Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience

by Victor Davis Hanson

  certain amount of ebb and flow at the shoving stage. Herodotos, for example, alleges that the Greeks flung the Persians back four times in the shoving over Leonidas' body (7.225.1), though this was not against hoplites. But, eventually, one side or the other would have had to give way, either because gaps opened in the line as men fell, or because of the sheer weight of their opponents' 'shove'. Often the collapse came in one section of the line and led to the flight of the rest. At Leuktra, for example, the Spartan left gave way when it saw the right 'shoved back' (Xen. Hell. 6.4.14). Epameinondas elevated into a principle the idea that if you could defeat one part of an army, the rest would give way, believing, Xenophon says, that 'it is very hard to find men willing to stand, when they see some of their own side in flight' (Hell. 7.5.24).

  We might, perhaps, have expected to hear of the losers being knocked down and trampled underfoot as the victors surged forward, but possibly the disintegration was gradual. The rear ranks in the losing phalanx would have peeled off to run, and even the front ranks may have stayed on their feet, though the moment of disengagement would have been terribly dangerous. Perhaps they were helped by a momentary pause as the winners realized that the enemy line had given way and that shoving could give place to stabbing. We do hear of fugitives trampling each other in their desperation to get away, for example at First Mantineia (Thuc. 5.72.4), and the situation could be much worse if escape was difficult, as for the Athenians at the ford over the Assinaros (Thuc. 7.84.3). Xenophon has an appalling description of Argive fugitives trying to get away from Spartans between the 'long walls' of Corinth, in the Corinthian War (Hell. 4.4.11). They were penned up against one of the walls, and were trying to scramble up the steps leading on to it; some were even asphyxiated in the crush. A recent tragedy at a football match in England, in which ninety-five people were killed, is a terrible reminder of what such an incident would have been like.7

  Undoubtedly the side that lost a hoplite battle tended to lose more heavily than the winners, and this was presumably because men who turned to flee, immediately exposed their backs. As Tyrtaios says, 'it's easy8 to pierce the back of a fleeing man' (11.17–8). Often, too, as we have seen, they threw away their shields, so that even if they did turn at bay, they would have been at a serious disadvantage. It was in these situations that—according to Plato's Laches—weapons-drill finally came into its own. But not every retreating hoplite was a Sokrates, whose belligerent mien in the retreat from Delion, acted as an

  effective deterrent to anyone who thought of attacking him (Plato Symp. 221b). Often one imagines, once panic had set in, the mass of fugitives would have been more like the mob of Argives Xenophon describes, 'frightened, panic-stricken, presenting their unprotected sides, no one turning to fight, but all doing everything to assist their own slaughter' (Hell. 4.4.12). Even on a battlefield, parts of a defeated army could find themselves surrounded, as happened to the Thespiaians at Delion (Thuc. 4.96.3),9 and once the winners' bloodlust was aroused, they might even slaughter some of their own men, in ignorance, as happened here. Xenophon says that the Spartans who had routed the Argives just described, thought their defenceless state was a gift from heaven.

  But for all the horrors of such incidents, where figures are given, the losses suffered in hoplite battles actually seem to represent only a small percentage of those who had taken part. Thus the losses at Delion amounted to just over 7 per cent for the Boiotians and just over 14 per cent for the Athenians, if Thucydides' figures are reliable (4.93.3, 94.1, 101.2). Figures for other battles are less reliable, but in few, if any, do even the beaten side appear to have suffered more than the Athenians at Delion, and casualties amongst the winners seem sometimes to have been perhaps as low as 2 per cent.10 Such figures pale in comparison with the appalling losses inflicted on the Romans, for example, at Trasimene and Cannae, where about 60 per cent of them may have been killed.

  These were special cases, but part of the reason for the comparatively low losses in hoplite battles was that hoplites were not really suited to pursuit, and that although cavalry was frequently used instead, not all Greek states had cavalry, and those that did often had very few. Apart from the sheer weight of their equipment, hoplites who broke ranks to pursue, laid themselves open to counter-attack, and cavalry and light troops could also very easily find themselves in difficulties if beaten hoplites rallied. Thus it was no kind-heartedness which led the Spartans only to press the pursuit for a short distance, as Thucydides tells us was their custom (5.73–4), though they may also have felt it was not the 'done thing'.

