Ambush

Surprise Attack in Ancient Greek Warfare

Rose Mary Sheldon

• Publisher: Frontline Books
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781848325920
• eBook ISBN: 9781783036486
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia dell'antica Grecia

A historian of military intelligence presents a revelatory account of ancient Greek battle tactics, including the use of espionage and irregular warfare.
There are two images of warfare that dominate Greek history. The better known is that of Achilles, the Homeric hero skilled in face-to-face combat and outraged by deception on the battlefield. The alternative model, also taken from Homeric epic, is Odysseus, 'the man of twists and turns' who saw no shame in winning by stealth, surprise or deceit.
It is common for popular writers to assume that the hoplite phalanx was the only mode of warfare used by the Greeks. The fact is, however, that the use of spies, intelligence gathering, ambush, and surprise attacks at dawn or at night were also a part of Greek warfare. While such tactics were not the supreme method of defeating an enemy, they were routinely employed when the opportunity presented itself.

CHAPTER 1

Ambush in the Iliad

WAR IN THE WORLD of Homer is fought differently than in Classical Greece or the modern world.¹ War in the Iliad is conducted essentially in one spot, the plains of Troy, and the fighting is done by pairs of individual warriors.² It has been written that Homeric warriors had their own unique code of military behaviour, and their goal was to perform courageous deeds publicly in order to win glory that survived long after their death. According to this belief, the attainment of fame and glory (kleos) had to be achieved by a public action in the daytime that could be seen by all.³ At first glance this would make the Iliad a strange place to start searching for information on ambushes, night attacks or any activity that was secretive or devious rather than in public. Some scholars still think we cannot find examples of intelligence activities, including ambush, in this quintessential war poem. Some have actually asserted that, with the exception of Book 10, no one in the Iliad does anything secret, devious or not able to be foreseen, and no forms of attack involve intelligence gathering, planning or very much skill.⁴ This is patently false. If we accept the Trojan War as historical (and this is not universally accepted), then we might expect to find all the activities that occur in real wars. The fact is Homeric warriors happily deceived their enemies all the time and give praise to those who successfully staged ambushes.⁵

Traces of all the standard activities of military intelligence such as reconnaissance, signalling, espionage and counterintelligence can be found in the poem.⁶ The fact that Homer includes them has led some scholars to suggest that these sophisticated techniques were added later to the poem and are indications of new forms of military strategy which gradually developed in the Dark and Archaic Ages.⁷ The question of the historicity of Homeric society as described in the poem is, of course, still a thorny issue. There are still arguments over what age the poem represents – is it the Bronze Age of Mycenaean Greece or Homer’s eighth century?⁸ Whatever age is being described, what we can say definitively is that as soon as the Greeks started writing about their own military activities, ambush and deception were a part of them.

Scholars continue to cling to the notion that there was no place for the sneaky, the deceptive or the treacherous in Homeric military action since these activities did not befit the heroic, courageous Greek warrior.⁹ This is a subjective attitude, not based on the evidence. Ambush appears in the Iliad very clearly along with other examples of intelligence activities, and the Greeks show a very realistic attitude towards the strength and bravery needed to mount such operations. Ambush was certainly not the premier way of fighting or gaining glory, but the Greeks knew the appropriate time to use an ambush with the dangers it entailed. Although some scholars characterise an ambush as ‘nothing more than an unexpected, tricky attack’, we suggest the skills involved were honed by some of the greatest Greek warriors.¹⁰

The most frequently mentioned ambushes in the Iliad are not military operations at all, but attacks of wild beasts on domestic animals ‘in the dead of night’. There is no clear division between lions and warriors – both are imagined as going ‘through the night, slaughter, corpses, war-gear, black blood’.¹¹ Heroic warriors do not disdain such raids and ambushes; even the great Achilles himself takes part in such activities.¹²

Another context for ambush is the border raids that are frequently mentioned.¹³ Paris began the Trojan–Achaean hostilities with a domestic raid.¹⁴ While not quite as complicated as an ambush on humans, these raids acquire an attitude of ambush toward enemies. Once a war had begun, warriors could not merely live the life of heroic confrontations. Armies needed supplies to sustain themselves. We hear of Achilles’ exploits and of cattle raids by Nestor and Achilles who saw these forays as an opportunity to win glory.¹⁵ A recent study has shown the thematic connections between spying missions, cattle raids, horse rustling and ambush.¹⁶

There is no denigration of those who take part in an ambush in Homer where the motifs of hardship, victory and the single hero are so important. And although one scholar claims that ambush is on the lower end of Homer’s ‘ethical priorities’, I suggest that in real warfare this is merely a distinction between fighting techniques. There may be more prestige in fighting like Achilles, but Greek armies knew when to use the wiles of an Odysseus when the situation required it. Certainly there were value judgements made against those who ambushed. The victim always accuses the successful ambusher of being sneaky and cowardly. The winner, however, take the victory as a sign of skill.

