Proper observance of the social contract between general and men, however, produced the best modus imperandi. Plato's prescription for military service in his ideal Cretan city (Leg. 12.942A) listed obedience to leaders and collective action as the most efficient weapons for victory. Obedience and effective command method, as modern military commentators also stress, depend on establishing bonds between officers and men, removing psychological distance so as to motivate the commanded, that is the establishment of kinship. The general, an embodiment of power, regulates morale by his command style, whether keeping close to the rank and file's daily existence (the soldier's general), maintaining stern discipline, inspiring his army through personal bravery and tactical or strategic brilliance (le grand chef: cf. Plut., Pel. 2.2), or some combination of these.115
Xenophon (Anab. 3.1.37) advised that the general should be braver than others, plan for the good of his army, and set an example for
enduring hardship. Agesilaus, Xenophon's model general, perhaps more than any other commander in the age of the hoplite phalanx, exemplified the principle of kinship in his 'mask of command.' His Spartan simplicity in dress, moderate consumption of food and drink, his indifference to heat and cold, his lack of sleep, and his delight in toils made him his men's equal but also their trusted leader by surpassing them in endurance.116 Above all, Agesilaus strengthened his role as a soldier's general through accessibility and constant visibility (Xen., Ages. 9.1–2). Iphicrates also used kinship to inspire morale: when his men were ill-clothed and poorly fed on a winter campaign, he dressed in summer clothes and went barefoot (Polyaenus 3.9.34). Kinship became a common characteristic of great generals and a topos for Roman emperors in the Historia Augusta.117 Yet even in the tolerance of hardships, as Cambyses tells the young Cyrus (Xen., Cyr. 1.6.25), the general and the private differ, for honor and the prominence of the general's every act lighten his burdens.
Whether the general built morale on kinship, as did Agesilaus and Iphicrates, or discipline like Clearchus (Xen., Anab. 2.6.7–15), the general and his army's morale became inextricably intertwined. Long before Napoleon, du Picq, or Foch, Xenophon recognized that morale counted for more than numbers118 and a general's duty to bolster morale required his presence in battle, riding along his battleline sharing the danger, encouraging, praising, reproaching.119 Indeed already by the fourth century (if not earlier) the general had become the single most important part of the army: an army was inoperative without its general—its metaphoric, spiritual, and physical head.120
Tactical repercussions ensued from this development. In an anecdote of Polyaenus probably related to the Leuctra campaign (371 BC), Epaminondas encouraged the Thebans by comparing the Spartans and their allies to a snake: if the Spartan head were crushed, the rest of the body was useless. Accordingly Epaminondas' fifty-man deep deployment against the Spartan right aimed at knocking out the Spartan king.121 Some years before at Tegyra (375 BC), which Plutarch calls a prelude to Leuctra, the battle centered on the location of the commanders: Spartan morale collapsed with the loss of their two commanding polemarchs. Alexander the Great pursued a similar battle plan at Granicus, Issus, and Gaugamela, directing his own cavalry charge at the Persian commanders in the first case and at Darius III in the other two.122 Given the usual placement of commanders on their respective right wings, a type of stratagem often called a salubre mendacium could be exploited: by shouting out to
one's own troops and within hearing distance of the enemy that the opposing king or general had been killed, a commander could simultaneously further incite his own army and sow panic in the enemy ranks.123 This stratagem could be effective, since a commander's death aggravated a tactical crisis or negated exploitation of victory: Cleombrotus' death at Leuctra precipitated a Spartan rout; Epaminondas' wound at Mantineia produced confusion in the victorious Thebans; and a Spartan attack on Olynthus collapsed after the death of the general Teleutias.124
As the general himself became the focal point of morale and hence a tactical objective for the enemy, it would be logical to expect that casualty rates for generals would increase. Moreover, if Xenophon is credible, officers had a greater drive for distinction and generals were expected to prove themselves braver than others.125 The Homeric tradition of the warrior chieftain leading by his example of courage still flourished in the hoplite phalanx: generals, after all, also sought aristeia. Besides, except for Spartan kings, generals usually had previous experience as hoplites and would return to hoplite status after their term of office: Aristides and Themistocles served as hoplites at Marathon; Pericles, not yet a strategos, distinguished himself at Tanagra; Agesilaus before his kingship received hoplite training in the Spartan agoge and in old age fought in the ranks as a mercenary commander in Egypt; also Epaminondas and Pelopidas did hoplite duty at Mantineia (385 BC). Later, Pelopidas became leader of the Theban Sacred Band only when he missed appointment as a boeotarch (371 BC).126
