173 Pritchett, vol. 2, p. 59; G. Norlin in Loeb edition of Isocrates 8 On the Peace, p. 4 held up Chares, the leading general of Athens, as having ‘no mind for moral scruples’. On the ‘degenerate’ nature of the world, see Anderson, Military Theory and Practice, p. 1.
174 J. E. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts, p. 86.
175 J. E. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts, p. 89 argues that the tension between the ‘rules’ and ruthless advantage taking was a conflict between two sets of ideals – those of the hoplite and those of the generals. I see them, however, as working as a team with the same ideals.
Chapter 9: The Successor States and into the Hellenistic Age
1 Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 71. He points out that Egypt was in a state of dynastic warfare from 132 BCE onwards (ibid. p. 166). See also M. M. Austin, ‘War and culture in the Seleucid Empire’, in T. Bekker-Nielsen and L. Hannestad (eds), War as a Cultural and Social Force: Essays on Warfare in Antiquity (Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 2001), 90–1.
2 Austin, ‘War and culture in the Seleucid Empire’, p. 91; E. J. Bickerman, Institutions des Séleucides (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1938), 12–17; M. M. Austin, ‘Hellenistic kings, war and the economy’, CQ 36 (1986), pp. 450–66; A. N. Sherwin-White and A. Kuhrt, From Samarkhand to Sardis: A New Approach to the Seleucid Empire (London: Duckworth, 1993), 53–9.
3 To this we can add material from later, indirect sources like Livy (late first century CE), Appian (early second century CE) and in Plutarch’s Lives. On the monumental historiography of war in the Hellenistic Age, see Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, pp. 220–7. He argues convincingly that war was ‘a central theme of the Hellenistic culture of commemoration’ (ibid. p. 241).
4 See the comments of Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, pp. xxi, 2; also: ‘Even to compile a list of the wars which were fought between 332 and 31 BC, and of the regions which were affected by these wars, is beyond the possibilities of a modern historian’ (ibid. p. 5)
5 See Polybius 22.4.10–13 for second-century examples, and Ma, ‘Fighting polis of the Hellenistic world’, p. 353.
6 Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 79. Cf. Will, pp. 298–317.
7 As reported in Xenophon, Hellenica 6.1.5, trans. by John Marincola. See Strassler (ed.), Landmark Xenophon’s Hellenika. Pritchett, vol. 2, p. 213. See Ma, ‘Fighting poleis of the Hellenistic world’, p. 354 on training in the gymnasion.
8 Ma, ‘Fighting poleis of the Hellenistic world’, p. 354.
9 Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 51.
10 Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 78.
11 Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 78.
12 Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 78.
13 See Polybius 27.11.1–7; Livy 42.65.9–11; Pritchett, vol. 5, p. 37; Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 99.
14 We know of the existence of military trainers primarily from the honorary decrees of the Athenian ephebes. On the ephebeia in the Hellenistic period see J. F. Lendon, ‘War and society in the Hellenistic world and the Roman Republic’, in CHGRW, vol. 1, p. 506; see the discussion of the decline of the ephebeia in Athens in the fourth century in Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, 48–9.
15 See Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 50; Philippe Gauthier, ‘Notes sur la rôle du gymnase dans les cités hellénistiques’, in M. Wörrle and P. Zanker (eds), Stadtbild und Bürgerbild im Hellenismus (Munich: Beck, 1995).
16 Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 51; M. M. Austin, The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest: A Selection of Ancient Sources in Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 215; Philippe Gauthier, ‘Notes sur trois décrets honorant des citoyens bienfaiteurs’, Revue de Philologie 56 (1982), pp. 215–31.
17 Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 51; A. Magnelli, ‘Una nova iscrizione da Gortyna (Creta). Qualche considerazione sulla neotas’, Annuario della Scuola Italiana di Archeologia d’Atene, 70/71 (1992/3), pp. 291–305.
18 H. van Effenterre, ‘Fortins Crétois’, in Mélanges d’archéologie et d’Oistoire Offerts à Charles Picard à l’occasion de son 65ème Anniversaire (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1949), 1033–46. On men manning the forts on the frontier and patrolling (peripoloi = patrollers) in Akarnania and Epeiros, see L. Robert, ‘Péripolarques’, Hellénica 10 (Paris, 1955), pp. 283–92; P. Cabanes, ‘Recherches épigraphiques en Albanie; péripolarques et peripoloi en Grèce du Nord-Ouest et en Illyrie à la période hellénistiques’, CRAI (1991) pp. 197–221.
19 Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 51. For Athens, see M. V. Taylor, Salamis and the Salaminioi. The History of an Unofficial Athenian Demos (Amsterdam: Gieben, 1997), pp. 235–7.
