Even if the assault crew did manage to break into the city by any of the means discussed above, the battle was still far from won. The residential areas of Greek towns built before the early to mid-fifth century were seldom designed on an orthogonal street plan. Rather, most of the city was characterized by a hodge-podge of narrow, winding streets and dead-end alleys. The streets were fronted by houses which often featured conjoined walls.38 Until they fought their way to the central agora (assuming they could find it), the intruders had no hope of forming a proper phalanx. Rather, they would find themselves in a running street fight, a form of warfare in which their heavy armor and unwieldy shields would be of little use. The ordinary rules of hoplite combat did not pertain in the case of intra-urban warfare. The defenders had the advantage of intimate knowledge of the streetplan, and could use that knowledge to set ambushes and booby-traps for the invaders. Furthermore, once the attackers were within the walls, persons who were ordinarily noncombatants would take an active part in the resistance. Women, children, old men, even slaves, could stand on the rooftops bombarding the invaders with a hail of stones and heavy rooftiles: the third-century general Pyrrhus died in a street fight, struck on the head by a rooftile hurled by an Argive woman (Plut. Pyrrhus, 34.1–3). All the horrors of the street fight were suffered by Theban troops who were introduced into Plataia in 431 BC:
Twice or three times [the Theban hoplites] succeeded in beating off the assault, and all the while there was a tremendous uproar from the men who were attacking them, and shouting and yelling from the women and slaves on the roofs, who hurled down stones and tiles…. Finally they lost heart and turned and fled through the city, most of them having no idea, in the darkness and the mud…of which way to go in order to escape, while their pursuers knew quite well how to prevent them from escaping. The result was that most of them were destroyed… only a few of them got away…others were cut down here and there in different parts of the city…finally the…survivors wandering about in the city handed over their arms and surrendered unconditionally to the Plataians.
(Thuc. 2.4. trans. Warner)
Furthermore, as the Theban survivors learned, the invaders could expect no mercy if their attack faltered—the town residents, driven to a frenzy of anger and fear by the incursion into the normally sacrosanct realm of the city, would massacre the intruders if given a chance (Thuc. 2.5.7).
The problems faced by the individual hoplite soldier in attempting any of the approaches to assault discussed above were horrendous. His chance of survival was slim, and his death would come in a fashion inappropriate to his ideals. No hope of a noble death with 'all wounds in the front.' No praiseworthy demise while holding the line, or breaking the enemy ranks. Instead, death would come from above, from the side, visited upon him by an enemy he could not reach. Almost any wound suffered in an assault would be fatal, since in the fray there was little hope of a wounded man being evacuated by his comrades. If killed, his body, pierced with humiliating wounds in side and back, and his armor would belong to the enemy. It is hardly surprising that descriptions of frontal assaults on fortified positions are rare in classical Greek texts.
In lieu of the assault, a besieging army might try two possible approaches to taking an enemy city. The easiest, and most likely to be successful, was finding a traitor to open a gate and introduce the invaders into the city under cover of darkness. A convenient traitor might not be easy to locate in a city fully at peace with itself. But in late fifth- and fourth-century Greece the rash of civil wars between oligarchs and democrats created significant numbers of men willing to let in an enemy who promised to support their political agenda.
Aeneas the Tactician, author of a mid-fourth-century treatise 'On the Defense of Fortified Positions,' spends relatively little time on defeating frontal assaults, but was obsessed with treason and its prevention. Aeneas, probably an experienced mercenary captain, saw internal subversion as considerably more dangerous than poliorcetic science.39 Even if attackers were successfully smuggled in by a traitor, however, they still faced the horrors of the streetfight, as the Thebans learned in Plataia.
