Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece (66 page)

Analogies to either Macedonian phalangites or Roman soldiers or contemporary tribesmen who mass in formation only to advance in smaller groups and in greater fluidity are not convincing: Hellenistic phalangites, with much smaller shields on their neck or arms, used both hands to carry long pikes; Roman legionaries relied on throwing the
pilum
and the short
gladius
and employed single-grip shields.

Modern tribesmen with long spears who fought in fluid fashion usually did so in near-naked fashion. In contrast, I would imagine if anthropologists had discovered indigenous tribes in warm climates with odd Hellenic-like full suits of bronze armor, large, round, and concave willow shields, and thrusting spears, then they likewise would have recorded shock tactics similar to those of hoplite warfare. But such is not the case with modern lightly clad tribesmen who used spears.
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In addition, often battle narratives in Thucydides and Xenophon concentrate on entire contingents that advance or retreat collectively, and likewise either are annihilated or escape casualties as a whole. At Delium the Thespians are encircled and nearly wiped out in toto (Thuc. 4.96). At Nemea they meet the men from Pellene and both sides die in their places, suggesting a sort of death struggle between two mass contingents of colliding hoplites. At the same battle, the Spartans let entire contingents of
the Athenians go by and then struck the unprotected sides of the retreating Argives (Xen.
Hell
. 4.2.16–23). Indeed, at Nemea, Xenophon talks of Athenian, Argive, Corinthian, Spartan, and Theban fighters who suffered collective fates—either near annihilation or almost no damage at all. At Coronea the Argives en masse run away, and the Thebans and Spartans hit each other as two identifiable contingents (e.g., Xen.
Hell
. 4.3.17). At Tegyra, the Spartans let the Thebans under Pelopidas come through an open lane, who then in turn collectively are broken apart. (Plut.
Pel
. 17.5). In the so-called Tearless Battle, entire formations of Arcadians collapse in unison from the panic of facing the Spartans (Xen.
Hell
. 7.1.28–32)—a sometimes frequent occurrence in hoplite battle that suggests a herd or group-like mentality of soldiers tightly massed, who may have decreased perception and are subject to rumor or blind fears of collapse—without ever seeing clearly the enemy himself.

The sense in many of these battles is not one of fluid stages involving small groups and pockets of individual duelers, where fatalities are roughly divided among warriors on both sides, but rather of collisions, collective retreats, and synchronized advances, in which entire columns of men attempt to keep close rank throughout the battle and thus seem to suffer terribly or escape losses altogether. Many hoplite battles have lopsided casualty figures that suggest not long episodes of individual combat, contingent on personal weapons prowess, but the sudden disintegration of units en masse, or in turn the near invulnerability of entire phalanxes whose enemies either flee or are caught unawares.

Was Hoplite Armor Heavy?

Key to the hoplite narrative is the notion that hoplite armor was heavy and cumbersome. What a hoplite soldier lacked in mobility, flexibility, vision, and comfort was more than offset by the protection offered by his panoply. Such metal, leather, and fabric protection, when used in proper concert with other similarly armed men, was felt to offer an ancient hoplite a reasonable chance of surviving spear, sword, and occasional missile attacks—and to ensure that the community usually did not lose large percentages of its male population in frequent hoplite fighting.

Recently that truism too has come under question, most notably by Peter Krentz, who reexamines the ancient evidence in concert with various calculations and modern conjectures to reduce the average classical panoply to less than 50 pounds.
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The Greeks, of course, themselves commented often on the weight, discomfort, and clumsiness of their hoplite armor—a ubiquitous theme throughout Greek literature (see Ar.
Nub
. 988–89; Eur.
HF
190; Xen.
Mem
. 3.10.9–14). Elements of the panoply such as the double-grip and concave shield seem designed to lessen the burdensome weight of the shield on the wearer. Arm, thigh, and other peripheral items over time appear to be discarded rather than to be continually added to the panoply. Breastplates become lighter, not heavier.