20 Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 51; D. Knoepfler, ‘Les kryptoi du stratège Epicharès à Rhamnous et le debut de la guerre de Chrémonidès, BCH 118 (1993), pp. 327–41.
21 Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 51; L. Robert, études Anatoliennes. Recherches sur les Inscriptions Grecques de l’Asie Mineure (Paris: de Boccard, 1937), pp. 106–8.
22 Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 51; P. étienne and P. Roesch, ‘Convention militaire entre les cavaliers d’Orchomène et ceux de Cheronée’, BCH 102 (1978), p. 363.
23 Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 51; Vidal-Naquet, The Black Hunter, pp. 107–8; although see J. Ma, ‘Oversexed, overpaid, and over here: A response to Angelos Chaniotis’, in A. Chaniotis and P. Ducrey (eds), Army and Power in the Ancient World (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2002), p. 115.
24 A. Chaniotis, following Ducrey, considers them to be the best example: Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 81; Ducrey, Warfare in Ancient Greece, pp. 130–2. See also A. Petropouliou, Beiträge zur Wirtschafts-und Gesellschaftsgeschichte Kretas in Hellenistischer Zeit (Frankfurt: Lang, 1985), 15–31; Launey, pp. 248–86.
25 Greek Anthology, trans. by W. R. Paton (Cambridge: MA: Harvard University Press, 1916–18), 7.654: ‘The Cretans are ever brigands and pirates and never just’; Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 251; P. Perlman, ‘Κρηιες αει ληιβιαι? The marginalization of Crete in Greek thought and the role of piracy in the outbreak of the First Cretan War’, in V. Gabrielsen et al. (eds), Hellenistic Rhodes: Politics, Culture and Society (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1999), pp. 132–61. David Whitehead defines klopas polemion in Polybius as meaning ‘theft’ whereas W. R. Paton in the Loeb edition (Polybius, The Histories, trans. by W. R. Paton, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960, 6 vols) translates it as ‘trick played on the enemy’.
26 Xenophon, Hellenica 7.1.23; Trundle, ‘Identity and Community’, p. 490.
27 Roth, p. 391.
28 Ducrey, p. 130.
29 Parke, Greek Mercenary Soldiers, 3–6 on mercenaries abroad before 500 BCE and 7–13 on mercenary service under the ancient Greek tyrants. Cf. Ducrey, Warfare in Ancient Greece, p. 130.
30 An example might be the ones who scratched the celebrated graffito on the leg of a temple statue in Egypt in 591. R. Meiggs and D. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century BC (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1969), p. 12.
31 Pritchett, vol. 2, pp. 101–4; Runciman, p. 743; Luraghi, 21–47. Although see the caveat about assuming all mercenaries in these regions were driven by poverty in C. Morgan, ‘Symbolic and pragmatic aspects of warfare in the Greek world of the 8th to 6th centuries BC’, in T. Bekker-Nielsen and L. Hannestad (eds), War as a Cultural and Social Force (Copenhagen: Det kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 2001), 20–44.
32 No less than 8,000 men were left unemployed in the aftermath of Alexander’s conquests and gathered at Cape Tainaron in 323 BCE. See Diodorus Siculus 18.9.1; cf. Launey, p. 105, n. 1 and Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 82. The standard view is that the emergence of mercenaries was a sign of widespread social and economic crisis. This was the general view of Par
ke’s Greek Mercenary Soldiers; M. Bettalli’s I Mercenari Nel Mondo Greco (Pisa: ETS, 1995), 23–9. André Aymard’s influential article ‘Mercenariat et histoire grecque’, in études d’Histoire Ancienne (Paris: Publications de la Faculte des Lettres de Paris, 1967), pp. 487–98; and Baker, pp. 240–55. More recently, however, see Luraghi, p. 21 and Van Wees, Greek Warfare, p. 273, n. 48.
33 Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 85. On the effect of mercenaries on local populations, see A. Chaniotis, ‘Foreign soldiers – native girls? Constructing and crossing boundaries in Hellenistic cities with foreign garrisons’, in A. Chaniotis and P. Ducrey (eds), Army and Power in the Ancient World (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2002), 99–113. On the identity of Greek mercenaries abroad, see Trundle, ‘Identity and community among Greek mercenaries’, pp. 481–91. Runciman, p. 743.
34 Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 83 who calls the position ‘parasitic’.
35 Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 80. For the numbers, see Launey, 8–11. On their pay scales, see Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 116. P. Bresson, ‘Hellenistic military leadership’, in H. van Wees, War and Violence in Ancient Greece (London: Duckworth, 2000), pp. 319–21 on training.