Examples of valorous conduct by commanders abound. Brasidas' daring exploits as a local district commander at Methone (431 BC) and as a trierarch at Pylos (425 BC) mark stages in the advancement of his career. The Athenian strategos Lamachus died when he was cut off too boldly trying to exploit a Syracusan rout (414 BC). Chabrias fell leading an amphibious assault on Chios (357 BC) and Plutarch of Eretria charged at the head of his mercenaries at Tamynae (349 BC).127 Battle scars were signs of reverence (Agesilaus) or a source of boasting (Chares).128 Yet Homeric lyssa had not disappeared. Pyrrhus madly raged in battle against the Spartans who had killed his son Ptolemy. Pelopidas' grudge against Alexander of Pherae precipitated his death at Cynocephalae, and Teleutias' anger prompting his foolhardy demise at Olynthus aroused Xenophon's condemnation—emotions should not influence military decisions.129
Certainly generalship could be hazardous to health: defeated
commanders usually died in battle; the victorious sometimes did; and few generals with repeated commands passed away through old age.130 The scanty sources preclude, however, any possibility of quantifying casualty rates for generals to determine if they increased, declined, or remained stable in the fifth and fourth centuries BC.131 Despite the logical assumption that rates would rise with the increased importance of generals, the transition of commanders from Homeric warrior chieftains to Hellenistic battle managers permits the hypothesis that rates declined, as the participation of generals in combat changed from the status of 'always' to 'sometimes.' For the commander of a hoplite phalanx, physical leadership in the tradition of the Homeric warrior continued to play an important role, as numerous cited examples attest. But leading a charge in a skirmish, rallying one's troops to pursue a routed foe, and a headlong sally in a burst of anger do not prove either that a general stationed himself in the front rank of the phalanx at the beginning of a formal pitched battle, or that kinship and morale explain the apparently high casualty rates for fifth- and fourth-century generals. The placement of officers within the phalanx as well as the circumstances and motives of commanders' deaths require closer examination.
Archaeological sources do not clarify these matters. The Nereid Monument of Xanthus in Lydia (ca 400 BC) bears a relief showing a row of charging hoplites, of which the figure in the center is taken to be an officer with his head turned to the right and his raised right army apparently gesturing.132 Unfortunately, this figure is the only hoplite in the relief whose head and right arm are preserved. In the Spartan phalanx all the front-rank men (protostatai) were officers. Thus, if a single row of hoplites in this relief is intended to represent a phalanx, all the figures could be officers and the better preserved central figure offers no indication of a strategos.
It is generally agreed that subordinate officers stood either at the head of files or somewhere within the body of the phalanx, although this rendered some files deeper than others. No geometric compulsion necessitated that all files, all locboi, or all contingents in an army of independent allies observe the same depth, and blind files (i.e., an officer standing in the
first rank of the phalanx, to the right of his unit, but without anyone behind him) did not exist.134
Nevertheless, even the detailed descriptions of a Hellenistic phalanx in the Stoic tacticians give no clue to the army commander's position.135 Custom held that a Greek general commanded from the place of honor, the army's right wing, and a Spartan king could be
either on the right between two morai or in the center of the line, as Agis at Mantineia.136 These indications of battleline longitude omit reference to latitude: was the commander on the right or center in the front rank, somewhere within the body of the phalanx, or behind it? Once again, an argument must be pieced together from episodic anecdotes of what a general did or did not do in a particular situation. It can be hypothesized a priori that some commanders enjoyed and sought personal combat, while others did not. An exception can be found for any absolute interpretation. An argument, however, can be presented that generals of the fifth and fourth centuries BC did not stand in the front rank of the phalanx to begin a pitched battle and that motives other than morale and kinship contributed to commander fatalities, especially for defeated generals.
