Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience

by Victor Davis Hanson

  The Greek soldier's work on the military highway not only provided a way into enemy territory, it represented the route home. If the battle resulted in victory for the invaders, the road might not seem

  so important; the homeward march would be orderly, even leisurely. But if the invaders were beaten in battle, the road he had built was the hoplite's lifeline. A good road out of enemy territory was the defeated soldier's best chance to make good his escape. The horror of defeat in battle would be doubled and trebled if the pursuing enemy were able to chase the beaten soldiers along narrow paths well known to the native, but strange to the invader.17 Consider the situation of the defeated Athenian army in Aetolia in 426 BC After the Athenians turned to run

  Many were killed after rushing down into dried-up water-courses from which there was no road up or in other parts of the battlefield where they lost their way…. The main body, however, took the wrong road and rushed into the forest, where there were no paths by which they could escape and which was set on fire by the enemy so that it burned all round them. Everything, in fact, which could happen in a flight happened to the Athenian army, and men perished by every form of death.

  (Thuc. 3.98.1–3, trans. Warner)

  A well-built military highway, whose every switchback was familiar, represented the defeated army's best chance for effecting an orderly withdrawal from enemy territory. Thus, the product of his labor symbolized the hoplite's hope of returning home safely. During the hours the soldier worked as a member of a road-crew, he was buying insurance that could be cashed in when worse came to worst on the battlefield.

  We can imagine, then, the hoplites in the invading army working quite cheerfully at their sweaty road-building labors, despite the heat, thirst, and discomforts of the marching camp. But what of the residents of the territory to which the road led? It is hard to suppose that the citizens of a neighboring state could be ignorant of the intentions of road-builders hacking their way through the mountains. Shepherds, beekeepers, or others who used the mountains in the summer would relay the report of the construction, even if formal watchposts had not been established.18 Why, then, did the citizens of the threatened state not take preemptive action against the advancing invaders? When, occasionally, fifth-century Greek armies did occupy passes against their fellow Greeks, the defenders sometimes prevented the enemy from even attempting the crossing. Other pass-holders found that their uphill position made it easy to slaughter approaching hoplites with projectile weapons.19

  Yet, despite its effectiveness, the tactical ploy of temporary occupation of mountain passes by Greek armies seems to have remained quite rare before the late fifth century. No city-state adopted a coherent strategy of blocking passes into the home territory until the fourth century (see p. 190). Why did Greeks allow a military highway to be constructed into their territory, in full knowledge that this road would allow their enemies easy access to their homelands, and an easy escape route even if the invaders were defeated? Of course, military roads were not one-way streets, and this year's defenders could be next year's invaders. Perhaps an element of optimistic calculation was sometimes involved in the decision: let our enemies do the work to build the invasion route that will in the long run do us more good and them more harm.20

  But more to the point, blocking the road would have been a breach of the unwritten rules of hoplite combat. The goal of invader and invaded was ordinarily identical: to set up a decisive battle in the open plain, rather than to avoid battle by clever stratagems. The Greek military ethos no more allowed the ordinary hoplite army to ambush the invaders in the hills than the aristocratic code allowed an eighteenth-century duelist to consider bushwacking his opponent on the way to the duelling ground. In both cases the conflict was an affair of honor, fought according to established conventions, between moral (if not physical) equals (cf. Connor 1988).

  The unwillingness of the invaded to take advantage of the natural obstacles that had to be overcome by invaders reveals the essentially agonistic nature of hoplite conflict: a form of warfare that could only be engaged in by men who had agreed (formally or informally) on the nature of weapons, armor, and formations that would be permitted to the field of honor. This agreement did not make the ensuing battle any less fierce or more 'civilized'—but it did permit the battle to take place, and contained the bloodshed within a few hours. The importance of natural obstacles also alerts us to the fragility of the hoplite agon as a system of warfare. As soon as defenders began to take advantage of difficult terrain in order to prevent the incursion of enemy forces, the entire system of hoplite-battle conflict resolution would be upset, and a new form of warfare would necessarily replace it. This, as we shall see, is what happened in the fourth century.