The other non-assault technique used to defeat the wall-obstacle was blockade-siege. This approach was only practicable for a very large army against a relatively small city. The sole way to ensure that supplies were not brought in to the besieged, while simultaneously containing the danger of counter-attacks from within the city, was to build a wall around the whole of the enemy's city. Counter-walling a huge circuit like that of classical Athens was obviously out of the question, since the attackers could never man the many miles of wall that would have been necessary. The building of a counter-wall was a major undertaking, and would require hauling great quantities of materials (especially timber) from far away.40
A full blockade-siege required a very large army, and one willing to serve continuously for a very long time. The enemy trapped within always enjoyed the advantage of internal lines of movement. Hidden from view behind their walls, the defenders could quickly mass their troops at a specific point just within the wall and sally out from a gate or postern. If the defenders did not have enough men permanently stationed in the threatened sector they would have a hard time containing the breakout. The besiegers' external lines of deployment (outside their makeshift wall) made it hard for them to concentrate troops against the sallying defenders.41 These difficulties help to explain why it took a good part of the combined Theban-Peloponnesian army (Thuc. 2.78.1–2) two years to reduce Plataia, a small town (Thuc. 2.77.2) protected by only a few hundred men (Thuc. 2.78.3), and why many of the Plataians could succeed in effecting a night escape. Given the relatively small numbers of hoplites that could be fielded by the average Greek polis, and the requirement that most of them return to their farms after a short campaigning season, circumvallation strategies were not often a real option.42
The problems hoplite armies faced in undertaking either assaults or long-term sieges underline just how 'voluntary' hoplite battles really were. The warriors of the invaded state could always avoid battle simply by staying within their fortified enclave. The enemy could not
get in without inordinate and dangerous efforts—efforts that they were reluctant to attempt. Furthermore, the amount of economic damage the invaders could inflict on agricultural resources was (at least until the fourth century) quite limited (Hanson 1983; Ober 1985a; 33–5). The defenders came out from behind their walls into the field of battle, not because they had to, but because they accepted a code of military behavior that made the risk of death in a short battle in the open field seem preferable to the protracted and indecisive struggle between inefficient attacker and unwilling defender. Greek hoplite warfare was carried out within a relatively homogeneous cultural matrix. Because Greek defenders 'played by the rules' and seldom locked themselves in, Greek attackers had little need of the tactics or the projectile weapons suited to siegecraft. There is an important contextual difference between early classical Greek warfare and Assyrian and Roman warfare. The Greeks developed their agonistic style of battle by fighting one another. Assyrians and Romans fought imperialistic campaigns against foreigners. The victims of Assyrian and Roman expansionism often saw in the defense of their walled towns their only hope for independence. Thus, unlike the Greeks, the Assyrians and Romans were constrained to develop effective assault tactics.
Once again, we are struck by the fragility of the Greek system of agonistic conflict resolution, a system of war that was more ritualistic than rational in its set forms (cf. Connor 1988). The danger was ever present that some clever, rationalistic strategist would see that breaking the rules could give his side a huge advantage against traditionalist opponents. What would happen if a major war broke out and one side refused to accept the challenge to battle? What if, furthermore, the other side was neither willing to attempt the difficulties of assault or siege, nor able to find a traitor to let them in? What if neither side were satisfied with the stalemate that resulted? This is the scenario f
or the Peloponnesian War.
END OF THE AGON
Thucydides' account makes it clear that Pericles' strategy at the time of the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War was based on the assumption that as long as the Athenians refused battle in Attica, the Peloponnesians could not win the war. Getting the Athenian citizen-peasants to agree to this strategy took some doing, since it meant putting farms at risk and contravening the unwritten rules of engagement, but Pericles' political and rhetorical skills were equal to the task (Ober 1985b). The resulting conflict was unlike any in previous Greek history.
The war was not characterized by hoplite battles. In the place of battles between phalanxes there were many other varieties of organized violence—naval skirmishes, sneak attacks, sieges, hit-and-run raids, atrocities against civilians, treason, assassination and double-dealing diplomacy, cold-blooded mass executions of prisoners of war, blockades and counter-blockades, ghastly civil conflicts. The total loss of life and destruction of property entailed in these various actions far exceeded the ordinary toll of hoplite battle. In the end, the Spartans won by adopting a campaign of economic coercion. The strategic plan included permanent occupation of the Athenian homeland and strangulation of Athenian trade routes. The Athenians, who had refused to fight the invader, were ultimately beaten by simple hunger (Ober 1985a: 35–7).