In his encomium of Agesilaus (6.1) Xenophon would appear to offer explicit testimony that generals always fought in the first rank of the phalanx: proton heauton tatton. But why should Xenophon exceptionally praise Agesilaus for his battle scars and front-line service, if such were typical of all generals? The real implication of the passage is that this conduct was not typical. Other evidence produces doubt of Agesilaus' frequency in the front rank. Plutarch (Ages. 26.2) gives no details of how Agesilaus was wounded in the Boeotian campaign of 378 BC At Coronea (394 BC) Herippidas, commander of the mercenaries, led the charge from Agesilaus' sector of the battleline, and the Argives fled before the Spartans made contact. Agesilaus, who did not lead the mercenaries' charge, was nevertheless receiving garlands of victory from these men when the report came that the Thebans after routing Agesilaus' left were at his baggage train. Nothing so far indicates Agesilaus' participation in combat or front line service.137
In the second stage of the battle Agesilaus countermarched his forces to face the Thebans head-on. A fierce struggle ensued, in which Agesilaus fighting with his bodyguard of fifty volunteers was wounded.138 Plutarch emphasizes, however, that Agesilaus suffered his wound despite the efforts of his bodyguard to protect him. Hence the inference is justified that Agesilaus was close to, but not in the first rank of his phalanx.
This interpretation can be supported by other examples of Spartan kings. Agis at Mantineia was surrounded in the center of his battleline by the 300 Hippeis who routed the enemy center, but Thucydides says nothing of Agis himself joining in the combat. At Leuctra Cleombrotus also had the protection of the 300 Hippeis (or their equivalent
as part of a mora).139 Furthermore, there are several references to Spartans fighting in front of a Spartan king—additional proof that the king was not in the first line of the phalanx.140 Indeed Xenophon (Lac. Resp. 11.6) recounts a special maneuver to protect the king, when fighting appears imminent. A lapse of over a century between royal Spartan deaths in battle (Leonidas at Thermopylae (480 BC) and Cleombrotus at Leuctra (371 BC)) would also suggest the absence of Spartan kings from the phalanx's front line (Lazenby 1985:160), although Thermopylae was not a conventional pitched battle (parataxis).
Agesilaus' wounding in the second stage of Coronea likewise corresponds to other evidence: generals were frequently killed or wounded not through presence on the front line in the initial clash of rival phalanges, but rather in the second stage of battle when a general too boldly attempted to exploit the rout of a beaten foe or tried to rally his own troops. Examples range from Callimachus at Marathon (490 BC) to Epaminondas at Mantineia (362 BC).141 Casualties to strategoi would therefore correspond to du Picq's view that the greatest losses in ancient battles occurred after one side fled, and Hanson's thesis about certain types of wounds proving a general's place in the front rank needs some modification.142
A number of anecdotes relate commanders making tactical decisions at the beginning or in the middle of battles. These appear implausible for a general in the front rank of a phalanx when fighting for his life. At Oenophyta (457 BC) the Athenian strategos Myronidas employed a variant of the salubre mendacium stratagem: he first ordered his left to charge the Thebans, then ran to his right flank and shouted that they were victorious on the left. His ruse produced success. Daphaenus, a Syracusan general of the late fifth century, defeated a Carthaginian army with much the same trick.143 At Delium (424 BC) when the Athenians were defeating the Boeotian left and the Thebans were winners on their right wing, Pagondas the Theban general ordered two squadrons of cavalry secretly to circumvent a hill and to surprise the victorious Athenian wing (Thuc. 4.96.5)—an impossible act for a man fighting in the forefront on his own right, while still gaging the action on the opposite flank. Nor could Alcibiades be fighting in the front when a messenger approached him with news of a Persian threat to his fleet (Front., Strat. 2.7.6). Although the silence of Plutarch, Xenophon, and Diodorus casts doubt on this incident's historicity, Herodotus (9–76.1) relates a similar story about Pausanias at Plataea. When the tide of battle had