  FORTIFICATIONS AND POLIORCETICS

  Consideration of the second primary category of obstacles—man-made walls, ditches, and so on—further clarifies the context in which the hoplite battle took place. The fortification history of most archaic Greek cities remains obscure, but there is good evidence for a city wall at Athens by the mid-sixth century, and other major cities were probably walled by this period as well. Certainly by the fifth century, circuit walls were standard for a proper polis. The Spartans were the peculiar exception (as in many other areas) because they refused to wall their central settlements.21 For most Greek cities, walls were an important symbol of autonomy and strength and might even be decorated with apotropaic symbols and relief carvings of gods to avert evil and protect the city. Walls could be constructed of solid stone, or with a stone socle topped by courses of mud-brick. In either case, the walls were erected wide and high, and were an efficient barrier against assault.22

  Hoplite warriors were not, as a rule, effective assault troops. In the early to mid-fifth century the Athenians had a reputation as being better at it than most, but that reputation seems to be based on their destruction of the Persian camp after the battle of Plataea, hardly a typical assault action. There are relatively few reports of attempted (and fewer of successful) assaults on strongly fortified positions by hoplite armies before the period of the Peloponnesian War. Several campaigns during the Peloponnesian War itself demonstrated how poor hoplites were at capturing even small, seemingly vulnerable, and ill-manned fortified places.23

  The inefficiency of hoplites as practitioners of poliorcetics cannot be laid to a generalized disinclination of ancient heavy infantry to assault walled positions. During the imperial period of Assyrian history (ca 800–600 BC), the Assyrian heavy infantryman time and again proved his ability to take strongly fortified cities. The Assyrians used projectile (especially arrow) barrages and battering-rams, along with scaling and mining techniques against major walled cities, with impressive results. Like that of the Assyrians, the Roman army was very good at siegecraft. There is no reason to suppose that towns of sixth- and fifth-century Greece were any better fortified than (e.g.) Phoenician cities of the eighth and seventh centuries or the Italian towns of the fifth, fourth, and third centuries.24 If Assyrian and Roman infantrymen could take fortified positions by storm, what was wrong with Greek hoplites?

  There were only three approaches to assaulting an ancient city wall: the attackers must go over, under, or through it. For a variety of reasons, both to do with arms and armor and to do with the ethos of Greek combat, none of these approaches was at all attractive to the hoplite warrior.

  Going over the enemy's wall meant, for most classical Greek armies, using ladders.25 Ladder assaults were considered to be at least theoretically possible by Aeschylus, who in Seven Against Thebes (466–7) describes the shield of Eteokles as depicting 'an armed man climbing the rungs of a ladder/towards the tower of his enemies, wishing to sack it.' One of the panels of the Xanthian Nereid Monument (ca 380 BC) depicts three hoplites (helmeted, carrying shields) ascending a ladder, under protection of covering fire from archers on the ground.26 Ladders would have to be built by the besiegers with materials scavenged on the spot, or assembled from wooden components brought from home. In
any event the ladders would be tall, narrow, flimsy, unstable, and flammable.

  The city's defenders would be massed at the top of the wall (e.g. Euripides, Pboinissai, 1137–8), ready to make life as nasty as possible for those coming up the ladders. As soon as the assault ladders were in place, the defenders would attempt to throw them down—along with any hapless soldiers who might be clinging to them. Aeneas the Tactician (36, cf. Garlan 1974:174–6 with fig. 2) describes a simple swinging rig that defenders could use to sweep ladders from their walls. The defenders on the wall above had gravity on their side, and could drop heavy stones on the enemy below. Furthermore, many city circuits were enfiladed by towers, meaning that defenders in the towers could get easy bowshots at the assault troops.27 The hoplites scrabbling up the ladders could not, of course, fire back.

