62 Wheeler, ‘Land battles’, in CHGRW, vol. 1, p. 191.
63 Polybius 13.3.2–6.
64 Wheeler, ‘Land battles’, in CHGRW, vol. 1, p. 191.
65 Demosthenes, Third Philippic, 9.47–52.
66 Polybius 10.1.12; Polybius 13.3.2–4; Strabo, The Geography of Strabo, trans. by Horace Leonard Jones (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982–9), 10.1.12; E. L. Wheeler, ‘Ephorus and the prohibition of missiles’, TAPA 117 (1987), pp. 157–82. As an example of someone who accepted the treaty as historical see J. K. Anderson, Military Theory and Practice in the Age of Xenophon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), p. 1; and Wheeler ‘Land battles’, in CHGRW, vol. 1, p. 191. Despite Polybius’ claim that the ancient’s agreed not to use unseen missiles or missiles shot from a distance, the only such agreement we know of appears in Strabo. He claims it was inscribed on a column in the sanctuary of Artemis Amarynthia, prohibiting missiles in the Lelantine war.
67 Wheeler, ‘Ephorus and the prohibition of missiles’, pp. 157–82; Krentz, ‘Fighting by the rules’, p. 29.
68 Van Wees, ‘The development of the hoplite phalanx’, pp. 146–56; van Wees, Greek Warfare, pp. 166–77. On slingers, see E. C. Echols, ‘The ancient slinger’, CW 43 (1950), pp. 227–30; and M. Korfmann, ‘The sling as a weapon’, Scientific American 229, 4 (1973), 34–42. On javelin men, see Ray, 14–15.
69 Xenophon, Cyropaedia 3.3.47 (based on the Loeb trans.); cf. Thucydides 6.11.6.
70 Already by the time of the Ionian revolt Aristagoras of Miletus tried to draw both the Spartans and the Athenians into the conflict with Persia by speculating on the Greeks’ contempt for the ‘inferior’ fighting methods of the Persians’ light-armed: Herodotus 5.49.3; 97.1. On Persian armaments, cf. Herodotus 7.61.1. For statements on the formality of Greek warfare, see Herodotus 7.9; Demosthenes, Orations 9.4; Polybius 13.3.2–6. For the Greek dichotomy between fighting ‘openly’ and trickery, see Heza, pp. 227–44.
71 Thucydides 7.29.3; 7.30.4. On this incident, see chap. 7.
72 Ducrey, Warfare in Ancient Greece, p. 112.
73 On the lack of hoplite-on-hoplite ambush, see Pritchett, vol. 2, 156ff.; and Connor, 83–109.
74 Heza, p. 229.
75 On the ‘Spartan mirage’, see F. Ollier, Le Mirage Spartiate (Paris: de Boccard, 1933). Paul Cartledge, ‘The politics of Spartan pederasty’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 27 (1981), p. 18 describes this Spartan mirage as the partly distorted, partly imaginary picture of Sparta that its non-Spartan admirers needed and wanted to believe represented the reality. See also Heza, p. 229.
76 Pausanias 4.17.3.
77 J. E. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts, 86–7.
78 See the comments of J. E. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts, p. 82. ‘It is not difficult to build up a dossier of military tricks practised by a variety of Greek states before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war’ (ibid. p. 83).
79 See the comments of John Ma, ‘Fighting poleis of the Hellenistic world’, in H. van Wees, War and Violence in Ancient Greece (London: Duckworth, 2000), p. 355.
80 L. A. Losada, The Fifth Column in the Peloponnesian war (Leiden: Brill, 1972), p. 41.
81 F. E. Adcock, The Greek and Macedonian Art of War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957), 16–17; Losada, p. 42.
