Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome

by Victor Davis Hanson

  millennium.

  Makers of Ancient Strategy 3

  The Essays

  The contributors were encouraged to develop a topic close to their in-

  terests rather than mold material to a thematic template. In general,

  however, readers will find in each chapter an introduction that sets

  out the particular historical landscape and its players, followed by an

  analysis of the relevant ancient “maker”—statesman, general, or theo-

  rist—or strategy and an assessment of his, or its, success or failure. The

  discussion then broadens to consider the relevance of the strategy to

  later warfare, and especially to the conflicts of our times.

  The essays are arrayed in roughly chronological order, moving from

  the early fifth-century Greco-Persian Wars (490, 480–479 BC) to the final

  defense of the borders of the Roman Empire (ca. AD 450–500). Of note,

  the era was one of empires. The extension of military power abroad,

  and with it often the political control of weaker states, is usually ac-

  companied by official self-justifications. To launch us on empires and

  justification, in chapter one Tom Holland focuses on the first great

  clash of civilizations between East and West, the Persian efforts at the

  beginning of the fifth century BC to conquer the Greek city-states and

  absorb them into an expanded empire that would reach across the

  Aegean into Europe. Imperial powers, as Holland shows, create an en-

  tire mythology about the morality, necessity, or inevitability of con-

  quest. Their narratives are every bit as important to military planning

  as men and matériel in the field. Such an imperial drive, he argues, is

  innate to the human condition and is not culturally determined. Impe-

  rial propaganda did not find its way into the later Western DNA merely

  through the rise of the Athenian Empire or Rome’s absorption of the

  Mediterranean. Instead, imperialism and its contradictions were pres-

  ent from an even earlier time, as Greek pupils learned about the impe-

  rial ambitions of their would-be Persian masters and teachers.

  The defeat of the Persian Empire in the early fifth century BC opened

  the way for the rise of the Athenian Empire. Today we assume that

  empire is an entirely negative notion. We associate it with coercion and

  more recent nineteenth-century exploitation, and deem it ultimately

  unsustainable by the ruling power itself. But as Donald Kagan shows

  in chapter two, rare individuals—and here he focuses on Pericles’

  4 Introduction

  thirty-year preeminence in Athenian politics and the contemporary

  historian Thucydides’ appreciation of his singularity—occasionally do

  make a difference. Empire, especially of the Athenian brand, was not

  doomed to failure, if moderate and sober leaders like Pericles under-

  stood its function and utility. For a brief few decades under his leader-

  ship, Athens protected the Greek city-states from Persian retaliation.

  It tried to keep the general peace, resisted imperial megalomania, and

  fostered economic growth through a unified and integrated Athenian

  system of commerce. The success of Pericles and the failure of those

  who followed him are timely reminders that to the degree that imperial

  powers can further the generally understood common interest, they

  are sustainable. When they transform into an instrument only of self-

  aggrandizement, they inevitably implode.

  The physical defense provided by fortifications helped the Athenian

  Empire retain its military supremacy for as long as it did. We assume

  that in our age of sophisticated communications and aerial munitions,

  old-fashioned fortifications are relics of a military past, if not always

  of questionable military utility. But increasingly we see their reappear-

  ance—though often augmented with electronic enhancements—in the

  Middle East, in Iraq, and along the U.S.-Mexican border. Recent walls

  and forts have often enhanced interior defense, in instances where

  seemingly more sophisticated tactics have often failed. David Berkey

  in chapter three traces the century-long evolution of walls at Athens,

  from the initial circuit fortifications around the city proper, to the Long

  Walls leading from Athens to its port city of Piraeus, 6.5 km distant,

  to the fourth-century attempts to protect the countryside of Attica

  through a network of border forts. These serial projects reflect diverse

  economic, political, and military agendas over 100 years of Athenian

  defense policy. Yet, as Berkey shows, they had in common a utility that

  kept Athens mostly safe from its enemies and offered additional mani-

  fest and ideological support for the notion of both empire and democ-

  racy. Statesmen, policies, and technology all change; fortifications of

  some sort seem to be a constant feature in the age-old cycle of offensive

  and defensive challenge and response.