The external forms of hoplite battle survived the Peloponnesian War, but the code of military ethics that had stood in the place of a system of strategy and tactics did not. The fourth century was an age of rational strategic planning by both invaders and defenders. The result was a radical change in the role of obstacles in intra-Greek warfare.
Given the defensibility of passes against hoplite armies, the mountainous nature of inter-polis borderlands, and the dependence of hoplite armies on roads through rough terrain, blocking roads into the home territory was an obvious defensive strategy. Fourth-century writers on military theory, such as Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle, discussed ways in which the rugged borderlands could best be defended against enemy incursions (Ober 1985a: 75–80). Theory and practice went hand in hand. Passes were now frequently guarded against invaders, often successfully. Athenian light-armed troops prevented a Spartan army from using the cart road through the Kaza Pass in 379 BC, and Boiotian troops held a pass on the Road of the Towers in 376 BC against another Spartan force (Ober 1985a: 204). When Thebes was preparing to invade Laconia after the battle of Leuctra, the Theban soldiers feared that Spartan territory would be difficult to break in to, due to the presence of garrisons (phrourai) at the passes (Xen. Hell. 6.5.24).
The natural difficulty of rough terrain could be enhanced by man-made obstacles. In some cases defenders built field walls and ditches to enclose vulnerable territory.43 The ideal was to keep the enemy out of
the homeland altogether; this might best be achieved by building and garrisoning permanent pass-forts. Early to mid-fourth century BC Greece saw a wave of border fortress building; the archaeological remains of sophisticated fourth-century systems of fortresses and watchtowers have been documented for the territory of Attica and Boiotia; other territories were probably similarly defended.44
Border fortification systems could be very effective in keeping out the enemy. With the exception of an abortive sneak raid by the Spartan Sphodrias in 378 BC, the territory of Attica remained inviolate from 403 to 322 BC, despite Athens' decidedly mixed success in land and sea fights outside of Attica during the same period. With the prevalence of strategies based on defense of fixed positions—whether border fortress, field walls, or central city—the day of the single, decisive battle seemed over. While great and important battles were still fought by fourth-century phalanxes (Koroneia, Leuktra, Mantinea, and Chaeronea) hoplite battle no longer dominated the polis citizen's experience of war.
The roles played by the ordinary Greek warrior were drastically altered and multiplied as the result of the century of revolutionary military change that began with the Peloponnesian war. Many hoplites were forced to go into mercenary service when their local economies were wrecked by the drawn-out indecisive warfare typical of the age (Ober 1985a: 45–50). No longer a citizen-soldier who occasionally fought side by side with his neighbors in defense of home and country, the mercenary was a professional who fought constantly for pay and plunder, beside men of diverse backgrounds, in the service of any one of dozens of city-states, or for the Persian king, an Egyptian dynast, or an ambitious satrap. Even if he fought only as a citizen of his polis, the fourth-century soldier could not be just a hoplite. In the fourth century the Athenians instituted formal weapon-training for their young men. These ephebes were taught to use hoplite equipment indeed, but also how to use javelins and catapults—weapons well suited to the defense of fortified positions (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 42; Ober 1985a: 90–5). The fourth-century Greek soldier faced not only the exertions of the march and terror of phalanx battle, but also the long, dull grind of garrison duty in fortress or isolated watch tower.