82 Kromayer and Veith, p. 88; Adcock, 16–17; Losada, p. 42.
83 Losada, 2–3.
84 Porter, p. 77.
85 J. E. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts, p. 83. See also Krentz, ‘Fighting by the rules’, p. 28.
86 Certainly every hoplite battle of which we have a detailed account shows some ritual elements. See J. E. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts, p. 83
Chapter 5: Surprise Attacks – Fifth Century
1 Pritchett, vol. 2, p. 156.
2 Whatley, p. 304 (p. 122 in the original JHS text).
3 Herodotus 1.63.
4 On this incident at Sepeia, see Herodotus 6.79; Plutarch, Cleomenes 17 has the attack take place at night. Ray, p. 49 tries to reconcile the two versions. Cf. the section entitled ‘De tempore ad pugnam eligendo’ in Frontinus, Stratagems, Book 2. Three of the stratagems used by Roman generals (nos 1, 2, 15) were devised because the enemy drew up in battle array early before breakfast.
5 Herodotus 6.77–78. Godley trans.
6 Polyaenus 1.15. Krentz and Wheeler trans.
7 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 198.
8 Clausewitz, p. 198. Thucydides also comments on the attacker’s difficulties resulting from their poor vision and intelligence (Thucydides 7.44).
9 Clausewitz, pp. 273–5. Cf. Hannibal at the Iugum Calliculae: Livy 22.15–17; Plutarch, Fabius Maximus 6; Polybius 3.93–94; Walbank, vol. 1, pp. 429–30; Silius Italicus, Punica 7.311ff.
10 E. Luttwak, Strategy: The Logic of Peace and War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 10.
11 Clausewitz, p. 275.
12 Thucydides 2.3–4.
13 Thucydides 2.3.1–4.
14 On the topography of Plataea and its strategic value, see Grundy, Thucydides and the History of His Age, vol. 2, 336ff. On the military value of women throwing roof tiles, see D. Schaps, ‘The women of Greece in wartime’, CP 77, 3 (July 1982), 195 and W. D. Barry, ‘Roof tiles and urban violence in the ancient world’, GRBS 37, 1 (1996), 55–74. Women could add to the discomfort of a hard-pressed enemy as Thucydides says they did at Plataea (and also Corcyra). As far as we know, however, no one lured the enemy into a city specifically to expose him to the women on the rooftops.
15 See Thucydides 2.4 on Plataea, and the fateful hit of the Argive woman who laid Pyrrhus low in 272 BCE: Plutarch, Pyrrhus 34; Pausanias 1.13.8; Polyaenus 8.68; Diodorus Siculus 15.83. See Schaps, p. 195; Barry, 55–74. Plutarch tells the tale of women smuggling weapons in for otherwise unarmed men to use in a surprise attack. Plutarch, Moralia 246D-247A, 248E-249B (the latter are Iberian, not Greek women).
16 For a detailed discussion of this campaign, see most recently J. E. Lendon, Song of Wrath. The Peloponnesian War Begins (New York: Basic Books, 2010), chap. 7.
17 Thucydides 4.26.1–8.
18 Thucydides 4.28.4.; D. Kagan, The Peloponnesian War (New York: Viking, 2003), pp. 147–150; J. F. Lazenby, The Peloponnesian War. A Military Study (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), p. 77.
19 Thucydides 4.29.3.
20 Thucydides 4.29.1.
21 Thucydides 4.30.2.
22 Thucydides 4.30.3.
23 Thucydides 4.31.2.
24 Thucydides 4.31.2.
25 Thucydides 4.32.1. For a different reading of the text, see Gomme, HCT 3, 474. J. F. Lazenby, The Spartan Army (Warminster, Wilts: Aris and Philips, 1985), p. 119 notes how difficult it is to keep soldiers on alert for an invasion and gives an example from the Falklands war.
26 Thucydides 4.30.4.
27 Thucydides 4.30.4.
28 Thucydides 4.32.2. Kagan, The Peloponnesian War, p. 151; van Wees, Greek Warfare, pp. 62, 65; Lazenby, The Peloponnesian War, p. 76 who writes there could hardly have been fewer than 10,000 Athenian troops.
