New Perspectives on Ancient Warfare

New Perspectives on Ancient Warfare

History of Warfare Editors

Kelly DeVries Loyola College in Maryland

John France University of Wales Swansea

Michael S. Neiberg University of Southern Mississippi

Frederick Schneid High Point University

VOLUME 59

New Perspectives on Ancient Warfare Edited by

Garrett G. Fagan Matthew Trundle

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2010

Cover illustration: Detail of an Assyian relief depicting the siege of Lachish by King Sennacherib in 701 BCE. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data New perspectives on ancient warfare / edited by Garrett G. Fagan, Matthew Trundle. p. cm. -- (History of warfare, ISSN 1385-7827) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-18598-2 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Military art and science-History--To 500. 2. Military history, Ancient. I. Fagan, Garrett G., 1963- II. Trundle, Matthew, 1965- III. Title. IV. Series. U29.N48 2010 355.0209'01--dc22 2010015188

ISSN 1385-7827 ISBN 978 90 04 18598 2 Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS Acknowledgements .....................................................................................vii Abbreviations ................................................................................................ix List of Illustrations .......................................................................................xi Introduction ................................................................................................... 1 1. Weapons, Technological Determinism, and Ancient Warfare.......21 Fernando Echeverría Rey 2. Chariotry to Cavalry: Developments in the Early First Millennium ..................................................................................57 Robin Archer 3. “I Fell upon Him like a Furious Arrow”: Toward a Reconstruction of the Assyrian Tactical System ...........................81 Garrett G. Fagan 4. All the King’s Horse: In Search of Achaemenid Persian Cavalry...................................................................................101 Christopher Tuplin 5. A Cup by Douris and the Battle of Marathon ................................183 Peter Krentz 6. “Those Who Sail Are to Receive a Wage”: Naval Warfare and Finance in Archaic Eretria ........................................................205 Hans van Wees 7. Coinage and the Transformation of Greek Warfare ......................227 Matthew Trundle 8. The Carthaginian Navy: Questions and Assumptions ..................253 Louis Rawlings 9. Phalanges In Rome?...........................................................................289 Nathan Rosenstein

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10. Caesar and the Helvetians .................................................................305 David Potter Bibliography ...............................................................................................331 Index ...........................................................................................................359

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank the original members of the AIA/APA Joint Panel, held in San Diego in January 2007, that stands at the root of this book: Hans van Wees, Peter Krentz, David Potter, and Nathan Rosenstein. Thanks also to the AIA and APA for providing us with a venue, and to the audience for their input into the discussion. Our gratitude goes to the Dean and Research Committee of the Faculty of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Victoria University of Wellington for financial support of this project. Prof. Art Pomeroy provided valuable input on the Roman side, Prof. Gonzalo Rubio assisted with Assyrian matters, and Joe Sheppard and Tania Hayes helped format the manuscript and compile the index. Thanks also to the editors at Brill, especially Marcella Mulder, Julian Deahl, and Hylke Faber, who displayed exemplary patience in waiting for the completed manuscript.

ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviations for ancient authors and works follow those of the OCD3; those for journals follow the AJA stylesheet or, where that is failing, L’Année Philologique. Otherwise, the following abbreviations are used. CHGRW

CHW JMH SPW

The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare, 2 vols. Ed. P. Sabin, H. van Wees and M. Whitby. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007. The Cambridge History of Warfare, ed. G. Parker. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005. Journal of Military History The Second Punic War: A Reappraisal, eds. T. J. Cornell, B. Rankov and P. Sabin. London: Univ. of London, 1996.

Sigla for Achaemenid royal inscriptions (DB, DNa, DNb, DPd, DSp) follow the convention established by R.G.Kent, Old Persian (second ed., New Haven 1953). Other abbreviations used include the following: AD AHw ARV2 BMC BE

CAD CANE CDA

G. R. Driver, Aramaic Documents (Oxford 1957). W. von Soden, Akkadisches Handwörterbuch (Wiesbaden 1965–1981). J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase Painters (Oxford 1963). British Museum Catalogue of Coins. The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania BE 9 = H. V. Hiprecht & A. T. Clay, Business Documents of the Murashu Sons of Nippur dated in the reign of Artaxerxes I (Philadelphia 1898). BE 10 = A. T. Clay, Business Documents of the Murashu Sons of Nippur dated in the reign of Darius II (Philadelphia 1904). Chicago Assyrian Dictionary J. M. Sasson (ed.), Civilizations of the Ancient Near East (New York, 1995). J. Black et al., Concise Dictionary of Akkadian (Wiesbaden 2000).

x CT Dar.

DS Fort.

LBAT

NN

PBS

PF PFa PFAT PTS SNG TADE TL

VS

abbreviations Cuneiform Texts in the British Museum. Texts in J. Strassmaier, Inschriften von Darius, König von Babylon (521–485) (Leipzig, 1897). (Transcriptions and summaries of these texts are available at www.achemenet.com) Siglum for Dascylium sealings: Kaptan 2002. Prefix for numbers of transcribed but unpublished tablets from the Persepolis Fortification archive currently in Tehran. A.Sachs and H.Hunger, Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia I Diaries from 652 bc to 262 bc (Vienna 1988) Prefix for numbers of transcribed but unpublished tablets from the Persepolis Fortification archive currently in Chicago. Publications of the Babylonian Section (University Museum, Pennsylvania). PBS 2/1 = A. T. Clay, Business Documents of the Murashu Sons of Nippur dated in the reign of Darius II (Philadelphia, 1912). Siglum for Persepolis Fortification texts in Hallock 1969. Siglum for Persepolis Fortification texts in Hallock 1978. Siglum for Aramaic texts from the Persepolis Fortification archive. Siglum for Persepolis Treasury seals: Schmidt 1957. Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum. B. Porten and A. Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Egypt I–IV (Jerusalem, 1986–1999). Tituli Lyciae: E. Kalinka, Tituli Asiae Minoris I (Vienna 1901). The texts are reproduced in J. Friedrich, Kleinasiatische Sprachdenkmäler (Berlin 1932): 52–89. Vorderasiatische Sprachdenkmäler der königlichen Museen zu Berlin. (German translations are available in M.San Nicolò and A.Ungnad, Neubabylonische Rechts- und Verwaltungsurkunden [Leipzig 1935]).

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Chapter 3 Fagan Fig. 1:

Chariot charge from Northwest Palace at Nimrud, ca. 865–860 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

Fig. 2:

Heavy war chariot from North Palace at Nineveh, ca. 645–635 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

Fig. 3:

Early two-horse cavalry team, Northwest Palace at Nimrud, ca. 865–860 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

Fig. 4: Assyrian lancers from Southwest Palace at Nineveh, ca. 700 bc. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission. Fig. 5: Ranks of uniformly equipped infantry on the “War Side” of the Royal Standard of Ur, ca. 2500 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission. Fig. 6: Assyrian spearmen from North Palace at Nineveh, ca. 645–635 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission. Fig. 7: Missile troops from siege of Lachish, Southwest Palace at Nineveh, ca. 700 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission. Fig. 8:

Slinger from reliefs of the siege of Lachish alongside comparable finds of Assyrian military equipment (including slingshots from Lachish itself) that correspond precisely with the carved image. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission. Upper right: Assyrian iron helmet from Northwest Palace, Nimrud. 8th century bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission. Centre right: Bronze scale armor, 9th–7th century bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission. Lower right: Slingshots from Lachish. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

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Fig. 9: Siege scene from Northwest Palace at Nimrud, ca. 865–860 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission. Fig. 10: Assault on an Egyptian fortress, North Palace at Nineveh, ca. 668–667 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission. Fig. 11: Siege of Lachish, Southwest Palace at Nineveh. Captives emerge from the gatehouse of the city. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission. Fig. 12: Destruction of Arab camp under Assurbanipal, from North Palace at Nineveh, 645–635 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission. Fig. 13: Archer-spearman team from the Arab campaign of Assurbanipal, North Palace at Nineveh, 645–635 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission. Fig. 14: Battle of Til-Tuba, Southwest Palace at Nineveh, 663–653 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission. Fig. 15: Archer-spearman team from Battle of Til-Tuba, Southwest Palace at Nineveh, 663–653 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission. Fig. 16: Charge of Assyrians at Battle of Til-Tuba, Southwest Palace at Nineveh, 663–653 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission. Fig. 17: Assyrian troops in formation drive fugitives toward a fortified position, Southwest Palace at Nineveh, ca. 700 bce. Drawing from A.H Layard, The Monuments of Nineveh (1853). Chapter 5 Krentz Fig. 1:

Interior of a cup attributed to Douris (Hartwig). Baltimore (MD), Johns Hopkins University B8= Beazley ARV2 1569 = Beazley Archive Database 205260. After Paul Hartwig, Die griechischen Meisterschalen der Blüthezeit des strengen rothfigurigen Stiles (Stuttgart: W. Spemann, 1893), pl. 22,2.

Fig. 2: Interior of a cup attributed to Onesimos (D. Williams) or to the Proto-Panaetian Group (Hartwig). London, British Museum

list of illustrations

xiii

E45 = ARV2 316.8, 1645 = Beazley Archive Database 203248. After Paul Hartwig, Die griechischen Meisterschalen der Blüthezeit des strengen rothfigurigen Stiles (Stuttgart: W. Spemann, 1893), pl. 13,1. Fig. 3: Psykter attributed to Myson (von Bothmer). Rome, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco Vaticano 35389 = ARV2 238, 242.77 = Beazley Archive Database 202178. Photo Vatican Museums. Fig. 4: Cup attributed to Apollodoros (D. Williams) or the Pedieus Painter (von Bothmer). Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe 1983.277 = Beazley Archive Database 1558. Photograph courtesy of the museum. Fig. 5: Detail of side B of a krater attributed to Euphronios (Furtwängler). Arezzo, Museo Nazionale Archeologico 1465 = ARV2 15.6, 1619 = Beazley Archive Database 200068. After A. Furtwängler and K. Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei (Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1904–32), pl. 62. Fig. 6: Side B of a cup attributed to the Triptolemos Painter (Beazley). Edinburgh 1887.213 = Beazley ARV2 364.46 = Beazley Archive Database 203838. After Paul Hartwig, Die griechischen Meisterschalen der Blüthezeit des strengen rothfigurigen Stiles (Stuttgart: W. Spemann, 1893), pl. 55. Fig. 7: Drawings of a cup attributed to the Painter of the Paris Gigantomachy (Beazley). New York 1980.11.21 = ARV2 417.4 = Beazley Archive Database 204549. After Eduard Gerhard, Auserlesene griechische vasenbilder, hauptsächlich etruskischen Fundorts, vol. 3 (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1840–1858), pl. 166. Fig. 8: Fragment of a red-figure plate from the Acropolis. After Botho Graef and Ernst Langlotz, Die Antiken Vasen von der Akropolis zu Athen, vol. 2 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1933), no. 14. Fig. 9: Interior of a cup attributed to Onesimos (Beazley) or the Antiphon Painter (D. Williams). Orvieto 65 = ARV2 1595 = Beazley Archive Database 203387. Drawing by J. D. Beazley, courtesy of the Beazley Archive.

INTRODUCTION Garrett G. Fagan and Matthew Trundle War was central to ancient societies, as it is arguably to all societies. It is a basic means by which individuals and communities assert their dominance or defend their interests. War is an extreme moment in the life of any community, and participation in war is an extreme moment in the life of any individual. For ancient communities, failure in battle might lead to humiliation or deprivation at best, to enslavement or annihilation at worst. Success meant anything from survival to expansion, comfort and wealth. Small wonder that Athenian radical democrats never made the tribal generalship (strategeia) subject to the serendipitous lottery rotation that applied to other political posts. In the ancient world, war was the ultimate demonstration of state power, coercion, and cohesion. Organized violence was a phenomenon that united communities and consumed their resources like no other. One need look no further than ancient literature to gauge the centrality of war to ancient societies.1 The Ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian corpora are liberally garnished with material focused on war and its effects: royal inscriptions extolling military virtues as manifested in successful campaigns, enemies humiliated, and loot pillaged.2 The hero of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom tale The Story of Sinuhe makes a living in exile as a mercenary and warleader. His is a world where war and prowess at arms are a shortcut to respect and riches, even among foreign peoples.3 The first great work of western literature, Homer’s Iliad, sang of 1 For a recent survey of warfare in classical literature, see S. Hornblower, “Warfare in Ancient Literature: The Paradox of War,” in Sabin et al., CHGRW, 1.22–53. 2 For early Mesopotamia, see, e.g., J.S. Cooper, Reconstructing History from Ancient Inscriptions: The Lagash-Umma Border Conflict (Malibu: Undena Publications, 1983); W.J. Hamblin, Warfare in the Ancient Near East to 1600 bc: Holy Warriors at the Dawn of History (London: Routlege, 2006). For some war-related Egyptian texts, see J.B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969, 3rd ed.), 227–28 (Asiatic Campaign of Pepi I), 230 (Inscription of Khu-Sebek), 232–33 (War against the Hyksos), 234–41 (Aiatic Campaigns of Thuthmose III), 199–203 (Egyptian-Hittite treaty after Kadesh), 255–58 (Asiatic campaigns of Ramses II), 262–63 (War against the Sea Peoples). 3 For The Story of Sinuhe (dated to ca. 1875 bce ), see M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings (Berkeley: Univ. of Calfornia Press, 1973), 1.223–35 (= Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts [n. 2], 18–22).

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war and warriors, and warfare featured also in its Mesopotamian antecedent, the Epic of Gilgamesh. In the Greek Archaic Age, several poets sang war poetry, such as Tyrtaeus urging seventh-century Spartans into battle, or Alcaeus’ praise for his brother’s military deeds in the east, or even Archilochus’ parodies of contemporary military values.4 Hybrias of Crete wrote how sword and spear made him master over others, and fed him wine and bread (Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 15.695). Early thinkers saw war as king of all (Heraclitus Fr. 53), while Plato all but considered war as natural (Republic 373d). Even in that philosopher’s perfect society, trained military forces were essential protection from the deprivations of neighbours, and necessary to acquire resources from others. The first Greek historians (Herodotus and Thucydides) focused on wars, and the tragedians drew extensively from the Trojan War or other conflicts (such as the Seven Against Thebes) for their subject matter. The only historically themed Greek tragedy to survive antiquity, Aeschylus’ Persians, is set in the wake of the Battle of Salamis in 480 bce. In Greece, war, thought, and literature went hand in hand. The situation in Rome was little different. The first great national epic, The Annals of Ennius, centered on the First Punic War while its Augustan counterpart, Virgil’s Aeneid, was rooted in the Trojan War and the second half of the poem charts the supposed conquest of Italian lands by its eponymous hero. The earliest historians, such as Fabius Maximus, chronicled Rome’s military exploits, as did the majority of the more extant authors, such as Polybius or Livy. As in literature, so in art and architecture. Early Mesopotamian monuments can celebrate war and warfare, notably the Royal Standard of Ur, the Stele of the Vultures from Girsu, or the Victory Stele of Naram-Sin.5 Some of the great monuments of ancient Egypt are festooned with celebrations of pharaoh’s leadership in war, notably the several representations and accounts of the Battle of Kadesh by Ramses II.6 The Assyrians 4 Tyrtaeus Fragment 10.21–5, 11.14; Alcaeus Fragment 350 L-P; Archilochus Fragment 5. 5 On the Standard of Ur and the Stele of the Vultures, see Fagan (this volume, chapter 3). For the Victory Stele of Naram-Sin, see D. Bänder, Die Siegesstele des Naramsîn und ihre Stellung in Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte (Idstein: Schulz-Kirchner, 1995). 6 See, e.g., A.H. Gardiner, The Kadesh Inscriptions of Ramesses II (Oxford: Griffith Institute, 1960); H.H. Hayden et al., Reliefs and Inscriptions at Karnak, 4 vols (Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1936); W.J. Murnane, The Road to Kadesh: A Historical Interpretation of the Battle Reliefs of King Sety I at Karnak (Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1985); A.J. Spalinger, “Historical Observations on the Military Reliefs of Abu Simbel, and Other Ramesside Temples in Nubia,” JEA 66 (1980): 83–99.

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decorated their palaces and stele with reliefs dominated by unflinching depictions of warfare and its attendant violence.7 The great buildings on the Acropolis of imperial Athens were largely financed by war and tribute exacted from “allies” under threat of violence, while the panhellenic sanctuaries were crammed with all sorts of war memorials and dedications of weapons and armor captured from defeated foes (most of them fellow Greeks).8 Republican Rome, of which so little survives for us to inspect, featured a large number of “victory temples,” that is, temples erected in fulfillment of a formal vow by returning victorious generals.9 The public spaces of the Imperial capital were practically a paean to warfare, with vast monuments constructed from war booty and/or celebrating various (successful) campaigns.10 Warfare shaped the ancient polity as well. Sumerian cities early instituted a leader – termed a lugal – who appears to have been primarily a military commander (though the details remain obscure). Between the Old and New Kingdoms the role of the Egyptian Pharaoh evolved from god-king to that of war leader. In the Assyrian period, the King was first and foremost the commander of the “people of Assur,” as Assyrian inscriptions dub the royal army, which ransacked its way from southern Anatolia to Egypt. Judging from their heavily fortified citadels and the personal arsenals they were buried with, the rulers of the Bronze Age Mycenaean kingdoms in mainland Greece were more than familiar with combat. Homer, indeed, explicitly connects legitimate leadership with

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See, e.g., J.E. Reade, “The Neo-Assyrian Court and Army: Evidence from the Sculptures,” Iraq 34 (1972): 87–112; idem, Assyrian Sculpture (London: British Museum, 1998, 2nd edn); D. Ussishkin, The Conquest of Lachish by Sennacherib (Tel Aviv : Tel Aviv Univ., Institute of Archaeology, 1982); Fagan (this volume, chapter 3). 8 See, e.g., D. Boedecker and K. Raaflaub (eds), Democracy, Empire, and the Arts in Fifth-Century Athens (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1998); J.G. Pedley, Sanctuaries and the Sacred in the Ancient Greek World (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005); E. Jarva, Archaiologia on Archaic Greek Body Armour (Rovaniemi: PohjoisSuomen Historiallinen Yhdistys, 1995); R. Storch, “The Archaic Greek Phalanx, 750–650 bc,” AHB 12 (1998): 1–7. 9 Note the examples in the Largo Argentina in the Campus Martius, or those behind the Capitol along the Via del Teatro di Marcello. 10 Prominent examples include the Colosseum, built (as the original inscription reveals) with loot from the Jewish War of 66–70 ce, or the Forum of Trajan, built with Dacian war booty. Indeed, so many buildings and monuments celebrated war that a comprehensive catalogue is here impossible; but note A.K. Bowman et al. (eds), Representations of Empire: Rome and Mediterranean World (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002); J. Coulston, “ ‘Armed and Belted Men’: The Soldiery in Imperial Rome,” J. Coulston and H. Dodge, Ancient Rome: The Archaeology of the Eternal City (Oxford: Oxford Univ. School of Archeaology, 2000), 76–118, esp. 91–97.

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martial prowess, as embodied in Agamemnon, whose rather shaky control over the diverse Greek expeditionary force is rooted in the size of the armed contingent he commands, as well as his personal fighting abilities (Il. 2.569–80). As one Lycian comments, “Not without fame (kleos), the men who rule Lycia, / these kings of ours who eat fat cuts of lamb / and drink sweet wine, the finest stock we have. / But they owe it all to their own fighting strength – / our great men of war, they lead our way in battle!” (Il. 12.318–21; trans. Fagles). Such sentiments died hard. Homeric martial values suffused later Greek culture, so that warfare was virtually constant among the Greek city-states, at least of the mainland. Rarely in the annals of human history has so much war been fought by so many over so little. Herodotus documents the almost comical casus belli between Athens and Aegina over ownership of wooden statues of two obscure deities (Hdt. 5.82–89), though the religious feelings clearly ran deep. Later, Corinth would go to war with her colony Corcyra over what would be termed in gangster circles a matter of “respect” – Corcyra refused to show the expected level of deference to the mother city (Thuc. 1.24–55). This sad fracas, it turned out, proved to be one of the sparks that ignited the catastrophic Peloponnesian War, which engulfed the majority of Greek city-states in the late fifth century bce. The internal arrangements of the polis were also shaped by war. By 500 bce, statehood at Sparta was wholly oriented to warfare and preparations for it, and even democratic (and imperial) Athens engaged in vast military adventures (notably, and disastrously, to Egypt and then to Sicily) and was led by elected officials called “the generals” (hoi strategoi). War and warfare indelibly shaped the Roman Republic’s political practices from those earliest times in which consuls, praetors, and dictators were the state’s military leaders down to such later innovations as prorogation (the extension of command within a defined area to ensure continuity in campaigning) or the special commands of Sulla, Pompey, or Caesar that were eventually to form the basis of the emperors’ “constitutional” position.11 While the emperors were multi-faceted political creatures, it was essential for them to strike the pose of commander-in-chief, since so much of their power rested on the continuing support of the legions. No better illustrations of this fact can be found than the (apparently ludicrous) campaigns of the militarily 11 The first prorogation of imperium (power of military command) took place in 296 bce when the consuls for the previous year had their commands extended specifically to continue their field operations during the Third Samnite War; see Livy 10.16.1.

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inexperienced Caligula in Germany in 39–40 ce, or the spectacular, if somewhat unnecessary invasion of Britain by the bookish and previously sequestered Claudius within two years of his unexpected elevation in January 41 ce. Even emperors as temperamentally unsuited to military life as Marcus Aurelius felt compelled to take to the field in person, should the situation appear to demand it (Marcus was to die of plague in camp). Modern students of antiquity share their ancient subjects’ fascination with warfare. University courses on ancient military matters are increasingly popular amongst students, as suggested by the appearance of sourcebooks for Greek, Roman, and Late Antique warfare.12 Worth noting also is the series of books on specific ancient armies and campaigns produced by Osprey Publishing, amply illustrated with fine details about dress and equipment, set against broad historical overviews. Warfare has its own compendia in the increasing numbers of series produced by academic publishing houses.13 An impressive array of more focused books and articles on ancient military studies has been published in recent years by professional academics and non-professional authors alike, which amply attests to the broad appeal of the topic.14 The focuses 12 M. Sage, Warfare in Ancient Greece: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 1996); B. Campbell, The Roman Army 31 bc–ad 337 (London: Routledge, 1994); idem, Greek and Roman Military Writers: Selected Readings (London: Routledge, 2004); G. Greatrex and S.N.C. Lieu, The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars: A Narrative Sourcebook. Part 2, ad 363–63 (London: Routledge, 2002). 13 E. Wheeler recently edited The Armies of Classical Greece for Ashgate, alongside 2007’s The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare ed. P. Sabin et al. Note also L. Tritle and B. Campbell’s forthcoming The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World, not to mention articles on military subjects in similar companions to the classical Greek and Roman worlds. See also P.. Erdkamp (ed.), A Companion to the Roman Army (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007). 14 A comprehensive bibliography would be impossible to cite here, but for some more recent general book-length surveys in English, see, e.g., S. Anglim et al., Fighting Techniques of the Ancient World, 3000 bc–ad 500: Equipment, Combat Skills, and Tactics (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002); C.I. Archer, World History of Warfare (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2002); J. Carman, and A. Harding (eds). Ancient Warfare: Archaeological Perspectives (Stroud: Sutton, 1999); D. Featherstone, Warriors and Warfare in Ancient and Medieval Times (London: Constable, 1997); R.A. Gabriel, The Great Armies of Antiquity (Westport: Praeger, 2002); A. Goldsworthy, The Complete Roman Army (London: Thames and Hudson, 2003); P.B. Kern, Ancient Siege Warfare (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1999); J.E. Lendon, Soldiers & Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2005); A.B. Lloyd and C. Gilliver (eds), Battle in Antiquity (London: Duckworth in association with the Classical Press of Wales, 1996); A. Mayor, Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World (London: Overlook Press, 2003); J.D. Montagu, Battles of the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Chronological

