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Lecture Notes for Week Four

(2/9 2/11 2/13)

 

Monday, 2/9: The Hoplite Reform

Picture of warfare at the end of the dark age: 'aristocratic soloists'

chariot-mounted warriors (late 8th century)
military scenes from mid-8th century pottery
Nestor -v- Molione, c. 700
ship scene, mid-8th century

Elements of hoplite panoply in existence around the time of Homer

 

Most elements present in bronze age, but probably not continuous through dark age:

  • reinvented by 750-700 under foreign influence
  • round shield, open helmets: Assyrians, Urartians
    • Assyrians on the Mediterranean by mid 8th century
    • Greek 'Corinthian' type, with T-shaped cutout, is a Greek development
  • corslet: Europe
    • Greeks trading for metal with western Europe by mid 8th century
    • Greek versions may be developments of these
  • greaves: Greek invention

 

Hoplite phalanx well suited to hoplite panoply, but not necessarily required by it

  • 'Hoplite' shield
    • central loop for arm, grip on edge
    • earlier version had single central grip, sometimes shoulder strap
    • new shield doesn't cover whole body (but what does?)
    • can't sling it over back for protection in retreat
  • Burden of armor
    • limited manouverability
    • helmet restricts vision and hearing

 

Pictorial representations of hoplite equipment used together by c. 675
Warriors armed with hoplite shields fighting others with shields of the 'Boiotian' type, c. 690
Plate showing a scene from Homer, with warriors in the hoplite panoply, c. 600

Pictorial representations of massed hoplite phalanx by mid 7th century
'Chigi Vase' showing hoplite formation, c. 650

Literary descriptions of hoplite tactics (e.g. Tyrtaios)

Evolutionary process to development of standard, 'classic' hoplite phalanx

  • adaptation of weapons and armour makes close-range fighting more attractive, which in turn makes the protection of the phalanx desireable
  • development of weapons parallels the move from aristocratic soloists fighting at long and short range, to an emphasis on hand-to-hand combat, to formation fighting

 

Social/political effects

  • formation fighting relies largely on numbers
  • warfare has to move from the sphere of the pure aristocracy to that part of society that could afford weapons and armor -- landowners
  • why would farmers fight?
    • bad for business
    • but there's a need to protect territory
  • Hoplite warfare well-suited to farmers
    • 'walking tour ending in a fight'
    • minimal training, individual relies not so much on his own skill but on the strength of the group
    • possibility of decisive confrontations, rather than series of raids or skirmishes

 

Wednesday, 2/11: The Hoplite Reform; Early Sparta

Hoplite warfare not necessarily ideal for Greece

  • terrain is largely mountainous -- need plain for hoplite fighting
  • Greece might be better suited to mobile, light armed fighting, archers, etc. ambushes.

But it is expedient from the perspective of landowners, in the context of border disputes, attempts at (or resistance to) territorial expansion

  • Signs of population growth as Greece emerges from dark age: colonization

Political effects

  • Rise of tyrannies
  • Expansion of the portion of society involved in warfare parallels the expansion of the portion of society with access to political power
  • Chicken-and-egg problem

 

Sparta

Early military activity:

  • Conquests of Laconia, Messenia
  • First Messenian War -- late 8th century?
  • 669 Battle at Hysiai - defeat by Argos
  • c. 630 - Messenian revolt (Tyrtaios)

Social heirarchy:

  • Spartiates
  • Perioikoi
  • Helots

Citizen body is the hoplite class

  • labor of the helots gives the Spartiates the prosperity of landowners without the need to farm themselves
  • Spartiates depend on the helots to free up their time for military life, and in turn the Spartiates depend on their committment to military life to maintain their domination of the helots

Political and social structure that develops:

  • dual kingship
  • command of the army (among other things)
  • Gerousia (senate): 28 men age 60+, and two kings ex officio
  • Ephors ('overseers'): 5, elected by Assembly; power to indict kings
  • Assembly of adult (30+) male citizens: power to approve or disapprove proposals
  • System of military education
    • agoge (age 7): competition, harsh conditions
    • krypteia: 'secret police'
    • sysition (age 21): communal meals, unit of military heirarchy

Other military events:

  • c. 560-550: conflict with Tegea
  • c. 544: 'Battle of Champions' with Argos
  • 'Peloponnesian League'
    • Spartan dominated, but multilateral

 

Friday, 2/13: Early Athens; The Persian Empire

Early Athenian military activity

  • Synoikism: uniting of the Attic communities; struggle with Eleusis
  • Sigeion -- late 7th century; c. 540 finally settled (more or less)
  • Cylon's attempt at tyranny -- c. 632
  • Conflict with Megara over Salamis -- 590's
  • 590/1-- First Sacred War at Delphi -- Athens sends a contingent
  • c. 570 -- Conflict with Megara over Nisaea, on approach to Eleusis bay, and Salamis
    • conflict arbitrated by Spartans
    • appeal to the Homeric catalogue of ships
  • 561/0 -- Peisistratus takes power with 50 men armed with clubs
    • no suggestion of easily mobilized state army
  • c. 559 Miltiades in the Thracian Chersonese
  • c. 540 Pisistratus' return with mercenaries; lands at Marathon, no defense force meets him
  • 519: Athenians come to the aid of Plataea against Boiotia:
    • Corinthians arbitrate, decide that Plateia shouldn't be coerced into the Boiotian League
    • Thebans attack the Athenian army on its return.
    • Athenians win, gain Platea (on Attic/Boiotian fronteir) as ally.

