Draft evasion onstage and offstage in classical Athens

Abstract

In time of war Athens required citizens who could afford armour and weapons to serve as hoplites, if called upon; at the time of the Peloponnesian War, some 18,000-24,000 men were eligible for service (Rhodes, 1988, 274). While most probably complied-if not always enthusiastically-with conscription, some evaded service. This paper seeks to assess evasion of hoplite service in Athens both as a historical phenomenon and as an ideological problem for the city. Specifically, it will argue that in Athens, as in modern democracies, evasion of compulsory military service was a real temptation and possibility. Consistent with this is tragedy's frequent treatment of evasion and, more generally, tensions concerning compulsory service in connection with recruitment for the Trojan War. Tragedy, I will argue, provided an imaginative vehicle through which contemporary audiences might come to terms with the tensions surrounding compulsory military service and its evasion within a democratic society. 1 The first section of this paper will make the case for taking draft evasion seriously as a problem for the Athenian democracy. Its second section will explore tragedy's intriguing engagement with evasion and tensions surrounding compulsory military service. DRAFT EVASION AND COMPULSORY MILITARY SERVICE Modern scholarship rarely addresses draft evasion in Athens or elsewhere in the Greek world. 2 This may reflect the assumption that the martial orientation of Greek society and the high premium it placed on honour made evasion unlikely. Thus Pritchett (1971, 1.27) asserts, 'There is little evidence for the existence of anything like the modern desire to avoid military service at all costs. I doubt that the ordinary soldier had any general philosophy about war, or that he even imagined any alternative.' 3 The evidence for Athens suggests, on the contrary, that Athenians were well aware of draft evasion (2τυσαυε α) as an alternative to service, and that individuals had many possible reasons to dodge the draft and numerous opportunities to succeed in this. Draft evasion crops up regularly in public discourse in Athens. For example,

Gender, Class and Ideology: The Social Function of Virgin Sacrifice in Euripides'Children of Herakles

“…;Kearns 1989Kearns : 24f., 1990 151. See Christ 2001 on the problems of conscripting hoplites; the Maiden's willingness to die corresponds closely to the idealized representation of the soldier in funeral orations : Christ 2004. 152. For the social composition of Athens' military see Hunt 1998;van Wees 2001van Wees , 2002van Wees , 2004.…”

“…52. The influential model proposed by Ober 1989 (see also Christ 1998, Finley 1985) allows for open class warfare or the successful mediation of class tensions: hidden class conflict is thus not considered. In addition to the issue of increase in state pay as noted above, there is something striking about Andokides' claim that a verdict against sycophancy will benefit the demos, not just wealthy men like him; for the alternative, Andokides claims, is that the wealthy may decide to leave Athens (1.105; cf.…”

Agamemnon437:ChrysamoibosAres, Athens and Empire

“…36 Christ (2004) 47 suggests that Sophocles' Akhaion Syllogos projected Athens' contemporary means of mustering troops onto the mythical past.…”