  However, even if losses in a hoplite battle were comparatively low, the nature of the fighting probably meant that the small area in which the decisive clash had taken place would have been a grim sight. We can probably discount some of the more lurid descriptions, for example Aischylos' talk of the 'clotted gore' lying on the soil at Plataia, and of the 'heaps of corpses bearing silent witness to the eyes

  of mortals to the third generation' (Pers, 8l6ff.), though Herodotos claims to have seen the skeletons of men killed at Pelousion during Kambyses' invasion of Egypt (3.12). Obviously, too, if fugitives were caught in a situation like the wretched Argives at Corinth, the slaughter would have been more than usually horrific. The heaps of corpses, Xenophon implies, looked like piles of corn, logs or stones (Hell. 4.4.12). But Xenophon's description of the battlefield at Koroneia, which he saw himself, is bad enough:

  When the battle was over, one could see, where they had crashed into each other, the earth stained red with blood, bodies of friends and foes lying with each other, shattered shields, broken spears, swords bare of sheaths, some on the ground, some in the body, some still in the hand.

  (Ages. 2.14)

  The 254 skeletons, laid out in seven rows, around the site of the Lion of Chaironeia, assuming that they are the remains of men killed in the battle,11 are a reminder that Xenophon's description of Koroneia is probably only too accurate.

  At least when the fury died, Greeks usually behaved in a fairly decent manner. There was little exulting over fallen foes, indeed Agesilaos is said to have been saddened at the news that so many had fallen at the Nemea (Xen. Ages. 7.5), and Philip to have burst into tears at the sight of the dead members of the Sacred Band after Chaironeia (Plut. Pel. 18.5). Then, as now, survivors shook hands with their comrades (Xen. Hell. 7.2.9), and there was the usual boasting: 'Of the seven dead, whom we overtook on our feet,' sings Archilochos (101), 'we are the thousand slayers.' Sometimes men gathered round their generals to congratulate them (Xen. Hell. 4.3.18).

  There are very few references to the care of wounded.12 Xenophon's statement that the first Spartans wounded in the encounter with Iphikrates' peltasts near Corinth, were got away safely to Lechaion by the hypaspistai (Hell. 4.5.15), is a rare exception. More attention was obviously given to those of high rank. Agesilaos, for example, is said to have been severely wounded at Second Koroneia (Xen. Ages. 2.13), but clearly survived, and Plutarch claims that Pelopidas received seven wounds at First Mantineia (Pel. 4.5), though the story can hardly be true.13 Philip of Macedonia certainly recovered from a series of horrific wounds (cf. Dem. 18.67). Herodotos' story of how the heroic Aiginetan marine, Pytheas, was patched up by the

  Persians (7.181.2) suggests that this seemed most unusual to a Greek, and one suspects that enemy wounded left on the battlefield were either killed, or left to die. The enemy dead were stripped of their armour, which was then partly used to set up a trophy, or for subsequent dedication to the gods. But the corpses were almost invariably handed over for burial, once the defeated sent a herald requesting a truce for the purpose. The delay after Delion was for special reasons (Thuc. 4.97ff.), and Herodotos' evident disgust at the way Xerxes treated Leonidas' body (7.238), suggests that such behaviour was most un-Greek.

  Prisoners are rarely mentioned, presumably because men who were not killed or too badly wounded, were usually able to escape. Some were certainly taken on occasion, for example, if escape was impossible, as a
t First Koroneia (Thuc. 1.113.2) and on Sphakteria (Thuc. 4.38.5). But the 2,000 Athenian prisoners Philip took at Chaironeia, twice as many as were killed (cf. Lycurg. fr. B 10.1, Demades 9), were quite unprecedented. Willingness to surrender, or at least to consider it, was indicated by holding out hands (Hdt. 7.233.1), or lowering shields and waving (Thuc. 4.38.1). Prisoners were usually returned at the end of the war, although they were sometimes enslaved, or, if they were generals, executed, as happened to the unfortunate Athenians in Sicily (Thuc. 7.85.2ff.).

  How, then, were such battles won and lost? It is obvious from Plato's Laches that individual skills were not important, and Herodotos' Demaratos says that even Spartans fighting singly were merely 'second to none, though together they were the best of all men' (7.104.4). Thus at Plataia the personal courage of Persians, 'rushing out in ones and tens and in larger and smaller groups', was of no avail: 'they crashed into the Spartans and were destroyed' (Hdt. 9.62.3). Even the desperate courage of Aristodemos earned him no recognition from his fellow Spartans, since they considered he had been 'acting like a lunatic and leaving the line' (Hdt. 9.71.3). There was no place for such virtuosi in a hoplite line-of-battle.