End of tyranny in Athens

  • 511: Spartans decide to oust Hippias, son of Peisistratus (possible Persian connections?)
  • Hippias repells Spartan force under king Anchimolius with Thessalian mercenary cavalry
  • Cleomenes, the other Spartan king, defeats Thessalian cavalry, forces Hippias to capitulate

Aftermath: political struggle

  • Isagoras -v- Cleisthenes
  • Isagoras appeals to Sparta
  • 507 Cleomens returns, sets up garrison on acropolis
  • People rise up, expel Spartans
  • Reforms of Cleisthenes, establishment of 'radical democracy': entitlement of all adult male citizens to participate in the political process

Military challenges faced by the new democracy

  • Isagoras appeals to Sparta to help overthrow the new democracy in Athens
  • 506: Cleomenes arranges a 3-pronged attack on Athens with Thebes and Chalcis
  • Peloponnesian army breaks up after reaching Eleusis
  • Athens unexpectedly defeats both Thebans and Chalcidians

 

Persia and the Greeks

 

Median Empire

559: Cyrus the Persian usurps Median dynasty, thus turning the Median empire into the Persian empire

map of the Persian empire

546: Cyrus conquers Croesus, king of Lydia (capital at Sardis)

  • Lydian kingdom included most of the Ionian Greek cities
  • Cyrus leaves his general Harpagus behind to bring Greek cities into line, impose financial tribute and military service requirements

Cyrus and son Cambyses expand in to Babylon (538) and Egypt (525)

  • Greek mercenaries in service of Egyptian king Psametichus III (graffiti)

Sparta's first military activity in the east:

  • Polycrates, tyrant of Samos
  • originally allied with Amasis of Egypt, eventually defects to Persia
  • Samian discontents appeal to Sparta for help in overthrowing Polycrates
  • Sparta sends help, but attempt is a failure

521: Darius establishes control of the Persian empire after a power struggle in the wake of Cambyses' death

  • Organization of satrapies
    • Ionian/Lydian satrapy with capital at Sardis
    • Phrygian satrapy with capital at Dascylion

Darius' Thracian campaign, 512

  • reaches past Danube into Scythian territory
    • forces included Greeks from subject cities
  • On his return, he finds that Byzantium, Chalcedon, and Perinthys had revolted
  • Leaves Megabazus with an army
    • Megabazus reduces Greek cities along the north coast of the Propontus and the Aegean, as far west as the Strymon
    • Macedonia medizes (i.e., cooperates with Persia)

Ionian Revolt

499: Naxian oligarchs expelled by democratic revolution

  • Approach Aristagoras, tyrant of Miletus, for aid
  • Aristagoras in turn asks Artaphernes, Persian satrap at Sardis, for Persian help
    • suggests that this could be a first step to conquest of the Aegean and Greece
  • Artaphernes puts 200 ships under command of Megabtes to help Aristagoras
  • Attempt a failure:
    • Megabates and Aristagoras quarrel
    • Megabates warns Naxians, who withstand a 4 month blockade, after which Persian fleet retires

In the aftermath, Aristagoras begins to incite revolution among Ionian Greek cities

  • resigns his tyranny at Miletus
  • asks Sparta for help, is rebuffed when Cleomenes finds out how massive the Persian empire is
  • 498: Athens sends 20 ships, Eretria 5

Greeks march on Sardis, take most of the city, which burned to the ground

  • March back to coast, defeated by Persian force near Ephesus
  • Story of Darius' desire for revenge against Athens
  • supposed to have told slave to tell him 'Sir, remember the Athenians' three times at dinner

494: Siege of Miletus

  • 600 Persian ships
  • Greek fleet of 353 ships at Lade
  • Lesbian and Samians deserted
  • Chians fight
  • Battle is lost
  • Miletus taken, sacked
  • Revolt essentially over

Reorganization of Ionia by Artaphernes:

  • democracies set up, so as not to encourage the kind of discontent that led to the Ionian revolt

Mardonius, Darius' son-in-law, sent to Thrace and Macedonia in 492:

  • fleet sailed along coast, subdued Thasos on the way
  • Thrace reduced
  • Macedonia submitted
  • fleet partially wrecked partially off Athos, expedition withdraws