29 Thucydides 4.32.1.
30 Thucydides 4.32.4.
31 Thucydides 4.30.
32 See Thucydides 4.32.4; Kagan, The Peloponnesian War, p. 151.
33 Thucydides 4.35.3–4.
34 Thucydides 4.36.1.
35 Thucydides 4.36.2–3.
36 Thucydides 4.36.2. For adokeitos used of surprise attacks see Pritchett, vol. 2 (1974), p. 156 and S. Hornblower, Commentary on Thucydides (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1991), at 5.10.7, vol. 2, p. 448.
37 Thucydides 4.37.1.
38 Thucydides 4.37.2.
39 Thucydides 4.38.1.
40 Lazenby, The Peloponnesian War, p. 75.
41 Thucydides 4.40.
42 It has been argued, of course, that since the victory had been won by a klope polemou, i.e. a theft or cheat in war, it was therefore not a victory. S
ee D. Whitehead, ‘Klope Polemou. “Theft” in ancient Greek warfare’, in E. L. Wheeler, The Armies of Classical Greece (Aldershot, Hants and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007), p. 291. See also Roisman, The General Demosthenes, p. 40 who believes Demosthenes’ contribution to the Athenian victory was overrated.
43 Thucydides 4.40.2 has one of the Spartans remark that it would be a very valuable arrow that could pick out the brave men. See the remarks of Lazenby, The Peloponnesian War, 9, 78.
44 Von Wilamowitz, in his evaluation of the Battle of Sphacteria, shows the same Spartan mentality when he writes: ‘Ist es nicht so recht ein Kampf von Soldaten höchsten Ranges mit einem Haufen Miliz? Für spartanische Manneszucht und Mannestugend ist Sphakteria kein geringeres Zeugnis als Thermopylae’: U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, ‘Sphakteria’, Sitzungber. Der Preuss. Akad der Wiss 17 (1921), p. 310. Euripides seems to be the exception in his time: see Euripides, Hercules 188–203 (420–421 BCE).
45 P. Stahl, Thukydides, die Stellung des Menschen im geschichtlichen Prozess, Zetemata 40 (Munich: Beck, 1966), 152, 153 and n. 80. Quoted in Best, p. 26.
46 Kagan, The Peloponnesian War, p. 152. Roisman, The General Demosthenes, 33–41; D. Leebaert, To Dare to Conquer (New York: Little, Brown, 2006), p. 56.
47 Best, p. 21 credits Demosthenes with having picked the type of troops used on Sphacteria.
48 Thucydides 3.94.3. For a more thorough treatment of this campaign, see Roisman, The General Demosthenes, 25–6.
49 The criticism comes from Roisman, The General Demosthenes, p. 26, but see Best, p. 18. Cf. Ray, pp. 166–7.
50 Thucydides 3.107–108; Polyaenus 3.1.2 reports 300 men; Best, p. 19. On the topography, see N. G. L. Hammond, ‘The campaigns in Amphilochia during the Archidamian war’, BSA 37 (1936–7), pp. 128–40; J. E. Lendon, Song of Wrath, pp. 240–2. Ray, pp. 168–72, especially the diagram of the battle on p. 170.
51 Best, p. 18; Gomme, HCT 2, 420; Roisman, The General Demosthenes, 29–30. J. F. Lazenby, The Peloponnesian War, p. 64 compares Demosthenes’ ambush to Hannibal’s at Trebbia.
52 See Roisman, The General Demosthenes, p. 29 who finds it no accident that the troops who lay in ambush were Acarnanians.
53 Thucydides 2.81.4–6. For another Acarnanian ambush in 426/5, see Thucydides 3.108.1; Roisman, The General Demosthenes, p. 29. On Stratus see Ray, pp. 157–9.
54 Thucydides 3.110.
55 Thucydides 3.107.2.
56 Thucydides 3.112; Roisman, The General Demosthenes, p. 29.
57 Thucydides 3.112; Roisman, The General Demosthenes, 30–3. E.C. Woodcock, ‘Demosthenes, son of Alcisthenes’, HSCPh 39 (1928), 93–108 also notices his use of surprise, ambush, reconnaissance, scouts and informants who knew the terrain.
