Socrates "But try to state what I ask, namely, what courage is."

Laches "Good heavens, Socrates, there is no difficulty about that: if a man is willing to remain at his post and to defend himself against the enemy without running away, then you may rest assured that he is a man of courage." [1]

It was inevitable that the nature of hoplite battle would become an important question in classical historiography, because the very commonness of the experience leads to the greatest difficulties in arriving at an answer. For the ancient sources, battle was, if not quite common, certainly not uncommon and explanations of its rhythms and features were considered an unnecessary exercise. The ancient reader who was interested in such things was expected to have experienced them first hand, for those who could not the truly important details were those which highlighted the unusual: a clever ploy here, the rationale for a defeat there, or even just a recounting of an individual's exceptional performance. The audience and purposes of Tyrtaios and Thucydides differed, but neither writer had cause to explain the minute details of the engagement.

For the historian of the Classical period, however, such an almost instinctive understanding is impossible. Not only have fighting methods changed dramatically over the last 3 millennia, but historical attitudes have shifted as well. The Thucydidean emphasis on politics and strategy has been replaced, to a great degree, first by a disregard for conflict as an important historical phenomenon in its entirety, and then by an emphasis upon the experience of war as a social catalyst. The later view rests to a great degree on the work of John Keegan, whose work `The Face of Battle" set the standard by which later histories of the battle experience are judged. Though Keegan himself did not write on the Classical Greek battle, his work was the inspiration for Victor Hanson's "The Western Way of War."

In `The Western Way of War," Hanson self-consciously set out to apply Keegan's paradigm to the Greek experience, following Keegan's methods of discussing the arms, equipment, training and mental state of the soldier prior to the battle, as well as attempting to describe the events of the battle itself. In doing so, he explicitly rejects previous scholarship in the field:

"We must ask ourselves what the hoplites in the phalanx were faced with, for they are the key to our understanding ancient Greek warfare. Because of the peculiar nature of the classical Greek society `battle' rather than `war' may be the only apt description of conflict between city-states. Classical scholars, with their long university training in philology and limited exposure to, or affinity with, veterans of infantry combat, have neglected this view and have misinterpreted the spirit and, most importantly, the lesson of classical Greek military history--the nature of which we have always felt we have understood so well." [2]

Despite making use of this relatively new paradigm (or, better, a new organization of the traditional battle narrative) Hanson, in fact, follows the "orthodox" view of the hoplite battle, as expressed by earlier writers such as Pritchett or Adcock. [3] Hanson portrays hoplite battle as brutal, but brief, and on this common assumption, rests the crux of his argument. [4] Drawing on his earlier work concerning the actual danger enemy troops posed to crops and orchards, [5] Hanson depicts hoplite warfare as an elaborate, large scale example of the ritual duel designed to settle differences between poleis with a minimum of bloodshed and agricultural disruption. This view of hoplite warfare is necessary for his major hypothesis to achieve relevance.

Hanson did not simply borrow Keegan's methodology, he accepted his conclusions concerning the importance of the "decisive battle" to western society. Building on this conclusion, Hanson set out to show that this fascination with the decisive battle was descended from the hoplite battle and its emphasis on a short, brutal, but deciding engagement. He drapes conclusions concerning this hypothesis throughout the work, while representing the orthodox view of the nature of hoplite battle within Keegan's paradigm. [6]

For Hanson, the briefness of the battle is its important characteristic, for he presents Hoplite warfare as a diversion (an often materially unnecessary diversion) from the hoplite's primary role as a gentleman farmer. Battle in ancient Greece was joined to "...preserve their pride and the sanctity - rather than the viability - of their ancestral plots..." [7]

The relative difficulty of destroying agricultural capacity with ancient technology renders specious arguments which present warfare as an economic or political defensive action, in Hanson's paradigm. Warfare in this context is a ritualistic cleansing of the invader from the land, a passage of manhood into a community. This ritualistic factor forces the battle into the phalanx method, a grand, communal experience, when other forms of warfare, such as skirmishing bands or waiting the enemy out, might actually have served to defend the endangered territory more efficiently.

