Greek and Macedonian Land Battles of the 4th Century BC

by Fred Eugene Ray Jr

  The Corinthian Gate at Phlius (366 B.c.)

  In 367 Epaminondas and the Thebans returned to the Peloponnese. They persuaded the Argives to seize the passage past Cenchreae on the Isthmus of Corinth and swept past the Spartan blockade with no difficulty. This was to prove a much less extensive campaign than those in the past, with the main accomplishment being Epaminondas' pressuring of the Achaeans, who had previously stayed neutral, to join Thebes' cause and set up a democratic government. However, this was to go sour after the Thebans returned to Boeotia and the newly established Achaean democracy was overthrown as the region joined in alliance with the Spartans. The Arcadians now found themselves caught between Sparta below and Achaea above as the campaign season came to a close.

  There was no invasion the next spring, but the Theban commander of the garrison at Sicyon led a march on Phlius with his own troops as well as a force of mercenaries under Euphron from Sicyon plus men from Pellene and some Sicyonian citizens. The size of this armament isn't detailed, but there may have been 1,000 hoplites from Thebes, 500-1,000 (up to a two-thirds muster) from Sicyon and another 400-600 (one lochos) from Pellene with the mercenaries adding in around 2,000 peltasts. Reaching Phlius, the invaders split into two teams, the Thebans moving out onto the lowland on one side of the city to spoil crops and the rest taking position on a hill near the gate to Corinth (see Pritchett [1969, 96-1111 for a discussion of the topography). Observing these dispositions and that the men on the hill were starting to descend toward the plain, the Phliasians sent out their cavalry and picked hoplites (300-400) against them. Xenophon's account (Hellenica 7.2.11-14) goes on to describe a lengthy duel at long distance between the light-armed men, with one side and then the other moving up and back in an attempt to enjoy ground or cover favorable to their own capabilities. The peltasts eventually became separated from their hoplites and Phlius' cavalry jumped ahead of its companions on foot to strike the now unsupported spearmen. At first, the hoplites held their ground and the riders fell back a bit; however, once some of the Phliasians' own spearmen came up into the fight, the Pelleneans and Sicyonians were routed, with many of the former and a few of the latter killed at the scene or in flight. All this took place before the Thebans could come across to help their allies or the mercenaries could get back into the action. With dark falling, the Phliasians were left to hold the field and set up a trophy before retiring into the city.

  Major shifts in the political situation developed as 366 wore on and the Arcadians decided to form a limited alliance with Athens that called for the latter to aid them if attacked, but not requiring action against Sparta. Corinth responded by ending its own partnership with the Athenians and opening peace talks with Thebes. All of this led to ever wider negotiations and a general armistice was eventually agreed upon that put an end for a while to the conflict in the Peloponnese (what Diodorus termed the Sparto-Boeotian War [15.76.31).

  Datames' Revolt

  Persian affairs at this time were also in a state of turmoil as a number of Artaxerxes' satraps sought to establish their own kingdoms in armed revolts. Their weapon of choice in these endeavors more often than not was the Greek mercenary. However, the imperial armies their hired fighters now faced had a more effective design that reflected Grecian models.

  Persian Phalanxes

  Accounts of the army of Darius III (Arrian 2.8.8; Plutarch vol. II, Alexander, 153; Justin 11.6.2) claim that the host of late-mid 4th century Persia had 600,000 foot soldiers. Probably an exaggeration by an order of magnitude, it's more likely that the imperial roster contained six divisions (baivaraba or myriads) of front-line troops at an authorized complement of 10,000 men each for a total of 60,000. (There was perhaps an equal number of supporting satrapal levies theoretically available, since Xenophon's fictional account of Cyrus the Great indicates that a 120,000-man total might have been rumored in the early-mid 4th century when he wrote that work.) These "regular" units drew recruits to fill out a host as needed from select military colonists settled at key defensive sites. But in reality, the reported baivarabam strengths were no more than "paper" numbers, since most of these divisions were not standing entities and the manpower they actually took into the field varied downward greatly (regularly running from 80 percent of allotments down to 60 percent or even as low as 30 percent). The same held true for cavalry normally organized in nominal 1,000-man regiments (hazaraba). Mounted potential might have come to no more than one hazarabam of horsemen per four hazaraba of infantry, 30 regiments including satrapal bodies for 30,000 riders at establishment strength in line with a claim for Darius in 334 by Callisthenes via Polybios (12.18.1). However, as most of these horsemen were locally derived, availability must have varied greatly as frequent episodes of internal unrest cut off recruiting areas. Having put aside the bow, Persian horsemen now depended on javelins and had added a few pieces of light armor. Overall, however, the form and function of Persia's cavalry in the 4th century was much as it had been since the days of Cyrus the Great in the 6th. It was among the empire's foot soldiers where things had changed.