58 Hammond, ‘The campaigns in Amphilochia during the Archidamian war’, p. 139; D. Kagan, The Archidamian War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974), p. 214; Best, 19ff; Heza, p. 236; but Roisman, The General Demosthenes, 30–1 suggests that there is little in this story to suggest Demosthenes, as a general, was ahead of his time.
59 Thucydides 5.10 and see Wylie, ‘Brasidas – great commander or whiz kid?’, 91–2. Best, p. 29. On Bradisas’ role, see Thucydides 4.11.4–12; Diodorus Siculus 12.62.1–5.
60 J. E. Lendon, Song of Wrath, 33.
61 Brasidas had 1,500 hired Thracians, 1,000 from Myrcinus and Chalcidice and others from Amphipolis and neighbouring tribes for a total of 4,000–5,000 in all. All Cleon had was some poorly armed retainers and 120 archers for light support although he had sent to Macedonia and Thrace for more skirmishers. See Ray, pp. 193–5 for the dispositions on each side.
62 Best, p. 33; see Losada, 40–1.
63 Or so argues J. K. Anderson, ‘Cleon’s orders at Amphipolis’, JHS 85 (1965), 1–4; see also Wylie, ‘Brasidas – great commander or whiz kid?’, p. 439.
64 Thucydides sneers at 5.10.9. Cleon’s lack of field experience in commanding hoplites may be responsible for the disaster to his army. In ‘Cleon’s orders at Amphipolis’, Anderson suggests that his manoeuvre might have succeeded if it had been carried out more quickly and he had programmed his senior officers beforehand. D. Cartwright, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997), p. 201 believes that being killed by a Myrcinian peltast highlighted the ignominy of Cleon’s death because he was brought down by a ‘light-armed soldier’.
65 As it was the entire Athenian left wing escaped almost unscathed. See Wylie, ‘Brasidas – great commander or whiz kid?’, p. 440.
66 Thucydides 7.27.1. H. W. Parke, Greek Mercenary Soldiers from the Earliest Times to the Battle of Ipsus (Chicago: Ares, 1981), p. 18.
67 Thucydides 7.43.6.
68 Epipolae was enclosed with walls some twelve miles (nineteen kilometres) long by the tyrant Dionysius I (c. 430–367 BCE). The southern wall, of which considerable remains exist, was probably often restored. Epipolae narrows to a ridge about 180 feet (55 m) wide at one point. Here are the ruins of the most imposing fortress to survive from the Greek period. On the attack, see Roisman, The General Demosthenes, 52–70.
69 Examples are presented by Pritchett, vol. 2, p. 161, in table 3. Excluded are examples (Thucydides 2.90; 3.76) where the opposing fleets put out to sea at dawn, but in which the naval battle proper did not take place until somewhat later. Similarly, the Athenian disembarkment on Sphacteria (Thucydides 4.31) is not listed. See J. S. Morrison and J. F. Coates, The Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 75.
70 Xenophon, Hellenica 7.1.15–16 offers a reason for dawn attacks on fortified positions. It was the hour when the night guards were retiring but before the general body had risen and gotten under arms.
71 Thucydides 4.31.
72 Herodotus 8.85.
73 Thucydides 1.48.2.
74 Thucydides 4.42–44 relates the same story as Polyaenus 1.39.1 but without the double landing. On the Battle of Solygeia see J. B. Salmon, Wealthy Corinth (Oxford: The Clarendon Press 1984), 318ff; J. Wiseman, The Land of the Ancient Corinthians (Goteborg: Paul Ǻstrom, 1978), 56ff. The description of the battle is so vivid, it has been suggested that Thucydides himself participated in it (Gomme, HCT 3.494) but see R. S. Stroud, ‘Thucydides and Corinth’, Chiron 24 (1994), p. 286. Ray, pp. 177–9.
75 Thucydides 6.64–66. Diodorus Siculus 13.6.2–5 picks up the story as did Frontinus 3.6.6 and Polyaenus 1.40.5 who get the facts wrong and attribute it to Alcibiades. See Krentz, ‘Deception in Archaic and Classical Greek warfare’, pp. 167–8; Losada, pp. 116–17.