36 Isocrates 8.44–48 includes these points in his tirade against mercenaries.
37 On the political unrest and the behaviour of soldiers, especially the brutality and greed of Thracians, see Best, pp. 127–33.
38 Isocrates, Panegyricus 4.166–68 and On the Peace 46–48.
39 Aristotle, Nichomachaean Ethics 1116b.
40 Isaeus, Isaeus 2.6.3 (On the Estate of Menecles); Aeschines 2.149 (On the Embassy).
41 Runciman, p. 743.
42 The Phocians looted Delphi and enabled themselves, even for a short period, to increase their military potential out of all proportion to the size of their own citizen body. See Runciman, p. 744. On the miles gloriosus see S. C. Humphreys, Anthropology and the Greeks (London: Routledge, 1978), p. 174 citing T. B. L. Webster, Studies in Later Greek Comedy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1953), p. 39.
43 Demosthenes 9.49–51.
44 Runciman, p. 744 calls ambushes and stratagems conspicuously absent from the wars of the earlier periods but, as we have seen, they always existed.
45 Griffith, p. 5; Best, pp. 118–19 disagrees. He believes Thracian peltasts continued to serve in Greek armies. They disappeared from Athenian vases because they became such a common sight that artists’ interest in them waned.
46 Runciman, p. 745.
47 Polybius 4.8.11. On the wars in Crete during the Hellenistic period, see ibid. 9–12. Dué and Ebbott, pp. 260–1 discuss the possibility that ambush was a Cretan speciality already by the time of the Iliad.
48 Ducrey, Warfare in Ancient Greece, p. 130.
49 Ducrey, Warfare in Ancient Greece, p. 130.
50 A number of these treaties, inscribed in stone, have come down to us either intact or in fragmentary form. The longest one is between Rhodes and Hierapytna, but Rhodes concluded an almost identical treaty with a neighbouring city, the little Olons on the north of the gulf of Mirabello. For a list of the treaties, see Ducrey, Warfare in Ancient Greece, p. 195.
51 Polyaenus 4.2.18.
52 Polyaenus 4.2.22.
53 The war was caused by a large fine imposed on the Phocians in 357 for cultivating sacred land. Refusing to pay, the Phocians instead seized the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, and used the accumulated treasures to fund large mercenary armies. Although the Phocians suffered several major defeats, they were able to continue the war for many years, until eventually all parties were exhausted. Philip II used the distraction of the other states to increase his power in northern Greece, in the process becoming ruler of Thessaly. In the end, Philip’s growing power, and the exhaustion of the other states, allowed him to impose a peaceful settlement of the war, marking a major step in the rise of Macedon to pre-eminence in ancient Greece.
54 Polyaenus 2.38.2. The event occurred some time between 356 and 353 when Onomarchus was defeated and slain by Philip, who had his body ignomiously hung up for the sacrilege against the Temple of Delphi. On Onomarchus, see Aristotle, Politics 5; Diodorus Siculus 16.60.2; Parke, Greek Mercenary Soldiers, pp. 136–7.
55 Arrian, 3.10.2.
56 Q. Curtius Rufus, History of Alexander, trans. J. C. Rolfe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 4.13.3–10 has a more long-winded version. See Plutarch’s version in Alexander 31.10ff where he suggests striking at night would be easier and remove the ‘fear’ of attacking them in daylight whereas, in reality, a night attack would be neither easy nor fear-reducing.
57 Thus argues A. B. Bosworth, A Historical Commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1980), vol. 1, pp. 295–6 who says the story is characteristic of the heroic portrait of the younger Alexander. The king is portrayed on every occasion as engaging the enemy frontally and under the most adverse circumstances. This moralising on the part of later authors portrays failure to face the enemy as shameful and the use of underhanded stratagems to achieve victory even more so. See Whitehead, ‘Klope Polemou’, p. 295.
58 Arrian 5.10.3. For the same stratagem see Quintus Curtius Rufus 8.13.18–19; Polyaenus 4.3.9; Frontinus 1.4.9. Only Arrian emphasises that the diversionary manoeuvres took place at night: Bosworth, A Historical Commentary, vol. 2, p. 273.
59 Polyaenus 4.3.12 335 concealed force attacked walls in opposite quarter.
60 Diodorus Siculus 15.16.1.
61 Diodorus Siculus 16.38.4.
62 Diodorus Siculus 16.38.7.
63 On this struggle for power, see F. E. Peters, The Harvest of Hellenism. A History of the Near East from Alexander the Great to the Triumph of Christianity (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970), 66–118.
