Athenaios even says that before battle the Spartans sacrificed to Eros, 'since safety lies in the love of those ranged alongside each other' (13.56le), and there can be no doubt that sometimes the feelings of hoplites for their comrades were homosexual, particularly in the Spartan and Theban armies (cf. Xen. Symp. 8.35; Plut. Pel. 18–19). The Sacred Band was supposed to have been composed of pairs of lovers (Plut. Pel. 18–19), which makes the skeletons at Chaironeia, if they are those of this elite force, all the more poignant.20
Ancient Greek armies, like more modern ones, no doubt contained their share of thugs and psychotics, and the Spartan way of life may have conditioned them to think of fighting as something normal, or even desirable. But the epitaph of those who fell at Thermopylai (Hdt. 7.228.2), is as poignant as anything ever said about war dead, and there is nothing of the berserker about the Spartan Anaxibios' remark to his soldiers, when he realized that he was trapped: 'Men, my duty is to die here, but you hurry to safety before the enemy closes' (Xen. Hell. 4.8.38). It is the impression one so often gets of ordinary men just doing their duty, which is so moving. Pindar, for example, says of a young man probably killed fighting for Thebes at Oinophyta: 'You breathed out the flower of your youth in the throng of fore-fighters, where the best kept up the struggle of battle with hopes forlorn' (Isthm. 7.48–50), and an Athenian who fought at the
Nemea, confessed in court that he did so 'not as one who did not think fighting the Lakedaimonians was a fearful thing' (Lys. 16.17).
But perhaps Simonides should have the final word. A friend of his, the Akarnanian seer, Megistias, was killed at Thermopylai. Before the last day, Herodotos tells us (7.219.1), 'on looking into the sacrifices, he declared the death coming would be with them at dawn', but although Leonidas urged him to go, he sent his only son away instead, and stayed to die with the Spartans he served (Hdt. 7.221). Simonides composed this epitaph for his friend:
This is the memorial of famed Megistias, whom on a day the Medes slew, having crossed the Spercheios river.
He was a seer, who all the time knowing well the fate approaching, had not the heart to desert the captains of Sparta.
(Hdt. 7.228.3)
NOTES
Works referred to by author and date alone or with short title are cited in full in the Bibliography to this volume.
1. Euripides' mother, Kleito, was 'one of the very well born' (Philochoros ap. Suidas s.v. 'Euripides'), and as a boy he took part in rites in honour of Delian Apollo, in which only the 'first' participated (Theophrastos ap. Athenaios 10.424e). He was challenged to an antidosis (Arist. Rh. 3.15), and went on an embassy to Syracuse (op. cit. 2.6).
2. At Leuktra Sphodrias and his son, Kleonymos, were clearly serving together in the king's entourage for special reasons: cf. Xen., Hell. 5.4.25ff and 6.4.14.
3. I exclude forces like the Ten Thousand which could include pentekostyes and enomotiai (cf., e.g., An. 3.4.22), but which were probably modelled on the Spartan army: Xenophon's comrades included a number of Spartans.
4. Mantitheus' claim (Lys. 16.15) that he got himself posted in the front rank at the Nemea, does not necessarily prove that places were decided when the army was mobilized, any more than does Xenophon's view that the best men should be placed in the front and rear (Mem. 3.1.8).
5. The nearest I know is the scene on a seventh century aryballos from Thebes, possibly by the same artist as the Chigi vase, the 'Macmillan Painter': K.Friis Johansen, Les Vases Sicyoniens (Copenhagen, 1923), pl. XXXI, la, b and e (=Salmon, 88, fig. 3). But even in this scene only three of the twelve hoplites depicted are wielding their spears underarm.
6. For the Chigi vase see, for example, Erika Simon, Die Griechischen Vasen (Munich, 1976/81), pls 25, 26 and VII. Cf. also the aryballos from Rhodes, possibly again by the 'Macmillan Painter': Johansen (supra n. 5), pl. XXXII, la, b and d (=Salmon, 86, fig. 1).
7. See The Sunday Times 16 April 1989.
8. Reading harpaleon with Ahrens for the argaleon of the MSS, which seems to make less sense.
9. A grave-enclosure found near Thespiai last century may contain the remains of the Thespiaians killed at Delion: Kirchoff, Studien zur Geschichte des griechischen Alphabets4 (Gütersloh, 1887), 141.