In Homeric warfare, the ambush was regarded as even demanding special courage and it was done by the best warriors. In the Iliad Achilles accuses Agamemnon of being a coward:

You drunkard, with a dog’s eyes and a deer’s heart,
Whenever it comes to arming yourself for war with the rest of the warriors
Or going on an ambush with the champions of the Achaeans,
You don’t have the heart to endure it. That looks like death to you.¹⁷

There is no opposition formulated here between combat on the open battlefield by massed infantry formations and ambush.¹⁸ It takes courage to do both. In the Iliad, the ambush is usually composed entirely of nobles.¹⁹ It is done with a small ambushing party, and it calls for the highest daring and endurance. Homer does not distinguish between large battles or ambushes as far as courage is concerned. In fact, he implies ambushing takes far more courage. Ambush is simply a stratagem ‘employing a small number of picked men and relying upon planning and dissimulation rather than speed or force’.²⁰ It also required advance intelligence. All the planning and dissimulation will do you no good if you do not locate the enemy first – before they locate you.

There are eight different ambushes described in the Iliad. Of these eight, five are indirect references which discuss the theme in a general way without recounting any particular ambush. The three remaining ambushes, which the Iliad presents directly, give the poem’s particular view of such activities. There is no one single ambush that incorporates all of the motifs associated with that theme in the poem, and the examples of ambush can require complicated and lengthy episodes to describe them. The ambush is most explicitly described in 13.275–86, where it is stated that the ambush is where ‘true valour’ (arête) is most clearly displayed. Idomeneus, leader of the Cretans and one of the chief heroes, provides the most explicit description of ambush warfare in Homeric epic:

I know what manner of men you are in valour; what need have you to tell the tale of it? For if now all the best of us were being chosen beside the ships for an ambush, in which the valour of men is best discerned [italics mine] – there the coward comes to light and the man of valour, for the colour of the coward changes ever to another hue, nor is the spirit in his breast checked so that he sits still, but he shifts from knee to knee and rests on either foot, and his heart beats loudly in his breast and he imagines death, and his teeth chatter; but the colour of the brave man changes not, nor does he fear excessively when once he takes his place in the ambush of warriors, but he prays to mix immediately in woeful war – not even then, I say, would any man make light of your courage or the strength of your hands. For if you were stricken by an arrow in the toil of battle, or struck with a thrust, not from behind in neck or back would the missile fall; but your chest would it hit or your belly, as you were pressing on into the dalliance of the foremost fighters.²¹

Notice that Idomeneus believes it takes courage to fight face to face, and that it is in an ambush where ‘a fighter’s mettle is shown’.²² He goes on to specify the process by which the bravest are selected. There are several examples of the best men going on ambush in Homeric epic.²³ Since it is necessary for an ambusher to assume a crouching position and wait patiently for the enemy, the ambush reveals what a man is made of. While the coward succumbs to fear, the brave man calmly awaits the desired moment of attack. The coward’s loss of self-control is caused by the psychological hardship of remaining motionless in an enclosed space until the enemy is within striking distance. The attack must be held until the right moment.²⁴ Such concealment involves both physical and psychological hardship while holding back the attack until the right moment. The ambushers could be aided by scouts (skopoi) who would warn them of the enemy’s approach. The victim was taken by surprise. The final stage of the ambush was the attack and vicious hand-to-hand combat that ensured.²⁵ We can see why advanced planning was needed to stage an ambush like the one related in Iliad 7.142. Nestor tells the story of Lycurgus and Areithous where Lycurgus confronts Areithous in narrow quarters so he will not be able to swing his mace. Such advanced planning to manipulate the scene of battle is not a form of trickery, but rather just good strategy.²⁶

Another lengthy description of an ambush is given in Iliad 18.516ff., where it is portrayed on the shield of Achilles. Two armies of warriors are encamped around the city trying to decide between whether to lay waste to the town or to let themselves be bought off by a ransom of half the possessions of the townsfolk. The besieged, meanwhile, reject the idea of a ransom, and arm themselves with a plan to ambush the foe. The walls were left under the guard of the women, children and old men of the city. The able-bodied men went out, led by Ares and Pallas Athena. They came to a place, a riverbed, which seemed to them a good place to set up the ambush. It was a good watering place for cattle and sheep, and so they waited there for the enemy to arrive with their flocks and herds. As they settled in, concealed, they sent out two scouts to watch for the approaching sheep and cattle. Within a short time, two herdsmen came by with their flocks, with no foreknowledge of the trap. They were speedily killed, but when the besiegers heard the noise made by the animals, they rushed to their defence and a battle ensued.²⁷

The one ambush chosen most frequently by scholars to show the Greek disdain for ambushers is Paris’ ambush of Diomedes in Book 11.369–95. Diomedes had just wounded Hector in a mighty display of his valour (aristeia), when Paris, concealed behind a grave stone, wounds Diomedes with an arrow. Paris leaps from behind cover²⁸ and takes advantage of the opportunity to make...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Maps
• Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Introduction: The Odysseus Syndrome
• Maps
• 1 Ambush in the Iliad
• 2 The Ill-fated Trojan Spy
• 3 Ambush in the Odyssey
• 4 The Archaic Age and the Problem of the Phalanx
• 5 Surprise Attacks – Fifth Century
• 6 Night Attack
• 7 Surprise Landings and Assault by Sea
• 8 The Age of Light-Armed
• 9 The Successor States and into the Hellenistic Age
• 10 Why the Greeks Used Ambush
• Conclusion: The Complexity of Greek Warfare
• Notes
• Bibliography