  The Persians had not given up on their past "combined arms" approach to warfare and continued to field infantry units with an organic mix of shock and missile troops. All the same, combat gear had undergone some major evolution since the early 5th century. The system in those days featured a few men with short spears and large wicker shields (spara) fronting for shieldless bow/spearmen and pure archers in the following ranks. This method had come to grief whenever hoplites were able to breach the leading shield wall and get at those behind, which finally led to better protecting men in the after-ranks through provision of a small shield (taka). Based on images of ethnic Persian light infantry in later years, diversification of weaponry then followed, with peltast/light spearmen replacing at least a portion of the bow-armed troops within combat arrays. These might have rendered obsolete the former custom of relying exclusively on drafts of light-armed militiamen from the satrapies for attached duties like forward skirmishing, close support of cavalry, screening the rear/flanks and pursuit. Nevertheless, local levies of slingers, light bowmen, peltasts and the like were still around and must have remained the dominant battlefield auxiliaries as well as prime tools for detached assignments like scouting and foraging.

  Evolutionary trends among the rearward ranks eventually spread to front-liners as well. Adding aspis-style shields to their spears, these came to resemble hoplites (some even adopting linen cuirasses) and thus provided Persian formations with a stouter, more shock-capable leading edge. (Excellent representations of this type of "Persian hoplite" appear on the famous Alexander Sarcophagus, showing them in action against that renowned Macedonian hero in the 330s). Such transfiguration of the old shield wall into a sort of "mini-phalanx" likely reached its peak with filing of these improved lead fighters at a greater depth. Just how deep is speculative, but we might have a clue in the residual terminology retained by later Greek tacticians for countermarching, the various maneuvers used to reverse the facing of phalanx formations (Asclepiodotus 10.13-15). Both the "Laconian" countermarch (exeligmos Lakonikos per the Spartan evolution at Cornea II in 394) and the "Macedonian" countermarch (exeligmos Makedonikos) achieved this reversal of front by transforming arrays into mirror images along each rank (the most rightward man becoming the most leftward) and reversing the file order front to back as well (save for the rearmost man in the Laconian maneuver and the foremost in the Macedonian). For these, the entire formation needed to consist of like-armed heavy infantrymen (as was the case in both Doric and Macedonian phalanxes). However, the "Persian" countermarch (exeligmos Persikos) seems to have applied to arrays of mixed troop types, since, though similarly exchanging wings, it was also designed to keep its front-rankers to the fore and rear-rankers behind. It did this by having these two groups maneuver in separate halves (those at the rear reversing their file order and the rest then following suit to again take post in the lead). This not only maintained optimum positioning with respect to function
for the differing troop types (heavy-armed in front and missilemen in the rear), but also suggests that these categories might well have been equal in manpower. Possibly derived from actual Persian practice, the terminology suggests those stacking into a standard imperial formation ten men deep could have consisted of five hoplite-armed troopers at the head of each file followed by some mix of peltast/spearmen and taka-equipped archer/spearmen rearward. The reformed warriors making up this arrangement (both light and heavy) were "kardakes"-kardaka in Persian. (Strabo's claim that "kardaka" came from karda or "warrior spirit" appears sound, though Head [1992, 42-43] has suggested otherwise.)