10. For numbers of casualties at First Mantineia, the Nemea, Second Koroneia and Leuktra, for example, see Lazenby, 1985:128–9, 133–4, 136–8, 143, 143–4, 148, 152–3 and 160. Krentz (GRBS 26, 1985:18) reckons that casualties averaged between 5 per cent for the winners and 14 per cent for the losers.
11. See W.K.Pritchett, 'Observations on Chaeronea', AJA 62 (1958), 310.
12. Scenes on vases sometimes show wounded heroes being tended, and presumably this also happened in real life: see, for instance, the cup by the Sosias painter, now in Berlin, showing Achilles bandaging Patroklos (Lazenby 1985:35, pl. 4).
13. If Pelopidas took part in a battle at Mantineia, it must have been the first, since he was dead before the second. But Thucydides does not mention any Boiotians at First Mantineia, and if Pelopidas had taken part, he would presumably have had to be at least 20 years old, in which case he was 74 when killed at Kynoskephalai.
14. For a critical assessment of Epameinondas see Hanson 1988.
15. Despite W.J.Woodhouse, King Agis of Sparta (Oxford, 1933), 80–2, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that 'someone had blundered'.
16. Correspondence de Napoléon ler, xvii no. 14276 (Observations sur les affaires d'Espagne, Saint-Cloud, 27 août 1808).
17. It is significant that among the proposals of the Athenian revolutionaries in 411 BC, one was that only hoplites should 'share affairs' (cf. Thuc. 8.65.3, 97.1), and see in general Arist. Pol. 1279a 37ff., 1297b lff.
18. See, for example, S.L.A.Marshall, Men Against Fire (New York, 1947); John Keegan, The Face of Battle (London, 1976), 48, 53, 71–3.
19. By Xenophon's time the phiditia almost certainly had nothing to do with the organization of the army, as they may once have done (Lazenby 1985:13): Xenophon may be harking back to an earlier, more ideal age.
20. See supra n. 11.
* * *
5
THE SALPINX IN GREEK WARFARE
Peter Krentz
In his tactical manual Arrian distinguishes three kinds of signal useful in war: verbal orders, visual signals, and salpinx calls (Arr. Takt. 27; cf. Asklep. Takt. 12.10 and Aelian Takt. 35.2). Verbal orders are the clearest, but 'the clash of arms, the exhortations shouted to one another, the cries of the wounded, the passing of the cavalry, the neighing of horses and the noise of the baggage-train' can make them inaudible. Fog, dust, the sun's glare, a snowstorm, rain, and overgrown or hilly ground obstruct visual signals. The salpinx, on the other hand, is good with regard to 'impediments from the air' (ta ek tou aeros empodia), that is, it can overcome both aural and visual obstacles. The peculiar conditions of classical Greek battle ought to have made the salpinx especially useful, for they only increased the difficulties mentioned by Arrian. Fought mostly during the dry summer season in small valleys ringed by mountains, hoplite battles were dusty and noisy. The widespread use of bronze armor made all blows loud (Tyrtaios 19.14–15 West). In foul weather the noise created by rain and hail hitting such armor made it difficult to hear verbal commands, as Timoleon's Carthaginian opponents discovered in Sicily (Plut. Tim. 28.4). Even in the best conditions the standard bronze helmets, with no openings for the ears and small ones for the eyes, must have made hearing extremely difficult, and restricted vision markedly. Lighter caps began to replace these helmets in the late fifth and fourth century, but the helmets did not disappear (Anderson 1970:28–37). Nevertheless, in spite of these apparently favorable conditions for use, Greeks blew the salpinx before and after battles but rarely during a battle itself. I propose to explore what we know about this instrument and its uses, and then to discuss why the Greeks failed to use it more.1
Writing in the second century of our era, Pollux described the salpinx as 'in shape both straight and curved, made of bronze and
&nbs
p; iron, with a bone reed (glotta)' (4.85). Not all of this description applies to the classical Greek instrument, a narrow cylindrical tube leading to a bell (kodon). Both the tube and the bell were normally bronze: Bakchylides 18.3–4 (chalkodon salpinx) and Soph. Aj. 17 (chalkostomon kodon) refer to a bronze bell, while Bakchylides F4 (Snell) 35 (chalkean salpingon) and CIG 3765 (chalkelatou salpingou) mention a bronze salpinx. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, however, possesses a unique example with a cone-shaped bronze bell and a tube made of thirteen sections of ivory fitting into one another, and excavations on Cyprus have unearthed many fragments and two complete instruments made of clay.2 The Boston salpinx is over 5 ft (1.57 m) long, rather longer than the instruments portrayed on vases, which appear to be 2 ft 6 ins—4 ft (0.80–1.20 m). The bell, which led to Aristophanes' joke about a gnat's anus being like a salpinx (Clouds 166), made the salpinx more efficient at radiating sound waves at certain frequencies, sound more brilliant, and able to pass on more of the salpinktes energy to the air.3 On vase paintings the bell varies in shape from a ball to a bulb to a cone. Each shape must have had its own effect on the salpinx's timbre.