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of such work have varied considerably, from the traditional concern with campaign strategy, battle tactics, and logistics to more recent musings on the experience of battle for the rank-and-filer or the place of war in ancient sociopolitical or value systems.15 Traditional historians concerned themselves with great men, and in antiquity almost all great men were military men. But war, battles, and generals, once so dominant in the field of classics and ancient history, gave ground to fresher, newer, and broader approaches, which eventually eclipsed the older concerns. Anthropologists, sociologists, and economists theorized about war and society. Historians and classicists adopted and adapted their approaches. Social and economic concerns broadened the classical curriculum as heightened awareness of class, status, and gender permeated classical studies.16 Battles and wars were sidelined to antiquarians, wargamers, recreationists, and “enthusiasts.” But the same processes that called for a broader and deeper understanding of the ancient world ultimately recalled military studies to the stage, as prosecuting war came to be recognized as one of humanity’s most fundamental activities.17 War and society became a focus in itself.18 In the end, the exile of warfare from Compendium of 667 Battles to 31 bc, from the Historians of the Ancient World (Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 2000); M.S. Neiberg, Warfare in World History (London: Routledge, 2001); G. Parker (ed.), The Cambridge Illustrated History of Warfare (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995); K. Raaflaub (ed.), War and Peace in the Ancient World (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007); Sabin et al., CHGRW; H. van Wees (ed.), War and Violence in Ancient Greece (London: Duckworth, 2000). 15 For recent reviews of the modern literature on Greek and Roman warfare, see V.D. Hanson, “The Status of Ancient Military History: Traditional Work, Recent Research, and On-Going Controversies,” JMH 63 (1999): 379–414; id., “The Modern Historiography of Ancient Warfare,” in Sabin et al., CHGRW, 1.3–21. 16 See, e.g., Z. Bahrani, The Rituals of War: The Body and Violence in Mesopotamia (New York: Zone Books, 2008); C.R. Chapman, The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite-Assyrian Encounter (Winona Lake: Eisenbraums, 2005); P. Loman, “No Woman No War: Women’s Participation in Ancient Greek Warfare,” G&R 51 (2004): 34–54; H. Van Wees, Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities (London: Duckworth, 2004); S.E. Phang, The Marriage of Roman Soldiers (13 bc–ad 235): Law and Family in the Imperial Army (Leiden: Brill, 2001). 17 On the origins of war, see, e.g., J. Guilaine and J. Zammit, The Origins of War: Violence in Prehistory, translated by M. Hersey (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005); L.H. Keeley, War Before Civilization (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996), esp. 3–58; R.C. Kelly, Warless Societies and the Origin of War (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 2000); K.F. Otterbein, How War Began (College Station: Texas A&M Univ. Press, 2004). 18 Most notably K. Raaflaub and N. Rosenstein (eds), War and Society in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds (Cambridge, MA; Harvard Univ. Press, 1999); K. Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1979); J. Rich and G. Shipley (eds), War and Society in the Greek World (London: Routledge, 1993); idem, War and Society in the Roman World (London: Routledge, 1993). Such new approaches are embodied in recent works such as P. Southern, The Roman Army: A Social and Institutional

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the academic curriculum was short-lived. The centrality of warfare to human societies made that inevitable. Important work has been published on warfare in the Ancient Near East and Egypt. The fascinating dossier of documents and monuments charting the dispute between the Early Dynastic III Sumerian polities of Umma and Lagash over a disputed patch of borderland called the Gu’edena has been subjected to full-scale analysis.19 Already in these, the earliest surviving records of state-level warfare avaiable to us, an impressive military establishment is discernible – uniformly equipped troops, war leaders, and proto-chariots (usually dubbed “war carts”) pulled by onagers, as well as an admixture of threats, ultimata, diplomacy, treaties, and set-piece battles. None of this is likely to have appeared overnight, which pushes the roots of such behaviors back into the large chiefdoms of the Late Neolithic. The military foundations of the first empire, that of Sargon of Akkad (or Agade) have also received some attention, although the evidence is poor.20 The relative isolation of Old Kingdom Egypt, it used to be argued, engendered a peaceable state ideology at the dawn of Egyptian history, but this view has been seriously questioned: isolation can breed ethnocentricity, which is one of the longstanding motivations for going to war. The earliest Pharaohs certainly established their rule through conquest. The Narmer-palette depicts the first Pharaoh smiting enemies with a mace. His immediate successor, Aha (“Fighter”), bears a name associable with war and violence. Old Kingdom pharaohs, in fact, regarded foreigners as “vile” agents of chaos and sent expeditions into the lands of the “Asiatics who dwell upon the sand.” These expeditions were not peaceful.21 The Middle and New Kingdom polities fell and rose in warfare against the Hyksos, which transformed the pharaoh into a military commander and Egypt into an imperial state, as manifested most clearly in the campaigns of Thutmosis III and Ramses the Great History (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006). A study such as M. Beard’s The Roman Triumph (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 2007) uses the occasion of a military victory parade to explore a variety of social practices and values. 19 Cooper, Reconstructing History (n. 2). On warfare in this era in general, see Hamblin, Warfare in the Ancient Near East (n. 2). Note also J.M. Sasson, The Military Establishments at Mari (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1969). 20 B. Foster, “The Sargonic Victory Stele from Telloh,” Iraq 47 (1995): 15–30; M. Liverani, Akkad: The First World Empire (Padua: Sargon, 1993). 21 A.M. Gnirs, “Ancient Egypt,” in Raaflaub and Rosenstein, War and Society (n. 18), 71–104. On Egyptian warfare in general, see now A.J. Spalinger, War in Ancient Egypt: The New Kingdom (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), which updates the still useful but largely outdated Y. Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands in the Light of Archaeological Study, 2 vols (London: McGraw-Hill, 1963).

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into Syria-Palestine.22 These operations provide us with some of our earliest extant battle narratives – for the battles of Megiddo and Qadesh respectively – even if close scrutiny reveals the accounts to be patchy, partisan, and partial. The main rivals of the New Kingdom Egyptians, the Hittites of Anatolia, were themselves formidable warriors.23 Later still, the neo-Assyrian Empire dominated the Ancient Near East for almost four centuries down to 612 bce. This era marks a peak in warfare conducted by large, centralized kingdoms. The Assyrian Royal Army was a fearsome fighting machine, in both open field engagements and in sieges, the latter an aspect of warfare mastered by the Assyrians like none before them and few after. If the Assyrians have left us abundant records, the opposite is true of their military descendants, the Achaemenid Persians. Attested mostly by their Greek opponents, who soundly and repeatedly beat them, it is easy to make pejorative judgments about Persian martial prowess. Such judgments would be sorely mistaken. The creation and maintenance of a land empire of the size and duration of the Persian Empire was the work of a formidable military establishment, even if the details of it remain obscure. Work in deepening our understanding all aspects of Ancient Near Eastern warfare is ongoing. In the field of Greek military studies, the work of W.K. Pritchett sits astride the old world of antiquarianism and the analytical one of classical scholarship, ideas, and theories. His monumental five volume series The Greek State at War brings all the force of classical philology to bear on a series of related subjects. The first of these volumes, under the title Ancient Greek Military Practices, appeared in 1971. War and society came together in that decade. The mid-seventies saw the appearance of John Keegan’s influential The Face of Battle, which gave birth to numerous scions in ancient scholarship. The novelty of Keegan’s approach was to shift the traditional view of battle from the general’s eye to the soldier’s, to plunk the reader down on the contested battlefield so as to appreciate how thousands of individual decisions – Stay or flee? Go forward or retreat? Hold ground or pull back? – contributed to a battle’s outcome as much as, if not more than, a commander’s strategic or tactical vision. Victor Davis Hanson’s groundbreaking The Western Way of War 22

M. Healy, Qadesh 1300 bc: Clash of the Warrior Kings (Botley: Osprey, 1993); D.B. Redford, The Wars in Syria and Palestine of Thutmose III (Leiden: Brill, 2003). 23 See, e.g., R.H. Beal, The Organization of the Hittite Military (Heidelberg: Heidelberger Universitätsverlag, 1992).

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appeared some time thereafter. Like Keegan, Hanson’s idea (p. xv) was to evoke the “environment of [the] battle experience,” and so to get at what conditions confronted the Greek soldier in combat. The integration of Greek war and society was born.24 Greek warfare, like other aspects of military life in antiquity, has enjoyed a particular renaissance recently. The principal scholars of Greek warfare offer a rich and varied array of information about every aspect of the Greek military. Traditionally, it was thought that warfare changed over time. Homer’s (and therefore Dark Age) heroes fought as individuals in loose or non-existent formations, which over time lost their individuality and some for their status with the introduction of the hoplite and the associated tightly packed phalanx. Today there is some consensus around the idea that Homer presented massed band warfare, with a heroic gloss, and that there was much continuity from one era to another regarding participation on the battlefields of Greece.25 Crucial in the debate about classical Greek warfare is the introduction and nature of hoplite warfare.26 By the fifth century hoplites fought in their own contingents with the light and auxiliary troops pushed to the wings as skirmishers and flank protection. This may not have been the case in earlier periods. Homer (e.g. Iliad, 13.126–34) and Tyrtaeus (Frag. 11.35–38) present massed bands of troops with all manner of equipment fighting side-by-side. Current thinking has pushed the date of an exclusive hoplite phalanx much later than previously thought, to 24 Also influential were R. Ridley, “The Hoplite as Citizen,” Antiquité Classique 48 (1979): 508–48; J. Salmon, “Political Hoplites,” JHS 97 (1977): 84–101. 25 The work of J. Latacz, Kampfparänese, Kampfdarstellung, und Kampfwirklichkeit in der Ilias, bei Kallinos und Tyrtaios (Munich: Beck, 1977) pioneered the idea of massed band warfare in Homer. On early Greek warfare see P.A.L. Greenhalgh, Early Greek Warfare: Horsemen and Chariots in the Homeric and Archaic Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1973); A.M. Snodgrass, Early Greek Armour and Weapons from the End of the Bronze Age to 600 bc (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1964); H. van Wees, “Leaders of Men? Military Organisation in the Iliad,” CQ 36 (1986): 285–303; idem, “The Homeric Way of War and the Hoplite Phalanx,” G&R 41 (1994): 1–18. 26 This issue has generated a long bibliography. Most recently E. Wheeler and B. Strauss, “Battle,” in Sabin et al., CHGRW, 1.186–247 and a good overview in van Wees Greek Warfare (n. 16) on the Archaic (166–183) and Classical phalanx (184–197). A select bobliography includes P. Cartledge, “Hoplites and Heroes,” JHS 97 (1977): 11–28; A. J. Holladay, “Hoplites and Heresies,” JHS 102 (1982): 94–104; P. Krentz, “The Nature of Hoplite Battle,” CQ 4 (1985): 50–61; idem, “Fighting by the Rules: The Invention of the Hoplite Agôn,” Hesperia 71 (2002): 23–39; H. L. Lorimer, “The Hoplite Phalanx with Special Reference to the Poems of Archilochus and Tyrtaeus,” ABSA 42 (1947): 76–138; Salmon, “Political Hoplites” (n. 24); A. M. Snodgrass, Arms and Armour of the Greeks (London: Thames and Hudson, 1967); idem, “The Hoplite Reform and History,” JHS 85 (1965): 110–122; M. Trundle, “The Spartan Revolution,” War and Society (2001): 1–18.

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the period just after the Persian wars.27 Hoplite warfare itself remains enigmatic. Traditionalists see it as a central part of Greek war and society, while challengers suggest the central role of other troop-types, though their role on the battlefield is usually hidden by the sources.28 Ideologically the hoplites were central to Greek ideals about society and the nature of the warrior as a citizen and a land-holder, but the realities of warfare required all in the polis to fight. How hoplites fought also remains problematic. The massed push (othismos) of the phalanx and how that worked still ignites debate.29 So too are the changes that occurred in the later fifth and early fourth century. The transformations of citizen-soldiers into professionals and specialists (if they had not been there already) and the increased redundance of the hoplite in battle had been seen as a process that began with the Peloponnesian War.30 Now the influence of naval warfare, itself the subject of increasing attention (see below), and the addition of archers, slingers, peltasts, and cavalry challenge the views that hoplites were in reality a central part of classical Greek warfare and that there ever was a golden age of chivalrous battles between like-minded middle stratum hoplite-farmers that became corrupted by changes to war and society in the fifth century. There never was a “good old days.” The wars of Philip, Alexander and his successors are rightly seen within this context of continuity rather than outright change and fall within the wider world of society and economy, in the embrace of which they developed.31 Recent years have seen much progress in the holistic approach to warfare, building on the work of earlier scholars, who themselves tried to see warfare in its social and economic context.32 Van Wees attempted to do for Greek warfare what others have done for both other societies and 27

Van Wees, Greek Warfare (n. 16), 166–97. The work of Victor Davis Hanson championed hoplite-centric position; his work includes Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece (Pisa: Giardini, 1983); The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1989, 2nd edn); The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Roots of Western Civilisation (New York: Free Press, 1995), challenged now by the work of van Wees and Krentz. 29 See van Wees, Greek Warfare (n. 16), 188–191. 30 Hanson’s chapter entitled “Hoplites as Dinosaurs” in The Other Greeks (n. 28) implies this transformation. The rise of professionals and mercenaries are surveyed in M. Trundle, Greek Mercenaries from the Late Archaic Age to Alexander (London: Routledge, 2004). 31 This is a central theme of van Wees’ Greek Warfare (n. 16), especially 115–17. 32 For example the works of Hanson, Western Way of War (n. 28); idem (ed.), Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience (London: Routledge, 1991); idem, The Other Greeks (n. 28) or French thinkers like J.-P. Vernant, “City State Warfare,” in idem, Myth and 28

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modern warfare, and so set Greek warfare into the bigger picture.33 Only books aimed at more general audiences had previously done this.34 In the wake of van Wees’ work comes Louis Rawlings The Ancient Greeks at War, in which he seeks to discuss Greek warfare in broad terms and find themes of continuity.35 Chaniotis has done the same thing for Hellenistic warfare,36 and Roman warmaking has undergone similar treatment (see below). Finally, Lendon’s ambitious Soldiers and Ghosts attempts to subject the entire business of Greco-Roman battle to a single analysis.37 Lendon’s thesis looks at change in classical warfare through the prism of emulation of the past, charting the spell cast by Homer’s epics or other warrior traditions over later generations down to Late Antiquity. Increasing awareness of the inter-relationships of peoples in the ancient Mediterranean has meant that we can no longer think of the Greeks and Romans as cultural isolates, as worlds unto themselves. The peoples of the East, the Egyptians, the Assyrians and Persians, to name but a few, interacted with and influenced the Greeks (and vice versa) in a wide variety of ways. For modern scholars, tracing the interaction between the classical world and the older centers of civilization in the Near East and Egypt has been a slow process. The 1990s saw a proliferation studies of identity, and subsequent work has elucidated more clearly the degrees by which Greeks and Persians interacted.38 In particular, military service between east and west, particularly amongst aristocrats, has been closely scrutinized, as has the power and influence of the Persians over the Greeks in the fifth and fourth centuries bce.39

Society (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1979), 29–54 who problematized the army as the city and vice versa. See also Rich and Shipley, War and Society in the Greek World (n. 18). 33 Van Wees, Greek Warfare (n. 16). 34 P. Connolly, Greece and Rome at War (London: Macdonald, 1981); J. Warry, Warfare in the Classical World (London: Salamander, 1980); P. Ducrey, Guerre et Guerriers dans la Grece antique (Hachette: Pluriel, 1999). 35 L. Rawlings, The Ancient Greeks at War (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 2007). 36 A. Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005). 37 Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts (n. 14). 38 P. Cartledge, The Greeks; A Portrait of Self and Others (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1993); J.M. Hall, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997); L. Mitchell, Greeks Bearing Gifts (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997); M. Miller Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century bc (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997) are all good illustrations, though we ought not forget the earlier work of S.W. Hirsch, The Friendship of the Barbarians: Xenophon and the Persian Empire (Hanover, N.H.: Univ. Press of New England, 1985). 39 G. Herman, Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987); Trundle, Greek Mercenaries (n. 30).

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These trends combine with the notion of war’s relation to society or social trends to deconstruct the barriers between the old classical world and the world to the East. The editors of the present volume believe it is important to incorporate the Near East into this project, as the influence of critical developments there has often been overlooked by students of classical warfare (although some scholars have stressed its importance).40 Many years ago Jan Best proposed that Thracian peltasts had exerted great influence over the Macedonian military system.41 Similarly, the Persian invasions taught the Greeks much about campaign warfare, and the Near Eastern world clearly exerted much influence over the military systems of later Greeks and subsequently the Romans of the Later Roman Empire.42 The Near East provides the basis for a great deal of continuity amidst the changing world of the ancient Mediterranean. It was also the cradle of many of the ideas that proliferated across the ancient world, adopted, and adapted by competing powers. Another significant aspect of ancient warfare, and one where eastwest cross-fertilization is seen to be at work, was the power of navies. Greece is a coastal environment. Understanding ancient navies now plays a crucial part in understanding ancient warfare. Thucydides thought naval power and money were new to his time, yet even he saw Aegean thalassocracy as an ancient goal, stretching back to the time of Minos of Crete (Thuc. 1.3–19). Thucydides (1.13.3) placed the first naval battle of which he knew between the Corinthians and Corcyraeans 260 years before his time at the turn of the eighth century. Assyrian kings boasted of plucking Ionians from their ships. Unfortunately the evidence prohibits understanding the steps taken from single-banked “fifties” (pentekonteres) to two banker biremes (diêrês). Recent work links the development of the trireme in the late sixth century to a series of changes in the eastern Mediterranean, and with it the development of large-scale

40

See, e.g., D. Dawson, The First Armies (London: Cassell, 2001); R. Drews, The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe of 1200 bc (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1993); idem, Early Riders: The Beginnings of Mounted Warfare in Asia and Europe (London: Routledge, 2004). 41 J. Best, Thracian Peltasts and their Influence on Greek Warfare (Groningen: WoltersNoordhoff, 1969). 42 Note, for instance, the use of heavily armored cavalry (clibanarii or cataphracti) and horse archers by Later Roman armies, both adopted from Parthian and Sassanid military practices; see, e.g., A.D. Lee, War in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007); H. Elton, Warfare in Roman Europe ad 350–425 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996); M.J. Nicasie, The Twilight of the Empire: The Roman Army from the Reign of Diocletian until the Battle of Adrianople (Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben, 1998).

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naval actions. Reconstruction of the ships of the ancients plays an important part in understanding warfare.43 In addition to the role that naval warfare played in the unfolding of power relations between states in the Mediterranean, like the victory of the Greeks over the Persians in the Persian Wars, the rise of the Athenian naval empire (archê) and then of the Persian-backed Spartans over Athens in the Peloponnesian Wars at the end of the fifth century, naval warfare reflects the coalescence of the Athenian democratic polis and the socio-economic development of a civic and monetized state. Recent studies have revealed the complexity of the Athenian navy as a sociological, logistical, and financial organization.44 The successful maintenance of a large force of triremes engaged the entire spectrum of Athenian society, from hugely wealthy commanders (trierarchoi), to skilled, well-paid, but lower-class helmsmen and deckhands (hyperiesai), to mid-stratum hoplites on deck, and down to the below-deck oarsmen, divided between thetes of higher and lesser status in the upper two banks and rented slaves at the bottom. The logistical infrastructure behind the fleet was itself something of a wonder, as Gabrielsen’s work on the fourth century Athenian navy well illustrates.45 Roman warfare, like that of the Greek cities, has attracted considerable attention from modern scholars. The Romans were products of a central Italian context and drew on influences from a variety of sources, notably the lightly armed highland Italian tribes, the Celts of the north, the Greeks to the south, and the neighboring, heavily hellenized, Etruscans. The state of early Roman warfare remains enigmatic.46 Our sources, Livy to the fore, were themselves aware of the lacunae in the evidence for this early period (1.praef.6–8). Roman tradition remembered early privately-raised aristocratic warbands, notably the 300 celeres

43 See, e.g., J.S. Morrison and J.F. Coates (eds), An Athenian Trireme Reconstructed: The British Sea Trials of Olympias, 1987 (Oxford: BAR, 1989); J.S. Morrison et al., The Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000, 2nd edn), esp. 1–49. 44 For references and summary see van Wees, Greek Warfare (n. 16), 199–235. 45 V. Gabrielsen, Financing the Athenian Fleet: Public Taxation and Social Relations (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1994). J. Morrison et al., The Athenian Trireme (n. 43). 46 E. Rawson, “The Literary Sources for the pre-Marian Army,” PBSR 39 (1971), 13–31 (= ead., Roman Culture and Society [Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1991], 34–57). Peter Connolly (Greece and Rome at War [London: Greenhill, 1998, 2nd edn], 86–207) and Nicholas Sekunda (Early Roman Armies, [London: Osprey Books, 1995]) provide overviews of Italian and Roman Republican warmaking.

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reputedly maintained by Romulus or the famed massacre by the Veientes of a private force raised by the Fabii to defend Cremera.47 Roman arms and armor emerged out of this Italian potpourri, so that later Roman commanders had no hesitation in adopting and adapting formations, weapons, and equipment from their enemies. The distinctive equipment of the Roman legionary came mostly from “foreign” sources: the large shield (scutum) probably emerged in an Italo-Celtic context, and chain mail along with it; the barbed javelin (pilum) has a connection with similar weapons in the western Mediterranean, such as the Spanish iron shaft called the saunion; the classic Roman short sword (gladius) was almost certainly Celtic, but some uncertainty remains as to its direct origins; even the Roman style plumed helmet with hefty cheek-pieces appears adapted from Gallic prototypes. In military matters, as in so much else, the Romans were quick studies from what other peoples had found worked well. In contrast to the shadowy armies of the sixth to fourth centuries bce, the Republican army of the third and second centuries has enjoyed much attention. This is in part due to much improved evidence, in particular the work of Polybius and his descriptions of Roman military systems (e.g., Pol. 6.19–42, 18.28–32) or Livy (8.8) on the mode of legionary battle. This Roman army was also the force that defeated the successors of Alexander and the legendary Macedonian phalanx, which fact alone merits close scrutiny. Consonant with the face-of-battle approach in Greek studies, work has been done reconstructing Roman legionary battle mechanics and the soldiers’ experience of combat.48 The wars of this period, the period of transmarine expansion, have also been subjects of a great deal of work, as has the motivation that lay behind them.49

47 Livy 1.15.8 (celeres) and 2.48–50 (Fabii). This ancient practice likely stands behind the later capacity of local squires like Cn. Pompeius to raise private armies from their estates (Plut. Pomp. 6). 48 Note, e.g., G. Daly, Cannae: The Experience of Battle in the Second Punic War (London; Routledge, 2002); C.M. Gilliver, “Battle,” in Sabin et al., CHGRW, 2.122–57; A.D. Lee, “Morale and the Roman Experience of Battle,” in Lloyd and Gilliver, Battle (n. 14), 199–217; Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts (n. 14), 163–232; P. Sabin, “The Mechanics of Battle in the Second Punic War,” in The Second Punic War: A Re-Appraisal, ed. T.J. Cornell et al. (London: BICS Supplement 67, 1996), 59–79; idem, “The Face of Roman Battle,” JRS 90 (2000): 1–17; E. Wheeler, “The Roman Legion as Phalanx,” Chiron 9 (1979), 303–18; A. Zhmodikov, “Roman Republican Heavy Infantrymen in Battle (IV–II Centuries bc),” Historia 49 (2000): 60–82. 49 The Punic Wars, so historically vital and epic in scale, tend to dominate attention, but other wars have not gone unnoticed. See, e.g., N. Bagnall, The Punic Wars,

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The late republican army of Caesar and the Imperial army too have received detailed attention as part of the larger studies of the Roman military noted above, but also at the hands of the Osprey series.50 General books focus closely on the army of the High Empire, for which we have good evidence.51 The quality of generalship peaked in the Hellenistic and Roman Republican periods, in line with military developments and more diverse troop types. The re-asserton of the importance of generalship is in part a reaction to Keegan’s face-of-battle perspective, but the evolution of command style is itself an interesting phenomenon.52 Generalship had roots in the fifth and fourth centuries. Aeneas Taktikos wrote the first explicit military manual in the mid-fourth century bce. Scholars have debated the level of specialization that statesmen embraced in this and other periods.53 By tradition, statesmen were both generals and politicians. The greatest of the Hellenistic commanders led from the front, as embodied by the battlefield courage, verging on recklessness, of Alexander. Even master tacticians like Hannibal fought directly in the battle. Later Roman generals and emperors may have watched the action from a command point at the rear, and some Romans, most notably 264–146 bc (London: Routledge, 2003); T.J. Cornell et al. (eds), The Second Punic War: A Re-Appraisal (London: BICS Supplement 67, 1996); A.K. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars (London: Cassell, 2000); idem, Cannae (London: Cassell, 2001); J.D. Grainger, The Roman War of Antiochos the Great (Leiden: Brill, 2002); B.D. Hoyos, Unplanned Wars: The Origins of the First and Second Punic Wars (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1998); J.F. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1978); idem, The First Punic War (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1996). On the Roman motivations for war, see W.V. Harris, War and Imperialism in Republican Rome, 327–70 bc (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979); K. Raaflaub, “Born to be Wolves? The Origins of Roman Imperialism,” in Transitions to Empire, ed. R. Wallace and E.M. Harris (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1996), 273–314. 50 Note esp. L. Keppie, The Making of the Roman Army (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1998, rev. edn), which focuses particularly on the process of professionalization between Marius and Augustus. 51 See, esp., A. Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War, 100 bc–ad 200 (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1993); idem, Complete Roman Army (n. 14); and now his Roman Warfare (New York: Collins, 2005). But note also, Y. Le Bohec, The Imperial Roman Army, trans. R. Bate (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1994); G. Webster, The Roman Imperial Army (Totowa, N.J.: Barnes and Noble, 1985, 3rd edn). 52 John Keegan himself addressed this topic in his The Mask of Command (New York: Viking, 1987). Note also K. Kagan, The Eye of Command (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 2006), which adopts a more overtly contentious stance to the face-of-battle approach. 53 L. Tritle, “Continuity and Change in the Athenian Strategia,” AHB 7 (1993): 125–9; D. Hamel, “Strategoi on the Bema: The Separation of Political and Military Authority in Fourth-Century Athens,” AHB 9 (1995): 25–39.