W. R. Connor's work supports Hanson's views on the ritual nature of Greek warfare, drawing careful parallels between the patterns of battle and the patterns of sacrifice. [8] This helps explain, according to Connor, the connection between hoplite service and citizenship, and shows that "...warfare was in large part a way of representing and validating social relationships within and between poleis..." [9]

Other form of warfare would be dominated by social groups normally outside the hoplite class, and to employ those methods to defeat an enemy would have posed the very real danger of a backlash within the poleis own social structure. Connor's argument is strengthened by his narrow focus on the Fifth and Sixth centuries.

As the hoplite system mutates, Connor is able to point to a corresponding shift in the political and social character of the citystates. Correspondence does not always equal causation, but the political and social changes that accompany the end of the Fifth century would certainly have had some mark on methods of warfare employed and Connor is right to point it out. Compare the quote from Euripides (with which Connor closes his article) with the values of earlier hoplite warfare:

Your spearsman is the slave of his weapons; Unless his comrades in the ranks fight well, ...he dies, killed by their cowardice;

And once his spear, his sole defense, is smashed, He has no means of warding death away.

But the man whose hands know how to aim the bow, Holds the one best weapon: a thousand arrows shot, He still has more to guard himself from death. he stands far off, shooting at foes who see Only the wound the unseen arrow plows, While he himself, his body unexposed, Lies screened and safe. This is the best in war: to preserve yourself and to hurt your foe" [10]

In opposition to the view of ritualized hoplite warfare, stands A.J. Holladay, who argues that the early aristocracy would not have expanded the military role, and thus political enfranchisement, to the wealthy commoners if it were not necessary. [11]

While admitting that the methods and styles of hoplite warfare were sympathetic with the poleis political system, he rejects the view that the survival of the hoplite system was based solely on political and social considerations, regardless of military realities. Drawing on many Fourth Century examples, Holladay attempts to establish that the hoplite must have been superior to the light armed peltast, because even after peltasts are shown to be effective their use does not become commonplace.

Where Connor would argue this is a result of the traditional, selfprotective values of the empowered hoplite class, Holladay sees it as a reaction to cold, military reality. Athens serves as his benchmark. Holladay points out that the Athenian hoplite class was often unable to overcome the political power of the thetes, yet Athens remained wedded to the hoplite as the primary arm of land warfare. Mercenary light troops were employed, and under certain conditions, the oarsmen of the fleet were used ashore as well, yet Athens never took the seemingly logical step of reverting to a completely, or even primarily, light armed military. Had the light armed troops been seen as the arm of the future, Holladay argues that Athens would have been one of the first to make such a switch, because the realities of naval warfare had already empowered the non-hoplite classes, and thus eliminated any possible social problems. In brief, Holladay sees the hoplite classes of the various cities as too divided to preserve the hoplite's role in a sort of collective, class interest which crossed state boundaries. Any possible social problems involved in making use of light armed troops would have been overruled had they presented a viable military advantage.

The first part of Holladay's article addresses a different problem, one presented by G. L. Cawkwell in "Philip of Macedon." If hoplite warfare is viewed as ritualistic, preserved more for its social and political roles then its military utility, then the inconsistencies that we find within many of the ancient accounts can be passed off as cultural anomalies. If, however, it is instead viewed as a militarily viable, even superior, method for dealing with the common military problems faced by the ancient city-state, then the particulars of the hoplite experience become important for an understanding any military advantage it might present.

A central point in this questions is the importance, and length, of the othismos, or mass push. The mass shove appears as the critical moment in too many battle accounts to be ignored, yet many, if not most battles appear to have lasted far longer than it can be reasonably accepted that a phalanx could have sustained such a push. Most scholars agree that the shove was merely the culminating point of the battle, and that something else occurred early on, a less intensive conflict which allowed the men of the phalanx to maintain their positions for quite an extended period. But how long did this period last and what did it entail?

For this, Holladay does not present an answer. Instead, he merely responds to Cawkwell's controversial concept of an open, responsive phalanx which allowed men to enter and leave it to engage in personal, one to one fighting. Holladay's criticisms have much validity, Cawkwell's model would have placed the phalanx in danger of a surprise othismos whenever the troops opened to allow such movement. The ancient sources do not describe this happening, though they often describe the dangers of being caught out of formation on the march by a formed opponent. Had Cawkwell's formation been so common as to be unremarked on by the ancient sources (something possible, if unlikely) then surely a general would have attempted to take advantage of this moment.