We can only offer informed guesses about the exact weights of the ancient panoply, in part because it is almost impossible to calibrate at which stage of its evolution were
particular hoplite battles conducted. Bronze thigh, shoulder, foot, and hand protection would add weight; composite corselets composed of linen in lieu of the bell cuirass would lessen it. Early Corinthian helmets seem heavier than the later
pilos
; metal shield veneers and blazons, along with padding, grips, and straps, would add to the weight of shield. There are few extant breastplates and only one known wooden shield, and the size and tastes of individual ensembles under combat conditions perhaps varied widely. Surviving samples have weathered and corroded over centuries, and we are not sure exactly the types and treatment of woods typically used for shields and spears. Modern replication of ancient Greek arms is indeed helpful, but there remain variances between contemporary and ancient modes of fabrication and metal use.
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That said, the current controversy over the precise weight of the panoply is not about whether we moderns regard hoplite panoplies to have been heavy—that seems to have been a given—but rather whether the ensemble is to be regarded as
extremely
heavy. If earlier estimates of 70 pounds prove to have been excessive, or wrongly predicated on exclusively bronze corselets and full three-foot-diameter shields of hardwoods rather than smaller sizes and lighter woods, it is still not altogether clear how an ancient hoplite of 120–150 pounds, with even nearly 50 pounds of offensive and defensive gear, could have fought deftly out of formation.

A Late Phalanx?

The grand hoplite narrative allowed that the phalanx evolved in a complex fashion from the seventh century to the fourth, in the same manner that the Corinthian helmet and the solid bronze breastplate gave way to lighter models, as the Greeks increasingly encountered a wide array of challenges abroad, and at home innovative commanders over the centuries experimented with both armament and tactics.

Current revisionism that the phalanx was a more recent phenomenon of the fifth century seems likewise mistaken. Of course, greater population, more state control, and accumulated battle experience made “classical” phalanxes larger and more sophisticated—along with a synergy of specialized light and mounted troops, and more elaborate tactics of advance and concentration of force.
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Still, there is no reason to think the classical phalanx was all that much different from its archaic antecedents, much less that it had become something altogether novel, rather than a logical outgrowth of what we would expect would have been the natural evolution from its archaic forebearers.

There are a number of pragmatic considerations that explain perceived differences in early and late formations. First, archaic hoplites at war are largely known from vase painting and poetry; their classical counterparts in contrast are described in prose accounts in Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and the later historians and biographers. The latter offer more opportunity for detail, both of battle and tactics, in a way impossible in earlier epic and lyric poetry and vase painting. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that both the poet Tyrtaios and historian Xenophon, composing three centuries apart, alike speak of some sort of
ôthismos
. The scene of a line of hoplites portrayed on the Protocorinthian Chigi vase, dated around 650 BC, seems not that
much different from a similar battle line sculpted on the Nereid monument in stone at Xanthos around 400 BC. On occasion it seems natural that hoplites can raid sanctuaries to employ arms for contemporary battle that must have been decades old, and should have been rendered obsolete, had phalanx fighting little pedigree and been a late development.
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Second, the logical connection between the known evolution in hoplite weaponry and the proposed idea of the phalanx proper first appearing in the fifth century is problematic. The traditional narrative often postulated that the introduction of heavy weaponry refined and improved earlier, less organized fighting in dense mass. As the polis grew larger and richer, phalanxes incorporated more hoplites, and warfare became more complex with greater maneuver and motion. In turn, armament in response gradually grew somewhat lighter and perhaps therein cheaper as well, often produced in “factories” by the state.
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But if instead phalanx warfare—that is, fighting in close formation—was a phenomenon mostly of the fifth century, followed by even more compact formations of the Macedonians, then are we to believe that earlier archaic hoplites with cumbersome arm and thigh guards, wearing the obtrusive Corinthian helmet and bronze bell corselet, fought as skirmishers in more or less fluid fashion, while their more mobile and lighter-clad successors belatedly discovered the advantages of fighting in solidarity and through shock? It would seem that the opposite sequence would be more credible—that as the phalanx suddenly coalesced and grew denser, began to rely on shock, and saw less fluidity, the crowded hoplites in the ranks would adopt more protective, not lighter arms and armor.

Finally, why would eighth- and seventh-century Greek warriors, fighting in loose formation and skirmishing, suddenly begin to fabricate heavy infantry arms and armor—only to discover their optimum usage over two centuries later? The hoplite panoply was not quite like any other set of arms and armament seen before or since. The notion that citizens would craft such armor only to fathom its ideal application three centuries after its creation is as unconvincing as it is unsupported by literary descriptions and artistic renditions. A modern analogy would be that in loosely organized games of traditional touch football where contact is forbidden and injuries are rare, a few players for some reason began appearing in heavy pads, helmet with face guard, and full body protection that hampered the very mobility that was vital to such a fluid sport. Then, after decades or even centuries of slogging about, they discovered that, while such cumbersome, hot, expensive, and heavy equipment kept putting them at a disadvantage in status quo light football, in time it could nevertheless prove especially apt for a new variation of brutal tackle football—though one unknown at the time they capriciously donned their original ensembles.

