Because they mattered so much to the pride and prestige of cities and to their hopes of victories to come, displays might stay on show
for centuries, like the Spartan shields from Pylos and those Thebes won from Leuctra, seen by Pausanias 500 years later (Paus. 1.15.4; 9.16.5). Only fire, earthquake, rebuilding, sheer overcrowding with votives, or finally intense political or diplomatic necessity could remove such valued prizes. Thus, it has been convincingly suggested that a spear captured by Athens from Lesbos and dedicated to the Dioscuri dates from 428/7 BC and was deliberately discarded when Lesbos joined the Second Athenian Confederacy fifty years later.28 As if to show how serious a matter removal of military votives could be, when Cimon dedicated his bridle on the Acropolis in 480 BC and took a shield from the offerings in its place, he prayed to Athena (Plut. Cim. 5.2–3).
Just as offerings in victors' own temples might stay in their places for many years, so even after the Classical Period, Greek states continued to offer the gods dedications of spoils taken from their fellow Greeks, at least at sanctuaries that were, or were regarded as, their own. So Pyrrhus dedicated the spoils of Macedonians at Dodona, Argos those of Pyrrhus at her shrines, and the Aetolians had accumulated 15,000 panoplies or else individual arms and parts of armour at their sanctuary of Thermon by 218 BC, many no doubt the spoils of battle (Paus. 1.13.3; 2.21.4; Polyb. 2.2.8–11 and 5.8.8–9).
But in Hellenistic times there seem to be fewer examples than before of spoils taken from Greeks being dedicated even in their own temples.29 This trend is anticipated at some panhellenic sanctuaries from various dates in the fifth century, and so it is worth examining more closely.
When famous and much-frequented panhellenic shrines accepted splendid spoils from pious and grateful victors, their own glory was increased and so too was the admiration or fear that other Greeks felt for the favoured dedicators. Proudly to flaunt their warlike triumphs, won by the help of Zeus at Olympia or Apollo of Delphi, before the eyes of tens of thousands from all over the Greek world at the great festivals was a coveted ambition.30
It is no wonder then that when Tegea and Mantinea each claimed the same drawn border battle as a victory in 423/2 BC, both sent spoils all the way to Delphi (Thuc. 4.134). Nor need an estimate that Olympia received about 100,000 helmets over the seventh and sixth centuries BC be thought seriously exaggerated.31 Olympia could attract offerings from any battlefield in the Archaic Greek world, and Krentz has shown that the losers in hoplite battle might die in hundreds or even more.32 Battles were not rare events among the Greek cities and
to the victor's catch, runaways' shields and helmets might add an impressive supplement. Delphi, once the recipient of 2,000 shields from a battle at night, and just as renowned as Olympia, would not be far behind. Even Isthmia, celebrated only from the early sixth century, but centrally placed on land and sea routes, still has traces of 200 helmets and innumerable shields most from the hundred years down to the Persian invasion of 480–79 BC. Her annual takings might have been in scores rather than in Olympia's figures but could still have invited many to add to her displays.