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Cicero, were more suited to politics than to war, but glory gained in war ( gloria, laus imperii) remained a central part of the Roman ethos of leadership. This point brings us back to the matter of warfare and society, an interaction that has usually been conceived in terms of the influence of the former on the latter. Yet it is the case that armies do not exist in a social vacuum and, if together for long enough, form their own societies. Even mobile forces can display elements of independent community, as exemplified by the Athenian expeditionary force to Sicily or the famed Ten Thousand that marched into the heart of the Persian realm and then marched back out again.54 The late Republican and Imperial Roman armies formed distinct social groups, so that both the operation of the units as social entities and the interaction of military and civilian societies has been profitably explored.55 As the empire’s frontiers solidified, the regular legionary army became sedentary rather than roving communities, and more connected to their surroundings. By late antiquity the legionaries formed the frontier guardsmen, while elite units, the comitati, were attached to emperors and formed rapid response units stemming the tide of external invasions. Warfare in the ancient world can therefore be approached and studied from a wide variety of perspectives. This collection of papers is based on a Joint APA/AIA Panel held at the 2007 Annual Meeting in San Diego. The panel attracted a very large audience. All six of the original panelists are represented in the edited volume, along with four other invited contributors. As with the panel, the authors draw on diverse categories of evidence in marshalling their arguments, including literary, epigraphic, numismatic, iconographic, and archaeological material. It is expected

54 See, e.g., S. Hornblower, “‘This Was Decided’ (edoxe tauta): The Army as Polis in Xenophon’s Anabasis – and Elsewhere,” in The Long March: Xenophon and the Ten Thousand, ed. R. Lane Fox (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2004), 243–63; J.W.I. Lee, A Greek Army on the March: Soldiers and Survival in Xenophon’s Anabasis (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007); G.B. Nussbaum, The Ten Thousand: A Study in Social Organisation and Action (Leiden: Brill, 1967). 55 Note esp. R. Alston, Soldier and Society in Roman Egypt: A Social History (London: Routledge, 1995); R. McMullen, “The Legion as a Society,” Historia 33 (1984), 440–56 (= idem, Changes in the Roman Empire: Essays in the Ordinary [Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1990], 225–35); idem, Soldier and Civilian in the Later Roman Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1963); N. Pollard, Soldiers, Cities, and Civilians in Roman Syria (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 2000); G.R. Watson, The Roman Soldier (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press,1969).

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that the book will be of interest to professional academics, students, and military-history enthusiasts in general. The papers represent a crosssection of ongoing work that seeks to illustrate how current trends in ancient military studies are playing out. The papers are varied and cover a broad chronological and geographical spectrum, from the Ancient Near East to the Roman Republic. Matters usually given shorter shrift in the standard works – Assyrian tactical procedures, naval warfare in Archaic Greece, the Carthaginian navy, Achaemenid Persia’s military system, or the influence of sociopolitical arrangements on military matters – take center stage here. The focuses are also diverse, ranging from the role of technology in stimulating military change, to tactical matters and generalship, to the impact of money on warfare. The book, it is hoped, reflects the vibrancy of ancient military studies and adds to a growing body of work about warfare in antiquity. The first chapter, by Fernando Rey, questions the technological determinism so common in analyses of ancient warfare, usually manifested in the assumption that weapons shape the way warriors fight and determine the outcome of battles. Rey shows there is far more to it than that and insists that greater emphasis be put on the (admittedly more elusive) human factor in combat. The Assyrians employed chariots, cavalry, and heavy and light infantry in the eighth and seventh centuries bce; the Persians inherited the Assyrian tradition of fighting and used it to conquer a vast and durable world empire. Macedon and then Rome in turn inherited versions of this Assyro-Persian mode of prosecuting wars. This legacy is an important one for the classical world, yet it is often overlooked. In partial redress of this situation, this volume includes three papers on Ancient Near Eastern military matters. Robin Archer (chapter 2) tackles the difficult question of how chariotry operated on the ancient battlefield; Garrett Fagan (chapter 3) attempts to gain an understanding of Assyrian tactical procedures for open-field engagements; and Christopher Tuplin (chapter 4) turns to the neglected topic of the Achaemenid Persian military system. Three papers address matters of Greek military practice. Peter Krentz (chapter 5) re-examines the issue of the weight of armor worn by Greek hoplites with reference to some representations on painted pots; Hans van Wees (chapter 6) studies the development of Greek naval warfare in the Archaic Age; and Matthew Trundle (chapter 7) traces the not inconsiderable impact of money and coinage on the prosecution of Greek wars. If the Athenian navy has attracted serious scholarly attention (see above), then another major naval power of the ancient Mediterranean

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has gone largely ignored: Carthage. Peter Connolly produced a useful general introduction to the Punic army (alongside the Italians of the pre-Roman period), but beyond that there is nothing significant to enlighten us.56 No small part of the problem is that, as with the Persians, the evidence for the military arrangements of the Carthaginians is problematic, since we see them only through the eyes of their enemies, whether Greek or Roman. Yet Carthage clearly achieved much militarily, from controlling its own backyard in North Africa to launching protracted campaigns in Sicily and Spain. Louis Rawlings (chapter 8) here picks his way through the evidence for a navy that at one time dominated the western Mediterranean. The Punic fleet and Carthaginian armies were Hellenistic in conception and context. Like their eastern forerunners the Phoenicians, famous as seafarers and maritime traders, it remains something of a mystery why they performed so poorly in sea battles against the ostensibly more amateurish navies of the Greeks and Romans.57 It is a pity that more is not known about the one power that appeared to give Rome a run for its money during the period of the great wars of transmarine expansion, but Rawlings makes some initial moves to fill this gap. The final two chapters address Roman matters. Nathan Rosenstein (chapter 9) questions the almost uncontested view that the early Roman army fought in a phalanx. He does so on the basis of a war-and-society analysis that raises questions about the census and the suitability of early Roman institutions to sustaining a hoplite force. The argument is as clever as it is challenging. It may be a truism that all generals learned from their forebears, but as the most competitive, lucrative, and glorified of activities, leading wars in antiquity required aristocrats to learn and understand military strategy and tactics. David Potter (chapter 10) illustrates the way that one great general, Caesar, learned from another, Marius. It would be interesting to know the processes (via witnesses, oral accounts and traditions, written testimonia), by which this kind of knowledge was passed from generation to generation, as it must have done for Potter’s analysis to work.

56 P. Connolly, Hannibal and the Enemies of Rome (London: Silver Burdett Press, 1979, now incorporated into his Greece and Rome at War). 57 See L. Casson, The Ancient Mariners (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1991, 2nd edn); idem, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1995).

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In sum, then, the papers collected in this volume represent a variety of new perspectives on ancient warfare that approach the phenomenon from different directions and, we hope, contribute to the ongoing discussion in engaging and significant ways. The aim is to synthesize, discuss, and unravel many of the debates outlined in this introduction as part of an ongoing process of better understanding ancient warfare in all its complexity. We desire also to highlight aspects of military history that have often been rendered isolated, such as the forms of Carthaginian or Achaemenid warfare, and to set them alongside analyses of more familiar (Greek and Roman) matters. Ultimately the goal is to fuel further debate and research into warfare in the ancient world, a topic the health and vibrancy of which is amply illustrated by the intellectual diversity exhibited in these papers.

WEAPONS, TECHNOLOGICAL DETERMINISM, AND ANCIENT WARFARE* Fernando Echeverría Rey Introduction John Keegan pointed out that the discipline of military history comprises many different fields. Generals and generalship, weapons and weapon systems, naval history and technology, institutions and armies, strategic doctrines and political science are all part of Keegan’s list.1 The focus of the discipline, however, has fluctuated between these fields in the last century, according to the changing interests and outlooks of the period. In the specific field of ancient military history, the study of weapons and weapon systems has been particularly relevant, focusing on typological analysis, comparative works and detailed accounts of the military performance of dozens of different weapons and their tactics. This interest in the tools has been sometimes pushed to its limits, turning them into decisive factors that eventually explain the whole nature and circumstances of war. The idea that the weapon is the decisive item that could by itself win battles, or make a significant difference to their outcomes, entails a certain simplification of the complex reality of warfare. This simplification is what is commonly labeled ‘technological determinism.’ Broadly speaking, technological determinism implies that military tactics and techniques are determined by technological change: the introduction of a new weapon generates an automatic adaptation of tactics. The main criterion to establish the connection between weapons and tactics is superiority: the qualities of the new item, felt to be superior

* I am deeply grateful to Hans van Wees, Kurt A. Raaflaub, Greg Anderson, Philip de Souza and Vincent Gabrielsen for reading an earlier draft of this paper and providing valuable suggestions and comments. I also thank José Ignacio de la Torre for the many quotations and examples about the Roman army he shared with me. They all contributed to improve the ideas and approaches contained in this paper. All remaining errors are, of course, my own. 1 J. Keegan, The Face of Battle. A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme (London: Pimlico, 2004), 27–36.

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to older ones, first prompt a technological substitution and then a tactical adaptation. This swift military change, in turn, is finally supposed to be the main cause of political, social and economic transformation. Thus, technology becomes the engine of historical change. Determinism operates at several levels. We can differentiate a basic, ‘battlefield’ level, which maintains that there is a direct connection between weapons and tactics. Certain weapons are supposed to determine the choice of specific tactics, and thus victory itself. As a result, better weapons and tactics help to win battles, and victory in turn explains the diffusion of technological innovations and the seemingly automatic replacement of older artifacts by new ones, as if technological change were driven by the principle of progress.2 A second level of the deterministic approach to warfare, the ‘political’ level, entails that, in view of the crucial role played by weapons in the outcome of war, all decisions, interests, and policies of ancient communities were determined by military factors. As a result, the military becomes a central and all-pervasive concern in ancient political agendas.3 We can finally differentiate a third, ‘structural’ level, which maintains that military technological transformations, following the previous two steps, produce and explain broader socio-political change. According to this view, military technology is the trigger that fires the gun of historical evolution.4 Ancient history has sometimes tended to overestimate the impact of military affairs. Arguments and approaches focusing on weapons and war have regularly figured in studies about the ancient world. Due to the irresistible attraction of technology, the role of weapons on the general dynamics of warfare has sometimes been overrated, as if they were the 2

For references on this point, see infra nn. 32, 54, 55 and 56. For instance, Republican Rome: W. V. Harris, War and Imperialism in the Roman Republic, 327–70 bce (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979); J. A. North, “The Development of Roman Imperialism,” JRS 71 (1981): 1–9; A. H. Bernstein, “The Strategy of a WarriorState: Rome and the Wars against Carthage, 264–201 bce,” in The Making of Strategy. Rulers, States and War, ed. W. Murray et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994), 56–84. Classical Athens: J. de Romilly, “Guerre et Paix entre Cités,” in Problèmes de la Guerre en Grèce Ancienne, dir. J. P. Vernant (Paris: Mouton, 1968), 207–20; D. Kagan, “Athenian Strategy in the Peloponnesian War,” in Murray, Strategy (this note), 24–55. For a recent and critical discussion on this subject, see S. Hornblower, “Warfare in Ancient Literature: The Paradox of War,” in CHGRW, 1.22–53. 4 For example, see A. Ferrill, The Fall of the Roman Empire: the Military Explanation (London: Thames and Hudson, 1986), 164: “Many historians have argued…that the fall of Rome was not primarily a military phenomenon. In fact, it was exactly that. After 410 the emperor in the West could no longer project military power to the frontiers”; G. Parker, “Introduction: The Western Way of War,” in CHW, 8 (cf. 11): “Military activity and state formation in the West therefore became inextricably linked: states made war 3

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only cause for a wide range of military and historical matters. Determinism aims to explain the transformations of warfare from the point of view of technological innovation, simplifying the otherwise complex dynamics of war into a single element. However, despite its claims for consistency and homogeneity, it is not a theoretical model by itself. In fact it can be better understood as a motley collection of ‘deterministic views,’ minor assertions and unverified assumptions about the nature of military transformation and the role of weapons on and off the battlefield. This approach has fallen in a growing discredit in the last years. Recent studies on ancient warfare increasingly emphasize the impact of ideological and human factors on combat, and deterministic arguments have been consistently identified and rejected whenever the subject has been consciously tackled.5 My intention here is to present a general discussion but war also made states.” The theory of the ‘hoplite revolution’ maintains that the introduction of the Argive shield and the phalanx in Greece led to the formalization of the polis as a communal institution; see P. Cartledge, “Hoplites and Heroes: Sparta’s Contribution to the Technique of Ancient Warfare,” JHS 97 (1977): 11–23; J. Salmon, “Political Hoplites?” JHS 97 (1977): 84–101; J. M. Bryant, “Military Technology and Socio-cultural Change in the Ancient Greek City,” Sociological Review 38.3 (1990): 484– 516; M. H. Jameson, “The Political and Socio-economic Structure of the Greek Polis,” Stud. Ital. 85 (1992): 153–160; S. Mitchell, “Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece,” in Battle in Antiquity, ed. A. B. Lloyd (London: Duckworth, 1996), 87–107; V. D. Hanson, The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1999); A. Schwartz, “The Early Hoplite Phalanx: Order or Disarray?” Classica et Mediaevalia 53 (2002): 31–64; T. Everson, Warfare in Ancient Greece: Arms and Armour from the Heroes of Homer to Alexander the Great (Stroud: Sutton, 2004), 69–73, 120–24. Similarly, a widespread reconstruction of the origins of the Roman state parallels the Greek ‘hoplite revolution,’ with the introduction of the Greek equipment and tactics leading to the formalization of the Roman citizen state: T. J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 bce) (London: Routledge, 1995), 173–97; A. Goldsworthy, Roman Warfare (London: Phoenix, 2007), 33–35. The decline of the Mycenean palaces and other cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean at the end of the Bronze Age has also been explained according to military arguments: R. Drews, The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 bce (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1993); Everson, Warfare (this note), 35–36. Drews argues that both the beginning of chariot warfare in 17th-century bce Mesopotamia and the introduction of infantry tactics at the end of the Bronze Age were military revolutions that gave a specific tactic a complete superiority for a long period: R. Drews, The Coming of the Greeks: Indo-European Conquest in the Aegean and the Near East (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1989), 74–120; Drews, End (this note), 104–34. For a recent and detailed discussion on the connection between war and state, see V. Gabrielsen, “Warfare and the State,” in CHGRW, 1.1248–72. 5 For recent studies on ancient warfare from non-deterministic approaches, see among several others J. Carman and A. Harding, ed. Ancient Warfare: Archaeological Perspectives (Stroud: Sutton, 1999); J. Rich, “Fear, Greed and Glory: The Causes of

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on ‘technological determinism’ and offer alternative ways to explain technological and tactical change in warfare. I will put to the test the assumptions that, first, some kinds of weapons and tactics are objectively ‘superior’ to others, and that, secondly, societies are always trying to create or import such superior weapons and tactics, which will therefore be adopted wherever possible. For that purpose, I shall only center on the first level of determinism, i.e. on the basic connection between weapons, tactics and combat, and on the elusive nature of military technology in the ancient world. My conclusions are intended to be applicable to ancient warfare in general, but I shall focus on Greek and Roman cases, due not only to the unbalanced state of our sources, but also to the limitations of my own specialization. ‘A hoplite is slave to his weapons’: Ancient Approaches to Technology6 As a starting point, I will survey the ancient sources in order to assess how the ancient peoples approached military technology. My aim is to Roman War-making in the Middle Republic,” in War and Society in the Roman World, ed. J. W. Rich and G. Shipley (London: Routledge, 1993), 38–62; idem, “The Origins of the Second Punic War,” in SPW, 1–37; idem, “Warfare and External Relations in the Middle Roman Republic,” in War, Peace and World Orders in European History, ed. A. V. Hartmann and B. Heuser (London: Routledge, 2001), 62–71; P. Sabin, “The Mechanics of Battle in the Second Punic War,” in SPW, 59–79; idem, “The Face of Roman Battle,” JRS 90 (2000): 1–17; idem, “Battle. A: Land battles,” in CHGRW, 1.399–433; J. E. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2005); H. van Wees, ed. War and Violence in Ancient Greece (London: Duckworth, 2000); idem, Greek Warfare. Myths and Realities (London: Duckworth, 2004). For the rejection of deterministic approaches to ancient warfare and history: J. W. Eadie, “The Development of Roman Mailed Cavalry,” JRS 57.1/2 (1967): 161–173; W.K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War, vol. 4 (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1985), 31; H. van Wees, “The Homeric Way of War II,” G&R 41.2 (1994): 137; J. Rich, “Origins” (this note): 15; idem, “Warfare” (this note): 63; V. D. Hanson, “Genesis of Infantry, 600– 350 bce,” in CHW, 15; Lendon, Soldiers (this note), 156–161; J.A. Lynn, Battle: A History of Combat and Culture (Boulder: Westview, 2004). A significant example of this new perspective is the rejection of the ‘hoplite reform’ theory and its strongly deterministic model: R. Sealey, A History of the Greek City-States, ca. 700–338 bce (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1976), 57; F. Frost, “The Athenian Military before Cleisthenes,” Historia 33 (1984): 293; I. Morris, Burial and Ancient Society. The Rise of the Greek CityState (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987), 198; K. A. Raaflaub, “Homer to Solon: the Rise of the Polis. The Written Sources,” in The Ancient Greek City-State, ed. M. H. Hansen. Historisk-Filosofiske Meddelelser. 67 (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1993), 80; idem, “Soldiers, Citizens and the Evolution of the Early Greek Polis,” in The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece, ed. L. G. Mitchell and P. J. Rhodes (London: Routledge, 1997), 53. 6 Eur. HF 190: anēr hoplitēs doulos esti tōn hoplōn.

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establish whether there was any sort of ‘ancient determinism’ that could act as a foundation for its modern counterpart, although my survey will be naturally limited. Ancient writers resorted at times to weapons, tactics or military arguments in their interpretations of past and present realities. Ancient communities were highly militarized, in the sense that great percentages of their male population were regularly involved in military activities. Warfare was thus deeply rooted in communal ideology and imagery, in public spaces, traditions and literature, and the military factor was probably among the very first that came to mind when trying to explain historical events.7 However, this does not mean that there was a sort of ‘ancient determinism’ that paralleled the modern version. Modern determinism cannot claim to rest on ancient foundations, because, as we shall see, the ancients’ approach to military technology in particular and warfare in general differed substantially from our own. To begin with, general assertions of the superiority of particular weapons and tactics were not very common in the ancient world. Only in certain circumstances would a single weapon be said by ancient writers to be superior to others.8 Likewise, ancient sources only rarely emphasize the role of certain weapons in securing victory in combat, and when they do, common weapons like spears or swords are not

7 Size of the Roman army in the Middle and Late Republic: Rich, “Warfare” (n. 5): 65; P. A. Brunt, Italian Manpower, 225 bce-ad 14 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971). Classical Greek cities: van Wees, Greek Warfare (n. 5), 46. For recent and detailed discussions on the role of warfare in Greek civilization: G. Shipley, “Introduction: The Limits of War,” in War and Society in the Greek World, ed. J. Rich and G. Shipley (London: Routledge, 1995), 1–24; van Wees, Greek Warfare (n. 5); Hornblower, “Warfare” (n. 3); M. Whitby, “Reconstructing Ancient Warfare,” in CHGRW, 1.54–81. 8 For instance, Aeschylus claims that the Greek spear won the day against the Persian bows and arrows in the Persian Wars (Pers. 239–42, 278, 729, 817, 926). This literary metaphor is not strictly deterministic, but it does reflect a concern with the decisiveness of war in preserving the freedom of Greece. Herodotus thought that Greek weapons were superior to the Persians’ lighter equipment. Persian bows and short spears made them “easy to overcome” (eupetees cheirōthēnai; 5.49.17), while it was their lack of heavy armor (anoploi) that explained their annihilation (diephtheironto) by the Spartans at Plataea (9.62.11–15), because they “fought, as it were, naked (gymnetes) against men fully armed (hoplites)” (9.63.10). Tactically, Herodotus also emphasized the Greeks’ good order (kata taxis te kai kata ethnea kekosmēmenoi) at Thermopylae as a factor in their initial success (7.212). Polybius remarked on the great qualities of the Celtiberian sword or gladius (6.23.4), which proved to be superior to other types (frg. 179), while Asclepiodotus pointed out that the Macedonian type of shield was the best (aristē; Tact. 5.1.1–2) for the phalanx. Both Polybius (3.114) and Livy (22.46) praised the better qualities of the Roman equipment.

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usually mentioned.9 These explanations emphasizing the impact of weapons remain a clear minority in our sources, limited to specific examples of certain battles where the technological factor was thought to be clearly relevant.10 As we shall see below, ancient writers were far more inclined to look for moral factors to explain victory, and weapons were relegated to a secondary role. Hence, it seems that military arguments could be significant for the ancients when trying to explain general situations, processes or periods, both at the ‘political’ and the ‘structural’ levels.11 But they rarely used them to clarify the specific circumstances of combat. As a result, war was for ancient peoples more likely to produce global, structural transformations. For example, the Athenian orator Demosthenes remarked in one of his most famed speeches (9.47ss.) that nothing in his time had changed more than war: “while practically all the arts have made a great advance (pollēn epidosin) and we are living today in a very different world from the old one, I consider that nothing has been more revolutionized and improved than the art of war (ouden hegoumai pleon ē ta tou polemou kekinēsthai ka’pidedōkenai).” Leaving aside the specific political intentions of his longer discussion on war, Demosthenes’ comment certainly implies a concern for military matters, and an awareness of their dramatic role in contemporary events. Athens had gone through several political transformations in the previous two hundred years, experiencing changing regimes and several revolutions from tyranny to democracy. Nevertheless, the politician chose to focus on the transformations of war to describe the new situation to his fellow Athenians. This implies not only that the military factor could be used to explain certain events or periods, but also that it was a 9 As Sabin claims in “Mechanics” (n. 5): 74: “Differences in equipment are mentioned surprisingly rarely by our sources when accounting for the outcome of individual engagements.” This perhaps leads to a greater emphasis on uncommon factors, like elephants (Arr. Anab. 5.25.1; Diod. 19.15, 39, 20.113; Plut. Vit. Dem. 28) or chariots (Liv. 10.28; Arr. Anab. 5.14–18; Plut. Vit. Tim. 27; Diod. 20.12). 10 For example, at the battle of Mantineia (418 bce): according to Thucydides (5.65– 72), the unbalanced protection offered by the shield forced the soldiers to seek refuge in their right-hand comrades’ shield, which in the long run produced a general drift of the army. All the subsequent events in the battle were explained through this particular detail, which almost drove the Spartans to defeat. 11 For instance, the Roman empire as a result of its military strength: Joseph BJ 3.71; Veg. Mil. 1.1.1–2. Aristotle explained the introduction of the Spartan constitution and Lycurgus’ reforms through the argument of the Messenian Wars; he even pointed out that political crisis and transformations “happen especially during war (kai malista en tois polemois touto ginetai)” (Pol. 1306 b36–1307 a2).

