The Armies of Classical Greece

Everett L. Wheeler, Everett L. Wheeler

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351894586
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia militare e marittima

The origin of the Western military tradition in Greece 750-362 BC is fraught with controversies, such as the date and nature of the phalanx, the role of agricultural destruction and the existence of rules and ritualistic practices. This volume collects papers significant for specific points in debates or theoretical value in shaping and critiquing controversial viewpoints. An introduction offers a critical analysis of recent trends in ancient military history and provides a bibliographical essay contextualizing the papers within the framework of debates with a guide to further reading.

Part I
Archaic Warfare: 750–500 BC

[1]
The “Hoplite Reform” Revisited

A.M. Snodgrass
University of Cambridge

It is a rare feat for an author, writing within one field of study, to bring about a complete revision of the accepted doctrine in a quite different field. Yet that is what Joachim Latacz achieved with the publication, in 1977, of his Kampfparänese, Kampfdarstellung und Kampfivirklichkeit in der Utas, bei Kallinos und Tyrtaios¹. Whatever its impact has been within Homeric philological scholarship, it can hardly match the transformation of thought which the book has brought about in early Greek military and social history. To some extent, that transformation only began to take effect from 1985, when W.K. Pritchett gave prominence to Latacz’ conclusions, and upheld the most important of them, in volume iv of his The Greek State at War²; but the ground had been prepared by a series of favourable reviews of Latacz’ work, with only one clearly dissenting voice ³ among the philological experts. Since 1985, the view has become widespread among historians that Latacz’ findings require a complete reappraisal of a critical episode in early Greek history, the transition to hoplite warfare: I single out, as especially influential, the views of Ian Morris ⁴, Victor Hanson ⁵ and Kurt Raaflaub⁶.

I will attempt to summarise, even if in too simplified a form, the main relevant conclusions that Latacz reached:

1) Mass armies, and not heroic champions, are the decisive element in Homeric battle, and the importance of their rôle is absolutely integral to the battle-descriptions;

2) These mass forces mainly play their part in two ways, and at two junctures: they partake in mass long-range exchange of missiles, before the promachoi engage in those exploits to which the narrative gives such prominence; and they join battle thereafter in mass hand-to-hand combat and close-order formation;

3) This latter phase, which decides the outcome of each major engagement, differs in no significant way from the warfare of the phalanx known from post-Homeric sources;

4) This Homeric phalanx-warfare is no mere literary conceit, but a consistent portrayal of what may well have been the contemporary historical reality;

5) As a consequence of 3) and 4) above, the whole conception of a dramatic change in Greek warfare in the period after Homer – the ‘hoplite reform’ or ‘hoplite revolution’ – must be abandoned.

In thus simplifying the arguments, I have omitted some important and interesting elements in Latacz’ case, such as his closely-argued interpretations of the frequent Homeric terms phalanges, suches and promachoi ⁷; but important as they are, I do not think that the main line of argument, as outlined above, actually depends on them for its validity. I therefore wish to set them aside here.

Let me begin my discussion, and indeed shorten it, by stating at once that I accept what I have called conclusion no. 1; indeed, like others, I see it as a striking new insight into the understanding of the battles in the Iliad. So much for those who thought in the 1960’s, as I did, that future enlightenment on early Greek warfare must come from archaeology, since the parameters of the interpretation of the literary evidence were substantially fixed and immovable. We have learned that, however much the poet may choose to emphasize the prowess of his heroes, and even to present his theme as being the anger of just one of them, he has still accepted that the setting of his poem is a long war between two large armies, and acknowledges some of the implications of this in a realistic if intermittent way. Expressed in such words, this may not sound like a spectacular advance; yet the repercussions in historical scholarship suggest that such it is.

These repercussions, however, in large part result from the subsequent conclusions that I have numbered 2), 3), 4) and 5); and here, along with an apparently small number of other critics ⁸,1 begin to dissent. Let us concentrate our attention on n° 2, which relates to the phases of operation of the mass forces in the poetic narrative, since n^os 3, 4 and 5 all to some degree presuppose its validity: only if there is consistent and regular depiction of phases of exclusive hand-to-hand combat in the Iliad can we use this literary depiction as a basis for historical conclusions.

Latacz holds that there is a common initial phase of Massenwurfkampf, mass long-range exchange of missile-fire, which can on its own be decisive, but usually is not, and so makes way for the familiar interlude of exploits by the promachoi. These are then in turn brought to an end by a more decisive phase of Massennahkampf, mass hand-to-hand engagement ⁹. Latacz freely acknowledges that the sequence is not invariable, but it is important to his argument that there should be this chronological separation of phases in the battle-narrative.

