Hoplites

by Victor Davis Hanson (Editor)

There are many books on ancient Greek warfare which focus on tactical or strategic problems. This text, however, concentrates on the experiences of the soldiers who did the fighting, not on their generals, nor on logistics, tactics, or strategy, which were, after all, deliberately secondary considerations.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Ancient History, Greece, Ancient, War, Military Fiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1991

About the author

Victor Davis Hanson was educated at the University of California, Santa Cruz (BA, Classics, 1975), the American School of Classical Studies (1978-79) and received his Ph.D. in Classics from Stanford University in 1980. He lives and works with his family on their forty-acre tree and vine farm near Selma, California, where he was born in 1953.

Reviews

[Josho Brouwers · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of essays, edited by Victor Davis Hanson, covers a wide range of topics that any student of Classical Greek warfare will find interesting. Hanson's introduction on the nature of hoplite warfare is remarkably restraint, perhaps the result of his interaction with a number of other authors who each have distinct ideas of their own, not in the least Peter Krentz.

J.K. Anderson provides a useful paper on hoplite weapons and offensive arms, even if it does not contain a great deal of new information. Pamela Vaugh offers an interesting treatment of the identification and retrieval of the dead from the battlefield, a subject that I have never seen treated so fully before. John Lazenby's "The killing zone" focuses on the experience of hoplite battle and, like all such treatments, presents a largely hypothetical treatment of some ideal that is difficult to put to any rigorous test.

Peter Krentz's contribution focuses on the use of the salpinx in battle, another topic that generally receives short shrift in the extant secondary literature. Readers familiar with ancient warfare in general will also appreciate his comments towards the end of his essay, where Greek armies are briefly compared to Roman ones.

Everett Wheeler's essay deals with ancient Greek generals, who usually also fought as part of the army, and typically in the first rank, thus explaining their comparatively high mortality rate. Josiah Ober's contribution deals with how hoplites coped with obstacles on the battlefield: his opening statement points out how "ironic" this perceived mode of fighting was, which always, to my mind, opens up a whole can of worms. Michael Jameson's essay, like those of Vaugn and Krentz, focuses again on a topic that usually receives little attention, namely the sacrifice before battle. A.H. Jackson deals with the dedication of arms and armour to the gods, before Hanson closes the book with a rather overblown essay on how Greek warfare should be studied in future.

All in all, this is a good collection of essays covering a very broad range of topics related to Classical Greek warfare. Hanson is remarkably restraint and the fact that he included authors who have openly criticized his work is the mark of a gentleman. Recommended reading for anyone interested in ancient Greek warfare.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty much anything by Victor Davis Hanson is worth reading.

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of essays with a very specific purpose: to describe the experience of a hoplite in phalanx warfare. From the heavy armor they wore, to the uses of the spear; from the sacrifices and divinations before the battle to the monuments and donations after the battle; from the rosters before going into battle, to the collection of the dead after victory or defeat, from the front row of the phalanx to the rear, each essay covers a very specific aspect of the hoplite battle experience.

It can get a bit dry at times, but the subject matter is exciting, and it rarely strays from what the participants would have considered down-to-earth day-to-day life.

Identification was difficult, not only because the bodies of friend and foe were frequently mingled, but also because corpses were often found stacked in piles, due to the very crush of the initial hoplite confrontation and the subsequent pressure generated by the pushing of the ranks to the rear.

Hoplite battle was very stylized, and couldn’t really survive battles outside of the various Greek city-states.

Hoplites were soldiers of the open plain. Because of their highly specialized equipment and phalanx formation, hoplites could do battle properly only in a wide, clear, flat space that was free of even minor obstacles. Yet as the most casual visitor is immediately aware, the geography of central and southern Greece is not defined by wide open plains, but rather by rugged mountains and deep ravines. The set forms of hoplite battle thus defy geomorphic logic. Common sense suggests that since Greece was a mountainous country, and the Greeks were (sometimes) rational men, the citizens of the city-states should have developed the arms, armor, and tactics suitable to mountain warfare. Yet, for most of the Classical Period, they failed to do so.

Once even the Greeks gave up on meeting on flat plains at pre-arranged times, siege battles, mountain fighting, and long-term warfare started to take over and single or short-term phalanx battles ended.

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… Passes were now frequently guarded against invaders, often successfully… 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 bolts and stones thrown by catapults were deadly at longer ranges than javelins, sling-bullets, and arrows.

This would be a very useful book for anyone attempting to recreate phalanx-style warfare in a roleplaying game. It’s also a fun read, and despite the dryness, easy: each essay can be read on its own, in any order, and are generally short.

As Tyrtaios says, ‘It’s easy to pierce the back of a fleeing man.’

[John Warren · Rating 5 out of 5]

very good bunch essays from different authors on all aspects of hoplite experiences, my favorite one was the section on sacrifices

[Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though many focus on the people, strategy, and logistics of warfare, there was a long period where the human element was to often ignored. This began to change in the second half of the 20th century and this is one of the books to help credit that. Especially for ancient warfare, where the first hand accounts are slimmer than we'd like. So much has to come from the conjecture of large periods of times and the work of many different area's of expertise. The look at the hoplite warrior and what both their experience and reasons for fighting, who they were, etc. is important and enlightening work.

A collection of works is always variable. This is that, with each section written by someone else. I thought the first third wasn't particularly engrossing but after VDH's section I thought it got much better and more engaging. I highly recommend to anyone just interested in the warfare aspect of the most well known bronze age people (to the West at least).