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convenient argument that could overshadow other factors and play a leading role in general historical explanations.12 A second argument to reject the notion of ‘ancient determinism’ is the absence of an ancient concept of ‘progress’ that could parallel our own. This issue is crucial, since the concept of progress makes up the foundation of modern determinism: technological change is commonly interpreted as if the multiple and complex lines of mechanical innovation would lead to a specific end, and every step taken would be better than the previous.13 Although in the passage mentioned above Demosthenes seems to describe the evolution of warfare as a sort of military ‘progress,’ it is far from clear whether this detail of political speech can really be interpreted as an example of ancient determinism. In fact, the very existence of an ancient concept of ‘progress’ is still in question, since the notion of progress raises several problems when applied to the ancient world. In broad terms, it takes for granted not only a context of technological development on the physical level, but also “a speculative view of the future as well as the past” on the intellectual level. In the ancient world reflections on the past were quite common, but speculations about the future were rare. Furthermore, progress implies a ‘direction,’ which in turn implies a value judgment, a subjective and optimistic interpretation of historical change. Ancient societies lacking detailed historical records hardly conceived of the idea of progress. Constrained by tradition and custom, the ancient world had limited room for innovation, and its relatively unscientific knowledge of the past reduced the possibilities of a systematic comparison with the present. As a result, “progress did not readily develop a generalized meaning.”14 Moreover, the typically primitive reflections on change and historical evolution were marked by two main features. First, they were to a great extent dominated by myth, legend or any other type of religious or cultural explanation. In Greece, for instance, the scientific approach to 12

See E. L. Wheeler, “Battle. A: Land battles,” in CHGRW, 1.191. C. Meier warns of the need to have “a precise knowledge and an explicit exposition of the modern concept of progress” before any approach to the ancient ideas of progress is made, in The Greek Discovery of Politics (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1990), 186. Both notions are, then, closely connected. 14 For an interpretation of Demosthenes’ speech: van Wees, Greek Warfare (n. 5), 115–17. For a discussion on the existence of an ancient concept of progress, see E. R. Dodds, “The Ancient Concept of Progress,” in The Ancient Concept of Progress and Other Essays on Greek Literature and Belief, ed. E. R. Dodds (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), 1; Meier, Greek Discovery (n. 13), 186. Both quotations in this paragraph are from Dodds, “Ancient Concept” (this note): 2. 13

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historical change developed by philosophers and intellectuals had to deal with strong and deeply rooted myths like that of the Five Races or the Eternal Recurrence, anti-progressive stories that hampered any sort of rational discussion. Secondly, they tended mainly to be pessimistic. The history of mankind was viewed as a process of continuous degeneration, a permanent reminder that the past had always been better, that men had lost wonderful skills, and that heroes were a thing of the distant past. In fact mythical thinking as a whole, as both Homer and Hesiod show, was pessimistic, describing an ideal past which bore no comparison with the decadent present. As a result, it was difficult for the ancient world to develop a real notion of progress. Even in the restricted sphere of technology, innovation was usually connected to moral failure or regression. Plutarch, for example, described the eloquent reaction ascribed to the Spartan king Archidamus the first time he saw a catapult projectile brought from Sicily (Plut. Mor. 191e; Apoth. Lac. 219a): “By Heracles, it is the end of manly virtue (andros areta)!” he cried. As is still the case in our own world, technology was felt to be a perverse substitute for humans.15 There were naturally several affirmations of progress as a positive force, especially in the Graeco-Roman world.16 However, most of them were only partially affirmations of progress in the modern sense, and

15 Mythical thinking as pessimistic: Dodds, “Ancient Concept” (n. 14): 3–4. Technological innovation as moral failure: Dodds, “Ancient Concept,” (n. 14): 2, 19, 20; S. Cuomo, Technology and Culture in Greek and Roman Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007). 16 Thucydides claimed that “it is a rule that, just as in crafts, the new always prevails (aiei ta epigignomena kratein)” (1.71.3). Aristotle praised the great advances in sciences like medicine (Pol. 1268b31–1269a8), and even expected societies to improve from the provision of bare necessities to the advantages of properly established civilization (Pol. 1329b25–31); regarding the military, he considered the ancient claim that the best proof of a city’s courage was the absence of walls to be an “outdated opinion” (lian archaiōs hypolambanousin, Pol. 1330b32–35), and encouraged the building of “the securest fortifications” to face “the inventions that have now been made in the direction of precision with missiles and artillery for sieges” (Pol. 1331a 1–2). Over a century earlier, Xenophanes had recognized the need for human effort to improve knowledge: “Not from the beginning did the gods reveal everything to mankind,” he said, “but in course of time by research (zētountes) men discover improvements (epheuriskousin ameinon)” (frg. 18 Diels-Krantz). A generation later, Aeschylus drew a sketch of human achievements in Prometheus’ speech (Aesch. PV 442–506), turning this mythical figure into a symbol of man’s continuous effort and spirit. Fifth-century Athenian intellectual life emphasized the importance of the concept of technē, and a new confidence in human skills to face future challenges can be seen in historical and medical writings like those of Thucydides and Hippocrates. Sophocles’ ‘Ode to Man’ in the Antigone (332–372) praised man’s achievement of civilization and cultural development as the result of his own

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can be better understood as “perceptions of improvement.”17 Ancient literature on military affairs was in general much more concerned with moral or religious issues than with science or technology: rather than describing technical knowledge from an objective point of view, what mattered was to provide a solution to the controversy about which side was right18. As Dodds points out, “there is no attempt to mark the stages of evolution, no recognition of the decisive influence of the foodproducing techniques, no reference to the origins of communal life. Technology takes a very minor place.”19 Specific tools or devices were seldom the focus of intellectual reflection. Regarding military equipment, ancient writers rarely tried to understand or explain their use, function or impact. Most of the time, military change entailed the introduction of new technology and a mechanical adoption of new weapons, without further inquiries on the nature of these changes. This is, for example, the case of Livy’s discussion on the evolution of the early Roman army.20 Naturally, we can find some efforts. Archimedes contributed to establish the protocols for scientific research, and expected his theoretical findings to be expanded in the future (Method, p. 430 Heiberg). Polybius described the advances in signaling technology and remarked on the likelihood of further improvements (10.43–47). Later, Posidonius, Vitruvius, Manilius, Pliny, Seneca, and several other intellectuals of imperial Rome confessed their confidence in progress and their optimistic view of human skills and capacities for innovation. See Dodds, “Ancient Concept” (n. 14): 4–11, 16, 18, 19, 22–23, and Meier, Greek Discovery (n. 13), 194–204. In the military field, Lendon recognizes that “ancient people were perfectly capable of thinking of military progress much as we do, with new, better military methods replacing obsolete old ones,” in Soldiers (n. 5), 9. 17 Meier, Greek Discovery (n. 13), 204. Regarding the examples described in the previous note, Xenophanes, for instance, does not imply a belief in endless progress in his fragment, while Aeschylus’ remark is only concerned with intellectual—not technological—development. See Dodds, “Ancient Concept” (n. 14): 5. 18 For example, the victory of the Greeks over the Persians was interpreted early in the fifth century from a moral perspective: the Greeks, fighting for freedom, had superior goals and motivations. For further details, see C.G. Starr, “Why Did the Greeks Defeat the Persians?” La parola del passato 17 (1962): 321–32. For Polybius, the causes of the Second Punic War were also connected to moral factors, like the humiliation of Carthage in the first war and the Carthaginian desire for revenge. Anger against Rome was also for him the cause of other wars like those with Antiochus and Perseus. See Rich, “Mechanics” (n. 5), for a detailed discussion on this point. Catherine Gilliver argues that the notion of morality was extremely important and a real concern for Romans when waging war, in “The Roman Army and Morality in War,” in Battle in Antiquity, ed. A. B. Lloyd (London: Duckworth, 1996), 219–38. 19 Dodds, “Ancient Concept” (n. 14): 5. 20 Liv. 8.8.3: “The Romans in the past used round shields (clipei), but after they began to be paid for military service (stipendiarii facti sunt) they adopted oblong ones (scuta pro clipeis fecere) in their place; and what had originally been a phalanx on the Macedonian model (phalanges similes Macedonicis) later came to be a battle-line (structa acies) drawn up by maniples, with those in the rear arranged in more units.”

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general descriptions of weaponry in ancient literature.21 But unlike us ancient authors were not interested “in developmental matters or in discovery stories.”22 As a result, they settled the question of technological innovation by attributing the different weapons to certain individuals or peoples.23 It was Pliny who offered the most elaborate account of individual inventions. His text is in fact a summary of the personalization of military technology: The Africans were the first to use clubs (called ‘staves’) when they battled the Egyptians. Shields were invented, if not by Chalcus son of Athamas, then by Proetus and Aerisius while they were campaigning against each other. Midias of Messene invented the breastplate. The helmet, sword and spear were inventions of the Spartans, and greaves and crests for the helmets came from the Carians. Some say Jupiter’s son Scythes invented the bow and arrow, though others attribute the latter to Perseus’ son Perses. Lances were developed by the Aetolians, the spear with a throwing strip by Aetolus, Mars’ son, the light skirmishing spears by Tyrrenus, likewise the heavy javelin, and the battle-axe by Penthesilea the Amazon. Pisaeus is credited with hunting spears and the version of missile throwers called the scorpion, while the Cretans invented the catapult and the Phoenicians the ballista and the sling.24

21 Hellenistic tacticians like Asclepiodotus and Onasander, for instance, detailed the characteristics of Macedonian equipment and tactics, while Polybius (6.22–23) and Josephus (BJ 3.93–97) focused on Roman equipment. Both Xenophon (Eq. mag. 12.1– 12) and Ammianus (24.6.8, 25.1.12–13) extensively discussed the arms and armor of the cavalry of their ages, and even Herodotus described the bizarre and heterogeneous armaments of the Persians (Hdt. 7.61–81). Vegetius also enumerated the weapons of the primitive Romans (1.20), and Polybius again carefully studied the organization and operation of the Macedonian phalanx (18.29–30). However, apart from Polybius’ and Xenophon’s accounts, most of these passages were simply literary digressions written out of antiquarian, erudite, or ethnographical curiosity, but not properly technical comments on the physical characteristics and functional possibilities of weapons. 22 Cuomo, Technology (n. 15): 51. 23 Marius was credited with the reform of the Roman cohorts, the standardization of the legion’s equipment and training, and the introduction of the bending pilum (Plut. Vit. Mar. 9.1, 13.1, 25.1–2). Iphikrates was also thought to have reformed the peltasts’ spear, lengthening it by half (Diod. 15.44; Nep. Iphicr. 1.3–4). Other famous innovations were also attributed to specific scientists or generals, like the Macedonian phalanx and the sarissa to Philip (Diod. 16.3.2), the battering ram to one Pephrasmenos from Tyre— later improved by Geras of Chalcedon—(Vitr. De arch. 10.13.1–2), or the Greek fire to Kallinikos, “an engineer from Syrian Heliopolis” (Theophanes, Chron. 354.14). Examples of collective inventions included the catapult, discovered in Syracuse at the time of the tyrant Dionysius (Diod. 14.42–43), and the trireme, introduced by the Corinthians but popularized by a certain Ameinokles (Thuc. 1.13). 24 Plin. HN 7.200–201. The passage is longer though, and Pliny discusses therein the attribution of other military elements, like the war trumpet to a certain Pisaeus, the

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It is remarkable how Pliny needed to attribute some of the most common weapons, like shields or spears, to individual ‘inventors,’ even to the point of including purely mythological figures in his list. Nevertheless, it is also significant how some of these items were connected to certain peoples for clear ethnographic reasons, like the attribution of the bow and arrow to an eponym of the Scythians, or the javelins to the Aetolians. However, ancient writers did not recognize all those technological innovations as “forming a continuous ladder of ascent, and still less they conceive such a ladder as extending into the present and the future.” As a result, new weapons were considered as isolated dots on the map of mechanical discoveries, unconnected and unrelated to each other. This clearly undermined any opportunity to elaborate a consistent notion of progress, and led to partial and momentary affirmations of local development. It has been suggested that those partial descriptions of progress were in fact connected to certain contexts of cultural and technical expansion, like fifth-century Greece. As a result, certain literary pieces like Prometheus’ speech can be explained through the “triumphant experience of progress enjoyed by Aeschylus and his generation.”25 Nevertheless, these cases of general technological and intellectual dynamism were rather infrequent in the ancient world, and they were not enough to sustain a coherent and general notion of progress. Moreover, even these periods of dynamism witnessed contemporary reactions of opposition, when the forces of tradition and conservatism tried to raise suspicion against cultural change. Moral and religious considerations emerged once again, as anti-progressive intellectuals warned about the dangers of technological development for the established ways of social and cultural life.26 Only a generation after Aeschylus, Euripides presented progress as a manifestation of divine providence in a speech

testudo to Artemon of Clazomenae, the ram to Epius during the Trojan War, horseriding to Bellerophon, the reins and saddles to Pelethronius, and cavalry tactics to the Tessalian people of the Centaurs. He also attributes the two-horse chariot to the Phrygians, and the four-horse type to Erichthonius; Palamedes “invented” (invenit) military formation, the password, tokens for recognition, and sentinels, Sinon signaling from watchtowers, and finally Lycaon and Theseus discovered truces and treaties (7.201–2). 25 Quotations in the paragraph: Dodds, “Ancient Concept” (n. 14): 2–3 and 6. Literary descriptions of technology connected to contexts of technical expansion: Dodds, “Ancient Concept” (n. 14): 6–12; Meier, Greek Discovery (n. 13), 186. 26 For recent bibliography on the subject, see Cuomo, Technology (n. 15), 8 and note 4.

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by Theseus (Suppl. 195–218): the Athenian hero praises not human effort or ingenuity, but “the god who brought us to live by rule from chaos and from brutishness.” In the next century, Plato’s theory of Forms represented a more fundamental opposition to the idea of progress, since for him all kind of improvement consisted not in an endless race towards superior forms of intellectual and technological findings, but in the approximation to a pre-existing model. Thus, there was no such thing as ‘invention,’ and the focus was not on the future but on the past. Taking this idea one step further, in the Laws (678–9) Plato imagined his ideal society as a sort of ‘primitive community,’ trying to reproduce in it the same simplicity, the same absence of wealth, and the same lack of complex technology that could be found in earlier human groups. The resulting picture is contrary to the notion of linear progress, and recovers the old myth of the Eternal Return. In his Protagoras, again, the myth of Prometheus (320d–321d) reveals the divine origin of human skills and techniques, emphasizing the defenselessness of the human condition without the support of the gods. Even Aristotelian optimism about human improvement was soon betrayed by his own pupils, Theophrastus and Dicaearchus, who followed Plato in his idealization of primitivism as a simpler and happier way of life. The idealization of a more stable past and the nostalgia for a simpler existence found literary expression in Theocritus, Onesicritus, Vergil, and finally in Horace, who expressed his rejection of progress in a new version of the Five Races myth (Carm. 3.6.46). Both Vergil (Ecl. 4.4, Aen. 6.791) and Seneca (Q Nat. 3.27–30) believed that the destruction of the human race was close, and that a new Golden Age would arise from the ashes of civilization.27 Even in the military field, the past was a source of innovation: according to Diodorus (16.3.2), Philip II got the idea of an infantry force armed with long pikes from Homer.28 As Lendon points out, it was the past, and not the future, that really inspired cultural and military transformation in the ancient world.29 Thus, serious obstacles arose against the idea of progress, not only because intellectual evolution could paradoxically lead to anti-progressive 27

Following Dodds, “Ancient Concept” (n. 14), 16–17, 20–21. “Philip devised the compact order and the equipment of the phalanx (tèn tês phálangos pyknótēta kaì kataskeuén), imitating the close order fighting with overlapping shields of the warriors at Troy (mimnesámenos tòn en Troía tôn heróōn synaspismón), and was the first to organize the Macedonian phalanx.” 29 Lendon, Soldiers (n. 5), 11–13, 36–38, 156–61. See also Dodds, “Ancient Concept,” (n. 14): 14–15. 28

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doctrine, but also because the feeling spread that technology could not produce further innovations: the poet Choerilus of Samos pointed out that “everything has been assigned (panta dedastai) and the technai have reached their limits (echousi de peirata)” (Frg. 1 Kinkel).30 Lucretius claimed that “everything remains always the same (eadem sunt omnia semper)” (3.945), and the emperor Marcus Aurelius shared this view several centuries later: “our successors will see nothing new (ouden neōteron opsontai),” he wrote; “in a sense, the man who has lived for forty years, if he has any intelligence at all, has seen all that has been and all that will be (panta ta gegonota kai ta esomena heōrake), since all is one kind (kata to homoeides)” (11.1). Regarding military development, Frontinus expressed a similar conviction (Str. 3 pr.): “I leave aside siege works and engines,” he wrote in his military treatise, “human invention having been exhausted in this realm long ago. I see no basis for further improvement (nullam video ultra artium materiam).” In their discussion about intellectual and technological development, ancient societies represent the controversy between innovation and tradition, research and conservatism. Some ancient writers understood quite well that the real limit for progress was human nature itself, and that moral principles were always a match for technological innovation. As happens now with modern scholarship, weapons, tactics and military explanations had an extraordinary appeal and played a considerable role in historical explanations, but unlike in our modern world, ancient thought could not develop a real notion of progress.31 As a result, their theoretical approach to military technology, albeit capable at times of substituting complex causality for simple determinism, was more superficial. Ancient technology did not pervade all the spheres of life, as modern technology does, and perhaps for that reason it played a minor role in historical explanation. As a result, ancient determinism manifested itself usually at the political and structural levels, and much less at the battlefield level. Of course, military technology was at times thought to represent a threat to human values, skills and functions. That was

30 Regarding simple weapons, this is not far from true indeed. According to van Creveld, “by 600 bce, at the very latest, the most important weapons which in their endless combinations were destined to dominate warfare during the next two millennia had been invented and were in widespread use,” in M. van Creveld, Technology and War. From 2000 bce to the present (New York: The Free Press, 1991), 14. 31 See Dodds, “Ancient Concept” (n. 14): 24–25, and Meier, Greek Discovery (n. 13), 193–195.

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certainly the main concern of ancient writers. Yet even then, those intellectuals preferred to focus on warfare and its impact on human life, rather than on the weapons themselves. Thus, it is fairly safe to conclude that the ancients did not share our deterministic approach to technology, and therefore that there is no ancient basis for modern deterministic approaches to the ancient world. In fact, it is our identification of history with progress and our concept of human development that needs to be explained.

Technology and Superiority: The Myth of Determinism As pointed out above, modern scholarship on the ancient world has tended at times to emphasize the impact of technology on warfare and the leading role played by weapons in military victory. According to this view, superior equipment could be thought to perform decisively in combat, and could explain why and how a battle was won. In this line, Holley maintains that “even the most cursory survey of military history substantiates the premise that superior weapons give their users an advantage favouring victory.”32 However, do better weapons really win battles? The answer to this question has sometimes been affirmative, but a detailed analysis of the two elements that compose it, ‘better weapons’ and ‘winning battles,’ is

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Impact of technology in war: van Creveld, Technology (n. 30), 1, 12. Examples of superiority: iron-working peoples against non-iron-working peoples: van Creveld, Technology (n. 30), 14–15. Greeks over the Persians: A. B. Lloyd, “Philip II and Alexander the Great: The Moulding of Macedon’s Army,” in Battle in Antiquity, ed. A. B. Lloyd (London: Duckworth, 1996), 192–3; S. Hornblower, “Greeks and Persians: West against East,” in War, Peace and World Orders in European History, eds. A. V. Hartmann and B. Heuser (London: Routledge, 2001), 53. Superiority of Greek mercenaries abroad: see infra, n. 37. Romans over other Mediterranean peoples: Bernstein, “Strategy” (n. 3); Sabin, “Mechanics” (n. 5): 74; idem, “Face” (n. 5): 3. The superiority of the Greek hoplite equipment in general is an old dictum in modern scholarship: A. Snodgrass, Early Greek Armours and Weapons from the End of the Bronze Age to 600 bce (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1964), 180; M. I. Finley, Early Greece. The Bronze and Archaic Ages (London: Chatto and Windus, 1970), 101; Salmon, “Political Hoplites?” (n. 4): 84 n. 1; O. Murray, Early Greece (Brighton: Harvester, 1980), 120; A. J. Holladay, “Hoplites and Heresies,” JHS 102 (1982): 99–100; Jameson, “Political” (n. 4): 158; Bryant, “Military Technology” (n. 4): 488, 498; Schwartz, “Early Hoplite Phalanx” (n. 4): passim; P. Hunt, “Military Forces,” in CHGRW, 1.117. Considering the history of the Roman army as a whole reinforces the tendency to regard the 1000 years of Roman victories and expansion as military superiority; see, for example, Lendon, Soldiers (n. 5), 168–71. Quotation: I. B. Holley, Ideas and Weapons (Washington: Office of Air Force History, 1971), 175.

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often absent. The historical-technological argument usually emphasizes technological over historical factors, and resorts most commonly to explanations about the mechanical development of historical events. A common feature of technological determinism is “the absence of rigorous definition of weapons, combined with a tendency to stress that specific pieces of technology were active ingredients in shaping military outcomes. In some cases … the machines become quite central.” Consequently, determinism is the result of a lack of accurate definitions of the many elements involved in warfare, especially the weapons. “Loose definitions,” says George Raudzens, “encourage tendencies toward technological determinism.”33 A complete survey of the complexities and problems surrounding the definition of ancient military realities would certainly fall beyond the limits of this study, and I will not attempt it here. Nevertheless, it would be useful to differentiate between the many devices we recognize as ‘technology,’ especially between ‘tools’ and ‘machines.’ Technically speaking, simple weapons like spears or swords could be best labeled as ‘tools,’ implements intended to be an extension of human muscular strength and functions; these tools interact in complex systems of artifacts and practices that we usually label ‘weapon systems,’ like the Greek phalanx or the Roman legion. Machines, in contrast—catapults, towers, battering rams—are complex devices with moving parts that translate muscular into mechanical energy. For obvious reasons, machinery has always attracted greater attention than tools, and it has been the object of theoretical inquiry since antiquity. However, the vast majority of ancient fighting was in practice carried out using simple weapons, while machines played a minor role. This is a relevant distinction when dealing with ancient military technology, for machines and tools were in fact engineered, produced, and spread through different ways and channels.34 Determinism implies that superior technology, either in the form of tools or machines, has a direct impact on the outcome of ancient battles. As Bryant puts it, “proficiency in the travails of combat is everywhere 33 Both quotations in the paragraph, in G. Raudzens, “War-Winning Weapons: The Measurement of Technological Determinism in Military History,” JMH 54 (1990): 405. 34 Machines as complex devices: J. Keegan, A History of Warfare (London: Pimlico, 2004; originally published, 1993), 119; van Creveld, Technology (n. 30), 11. For a recent discussion on the spread of the catapult and other machines, see Cuomo, Technology (n. 15), 46–59. For the connection between weapons and simple tools, see Xen. Hell. 3.3.7.

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basically a function of superiority in weaponry and physical skills.”35 However, two questions must be asked: what exactly is ‘superior technology,’ and how can the ‘direct impact’ be measured? Raudzens points out that “the impact of weapons on the outcome of battles is not nearly so obvious, though at times it is strongly implied.” Superior technologies, thus, are supposed, either consciously or unconsciously, to play a decisive role in combat, because new artifacts are thought to perform much more effectively than older ones.36 However, since a certain degree of technological balance is usually assumed in intra-ethnic wars— Romans fighting Romans, Greeks fighting Greeks, and so on—superiority is more commonly emphasized in inter-ethnic wars.37 This approach leads to two problems. First, both ‘superiority’ and ‘effectiveness’ entail a comparison that is not always possible. The notion of superiority demands not only elements but also criteria and terms for comparison —‘superior’ in what, over what and according to what? Most of the time the information or analysis required is not available. Secondly,

35 Quotation: Bryant, “Military Technology” (n. 4): 488. As a result, determinism encourages a logical and rational interpretation of war: “In the conventional approach of military historians,” says John Carman, “war-making decisions and actions are explained as either designed to perform a particular (often strategic or tactical) function successfully, or as a failure to identify correctly an opportunity or a threat,” in “Beyond the Western Way of War: Ancient Battlefields in Comparative Perspective,” in Ancient Warfare. Archaeological Perspectives, ed. J. Carman and A. Harding (Stroud: Sutton, 1999), 39. 36 Quotation: Raudzens, “War-Winning Weapons” (n. 33), 404. New and more effective artifacts: the Argive shield, for instance, is a common example of a technological innovation with dramatic effects on the battlefield. Its plain superiority is sometimes emphasized, e.g. Jameson, “Political” (n. 4): 158; Everson, Warfare (n. 4), 120, while it was supposed to have been a decisive factor in battles like Hysiae (669 bce). See A. Andrewes, The Greek Tyrants (London: Hutchinson, 1974); Cartledge, “Hoplites and Heroes” (n. 4): 25; Salmon, “Political Hoplites?” (n. 4): 92–93; V. Parker, “The Dates of the Messenian Wars,” Chiron 21 (1991): 44–46. M. M. Markle emphasized the crucial role of the sarissa, that “changed the nature of the infantry phalanx,” in “The Macedonian Sarissa, Spear and Related Armor,” AJArch. 81.3 (1977): 331. 37 Lynn, “Battle” (n. 5): xviii–xix. Examples of inter-ethnic wars: the equipment of the Roman legionary against the traditional Greek hoplite panoply in their second-century wars: Sabin, “Face” (n. 5): 3; V. D. Hanson, “From Phalanx to Legion, 350-250 bce,” in CHW, 44. The Greek panoply against the lighter equipment of the Persians throughout the Classical period: Hornblower, “Greeks and Persians” (n. 32), 53. Greek mercenaries in service abroad during the archaic period: Holladay, “Hoplites and Heresies” (n. 32): 100; A. Snodgrass, “Interaction by Design: The Greek City-State,” in Peer Polity Interaction and Socio-political Change, ed. C. Renfrew and J. F. Cherry (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986), 51–52; P. Baker, “Les Mercenaires,” in Armées et Sociétés de la Grèce Classique. Aspects sociaux et politiques de la guerre aux Ve et IVe s. av. J. C., ed. F. Prost (Paris: Errance, 1999), 240; Hunt, “Military Forces” (n. 32): 109.

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‘effectiveness’ is not a simple variable, but can be assessed according to different criteria: speed, length or distance, range, weight, damage. For any given piece of technology, these criteria are not always clear-cut: shields, for example, considerably improve the protection of a soldier, but they are heavy and cumbersome artifacts that can eventually become a nuisance for their bearers.38 Thus, a weapon can be superior in one respect, but clearly inferior in another. Despite these problems, ‘superiority’ and ‘effectiveness’ are closely related concepts in deterministic terms. Effectiveness is commonly estimated according to the killing potential of a given weapon, that is, according to the assumption that improved artifacts produce more casualties. As a result, some weapons are superior to others because they kill more people than the rest. Fundamental to this preconception is the Clausewitzian idea of annihilation as the objective of war. Clausewitz explicitly stated that “the direct annihilation of the enemy’s forces must always be the dominant consideration,” because “the destruction of the enemy forces is the overriding principle of war.” This ‘annihilation policy’ has at times been connected to different cultures of different periods, like Late Bronze Age Egyptians, Hittites and Assyrians, Alexander’s semi-professional army or the late Republican Roman legions. At earlier stages, a pattern of violent attacks and ‘massacres’ have been detected in European Mesolithic and Neolithic communities, where the entire population seems to have been slaughtered and thrown into ditches. According to Thucydides (7.87.6), some forty thousand Athenians were massacred in the Sicilian Expedition in a clear example of this terrible policy: “The Athenians were beaten in all areas and altogether; all that they suffered was great; they were annihilated, as the saying goes, with total annihilation (nikēthentes … panōlethría to legomenon), their army, their fleet, everything was annihilated (kai pezos kai nees kai ouden hoti ouk apōleto), and few out of many returned home (oligoi apo pollon ep’ oikou apenostēsan).” Hanson provides another example from classical Greece, presenting it as an example of the destructive potential of hoplite warfare: the almost complete destruction of a whole community, Boeotian Thespiai, in a chain of disastrous military actions during the

38 On the Argive shield see, for example, V. D. Hanson, The Western Way of War. Infantry Battle in Classical Greece (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1990), 65–71; Goldsworthy, Roman Warfare (n. 4), 134–35. On the Roman scutum see Wheeler, “Battle” (n. 12): 196.