  Preemption, coercive democratization, and unilateralism in the post-

  Iraq world are felt recently to be either singularly American notions or by

  Makers of Ancient Strategy 5

  their very nature pernicious concepts that offer prescriptions for failure

  and misery to al those involved. In fact, these ideas have been around

  since the beginning of Western civilization and have proven both effec-

  tive and of dubious utility. Thus, in chapter four I focus on the rather

  obscure preemptive invasion of the Peloponnese by the Theban general

  Epaminondas (370–369 BC), who was considered by the ancients them-

  selves to be the most impressive leader Greece and Rome produced, a

  general seen as a much different moral sort than an Alexander or a Julius

  Caesar. At his death in 362, Epaminondas had emasculated the Spartan

  oligarchic hegemony and had led the city-state of Thebes to a new posi-

  tion of prominence. He founded new citadels, freed tens of thousands

  of the Messenian helots, and changed the political culture of Greece it-

  self by fostering the spread of democratic governments among the city-

  states. How and why, through failure and success, he accomplished all

  this reminds us that what we have seen in the contemporary Middle East

  is hardly unique. Afghanistan and Iraq are not the first or the last we will

  see of messianic idealism coupled with military force, perceived as part of

  a larger concern for a nation’s national security and long-term interests.

  Great generals in the ancient world often became great public fig-

  ures who forcefully changed the broader political landscape both be-

  fore and after their military operations. More has been written about

  Alexander the Great than about any other figure of classical antiquity.

  Ian Worthington in chapter five reviews his creation of an Asian em-

  pire and the difficulty of administering conquered Persian land with

  ever-shrinking Macedonian resources. He offers a cautionary if not

  timely tale from the past about the misleading ease of initial Western

  military conquest over inferior enemy conventional forces, which soon

  transmogrify into or are replaced by more amorphous and stubborn

  centers of resistance. Even military geniuses find that consolidating

/>   and pacifying what has been brilliantly won on the battlefield proves

  far more difficult than its original acquisition. Alexander discovered

  that cultural sensitivity was necessary to win the hearts and minds of

  occupied Persia. Yet as a professed emissary of Hellenism, Alexander’s

  aims in introducing what he felt was a superior culture that might unify

  and enlighten conquered peoples proved antithetical to his pragmatic

  efforts at winning over the population.

  6 Introduction

  The twentieth century saw the superiority of most Westernized

  conventional militaries. Their superior technology, industrialized sup-

  ply, and institutionalized discipline gave them innate advantages over

  most other forces. But when fighting was confined to the congested

  terrain of urban centers, when it involved ideologies and tribal affini-

  ties rather than the interests of nation-states, and when it drew civilians

  into combat, the outcome was uncertain at best. John Lee in chapter

  six shows there is also nothing new about contemporary urban fighting

  and the problems it poses for conventional infantry forces. The same

  challenges of gaining accurate local intelligence, winning the hearts

  and minds of civilians, and finding appropriate tactics to use among

  dense urban populations were of keen interest to Greek military think-

  ers and generals alike, when fighting frequently moved from the battle-

  field to inside the polis. Successful urban tactics in the ancient Greek

  world often required as radical a change in accepted conventional mili-

  tary thinking as the challenges of terrorism, insurgency, and sectarian

  violence from Gaza to Falluja do today.

  There is also nothing really novel in the various ways that power-

  ful imperial states keep the peace among various subject peoples and

  diverse provinces. Susan Mattern in chapter seven analyzes the various

  ways Rome kept together its multicultural and racially diverse empire

  and dealt with serial outbreaks of insurrection, terrorism, and national

  revolts. What made these events relatively rare in the half-millennium

  life of the empire, and why they were usually put down, did not hinge

  just on the superiority of the Roman army or its eventual mastery of

  counterinsurgency tactics. Equally important was a variety of insidious

  “hearts and minds” mechanisms that won over or co-opted local popu-

  lations. Generous material aid, the granting of citizenship, education,

  a uniform law code equally applied, and indigenous integration and as-

  similation into Roman culture and life together convinced most tribes

  that they had more to gain by joining than by opposing Rome.

  Terrorism, insurrections, and ethnic or religious revolts often baffle

  the modern nation-state. Its traditional forces certainly seem il -equipped

  to fight on rough terrain or to root out nontraditional fighters amid

  sympathetic populations. But the dilemma is often a two-way street. In

  chapter eight Barry Strauss reviews slave revolts of antiquity—especial y

  Makers of Ancient Strategy 7

  the wel -known case of Spartacus’s first-century BC rebel ion against the

  Roman state—to show that the problems can be even worse for the

  chal engers of state authority. If the goals of insurrectionists evolve be-

  yond terror and mayhem to include mass transit through flatland or

  winning the hearts and minds of local populations, or even carving out

  large swaths of permanently occupied or secured territory, then at some

  point they must find parity with state forces in terms of conventional

  warfare. Despite the romance we associate with Spartacus, his slave re-

  volt was overmatched by the logistics, discipline, and generalship of the

  Roman legions. His cal for mass slave liberation had no real political

  resonance among Italians to rival the appeal of the Roman state. We

  may live in an age of incomprehensible terror and insurrection, but we

  too often forget that the military odds stil lie on the side of the nation-

  state, especial y when war breaks out within its own borders.