turned in the Greeks' favor and the Spartans were still engaged in slaughter, a female captive of the Persians succeeded in crossing the lines and approaching Pausanias. She did not find him personally engaged in combat, but rather directing the Greek effort (horosa de panta ekeina dieponta Pausanien)—presumably in the rear. Agis' last-minute attempt to adjust his left flank at Mantineia could also be cited, but Agis (as argued above, p.148) was not in the front row of the phalanx.144 Certainly Iphicrates did not stand in the first rank of his troops when he deployed them in a plain with a ditch dug behind them to compel their bravery.145
Furthermore, the sphagia, a propitiatory blood sacrifice performed just before a formal pitched battle (parataxis), gives some indication of a general's location.146 In theory the sacrifice occurred when both sides were present and deployed. The commander would perform the sacrifice, then raise the paean to begin battle. In practice, however, the sphagia often happened when the two battlelines were advancing or even already engaged (Pritchett, War 2. 73–4, 83). Even so, Pritchett insists that the sacrifice was made in the metaichmion (the no-man's land between the two armies) while the enemy watched, but this view is difficult to reconcile with reality.147 At Plataea when Pausanias tried to gain favorable sphagia while his men endured Persian fire, Herodotus gives no hint that Pausanias was dodging Persian arrows.148 Phocion (Plut., Phoc. 13.1–3) had the same problem at Tamynae: his sacrifices proved unfavorable until the enemy was actually storming the ramparts of his position. He was hardly stationed in front of his men. But then in the second stage of the battle he collected his scattered forces and led a charge.
No doubt some generals deployed their forces, harangued them, performed the sphagia, took a place in the front ranks, and began battle with the paean. Epaminondas probably stood in the forefront at Leuctra.149 Others and particularly Spartan kings, however, as this survey of the evidence suggests, did not stand in the front rank when battle began, but could assume the moral and physical leadership of a Homeric chieftain at a crucial point, especially in the second stage of a hoplite battle when either one side fled or the ordered ranks of the rival phalanges dissolved into a melée of human carnage so graphically described by Hanson (1989:152–218).
But if all generals did not seek combat in the initial clash and the deaths and wounds of commanders seem to occur most frequently in a hoplite battle's second stage, then the general's kinship with his troops and his morale-boosting presence (not always in the first rank)
do not necessarily explain the high fatality rates of generals—most of all for the losers. The collective action of the phalanx obscured the competitive nature of its 'interchangeable parts.' Aristeia awaited the most courageous survivors and the dead were guaranteed their eternal fame. As the spiritual descendants of Homeric chiefta
ins, strategoi felt the burdens of the heroic ethos. Epaminondas said that the noblest (kalliston) death was in war (Plut., Mor. 192C). Some in the spirit of Heraclitus' dictum (fr.119D-K) felt that a man's character was his daimon: Agesilaus considered a quiet death for himself unworthy; Leonidas thought a glorious death nature's gift to aristoi.150
Moreover, death in battle provided an honorable departure for losers. In Onasander's view a defeated general should not desire to live, and no Spartan king survived a lost battle until Cleomenes III fled to Egypt after Sellasia (222 BC).151 Some losers resorted to suicide, although this ultimate act gained more respectability in the Hellenistic period under Stoic influence.152 At Athens strategoi who failed, even if not defeated in a major battle, faced exile, fines, or prosecution for bribery and treason.153 Paches, who put down the revolt of Mytilene (427 BC), committed suicide at the audit of his generalship, and the Athenians condemned to death Lysicles, the strategos who survived Chaeronea.154 As the Athenian siege of Syracuse (415–13 BC) dragged on without success, Nicias justifiably feared the consequences of returning to Athens (Thuc. 7.48.3–5).
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