The matter of the generator is more complex. Modern trumpets all have a 'lip-reed' generator, that is, a mouthpiece with the player's lips as the vibrating part. It appears the salpinx did not have much of a mouthpiece. The Boston example opens out slightly like a cone, and the Cypriot specimens and the few vase paintings that show this end of the salpinx also widen only slightly.4 On the other hand, Pollux clearly describes the salpinx as a reed instrument.
Recently A.Bélis offered several arguments supporting Pollux:
(1) Simplicius (In Phys. 4.8) says the hydraulic organ used reeds of salpinges or auloi. Simplicius is correct that organs used reeds: other sources refer to the organ's auloi or tibiae, and Jean Perrot's standard work on the organ concludes that 'sets of reed pipes were widely used.'5 Therefore Simplicius may also be correct in referring to a salpinx reed. (2) On vases salpinktai sometimes appear wearing the phorbeia, a leather band which passed in front of the mouth, around the cheeks and behind the head. Best known as an aid for playing the aulos, this phorbeia relieved the jaws' muscular tension and permitted continuous and powerful playing, as players breathed through their noses.6 Its use by salpinktai makes most sense if the salpinx, like the aulos, was a reed instrument. (3) Excavators at Pompeii
found three circular bronze instruments, nearly 14 ft (4.20 m) long, with ivory bells. One had a mouthpiece, but the other two were reed instruments.
Bélis concludes that the Greeks had both a salpinx with a reed and one without.
This conclusion is not without difficulties. Since Pollux was describing Roman as well as Greek instruments, it is dangerous to apply what he says to the Greek salpinx without confirming evidence. The circular trumpets found at Pompeii are not good parallels to the straight Greek salpinx. Greek art shows no reed mouthpieces, and the phorbeia does not prove the existence of a reed: it might have been used with a 'lip-reed' salpinx requiring great force to blow because of its length and narrow diameter. Finally, bone is an unlikely material for a beating reed, which ought to be as flexible as possible. It therefore seems safer to conclude that the Greek salpinx was an early form of trumpet, and not a reed instrument. Certainly the salpinx blown on the battlefield was not a reed instrument, for reed instruments lack the necessary power. A clarinet or an oboe could not do much on a battlefield, but a trumpet or bugle is something else.
This salpinx, which Aristotle described as a 'melody without the lyre' (Rhet. 1408a), could probably play only the first harmonics, perhaps only four or five notes, at most eight or nine. In a 1939 test an Egyptian trumpet found in King Tutankhamen's tomb, 1 ft 6 ins (0.515 m) long, sounded only the first, second and third harmonics.7 The longer Greek salpinges would have had a lower fundamental, and therefore could probably obtain more notes. Of course, as Curt Sachs observed, 'it is a grave error to confuse the potentiality of an instrument with the music it actually performed.'8 Descriptions of the salpinx's sound suggest the salpinktes may have played one or two notes as forcefully as possible.9 Pollux describes its sound as shrill, booming, strong, violent, horrible, disordered, and warlike (4.85), and though he is describing Roman instruments as well as Greek, our earlier sources concur. Aischylos describes its sound as 'piercing' or 'shrill' (diatoros) and 'high-pitched' (hypertonon, Eumenides 567–8), and Aristotle says an elephant making a noise with its trunk sounded similar to a raucous salpinx (Hist. anim. 536b). Several sources agree that certain cities in Egypt refused to use the salpinx because it sounded like the braying of an ass.10 Homer, therefore, uses an appropriate simile when he compares Achilleus' terrifying shout at the ditch to the salpinx's conspicuous (arizele) sound (Iliad 18.219).
