Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience

by Victor Davis Hanson

  Hyperbole about a dramatic shift to phalanx warfare (denied by some: see p. 127) demands caution. No one wiped the old slate of warrior values clean, but rather (as often) the new style accommodated remnants of the old. The chieftains of war bands investing Troy in the Iliad espoused a code of honor, whereby each strove to prove himself the best (aristos) in a display of martial excellence (arete). Valor in battle validated leadership of the group, and arete directly related to a warrior's Risikobereitschaft.6 In this society respect among one's peers mattered, as did the glory (kleos) of an individual passed to future generations. Skill in combat proved a man's arete; death in battle assured kleos and fit the noble ideal (kalon). Thus a long life and peaceful death rated disdain in comparison to a short life made glorious by a noble death, which could even obliterate a previous existence of mediocrity. Needless to say, the Homeric warrior chief risked his life in the forefront of battle.7

  The warrior code of the Iliad defined the Greek heroic ethos: an aristocracy of warrior princes in competition with each other for personal honor and eternal fame—both won in battle with great personal danger and without higher political goals. In apparent contrast, the hoplite phalanx emerged as the military representative of the polis. This mass infantry formation of files usually eight deep expanded the warrior function from the aristocracy to the middle class and by the fourth century at times also to the lower classes. Integrating aristocrats and shopkeepers, urban dwellers and farmers,

  the phalanx became (from one viewpoint) a conglomerate of 'interchangeable parts,' in which all put aside personal distinction for the common good of the state. Here was military democracy in action.8

  The phalanx, however, brought with it a contradiction: although in appearance and practice it seemed a rejection of the earlier style of warfare (the masses, democracy, common good of the state vs individual heroes, aristocracy, an individual's arete), the ideology of the hoplite remained the heroic ethos of Homer. The Spartan poet Tyrtaeus (ca 650 BC) preached a transvaluation of Homeric arete, making death in the phalanx a hero's sacrifice which the polis would compensate with eternal fame.9 Accordingly, the language of Athenian epitaphioi in the fifth and fourth centuries couched praise of the fallen in the epic glory of the individual hero, anchored in the aristocratic tradition but extending elite honors anonymously to all the slain. In such speeches Athens, the city of arete, became Achilles.10 But this transvaluation of the heroic ethos did not constitute the only source of Homeric warrior values. Homer remained the basic text of aristocratic education, which the middle class also pursued, and presented numerous examples of heroic action as paradigms for emulation.11 Even the 'new' education of fifth-century sophists exploited Homer as an encyclopedia of all knowledge, including military affairs. From this sophistic use of Homer arose in later periods a genre of Homeric Tactica, military handbooks deriving the authority of their advice and recommendations from Homeric citations.12 The phalanx represented equality of risk, required coordinated group action, and functioned for the state; but in battle individual hoplites raised on a diet of Homer no doubt balanced fear with ideals of heroic glory when they sang the paean.13

  In the transition from warrior chief to Hellenistic general, the Homeric hero of the forefront initially blended into the anonymous mass of equals in the phalanx, although retaining many of the old warrior values. In the fifth and especially the fourth centuries, however, the commander began to re-emerge, as the changing nature of Greek warfare demanded generals with cerebral skills as well as physical prowess. The final stage of the transition would come in the Hellenistic and Roman periods when the complexities of military organization produced a well-defined hierarchy of command (anticipated to some extent in Classical Sparta).14 The roles of general (strategos) and the rank and file (stratiotai) became distinct (cf. already Xen., Anab. 3.1.37:401 BC). Physical leadership in battle, often still attested (e.g. Pyrrhus at Heracleia), mattered less than the

  commander's presence (even if in the rear) and the functions of command. A general's personal daring could merit scorn—a sign of irresponsibility.