76 Plutarch, Nicias 16.3.
77 Thucydides 6.64.3 415/14. Krentz, ‘Deception in Archaic and Classical Greek warfare’, p. 168.
78 Thucydides 6.101.3 Syracuse 414 BCE.
79 Actually there is a gap between the last events in Thucydides and the beginning of Xenophon. See R. B. Strassler (ed.), The Landmark Xenophon’s Hellenika, trans. by John Marincola, introduction by David Thomas (New York: Pantheon, 2009), p. 3.
80 Xenophon, Hellenica 1.1.2–3 Hellespont 411 BCE. According to Strassler, p. 3 scholars are still not exactly sure where this battle took place.
81 Xenophon, Hellenica 1.6.28–33. For more on Callicratidas, see J. Roisman, ‘Kallikratidas. A Greek patriot?’, CJ 83, 1 (Oct.–Nov. 1987), 21–33.
82 Polyaenus 5.10.4. Krentz and Wheeler trans.
83 Xenophon, Hellenica 4.1.24 395. Paphlagonia.
84 Xenophon, Hellenica 5.1.21 Piraeus 387. John Marincola trans.
85 Frontinus 2.5.26; Cf. Diodorus Siculus 15.68; Polyaenus 2.3.9; Xenophon, Hellenica 7.1.16 (369 BCE).
86 G. T. Griffith, Mercenaries in the Hellenistic World (New York: AMS Press, 1977), pp. 194–6.
87 Plutarch, Dion 30, Syracuse 357/6.
88 Diodorus Siculus 13.72.2–4. Neither Xenophon nor any other ancient writer mentions this attack. Since it failed and had no material effect on the course of the war, its omission is not surprising. See D. Kagan, The Fa
ll of the Athenian Empire (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), p. 321. Jean Hatzfeld, Alcibiade: étude sur l’Histoire d’Athènes à la Fin du Ve Siècle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1951), p. 316, n. 1 says this large undertaking should not be confused with the small raid Agis undertook in 410 mentioned by Xenophon 1.1.33–34. Numbers given by Diodorus Siculus often tend to be inflated.
89 Diodorus Siculus 13.113.1. On Dionysius’ takeover of Syracuse, see M. I. Finley, Ancient Sicily (New York: Viking Press, 1969), vol. 1, 74–87. On the reliability of Diodorus Siculus see L. J. Sanders, Dionysius I of Syracuse and Greek Tyranny (NY: Methuen, 1987), pp. 110–57 and L. Pearson, The Greek Historians of the West (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1987), pp. 157–91.
90 Polyaenus 2.2.6. On Clearchus and his use of peltasts, see Best, p. 52; Parke, Greek Mercenary Soldiers, p. 19.
91 Griffith, p. 4.
92 Losada, p. 43. In his comments on Brasidas’ speech, Gomme, HCT 3, 644 notes: ‘The Spartans were the chief upholders of the conventional hoplite battle.’
93 Pritchett, vol. 2, p. 156.
94 Best, p. 20.
95 Roisman, The General Demosthenes. See also the review of Roisman, The General Demosthenes by Simon Hornblower, in CR 44, 2 (1994), 336–.
96 Roisman, The General Demosthenes, 52–70; see the review of Roisman, The General Demosthenes by Stewart Flory, in JMH 57, 4 (Oct. 1993), pp. 716–17.
97 When the attack on Epipolae failed, Demosthenes strongly advocated the siege to be relinquished immediately and for the Athenians to return home (Thucydides 7.47.3). Nicias ignored this advice and retreated overland. The tactics which the Syracusan cavalry and infantry used when pursuing the Athenians were similar to those Demosthenes had encountered at the start of his career and which he himself had learned to use so advantageously. He had no more chance than the Spartans on Sphacteria. Both Demosthenes and Nicias were killed (Thucydides 7.83.3–84).
98 Gomme, vol. 3, p. 654; cf. Best, 34–5.
99 Wylie suggests he might have become another Sertorius: Wylie, ‘Brasidas – great commander or whiz kid?’, p. 441.
100 Sparta lacked the allied contributions available to Athens and was chronically short of money as well as manpower.
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