  Western democracies and republics are wary of the proverbial man

  on the horse. And why not, given the well-known precedents of what

  Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon did to their respective

  consensual societies? Adrian Goldsworthy in chapter nine meticulously

  shows how the upstart Caesar, through his conquest of Gaul, outfoxed

  and outmuscled his far more experienced and better-connected Roman

  rivals. The lesson Goldsworthy draws is that the use of force abroad

  inevitably has political repercussions at home, and can prove as danger-

  ous to republican societies that field superior armies as to the enemies

  that fall before them. Any time the citizenry associates victory abroad

  with the singular genius of one charismatic leader, then even in consti-

  tutional states there are likely to be repercussions at home when such

  popularity translates into political capital.

  The Roman Empire—its formation, sustenance in the face of attacks

  from outside and internal revolts, its generals—often serves as a histori-

  cal shorthand for the mil ennium of strategic thinking discussed in this

  book. Why, in the military sense, did Rome fal in the late fifth century?

  Most argue over whether its frontier defenses were stationary or more

  proactively aggressive, and whether such policies were wise or misguided.

  Peter Heather in chapter ten makes the point that the forces of imperial

  Rome, at a time when we sometimes think they were ensconced behind

  forts, wal s, and natural obstacles, as a matter of practice ventured into

  8 Introduction

  enemy lands to ward off potential invasions. He also reminds us that

  the so-cal ed barbarians on the borders of Rome by the later empire

  were becoming sophisticated, more united, and keenly observant of the

  methods by which Roman armies were raised and financed—and thus

  could be circumvented. The result is that we learn not only about the

  sophisticated nature of Roman border protection but, as important, how

  adept less civilized enemies real y were. In short, military sophistication

  is not always to be accurately calibrated according to our own cultural

  norms, and Western states can lose as much because of adroit enemies

  as through their own mistakes and ongoing decline.

  As historians of ancient times, the contributors might be dismayed

  by how little present makers of modern strategy and war making have

  learned from the classical past, how much ignored its lessons. Yet, in

  the spirit of the two earlier Makers, we avoid inflicting overt ideological

  characterizations of a contemporary political nature.

  The Burdens of the Past

  Few formal strategic doctrines have survived from antiquity. No col-

  lege of military historians wrote systematic theoretical treatises on the

  proper use of military force to further political objectives. Although

  there are extant tactical treatises on how to defend cities under siege,

  the proper role of a cavalry commander, and how to arrange and de-

  ploy a Macedonian phalanx or a Roman legion, there are no explicit
/>
  works on the various ways in which national power is to be harnessed

  for strategic purposes. Great captains did not write memoirs outlining

  strategic doctrine or military theory in the abstract.

  The historian Thucydides informs us of Pericles’ strategic thinking,

  not Pericles. We learn of Epaminondas’s preemptive strike against the

  Peloponnese from what others said he did rather than from what he

  or his close associates said he did. Caesar’s own commentaries were

  about how he conquered much of Western Europe, not why its con-

  quest would be beneficial to Rome, or the costs and benefits—and fu-

  ture challenges—of its annexation. Ancient historians chronicled both

  Alexander’s brilliance in taking Persia and the subsequent challenges

  such occupation posed. Yet these dilemmas were not addressed in the

  Makers of Ancient Strategy 9

  abstract by Alexander himself or his lieutenants. We have a good idea,

  not from Greek captains but from classical historians, ancient inscrip-

  tions, and the archaeological record, of how Greek and Roman com-

  manders dealt with insurrections, urban warfare, and border defense.

  In other words, unlike makers of modern strategy, the makers of an-

  cient strategy were not abstract thinkers like Machiavelli, Clausewitz,

  or Delbrück, or even generals who wrote about what they did and

  wanted to do, such as Napoleon or Schlieffen.

  The result is twofold. First, strategy in the ancient world is more

  often implicit than explicitly expressed. The classical military historian

  has far more difficulty recovering strategic thinking than does his more

  modern counterpart, and certainly the ensuing conclusions are far

  more apt to be questioned and disputed.

  Second, as a result of this difficulty of classical scholarship and its

  frequent neglect, conclusions are often far more novel. We have thou-

  sands of books on Napoleon’s or Hitler’s strategy but only a few dozen

  on the strategic thinking of Alexander and Caesar. And if there are

  dozens of book-length studies on the grand strategy of George Mar-

  shall or Charles de Gaulle, there are almost none on Epaminondas’s.

  If readers find in these chapters a great deal of supposition, a bother-

  some need for conjecture, and sometimes foreign citations, they also

  will discover much that is entirely new—or at least new manifestations