2. Sounding reveille. Plutarch (Nikias 9.2) says that the old saying, 'In peace not salpinges but roosters awaken sleeping men,' helped incline the Greeks to peace in 421 BC. Polybios (12.26.2) alters the emphasis slightly: 'In war salpinges awaken sleeping men, in peace the birds.' J.K.Anderson maintains that this saying can be explained without supposing a particular call for reveille (1965:2), but such a call seems likely enough.
3. Summoning men to arm and form into line for battle. Aristotle describes what happens when the salpinx sounds in a military camp:
Each man hears the sound, and one picks up his shield, another puts on his breastplate, and a third his greaves or helmet or belt; one harnesses his horse, one mounts his chariot, one passes on the watchword; the lochagos goes to his lochos, the taxiarchos to his taxis, the horseman to the wing, the light-armed runs to his station; all is stirred by a single signal to a flurry of motion according to the ideas of the supreme commander.
(De mundo 399a-b)
4. Calling for silence. Before the Sicilian expedition departed in 415 BC, a salpinx sounded to get everyone's attention for the public prayer (Thuc. 6.31.1). Later when Alkibiades and his men took Selymbria in 409 BC, the Athenian general had the salpinx signal for silence so he could have a herald tell the Selymbrians not to take up arms against the Athenians (Plut. Alk. 30.7). Similarly when Dion entered Syracuse he had the salpinx stop the crowd's noise so he could announce the liberation of the Syracusans (Plut. Dion 29.1). As Anderson (1965:2) notes, however, there need not have been a special signal for silence. Any salpinx blast might have been effective, and even if the Athenians did have a special call, the Selymbrians are unlikely to have known what it was.
5. Sounding the charge (to polemikori). In its best attested use, the salpinx sounded to tell hoplites to lower their spears and charge, as Xenophon makes clear in a description of a parade-ground maneuver (Anab. 1.2.17) and later of an actual battle (Anab. 6.5.27): to impress the Queen of Cilicia at the close of a troop review, Kyros told the Greek generals 'to lower their arms and advance the whole phalanx. They passed these instructions on to the troops. When the salpinx sounded, they lowered their arms and went forward. Then they advanced more quickly and with a shout they were running toward the tents. Terror seized the barbarians, and the Queen fled on her covered carriage and the merchants abandoned their wares and fled, and the Greeks reached the tents with a laugh.' Similarly at the battle: The order had been given for spears to be held on the right shoulder, until the salpinx sounded; then they were to lower their spears to the attack position and advance steadily without running…. When the two
armies were close together the Greek peltasts ran towards the enemy before anyone had given the order. The enemy charged to meet them…and drove the peltasts back. But when the phalanx of hoplites approached, moving quickly, and at the same time the salpinx sounded and they sang the paian and then they shouted and lowered their spears, the enemy waited no longer, but fled.' At the battle of Syracuse in 415 BC the salpinx also sounded for the hoplites after the light-armed clashed (Thuc. 6.69.1).
Xenophon's Anabasis mentions the salpinx frequently for sounding the charge (see, in addition to 1.2.17 and 6.5.27, 3.4.4, 4.2.1, 8–9, 5.2.14, 7.4.16). Later sources mention it at a number of important battles: Himera in 480 BC (Diod. 11.22.2), Leuktra in 371 BC (Diod. 15.55.3), Mantineia in 362 BC (Diod. 15.85.3), Thebes in 335 BC (Diod. 17.11.3), and Timoleon's battle against the Syracusans (Plut. Tim. 27.10). The salpinx was obviously part of the standard battle description, and it appears even in fictitious scenes (Euripides, Herakleidai 831–2, Phoen. 1103, Rhesos 988–9).
