Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece (5 page)

For generations scholars have examined the relationship between how the Greeks fought and their social, political, and cultural development. The Greeks themselves considered war both part of the nature of human society and terrible. “Peace,” Plato said, “is merely a name; in truth an undeclared war always exists by nature among all city-states.”
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The poet Pindar (F 15) called battle “a sweet thing to him who does not know it, but to him who has made trial of it, it is a thing of fear.” For Thucydides war was “a violent schoolmaster.”
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Aristotle, in his
Politics
(1297b16–28), on the other hand, provided the first known theory to connect the evolution of the political institutions of the polis with the rise of heavy infantry. Modern historians of ancient Greece in turn have developed a grand narrative. This “orthodoxy” explains the rise of the early polis in terms of a dramatic change or “revolution” in arms, armor, and tactics; the military revolution became a driving force behind the emergence of the characteristic political and social structures of the Greek state. A central part of the thesis is that the change in fighting style was directly related to recent innovations in arms and armor. Second, the phalanx depended on the weight and the cohesion of heavily armed men who employed “shock” tactics in brief but decisive battles. Third, it has been critical to identify the greatest number of hoplites with a middling group within the polis, which had the wealth to provide its own arms. Fourth, this middling group transformed Greek values.

By the mid-nineteenth century, scholars had already recognized the basic elements of what was to become the hoplite orthodoxy. For example, George Grote, in his famous twelve-volume
History of Greece
, made a sharp distinction between heroic and historical Greece, and the emergence of the hoplite warrior marked the point of departure for the beginning of the age of history. “The mode of fighting among the Homeric heroes is not less different from the historical times, than the material of which their arms were composed.” He described the essentials of the ancient Greek phalanx:

The Hoplites, or heavy-armed infantry of historical Greece, maintained a close order and well-dressed line, charging the enemy with their spears protended at even distance, and coming thus to close conflict without breaking their rank: there were special troops, bowmen, slingers, etc. armed with missiles, but the hoplite had no weapon to employ in this manner.
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Grote compared the close-in approach of the hoplites with the long-range fighting style of the legendary figures of Homer:

The heroes of the
Iliad
and
Odyssey
, on the contrary, habitually employ the spear as a missile, which they launch with tremendous force: each of them is mounted in his war-chariot, drawn by two horses, … advancing in his chariot at full speed, in front of his own soldiers, he hurls his spear against the enemy: sometimes, indeed, he will fight on foot, and hand to hand, but the chariot is near to receive him if he chooses, or to ensure his retreat. The mass of the Greeks and Trojans, coming forward to the charge, without any regular step or evenly-maintained line, make their attack in the same way by hurling their spears.
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The champions of Homer enjoy several advantages over the common soldier: “Every man is protected by shield, helmet, breastplate, and greaves: but the armor of the chiefs is greatly superior to that of the common men, while they themselves are both stronger and more expert in the use of their weapons.” The weapons used included a long sword, a short dagger, and two throwing spears, which on occasion could be employed as a thrusting weapon. The few bowmen are rare exceptions to the equipment and tactics described above.

The loose battle array of the
Iliad
contrasts sharply with the inflexible ranks that attacked the Persian king at Plataea or Cunaxa, and “illustrates forcibly the general difference between heroic and historical Greece. While in the former, a few splendid figures stand forward, in prominent relief, the remainder being a mere unorganized and ineffective mass, —in the latter, these units have been combined into a system, in which every man, officer and soldier, has his assigned place and duty, and the victory, when gained is the joint work of all.” With the introduction of the phalanx, the difference in the role of the individual and the military effectiveness of the group is remarkable: “preeminent individual prowess is indeed materially abridged, if not wholly excluded, —no man can do more than maintain his station in the line: but on the other hand, the grand purposes, aggressive or defensive, for which alone arms
are taken up, become more assured and easy, and long-sighted combinations of the general are rendered for the first time practicable when he has a disciplined body of men to obey him.”
⁶

Grote derives his picture of how the classical phalanx engaged the enemy from Thucydides’ account of the battle of Mantinea:

It was the natural tendency of all Grecian armies, when coming into conflict, to march not exactly forward, but somewhat aslant to the right. The soldiers on the extreme right of both armies set the example of such inclination, in order to avoid exposing their own unshielded side; while for the same reason every man along the line took care to keep close to the shield of his right hand neighbor. We see from hence that, with equal numbers, the right was not merely the post of honor, but also of comparative safety. So it proved on the present occasion, even the Lacedaemonian discipline being noway exempt from this cause of disturbance. Though the Lacedaemonian front, from their superior numbers, was more extended than that of the enemy, still their right files did not think themselves safe without slanting still farther to the right, and thus outflanked greatly the Athenians on the opposite left wing; while on the opposite side the Mantineans who formed the right wing, from the same disposition to keep the left shoulder forward, outflanked, though not in so great a degree, the Skiritae and Brasideians on the Lacedaemonian left.
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From its start, the proto-orthodoxy posited a close link between military, political, and cultural developments in archaic Greece. Grote details the political revolution—the substitution of one or more temporary and accountable magistrates in the place of the Homeric king—that accompanied the emergence of the hoplite phalanx.