  Unit skills were, however, important, and here the Spartans clearly had an edge. As we have seen, their army was the only one to be articulated into manageable units, and the author of the Constitution of the Lakedaimonians attributed to Xenophon says that Spartan infantry tactics were thought to be too complicated for other troops, though he himself believed the reverse to be true (LP 11.5). Significantly, the one thing he did think was not easy to learn, except for those 'trained under the laws of Lykourgos', was 'to fight equally

  well with anyone one found, even if there was confusion' (LP 11.7). It was clearly this training in fighting together as units that enabled the Spartans to carry out complicated manoeuvres like the 'forward-bend' (epikampe), 'counter-march' (exeligmos), and 'back-wheel' (anastrophe): cf. Xen. Hell. 4.2.20, 4.3.18 and 6.5.18–19).

  There was, however, a limit to the tactical skills that hoplites could display. The necessity to maintain cohesion made the phalanx an essentially unwieldy formation, and generals were not only untrained, but, as we have seen, in the thick of the fight. The most that even the best could usually hope to do was to set his army in motion according to a preconceived plan. The best of them all, Epameinondas,14 apparently made no changes to his plan once the massed Theban phalanx started to roll at Leuktra: the Sacred Band's charge at the double was Pelopidas' idea, if Plutarch is right (Pel. 23.2). Similarly, at Second Mantineia, although Epameinondas increased the depth of his phalanx at the last moment, it was before the advance (Xen. Hell. 7.5.22). The Spartans sometimes tried altering their formation during the advance, or after battle had been joined, but each time it went disastrously wrong. At First Mantineia Agis was left with a hole in his line, through which the enemy poured to break his left (Thuc. 5.71.3–72.1);15 on Corfu, Mnasippos' right was attacked and defeated while trying to carry out an anastrophe (Xen. Hell. 6.2.21); and at Leuktra Kleombrotos was possibly trying both an anastrophe and an epikampe, when the Sacred Band struck his line (Lazenby, 158–9).

  Ultimately the single most important factor in a hoplite battle was undoubtedly what Napoleon thought, many centuries later, counted for three-quarters in war: morale.16 We have already seen that on many occasions hoplites fled almost before a blow had been struck, and panic was easily communicated. Pindar (Nem. 9.62–3) says that even the sons of gods were not immune, and, as previously mentioned, it was Epameinondas' opinion that it was very hard to find men who would stand when they saw part of their own army in flight (Xen. Hell. 7.5.24). This was one of the reasons why the Spartans were so successful for so long. In effect their battles were 'three-quarters' won before they started, since their enemies feared to face them. As Plutarch says (Pel. 17.6), they were 'irresistible in spirit, and, because of their reputation, when they came to grips, terrifying to opponents, who themselves did not think that with equal forces they stood an equal chance with Spartiates'.

  Morale, as Plutarch implies, works both ways: if you think you are

  going to win, you will gain in confidence; if your enemy thinks you are going to win, he will lose confidence. Spartans were supremely confident. On Sphakteria, for example, the 390 or so hoplites who remained, after their first guard-post had been overwhelmed, 'seeing an army approaching, formed up and advanced against the Athenian hoplites, wanting to come to grips with them' (Thuc. 4.33.1). One tends to forget that they were outnumbered by more than two to one by these hoplites alone (cf. Thuc. 4.31.1), to say nothing of some Messenian hoplites, 7,500 armed Athenian sailors, 800 archers and 800 peltasts (Thuc. 4.32.2)! Thucydides' description of the advance of the Spartan army at First Mantineia (5.69.2–70) gives a marvellous impression of soldiers who knew exactly what they had to do, and that they could do it.

  This kind of confidence goes a long way towards explaining why many Greeks feared to face the Spartans. The mere sight of the lambdas displayed on their shields was enough to send a shiver down Kleon's spine, according to the comic poet, Eupolis (359 Kock), and Xenophon's story (Hell. 4.4.10) of the confident advance of a force of Argives against dismounted Spartan cavalry troopers who had borrowed shields bearing sigmas (for 'Sikyonians'), implies that the Argives would not have been nearly so confident, had they known that they were facing Spartans. Even the overwhelming numbers the Athenians had at Sphakteria did not prevent them going ashore 'obsessed by the idea that they were going against Spartans' (Thuc. 4.34.1).