  But apart from a commander's tactical and strategic functions, what were a general's duties? In a recent study of command Keegan discerns five basic categories: kinship—creation of a bond between commander and commanded; prescription—direct verbal contact between the general and his men; sanctions—a system of rewards and punishment; the imperative of action—strategic preparation and intelligence; and the imperative of example—the physical presence of the commander in battle and the sharing of risk. Any reader of Xenophon's Cyropaedia would recognize these categories in Cyrus' activities and admonitions. From another perspective the essence of command lies in the general's symbolizing authority in a way to motivate potentially indifferent or hostile soldiers and to counter psychological and real distance between the commander and the commanded—a view not significantly different from Xenophon's favorite doctrine of willing obedience.15

  As the concern of this volume is the hoplite battle experience, we must restrict discussion chiefly to Keegan's fifth category, the imperative of example, for which Keegan offers three types of command style: generals who always, sometimes, or never enter battle. From this perspective the transition from Homeric warrior to phalanx commander to Hellenistic/Roman strategos represents a change from 'always' to 'sometimes.' The category of 'never' had but rare application in antiquity.

  The problem is to determine when the shift from 'always' to 'sometimes' occurred. Opinio communis would date this change generally after 338 BC when distinct functions of strategos and stratiotes had evolved. The Homeric warrior converted to phalanx commander retained his role of physical leader in battle and stationed himself in the front ranks of the phalanx. Indeed, given the limited tactical maneuverability of the phalanx once battle was decided upon and the army was deployed as desired, the commander could do little to influence the outcome of battle and thus took his place in the ranks to aid the physical effort of combat. In this view the high fatality rates of generals and the types of wounds received confirm the commander's station in the front ranks.16

  The opinio communis, however, would benefit from a healthy dose of criticism, for which the foregoing may serve as prolegomena. The transition from Homeric warrior to strategos, in which the age of the

  Classical hoplite phalanx plays the central role, merits a more nuanced interpretation. Was the phalanx really so democratic in composition and operation, or did distinctions exist between commanders and commanded? Where did the general stand in the phalanx? Did he always participate in combat? My purpose is not to discredit the scenario of the opinio communis for phalanx battle but to demonstrate its weaknesses: how much of it rests on unequivocal evidence and how much is logical inference or conjecture?

  Alexander the Great's exploits only marginally enter consideration, since he fought in the Macedonian tradition of cavalry as the predominant arm, and Philip II's reforms consolidating nearly two centuries of Greek military developments marked a new departure. Alexander's fondness for personal combat, his to philokindynon (Lucian, Dial. Mort. 12.5), would represent not a progression toward the battle manager but an anomaly, a retrogression to the warrior chief, prompted both by the demands of Macedonian kingship for strong personal leadership and by Alexander's own Homeric fixation with Achilles.17

  Any assessment of the general's role in hoplite battle, however, immediately hits the stonewall of unyielding sources. Only Thucydides and Xenophon offer contemporary accounts by men of military experience, to be supplemented by secondary material in Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, and others. No detailed account of a hoplite battle between rival phalanges exists before Thucydides' narrative of the Peloponnesian War,18 and there is room to query both the frequency of formal pitched battles between Greek phalanges in the sixth and certainly the seventh centuries, and the number of the ritualistic aspects of hoplite battles, set within the prescribed but unwritten rules of war for the Greek in-group, which derive from romantic
ized notions about the Archaic Period of Panhellenists of the fourth century.19 Even when details about pitched battles become more available in Xenophon and other sources for the fourth century, references to the battle role of generals or other officers are episodic at best. Furthermore, the contemporary sources largely derive from a period when Greek warfare underwent drastic changes and professionalism has already begun to infiltrate the phalanx, as seen in the rise of career officers, the use of mercenaries, and the establishment of elite units (epilektoi), often trained by professional drillmasters (hoplomachoi).20 Thus the scanty and scattered sources complicate the task of disentangling a clear view of the general from the phalanx's 'interchangeable parts,' and the search for a 'typical' hoplite battle in

  its 'pure form' unadulterated by changing historical conditions is illusory. Only a composite picture is possible.