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fifth century. Thus, the need for technological superiority is built into the very foundations of war-making.39 This point is extremely dubious, though. The material potential of ancient technology for killing, and the very existence of this ‘annihilation principle’ as the final goal of ancient warfare should be revised. On the one hand, ancient weapons were not really effective artifacts for mass destruction. Recent studies on Greek and Roman mortality rates in combat show that casualties were rather low in general terms.40 Ancient ‘tools’ were not accurate implements for fast, effective and complete annihilation. Killing required a rather long time, and handling simple weapons for long periods was extremely exhausting, hampering a systematic destruction of the enemy. Hanson describes the extraordinary effort of Hannibal’s army to annihilate the Roman legions at Cannae, and the enormous difficulty in finishing off thousands of still armed and desperate men. For this reason, “Hannibal’s men must have sought to inflict a quick, crippling wound and then to move on to the next victim, confident that the wounded could be easily polished off the next day.” As a result, time, and not technology, was often the real agent of death.41 True, Hellenistic warfare escalated into disproportionate massacres, as casualties rose to many thousands per battle, and even in the classical period massacres can be found on several battlefields.42 Hence, the work

39 Quotation from Clausewitz: C. von Clausewitz, On War (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2008), 1.1.3. Effectiveness and higher casualties: G. Raudzens, “Firepower Limitations in Modern Military History,” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 67.271 (1989): 134. Late Bronze Age Egyptians, Hittites and Assyrians: Hanson, “Genesis” (n. 5): 16. Alexander’s army: Lloyd, “Philip” (n. 32): 187–94; Hanson, “Phalanx” (n. 37): 37. Late Republican Roman legions: Goldsworthy, Roman Warfare (n. 4), 24–25, 103–4; J. P. Roth, “War,” in CHGRW, 1.397. European Mesolithic and Neolithic communities: S. Vencl, “Stone Age Warfare,” in Ancient Warfare. Archaeological Perspectives, ed. J. Carman and A. Harding (Stroud: Sutton, 1999), 57–72. Thespiai: V. D. Hanson, “Hoplite Obliteration: The Case of the Town of Thespiai,” in Ancient Warfare. Archaeological Perspectives, ed. J. Carman and A. Harding (Stroud: Sutton, 1999), 203– 17. See also the massacre of an Argive army by the Spartans in a battle inside the walls connecting Corinth and Lechaion in 392, and notice Xenophon’s striking account of the circumstances of the slaughter (Hell. 4.4.12). 40 Casualties in Greek combat: P. Krentz, “Casualties in Hoplite Battles,” GRBS 26 (1985): 13–29; Wheeler, “Battle” (n. 12): 212–13. Casualties in Roman combat: Brunt, Italian Manpower (n. 7); Sabin, “Mechanics” (n. 5); idem, “Battle” (n. 5): 413–16; Rich, “Warfare” (n. 5); Roth, “War” (n. 39): 394–98. 41 Killing at Cannae: V. D. Hanson, “Cannae,” in Experience of War. An Anthology of Articles from MHQ (the Quarterly Journal of Military History), ed. R. Cowley (London: Norton, 1992), 44–45. Quotation: ibid., 48. See also A. Goldsworthy, Cannae. Hannibal’s Greatest Victory (London: Phoenix, 2007), 150–56. 42 Casualties in Hellenistic battles: V.D. Hanson, The Wars of the Ancient Greeks. Cassell History of Warfare (London: Cassell, 1999), 201; Sabin, “Battle” (n. 5): 413–16.

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could be naturally accomplished even with those ‘tools.’ However, the contrast between the reduced mortality of classical battles and the insane slaughter of later periods emphasizes the fact that the characteristics and limitations of ancient weaponry do not suffice to explain the casualty rates, and that the destructive power of an army depends in practice on myriad factors. Furthermore, increasing enemy casualties was not necessarily a guarantee for immediate victory either in battle or in war: despite suffering great losses at the beginning of the Hannibalic war, Rome kept on fighting for fifteen more years and eventually won the war. Late fifth-century Athens provides another example: the dramatic losses produced by the plague in 429–427 and the extermination of the whole Athenian army in the Sicilian Expedition in 415–413 did not prevent the city from fighting for twenty seven years in the Peloponnesian War. Inflicting greater losses was not always, I would say, the aim of a battle, but simply a way to prevail over the enemy. In ancient warfare, physical or material predominance was not always sought, but a moral reward was often preferred. Honor and profit were powerful objectives by themselves, and they could both be satisfied without disproportionate bloodshed.43 Inflicting higher casualties, thus, was not a sufficient criterion for technological effectiveness. Weapons and weapon systems had advantages and disadvantages that made it difficult to assess their performance on a regular and objective basis. Late Roman cataphracts, for

For Cannae, where more than 50,000 Roman legionaries were killed, see Hanson, “Cannae” (n. 41); Goldsworthy, Cannae (n. 41). For a recent discussion on the casualty rates in the battles of the Second Punic War, see Sabin, “Mechanics” (n. 5): 66–68. 43 Honor as a structural element of war: D. Kagan, On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace (New York: Anchor Books, 1996), 8–10; van Wees, Greek Warfare (n. 5), 22–26. Discussing the aftermath of Cannae, Adrian Goldsworthy suggests that “war, as Hannibal had been raised to conceive of it and practise it, did not require the annihilation of the enemy, which was anyway seldom possible. Instead, it required a demonstration that it was no longer in his interest to continue fighting. Once persuaded of this, a state or people conceded defeat and sought peace,” in Cannae (n. 41), 168. The speech of the Corinthians before the Peloponnesian allies on the eve of the war against Athens offers a confirmation of this point: “it behooves brave men, when wronged, to go from peace to war, but to abandon war and resume peace again when a favourable opportunity offers” (Thuc. 1.120.3). They later recognize that they will put an end to the war “as soon as we have avenged our wrongs upon the Athenians” (Thuc. 1.121.1). Clausewitz himself recognizes that complete annihilation, what he calls ‘disarming the enemy’, is just the object of war ‘in the abstract’, and that it frequently cannot be accomplished; in fact, “it is possible to increase the likelihood of success without defeating the enemy’s forces”, and “in war many roads lead to success, and they do not all involve the opponent’s outright defeat”; see Clausewitz, “On War” (n. 39), 1.2.

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example, designed as crack force to charge through infantry lines, were defenseless if thrown from their horses, and vulnerable in hand-to-hand fighting due to their lack of shield; they were only capable of performing one tactic—frontal charge at full speed—and this only under ideal conditions: “on level ground, in fairly moderate temperatures, and against an unimaginative opponent.” The chariots were impressive weapons designed for frontal attacks in order to disperse the enemy infantry, but their performance relied on surprise, speed and favorable conditions, and they remained extremely breakable and difficult to control at top speed. The Greek hoplite, although well suited to close combat, was a slow soldier who performed less effectively on rough terrain and could be easily outmaneuvered by cavalry or light-armed troops.44 Weapons were in fact a continuous problem for the commander, who had to provide the logistics required for their use: cavalry needed horses that had to be fed; swords and spears frequently broke, and specialized craftsmen and increasing amounts of raw materials were needed to repair or replace them. An army like Antiochus’ at Magnesia—with some 70,000 men, cavalry, mounted archers, dromedaries, light infantry, elephants and scythed chariots (Liv. 37.40)—common from the fourth century onwards, clearly illustrates these logistical problems.45 Thus, technological effectiveness is not always a matter of casualty rates; in fact, “are there clear examples of the realization of weapons expectations? …Weapons impact analysis has not received more than marginal attention from scholars.” The limitations of ancient weapons should lead to new considerations regarding their social and psychological impact upon their bearers. The deterministic approach focuses permanently on weapons, while the human side of warfare is often pushed into a secondary position: “the emphasis is on the hardware, and the human dimension of weapons impact is, as a rule, not treated. We know a great deal about when and how weapons were made, how many were produced and what they looked like, a bit about where they were

44 Quotation: Eadie, “Development” (n. 5): 165, 172–73. Chariots: R. F. Glover, “Some Curiosities of Ancient Warfare,” G&R 19.55 (1950): 5–6; Sabin, “Battle” (n. 5), 417–18. Greek hoplite: Hanson, Western (n. 38); idem, “Genesis” (n. 5). 45 On logistics, see generally D. W. Engels, Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1980) and J. W. I. Lee, A Greek Army on the March. Soldiers and Survival in Xenophon’s Anabasis (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007). On logistics in archaic and classical Greece, see P. Krentz, “War,” in CHGRW, 1.150–4. For Hellenistic and early Roman times, see Roth, “War” (n. 39): 380–88.

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used, a little about how much they cost, and plenty about their performance capabilities at least in theory and on the testing ranges. Only occasionally are there comments about their actual impact on soldiers in battle.”46 As a result, determinism eliminates the human being from the equation of historical change in favor of arguments based on technology, which are much more compelling and attractive. Ancient sources, in contrast, strongly stressed the human factor as decisive for winning battles: as the anecdote of Archidamus and the catapult show, moral qualities were thought to be the real causes of victory or defeat.47 The emphasis on men as the decisive elements in warfare has a long history in ancient literature, especially in Greek literature, where citizen soldiers are depicted as the real ‘wall’ of the city (Alc. frg. 112.10; Thuc. 7.77.7). Courage, readiness for duty and sacrifice are greatly celebrated both in Homer and in lyric poetry,48 because a man who fights is “a common good for the whole city and the community (xunon esthlon touto polēi te panti te dēmō)” (Tyrtaeus frg. 12.15). The human factor reveals itself as crucial in every field of warfare: Alexander’s success in sieges, for example, owed a great deal to internal strife and treason, and the considerable effort devoted by Aeneas Tacticus in his work to the prevention of treason during a siege (10, 18–20) shows that suspicions were well grounded. Philopoemen’s military reforms focused more on the preparation and training of troops than on the introduction of new weapons, for the failure of the Achaean army was for him a moral, not a technological, problem. Greek literature emphasized the role of the general in the final success of any campaign, rating his personal qualities and charisma over the material conditions of the army. These are all examples of the crucial role of human nature in warfare as perceived by the ancients.49

46 Quotations: Raudzens, “War-winning weapons,” (n. 33): 403; idem, “Firepower” (n. 39): 130–31. 47 For Archidamus and the catapult, see Plut. Mor. 191e; Apoth. Lac. 219a. Moral factors in ancient sources: P. Beston, “Hellenistic Military Leadership,” in War and Violence in Ancient Greece, ed. H. van Wees (London: Duckworth, 2000): 315; Cuomo, Technology (n. 15), 42–43. 48 Homer: Il. 2.235, 5.529, 7.96, 6.112, 8.174, 11.287, 15.487, 561, 564, 661, 734, 16.209, 270, 17.111, 185, 264, 20.169, 21.571–2. Lyric poetry: Tyrtaeus frg. 5.4–6, frg. 10.17–18, frg. 11.2–4, frg. 12, frg. 13; Callinus frg.1.1. 49 Internal strife and sieges: B. Gille, Les Mécaniciens Grecs. La Naissance de la Technologie (Paris: Seuil, 1980), 52; Y. Garlan, La Guerre dans l’Antiquité (Paris: Nathan, 1972), 125–26; B. S. Strauss, “Battle. B: Naval Battles and Sieges,” in CHGRW, 1.244–6. Philopoemen’s military reforms: Beston, “Hellenistic Leadership” (n. 47): 319–20, 325.

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Men, the real agents of war, are dramatically shaken in combat, and their morale, stamina or confidence in victory can be seriously affected by multiple factors. Fear, stress, tiredness, hunger or thirst, all threaten to turn the most experienced units into a panicked and useless mob. Raudzens points out that “most soldiers in most recorded battles surrender or run off after losing less than one third of their comrades”; this means that psychological imperatives prevailed over tactics and command in a considerable part of historical warfare.50 Weapons play a crucial role in this psychological sphere, because they have a considerable effect on the soldiers’ morale and will: all over the ancient world, warriors from different cultures attempted to intimidate their enemies with their appearance, like the Homeric heroes or the Gauls; even the Roman legionaries attempted to frighten the enemy with their panoplies.51 Perhaps common weapons like spears or swords were not particularly terrifying, but intimidation was not caused by individual pieces but by the whole equipment, and other, more sophisticated, elements played a greater role: Diodorus, for instance, describes the extraordinary impact of the first catapults on men’s morale, and confesses that “this piece of artillery caused in fact great consternation” (14.50.4). Chariots had a similar effect (Diod. 17.53; Front. Str. 2.3.17), and Vegetius says that they provoked “great fear” (magnum terrorem) the first time they were used in combat (3.24.1). Elephants caused considerable impact as well,

The role of the general in combat: ibid., 321, 322, 325, 326, 328. Bear in mind the catastrophic effects that a commander’s death in combat has on his troops: Sabin, “Mechanics” (n. 5): 74; E. L. Wheeler, “The General as Hoplite,” in Hoplites. The Classical Greek Battle Experience, ed. V. D. Hanson (London: Routledge, 1991), 121–72; Hanson, Western (n. 38), 107–16. For a discussion on the crucial role of Alexander’s leadership, see Lloyd, “Philip” (n. 32): 177–78. 50 Raudzens, “Firepower” (n. 39): 152–3. For experienced units turning into a panicked mob: Keegan, Face of Battle (n. 1), 172–77. For psychological factors in combat: Sabin, “Mechanics” (n. 5), 71–77; C. J. Rogers, “The Efficacy of the English Longbow: A Reply to Kelly deVries,” War in History 5.2 (1998): 235. 51 References on the outfit of the Homeric heroes: van Wees, “Homeric Way of War II” (n. 5): 131–37. For the terrible appearance of the Gauls: Liv. 5.35.4, 37.4, 37.8; Polyb. 2.29.6–9; Plut. Vit. Mar. 15, 21. For further details on Gauls, see L. Rawlings, “Celts, Spaniards, and Samnites: Warriors in a Soldiers’ War,” in SPW, 87. Roman legionaries: “The effect of these [a set of long feathers] being placed on the helmet, combined with the rest of the armor, is to give the man the appearance of being twice his real height, and to give him a noble aspect calculated to strike terror into the enemy” (Polyb. 6.23). See also Rawlings, “Celts” (this note): 88. Adornment of shields in the Hellenistic armies as a way to impress and frighten the enemy: B. Bar Kochva, The Seleucid Army. Organization and tactics in the great campaigns (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1976), 56, and notes 10–12.

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because their size and spectacular performance in combat almost counteracted their uncontrollable character. Ancient sources emphasize the terrible sight of elephants, and the deadly effects of their trunks and tusks. Military formations, like the phalanx and the legion, also had a famous terrifying power over their enemies.52 The impact of weapons in the development and outcome of a battle, thus, is not a direct and logical connection in terms of casualties or hits, but a complex equation involving many variables. Thus, if the alleged ‘superiority’ or ‘effectiveness’ of a weapon is measured in terms of performance in combat, we have to find the value of all those variables; to consider a single aspect is not enough reason to regard a piece of technology as superior. The specific use of the weapon in practice—the accuracy of the ‘tool’ for its established task—should also be taken into account. However, this is no easy feat: the task can be different according to different users, and it is commonly the results of a gradual interaction with the weapon.53 Thus, the ‘most accurate task’ is not always selfevident, but mistakes and errors of judgment or assessment can assign specific pieces to wrong functions. However, this ranges beyond the limits of technology, and moves into the fields of strategy and tactics. Superior Tactics: Formations against Formations According to determinism, tactics must be systematically connected with specific weapons, and a belief in tactical superiority parallels technological superiority: a ‘superior’ weapon is thought to perform a given tactical function more efficiently than ‘inferior’ ones. The Argive shield is an example of this view, sometimes identified with the hoplite phalanx to the point that an isolated hoplite is considered useless.54 As a result, deterministic approaches tend to emphasize the superiority of some

52 Chariots: Diod. 17.53; Front. Str. 2.3.17. Elephants: R. F. Glover, “The Tactical Handling of the Elephant,” G&R 17.49 (1948): 1, 3–4; Sabin, “Battle” (n. 5): 419–21. Ancient sources on elephants: Diod. 17.88; Plut. Pyrrh. 21.7; Polyb. 1.74.3, 77.2, 3.53.8; Liv. 33.9.7; App. Hisp. 46; Veg. 3.24.5–6. Greek phalanx: Hanson, Western (n. 38), 96–104; idem, “Genesis” (n. 5): 19; idem, “Phalanx” (n. 37): 33, 40. Macedonian phalanx: N. G. L. Hammond, “Training in the Use of the Sarissa and Its Effect in Battle, 359–333 bce,” Antichthon 14 (1980): 59. Legion: Hanson, “Phalanx” (n. 37): 43. 53 See van Creveld, Technology (n. 30), 15. 54 Argive shield and hoplite phalanx: H. L. Lorimer, “The Hoplite Phalanx with Special Reference to the Poems of Archilochus and Tyrtaeus,” BSA 42 (1947): 76–138; M. Détienne, “La Phalange, Problèmes et Controverses,” in Problèmes de la Guerre en

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tactics over others.55 Hence, being regarded as superior, these tactics are supposed to have spread, simply copied, from one place to another in a sort of mechanical transfer of knowledge.56 However, the assessment of these ‘superior qualities’ of weapons and tactics is absolutely subjective, and modern scholars can disagree on this point. For instance, Greek hoplites are usually considered heavy, slow

Grèce Ancienne, dir. J. P. Vernant (Paris: Mouton, 1968), 119–42; Cartledge, “Hoplites and Heroes” (n. 4): 13; idem, “La Nascita degli Opliti e l’Organizzazione Militare,” in I Greci: Storia, Cultura, Arte, Societá. vol. II.I, Formazione, ed. S. Settis (Torino: Einaudi, 1996), 692; R. Osborne, Greece in the Making, 1200–479 bce (London: Routledge, 1996), 177–78; Everson, Warfare (n. 4), 120–22; Lendon, Soldiers (n. 5), 182; Goldsworthy, Roman Warfare (n. 4), 33. Isolated hoplites: Lorimer, “Hoplite Phalanx” (this note): 128; idem, Homer and the Monuments (London: Macmillan, 1950), 462; T. B. L. Webster, From Mycenae to Homer (London: Methuen, 1958), 214–15; W. G. Forrest, The Emergence of Greek Democracy. The Character of Greek Politics, 800–400 bce (London: World Univ. Library, 1966), 90; Andrewes, Greek Tyrants (n. 36), 32; Bryant, “Military Technology” (n. 4): 498; Mitchell, “Hoplite Warfare” (n. 4), 89; Osborne, Greece (this note), 175–76; Schwartz, “Early Hoplite Phalanx” (n. 4): 33, 39–40; Goldsworthy, Roman Warfare (n. 4), 33–34. For a critical discussion on this subject, see L. Rawlings, “Alternative Agonies. Hoplite Martial and Combat Experiences Beyond the Phalanx,” in War and Violence in Ancient Greece, ed. H. van Wees (London: Duckworth, 2000), 233– 59. The sarissa is thought to be useless outside the phalanx as well: Markle, “Macedonian Sarissa” (n. 36): 331; Hammond, “Training” (n. 52): 53. The Bronze Age chariot has been so tightly linked to chariot warfare and charge tactics that the functions described in Homer have been branded as literary fantasy or even ignorance of a lost practice; for a recent discussion on this point, see van Wees, Greek Warfare (n. 5), 159 and note 17. 55 Lendon recognizes the existence of this pattern in scholarship in Soldiers (n. 5), 11, a pattern emphasizing, for example, the superiority of chariot charges over infantry on flat terrain (Drews, Coming of the Greeks [n. 4]; van Creveld, Technology [n. 30], 13), of the Greek phalanx over light-armed infantry (Hornblower, “Greeks and Persians” [n. 32], 53; Hanson, “Genesis” [n. 5]: 23, 25), of the Macedonian phalanx over the hoplite phalanx (Hanson, “Phalanx” [n. 37]: 33), of the Roman legion over the Macedonian phalanx (Rich, “Warfare” [n. 5]: 64; Hanson, “Phalanx” [n. 37]: 41–42; idem, “The Roman Way of War, 250 bc–ad 300,” in CHW, 49–51), and so on. In End of Bronze Age (n. 4), 97–225, Robert Drews argued that the downfall of the Bronze Age cultures in the Aegean was the result of the introduction of a new type of infantry that gave ‘barbarian’ peoples a military advantage over the chariot-riding kingdoms. Recent and more cautious approaches, e.g. Lendon, Soldiers (n. 5), 10, prefer to consider that “some armaments and methods of fighting had an advantage over others and that some might be better suited than others to given circumstances.” However, even this advantage is, to a certain degree, only theoretical and can be betrayed in practice on the battlefield. 56 Chariot warfare, for instance, spread throughout the Eastern Mediterranean during the Middle and Late Bronze ages, and the only apparent requirement for the tactic was to have chariots; see Drews, Coming of the Greeks (n. 4), 74–120; idem, End of Bronze Age (n. 4), 104–34; van Creveld, Technology (n. 30), 12–13. However, against the widespread picture of Egyptian warfare as predominantly waged with chariots, see Ian Shaw’s discussion on the role of archers and spearmen in the Middle and New Kingdoms, in “Battle in Ancient Egypt: The Triumph of Horus or the Cutting Edge of the Temple Economy?” in Battle in Antiquity, ed. A. B. Lloyd (London: Duckworth, 1996), 239–69.

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and hardly maneuverable infantrymen, but they become ‘light hoplites’ when compared to Macedonian phalangites. This subjective evaluation of the application of weapons to specific tactics is much more evident on the battlefield, for “a technical progress in arms is not synonymous with a new battle formation.” If we consider tactics as the practical application of the characteristics of weapons in order to perform a specific task in a complex scene, there is always the possibility of making a wrong assessment of that ‘practical application,’ and a weapon can, thus, be assigned an inaccurate function. In the real practice of combat, “human factors cancel out technological potentialities, and human responses can be at variance with engineering expectations.” Potentially devastating weapons, like the elephant, the chariot, or the sarissa and the Macedonian phalanx, can be wasted in erroneous tactical applications.57 The operative use of weapons in broader tactical frameworks is thus not a clear and self-evident truth, but an ‘on-the-spot’ decision after a superficial analysis of many elements; mistakes can be made in this process. The weapon should be considered not as an isolated innovation, The Greek phalanx is thought to have appeared in Italy early in the Archaic Age, reaching first the Etruscan cities, and later Rome itself. See C. Saulnier, L’ Armée et la Guerre dan le Monde Étrusco-Romain (VIII–IV s.) (Paris: Diffusion de Boccard, 1980); T. Rihll, “War, Slavery, and Settlement in Early Greece,” in War and Society in the Greek World, ed. J. Rich and G. Shipley (London: Routledge, 1995), 91; Cornell, Beginnings (n. 4), 170–71 and note 73, 183–90; Hanson, “Phalanx” (n. 37), 41. Heavy infantry tactics are also thought to have spread through Northern Greece and Macedonia during the late fifth and early fourth century bce: Hammond, “Training” (n. 52): 54. Commanders and generals probably exchanged some tactical knowledge, especially during periods like the Hellenistic Age; see Beston, “”Hellenistic Leadership” (n. 47), 319. Philip’s learning of heavy infantry tactics in Thebes is usually interpreted in this sense: M. M. Markle, “Use of the Sarissa by Philip and Alexander of Macedon,” AJArch. 82.4 (1978): 486, 491; N. G. L. Hammond, “What May Philip Have Learnt as a Hostage in Thebes?” GRBS 38.4 (1997): 355–72. However, this seems to be for the most part a literary tradition rather than a real practice; see Beston, “Hellenistic Leadership” (n. 47): 319. 57 Quotations in this paragraph: Pritchett, Greek State (n. 5), 44; Raudzens, “Firepower” (n. 39): 132. Heavy hoplites: Hanson, Western (n. 38); idem, “Hoplite Technology in Phalanx Battle,” in Hoplites. The Classical Greek Battle Experience, ed. V. D. Hanson (London: Routledge, 1991), 63–86; idem, “Genesis” (n. 5), 19. Light hoplites: Markle, “Macedonian Sarissa” (n. 36): 329, 330. Weapons assigned to inaccurate functions: B. S. Strauss and J. Ober, The Anatomy of Error: Ancient Military Disasters and Their Lessons for Modern Strategists (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 7. The elephant and the chariot: Glover, “Tactical Handling” (n. 52); idem, “Curiosities” (n. 44). The sarissa and the phalanx: Markle “Use of Sarissa” (n. 56): 494. In his account of the destruction of a Spartan mora in Lechaion, Xenophon says that the Spartans used their cavalry “badly”, because, instead of pushing the pursuit of Iphicrates’ peltasts further than the Spartan hoplites could do, they held the line with the hoplites, losing any chance of harming the enemy (Hell. 4.5.16).