Eager though victors were to advertise at panhellenic sanctuaries, their votive inscriptions seem generally restrained, some even omitting the loser's name and speaking just of 'the enemy', whether from fear of the gods or men, or else sheer preoccupation with their own glory.33 Despite this sincere or overt restraint, donors would surely use all their influence and that of their guest-friends in Elis, Delphi or Corinth to get their offerings the finest positions in the shrines those states controlled. Themistocles sought a place for his Persian spoils within the hallowed temple at Delphi, where the god's own sacred arms were kept (Paus. 10.14.5; Hdt.8.37). At Isthmia too the Archaic temple's interior was probably crowded with armour by the time of the fire of ca 470 BC. Perhaps they were privileged, but the rock terrace on which the temple stands prevented many displays of panoplies outdoors on posts, unlike the flat ground of Olympia where such displays were so numerous. There, in the main part of the Sanctuary and even along the banks of the Archaic Stadium, pilgrims and spectators had fine spoils to marvel at from one side of Hellas to the other—when their eyes were not on the Olympic contestants.34 To them there was no incongruity; such battles were a normal part of life, defeat bringing sorrow only to the loser and his friends. The splendour of the spoils, as of victory in battle or in the Games, would be what mattered, just as both spoils and Games were thought to please Zeus himself. Perhaps too in their duel-like quality, some early Greek battles—kept by custom well short of all-out war—were felt by many to be akin to the violent combat sports they loved to watch.35
As well as a conspicuous and honourable position for his offering, the donor would hope it would remain there for a long period. Isthmia may have allowed this, for so far no large deposits of armour buried before the fire of ca 470 BC have been found, so perhaps once accepted, displays stayed untouched. At Delphi the position is not clear, but at Olympia the outdoor displays were often dismantled after a few years and buried in wells or used to build up the banks of the Stadium.36
Perhaps this was done for practical reasons, when posts rotted, for instance, or to keep fresh offerings from cluttering the Sanctuary and the Stadium, but in at least one case politics may have been at work. A fine Oriental helmet captured by Athenians from the Persians was quite soon buried at a time when Spartan jealousy of Athens was strong.37
Whatever the reason for dismantling a display, it was not done casually, at least at Olympia. Much armour, particularly helmets, shows deliberate damage that can only have been done on dismantling. The nose- and or cheek-guards of helmets are often bent up or out, sometimes hiding their votive inscriptions—a clear sign that the damage was inflicted only at the end of their time of display. Much effort went into this. Somehow it must reflect the power the spoils had perhaps as vehicles of their donors' prayers. Perhaps the damage prevented possible interference with that role after they were discarded, rather as glasses are smashed after someone's health is drunk in them, as if to stop further toasts in them that might dilute the effect of the first one.38
What the frequent dismantling and damaging of dedications at Olympia certainly do not mean is that its authorities felt any unease at accepting spoils taken from Greeks by Greeks before the Persian invasion of 480–79 BC. But in the following decades signs of such uneasiness gradually accumulate. At Isthmia, for some time the headquarters of Greek resistance to Xerxes, the Archaic Temple, full of armour that was probably the spoils of wars between Greeks so convenient for the barbarians, was accidently burnt ca 470 BC. Its Classical successor built in the 460s has produced few traces so far of similar dedications. Perhaps to remind visitors of Isthmia's glorious role, Corinth discouraged such offerings there. At Olympia, Greek arms and armour seem to be less frequently offered from the mid-fifth century.39 Taras' dedication from Thurii in the 430s is among the latest identified as the spoils of Greeks (Meiggs and Lewis: 57). By 420 BC the Spartans ridiculed Argos' proud attempt to revive duel-like battles (Thuc. 5.41), and the Peloponnesian and later Greek wars rarely resembled sporting contests.40 Before 400 BC Elis refused to let King Agis of Sparta consult the oracle at Olympia as to a war against Greeks, as it never advised on such wars (Xen. Hell. 3.2.22). It is thus not surprising that it was to Delphi, not to Olympia (though it was nearer), that Tegea and Mantinea sent spoils from each other in 423 BC (Thuc. 4.134). Thereafter very few offerings of spoils taken from Greeks are reliably reported from Delphi, though Plato perhaps hints
that the oracle might advise on the question (Resp. 469 E-470 A).
All this is just one of several similar responses to the awkward fact that when the Greeks had beaten off barbarian enemies at Salamis, Plataea, Himera and Cumae, they still so ferociously fought one another. Nor were the responses entirely futile. One of the consequences was the marked and significant decline in the practice of selling Greek cities into slavery on capture for more than a century after Alexander's sack of
Thebes in 335 BC The refusal of the three panhellenic sanctuaries to accept the spoils of Greeks is then probably not a mere matter of silence in the archaeological record. Nor need it be at all strongly influenced by changing fashions in votive offerings. It may be true that there was a decline in offerings of small objects including bronzes in the fifth century after the generosity of the Archaic Period.41 But offerings of Greek spoils continued in Greek cities. The disasters of war and the horrors of hoplite battle, thrown into such sharp relief by more glorious events in the fifth century and by the eloquence of men like Gorgias and Lysias,42 thus themselves contributed, through what came to seem to Greeks—at least when they were at Olympia—the lamentable and odious, even polluting spectacle of dedications from the battlefield, to a new perception of war. Certainly, some dedications stayed on display even at Olympia, and Dodona as well, as the temples of cities and federal leagues continued to welcome spoils (Paus. 6.19.4–5; 1.13.3; Polyb. 5.8.5–9). Certainly, the stone monuments and statues that jostle one another along the Sacred Way at Delphi and elsewhere were inspired by the same pride and jealousies that had filled the Archaic Stadium's banks with armour as fine to look at, almost, as the Games themselves, and monuments of stone could outlast bronze.43 But just because cities and hoplites still needed the pride and encouragement that spoils from their rivals could give them in the face of battle, that is no reason to dismiss as an unlearnt lesson what some Greeks who looked at the spoils dedicated to the gods did see.
