Kings in Combat: Battles and Heroes in the Iliad

Abstract

What decides the outcome of a Homeric battle? This may sound like one of those arcane problems only a devoted Homer-specialist would care to raise, but in fact the question strikes at the root of major issues in archaic Greek history.The orthodox answer is that Homeric battles were decided by single combats between champions, with the rest of the warriors only marginally influencing the fighting. It is added that these champions were aristocrats, ‘knights’. On this interpretation many have argued that the political dominance of archaic Greek aristocrats was largely based on their military dominance, and that their power was seriously impaired when, in the seventh century B.C., military prominence shifted to the mass, the ‘commoners’; this change in the balance of power contributed crucially to the rise of the polis and the emergence of tyrannies. In outline the theory derives from Aristotle(Pol. 1297 b) and is firmly entrenched in modern works.

Analysis of Greek prehistoric combat in full body armour based on physiological principles: A series of studies using thematic analysis, human experiments, and numerical simulations

“…The average sunrise and sunset times in the Troad during June in the later phases of the Late Bronze Age were 04:37 and 19:37, respectively (±10 minutes) [ 31 ]. Based on these figures, we estimated that army operations started at ~07:00 and ended at ~18:00, which confirms previous analyses of Homeric [ 32 ] and Classical Greek [ 33 , 34 ] warfare. We used these assumptions–together with geographic indicators and distances provided by Strabo [ 18 ], lithosome distributions and radiocarbon dating [ 16 ], estimates of marching speed of armies in Classical Greece [ 34 , 35 ], and day-by-day thematic analysis of the battles described in the Iliad (S3 Fig in S1 File )–to estimate the duration (S1 Table in S1 File ), timing (S5 Table in S1 File ), and energy cost (S2 Table in S1 File ) of the activities performed by elite warriors, such as the one who had worn the Dendra armour.…”

“…At any given time during battle, a number of elite warriors with their followers fought at the front line as “ foremost fighters ”, while others (referred to as “ multitude ”) would seek safety at the rear of the battle line (Online Supplement: Sections 2.3 and 2.6). In total, the Homeric fighting activity was characterised by hit-and-run tactics [ 25 , 32 , 48 ], a form of physical effort described in physiology as “high-intensity interval exercise” [ 49 ].…”

A Commentary on Quintus of Smyrna, Posthomerica 13

“…The adjective not in Oppian, 21x in Nonnus. On heroism and heroic codes in Iliad and Odyssey, see Adkins 1960, Schein 1984, Wees 1988, Cairns 1993, and Horn 2014, in the Posthomerica Scheijnen 2018 μόθον: see 37 n.…”

BETWEEN WARRIORS AND CHAMPIONS: WARFARE AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN THE LATER PREHISTORY OF THE NORTH‐WESTERN IBERIAN PENINSULA1

“…In the north‐western Iberian Peninsula, we find types of combat that were typical of the Indo‐European cultural sphere: on the one hand, types of communal combat, such as the razzia , aimed at obtaining booty, mainly livestock, and which is referred to extensively in the Indo‐European myths concerning the raid in search of livestock (Lincoln 1991, 117–56); on the other, the appearance of warrior elites and the subsequent development of the ideological importance of warfare (Dumézil 1990), with the appearance of individual combat, as duels between champions. This type of combat is seen in mythical epic traditions and historical sources (Blaive 1991; 1993) in many Indo‐European populations, such as the Greeks (in Homer: Van Wees 1988; 1992; 1994; Archaic Period: Fernández Nieto 1975), the Romans (Oakley 1985; Lendon 2006, 231–2), the Celts (Brunaux 2004, 63–4; Rawlings 1996, 86–9) or the Germans (Osgood 1998, 82–3; Kristiansen 2002, 329).…”