  What, then, motivated men in these encounters? Obviously their feelings were just as complex as those of men in more recent conflicts, and since we cannot question ancient Greeks, we must, in the end, confess that we shall never know what their motives were. Simple patriotism certainly played a part, and men were clearly concerned to defend their homes and loved ones. Then as now, too, even the aggressors often thought of themselves as engaged in what we would call a 'pre-emptive strike'. Thus, before Delion, the Athenian general, Hippokrates, declared that 'the battle will take place in their country but will be for our own' (Thuc. 4.95.2)!

  Unlike the soldiers of modern armies, hoplites were not 'the nation in arms', in the sense that in most states, if not all, the poor were excluded because they could not afford to buy the relatively expensive equipment required. In Athens, for example, hoplite service was almost certainly impossible for the thetes, who formed, perhaps, 40 to 60 per cent of the population, at various times. It is true that the

  emergence of hoplites marks a break with the aristocratic past, and that the hoplite ethos differed from the aristocratic, as one can see by comparing Homer with Tyrtaios. But hoplites remained an elite, and the non-aristocrats among them probably adopted many aristocratic attitudes. It was not for nothing, after all, that Homer has been called the 'Bible' of the Greeks. Thucydides perhaps expresses the attitude of the hoplite class when he implies that the activities of 'stone-throwers, slingers and archers' before a battle, were of little or no importance (6.69.2), and his comment on the 120 Athenian hoplites who perished at the hands of Aitolian javelineers—'these, so many and of the same age, were the best men from the city of Athens who perished in this war' (3.98.4)—seems to contain an added note of bitterness. Moreover, hoplites were 'the nation in arms', in another sense, in states where those who could not afford such service, were excluded from full civic rights.17

  Thus, although men of the hoplite class were realists enough to know that war was a grim business—neither Homer nor Tyrtaios glosses over the horrors—they also retained sufficient of the aristocratic way of thinking to regard prowess in battle as glorious. This is the noblest virtue,' sings Tyrtaios (12.13), 'this the noblest prize among men', and he goes on to declare that if a brave man falls, his grave and his children and grandchildren are honoured, and if he survives, he is looked up to by young and old alike. This may just seem like a Spartan speaking, but Alkaios, too, said that 'to die in war is a noble thing' (400 Campbel
l), and even Thucydides' Perikles, who so poignantly expresses how death in battle is the end of all a man's hopes and fears (2.42.4), nevertheless maintains that such a death is the final confirmation of his worth (2.42.2).

  Obviously there were pressures on a man not to play the coward, as there are now. They may have been strongest in Sparta, where cowardice not only caused a man to be shunned by his fellows (cf. Xen. LP 9.4–5; Plut. Ages. 30.2–4), but almost certainly led to his losing his civic rights (cf. Hdt. 7.231, Thuc. 5.34.2). Such men were called tresantes (tremblers) from Tyrtaios' day to Plutarch's (cf. Tyrt. 11.14; Plut. Ages. 30.2–4). But cowardice could also be an offence in Athens (cf., e.g., Andoc. 1.74; Lys. 14.11), and failure to perform one's military duties could lead to execution. The demagogue, Kleophon, for example, was condemned to death ostensibly on a charge of being 'absent without leave' (Lys. 13–12).

  In the end, however, what modern research has shown about today's soldiers,18 was probably also true of those of ancient Greece -

  that it was mainly not wanting to 'let one's mates down' which kept them from shirking, though the evidence largely concerns the Spartans. Thus one suspects that the reason for the suicide of the sole Spartan survivor from the so-called 'Battle of the Champions' (Hdt. 1.82.8), was not just the fear that his mere survival might cast doubt on his courage, but also the thought of being left alive when all his comrades had perished. This may also partly explain why Eurytos insisted on being led into battle at Thermopylai, despite his oph-thalmia—his fellow-sufferer, Aristodemos, lived to regret his decision not to join him—and why Pantites, though sent to Thessaly with a message, hanged himself when he returned to Sparta (Hdt. 7.229–32). Not letting others down was no doubt also partly what Tyrtaios had in mind when he exhorted the Spartans to fight 'standing by one another' (10.15, 11.11), and said that a soldier who encouraged his neighbour was 'a good man in war' (12.19). Xenophon's Cyrus, possibly thinking of the Spartans,19 considered that those who messed together would be less likely to desert each other, and that there could be no stronger phalanx than one composed of friends (Cyr. 2.1.28, 7.1.30).