  I

  Given these caveats, examination of the general as hoplite should begin with the tradition of the warrior chief's combat leadership and the emergence of Greek massed infantry in phalanx formation.21 Pre-state warfare (also called primitive warfare or submilitary combat) constituted an expansion of animal-hunting techniques to the human species—a connection still stressed by Xenophon and Plato.22 War bands, in many cases representatives of a kin group, assembled with little obligation for individuals to participate, to remain in the venture once begun, or to obey orders from some chief, often only another warrior venerated for past success but without authority to discipline or to ensure obedience to commands. Apart from group motives for combat, such as tension release, revenge, or other causes (normally not economic), the individual saw war as a means of personal glory, recognition, and prestige—drives leading to tactical confusion and incompetence, as each fought for his own distinction. The venerated warrior who led the group could be marked by some token of authority, such as a special head-dress like that of the chief of a band seen in a Neolithic cave painting.23

  To no surprise, many of these 'primitive' traits correspond to the warfare of the Iliad which, despite some Mycenaean heirlooms, surely reflects the combat characteristics of a pre-state society. Nestor urges organization of the war bands by tribes and phratries (i.e. real or mythical kin groups), a principle the Rhodians already followed,24 and the Achaeans delight in ambush, a key feature of pre-state warfare.25 A drive for arete and individual distinction motivates both the primitive and the Homeric warrior, who participates in or shirks battle at his own discretion, and even in combat jumps forward as a promachos or retreats to the war band without a sense for discipline or coordinated group action.26 Particularly apt is comparison with Tacitus' description of German war chieftains who, without authority to punish, lead their war bands primarily by their own example of courage, even charging out in front of their group in battle.27 Both the Homeric and the Germanic heroic societies display an egalitarianism among those who enjoy the privileges of the warrior function and offer an equal opportunity to all these to display their arete/virtus. Valor and social privileges are reciprocal.28 An Homeric warrior may be aristos in

  counsel, physical form, or other respects, but excellence in combat rather than command skills or strategy was what counted most.29

  The Homeric warrior chief's tactical function, however, tied to interpretation of the term promachos, is not entirely clear, for the issue involves the thorny problems of the hoplite phalanx's date of origin and the possibility of the hoplite phalanx in some form in Homer and Tyrtaeus, not to mention the need to distinguish military Realien from the selection of events for dramatic emphasis in Homeric epic. A full discussion of these matters lies beyond the scope of this chapter, but a few observations are pertinent.

  Mass combat, certainly evident in the Iliad, does not necessarily indicate use of a phalanx in the sense of a mass infantry formation many ranks deep, composed of distinct subunits and obedient to definite commands and coordinated movement. Three schools of thought on the phalanx in Homer have emerged in recent years. Pritchett has revived the view of totally organized, disciplined armies at Troy with arguments based on analogies with ancient Near Eastern warfare and the accuracy of Homeric commentators. Accordingly, the promachoi, whose duels in monomachia the poet emphasizes, represent a forward echelon (company or battalion) from the main body, but mass combat decides the battles.30 Latacz (1977) presents an intermediate position, whereby a phalanx of massed organized units (continuity of rows) exists, but a formation not identical to the Classical Greek phalanx. Promachoi constitute the first rank of this phalanx and their skirmishing and duels are preliminary to mass combat to decide the battle. Third, Van Wees rejects use of any sort of phalanx: Homer describes only chieftains (basileis) and their personal bands of hetairoi, who occasionally mass into unorganized dense throngs under conditions of battle.31

  Although all three schools can be faulted in details, Latacz's view of a proto-phalanx (but not necessarily his scenario of Homeric battle) and Van Wees' notion of chieftains with their retinues correspond more closely to the stage of political and social development in the Greek world ca 750–700 BC than Pritchett's disciplined, organized armies, which assume a more advanced degree of state organization than sources for this period attest. Formations which lack control and evaporate immediately in battle, and chieftains who fight or shirk battle at their own whim resemble submilitary combat.32 Denial of mass combat, however, is too extreme.33 Moreover, all mass infantry formations do not signify a phalanx in its classical Greek sense: a single attack column of six files, each eleven men deep, as seen on the

  Sumerian Stele of the Vultures (third millennium) need not indicate a phalanx, as Pritchett (War 4.8) presumes, nor does it fit the classical definition of a phalanx—a formation broader than it is deep (cf. n. 21 supra). Caesar refers to Helvetian and German formations as a phalanx, a term which Latin authors equated with the German cuneus, although the organizational structure of this formation (if it had one) is not precisely known.34 By analogy with German practice, a proto-phalanx and retinues of individual leaders need not be contradictory (cf. Tac, Ger. 6.4).