It was always an oligarchy which arose on the defeasance of the heroic kingdom: the age of the democratical movement was yet far distant, and the condition of the people—the general body of freemen—was not immediately altered, either for better or worse, by the revolution; the small number of privileged persons, among whom the kingly attributes were distributed and put in rotation, being those nearest in rank to the king himself, perhaps members of the same large gens with him, pretending to a common divine or heroic descent.
⁸

The composition of Homer’s epics and the celebration of the first Olympiad were essential for dating the revolution. Consistent with Herodotus, who placed Homer four hundred years before his own time, Grote assigned the composition of the Homeric
Iliad
and
Odyssey
to the second half of the ninth century—the poems having reached their final form before the first Olympiad of 776 BC.
⁹
His method for dating the poems reflects the great debate surrounding the Homeric Question in the nineteenth century. He argues against Wolf and Lachmann’s contention that the epics represented an amalgamation of many distinct poems brought about by Peisistratus in the middle of the sixth century in Athens. Lachmann, for instance, identified sixteen separate songs in the first twenty-two books of the
Iliad
. Grote, on the other hand, contends
that, far from producing an original poem, Peisistratus simply enhanced the solemnity of the Great Panathenaic festival by selecting, among the divergences of rhapsodes in different parts of Greece, “that order of text which intelligent men could approve as a return to the pure and pristine
Iliad
.”
¹⁰
For Grote, the poems have no historical value, because they contain no verifiable evidence. However, since Homer reflects the contemporary society of the ninth century, the
Iliad
and
Odyssey
have immense value for assessing the achievements of the Greeks in the eighth and seventh centuries. Civil society makes a transition similar to that of the military: “we pass from Herakles, Theseus, Jason, Achilles, to Solon, Pythagoras, and Perikles—from ‘the shepherd of his people,’ (to use the phrase in which Homer depicts the good side of the heroic king,) to the legislator who introduces, and the statesman who maintains, a preconcerted system by which willing citizens consent to bind themselves.”
¹¹

There was for Grote a parallel between the individual who knows his place in the hoplite phalanx and the citizen who understands his predetermined rights and duties in the social order according to established principles. The result is that even without commanding individual talent, “the whole community is so trained as to be able to maintain its course under inferior leaders.”
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Grote had no doubt about the significance of these developments: “the military organization of the Grecian republic is an element of the greatest importance in respect to the conspicuous part they have played in human affairs,—their superiority in this respect being hardly less striking than it is in many others.”
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In the historical period following the first Olympiad, the emergence of hoplite warfare had dramatic implications for many of the major cities in Greece, especially Argos, Sparta, Corinth, Sicyon, Megara, and eventually Athens.

Grote envisioned the political transformation in the Greek world from the heroic kingdoms to the poleis taking place through two revolutions. The first involved the intellectual revolution
¹⁴
that accompanied the transition from the world of legend to the development of history.
¹⁵
This upheaval resulted in the emergence of oligarchies out of the divine kingships, and demonstrated to Grote the progressive character of the Greek mind and all its superiority over the “stationary and unimproving” Oriental mind.
¹⁶
The abolition of kingship came about through natural change and without violence. For example, sometimes the royal lineage died out or, after the death of the king, the king’s son became acknowledged as archon only, or he gave way to a prytanis chosen from the aristocrats. These primitive oligarchies were common throughout Greek cities and colonies of the seventh century, and they represent an advance on heroic government. The primary characteristic of the heroic age had been “the omnipotence of private force, tempered and guided by family sympathies, and the practical nullity of that collective sovereign afterwards called
The City
,—who in historical Greece becomes the central and paramount source of obligation.”
¹⁷
Grote describes the rise of the poleis: “Though they [the poleis] had little immediate tendency to benefit the mass of the freemen, yet when we compare them with the antecedent heroic government, they indicate an important advance,—the first adoption of a deliberate and preconceived system in the management of public affairs.” The polis invented the concept of citizenship, the rule of law, and the accountability of elected magistrates.

[The poleis] exhibit the first evidences of new and important political ideas in the Greek mind,—the separation of legislative and executive powers; the former vested in a collective body, not merely deliberating but finally deciding,—while the latter is confided to temporary individual magistrates, responsible to that body at the end of their period in office. We are first introduced to a community of citizens, according to the definition of Aristotle,—men qualified, and thinking themselves qualified, to take turns in command and obedience: the collective sovereign, called The City, is thus constituted.
¹⁸

The second revolution took place when the usurpers Grote calls Despots subverted the first oligarchies. This period, which contemporary scholars refer to as the age of tyrants, involved “the gradual rise of the small proprietors and town-artisans” and “was marked by the substitution of heavy-armed infantry in place of cavalry.”
¹⁹

Cities such as Corinth, Sicyon, and Megara required the figure of the despot, backed by the hoplites, to bring about decisive political change.
²⁰
This period occurred during the progress of the seventh and sixth centuries, with the expansion of wealth, power, and population. Grote distinguishes these early despots from those of later periods by their use of armed force. Notwithstanding the benefits tyrannies brought to their respective poleis, the age of the despots worked against the principles of the City: “this rooted antipathy to a permanent hereditary ruler stood apart as a sentiment almost unanimous.”
²¹
The hoplites enabled the tyrant to overthrow the narrow oligarchies of the seventh century in many cities. These figures made possible the transition to broader oligarchies and later to democracies; but the tyrant’s success could only be temporary.
²²

The people by their armed aid had enabled him [the despot] to overthrow the existing rulers … but they acquired no political rights and no increased securities for themselves.
²³
… The rise of these despots on the ruins of the previous oligarchies was, in appearance, a return to the principles of the heroic age,—the restoration of a government of personal will in place of that systematic arrangement known as the City. But the Greek mind had so far outgrown those early principles, that no new government founded thereupon could meet with willing acquiescence, except under some temporary excitement.
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