair-bonds about sex, or chivalric love, or just a ‘brotherhood’ of warriors? I suspect there were elements of all three. And to write about this period without discussing the eromenos/erastes bond would, I fear, be like putting all the warriors in steel armour instead of bronze …
Erastes: The ‘lover’ in a same-sex
pair bond – the older man, a tried warrior, twenty-five to thirty years old.
Eudaimonia: Literally ‘well-spirited’. A feeling of extreme joy.
Exedra: The porch of the woman’s quarters – in some cases, any porch over a farm’s central courtyard.
Falcis: A sword, back-curved like a Gurkha knife.
Gastraphetes: A crossbow.
Helot: The ‘race of slaves’ of ancient Sparta – the conquered peoples who lived with the Spartiates and did all of their work so that they could concentrate entirely on making war and more Spartans.
Hestiatorion: A guest dining room.
Hetaera: Literally a ‘female companion’. In ancient Athens, a Hetaera was a courtesan, a highly skilled woman who provided sexual companionship as well as fashion, political advice, and music.
Hetaeroi: Literally ‘male companion’ but usually used for military companions i.e. household troops, companion cavalry.
Hipparchos: A cavalry commander. In the Achaean League, the Hipparchos was the second-in-command of the League armies.
Hippeis: Cavalry, usually the richest men in a city.
Himation: A very large piece of rich, often embroidered wool, worn as an outer garment by wealthy citizen women or as a sole garment by older men, especially those in authority.
Hoplite: A Greek upper-class warrior. Possession of a heavy spear, a helmet, and an aspis (see above) and income above the marginal lowest free class were all required to serve as a hoplite. Although much is made of the ‘citizen soldier’ of ancient Greece, it would be fairer to compare hoplites to medieval knights than to Roman legionnaires or modern National Guardsmen. Poorer citizens did serve, and sometimes as hoplites or marines – but in general, the front ranks were the preserve of upper-class men who could afford the best training and the essential armour.
Hoplitodromos: The hoplite race, or race in armour. Two stades with an aspis on your shoulder, a helmet, and greaves in the early runs. I’ve run this race in armour. It is no picnic.
Hoplomachia: A hoplite contest, or sparring match. Again, there is enormous debate as to when hoplomachia came into existence and how much training Greek hoplites received. One thing that they didn’t do is drill like modern soldiers – there’s no mention of it in all of Greek literature. However, they had highly evolved martial arts (see Pankration) and it is almost certain that Hoplomachia was a term that referred to ‘The martial art of fighting when fully equipped as a hoplite’.
Hoplomachos: A participant in Hoplomachia.
Hypaspist: Literally ‘Under the shield’. A squire or military servant – by the time of Arimnestos, the hypaspist was usually a younger man of the same class as the hoplite.
Katagogion: A pilgrim hostel.
Kerameikos: The potters’ quarter of Athens, noted for its statuary.
Kithara: A stringed instrument of some complexity, with a hollow body as a soundboard.
Kline: A couch.
Kontoi: A cavalry lance.
Kopis: The heavy, back-curved sabre of the Greeks. Like a longer, heavier modern kukri or Gurkha knife.
Kore: A maiden or daughter.
Kykeon: A savoury mulled wine with cheese and herbs, sometimes considered magical.
Kylix: A wide, shallow, handled bowl for drinking wine.
Lembi (pl): Small boats.
Logos: Literally the ‘Word’, in pre-Socratic Greek philosophy the word that is everything – the power beyond the gods.
Longche: A six to seven foot throwing spear, also used for hunting. A hoplite might carry a pair of longche, or a single, longer and heavier, dory.
Machaira: A heavy sword or long knife.
Maenad: The ‘raving ones’, ecstatic female followers of Dionysus.
Mastos: A woman’s breast. A mastos cup is shaped like a woman’s breast with a rattle in the nipple – so when you drink, you lick the nipple and the rattle shows that you emptied the cup. I’ll leave the rest to imagination …
Medimnoi: A grain measure. Very roughly – thirty-five to a hundred pounds of grain.
Megaron: A style of building with a roofed porch.
Metic: A foreign legal resident of a Greek polity. Remember, even someone from the next city over was a ‘foreigner’ in your city.
Naos: The inner cell of a temple.
Navarch: An admiral (at least in Sparta) but also the owner of a ship.
Neodamodeis: Newly enfranchised men.
Neoteroi: The ‘new men’, a faction in government as contrasted with presbityroi ‘the old men’.