  Although concrete Homeric meanings for the terms stix, phalanx, pyrgos, and oulamos are probably beyond our knowledge, and certainly it has been too tempting to define them rigidly as fixed tactical/organizational units,35 Homer does offer insight to rudimentary progress in Greek warfare. Apart from the Iliad's problematic Catalogue of Ships, Nestor's advice to organize by tribes and phratries (Il. 2.362), Hector's division of the Trojan attack on the Achaean ships into five groups under subordinate chiefs (hegemones: Il. 12.86–7), and Achilles' distribution of the Myrmidons into five units likewise under hegemones, apparently subordinate to two promachoi (Il. 16.168–219) indicate a concern for organization, even if that organization is not maintained in combat. In the latter two cases the need to share the leadership of larger forces is also apparent. Such concerns surpassing the elementary chieftain—hetairoi model, it can be argued, may demonstrate the initial stage of progress from submilitary to military combat and the beginning of the transition to the classical phalanx.

  Some change in the function of the war-band leader can also be discerned. In most cases the basileis arrange their forces before battle, exhort them, and physically lead. Comparison with Germanic practice shows that they may dash forward from the group (hence the term promachos), for they lead by example, which their hetairoi seek to emulate.36 Personal exposure justified societal privileges, usually hereditary for Homeric chieftains, although promachos was not a title and the basileis did not yet have the monopoly on arete which Pindar claimed for the aristocracy of his day.37 The retinues of chieftains probably consisted of both young nobles and men of lesser birth, who (by analogy with German practice) could win ennoblement through valor on the battlefield.38

  Certainly fighting skill and bravado constituted the warrior chieftain's two most important functions in battle, but Hector offers at least one hint that larger considerations were beginning to enter the

  picture when, c
onspicuous in his shining armor during the initial Trojan attack on the Achaean ships, he is everywhere at once, now gleaming in the front ranks, then encouraging men in the rear. After Agamemnon drove the Trojans back to the Scaean Gate, Hector rallies the Trojans and leads the counter-attack to the ditch of the Achaean camp, where he reorganizes the Trojans into five assault divisions and is the first to enter the enemy camp.39 This is not the behavior of a warrior chieftain but of a commander whose acts resemble those of Pyrrhus at Heracleia in his role as battle manager (cf. Plut., Pyrrh. 16.7–8). Indeed Hector, although like his peers covetous of personal honor, also fights for his family and his city, thus anticipating Tyrtaeus' transvaluation of the heroic warrior code for a political goal—the defense of his country.40

  After Homer, details of the transition from warrior chieftain and promachos to phalanx commander are almost totally lost in the scanty primary sources for the seventh and sixth centuries—mainly fragments of poets, whose military information (although often firsthand) is subject to dispute. The material evidence of archaeology takes up some of the slack. Between ca 725 and ca 675 BC the elements of the hoplite panoply began to appear, most significantly the hoplon, a heavy shield ca 3 ft (almost a metre) in diameter, carried on the left arm by an armband and a hand grip and offering full protection only to the left side of the body. In open duels between individuals and particularly in retreat the hoplon provided less protection, but a closely spaced rank of men each covering his colleague's exposed right side (cf. Thuc. 5.71.1) presented a formidable obstacle.41 Between ca 675 and ca 650 BC vase paintings begin to show rows of hoplites in combat, which some interpret as evidence for a true phalanx in action. Yet debate rages over a 'chicken-or-the-egg' problem: did hoplite armor perfect a formation already in use, did it immediately create a new style of battle, or was the phalanx the outcome of experimentation over time with a new type of armament?42 If, as argued above, a proto-phalanx can be discerned in Homer and elements of a transition from pre-state to state warfare also appear, continuation of the process in the seventh century would be expected. Tyrtaeus, however, a most fragmentary but crucial primary source containing detailed combat data, scarcely confirms the view of a fully developed phalanx in the vase paintings.