Cawkwell's reply to Holladay's criticism is rather unconvincing. [12] His careful renditions of sources which describe this opening of the formation are for the most part from the Hellenic period, after Phillip's reforms had tightened the phalanx and generalship had emerged as of distinctive importance in warfare. Acute generalship would have been needed to avoid the pitfalls of expanding and decreasing formation spaces in the face of the enemy, as the enemy might profit from such changes even by mere accident.

Cawkwell's solution might remain problematic, but his perception that a problem persists does not. The relative mobility of the hoplite in battle and the importance of the "shove" are both problems which relate directly to the hoplite's military effectiveness. The importance of the problem is recognized by Peter Krentz, who presents a solution to the problem (unlike Holladay) which is more convincing then Cawkwell's expanding formation. [13] Taking a close look at the use of the noun othismos and the verb otheo in both Homer and the later Greek writers, Krentz points out what should have been obvious to anyone familiar with battle narratives of any sort: The figurative use of words like "push" to describe forcing the enemy to give ground. Just as describing Patton's "push to the Rhine" does not indicate an actual man to man shoving match between opposing troops, Krentz argues that the rear ranks were unlikely to have often placed their shields in their comrades' backs and shoved forward. Such a shove would have quickly smashed everyone involved, notably those in the front ranks. Essentially, he agrees with Cawkwell that hoplite battles were a collection of individual combats, but he perceives the spaces in the formation as smaller, and thus not as susceptible to the dangers of an othismos , which was still a possible danger.

These individual combats were made possible by the type of training a hoplite received. He points out that the passage in Laches which is often used as evidence against training in arms for hoplites actually refers to training in "novelty weapons" (like a spear-scythe for naval battles) and doesn't rule out training in the more traditional arms. [14]

The importance of dance in religious worship and cultural activities can only have helped the relative stability of the hoplite formation. Stabbing with a spear while protecting oneself with a shield is for the most part an instinctive activity, against those with a similar amount of skill the most dangerous aspect of such a fight would be staying out of the way of the man to the left and the right in the battle array.

The spear motions would involve a great deal of thrusting, but regardless of the amount of room available, a spear cannot attain the sort of finesse and sweeping motion one might associate with sword duel. By illustrating that Cawkwell's formation was unnecessarily open, Krentz retains the important point, that the phalanx battle was more then simply a rugby scrum of thousands. If one accepts Krentz's model, the question of the phalanx's relative advantage over other forms of military organization remains.

The answer to this can be found, perhaps unintentionally, in Phyllis Culham's article on the role of chaos theory in battle. [15] Culham argues that the determining factor in battle is the relative levels of entropy and coherence in the two opposing sides. "Panic, paneia , destroyed order and produced entropy. This was what all the training, indoctrination, and initiation which created these systems were meant to prevent even in the face of leaders' errors." [16]

The hoplite phalanx was uniquely capable of withstanding these stresses, as Hanson illustrates in The Western Way of War the familial and cultural ties which bound the phalanx were exceedingly strong, much stronger in many ways then the corresponding ties in light armed forces.

Much has been made of the tendency to place the bravest men at the front and rear of the phalanx, trapping those most likely to break where retreat and disintegration was most difficult. Light armed troops by their very nature were required to consistently retreat, and then again advance. The individual was under the eyes of his fellows and superiors to a lesser degree and thus able to avoid danger more often.

It is not a coincidence that the phalanx system began to disintegrate just as the political system with which it coexisted began to decline. The lessening of community spirit in the city-state led to an increase in the entropy of the phalanx. When this reached a certain point (or was increased by terrain or logistical factors), it exceeded the entropy of the light armed troops and disaster resulted. The hoplite phalanx survived as a military institution only as long as its supporting social institutions provided the means to overcome entropy more successfully than its rivals. Once this point was reached no amount of political or cultural ritualization could have preserved it.

Bibliography