  The ladder-climbing soldier had to haul himself, and approximately 70 lbs (31.7 kg) of armor and weaponry (Hanson, chapter 3 in this volume, n. 1) up the rungs. Hoplite armor, heavy and rigid, severely restricted its wearer's freedom of movement. His breastplate hampered the free upward extension of his arms; his legs were encased in constricting greaves. As a result, the climbing hoplite's movements were ill-coordinated; his progress up the ladder would necessarily be slow and clumsy. For a painfully long time he represented an easy, almost defenseless target to defenders on the walls above and on the towers to his sides,28 who would hurl and shoot whatever was to hand at the attacker's head, back, shoulders, and arms: certainly stones, perhaps also javelins, arrows, and torches.29

  Because of his defenseless position in relation to the threat from above, a strong helmet was essential to the ladder-climbing hoplite (cf. the helmeted hoplites on the Nereid Monument). The face-enclosing and neck-protecting Corinthian style helmet would offer a much greater degree of security against bombardment than would the lighter Boiotian helmet. Yet, the same heavy Corinthian helmet that might deflect missiles away from the hoplite's head and neck completely obscured his vision. At best, the Corinthian helmet allowed very constricted visibility to a man looking straight ahead (Hanson 1989:71–2); it would be virtually impossible for the ladder climber in a Corinthian helmet to see up. Thus he climbed blind, through a hail of missiles that must have deafened him if they did not kill him, unsure even of where the top of the wall was, certain only in the knowledge that if he did live to get to the top, he would be at a terrible disadvantage.

  The hoplite's shield was normally his best protection, but it would be worse than useless to him on the ladder. Unlike earlier models of shield, the hoplon lacked the strap that would allow it to be easily slung on the hoplite's back, although perhaps such a strap could be jerry-rigged.30 But even if a strap were rigged up, the shield would be more bother than aid. The enemy was to the side (in the towers) and above, so the shield hung on his back would offer no protection from the former, and little from the latter. But it would add considerably to the weight he carried, and would tend to drag him backward and unbalance him on the ladder.

  As he mounted the ladder the hoplite must have felt a terrifying sense of aloneness. His experience of proper, phalanx battle (hellish as it was) had always been as a member of a close-knit group, whose members were in constant physical contact with their fellows, both front to back and side to side. The hoplite on the ladder was essentially alone. There might be a man ahead of him or behind him (cf. the Nereid Monument frieze), but he had none of the usual comfort of being one of a mass of friendly comrades. And when (or if) he did achieve the top of the wall, he was surrounded by enemies. If he had brought his shield, he now had to unsling it, if he did not, he was an easy target. In any case there were no comrades by his side, no one to watch his back. His chances of survival were slim. There was little hope of striking an effective blow and no hope of retreat. In short, going up the ladder was suicidal, and death would come in a lonely, ugly way. The situation is graphically described by Euripides:

  How am I to tell how Kapaneus went mad?

  For grasping the rungs of the long ladder

  He ascended and boasted thus

  That not even the sacred fire of Zeus would

  Hold him back from seizing the city and its lofty towers.

  Calling out these things while being stoned,

  He crept up having drawn up his body under his shield

  Passing up the smooth rungs of the ladder.

  Just as he reached the cornice of the wall

  Zeus struck him with his bolt; the earth rang

  So that all were terrified. From the ladder

  He was hurled, his limbs spreading apart,

  Hair towards heaven and blood to the earth.

  His arms and legs like the wheel of Ixion

  Spun; the fiery corpse fell to earth.