64 Polyaenus 4.11.4.
65 Diodorus Siculus 19.27.2–28.4. A. M. Devine, ‘Diodorus’ account of the Battle of Paraitacene (317 BCE)’, The Ancient World 12 (1985), 76–9. Cf. J. E. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts, pp. 143–4.
66 For a discussion of the Battle of Paraetacene, see J. Romm, Ghost on the Throne. The Death of Alexander the Great and the War for Crown and Empire (New York: Knopf, 2011), pp. 252–6. Cf. A. B. Bosworth, The Legacy of Alexander: Politics, Warfare and Propaganda under the Successors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), chap. 4; Devine, 75–96.
67 Brennus was supposedly one of the leaders of the Gallic invasion that sacked Delphi although the ancient sources do not support this. Both the historians who relate the attack on Delphi (Pausanias 10.23 and Justin 24.7–8) say the Gauls were defeated and driven off. See Barry Cunliffe, The Ancient Celts (Harmondworth: Penguin, 2000), 80–1.
68 The story is narrated later by Pausanias 10.23.1–10. Cf. Justin 24.8 after the original nucleus had been enriched with typical elements of similar narratives. See Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 158.
69 Polybius 2.53.
70 Polybius 4.25.3.
71 Polybius 5.13.4–5. For attacks on rearguard, see Cestius Gallus at the Beth Horon pass where the Jews attacked the Romans in this manner: B. Bar-Kochva, ‘Seron and Cestius Gallus at Beit Horon’, PEQ 108 (1976), 13–21. M. Gichon, ‘Cestius Gallus’ campaign in Judaea’, 113 PEQ (1981), 39–62. See an attack on Antony’s rearguard in Armenia: R. M. Sheldon, Rome’s Wars in Parthia (London: Valentine Mitchell, 2010), chap. 4. For a similar ambush in the battle of Sellasia, see Polybius 2.66–67; Walbank, vol. 1, p. 280 with a diagram on p. 276 based on Kromayer.
72 Peters, p. 95.
73 Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World, p. 119.
74 Polybius 4.63.9.
75 Polybius 4.59.3.
76 Polybius 5.95.8; Walbank, vol. 1, p. 625.
77 Polybius 5.70.7. See E. H. Cline, The Battles of Armageddon: Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley from the Bronze Age to the Nuclear Age (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), p. 101.
78 On signalling and Polybius, see D. Woolliscroft, Roman Military Signalling (Stroud: Tem
pus, 2001), pp. 159–71. Cf. Walbank, vol. 2, p. 144 on signalling.
79 Polybius 8.14.7–8. On the occupation of Lissus and its part in Philip’s western policy, see J. M. F. May, ‘Macedonia and Illyria 217–216 BC’, JRS 36 (1946), 48–56.
80 Polybius 16.37.7. Walbank, vol. 2, p. 545.
81 Griffith, p. 320.
82 Griffith, p. 324.
83 Leosthenes was perhaps the last famous general produced by Ancient Athens.
84 Theodotus was an Aetolian who was in command of Coele-Syria under Ptolemy Philopater (221–204 BCE): Polybius 5.40. Scopas was a general who served both the Aetolian League in the Social war and Ptolemaic Egypt against the Seleucids. He was executed in 196 BCE at Alexandria for conspiring to seize power for himself: Polybius 13.1–3; 16.18–19, 39; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 12.3.3; St Jerome, Commentary on Daniel 11.15–16.
85 Griffith, p. 320; Livy 37.41.9.
86 J. E. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts, p. 146.
Chapter 10: Why the Greeks Used Ambush
1 See the examples listed by Pritchett, vol. 2, p. 184. Unlike ancient armies, modern armies calculate the opponent force ratios that are required to attack or defend an objective. It is generally assumed that the force ratio of about 5:1 is required to attack an enemy who has fortified himself. T. N. Dupuy et al., International Military and Defense Encyclopedia (Washington, DC: Brasseys, 1993), vol. 5, p. 2033. Van Wees, Greek Warfare, p. 132.
2 Ambush by light-armed troops. Even modern training manuals say that light infantry forces train to defeat the enemy on terrain where its unique abilities can be used: FM 7–70, p. iii.
3 See Pritchett, vol. 2, pp. 117–25 on Corinthian peltasts. FM 7–70, 5–1; FM 7–70, p. v states that light infantry has always been different from regular infantry in their use of skills and training to find the best way to solve a problem. They operate in dispersed formations; they lead attacks with limited support and increased freedom of action.
4 On surprise and psychological shock, see FM 7–70, 5–1.
5 FM 7–70, 5–28.
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