Salpinktai also gave the signal to attack in naval battles, as is specifically attested for Salamis in 480 BC (Aischylos Pers. 396), Abydos in 411 BC (Diod. 13.45.8), Mytilene and Arginousai in 406 BC (Diod. 13.77.5, 99.1), Aigospotamoi in 405 (Plut. Lys. 11.2), and Aigina in 388 (Xen. Hell. 5.1.9). Vase painting supplies an illustration.14
6. Sounding the retreat (to anakletikon). Xenophon provides the best evidence when he describes how the generals of the hoplites used the salpinx to recall the peltasts who were pillaging Tiribazos' camp (Anab. 4.4.22). Xenophon himself took advantage of the distinct calls for 'charge' and 'retreat' to cross a river safely by having his troops retreat when the 'charge' was sounded (Anab. 4.3.29–32). Diodoros adds five other examples, both on land (Dionysios' siege of Motya in 397 BC [14.52.5] and battles between the Spartans and Thebans in 377, 369/8 and 362 BC [15.34.3, 65.4, 87.2]) and on sea (the battle of Mytilene in 406 BC [13.79.4]).15
For any other commands, the general had to issue orders in advance either by heralds or through subordinate officers, telling the troops to execute the orders when the salpinx sounded. A fictitious example occurs in Euripides' Troiades 1266–9, where the herald tells the Trojan captives to proceed directly to the ships when the salpinx sounds. Even for the above commands, the general had to issue separate orders if he wished to specify how a particular action was to
be carried out, as Anderson (1965:3–4) stresses with regard to Kleon's attempted withdrawal from Amphipolis in 422 BC (Thuc. 5.10.3–4).
In art the salpinktes often appears armed as a hoplite or serving among hoplites.16 But archers17 and peltasts18 also serve as salpinktai. Moreover the salpinx gave cavalry signals. Xenophon mentions this usage during his account of cavalry displays (Hipparch. 3.12), and we see a cavalry salpinktes in a battle-scene on a red-figure vase.19 This evidence raises the possibility of separate calls for different types of land troops, a possibility that we saw indicated earlier by the way horsemen were summoned in 415 BC (Andok. 1.45).
The salpinx, then, sounded alerts, wake-up calls, summons to arms, and calls for silence. It typically began a hoplite battle. Once the battle had begun, however, the salpinx did very little. Even the call for retreat appears only rarely. Why did the Greeks fail to codify a greater number of salpinx signals? The advantages seem obvious. The Romans certainly appreciated them. As Aristides Quintilianus says, Rome
often rejects verbal orders as damaging if they should be discerned by those of the enemy speaking the same language and makes codes through music by playing the salpinx—a warlike and terrifying instrument—and appointing a specific melos for each command. When the attack was by line and the approach was by column, she set down special mele, and a different kind for retreat; and when the pivoting was to the left or to the right, again there were specific mele for each; and so she accomplishes every maneuver one after another by means of codes that are on the one hand unclear to the enemy and on the other hand both totally clear and easily recognized by the allies. For they do not hear these codes only in part, rather the whole corps follows a single sound.
(62.6–19, trans. Mathiesen)
In Greek armies, by contrast, commanders issued these kinds of orders verbally. The evidence is especially clear for the Spartans. Xenophon says that the enomotarchos issued marching orders verbally (logoi, Lak. Pol. 11.6), and later adds that his men passed the orders along since the entire enomotia could not hear him (13.9). Presumably the Spartan king passed his orders down verbally through the polemarchoi, lochagoi, and pentekonteres who also received his orders after morning sacrifices (Xen. Lak. Pol. 13.4–5). At Sphakteria
in 425 BC the Lakedaimonians found themselves at a loss because they could not hear commands owing to the enemy's loud shouting (Thuc. 4.34.3). Normally they could, as the instance of the old soldier calling out to King Agis at Mantineia suggests (Thuc. 5.65.2; cf. Xen. Hell. 4.2.22). Perhaps the most famous verbal command is Epameinondas' call at the battle of Leuktra: 'Give me one step, and we shall have the victory' (Polyain. 2.3.3). His cry might have been communicated more widely by some sort of visual signal, such as Polyainos says Iphikrates used to get one more step at a crucial moment (3.9.27), perhaps a simple helmet raised on a spear, such as Gorgias used to order his troops to turn around (Polyain. 2.5.2). Here we have an instance similar to Kleon at Amphipolis, with a signal given to initiate the fulfillment of instruct
ions communicated verbally in advance. But the salpinx did not necessarily give the signal.