Above all the salpinx was loud. Homer uses the verb form to describe the clash of gods colliding on the battlefield (Iliad 21.388). Pollux claims that a salpinktes named Epistades could be heard fifty stadia (8.9 km.) away (4.88), and that it was difficult to approach Herodoros the Megarian when he was playing because he blew so hard (4.89). Perhaps more reliably, and certainly more amusingly, Alexander the Great's admiral Nearchos told how his men frightened away a threatening school of whales by shouting, banging on their shields and blowing their salpinges (Diod. 17.106.7; Arrian Indica 30.4–6; Curtius Rufus 10.1.11–12).
The salpinx served a variety of functions ranging from the solemn to the comic, the public to the private. Ps.-Aristotle says that revellers blew less hard in order to make the salpinx sound as soft as possible (De audilibus 803a). The salpinktes who began a drinking contest in Aristophanes (Acharnians 1001–3) and another who apparently signaled the start of a dance in armor,11 we may imagine, blew softly.
Public performances, recorded more frequently in our sources, must have been more demanding. The salpinx sounded to begin the annual festival at Plataia (Plut. Aristeid. 21.3), as well as to indicate the final lap of horse races at Olympia. Pausanias (6.13.9) tells the story of a Korinthian mare which threw her rider but ran the course and, when she heard the salpinx, picked up her pace and finished first. From the fifth century in Boiotia and the fourth century at Olympia salpinktai had their own contests.12 Pollux (4.88) says that salpinges summoned the competitors at competitions after Hermon, a comic actor, missed his call. By lot he was to perform after many others, so he left the theater in order to test his voice, and failed to hear the herald's summons when all those in front of him dropped out of the contest. At Argos a religious ceremony included the use of salpinges to summon Dionysos (Plut. Mor. 364F, 671E). In Aischylos' Eumenides a salpinx sounds to call the Athenians to assembly (566–70), a custom attested again more than a century later in Demosthenes' On the Crown, where Demosthenes describes the panic in Athens when news arrived that Philip II had seized Elateia: the prytaneis summoned the general and the salpinktes (169). Diodoros adds that the salpinktai blew all night long (16.84.3). The salpinx might also call for silence at great public occasions, such as when the Athenians said a prayer before departing for Sicily in 415 BC (Thuc. 6.32.1).
These references attest to the widespread use of the salpinx for various purposes, and explain why the orator Demades called the salpinktes the 'public rooster' (F31). Nevertheless the salpinx's
military role so overwhelmed all other uses that Aristophanes could have a character complain that peace would make his instrument worthless (Peace 1240–1). Perhaps, he hears, he could turn it into a stand for a kottabos-target, or a scale.
The salpinx's combination of a piercing tone with a loud volume suited it to military use. Attested military uses in classical Greece include:
1. Summoning men to arms. Our earliest evidence comes from Bakchylides 18.1–10 (trans. Lattimore):
King of Athens, the sacred city,
lord of luxurious Ionians,
what news of war is this that the salpinx's
bronze-belled braying call announces?
Is it some enemy war captain
overs
triding our land's boundaries
with his own host at heel?
Is it robbers, whose ways are evil,
overcoming our shepherds' resistance,
driving our flocks away?
Andokides (1.45) describes another military alert, declared during the panic surrounding the affair of the herms and the Eleusinian mysteries in 415 BC. The Boiotians were on the frontier, and the Council told the generals to proclaim that various citizens proceed to various places, and in particular the horsemen were to be summoned by salpinx to the Anakeion before nightfall. This passage suggests the Athenians had a separate salpinx call to gather the cavalry, and perhaps even calls indicating precise gathering places, though more likely the salpinktes stood at the Anakeion and blew for the horsemen until they reached him by following the sound. A third example comes from Sparta. During the earthquake of 465 BC King Archidamos saved the city by sounding the salpinx as if the enemy were attacking, in order to get the Spartans out of their homes.13
Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience Page 16