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but as a piece in combination with other elements: “A new weapon may indeed give one side a battlefield advantage, but only if that weapon is deployed within a proper strategic framework.” Hence, the erroneous use of technology can tear tactics down, and a wrong tactic can cancel out an eventual superiority in weapons: Greek hoplites, for instance, proved to be ineffective against light-armed infantry on rough terrain, exactly like light-armed troops proved useless against heavy infantry on level ground.58 However, ‘superiority’ and ‘effectiveness’ are also relevant concepts in the deterministic interpretations of the expansion and diffusion of military technology and tactics: nobody, it is generally assumed, wants ‘inferior’ technology, and communities compete permanently against their neighbors to gain technological supremacy; there is a need to emulate the neighbor, so as not to lag behind in a sort of ‘arms race.’ As a result, a constant demand, based on a competitive principle, is supposed to have created a growing supply of ‘superior’ military technology: “Normally, military technology is the first to be borrowed by every society, because the penalty for failing to do so can be immediate and fatal.”59 The stress of military victory leads, then, to the perpetual acquisition of weapons and tactics. The Romans, for example, have a reputation for easily adopting foreign military practices, and the adoption of the Celtiberian short sword, identified with the gladius hispaniensis, is a common example (Polyb. frg. 179). The Hellenistic period as a whole witnessed an increasing flow and exchange of military innovations, encouraged by the competitive ethos of generalship at the time.60 However, even when this 58 Quotation: Strauss and Ober, Anatomy of Error (n. 57), 10. Hoplites against lightarmed troops on rough terrain: Acharnania (Thuc. 2.102), Aetolia (Thuc. 3.94–98), Sphakteria (Thuc. 4.31–33), Amphipolis (Thuc. 5.10), Mitylene (Thuc. 3.18.4.2), Piraeus (Xen. Hell. 2.4.12–16), Bithynia (Xen. Hell. 3.2.3–4), Locris (Xen. Hell. 4.3.22–23), Lechaion (Xen. Hell. 4.4.17, 4.5.11–17), Acharnania (Xen. Hell. 4.6.8–11). Rawlings explains that Greek hoplites actually performed a wider range of military tasks beyond their service in the phalanx, in “Alternative Agonies” (n. 54). Their alleged specialization is just a modern interpretation encouraged by ideologically biased sources. 59 Parker, “Introduction” (n. 4), 2. 60 Some recurrent examples of ‘arms race’: Argive shield and hoplite phalanx: Lorimer, “Hoplite Phalanx” (n. 54): 108; Andrewes, Greek Tyrants (n. 36), 38; Salmon, “Political Hoplites” (n. 4): 96; Holladay, “Hoplites and Heresies” (n. 32): 99–100. Bronze-age chariots: Drews, Coming of the Greeks (n. 4), 74–120. Siege technology: Cuomo, Technology (n. 15), 46–59. Composite bow: Drews, Coming of the Greeks (n. 4), 86–100. Sarissa and Macedonian phalanx: Bar-Kochva, Seleucid Army (n. 51), 54. For a recent rendering of the idea, see Hunt, “Military Forces” (n. 32), 110. The Romans adopting foreign military practices: Roth, “War” (n. 39), 374–5. Exchange of military innovations in the Hellenistic period: Lendon, Soldiers (n. 5), 153–5.

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pattern has been extended to the Western culture as a whole (and efforts have been made to substantiate it by resorting to a ‘challenge-andrespond’ phenomenon and its comparison to the biological model of ‘punctuated equilibrium’) the dynamics of the ‘arms race’ paradigm prove problematic when applied to ancient warfare.61 This approach to the spread and diffusion of military tools and knowledge is to a great extent based on the idea that the battlefield is a sort of ‘laboratory,’ where soldiers constantly experiment with arms in search of more effective models. Recent studies support the notion of ‘experimentation’ with weapons and tactics, but it is difficult to ascertain in what conditions this experimentation was carried out. Some widely accepted examples of alleged processes of experimentation are the introduction of the manipular system in Republican Rome, the introduction of the hoplite equipment and the phalanx in Greece, or the introduction of heavy cavalry in the Roman army. This ‘scientific metaphor,’ akin to the academic language on war, tries to rationalize the experience of combat, creating an illusion of order, efficiency and pragmatism. However, systematic research is rarely transferred into the sphere of warfare, and in the ancient world it is limited to a short list of isolated contexts, like Dionysius’ ‘school’ or Alexander’s circle. Hammond remarks that “detailed descriptions of military training before the Hellenistic period are extremely rare,” so if some sort of ‘experimentation’ ever existed before that time, it captured small attention in our sources.62 On the

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Western culture: Parker, “Introduction” (n. 4): 2, 5. ‘Punctuated equilibrium’: ibid.,

6–7. 62 Hammond, “Training” (n. 52): 56. For ‘experimentation,’ see Parker, “Introduction” (n. 4): 2; Lendon, Soldiers (n. 5), 154, 157. Manipular system: Lendon, Soldiers (n. 5), 183. Hoplite equipment and phalanx: P. Krentz, “The Nature of Hoplite Battle,” CA 4 (1985): 60–61; Hanson, “Hoplite Technology” (n. 57), 74–78. Cf. P. A. L. Greenhalgh, who argues that it is the lack of specialized training that leads to the swift spread of the phalanx, in Early Greek Warfare: Horsemen and Chariots in the Homeric and Archaic Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1973), 74–83. Heavy cavalry: Eadie, “Development” (n. 5): 163, 168, 173. Other examples of experimentation: the evolution of combat between Romans and Carthaginians in the Second Punic War: Sabin, “Mechanics” (n. 5): 64–66. The evolution of the Greek equipment in the Persian Wars: Everson, Warfare (n. 4), 129–30. Academic language on war: Keegan, Face of Battle (n. 1), 30–32. Dionysius’ ‘school’: Cuomo, Technology (n. 15), 43–46. Alexander’s circle: Hanson, “Phalanx” (n. 37): 39. For practice in combat, see Thucydides on the 1000 picked Argives at Mantineia (Thuc. 5.67.2) and on the self-confidence of the Spartans, “knowing that long-continued actual practice meant more for their salvation than any brief admonition, however well spoken” (Thuc. 5.69.2). Neither of these references implies that practice leads to a conscious study of battle according to ‘scientific’ standards.

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battlefield, practice and experience is one thing, but experimentation and research is quite a different matter. The ‘laboratory’ image tends to reject the human factor, which in fact pervades the theory and practice of warfare. We are inclined to think that humans have a rational and pragmatic approach to warfare, but this is seldom the case. In fact, “men have always been slow, or reluctant, to read aright the lessons of facts.”63 Confidence, lack of exhaustive analysis, tradition, ignorance, conservatism, incompetence are all factors that can explain why a weapon could be applied to inaccurate tasks, or why wrong strategies could cancel out any technological superiority. It can be argued that if victory had been the real criterion to assess the superiority of a given weapon, military transference and exchange would have been much more frequent than it was: the Persians, Thracians, Italians and Sicilians defeated by Greek armies would have adopted the phalanx, the Argive shield and the thrusting spear; the Greeks themselves would have adopted the Macedonian formation, the sarissa and the telamon shield after Chaeronaea; and the Macedonians in turn would have been forced to incorporate the manipular system, the scutum, the pilum and the gladius after Kynoskephalai and Pydna.64 However, this did not happen, because the sphere of the military is extremely conservative, and human limitations frequently ignore or even impede military innovations. Some examples can easily be found: despite the spectacular performance of elephants in Italy from Pyrrhus onwards, for instance, the Romans took a long time to include them in their armies, and only reluctantly. Again, the belief in the invincibility of the legions hampered for a long time the introduction in the Roman army of a proper body of heavy cavalry, despite the frequent clashes against enemy cataphracts from the second century ad onwards. Similarly, the Macedonians had not developed yet a heavy infantry of their own by the fourth century bce, and their phalanx was only introduced at the end of Philip’s reign. Finally, Roman martial values in the

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Glover, “Tactical Handling” (n. 52): 11. Rational approach to warfare: Hanson, “Phalanx” (n. 37): 40. For a recent summary of these ancient military mistakes and miscalculations, see Strauss and Ober, Anatomy of Error (n. 57). For the adoption of the Roman manipular system by other peoples, see Lendon, Soldiers (n. 5), 190–1. Regarding the ‘human factor’, Xenophon reflects about command decisions taken out of rage, for “in dealing with enemies, to attack under the influence of anger and not with judgment is an absolute mistake. For anger is a thing which does not look ahead, while judgment aims no less to escape harm than to inflict it upon the enemy” (Xen. Hell. 5.3.7). 64

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middle Republic, extremely aggressive and based on the display of individual and communal courage (virtus), prevented the Roman army from adopting more suitable strategies to fight enemies like Hannibal.65 We tend to think that the problems and disadvantages of technology are obvious, but ancient history shows that, if there were lessons to be learned, then people rarely paid attention. Aristotle recognized that it was difficult to learn from experience (Metaph. 981a 25–981b 9), and even with systematic experimentation, tradition and resistance to change can be decisive obstacles for technology. Prejudices can lead peoples to ignore, restrict or reject innovations; mistakes are frequently repeated, and ‘scientific’ learning from experience is sometimes hard to find. In the ancient world, battlefields from all periods have left many unattended lessons: the Romans, for example, had had encounters against elephants at least since the time of Pyrrhus’ war, and Pliny recognizes that they had experience regarding how to combat them with their swords (Plin. HN. 8.7.18), but they continued to be terrified of them and to suffer heavy losses for many decades after. Scythed chariots proved to be highly unreliable in combat, and did not make any significant difference in the battles they were used in, but they were preserved for some five hundred years anyway. Similarly, Philip and Alexander reformed the logistics of the Macedonian army, turning it into a fast and almost autonomous military machine, and increased considerably the numbers and relevance of cavalry over infantry; however, the Diadochs returned to the old logistics of slow and oversized baggage trains and to the allimportant lines of heavy infantry with cavalry as a mere auxiliary. Epaminondas’ oblique phalanx was perhaps the only real innovation in two centuries of Greek land warfare, but it is completely absent from later land battles. The astonishing ‘iron tube’ used by the Peloponnesians in the siege of Delium (Thuc. 4.100) was never to be reproduced again, despite its success, and the impressive piece of Roman legionary plate armor, the lorica segmentata, was also simply abandoned in the third century.66

65 For obstacles to military innovations in general: Lendon, Soldiers (n. 5), 12–13. Elephants in Roman armies: Glover, “Tactical Handling” (n. 52): 2–3. Heavy cavalry in Roman armies: Eadie, “Development” (n. 5): 163–67. Macedonian heavy infantry and phalanx: Markle, “Macedonian Sarissa” (n. 36): 328, 329; idem, “Use of the Sarissa” (n. 56): 484, 488, 492, 496. Roman aggressive values: Lendon, Soldiers (n. 5), 200–203. 66 Romans and elephants: Glover, “Tactical Handling” (n. 52): 6–10; Sabin, “Battle” (n. 5): 419–21. Scythed chariots: Glover, “Curiosities” (n. 44): 5–8; Sabin, “Battle” (n. 5): 417–18. Macedonian logistics: W. W. Tarn, Hellenistic Military and Naval Developments

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As a result, the question is not whether the battlefield was a laboratory or not, but whether soldiers and commanders were ready to regard it permanently as such—that is, to display a permanent and conscious commitment with learning and training—and to draw conclusions from the experiment and apply them in new situations. In my opinion, this entails a scientific approach to warfare that would be for the most part anachronistic in the ancient world, especially in view of its problematic notion of progress. Even in an ideal context where all the requisites for learning are fulfilled, it is difficult to find two armies reacting similarly in similar situations, or applying the same weapon to the same function. If we accept that “every culture develops its own way of war,” then we must assume that there are many possible connections between technology and combat, influenced by emotional, ideological and irrational concerns, as the Spartans’ and Athenians’ radically different ways of war, for instance, show.67 Thus, the mere acquisition of a technological innovation is not enough: “Simply copying weapons picked up on the battlefield could never suffice; it also required the ‘replication’ of the whole social and economic structure that underpinned the capacity to innovate and respond swiftly.”68 In practice, technological and tactical innovations can only offer but a momentary superiority, which lasts as long as the element of surprise. That was the case with the catapult, according to Diodorus, which “caused great consternation, since it had been discovered for the first time on that occasion (dia to prōtōs heurethēnai kat’ ekeinon ton kairon)” (14.50.4). However, surprise is a temporary advantage, and some weapons prove to be ineffective in the long run.69

(Cambridge. Cambridge Univ. Press. 1930), 27–30; Hanson, “Phalanx” (n. 37): 41. Epaminondas’ oblique phalanx: V. D. Hanson, “Épaminodas, la Bataille de Leuctres (371 av. J.-C.) et la ‘Révolution’ dans la Tactique Grecque,” in La Guerre en Grèce à l’Époque Classique, ed. P. Brulé and J. Ouhlen (Rennes: Presses Univ. de Rennes, 1999), 241–60. Cf. Tarn, Hellenistic Developments (this note), 8, who believes that “his early death prevented the ideas he had used at Leuctra from being further developed,” which is highly dubious. The ‘iron tube’: Gille, Mécaniciens Grecs (n. 49), 17–18; Strauss, “Battle” (n. 49): 239. The lorica segmentata: Lendon, Soldiers (n. 5), 8. 67 Different applications of weapons: van Creveld, Technology (n. 30), 4, 5, 15. Quotation: Parker, “Introduction” (n. 4), 1. 68 Parker, “Introduction” (n. 4), 8. 69 Regarding the camel, Vegetius confessed that, “despite its novelty, it is ineffective in combat (inefficax bello est)” (3.23.2). The elephant was not a decisive weapon either, for in spite of its terrifying performance, both Macedonian and Roman armies managed to win their battles against them, as Alexander’s victory at Hydaspes shows; see Glover, “Tactical Handling” (n. 52): 1. Heavy cavalry was also considered a superior weapon,

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Furthermore, the alleged superiority of a weapon or a tactic could be counteracted through different ways. As Raudzens puts it: “each new weapon had a tactical antidote,” that is, a specific weapon could be effectively counteracted by a tactical disposition.70 We are inclined to think that weapons and tactics are adopted in order to counteract the effects of these same devices in the hands of our enemies. This is in fact the very foundation of the ‘arms race’ phenomenon. But this is not always true: weapons and tactics can be counteracted through tactical ingenuity and adaptability. In part, military innovations are adopted also because we expect to cause the same effects as the enemy. However, this is a mere illusion, for the spread and diffusion of military technology leads in practice to a technological draw. Every single piece of technological or tactical innovation, like heavy cavalry, chariots, catapults, elephants, the phalanx, and so on, has led to this exact situation: armies with similar technologies fight on more or less equal terms.71 From this point of view, superiority becomes a rather evasive reality. Conclusions Technological determinism tries to explain the complex historical process of military, social, and political transformations from a mechanistic point of view. The result is a simple and direct sequence of causes and effects, from the introduction of a technological innovation to political

but after the initial impact the Roman legions won most of the battles fought against it; see Eadie, “Development” (n. 5): 163. 70 Raudzens, “Firepower” (n. 39): 151. See, for instance, tactical countermeasures against the Greek phalanx: Markle, “Macedonian Sarissa” (n. 36): 339; idem, “Use of the Sarissa” (n. 56): 486; Hanson, “Genesis” (n. 5), 26. Against elephants: Glover, “Tactical Handling” (n. 52): 4–8. Against light cavalry: Eadie, “Development” (n. 5): 170–1, 173. Against chariots: Glover, “Curiosities” (n. 44): 7. Against the Macedonian phalanx: Markle, “Macedonian Sarissa” (n. 36): 332–3; see also Hammond, “Training” (n. 52): 54, who notes that Alexander armed his infantry sometimes with the sarissa and sometimes with the spear, according to the circumstances. Zama can be regarded as an example of two complex and highly trained armies with experienced generals, deployed in order to counteract the rival’s tactical choices (Polyb. 15.9, 11–12, 16; Liv. 30.32–35); for a recent discussion on the battle, see J. Lazenby, “Was Maharbal Right?” in SPW, 40–42. Another example of changing tactical dispositions is Plataea, where Spartans and Athenians exchanged their wings several times, being answered by similar Persian arrangements (Hdt. 9.44–48). For the fluidity and mobility of troops in combat in the battles of the Second Punic War, see Sabin, “Mechanics” (n. 5): 68–73. 71 van Creveld, Technology (n. 30), 17.

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and social revolutions. This approach to historical change is based, as shown, on a few key points. First, technology is emphasized as a potential historical agent; thus the notion of ‘superiority’ of new weapons over older ones becomes central. Secondly, technological change is presented as a continuous ‘progress,’ and considered as intrinsically positive, desirable and immediately understandable for anybody. Thirdly, the battlefield is presented as a ‘laboratory’ where soldiers and commanders permanently and consciously experiment with weapons to develop better and more efficient versions.72 It has been pointed out that military history in general has a remarkable inclination to determinism: “military topics may appear more deterministic than those in other branches of technology because war itself and the factors shaping its outcome often appear deterministic.”73 According to Roland, deterministic approaches generally start from an anti-militarist point of view, allowing moral considerations on war to enter historical writing as a given.74 This moral approach to the dynamics of history can lead to a certain lack of criticism of the inconsistencies of determinism; “the reason, one suspects, is that most are in sympathy” with this view, says Roland; “if the proper icons are being smashed, there is little interest in contesting fine points of logic or usage. Instead, readers are inclined to agree with the conclusion and blink at the inconsistency.”75 As shown, determinism displays some serious inconsistencies: the absolute pre-eminence of technology in war, the elimination of the ‘human factor,’ the consideration of weapons as decisive elements, the connection between weapons and tactics, and the ideas of superiority and progress, among others. To a great extent, the inclination of military history towards technological determinism can be interpreted as a matter of narrative. History as a discipline is intrinsically subjective, and this deficiency can lead to an attempt to counteract it using the most scientific language possible. 72 Technological change as progress: Holladay, “Hoplites and Heresies” (n. 32): 100– 102. Battlefield as a laboratory: Hanson, “Hoplite Technology” (n. 57), 74–78. 73 A. Roland, “Science, Technology, and War,” Technology and Culture 36.2 Suppl. (1995): S91. See also ibid., S89; J. Black, “Military Organisations and Military Change in Historical Perspective,” JMH 62.4 (1998): 871. 74 Roland, “Science” (n. 71): S84–S89. In his essay about Greek Hellenistic warfare, W. W. Tarn regrets that fighting played such a prominent role in ancient Greece: “It may be an unfortunate thing that war should have occupied such a large place in the outlook of every state during the period I am considering,” in Hellenistic Developments (n. 64), 1–2. For a recent but brief discussion on this point, see V. D. Hanson, “The Modern Historiography of Ancient Warfare,” in CHGRW, 1.10–13. 75 Roland, “Science” (n. 71): S87.

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Military matters, based on precision and accuracy in chronological, spatial and numerical details, are especially delicate in this respect. Hence, in order to make an objective and clean account of past events, the predictable element—machines—prevails over the unpredictable one— human beings—in a sort of ‘rhetoric of military history.’ Polybius reminds us of the extraordinary responsibility of historians when reconstructing events from the past, for most inconsistencies should rather be attributed “to the historian who on account of his inexperience is unable to distinguish the possible from the impossible in such matters” (12.22.4–6). Determinism is an academic matter, a controversy about the subjective perceptions and interpretations of modern historians. This is true because technology is certainly the best resort for a ‘scientific’ discourse: technological accounts, with their illusion of exact numbers, percentages, and details, are more ‘technical,’ attractive, dynamic, and compelling than common historical accounts. Moreover they are also cleaner, logical, and mechanical: as cognitive studies on military language show, it is easier to speak about machines than about people.76 Unfortunately, weapons are not logical either. As Polybius put it, “many ideas seem to be plausible and likely to succeed when described, but when put to the test of experience, like false coins exposed to fire, they no longer answer to our first conception of them” (29.17.2). This is certainly true for technology and military innovations: they are capricious and unpredictable, and they do not always develop in the direction we expect them to. Ancient heavy cavalry is a good example: to be completely effective, armored infantrymen needed stirrups to control their horses and gain a stable platform for frontal charge; however, cataphracts subsisted in the ancient world without them.77 Although the stirrups seem like a rather logical step forward, this step was never taken, and a potentially crucial development remained ignored for centuries. Strictly speaking, the cases of real innovations in military technology are quite few—missiles, chariots, stirrups, gunpowder, etc—while the rest are small and permanent adaptations to changing contexts and situations.78 In any case, ancient weapons are not sophisticated enough to

76 Rhetoric of military history: Keegan, Face of Battle (n. 1), 36–46, 62–73. Determinism as an academic matter: Cuomo, Technology (n. 15), 2–3. Cognitive studies on military language: Keegan, Face of Battle (n. 1), 20, 31–32. 77 Eadie, “Development” (n. 5): 162, 172. 78 Raudzens, “Firepower” (n. 39): 152; van Creveld, Technology (n. 30), 14–15; Lendon, Soldiers (n. 5), 8; Lynn, “Battle” (n. 5): xviii.

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make a real difference on the battlefield. Innovations are actually mere variations of four basic types—missiles, slashing weapons, piercing weapons and impact weapons—with few differences between them.79 Weapons were improved through minor modifications, which in turn entailed changes regarding their practical use; and they led in turn to new ideas. This connection is not only complex, but also diachronic. Military technology evolved during the ancient world at a slow pace, offering permanent responses to momentary needs.80 A weapon must be considered as part of a tactical structure, as one element of a complex mechanism: like the gladius, the pilum and the scutum inside the legion, weapons interact with many other elements to create the phenomenon of articulated fighting.81 However, “if there is little detailed evidence on technological impact, is the prevailing weapons consensus a fortress without a foundation, or the product of intuition more than verifiable data?”82 As shown, even the most cursory survey of the available information reveals that technology is not the solution for the problems of the battlefield. Probably the most serious fault of determinism is its failure to recognize the human role in the process, for men are systematically ignored. For van Creveld, “although technological superiority can be very important in combat, it rarely decides a war by itself ”; Strauss and Ober agree: “It is a supremely dangerous error to suppose that technology is a solution for the problems of war. A strategy devised by technocrats, based solely on superiority in weaponry is no strategy at all. Machines do not win wars.”83 This is true. Men win or lose wars: the soldiers who fight them, the officers and 79

van Creveld, Technology (n. 30), 15; Lendon, Soldiers (n. 5), 8. See, for instance, the case of the Roman heavy cavalry, evolving throughout a couple of centuries in a permanent process of adaptation: Eadie, “Development” (n. 5). According to van Creveld, “it is possible to argue that the technological changes introduced into field combat during the two millennia from about 500 bce to 1500 ce were frequently minimal,” in Technology (n. 30), 20. See also Lendon, Soldiers (n. 5), 8–9, who suggests that, despite this lack of revolutionary advances in the field of technology, what actually changed was the specific ways of using the weapons, i.e. the tactics. 81 For the legion as an integrated system, see Hanson, “Phalanx” (n. 37), 44. For a general discussion of weapons in articulated fighting, see van Creveld, Technology (n. 30), 2, 17, 18. 82 Raudzens, “Firepower” (n. 39): 131. 83 van Creveld, Technology (n. 30), 232, cf. Parker, “Introduction” (n. 4): 2; Strauss and Ober, Anatomy of Error (n. 57), 10. According to John Carman, war is completely permeated with “cultural assumptions, ideas about what is ‘proper’ or ‘appropriate’ or ‘right,’ ideas about what can be done and what cannot, ideas about what war is for, and ideas about what is legitimate and what is illegitimate,” in “Beyond” (n. 35): 39. Deterministic approaches leave all these concerns aside and place the greatest emphasis on technology. 80

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commanders who wage them, the politicians who declare them and the people at large who suffer, support, or perhaps profit from them. Technological factors are crucial, as is the environment and the terrain; but human factors, with their corollaries of moral and psychological imperatives, are probably all important, for war was and still is a matter of human beings. Determinism aims to eliminate the human factor, irrational and unpredictable as it is, from the clean equation of history: “Not only has it inhibited progress in understanding premodern military history in general, and premodern military technology in particular, but it has also too often and too easily removed the individual soldiers and their leaders from the military historical equation, replacing them with a technological, deterministic explanation.”84 The historical discourse tries to avoid subjectivity and the contradictions of human nature, for it remains true that “infantrymen, however well-trained and well-armed, however resolute, however ready to kill, remain erratic agents of death. Unless centrally directed, they will choose, perhaps badly, their own targets, will open and cease fire individually, will be put off their aim by the enemy’s return of fire, will be distracted by the wounding of those near them, will yield to fear or excitement, will fire high, low or wide.”85 Hanson claimed that “no military history should ever avoid the human element: it is men, after all, who fight, wound, kill and die; it is men alone who deserve our attention, incite our imagination, earn our empathy.”86 Technological explanations should make our understanding of human behavior in combat much easier, because men are the raw material of any army. Deterministic arguments, therefore, are a rational attempt to compose a logical and simple history, the search for a mechanical explanation to irrational experiences. Finally, to question the validity of determinism does not mean to nullify the role of weapons. They help to define the nature and shape of war, and thus how humans behave in their environment. They can even be influential in winning wars and transforming societies.87 However, our

84 K. de Vries, “Catapults Are Not Atomic Bombs: Towards a Redefinition of ‘Effectiveness’ in Premodern Military Technology,” War in History 4.4 (1997): 455. 85 Keegan, Face of Battle (n. 1), 229. 86 V. D. Hanson, “Ideology of Hoplite Battle,” in Hoplites. The Classical Greek Battle Experience, ed. V. D. Hanson (London: Routledge, 1991), 3. See also Carman, “Beyond” (n. 35), 55: “we cannot ignore what war is ultimately always about: the breaking of flesh, the spillage of blood, and the making of death.” 87 As Carman assumes, “the technology of war (the specifics of weapons types) is, if not determinate, then at least reflective of the way in which bodies of fighters will

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relationship with technology, especially with military technology, is not always straightforward, but sometimes quite irrational.88 As a result, new weapons are not always superior to older ones, they are not always used in a single fashion, and they cannot fully explain either why societies change or why they change in the ways that they do.

move on the ground, and of the kind of attitude they have towards battle,” in “Beyond” (n. 35): 48. 88 Lendon offers a clear example of this complex relationship, describing the case of a bronze catapult washer dedicated by a Roman soldier in the spring of the goddess Sulis at Bath. As the object itself is part of one of the most sophisticated military machines, its use as a religious offering shows that “there is something profoundly alien about this soldier’s relationship to technology,” in Soldiers (n. 5), 7.

