Hoplites and Heroes: Sparta's contribution to the technique of ancient warfare

Abstract

At the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431 most Greeks believed that, if Sparta led her allies by land to ravage Attika, Athens would be unable to hold out for more than three years at the most (Thuc. vii 28.3; cf. iv 85.2; v 14.3). Admittedly the majority of Athenian citizens—and perhaps even the senior Spartan king and general Archidamos— did not share this belief. But since the Persian Wars of 480/79 it had been dogma, both inside and outside the Spartan alliance, that such an invasion was the most potent means of compelling Athens to fulfil her enemies' will. Yet the few concrete precedents—of the late sixth century and 446—were at best inexact, at worst frankly discouraging; and in the event Spartan strategy, in so far as it was determined by the dogma, was shown to have been null and void ab initio. The Spartan alliance was of course ultimately victorious, but victory was postponed for close on a generation and was achieved even then only through massive Persian subventions (Pritchett I 47 f.; II 119 n. 19). Above all, it was secured at sea, where the Athenians had been the undisputed masters (Pritchett II 225–7), while in Attika itself the new technique of epiteichismos proved far more devastating than the timehonoured esbolai.Thus the Peloponnesian War with its heavily ironical outcome marks a watershed in the history of Greek military practice, truly the ‘end of a chapter’ (Snodgrass 1967, 107). It is therefore an appropriate moment to turn back to the beginning of the chapter and review one of the most portentous innovations of Greek antiquity, the hoplite ‘reform’.

The Balance of Power in World History

“…By the 7 th century, for example, wars between city-states were fought by heavily armed soldiers, known as hoplites, who were organized to fight in a phalanx formation. Once one city-state adopted this strategy, the others quickly followed suit (Cartledge, 1977;Halladay, 1982). Raaflaub (1991: 575) also argues that once the advantages of empire has been demonstrated by Athens in the 5 th century, Sparta and Thebes 'did not hesitate to imitate it'.…”

Military Technology and Socio-Cultural Change in the Ancient Greek City

“…The picture is much less clear, however, regarding the immediate aftermath of the hoplite reform (cf. Snodgrass 1965;Cartledge 1977;Salmon 1977;Holladay 1982). The chief complicating factor is that another major development -the rise of tyrants -began in roughly the same period, and historians have disagreed sharply over the precise relationship between the military ascendancy of the hopWiC'demos and the usurpation of political power by individual autocrats (cf.…”

Essays in Contemporary Economics

“…3 By the end of the sixth century even this sort of political arrangement was deemed to be inadequate and a new from, direct democracy, was introduced. Democracy was based on transferring to the political sphere the values that had evolved and had been tested on the battlefield in the phalanx: The fact that the phalanx formation had developed as a means of self-defence of Greek city-states made necessary the participation in it the majority of citizens of each independent city-state, without any discrimination concerning the social status (Cartledge 1977).…”