Oikia: The household – all the family and all the slaves, and sometimes the animals and the farmland itself.
Opson: Whatever spread, dip, or accompaniment an ancient Greek had with bread.
Pais: A child. Sometimes a slave.
Palaestra: The exercise sands of the gymnasium.
Pankration: The military martial art of the ancient Greeks – an unarmed combat system that bears more than a passing resemblance to modern MMA techniques, with a series of carefully structured blows and domination holds that is, by modern standards, very advanced. Also the basis of the Greeks’ sword- and spear-based martial arts. Kicking, punching and wrestling, grappling, on the ground and standing were all permitted.
Pelta: A shield, small and round or crescent-shaped, not as sturdy as an aspis.
Peltastoi: Soldiers; usually a form of soldier who could both skirmish and fight in close order, but in Hellenistic times sometimes special elite organisations.
Peplos: A short over-fold of cloth that women could wear as a hood or to cover the breasts.
Phalanx: The full military potential of a town or kingdom; the actual, formed body of men before a battle (all of the smaller groups formed together made a phalanx). In this period, a massive, unmanoeuvrable juggernaut.
Phalangite: A soldier armed with a pike or sarissa and forming in close order in a phalanx.
Phylarch: A file leader – an officer commanding the four to sixteen men standing behind him in the phalanx.
Polemarch: The war leader in most small states.
Polis: The city – the basis of all Greek political thought and expression; the government that was held to be more important – a higher good – than any individual or even family. To this day, when we talk about politics, we’re talking about the ‘things of our city’.
Porne: A prostitute.
Porpax: The bronze or leather band that encloses the forearm on a Greek aspis.
Pronaos: The vestibule in front of a temple.
Propylon: Part of the temple complex.
Psiloi: Light infantrymen – usually slaves or adolescent freemen who, in this period, were not organised and seldom had any weapon beyond some rocks to throw.
Pyrrhiche: The ‘War Dance’. A line dance in armour done by all of the warriors, often very complex. There’s reason to believe that the Pyrrhiche was the method by which the young were trained in basic martial arts and by which ‘drill’ was inculcated.
Pyxis: A box, often circular, turned from wood or made of metal.
Rhapsode: A master-poet, often a performer who told epic works like the Iliad from memory.
Sarissa: The long pike of the Hellenistic armoured phalangites.
Saurauter: The butt spike on a spear; on a phalangite’s pike, it could be a very heavy instrument meant to balance the weight of the sarissa.
Satrap: A Persian ruler of a province of the Persian Empire.
Skeuophoros: Literally a ‘shield carrier’, unlike the hypaspist, this is a slave or freedman who does camp work and carries the armour and baggage.
Skeuotheke: A treasure house, or storage area for sacred things.
Spolas: Another name for a leather corslet, often used to refer to the lion skin of Herakles.
Stade: A measure of distance. An Athenian stade is about 185 metres.
Strategos: In Athens, the commander of one of the ten military tribes. Elsewhere, any senior Greek officer – sometimes the commanding general.
&nb
sp; Synaspismos: The closest order that hoplites could form – so close that the shields overlap, hence ‘shield on shield’.
Taxeis: Any group, but in military terms, a company; I use it for sixty to three hundred men.
Taxiarchos: Commander of a taxeis. Also the name of a play by Eupolis, now lost, that was about the god Dionysus reporting for forced military service.
Thētes: The lowest free class – citizens with limited rights.
Tholos: A round building. Tombs of the Mycenaean period were often ‘Tholos’ tombs and the form was still held special or sacred 1000 years later in Philopoemen’s time.
Thorax: Body armour, usually bronze.
Thorakatoi: Armoured infantry, usually Thureophoroi (see below) in maille shirts or bronze armour.
Thugater: Daughter. Look at the word carefully and you’ll see the ‘daughter’ in it …
Thyreophoroi or Thureophoroi: Men carrying a Gallic-style long oval shield and javelins with or without a long spear; very much like early period Roman legions. Greek infantry of the third century often were armed this way, as it made the best ‘all-round’ soldier who could patrol, skirmish, fight from a wall, and also have battlefield utility. (We tend to forget today that in the past, soldiers were not just important for the day of battle – so the most efficient battlefield type might not be the best choice for a small city state …)
Trierarch: The captain of a ship – sometimes just the owner or builder, sometimes the fighting captain.
The New Achilles Page 44