In truth, however, such a separation is highly debatable. It is probably Hans van Wees (n. 8 above) who has looked most closely at Latacz’ argument, and here I am borrowing and enlarging on some of his criticisms. To consider, first, the status of the phase of Massenwurfkampf: there are four formulaic pasages which describe this in generalised, closely parallel terms: viii 66–7 and xi 84–5, which are identical, and xv 318–9 and xvi 777–8, which share the same second line. In each case, the poet tells us that “As long as (so-and-so), so long were the missile flying from both sides, and men kept falling”. The temporal expressions in the first line vary, but the picture is in each case one of a protracted period of missile-fire from both sides. The words hint at the inevitable sequel, that this picture will change and that one of the two sides will get the advantage. But at what stage in each engagement do these passages occur?

The answers are hardly what Latacz’ analysis requires: the passages are not always situated in a phase of unmixed missile-fire, nor are they located at the outset of the engagement. At viii 66, for example, we have heard only six lines previously that the two converging armies have clashed “with an impact of shields... their bossed shields collided together” (62–3). So it seems that the Massennahkampf has begun, just before the formulaic phrase encapsulating the Massenwurfkampf. At xi 84, similarly, we have heard almost as shortly before that the Trojans and Achaeans “fell upon each other... it was level pegging... they rushed in like wolves” (70–73) – not quite so explicit, but suggestive of much the same thing. If we move to xvi 777, the formulaic passage is set in the context of the struggle over the corpse of Kebriones: around him, the ground is “bristling with javelins and arrows” (772–3). In this particular case, Latacz goes so far as to estimate the distance between the two armies as “some 40 metres” ¹⁰. But there is something wrong here. Only a few lines before (762–3), we have learned that Hector has hold of Kebriones’ head and Patroclus of his feet. So these two enemies at least are at close quarters; and they are not alone. The other Trojans and Greeks have come together in a mighty clash (764), and rocks are crashing against the shields of “those fighting over him” (sc. Kebriones) (775). Once again, a Massennahkampf or something like it is under way.

With the remaining passage, xv 318–9, there is a quite different problem, of a kind that will reappear later. This time, it does seem that the setting is one of pure missile-fighting: the difficulty is that one side in the exchange, the Achaean, consists of a small group of picked men who have been chosen for an explicit task, to cover the retreat of the main body of the army to the ships. Yet we hear in some detail of javelins finding their target, and the formulaic phrase “and men kept falling” once again applies to both sides. To his credit, Latacz admits that here the repeated passage has been inappropriately inserted, as a set piece, through a failure of composition.¹¹ Just so: but this surely means that here, at any rate, the passage forms the weakest evidence for a regular literary, let alone a regular historical practice. These formulaic passages form the heart of the case for the integrity and the temporal priority of the Massenwurfkampf. Yet they show such a close juxtaposition of missile-and hand-to-hand engagement that, prima facie, the most reasonable inference is that which Hans van Wees has drawn ¹²: that the poet is saying that, at one and the same time and place, a large number of warriors were exchanging missiles while others were fighting it out hand to hand. But let us suspend final judgment until we have considered the Massennahkampf passages.

Latacz lists some 23 episodes of mass hand-to-hand engagement in the Iliad ¹³. But once again, we find ‘contamination’ in their near vicinity. Take the very first general clash in the poem, which begins at iv 446: the two armies come to grips and “shield clashed on shield”, in exactly the formula that we encountered in viii 60–63 (page 50 above). Yet almost at once, from line 457 on, we are in the throes of missile-fighting between individuals: twice in the later course of this engagement (iv 542 and v 167) the poet makes the general observation that there was “a hail of missiles”. This turns out to be typical. In Book viii, as we have already seen, a classic Massennahkampf description at lines 60–63 turns into a Massenwurfkampf at lines 66–7. At xi 90, a diagnostic phrase of hand-to-hand battle, the ‘breaking of the phalanges’, is merely a brief glimpse between the missile-combat that comes before (xi 84–5, above, page 50) and the mixed rout of infantry and chariots that follows when the Trojans give way; by line 163, it is from “the flying missiles” that Zeus rescues Hector.

With Books xii to xvi, we enter the great battle around the beached Achaean ships; and here occurs a series of passages which constitute the most impressive evidence for the ‘Homeric phalanx’ of Latacz, since they combine a reference to mass in-fighting with a mention of a tightly-packed formation – a formation which Latacz compares, and indeed identifies, with the synaspismos of the Classical phalanx ¹⁴. These two features, the Massennahkampf and the...