NOTES
Works referred to by author alone or with short title or date are cited in full in the Bibliography to this volume.
1. Rouse (1902), Pritchett, War 3, Lonis (1979). The term 'spoils' is used in the sense of captured arms and armour in this paper.
2. Hanson 1989. Dedications by soldiers and commanders, less common in the Archaic and Classical Periods are only cited for comparison; see esp. Pritchett, War 3 ch.7. On individual and phalanx, M.Detienne, 'La
phalange', in J.P.Vernant, ed (1968) 119–42. No attempt is made in this chapter to explore the parallels between some Greek and Celtic practices in war; J.-L.Brunaux, The Celtic Gauls (London, 1988), ch. 10, is of special interest on these.
3. J.Pouilloux, Recherches sur I'histoire et les cultes de Thasos I (Paris, 1954) 371–9.
4. Alcaeus 167; D.L.Page, Lyrica Graeca Selecta (Oxford, 1968). An attempt at a translation is given on page 236.
5. Examples; A.Mallwitz and H.V.Herrmann, eds, Die Funde aus Olympia (Athens, 1980) pls. 50–73; H. Hoffmann and A.E. Raubitschek, Early Cretan Armorers (Mainz, 1972) pls. 1–47.
6. Rouse 1902:54; Pritchett, War 3.240; Lonis 1979:147–8; Lazzarini 1976:93–5. This word's agricultural associations do not seem much exploited in votive texts to do with spoils, even though hoplites were often farmers or landowners on a grander scale fighting for disputed land in ranks as zeugitai (D.Whitehead, 'The archaic Athenian zeugitai', CQ 31.2 (1981) 282–6); cf. Il. 11.67–71, in line perhaps with the normally restrained tone of votive inscriptions.
7. Lonis 1979:158–60.
8. Archilochus 1, D.L.Page, Epigrammata Graeca (Oxford, 1975); Alcaeus Hdt. 5.95.
9. M.I.Finley, The World of Odysseus (London, 1977) 119; E.Vermeule, Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry (Berkeley, 1979), ch. 3.
10. H.Koenigs-Philipp, in Mallwitz and Herrmann (supra n.5), 88.
11. Pritchett, War 3 ch.7.
12. L.H.Jeffery, Local Scripts of Archaic Greece (Oxford, 1961) 90 and 94 n.l; 195–6 and 201 n.49; Paus. 5.24.3.
13. F.T.Van Straten, 'Gifts for the gods', in H.S.Versnel, Faith Hope and Worship (Leiden, 1981) 65–80 esp. 74; W.Burkert, Greek Religion (Oxford, 1985) 68–70, 92–5.
14. Pritchett, War 3. 292–3.
15. Simonides 19; Page (supra n.8).
16. Cf. Anderson 1970 pl. 1.
17. Votives in daily life, Rouse 1902: chs 2 and 6. Entry to temples, P.E. Corbett, 'Greek temples and Greek worshippers', BICS 17 (1970) 149–58.
18. Alcaeus 167, in Page (supra n.4).
19. Pritchett, War 3 esp. ch. 6; Lonis 1979 esp. chs 5 and 6.
20. The text used is that of G.O.Hutchinson, Aeschylus. Septem contra Thebas (Oxford, 1985).
21. Pritchett, War 2, ch. 23.
22. Kunze OB 6 (1958) pl. 44.1 (uninventoried); OB 7 (1961) pl. 35.1 (B5060); OB 8 (1967) pl. 78 (B353). Blyth 1977:80–5 thinks serious damage from battle to armour at Olympia is rare. Also important discussion in C Weiss, CSCA 10 (1977) 195–207.