By the mid-fourth century BC the military center of gravity of the Greek world had shifted north, to Macedon. Philip II introduced, or adapted, a number of Greek strategic and tactical innovations, many of which were in the area of poliorcetics. His men were expected to
carry their own food and gear, which allowed them to dispense with baggage trains. As a result, Macedonian troops could move fast, and could use paths unsuitable for the baggage-encumbered hoplite army. This maneuverability meant that Philip often arrived at key passes before he was expected; thus, for example, he was able to surprise and destroy a force of mercenaries at Phocian Elatea in 339 BC and set up the decisive battle of Chaeronea.45
Philip was a master of diplomatic chicanery, and sensibly preferred to take strong positions by the use of traitors when possible. But if he had to assault a fortified position, his men were ready to make the attempt. Unlike traditional hoplites, Philip's soldiers were full-time professionals. Unlike mercenaries, they fought beside trusted comrades, for king and country. They had the training, the experience, and the morale necessary to be superb assault troops. Philip's men proved themselves able to take major cities (e.g. Olynthus) by assault. Their success was not just a matter of morale and training, however. The many sling-bullets inscribed with Philip's name found in the archaeological excavations at Olynthus demonstrate that, like the Assyrians before them, the fourth-century Macedonians had learned the usefulness of projectile barrage in siegecraft.46
The problem of overcoming man-made obstacles led to technological advances which resulted in the development of the world's first efficient siege artillery. The non-torsion (crossbow style) catapult was invented in Syracuse in 399 BC, as an assault weapon (D.S. 14.41.4, with Marsden 1969:48–56). But artillery technology was quickly adapted to the purposes of defenders. By the second quarter of the fourth century, fortress towers often incorporated specially designed catapult chambers (Ober 1987a). Catapults could also be adapted for use as field artillery. Philip suffered one of his rare defeats when his army was bombarded by Phocian troops using stone-throwing catapults in 353 BC (Polyaen. 2.38.2, Marsden 1969:59–60).
Catapult artillery was a further threat to the traditions of hoplite battle. The bolts and stones thrown by catapults were deadly at longer ranges than javelins, sling-bullets, and arrows. Now, a man in full armor was defenseless against projectiles hurled from a machine hundreds of yards away, fired by a mere technician. Instead of a few moments of vulnerability to light projectiles during the last stage of the charge (Hanson 1989:31), the hoplite now had to fear absolutely lethal projectiles any time he was within 200 or 300 yards (180 to 270 m) of the enemy force or the enemy wall. Little wonder then, that when the Spartan king Archidamus first saw a catapult demonstrated,
he reportedly cried out in anguish 'Man's valor is no more' (Plut. Mor. 191E, 219A; cf. Garlan 1974:172–3).
By about 340 BC Macedonian military engineers had made a major breakthrough in artillery technology—the development of the torsion (hair- or sinew-
spring) catapult (Marsden 1969:56–62). Torsion catapults were much more powerful than the old non-torsion models. Artillery capable of smashing even well-built stone walls now became a major factor in assaults. This new weapon paved the way for the great siege successes of Alexander the Great and the Diadochoi.47 Few cities could hope to withstand storming by a Macedonian army, but the spectacular resistance of Rhodes to Demetrius Poliorcetes in 305 BC showed that there was still hope for defenders—and that hope led to a long era characterized by long, bloody, sieges. Josephus' description of the Roman siege of Jerusalem in the first century AD, with its graphic scenes of assault, counter-assault, constant artillery barrage, and endless, senseless killing, gives some idea of how urban residents experienced the new style of warfare.
From the late fifth century BC onward, obstacles would play a central part in actual combat, as well as in the stages of conflict before and after battle. The use of obstacles for strategic and operational advantage led to a style of warfare in which open battle was just another tactical ploy in a general's bag of tricks. The urge to fight the decisive battle could never be completely eliminated. Indeed, the improvements in siege techniques provided a practical incentive to the residents of an attacked city to take their chances in the fair field. But the days when an hour's battle could solve conflict between independent states for a year or a generation was past. The long, complex, and ugly western tradition of war as strategy, war as a profession, and war as a technological problem, had begun. With that strategic, professional, technological tradition the seeds were sown of wars that exterminated entire cultures and would come to threaten the extinction of the human race.
Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience Page 27