  (Eur. Phoinissai 1172–86, trans. Childs, City Reliefs)31

  A worn frieze from the Heroon at Trysa (ca 370 BC) depicts the likely aftermath of mounting the ladder: a hoplite falling head over heels through space, his round shield tumbling behind him, his ladder broken.32These artistic and literary references demonstrate that ladder assaults were conceivable, and were presumably actually attempted. But they leave little doubt as to why there is such scant evidence for hoplite armies resorting to the 'over the top' option.33

  Going under the enemy wall meant digging beneath the wall in order to cause it to collapse. In many cases this was simply not an option, because the wall was constructed of stone blocks set on foundations cut into the bedrock (Lawrence 1979:201–5). Only when the foundations of the wall were laid in fairly deep soil could undermining be attempted. Digging was hot, nasty work. Unlike rock cutting and hauling, tunneling was not the sort of labor that a peasant soldier would undertake as part of his normal agricultural round. Rather, mining was (especially for the Athenians, who gained much of their state revenue from the silver mines of south Attica) prototypically the work of the slave, and thus was regarded as labor beneath the dignity of the free citizen.34 Not only was the work of tunneling uncomfortable and degrading, it was dangerous: tunnels that were inadequately shored up could collapse suddenly, burying the tunnelers alive.

  As soon as the defenders realized that the besiegers were trying to

  undermine their walls, they would immediately enact counter-measures. They might detect the precise location of the enemy tunnel by placing the concave side of a shield on the ground, and using the shield to amplify the sounds of excavation (Hdt. 4.200). Once the defenders knew where the tunnel was heading, they could engage in counter-mining and so catch out the tunnel-diggers from above or below. The men in the tunnel would be without armor, unarmed (except for their picks and shovels), and completely unprepared for battle. Like moles dug out by a gardener, they would be slaughtered by the enemy without hope of striking a blow in their own defense. Little wonder, then, that there is no securely documented example of an early classical Greek assault based on mining.35

  The third option, going through the wall, was also dangerous, but at least it allowed the hoplite the advantage of fighting, and dying if need be, in the company of his fellows and with his feet planted on the ground. Going through the wall, in the days before the invention of effective barrage-artillery (see p. 192) meant using battering rams to knock down a gate. There was not much hope of breaching the thick, double-faced and rubble-packed stone wall itself. The wooden gates were the weakpoint, and might be smashed open if the attackers could bring sufficient weight and forward momentum to bear in horizontally directed blows. The shaft of the ram would ordinarily be a tree-trunk, its head might be of bronze—perhaps decorated with rams' heads, as in an example dedicated at Olympia.36 Only quite heavy battering rams would be effective, and, of course, the heavier the ram, the less offensive and defensive equipment the ramming crew could carry with them.

  Greek military architects were well aware that the gate was the weakest part of any circuit; consequently they lavished considerable ingenuity on making gates difficult to approach and easy to defend.37 Some simple gates were fla
nked by massive towers, from which the defenders could safely attack the rammers from above and from the sides. Often the right-side gate tower (thus on the attacker's left) was built bigger, so as to give the defenders an especially good shot at the attackers' vulnerable unshielded side (e.g. the Athenian fort of Rhamnous). Somewhat more sophisticated was the 'overlap' style of gate (e.g. Mantinea) which forced the attackers to approach the gate itself through a corridor flanked on both sides with extensions of the city walls, walls that would, of course, be lined with defenders.

  But perhaps most diabolical, from the attackers' point of view, was

  the gate-courtyard (e.g. the Athenian Dipylon Gate). In attacking this style of gate, the invaders had first to break through an external gate, often defended by towers. If they succeeded in this, the attack troops entered a small courtyard. A second gate, at least as strongly built as the first, lay at the end of the courtyard. The courtyard was designed as a killing ground: the besiegers were now surrounded by defenders on the walls and towers above. Until they broke the second gate the invaders would be pounded by a barrage of missiles from all sides. Although the hoplite on a ramming crew had the comfort of his fellows at his side, and he might be protected by a mantlet of some sort (Lawrence 1979:42), his chance of survival was not much greater than the ladder-climber's. Unless the defenders jumped down into the courtyard, the attacking hoplite had no way of returning the fire of his tormentors above. Indeed, since he had to use at least one arm to hold even a light ram, his choice must have been whether to carry a shield or a spear—a devilish choice between being unarmed (but for a sword), or undefended (but for body armor) if he succeeded in breaking through the second gate.