23. Cf. Detienne (supra n.2).
24. M.Moynihan, God on Our Side: The British Padre in World War I (London, 1983) 17.
25. For discussion of the background, L.Bonfante, 'Nudity as a costume in Classical art', AJA 93 (1989) 543–70.
26. Cf. C.M.Parkes, Bereavement: Studies of Grief in Adult Life, (Harmondsworth, England, 1975), ch.6; R.Parker, Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (Oxford, 1983) 113.
27. Lazzarini 1976:316–21 nos. 956, 973–5, 989. Argive dedication from Pyrrhus near Mycenae: G.E.Mylonas, Praktika 1965, 95–6.
28. J.McK.Camp II, 'A spear butt from the Lesbians', Hesperia 47 (1978) 192–5. Possibly the Spartan shield from Pylos buried by the early third century BC reflects some Athenian rapprochement with Sparta or pro-Spartan sabotage; T.L.Shear, Hesperia 6 (1937) 346–8.
29. Snodgrass 1967:125.
30. P.de la Coste-Messelière, Au Musée de Delphes, BEFAR 138 (Paris, 1936):9–11.
31. A.M.Snodgrass, Archaic Greece (London, 1980) 131.
32. Krentz, 'Casualties in hoplite battles', GRBS 26 (1985) 13–20.
33. For example, Kunze, OB 8 (1967) 83–107. Also Lazzarini 1976:316–23, esp. nos. 96la and b, 964–5, 967, 970–2, 976–80, 991, 994–6.
34. L.Drees, Olympia, Gods, Artists and Athletes (London, 1968) 88–91; H. V.Herrmann, Olympia; Heiligtum und Wettkampfstätte (Munich, 1972) 20–5; 106–12. Kunze and Schleif, OB 2 (1938) 5–27, 67; OB 3 (1941) 5–29; Kunze, OB 5 (1956) 11.
35. M.B.Poliakoff, Combat Sports in the Ancient World (London, 1987), esp. ch. 6.
36. Snodgrass 1967:48–9. W.Gauer, Ol. Forsch. 8 (1975), esp. 213–43, notably 217 Well 81 (south-east area) and 219–20 Well 48 (south-east area), with Kunze, OB 8 (1967) 87 n.7 on the helmet B6081.
37. Kunze, OB 7 (1961) 129–37.
38. A.H.Jackson, 'Some deliberate damage to Archaic Greek helmets dedicated at Olympia', Liverpool Classical Monthly 8.2 (Feb. 1983) 22–7. The parallel with toasts was suggested by Prof. K.H.Jackson. Interesting similarities but not necessarily exact parallels appear in Celtic Gaul; J.-L. Brunaux and A.Rapin, Gournay II (Paris, 1988).
39. Gauer (supra n.36) 234–43.
40. Herrmann (supra n.34) 112.
41. H.G.G.Payne, Perachora I 93; W.Lamb, BSA 28 (1926–7) 106.
42. H.Diels and W.Kranz, Die Fragments der Vorsokratiker II (Berlin, 1952) Gorgias 5b (Philostr. VS 1.9); Lys. 33.
43. For analysis of changes in types of offering at Olympia and Delphi and of differences between the two sanctuaries in relation to Panhellenic ideas, F.Felten, 'Weihungen in Olympia und Delphi' AM 97 (1982) 79–97.
* * *
Part V
EPILOGUE
Battle history…deserves a similar primacy over all other branches of military historiography. It is in fact the oldest historical form, its subject matter of commanding importance, and its treatment demands the most scrupulous historical care. For it is not through what armies are but what they do that the lives of nations and of individuals are changed. In either case, the engine of change is the same: the infliction of human suffering through violence. And the right to inflict suffering must always be purchased by, or at a risk of, combat—ultimately combat corps à corps.
John Keegan
The Face of Battle
* * *
THE FUTURE OF GREEK MILITARY HISTORY
Victor Davis Hanson
Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience Page 35