  It seems that the foregoing changes might have come to maturity some time after 372 under Datames, satrap of Cappadocia (Sekunda 1992, 27). This general had come forward to take command of the Greek and Persian troops that had gathered a few years earlier to retake Egypt. Iphicrates of Athens had gone home by this point, but his uniquely retooled Greek phalanx seems to have remained. Thus, we can see Datames' upgrading of Persian contingents into kardakes as a logical attempt to supply his Iphicratean legion with a more capable battlefield partner.

  Datames was particularly well suited for such a task. Carian by birth and upbringing, he was undoubtedly very familiar with hoplite warfare, that being the dominant combat style of his mixed barbarian/Greek homeland. At the same time, he had served as an "Immortal" in the Great King's bodyguard and was thus equally acquainted with Persian methods of shock fighting. Datames, as it turned out, would never lead the army he designed into battle. Political pressure caused him to abandon his imperial post and return to Cappadocia by no later than early 369. There, he would use Greek mercenaries, likely some of the very men that Iphicrates had reequipped, to fight against his own kardakes.

  Cappadocian Narrows (c. 367 B.c.) and the Cilician Gate (c. 361 B.c.)

  Datames was in revolt within a year of leaving the Egyptian campaign and Artaxerxes sent an army against him. Manpower is extremely difficult to judge in this conflict, but we know that Datames had left Egypt "with his own men" (Nepos 14.5.6) and that the core of his infantry consisted of 20,000 mercenaries (Diodorus 15.91.2). The latter was precisely the number assigned by Diodorus to Iphicrates' legion (15.41.1). It's quite possible therefore that some or all of these members of his former command had joined him then or since in Cappadocia. If so, these could have broken down into 10,000 hoplites, 5,000 pikemen and 5,000 foot skirmishers if Iphicrates had adjusted an original 50/50 split to a more shock-capable mix featuring only 25 percent light-armed men. Datames also had a powerful mounted contingent. This could have been 5,000 strong on the basis of a 4 to 1 ratio with his foot soldiers.

  As for Datames' foes, Nepos' account provides numbers that are huge beyond any practical possibility. More likely, we're talking here about four imperial baivaraba of infantry at around 80 percent of nominal strength. This would be 32,000 footmen at most. These imperial infantrymen would have been kardakes with half outfitted as hoplite-style spearmen in the front ranks and the rest being missilemen for the rear. Nepos claimed there was a wide array of provincials present as well. Most of these would have been skirmishers (though Nepos mistakenly put them separate from "an enormous number of light-armed troops"). His figures for these in total run about half the count for the kardakes (51,000 versus 100,000). This would put them at some 16,000 if that ratio is applied to the smaller force proposed here. Mounted support perhaps came to 8,000 riders (ten hazaraba) at quarter the manpower of the core kardakes footmen. The resulting host, though much reduced from Nepos, would still have outnumbered Datames by better than 2 to 1 in line infantry, 3 to 1 in auxiliary infantry and 60 percent in the rebel's reputed strong suit of cavalry.

  Datames moved to take up a stout defensive position upon learning that the Persian army was approaching. He moved too late, however, to occupy his first choice, the slender valleyentry into Cappadocia known as the Cilician Gate. Instead, he took up a stance behind this in other tight passages. He waged a series of linked actions there that served to keep his foes at bay. Much as Sparta's Leonidas had done to Xerxes in the pass at Thermopylae in 480, Datames used his superior Greek heavy infantry to bar these later day Persians by always fighting "in some narrow defile" (Nepos). It was a serial battle in which he negated mobility factors and superior numbers on restricted ground to win every component engagement. Nepos claimed that Datames lost around 1,000 men (4 percent of his army), yet took out much more among his enemies (we can reasonably project their losses in the range of 10-15 percent).