Various considerations may help explain the Greeks' limited use of the salpinx. First, hoplite battles lacked complex maneuvers; commanders made their plans in advance and then took their place in line, where, like other hoplites (Thuc. 7.44.1), they knew only what happened in their immediate vicinity. Second, hoplite battles lacked separate contingents or reserves; aside from the light-armed troops who fought before the main clash, the phalanx was the army, and it fought in unison. The Greeks had nothing like the Roman triplex acies. Third, all Greek hoplites spoke Greek. Lacking the foreign auxilia of Roman armies, the Greeks did not need a generic, understandable code such as the salpinx could provide. Finally, and I think most importantly, the scale of Greek engagements was much smaller than that of Roman combats. At Delion and Mantineia and Syracuse, for example, the greatest land battles of the Peloponnesian War, no side ever had more than about 10,000 hoplites. Even the Nemea River and Koroneia, the largest hoplite battles ever fought, involved less than 50,000 total troops. Most hoplite battles were much smaller. In smaller armies, direct verbal orders passed down through officers apparently worked tolerably well.
NOTES
I would like to thank Victor Hanson for inviting me to contribute to this volume and for helpful comments on an earlier draft; Darcy Kuronen of the Collection of Musical Instruments at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, for information about the Boston salpinx; Sharon Kazee, an oboist, and William Lawing, a trumpeter, for helpful discussions about reed instruments and trumpets.
1. I cite the following works by author's name and date: A.Reinach, 'Tuba,' DarSag 9.522–8; Maux, 'Salpinx,' RE Suppl. 2.1.2009–10; Daniel Paquette, L'lnstrument de musique dans la céramique de la Grèce antique (Paris, 1984); Annie Bélis, 'La Phorbéia,' BCH 110 (1986) 205–18. On the military use of the salpinx, see J.K.Anderson, 'Cleon's orders at Amphipolis,' JHS 85 (1965) 1–5. For good general studies of the trumpet see Philip Bate, The Trumpet and the Trombone (2nd edn London, 1978) and Edward Tarr, The Trumpet, trans. S.E.Plank and Edward Tarr (Portland, 1988).
2. L.D.Caskey, 'Recent Acquisitions of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,' AJA 41 (1937) 525–7; M.J.Chavanne, Salamine de Chrypre, VI, Les petits objets (Lyon, 1975) 205–11 and plates 54–6. These clay salpinges may have been votive offerings rather than instruments intended for use.
3. Bate 1978:16.
4. See Bélis 1986:213 figs 12–14.
5. Jean Perrot, The Organ from its Invention in the Hellenistic Period to the end of the Thirteenth Century, trans. Norma Deane (London, 1971) 159.
6. Bélis 1986:212.
7. Bate 1978:96–7. For a detailed study see Hans Hickmann, La trompette dans I'Égypte ancienne (Cairo, 1946).
8. Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments (New York, 1940) 148.
9. If any salpinges were reed instruments, they could sound only a single note (or perhaps, by overblowing, two or three), since they had no holes with which to change the length of the air column, as reed instruments must do to achieve multiple notes.
10. Plut. Mor. 150F names Naukratis and Bousiris, while 362E mentions Lykopolis and Bousiris; Aelian De Natura An. 10.28 has Abydos, Lykopolis, and Bousiris. These sources may have in mind the Egyptian trumpet, which seems to have been about 2 ft (0.6 m) long, shorter than the Greek (Bate 1978:96–8).
11. A black figure lekythos in the Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore) shows a salpinktes along with dancing hoplites (ABV 523 no. 9; see Lillian B. Lawler, The Dance in Ancient Greece (Seattle, 1964) 110 fig. 42. The standard article on the pyrrhic dance in art, J.-C.Poursat, 'Les Représentations de danse armée dans la céramique attique,' BCH 92 (1968) 550–615, misses this one). The salpinx's limited musical capabilities suggest that it signalled the start of the dance rather than played accompaniment. I thank Steven Lonsdale for this reference.
12. Boiotia: IG VII. 419–20, 540 (SEG 19.335), 1667, 1760, 1773, 1776, 2448, 2727, 2871, 3195–7, 4147, 4151, 4164. According to Plut. Mor. 598D-E, salpinktai who happened to be present for the Herakles festival aided the liberation of Thebes in 378 BC. Olympia: Eusebius Chron. ad O1.96 [336–32] I 230 Migne; Paus. 5.22.1. Herodoros the Megarian, according to Pollux (4.89), won the contest seventeen times.