Deconstruction of Hoplite Battle

There is no typical hoplite battle, given regional variations, the nearly four centuries of development, and the leadership of later innovative commanders such as Pagondas, Brasidas, and Epaminondas. Nevertheless here are a few random observations on
some well-recorded fourth-century hoplite battles that seem to confirm most of the elements of the traditional narrative—the attack on the run, the collision of mass formations, the frequent breaking of spears, and the subsequent role of mass and density of formations in deciding the battle.

The exceptionalism of the battle of Coronea was not, as often argued, just a result of an anomalous crash between Thebans and Spartans. Indeed, the mechanics of that horrific encounter were similar to the collisions found at other fourth-century battles. Otherwise, are we to assume that Agesilaus expected his hoplites in a split second to adopt a manner of fighting with which they had absolutely no prior experience?

Instead, what made Xenophon remark that Coronea “was like no other” battle of his time was the odd fact that the superior Spartan right wing, by its own volition, chose an optional, second-stage head-on collision against a similarly victorious Theban right wing—in a manner of sorts foreshadowing the right wing/left wing showdown of the best units at Leuctra (Xen.
Hell
. 4.3.16). Xenophon gives a brutal description of “shield to shield” fighting between Spartans and Thebans (Xen.
Hell
. 4.3.19), not because such crashes of arms per se were necessarily singular, but because, between two such evenly matched and lethal contingents, the accustomed impact of forces would, in this unique case, not so quickly result in the collapse of either side, but rather ensure a sort of mutual destruction. (And if fluidity were the norm, it would seem impossible that both mobile Spartans and Thebans could redirect, and retain rank and formation, to restart the battle ab initio.)
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At Nemea (394 BC) we hear of the advantage of weight that accrues to the The-bans in massing beyond even the agreed-on sixteen shields depth (Xen.
Hell
. 4.2.18). On the Boiotians’ right side, the Thespians and the men of Pellene hit each other head-on and are nearly obliterated (4.2.20). The victorious Spartans across the way are ready to strike the retreating Argives front-to-front (4.2.22). But instead they allow the enemies to go on by and then engage them on their unshielded right sides. Here again, note the sense of the collective, since the assumption is that all the retreating Argives have remained in rank and thus will suffer from a commensurately collective strike from the intact formation of Spartans.

At Leuctra there is the usual run of the non-Spartan side (
dromô
), and the subsequent hand-to-hand fighting (
eis cheiras
), before the superior density (
puknotêta
) and weight (
baros
/
bareis
) of the Thebans bring advantage (Diod. 15.55.2–4).

The phalanxes of the Boeotians and the Lacedaemonians at Mantinea (362 BC) hit each other head-on, and, owing to the density of the blows, both sides break a great deal of their spears (
dia tên puknotêta tôn plegôn ta pleista suntripsantes
; Diod 15.86.2). Their bodies almost become intertwined (
sumplekomenoi de tois sômasi
; Diod. 15.86.3). Progress for the Thebans follows the successful entry of Epaminondas’s Thebans, who charge in a tight mass (
meta toutôn sumphraxas, eisebalen eis mesous tous polemous
; Diod. 15.86.4). The army then seems to close to hand-to-hand fighting (
tôn allôn eis cheiras erchomenôn
; Diod. 15.86.4). Indeed the Boeotians use their density and depth to break through the ranks of the Lacedaemonians, like a trireme (
ôsper trirêrê prosege, nomizôn opoi embalôn diakopseie
(Xen.
Hell
. 23). Some of the enemy then panic as the Boeotians break through their phalanx (
diekopse tên phalanga tôn polemiôn
) as the
“weight” of their formation seems to play the decisive role (
to baros
; Diod. 15.86.5). The battle then ends indecisively because, with the wounding of Epaminondas, the Thebans check their pursuit of the receding Lacedaemonians and each side claims a victory on one of the two wings.
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