CHARIOTRY TO CAVALRY: DEVELOPMENTS IN THE EARLY FIRST MILLENNIUM1 Robin Archer Introduction The horse-drawn war chariot was a feature of warfare in the ancient Near East for many centuries and chariots of a less martial aspect were important symbols of their owners’ status for even longer. Relatively little scholarship has been devoted to the topic of chariotry, however, and the vast majority has been devoted to the rise of the chariot as a military technology in the second millennium bce. In this contribution I will examine the rather neglected subject of chariotry in the early first millennium bce—the period in which the chariot declined as a military technology, steadily eclipsed by the rise of cavalry. I will argue that chariotry and chariot warfare and cavalry and cavalry warfare are largely the same thing. The two simply represent consecutive stages of the same basic technology and methodology of warfare and, rather than representing a clash between two different, albeit related, technologies in which one technology lost out and was entirely replaced by the other, the gradual replacement of chariotry by cavalry was really a process of evolution. Defining Chariotry and Chariot Warfare Chariots are best defined as horse-drawn vehicles with two spoked wheels that require their drivers and passengers to stand whilst in motion. This is a rather loose definition, of course, but it is necessarily so due to the great variation to be seen in the forms of chariots used over the centuries. The war chariots of the Late Bronze Age were very light,

1 This paper has benefited enormously from the counsel of Dr Karen Radner, who, after reading an early draft, provided numerous suggestions for restructuring and additional sources. The conclusions drawn herein remain my own, however, as are any remaining errors.

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fast vehicles that carried two people (usually a driver and a warrior), drawn by a pair of horses. The only surviving examples of Bronze Age chariots are the handful found in New Kingdom Egyptian tombs. Despite their probably ceremonial nature, they seem to conform to this pattern.2 Some variations appear to have existed—Egyptian reliefs of the 13th century bce depict Hittite war chariots as rather heavier vehicles, usually carrying three people (see below for problems with, and the potential for, intentional inaccuracy in Egyptian depictions of foreign military forces)—but these seem to have been the exception, rather than the rule. In the first millennium bce, chariots appear to diversify, usually becoming larger and heavier and increasing the number of passengers and horses to three or even four. It is disconcerting to think how little consensus there is in the scholarly community on the relatively straightforward questions of how a war chariot was actually used in battle and how formations of chariots would have operated in relation to each other and other sections of an army. A wide variety of theories have been put forward over the years, and the following paragraphs will examine the major theories and attempt to draw some conclusions about what exactly chariot warfare consisted of in its heyday during the Late Bronze Age, so as to provide a basis for the discussion of how chariot warfare evolved once this heyday was over. The earliest theories for the use of chariots in war are those derived from Homer’s Iliad. Most likely written down in the late eighth century bce, the Iliad may have been composed somewhat earlier than that, but was still removed from Mycenaean civilisation and the supposed events it recounts by several centuries. Chariots are few in number in the Iliad. They are used as transports, bringing the heroes to the battlefield, where they dismount and proceed to fight on foot—the so-called ‘battle taxi’ idea. This idea has been largely dismissed and is often taken as evidence that ‘true’ chariot warfare (whatever form it took) had died out so thoroughly in the Greek world by the time the Iliad was composed that people had forgotten how it actually functioned. Littauer and Crouwel, two of the most prolific scholars in the study of early vehicles and riding, have actually backed the ‘battle taxi’ idea for Mycenaean chariotry.3 This 2 The best documented examples are those from Tutankhamun’s Tomb, see M. A. Littauer and J. H Crouwel, Chariots and Related Equipment from the Tomb of Tutankhamun (Oxford: Griffith Institute, 1985). 3 M. Littauer and J. H. Crouwel, “Chariots in Late Bronze Age Greece,” in Selected Writings on Chariots, Other Early Vehicles, Riding and Harness, ed. P. Raulwing (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 61.

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is, perhaps, not unreasonable, as the terrain of much of mainland Greece and of the Aegean islands that the Mycenaeans controlled was not conducive to the massed use of chariots, being far too rocky and uneven a surface on which to operate chariot formations of any significant size. Attractive though this idea is (although only for Mycenaean Greece, as Littauer and Crouwel are quite careful to make clear), it neglects the Linear B archival texts documenting the numbers of chariots owned by some of the various palace citadels, which indicate that they would each have had access to several hundred at least. A number of Linear B tablets from Knossos record numbers of chariots in the palace stables, one listing fifty-six, two listing eighty and one listing over two hundred.4 It seems rather far-fetched to think that a single palace would have maintained such a large and expensive fleet of vehicles purely as prestige transports and, although these expensive vehicles were commonly kept as prestigious personal transports for many centuries after they ceased to be used actively in battle, they were never kept in such extraordinary numbers for that purpose. For the Mycenaeans to be devoting the level of resources necessary to acquire and maintain these vehicles in such numbers, we must assume that there was some kind of significant practical advantage to be gained from them, most likely on the battlefield. The second theory derived from a reading of Homer was explored primarily by Greenhalgh for Mycenaean chariotry5 and also posited for Hittite chariotry by Yadin on the basis of their representation in the Egyptian reliefs concerning the Battle of Kadesh.6 It suggests that chariot warriors fought at close quarters with long spears and is based on the following passage in the Iliad: When a man from his own car encounters the enemy chariots Let him stab with his spear, since this is the stronger fighting. So the men before your time sacked tower and city.7

Greenhalgh claims this as evidence that Mycenaean charioteers fought with long spears or lances in the same manner as medieval cavalry. Even the interpretation of the text here is tenuous (“when a man from his own car” may simply refer to a man that has just stepped down from his 4

J. Chadwick, The Mycenaean World (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1976),

167. 5 P. A. L. Greenhalgh, Early Greek Warfare: Horsemen and Chariots in the Homeric and Archaic Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1973), 7–12. 6 Y. Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), 80. 7 Il. 4.306–308, translation by R. Lattimore (1951).

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chariot), and Littauer and Crouwel have demonstrated in some detail that it would have been simply impossible for a charioteer to fight with a spear whilst in motion.8 Known models of Mycenaean spears would only just have reached past the head of one’s own horses if they were set to the front of the chariot and, even were the chariot warrior to only attack targets to the side of his chariot, a thrust spear would become lodged in the body of anyone stabbed with it, forcing the warrior to let it go immediately or be dragged straight out the back of his own chariot. Although it is known that Chinese charioteers did sometimes fight in a similar manner, they fought with long-handled halberds—slashing weapons that would have inflicted deep cuts on their targets, but would not have become lodged in them.9 The idea that chariots would have engaged the enemy at close quarters is one that must be viewed with scepticism. Horses will not willingly charge into massed ranks of infantry, always preferring to pull up and stop just short of their lines, regardless of the intentions of their riders and handlers. The primary objective of a cavalry charge is to intimidate the targeted enemy formation, convincing it to break and flee before the charge hits home and, whenever mounted forces have engaged infantry units that retained their order and discipline and stood their ground, the mounted forces have almost always come off the worse. Any light chariot of the kind used in the Bronze Age attempting to charge massed infantry that retained its discipline would have inflicted more damage on itself on impact than it would have on the enemy, likely shattering the frame of the vehicle itself and leaving the horses and dazed crew in a position to be butchered in short order. If this was ever attempted with large numbers of chariots the resulting pile-up would have been devastating, resulting in the destruction of most of the chariots involved, the death of large numbers of men and horses and the waste of all of the resources put into obtaining and training them. While chariots could well have been used to mount a charge, this would have been an almighty gamble, dependent entirely on the enemy breaking and fleeing before the chariots hit them and would probably only have been attempted against an enemy that was wavering already. With their utility at close quarters so restricted and so risky, chariots would have to attack with ranged weapons to be of any use at all and this 8

Littauer and Crouwel, “Chariots,” (n. 3): 53–61. A. Cotterel, Chariot: The Astounding Rise and Fall of the World’s First War Machine (London: Pimlico, 2004), 195. 9

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is what the overwhelming majority of the evidence from the Near East suggests. Throughout its history, the light war chariot was bound up inextricably with the use of the composite bow. In fact it appears that the composite bow was only introduced into Egypt at the same time as the chariot in the seventeenth century bce, despite already having been in limited use in the rest of the Near East for several centuries.10 Simple or self bows, made from a single strip of flexible wood, are the oldest form of archery weapon and were used throughout the Near East for thousands of years.11 They are a very simple weapon that can be manufactured quickly, easily and cheaply and are restricted only by their relatively short lifespan—self bows tend to warp over periods of intensive use, reducing their tensile strength and, therefore, their range and hitting power. The composite bow, which first appeared in the Near East around 2500 bce, is a much more complex weapon that, thanks to the long drying times required when gluing together the multiple layers of wood, horn and sinew that it is composed of, can take years to manufacture.12 On the battlefield, however, the composite bow is a vastly superior weapon to the self bow, able to fire an arrow at much greater speeds over at least twice the range without losing any of its power due to intensive use. A trained bowmen mounted on a chariot should be capable of firing an arrow around once very six seconds and with reasonable accuracy (even though this would not have been strictly required when firing into large infantry formations). This high rate of fire, coupled with the great range and striking power of the composite bow and the speed of the chariot itself, which would have allowed the bowman to quickly escape any retribution, would have made formations of chariots particularly deadly on the battlefield. Despite this, some scholars have insisted that Mycenaean and Hittite chariots did not use these highly effective weapons. Only one pictorial representation of a Mycenaean charioteer using a bow has been found (a gold ring from shaft grave 4 at Mycenae), and this has been dismissed by Littauer and Crouwel as it depicts a hunting scene.13 It seems unlikely, however, that the Mycenaeans would not have used their chariots in the same way as the neighbouring states. The same can be said for the Hittites

10 D. Miller, E. McEwen and C. Bergman, “Experimental Approaches to Near Eastern Archery,” World Archaeology 18 (1986): 182. 11 Ibid., 180. 12 Ibid., 182, 184. 13 Littauer and Crouwel, “Chariots,” (n. 3): 61.

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and the fact that knowledge of Hittite chariotry is based on Egyptian representations of the battle of Kadesh makes this interpretation even more suspect. Although pictorial representations of battles can be very useful historical sources, they must be regarded as sceptically as any other kind of primary source material and cannot simply be taken at face value. The Egyptian kings that commissioned these depictions had no interest in displaying objective history or providing accurate information for future scholars on their monuments. Their inscriptions and reliefs were pure propaganda pieces, intended to demonstrate the king’s splendour and the invincibility of Egypt. The enemy forces were almost always depicted as bearing significantly inferior arms and armour, assuming they were shown with equipment of any description (it was not uncommon for enemy forces to be shown naked). The intention was not to demonstrate the king’s skills as a warrior by showing how he overcame a formidable opponent, but to demonstrate Egypt’s position as the sole beacon of order in the world by depicting foreign forces as a disordered, ineffectual rabble that could never hope to successfully challenge Egyptian order and might, and whom the king could slaughter without difficulty whenever they appeared, regardless of their numbers (which had to be prodigious to even be worthy of his attention). It is, therefore, no surprise that the Hittite chariots were depicted without bows—if they had bows, they would have actually appeared as a disciplined and effective force, which was not the intention of the exercise. Although chariots clearly acted as mobile archery platforms, exactly how they were organised and employed in battle remains debatable, as does the question of their effectiveness. Most scholars maintain that chariots were used in combination with infantry, but differ on how the two formations interacted. There is also considerable variation in their views on the effectiveness of chariots, with some claiming that chariots were all but useless and others claiming that they were the single most important factor in warfare during the Late Bronze Age. For Schulman, the chariot warriors were bowmen, but he attempted to combine this idea with the ‘battle taxi’ theory, rather than recognising the two ideas as incompatible. He claimed that chariots were used to ferry bowmen to suitable firing positions where they dismounted and fired their bows on foot, climbing back into their chariots and speeding away when threatened.14 As the key advantage of the chariot was its 14 A. Schulman, “Chariots, Chariotry and the Hyksos,” Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 10 (1980).

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speed and mobility and as it was stable enough to fire from effectively, this idea of ‘taxied archers’ is unconvincing. Schulman’s conclusions on chariotry seem to be based on his reading of classical sources that dismissed the chariot as too inefficient and ineffective to be of use in battle, and it can only be concluded that he based his theories on this (incorrect and anachronistic) preconception. The conclusions drawn by Powell and Watkins are also rather implausible, as both relegate chariotry to a very minor role in Late Bronze Age warfare. Powell claims that chariot formations were used only in the opening stages of a battle, that they provided cover for the initial advance of the infantry, shooting at the advancing enemy whilst remaining at a sufficient distance from them that their horses would not be seriously endangered and withdrawing from the battle as soon as that was no longer possible in order to preserve these expensive assets.15 Watkins agrees that chariots were too expensive to risk needlessly, but takes the opposite position on their actual use, claiming that they would have been held back from the battle for most of it and used as a kind of fire brigade formation, only committed to combat when the battle reached a critical moment at which their deployment would ensure a swift victory or prevent an impending defeat.16 This scenario seems unlikely, however, as Ramses II’s account of the Battle of Kadesh lists more than two thirds of the Hittite chariotry as a main force that formed the Hittite’s primary attacking force.17 A recent theory that has drawn considerable attention was proposed by Robert Drews, who suggested that chariot warfare was the key to the rise and fall of the great kingdoms of the Late Bronze Age. He claimed that the groups of people living in peripheral areas who were employed as mercenaries by these kingdoms were put in a position to observe their battle tactics closely and to figure out weaknesses in the practice of chariot warfare that they could exploit. He claims that the collapse of the Late Bronze Age international system was a direct result of mass invasions conducted by these peoples, whose knowledge of Near Eastern chariot tactics allowed them to sweep the great kingdoms away in short 15 T. G. E. Powell, “Some Implications of Chariotry,” Culture and Environment: Essays in Honour of Sir Cyril Fox, ed. I. Foster and C. Adcock (London: Routledge, 1963), 165–66. 16 T. Watkins, “The Beginnings of Warfare,” Warfare in the Ancient World, ed. J. Hackett (New York: Facts on File, 1989), 31. 17 For a detailed account of the battle see D. Dawson, The First Armies (London: Cassel & Co, 2001), 139–50.

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order.18 This theory has been widely, and correctly, criticised as an overly simplistic reworking of the old ‘Sea Peoples’ theory that ignores a number of significant factors contributing to the collapse of the international system.19 Drews’ ideas on how chariots functioned in battle are equally far-fetched and, despite having drawn a number of followers, they should be viewed with the same scepticism.20 The basis on which Drews built his theory is sound. Reviewing the evidence on chariot warfare and the preceding theories, he correctly identified the chariot as an effective mobile archery platform and dismissed the theories that relegate chariot warfare to a minor or unimportant role in Bronze Age warfare. In reaction to these ideas, however, he took up the exact opposite stance, constructing what can be seen as the most fanciful theory advanced to date. Drews’ theory holds the chariot aloft as the only important factor in Late Bronze Age warfare and dismisses the role of infantry almost entirely. He claims that when chariots were first deployed late in the Middle Bronze Age, they were so effective against the supposedly loose, undisciplined infantry forces in use at the time, that the use of infantry as an offensive force was abandoned entirely and that until the collapse of the international system the only function for large forces of infantry was to garrison and besiege cities.21 The only infantry that Drews places on the battlefields of the Near East in the Late Bronze Age are the mercenary ‘chariot runners’ that he claims were the architects of the collapse and whose sole function was to follow on behind the chariots to kill or capture stranded enemy charioteers and horses and to aid in the escape of charioteers and horses on their own side whose chariots had been immobilised.22 Drews’ vision of a chariot battle is one in which the opposing armies formed themselves into wide, shallow formations and then drove straight at each other, firing on each other all the while and somehow contriving to make their formations loose enough to allow the enemy to pass cleanly through when they inevitably met in the middle of the battlefield, before forming back up on the other side and turning around to repeat the

18 R. Drews, The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 bc (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1993). 19 M. Littauer and J. Crouwel, “Robert Drews and the Role of Chariotry in Bronze Age Greece” Selected Writings on Chariots, Other Early Vehicles, Riding and Harness, ed. P. Raulwing (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 66–74. 20 Cotterell, Chariot (n. 9) and Dawson, Armies (n. 17). 21 Drews, End (n. 18), 138. 22 Ibid., 141.

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process until one side or the other broke and fled.23 The devastation that a unit of chariots driving into massed infantry would suffer has already been discussed. The carnage that would ensue when two chariot forces attempted to drive through each other in the manner that Drews suggests, especially whilst firing at each other, would be truly appalling. As soon as a chariot was halted by enemy bow fire, those behind it would have to swerve to avoid hitting it, which (assuming they were able to do so while moving at the speed of a galloping horse) would probably put them in the path of an oncoming enemy chariot, forcing them to swerve again to avoid hitting that chariot head on, something that would likely spell instant death for all involved. Once the two forces turned and tried to repeat the process, they would do so over a battlefield littered with wrecked chariots, making the whole business even more dangerous than it would have been first time around. The level of casualties that would have been suffered in any battle that took place on the terms Drews describes would have been totally unsustainable. There are a number of problems with Drews’ theory aside from the problems with his vision of an actual chariot battle. He claims that chariots achieved their primacy on the battlefield by defeating and rendering obsolete infantry armies, but then claims that the chariot’s downfall came at the hands of infantry as well. He is also forced to concede to the ineffectiveness of chariots in siege warfare, meaning that large forces of infantry would still have been required in order to assault and garrison cities. These forces would have needed to travel to their targets. One can only assume that, according to Drews’ theory, these forces relied on a chariot escort to protect them and that, if they were intercepted en route to an enemy city, they would sit back and watch the two chariot forces fight and take flight if their chariots lost, certain in the knowledge that they would be powerless to prevent whatever was left of the opposing chariot force from wiping them out if they were caught. Drews’ theory rests on the idea that those infantry formations that were fielded prior to the first millennium bce were unordered mobs that fought in a disorganised fashion with no real cohesion as a unit, making them easy prey for the well-drilled and organised charioteers. Depictions of infantry formations from the time and even as far back as the Royal Standard of Ur, however, show infantry units operating in closely ordered, ranked up formations that made the best use of their standard equipment of shield and spear. 23

Ibid., 127–29.

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The chariot was undoubtedly a significant element of Near Eastern warfare in the late second and early first millennium, but it operated alongside and in support of infantry. The low cost of provisioning and maintaining infantry formations in comparison to chariots meant that they would always be available in vastly superior numbers. The high level of training required by each member of a chariot team and their horses in comparison to infantry soldiers would also have made it possible to replace infantry losses far more quickly. While a force composed solely of chariots could certainly have harried a large force of infantry and slowed its advance, it would always lack the numbers and direct punch to deliver a knockout blow. Acting in support of an infantry army, however, chariotry could well have proved devastating. The most plausible scenario for the use of chariots in battle is one in which they would have operated in relatively small squadrons (Schulman sets the usual size of an effective squadron at fifty or more in the Egyptian army),24 using hit and run tactics to harry the flanks and rear of the main body of the opposing army, driving into range to deliver several salvoes of arrows, before turning away again to avoid retribution. They would probably only have charged directly at an infantry formation if it was already wavering under the weight of significant casualties, hoping to convince it to break and flee, then pursuing the fleeing troops and harrying them with further bow fire to make sure they did not rally. When these chariot squadrons met other chariots on the battlefield, rather than driving into each other, as Drews would suggest, they would most likely have studiously avoided closing with each other, preferring to keep the range open and use their bow fire to inflict damage, as they would have against the opposing infantry. In all likelihood, chariot squadrons would have circled and strafed each other in a situation not all that dissimilar to dog-fighting aircraft, trying to reduce enemy squadrons to breaking point and drive them off, clearing a path to the vulnerable flanks and rear of the enemy infantry. The Rise of Cavalry In the present contribution, I would like to propose and explore the idea that cavalry evolved directly from chariotry, in contrast to past 24 A. Schulman, “Egyptian Chariotry: A Re-Examination,” Journal of the American Research Centre in Egypt 2 (1963): 75.

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scholarship which has tended to view cavalry as a related but distinct development,25 or as an entirely separate invention.26 An important distinction that must be made is the one between the relatively informal use of ridden horses in military or military-style operations (most especially raiding, but also scouting and carrying messages), and the operation of militarily organised cavalry formations. The more informal uses of horses all rely on the animal’s utility as a very fast mode of transport. When horses are employed purely as the fastest way to get from point A to point B, their riders do not need to be particularly effective horsemen and do not require advanced equestrian technology. Organised cavalry formations, on the other hand, require a significant level of equestrian skill and technology to operate effectively, in addition to effective, standardised weaponry. Antony is very careful to draw this important distinction in his recent study of the peoples of the Eurasian steppe. He argues that while people on the steppe would regularly have ridden horses while conducting raids aimed at stealing horses from their neighbours from as early as 4000 bce, they did so in an informal manner and had nothing even resembling organised military cavalry formations.27 Such formations required a level of equestrian ability and weapons technology (particularly, as Antony stresses, arrows of a certain level of quality and standardisation) that was not seen on the steppes until the first millennium. Antony even argues that these things only appeared on the steppes because first millennium groups like the Scythians and Cimmerians were conscious of the military prowess of the settled civilisations of the Near East and began to intentionally copy their organisation and manufacturing techniques.28 The horse raids described by Antony were conducted by small groups of men that used the horses’ speed first to gain the element of surprise during the initial approach and then to provide the fastest, safest means of escape when the raid was complete (often the most dangerous part of a raid). An inexpertly ridden horse would have made a decidedly

25

R. Drews, Early Riders (London and New York: Routledge, 2003). M. Littauer, and J. Crouwel, “The Origin of the True Chariot,” Selected Writings on Chariots, Other Early Vehicles, Riding and Harness, ed. P. Raulwing (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 51. 27 D. W. Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2008), 222–24. 28 Ibid., 224. 26

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unstable platform from which to engage in hand to hand combat, so it is most likely that these raiders would actually have dismounted when about to make contact with the enemy and fought on foot. A letter discovered in the Tell Leilan archives from north-eastern Syria describes a raid against an enemy encampment’s livestock and refers to the use of horses as a mode of transport by the raiding party’s leader (it is reasonable to infer that the rest of the raiding party was also on horseback), confirming that this practice was common in the Near East by at least the early second millennium bce.29 The letter makes no reference as to whether the raiders were on horseback during the actual raid and it seems unlikely that they would have been, considering the lack of equestrian technology and skill in the Near East at the time. When the horse was first domesticated it was a much smaller creature than it is now and would have been regarded in the Near East as a much less useful draught animal than the ox and a much less useful pack animal than the donkey, as well as a less controllable riding animal. The original use of the domesticated horse on the steppes was as a source of meat—and this is still the case in certain present day tribes of horsemen on the steppes—and a common argument is that horsemanship and various items of technology for the control of horses were developed to allow human horse herders on the Eurasian steppes to keep up with and control their herds.30 Littauer and Crouwel argue that horsemen on the steppes were riding effectively, rather than just sufficiently to conduct raids, from as early as 4000 bce and this conclusion provides the basis of their argument for the indigenous development of chariotry in the Near East: the people of the steppes would have had no need to invent chariots, as their expertise in and technology for the handling of horses was already sufficiently advanced long before the Middle Bronze Age for them to have effective cavalry—a superior technology to chariotry in all ways.31 There is a simple problem with Littauer and Crouwel’s theory, however. If the people of the steppes were riding effectively by 4000 bce, why did this expertise take three millennia to reach the Near East? A number of technological exchanges (wheeled vehicles and the horse itself, for instance) took place between the people on the Eurasian steppe

29 Document L87–651, see J. Eidem, “The Tell Leilan Archives 1987,” Revue d’Assyriologie 85 (1991): 131. 30 Drews, Riders (n. 25), 10. 31 Littauer and Crouwel, “Origin,” (n. 26), 51.