13. Plut. Kimon 16.5–6; see also Polyain. 1.41.3. This story shows that the Spartans did know and use the salpinx, in spite of the oft-repeated point that they marched into battle to the sound of the aulos (Athen. Deipnosoph. 626b, 627d; Paus. 3.17.5; Plut. Lykourgos 21, Mor. 1140C; Thuc. 5.70 attests the Spartans' use of the aulos when advancing into
battle, but does not deny their use of the salpinx for other purposes). Xenophon's account of the Lakedaimonian admiral Gorgopas sounding a naval attack with the salpinx confirms the Spartan salpinx (Hell. 5.1.9). Note also what Eudamidas, the son of Archidamos, said when he heard a philosopher speaking about generalship: 'The speech is admirable, but the speaker is untrustworthy, for he has never heard the salpinx (Plut. Mor. 220E).
14. Paquette 1984: T8 (CVA Rome Capitole 2 pl. 9.2.1).
15. Plutarch tells a story about a Spartan who let his man go when the call for retreat sounded, even though he had his arm lifted to strike (Mor. 236E). But this tale is worthless since it is derived from that of Chrysantas in Xenophon's Kyroupaideia, where Kyros summons Chrysantas not by trumpet but by name (4.1.3, modified in Plut. Comp. Pelop. and Marc. 3.2).
16. For examples see Paquette 1984: Tl, T4, T5, T6, T13 and T14 (ABV 294 no. 19; ARV2 43 no. 74; ARV2 43 no. 74; ARV2 8 no. 9; ARV2 30 no. 1: RVAp 1.36/11 pl. 9.1, respectively) and Bélis 1986: figs 17–19,21 (ARV 2 62 no. 77; ARV2 43 no. 74 and 55 no. 15; ARV2 1628 add. to 135 no. 9; ARV2 402 no. 17, respectively.)
17. Paquette 1984: T3 and T12 (ABV 294 no. 20 and 256 no. 21).
18. Paquette 1984: T2 and T7 (ARV2 455 no. 8 and 70 no. 3).
19. Paquette 1984: T16 (Hellmut Sichtermann, Griechische Vasen in Unter-italien aus der Sammlung Jatta in Ruvo (Tübingen, 1966) 60 K 39).
* * *
6
THE GENERAL AS HOPLITE
Everett L.Wheeler
In the first confrontation of legion and phalanx King Pyrrhus of Epirus faced the Romans at Heracleia in 280 BC. The Epirote initiated contact by personally leading a cavalry charge. His gleaming, highly decorated armor immediately marked the king in a display of valor equal to his reputation. 'Most of all,' Plutarch says,
while offering his prowess and physical presence to the contest and stoutly fending off opponents, he did not blur his power of calculation nor even lose his presence of mind. Rather he managed the battle, as though viewing it from afar, running from one spot to another and bolstering those seeming to be overpowered.1
Pyrrhus' penchant for heroics typified his career, a striving to equal the fame of his alleged ancestor Achilles, who from at least the late sixth century BC, if not from Homer's own time, symbolized the ideal warrior.2 Yet Plutarch's description goes beyond the Achilles model in painting Pyrrhus as the ideal general: conspicuous armor, physical prowess in combat, but also the bolsterer of morale and the battlefield manager (cf. Polyb. 10.13.1–5). Pyrrhus showed mastery of the dual functions of generalship which had evolved from Homer's period through the fourth century—leadership in its most literal sense, the physical act of leading; and command, incorporating administration, management, analysis of situations, and oral directives, chiefly mental and verbal properties.3
The role of the general in the hoplite battle experience of Classical Greece is significant for the evolution of generalship—the transition from warrior chief to the general of Pyrrhus' mode. Scipio Africanus' reported quip that his mother produced a commander (imperator) not a warrior (bellator) illustrates the distinction, as does Iphicrates'
remark that he was not a cavalryman, a hoplite, an archer, or a peltast, but one who knew how to command all these. Yet from a broader historical perspective many senior commanders continued to lead from the front until the second half of the seve
nteenth century, and Frederick the Great can be cited as the first general not to wear armor.4
The transition from warrior to general, however, far from being a minor military phenomenon, directly reflects the political, social, and economic developments converting a pre-state ('primitive') society to a state. Modifications in the nature and composition of armed forces corresponded to shifts in the relationship of armies to sovereign authority. The emergence of phalanx warfare among the Greeks did not alter invariable command functions, nor did major technological innovations revise the means of command. But improvements in military organization and, especially from the fifth century on, the growing complexities of war and coordination of diversified arms (e.g. the new significance of light infantry and cavalry) multiplied the need for command. Sophistication necessitated more supervision.5
Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience Page 17