  In time, the Persians had to negotiate a truce and withdraw in order to address an uprising of greater concern that had broken out elsewhere. Indeed, before long the entire eastern coastal belt of the empire was in turmoil with one satrap after another going into revolt. Datames was thus able to maintain his independence over the next several years as Artaxerxes' focus lay in a variety of other areas across his troubled realm. However, when imperial forces began gaining the upper hand in the late 460s, Datames was again faced with a royal army closing on Cappadocia, Artaxerxes' nephew Artabazus having command. And this time the rebel satrap found himself forced to fight a battle on the plain in front of the Cilician Gate when his father-in-law Mithrobarzanes, who commanded his cavalry, deserted at night with most of his troopers. Leading out the mercenary infantry and whoever remained loyal among his horsemen, Datames abandoned his defensive stance inside the Gate and gave chase. He found the traitors just as they were about to join Artabazus' vanguard (maybe no more than a single baivarabam of kardakes with light infantry and mounted support).

  Attacking perhaps just as dawn was breaking, Datames caught the wayward cavalry in a crossfire between his own forces and those of the Persians, who thought in all the confusion that Mithrobarzanes had turned coat again. Most of the betraying horsemen ended up being killed by one side or the other while dealing out a fair amount of harm themselves (Diodorus claimed a dubious 10,000 casualties on the day across the board [15.91.51). Yet there seems to have actually been little interaction between the contending footmen on either side, allowing Datames to disengage and draw back inside his strong position within the Cilician Gate. There, he sat tight to once more block entry into his kingdom. We have no details on what the Persians tried to do that was different in the ensuing campaign, but whatever it was, they proved no more successful in cracking Datames' defenses than before and eventually retreated. Before long, however, the Great King would have all of his Asian holdings back under control. The last of the rebels to hold out, Datames himself would fall to an assassin in 359 without every having tasted defeat in the field.

  Lost Leaders: Elis, Arcadia and Thessaly

  The long Sparto-Boeotian conflict might have been resolved, but Thebes still had issues to settle by means of arms on its northern frontier. And bloodshed continued in the Peloponnese as well, with a dispute between former anti-Spartan allies Elis and Arcadia now leading them to war on each other and drag other poleis into the fight. Worst of all, Theban ambitions in the south were not yet satisfied and Epaminondas would lead one last crusade against the Spartans and their friends.

  Lasion, Elis-Cyllene and Cromnus (365 B.c.)

  A new round of trouble hit the Peloponnese as the Eleans seized Lasion. This town had in the past been within their authority, but formed part of Arcadias holdings in more recent years. The enraged Arcadians responded by sending out an army to descend from a hill onto the Eleans camped nearby this bone of contention. The Elean party was composed of 700 hoplites from two elite contingents (the "Three Hundred" and the "Four Hundred"). Xenophon claimed (Hellenica 7.4.13) that these troops were outnumbered "many times" by the force moving down on them, suggesting the presence ofArcadia's entire standing army of 5,000 spearmen (the eparitoi). The badly outmanned Eleans had little chance and (if they even formed up) broke from the fight almost immediately. Their only escape route, however, lay over rough ground and the opposition's light infantry (probably over a thousand strong) easily overwhelmed any s
creen they could have had (there were surely less than 200 Elean skirmishers). The result was a slaughter among the fleeing men. Diodorus put Elis' dead at 200 (15.77.3), a devastating loss of nearly 30 percent of its very best spearmen.

  The Arcadians went on to spoil the countryside before leaving and returned for another round of pillaging when the Eleans elected to join causes with Arcadias foes at Sparta in the aftermath of the disaster at Lasion. However, after the raiders came back for yet a third pass at ravaging Elean territory, a force from the capital marched on their encampment between there and Cyllene on the northwest coast. The scope of this engagement is unclear, but Elis committed its horsemen and had a spartiate advisor, suggesting that it might have involved much of the polis' surviving army, maybe 2,000-3,000 spearmen with light infantry support. Regardless, the Arcadians, perhaps once more fielding 5,000 hoplites, carried the action (probably pushing through a phalanx filed at only about half their depth) and killed the Spartan along with what might have been another 100-150 of the Eleans.