Ancient Greeks at War

Warfare in the Classical World from Agamemnon to Alexander

Simon Elliott

• Publisher: Casemate
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781612009995
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Expert Simon Elliott considers the different fighting styles of Greek armies and discusses how Greek battles unfolded. Ancient Greeks at War is a lavishly illustrated tour de force covering every aspect of warfare in the Ancient Greek world from the beginnings of Greek civilization through to its assimilation into the ever expanding world of Rome. As such it begins with the onset Minoan culture on Crete around 2, 000 BC, then covers the arrival of the Mycenaean civilization and the ensuing Late Bronze Age Collapse, before moving on to Dark Age and Archaic Greece. This sets the scene for the flowering of Classical Greek civilization, as told through detailed narratives of the Greek and Persian Wars, Peloponnesian Wars and the rise of Thebes as a major power. The book then moves on to the onset of Macedonian domination under Philip II, before focusing in detail on the exploits of his son Alexander the Great, the all-conquering hero of the ancient world. His legacy was the Hellenistic world with its multiple, never ending series of conflicts that took place over a huge territory, ranging from Italy in the west all the way to India in the east. Those covered include the various Wars of the Successors, the rise of the Bactrian-Greek and Indo-Greek kingdoms, the various wars between the Antigonid Macedonian, Seleucid and Ptolemaic kingdoms, and later the onset of the clash of cultures between the rising power of Rome in the west and the Hellenistic kingdoms. In the long run the latter proved unable to match Rome’s insatiable desire for conquest in the eastern Mediterranean, and this together with the rise of Parthia in the east ensured that one by one the Hellenistic kingdoms and states fell. The book ends with the destruction of Corinth in 146 BC after the defeat by Rome of the Achaean League. The conclusion considers the legacy of the Ancients Greeks in the Roman world, and subsequently.

The modern-day ruins of Mycenae, home of Agamemnon and probably the starting point for the Trojan War expedition from Greece to Anatolia. (Iexan/Shutterstock)

CHAPTER 1

MINOANS, MYCENAEANS AND THE SEA PEOPLES

A small Minoan votive, double-headed axe brooch, in the style of a typical Minoan ceremonial weapon. Found in the Arkalochori Cave, Crete. (Wikimedia Commons)

This chapter focuses on some of the earliest civilizations in Europe and their respective military systems, starting with the Minoan culture that flourished on Crete and the islands of the Aegean Sea from 2,700 BC. These were joined from 1,650 BC by the Mycenaean culture in the Peloponnese and Attica on the Greek mainland. The Mycenaeans conquered the Minoans around 1,450 BC, they themselves then suffering a major societal failure around 1,250 BC in the context of the Late Bronze Age Collapse. This was the event that began the Greek Dark Age/Geometric period.

The downfall of the Mycenaeans caused widespread economic disruption across the eastern Mediterranean, the event a causal factor in the emergence of the Sea Peoples at this time. These tribes of maritime raiders attacked the coastal regions of Hittite Anatolia, the Hurrian Levantine coast and New Kingdom Egypt, inflicting widespread damage. They often settled where they were most successful, a prime example being the Peleset who, colonizing Gaza (most likely at the behest of the Egyptians to act as a buffer state) founded the Philistine Pentapolis there. This culture is considered here given its likely links to the Mycenaean collapse. It is also from the word Philistine that we get the name for this region today, Palestine.

This period in European history is also famous for being the setting for Homer’s semi-legendary Trojan War, this considered here also, with the chapter more broadly setting the scene for the advent of Dark Age/Geometric, Archaic and ultimately Classical Greece in the next chapter.

The Minoans

The Minoan Empire was a thalassocracy knitting together the numerous city-states on Crete and across the Aegean Sea. The Minoans did not speak an Indo-European language and so were not Greek, with their actual origins unknown.

Neolithic farming began on Crete around 3,000 BC, with the use of copper and then bronze swiftly following as their use spread around the Aegean. The first evidence of what later evolved into the Minoan culture dates to this time, with the vector of cultural transmission seemingly from Libya based on similarities in burial customs, art styles and dress. The Libyan tribes there were those that proved so troublesome to the pre-Dynastic and Old Kingdom Egyptians, as they lived in the vast swathes of semi-desert stretching westwards from the Nile Valley. The first two tribes referenced by the Egyptians were called the Tjehenu and the Tjemehu. The former were depicted as physically akin to the Egyptians and are thought to have moved westwards and away from their Nile Valley neighbours around the time of the unification by Narmer of Upper and Lower Egypt around 3,000 BC. However, the latter were depicted as being physically distinct and it is this group which some think may have had pre-existing links, or later developed them, with the early Minoans.

The first large cities in Minoan Crete emerged around 2,000 BC, in association with an increase in centrally controlled agriculture. At first sight this seems an unlikely development given Crete lacks any continental-scale rivers and associated extensive fertile land, but here the Minoans proved truly innovative, developing a highly successful system of intensive farming based on vines, olives and wheat. The first two grew well on the island’s rocky mountainsides, while the latter thrived on the fertile soils of the numerous small river valleys where it was increasingly the only crop grown there. Sheep were also kept in large flocks in the extensive mountain pastures for their wool.

Soon the Minoan cities were producing a surplus, with, for example, woolen textile goods being shipped southeast to Egypt and north to the Greek mainland, Aegean islands and western Anatolia. The development of improved maritime technology enabled this trade to grow in the early 2nd millennium BC and soon many of the Cretan cities were rich. Evidence of their far reach across the seas of the eastern Mediterranean can be found in Egyptian wall paintings created in a Minoan style, showing Cretans wearing their traditional kilts bearing gifts for the Egyptian king Thutmoses III. These wealthy city-states then expanded their power in their own localities, resulting in the creation of flourishing city-states featuring numerous smaller satellite cities and towns. Later, fine quality Minoan pottery and copper and bronze metalwork were added to a growing list of goods they exported.

A classic Minoan-style, two-horse chariot painted on a limestone sarcophagus, found in a tomb north east of the Minoan villa site at Hagia Triada. (Wikimedia Commons)

Minoan society was dominated by the huge palaces that formed the centre of each city. These are sometimes referred to as court buildings given they were all built in a similar design around a large central courtyard. The leading cities by 1,800 BC included Phaistos, Mallia, Khania, Zakro and Knossos. It is from Minos, the mythical king of the latter, that the name Minoan is derived. Nearly all of the cities also had easy access to the coast, reflecting the maritime nature of Minoan civilization. Writing at the end of the 5th century BC, the Athenian historian Thucydides shows this in detail, using Minos as his example, he saying (The History of the Peloponnesian War, 1.4).

Minos is the first to whom tradition ascribes the possession of a navy. He made himself master of a great part of what is now termed the Hellenic sea; he conquered the Cyclades, and was the first coloniser of most of them, expelling the Carians and appointing his own sons to govern in them. Lastly, it was he who, from a natural desire to protect his growing revenues, sought, as far as he was able, to clear the sea of pirates.

Knossos in particular has become synonymous with Minoan civilization. Located on the northern coast of Crete, with a fine harbor now beneath the Katsabas district of Heraklion (the modern capital of Crete), it had unrivalled access to the Bronze Age Aegean maritime trade routes. Knossos was first controversially excavated and interpreted by Sir Arthur Evans in the early 20th century AD, who rebuilt many of the buildings there as he imagined them to have been. While this has created a confusing situation regarding architectural interpretation, what is not in doubt is the vast wealth on display there in the archaeological data, with a wide range of high-quality jewellery, metalwork and pottery found in situ amid the ruins.

A Minoan bull’s head pottery rhyton (a conical container for fluids) dating to around 1,500 BC. (Wikimedia Commons)

A Minoan two-horse chariot in stylized form on a larnax (a type of small, enclosed coffin). (Wikimedia Commons)

The court palaces in each major Minoan city, for example at Knossos, reveal much about the highly organized nature of Minoan civilization. Each featured enormous storehouses for agricultural produce, including grain and oil. This indicates a high level of centralized control, allowing the rulers to gather the produce from the city-state populations as a tax, and then profiting from its export. The surplus also allowed the citystates to support a highly structured network of administrators, and an equally advanced military establishment. To facilitate this complex political system the Minoans used an as yet undeciphered writing system known to us as Linear A. Already in use by 2,600 BC, this utilized a script based on conjoined lines that were used to make hundreds of different signs. The writing system, mainly used for accounting, remained in use until 1,450 BC when the Minoan Empire fell to the Mycenaeans.

Warfare was endemic between the various Minoan city-states, though interestingly most cities lacked a defensive wall circuit. This indicates that control of the sea was the most important aspect of Minoan conflict, with frescos at some sites showing amphibious assaults from monoreme (single bank of oars) galleys equipped with rams. At one time or another one of the cities would rise to dominance, but around 1,700 BC the internecine warfare peaked with many of the palaces burnt to the ground. Most were soon rebuilt, though only Knossos regained anything like its former splendor. In short order this city-state seized control of the whole island and reduced the other Cretan city-states to vassal status. It is around this time that archaeologists believe Minoan culture reached a peak of artistic achievement, with fabulous wall paintings and pottery of the highest quality created. The latter included ceramics produced using the faience technique, imported from Egypt, which used an advanced glazing technique that proved so popular in Crete that it was soon being used for mosaic inlays and jewelry.

Then in 1,626 BC the palaces were again badly damaged, this time by the devastating eruption of the volcano on the Cyclades island of Santorini that sent enormous ash clouds as far east as Cyprus. The tsunami this created would have ravaged Minoan Crete, given the coastal location of most of its key cities and towns.

The ruins of a fine Minoan villa at Amnisos, destroyed in 1,450 BC as part of the wave of deliberate sacking events which are found across Crete at this time. (Wikimedia Commons)

However, the palaces were again soon rebuilt, and this time the regional devastation presented the resilient Minoans with the opportunity to become the overwhelmingly dominant cultural influence throughout the entire eastern Mediterranean. Though Minoan colonies had appeared from around 2,000 BC on islands such as Kythera on the south-eastern tip of the Peloponnese and on Santorini, new outpost settlements now appeared (by 1,500 BC at the latest) as far afield as Melos and Kea in the Cyclades, Rhodes in the Dodecanese, and to the south at the Egyptian city of Avaris on the Nile Delta. By this time, this huge Egyptian trading settlement and military garrison was the capital of Lower Egypt under the Hyksos Dynasty. The legend of Theseus, dating to this period, may also indicate that some of the contemporary settlements in the Peloponnese and Attica in mainland Greece may also have fallen under Minoan control around this time, at least as vassals. Theseus was the Greek mythological hero who became an early king of Athens, best known for events earlier in his life when he fought villains, slew Amazons and centaurs, and most famously killed the fearsome half-bull/half-man Minotaur of king Minos in its labyrinth beneath the royal palace at Knossos.

However, this newfound post-apocalyptic prosperity was to prove short lived. Around 1,450 BC nearly all of Crete’s prosperous cities and their satellite towns were destroyed in deliberate sacking events, with even the fine country houses of the regional elites destroyed, never to be reoccupied. Only at Knossos is there evidence of any degree of urban survival, and even here the art forms on display now feature a particularly militaristic leaning, drastically at odds with earlier Minoan styles. Further, and most tellingly, a new form of script appears. This has enabled archaeologists to clearly identify the origins of the arbiters of such wanton destruction, namely the Mycenaeans of mainland Greece.

Minoan armies were based around a chariotmounted nobility and dense phalanxes of spearmen. The first chariots appear on Crete and across the Aegean from around 1,600 BC. This technology was introduced after contact with the coastal regions around the eastern Mediterranean. They were initially direct copies of the light chariots used by the various Maryannu there (see detail on pages 30–31), though in Crete they gradually became heavier with a larger fighting platform. To help the horses pull this more substantial design an additional pole was added to the yoke pole, mounted horizontally with the first. It has been argued that this second pole actually went into the cab, dividing it into two fighting compartments.

A Minoan galley depicted on a larnax. The Minoans were arguably the world’s first great sea-going culture. (Wikimedia Commons)

The Origins of the Chariot

Given the importance of the chariot in the armies of the Minoans, Mycenaeans, Sea Peoples a...