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and the people of the Near East between 4000 bce and the first millennium bce, so why would not horsemanship itself have travelled as well? Unlike his theories on chariotry, Drews’ ideas on cavalry are somewhat less far-fetched, but they are still not entirely convincing. His recent study of the origins of horsemanship demonstrates that effective riding is not necessary to control a herd of horses.32 Horses naturally follow the single leader of the herd so, as long as the herders had control of this animal, they would have had control of the entire herd—something that could be achieved by simply tethering the lead animal. Every depiction of horse-riding in the Near East, from the end of the third millennium right down to the middle of the eighth century bce,33 shows the riders sitting a long way back on the horse, with their knees raised up—the usual posture for riding a donkey, an animal well-known in the Near East long before the horse. This was evidently an unsatisfactory and undignified way of riding a horse as a letter from Bahdi-Lim—a governor of Zimri-Lim, the king of Mari at around 1775 bce—demonstrated by advising his lord to “drive in a chariot or, if you must ride, ride a mule. For only thus will you preserve the dignity of your royal position.”34 This position also left the rider with relatively little control over the horse, which would have made such riders all but useless in battle. Depictions of people riding horses continue to exhibit the ‘donkey seat’ well into the early first millennium bce. Several New Kingdom Egyptian reliefs show people riding horses but, in all cases, these depict either enemies of the Egyptians fleeing the battlefield on horses they have cut loose from their immobilised chariots, or Egyptians riding in the same, unwieldy manner, apparently acting as messengers or scouts. Even the early depictions of Assyrian cavalry show riders using this position, which is probably the reason that cavalry took so long to replace chariotry completely. Drews argues that effective riding was first developed at the start of the first millennium bce on the Eurasian steppe and brought to the Near East by peoples that settled in the Taurus and Zagros mountains 32

Drews, Riders (n. 25), 23. The first known confirmed image of a human riding a horse from the Near East is the seal impression of Abbakalla, a scribe in the service of King Shu-sin of Ur, dated to ca. 2030 bce See D. I. Owen, “The ‘First’ Equestrian: an Ur III Glyptic Scene,” Acta Sumerologica 13 (1991): 260–62. 34 ARM (Archives Royales de Mari) 6, 76, see J.-M. Durand, Les documents épistolaires du palais de Mari, Volume 1 (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1998), 485–88. 33

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only at this time; he maintains that this innovation was only slowly adopted by the existing Near Eastern states because of the continued prevalence there of chariotry.35 Drews claims that the development of effective riding was the result of the use of bronze bits that gave a rider better control over his mount, but these bits were developed in the Near East for use with chariots, and after having persuasively argued that people on the steppe did not need advanced equestrian skills in their daily lives, Drews neglects to explain why they would use a piece of technology developed in the Near East to become better horsemen. His explanation of the time lag between the perfection of effective horsemanship on the steppe and in the Near East is also unsatisfactory. Assyrian cavalry was not effective enough to take over from chariotry completely until two centuries after Drews claims people in the Taurus and Zagros Mountains had perfected it. Yet as the Assyrians regularly bought and raided horses from this region, why could they not also have employed or kidnapped horsemen from this region to teach these skills to their own men?36 To me the most probable explanation for the length of time required for the development of truly effective cavalry amongst the Assyrians is that the people of the Near East themselves were the ones pioneering this development, not the people of the steppe. Devastating as the effective application of chariotry could be, chariot corps were extremely expensive to assemble and maintain and their inability to function in broken or uneven terrain restricted their deployment to relatively flat, open battlefields, allowing infantry forces that could move through wooded or mountainous terrain to evade them easily. Over the course of the lifetime of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (934–612 bce), a clear line of development in military technology can be seen to take place. The military records and representations of the Neo-Assyrian Empire allow us to trace the gradual development of effective cavalry alongside the continued use of chariotry until cavalry reached the point at which it was more effective than chariotry in all arenas and chariots ceased to be used as frontline units. When one considers just how long chariots continued to be used and the numbers in which they were deployed, it soon becomes clear that

35

Drews, Riders (n. 25), 99. S. Dalley, “Foreign Chariotry and Cavalry in the armies of Tiglath-pileser III and Sargon II,” Iraq 47 (1985): 43; K. Radner, “An Assyrian View on the Medes,” Continuity of Empire: Assyria, Media, Persia, ed. G. B. Lanfranchi, M. Roaf and R. Rollinger (Padua: Sargon srl, 2003), 43. 36

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their expense was seen as a secondary consideration in relation to their effectiveness and prestige value—if not, they would most likely have been phased out much earlier. It seems most likely that the development of cavalry was an attempt to overcome the terrain limitations of the chariot. Although horses can traverse difficult terrain with relative ease, the light and brittle construction of a chariot and its lack of suspension meant that if driven over uneven terrain at any speed it would bounce around uncontrollably and quickly suffer damage to its wheels that would immobilise it. In the late second millennium this was a less pressing concern as the focus of military attention was the great flat plains of Mesopotamia and Syria. Around the start of the first millennium bce, however, a number of population groups emerged in the Zagros and Taurus mountains that posed a threat to the resurgent Assyrian state, namely the Medes, Manneans and, especially, the kingdom of Urartu. A traditional chariot would be all but useless in fighting these new highland powers. The earliest representations of cavalry on the Balawat Gates, dating to the reign of Shalmaneser III (858–824 bce), depict them as teams that operate in exactly the same way as a chariot, but simply without the body of the chariot itself, therefore removing the terrain limitations.37 Therefore, it could be said that the development of cavalry was, in fact, an attempt to develop a rough terrain chariot. The early cavalry depicted on the Balawat gates operated exactly as the chariot teams of the late second millennium did and as contemporary first millennium chariots continued to do. They consisted of two horses and two men—all that is missing is the chariot itself. Although each man rides his own horse, one of the pair holds the reins of both, acting exactly as a chariot driver would, and leaving the hands of the second man free to fire his bow. The movement of a horse would make its back a less stable platform from which to fire a bow than the floor of a chariot, making the bowmen less accurate and making these chariotless chariot teams slightly less efficient on the battlefield. The bowman’s position level with the horse’s head would also have restricted his fire arcs and the size of bow that he could use. Cavalry archers have traditionally had to use quite small bows or bows of an unusual shape. Note, for example, the Japanese daikyu, where most of the bow’s length is above the grip. 37 A. Schachner, Bilder eines Weltreichs:kunst- und kulturgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu den Verzierungen eines Tores aus Balawat (Imgur-Enlil) aus der Zeit von Salmanassar III, König von Assyrien (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2007), 293–308.

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True cavalry only appears in the pictorial record in mid-eighth century bce (meaning that it probably entered use only a short time prior to that), by which time the riders of the Near East had developed the skills necessary to ride a horse effectively in combat. A skilled rider sits forward on his horse and is fully capable of controlling it just with his legs, meaning that he does not need someone else to hold the reins for him. This meant that every rider in a cavalry formation could now carry a bow and meant that the firepower of the chariot unit it had evolved from was doubled overnight. Cavalrymen were also able to fight far more effectively at close quarters. Admittedly, a cavalry charge had the same objective as a chariot charge—to persuade a wavering unit to break and flee before impact—but the much reduced fragility of a cavalry unit meant that, should the target formation hold its ground, the cavalry would not face the kind of instant destruction that a chariot unit would suffer; the cavalry would even stand a good chance of being able to fight their way clear and fall back before the infantry could overwhelm them. There are a few depictions of horsemen equipped with spears, rather than bows, but these are primarily in hunting scenes and it is likely that their use on the battlefield would have been severely limited as the bow would have remained the superior weapon, thanks to its range and the flexibility it afforded.38 That such units rendered their true chariot and rough terrain chariot predecessors obsolete so rapidly is therefore not surprising. The appearance of true cavalry by the end of the eighth century bce was most likely the product of an accident. When confronted in the tenth century bce with the problem of dealing with new enemies emerging in the highlands to the north and east, Assyrian military planners would not have sat down and decided that they needed to invent an entirely new method of warfare (in this case cavalry) to deal with them. It is more reasonable to assume that ways to modify existing methods and technology to suit the variable terrain were explored, and the chariot-less rough terrain chariot team quickly emerged as a very straightforward solution to this problem. These teams may never have been intended to replace the true war chariot, but only to serve as a rough terrain version that could fight in places a standard chariot could not;

38

E. Weissert, “Royal Hunt and Royal Triumph in a Prism. Fragment of Ashurbanipal (82-5-22,2),” in Assyria 1995, ed. S. Parpola and R. Whiting (Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, (1997): 354–5.

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their reduced efficiency would have been acceptable when weighed against their reduced cost and greater tactical flexibility. Over time, the use of these units in battle would have driven the accumulation of sufficient horse-riding experience for the Assyrians to refine their equestrian techniques and produce the skills needed for each horseman to fight as a self-contained unit—the point at which they became true cavalry. This development, however, was most likely a side-effect of a technology that, in itself, had probably already satisfied the Assyrian military’s needs. Chariots in the First Millennium: Representation and Reality Although the second millennium bce was undoubtedly the heyday of the war chariot and its use began to decline in the first millennium bce due to the need for rough terrain units, chariotry remained a significant element in most Near Eastern armies until at least the mid- to late-eighth century bce. The prestige attached to chariot units meant that, even after they were retired from front line service, the Assyrians continued to assemble and maintain a small chariot corps right up to the fall of their empire at the end of the seventh century bce, purely as a prestige formation. Chariots also retained their position as the foremost prestige vehicle for kings and noblemen in Near Eastern and Mediterranean cultures for many centuries to come. The collapse of the Late Bronze Age international system and the realities of warfare in the changed political climate of the first millennium bce had different effects on the military formations in different regions of the Near East. In Mesopotamia and the Levant chariots and chariot warfare seem to have carried on for some time in much the same way as they had in the second millennium, but they seem to have disappeared entirely from Greece and the Aegean, while the picture from Egypt remains unclear. Perhaps the most straightforward explanation for this is economics. As mentioned above, the cost of assembling a chariot unit, of equipping the charioteers and of training them and their horses was very high. Mesopotamia and the Levant recovered from the effects of the international system’s collapse relatively quickly, whereas written records only reappeared in Greece at the end of the eighth century bce (usually a good indication of a lack of economically strong, centralised governments in the intervening period), and Egypt remained politically fragmented and weak until the accession of the Saite dynasty in the

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seventh century bce. In both cases it is likely that the cost of maintaining chariotries had become prohibitive, especially considering the chariot’s reduced utility in both regions. The difficulties with chariotry in Greece have already been discussed. The apparent limitations placed on the use of war chariots by the rugged terrain in Greece and the disappearance of the strong, centrally controlled palace economies needed to fund chariot corps explain why the war chariot disappeared from Greece so completely that even oral traditions could no longer recall how it was used. An arrangement similar to the rough terrain chariot teams that formed the precursor to true cavalry in Assyria seems to have been used in Greece in the early first millennium,39 and when these factors are taken into account, it is not surprising that it had replaced true chariotry entirely. Egypt is more of a conundrum. Military records of any kind from the Third Intermediate and Late Periods are few in number and there is no clear picture of whether the chariot survived there as a military unit or not. Although the New Kingdom Egyptians undoubtedly possessed and used chariots, it appears likely that chariots were only a useful weapon for the Egyptians when they were operating outside of Egypt itself. The Hyksos are known to have introduced horses and the chariot into Egypt in the seventeenth century bce but, although the kings that drove the Hyksos out of Egypt are known to have used chariots, the evidence from the time suggests that they used them only as prestige transports,40 as the Hyksos themselves would most likely have been limited to doing in Egypt. The constrained space in the Nile valley would have left very few open, empty plains on which the Egyptians could have fought a chariot battle, just as the marshy terrain of the delta would have left chariots unable to run on anything but a purpose-built road. Within Egypt itself, the defining war machine was always the river boat, which allowed the Egyptians to move large numbers of troops quickly and to perform surprise assaults on riverside targets.41 Representations of battles that took place on Egyptian soil during the New Kingdom period depict infantry battles supported, more often than not, by boats. The most famous of these are the reliefs illustrating Ramses III’s (1187–1156 bce) battles against the ‘Sea Peoples’ at his mortuary temple at Medinet Habu. The reliefs depict a number of scenes 39 40 41

Drews, Riders (n. 25), 58. A. J. Spalinger, War in Ancient Egypt (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 4–5. Ibid., 2–3.

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containing both mobile and stationary chariots in use in different stages of the battle.42 It is likely that the nature of the amphibious assault and the battlefield’s terrain would have prevented their use as a mobile force for much of the battle. Most likely, they were included in the reliefs purely because it was expected that the most prestigious section of the army would have been present and artistic license was taken with their depiction in order to make them as impressive as possible. Aside from this, only depictions of battles that took place outside of Egypt show war chariots being used and, with the loss of Egypt’s territories in the Levant between 1140 and 1130 bce, the war chariot probably ceased to be of any practical value to the Egyptian army. Certainly those few documented examples of Egyptian campaigns outside of Egypt in the following centuries do not suggest the continued use of chariots. The Egyptian presence at the battle of Qarqar in 853 bce as part of the coalition formed against Assyria is listed only as a force of a thousand soldiers with no mention of chariots or cavalry.43 It is possible that some sort of military unit that involved horses may have appeared in Egypt once again in the ninth and eighth centuries under the 25th dynasty—the kings of Kush (Nubia, in modern Sudan), ruling from their capital, Napata. Piye (750–715 bce) is reported to have had a particular interest in horses and the victory stele set up to commemorate his conquest of Hermopolis and the Nile Delta records that he was angered by the discovery of the poor treatment received by the horses in the royal stables while he was besieging the city.44 Additionally, the Assyrians are known to have obtained horses from the Kushites, purchasing them specifically for their chariot corps, as their greater size and strength made them better suited to pulling chariots than the smaller Mannean horses that they preferred for cavalry.45 What exactly this implies for the state of chariot or mounted warfare in Egypt at the time remains obscure, however. These units would still have been relatively ineffective inside of Egypt itself thanks to the terrain

42 The Epigraphic Survey, Medinet Habu I: Earlier Historical Records of Ramses III (Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1930), plate 32. 43 A. K. Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC II (Toronto: Toronto Univ. Press, 1996), 23, A.0.102.2 ii 89–102. 44 M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: a book of readings. Volume 3 (Berkeley: California Univ. Press, 1980), 73. 45 Dalley, “Foreign Chariotry,” (n. 36), 43 and L.A. Heidorn, “The Horses of Kush.” JNES 56 (1997): 108.

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limitations, so it is possible that the Kushites reared their superior horses only for use in Nubia itself and for trade. In Mesopotamia and the Levant the use of chariots in warfare seems to have continued from the second through to the first millennium bce with little or no interruption. The relatively fast recovery of these areas from the collapse of the international system meant that they could still afford to assemble and maintain a chariot corps and chariotry had always been most useful in these geographical regions. War chariots continued to be used in Mesopotamia and the Levant in numbers similar to those seen in the Late Bronze Age right up to the great campaigns of Assyrian expansion in the latter half of the eighth century, at which point they began to be phased out in favour of the more efficient and tactically flexible cavalry that had become possible by then. The best documented battle of this period is the battle of Qarqar, fought in 853 bce between the Assyrians and an alliance of Western kingdoms. The Assyrian sources, namely the annals of Shalmaneser III (858–824 bce) inscribed on the so-called Kurkh Monolith, claim that the alliance fielded a force of forty thousand soldiers46 and four thousand chariots—a force similar, if not slightly larger than those being used a few centuries earlier: the numbers listed for chariots at the battle of Kadesh are three and a half thousand for the Hittites and, although the inscriptions do not give a number for the Egyptians, estimates usually place their deployment at just under that figure.47 The Assyrian royal inscriptions also list the use of two thousand cavalry by the alliance,48 but it is not clear whether this refers to two thousand cavalry teams of the kind discussed above (and therefore four thousand men on horseback and a chariot to cavalry team ratio of two to one) or to two thousand men on horseback (and therefore only a thousand teams and a chariot to cavalry team ratio of four to one). Amongst the powers that fought the Assyrians at Qarqar was the kingdom of Israel. Although Damascus sent a larger total force, the Israelites provided two thousand of the chariots fielded by the alliance at Qarqar—as many as all the other powers put together.49 The Israelites seem to have had a reputation for the expertise of their chariotry and their use of Nubian horses; so much so that, when the Assyrians finally 46 47 48 49

Grayson, Assyrian Rulers (n. 43), 23, (A.0.102.2 ii 89–102). Drews, End (n. 18), 107. Grayson, Assyrian Rulers (n. 43), 23, (A.0.102.2 ii 89–102). Ibid., 23, (A.0.102.2 ii 89–102).

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conquered Samaria, the capital of Israel, in 722 bce, the Samaritan chariot corps was folded into the Assyrian army and stationed in the royal city of Kalhu.50 This was not an unusual occurrence—it was standard practice to absorb the remaining forces of a conquered territory into the conquering army. What was unusual about the Samaritan chariot corps was that it was the only unit of foreign troops stationed at Kalhu to have been specifically marked out as hailing from a particular city. In her survey of that unit, Dalley argues that the particular expertise of this unit is the most likely reason for this honour and for the apparently good disposition of the Assyrians toward the Samaritans in general.51 Although the basic principles of chariot warfare remained unchanged until the war chariot was retired as a frontline unit at the end of the eighth century bce, there do appear to have been some attempts to modify the chariots themselves. Many of the Neo-Assyrian reliefs with representations of chariots depict much larger, heavier vehicles than those in use in the second millennium bce, usually with larger crews.52 Although these larger vehicles would have been sturdier than their predecessors, provided better protection for their crews and increased the unit’s firepower by allowing it to carry more bowmen, their very size and weight would have mitigated the primary advantage of a chariot: its speed and manoeuvrability. It is possible that the Assyrians favoured the Samaritan charioteers because the combination of their skills and their use of the large Nubian horses had allowed them to actually make these heavy chariots an effective battlefield unit. Yet another possible explanation may be that, while light chariots continued to form the mainstay of chariot corps in the Near East, these heavy chariots acted solely as prestige units, taking pride of place on the Assyrian reliefs simply because they looked more impressive than standard chariots. Light, fast, highly manoeuvrable units would have remained in use on the battlefield and the actual deployment of these heavy chariots would probably have been limited. Yet, once the chariot ceased to be used as a frontline military unit, the heavy chariot units were retained as deliberately archaic formations whose sole function was to look impressive at grand state occasions, rather like the cavalry units still maintained by the British army today, while the light chariot disappeared entirely.

50 51 52

Dalley, “Foreign Chariotry,” (n. 36), 32. Ibid., 32. E. Weissert, “Royal Hunt,” (n. 38), 354–55.

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The sharp decline in the numbers of chariots in Assyrian military records from the end of the eighth century bce indicates that they no longer formed an important practical part of the Assyrian army.53 The only function retained by chariots in the Near East from this point onwards would have been as status symbols for kings and noblemen. Even stripped of its military functions, the chariot was still the most visually impressive mode of transport available. As it happens, the very fact of their uselessness might well have served to make them even more desirable as status symbols. Anyone seen to ride around in a chariot was obviously someone able to bear the cost of obtaining and maintaining it and so would, by definition, be wealthy and important. J. N. Postgate once called it, fittingly, the ‘Assyrian Porsche’.54 Aside from military scenes, chariots were depicted in the context of the royal lion hunt.55 As these hunts would have taken place in cordoned off royal parks or been arranged so that already captured animals were released directly in the king’s path, the lack of speed and manoeuvrability suffered by the large, heavy chariots being used would not have been a problem.56 In fact, the chariot’s size may well have been an important safety feature on such occasions. A cornered lion is an exceptionally dangerous creature and a hunter on horseback would be immediately vulnerable if it turned and attacked. A hunter in a large chariot is much safer, as, if the creature being hunted turned and attacked the horses, the charioteers would be at a sufficient distance to shoot it before it reached them. Even if the creature attacked from the side, the body of the chariot (and the king’s retainers) would impede its progress sufficiently for someone to kill it before the king was harmed. Concluding Remarks Scholarship on the chariot has focussed primarily on its initial development late in the Middle Bronze Age and on its importance and use in the Late Bronze Age. Little consensus has been reached on either of these issues and the importance of the chariot in the early first millennium

53

J. N. Postgate, “The Assyrian Army at Zamua,” Iraq 62 (2000). J. N. Postgate, “The Assyrian Porsche?” State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 4 (1990): 35–38. 55 E. Weissert, “Royal Hunt,” (n. 38). 56 M. Roaf, Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East (New York: Facts on File, 1990), 154. 54

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bce has been largely overlooked. The utility of the chariot as a war machine has often been grossly underestimated. War chariots played a vital role on the battlefields of the Near East in the second millennium bce, acting as effective flanking and pursuit formations in concert with solid infantry units. In the first millennium bce the basic principles of chariot warfare remained unchanged, but the changed geopolitical situation required a modification of the chariot itself. Assyria, the sole survivor of the great chariot powers of the second millennium, found itself confronted with a number of new rival powers emerging in the highland areas to the north and east in which its chariot corps could not function. The answer to this was the ‘chariot-less rough terrain chariot team’ which, over the course of two centuries, evolved into the first true light cavalry. Even then, the operation of this formation remained essentially identical—cavalry operated as a flanking and pursuit arm that supported the infantry just as chariotry had before. Although retired from frontline military service, the chariot continued to perform the other role that it had always played from its conception, that of the prestige transport and hunting vehicle.

“I FELL UPON HIM LIKE A FURIOUS ARROW”: TOWARD A RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ASSYRIAN TACTICAL SYSTEM* Garrett G. Fagan Introduction Between the ninth and seventh centuries bce, the Assyrians forged and presided over the largest empire the Near East had yet seen.1 Incorporating the ancient seats of power in Sumer, Akkad, and Babylon, and stretching its reach even to Egypt, the neo-Assyrian empire was built on the application of massive and sustained violence to the diverse populations of these regions. The Assyrian Royal Army was an ideal tool for this task, a fearsome war machine that for centuries rampaged across the Near East, pouring “awesome terror over the land,” as the Assyrian royal inscriptions put it.2 Sources of information about the Assyrian army are sufficiently abundant to make it the earliest army scholars can investigate in any systematic detail. Its organization and equipment, the ethnicity and appearance of its soldiers, its logistics, the political ideology underpinning its deployment, and the course of individual campaigns have all been subjected to * My thanks to my colleagues Gonzalo Rubio and Baruch Halpern for reading earlier versions of this paper and providing much useful advice and input. John Hyland also offered several very useful bibliographic pointers. As this book went to print, I was made aware of F. de Backer, “Some Basic Tactics of Neo-Assyrian Warfare,” Ugarit-Forschungen 39 (2007): 69–119. I have been unable to take de Backer’s arguments into detailed consideration in what follows, but our main conclusions are reassuringly parallel: de Backer, as here, deduces tactical function from equipment and stresses the importance of coordinated action among specialist units. She stresses more than I do the functional flexibility of Assyrian units (or “Multi-Purpose Tactical Units,” as she dubs them). 1 For recent and accessible surveys of Assyrian history, see A. Kuhrt, The Ancient Near East, 3000–300 bc (London: Routledge, 1995): 473–546; M. van de Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000–323 bc 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 216–52; H. W. F. Saggs, The Might That Was Assyria (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1984), 2–121. 2 Translations of Assyrian inscriptions used throughout this chapter are those of A. K. Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of Early First Millennia bc, 2 vols (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1991, 1996) or B. R. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature 3rd ed. (Bethesda: CDL Press, 2005) unless otherwise indicated. For “awesome terror,” see H. W. F. Saggs, “Assyrian Warfare in the Sargonid Period,” Iraq 25 (1963): 145–54.

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close scrutiny.3 Specific sieges or military engagements have also been investigated.4 While all of this work has been enormously beneficial in bringing the Assyrian army to life, the tactical system the Assyrians employed in open-field battles remains a matter of considerable uncertainty.5 In the case of military campaigns, for instance, the tendency has been to focus more on the political and strategic aspects of Assyrian

3 See, for instance, the studies of J. Hunger, Heerwesen und Kriegführung der Assyrer auf der Höhe ihrer Macht (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1911); F. Malbran-Labat, L’armée et l’organisation militaire de l’Assyrie d’après les lettres des Sargonides trouvées à Ninive (Geneva: Droz, 1982); W. Manitius, “Das stehende Heer der Assyrerkönige und seine Organization,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 24 (1910): 97–149; W. Mayer, Politik und Kriegskunst der Assyrer (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1995); J. N. Postgate, Taxation and Conscription in the Assyrian Empire (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1974); idem, “The Assyrian Army at Zamua,” Iraq 62 (2000): 89–108; Saggs, Might (n. 1), 243–68. For more focused analyses, see e.g. on the ideology of militarism: B. Oded, War, Peace, and Empire: Justifications for War in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions (Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1992); Saggs, “Assyrian Warfare” (n. 2); W. von Soden, “Die Assyrer und der Krieg,” Iraq 25 (1963): 131–44; on logistics, F. M. Fales, “Grain Reserves, Daily Rations, and the Size of the Assyrian Army: A Quantitative Study,” State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 4 (1990): 25–34; idem, “Preparing for War in Assyria,” in Economie antique: La guerre dans les economies antiques, ed. J. Andreau et al., Entretiens d’Archéologie et d’Histoire (Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges: Musée archéologique départemental de Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges, 2000), 35–62; on the organization, equipment, and appearance of soldiers, S. Dalley “Foreign Chariotry and Cavalry in the Armies of Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II,” Iraq 47 (1985): 31–48; J. E. Reade, “The Neo-Assyrian Court and Army: Evidence from the Sculptures,” Iraq 34 (1972): 87–112; D. Nadali, “The Representation of Foreign Soldiers and Their Employment in the Assyrian Army,” in Ethnicity in Ancient Mesopotamia, ed. W. H. van Soldt (Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 2005), 222–44; on ravaging orchards, S. W. Cole, “The Destruction of Orchards in Assyrian Warfare,” in Assyria 1995, ed. S. Parpola and R. Whitting (Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1997), 29–40. For studies of individual campaigns, see below, n. 6. 4 Scurlock plausibly reconstructs Assyrian battle tactics in four engagements, drawn from the Annals of Sargon II (721–705 bce), Sennacherib (704–681 bce), and Assurbanipal (668–627 bce), buttressed by Roman and Medieval comparanda. Her reconstructions, cleverly argued with battle-phase diagrams, are optimistically detailed, given how laconic written Assyrian battle reports actually are (see below); see J. Scurlock, “Neo-Assyrian Battle Tactics,” in Crossing Boundaries and Linking Horizons: Studies in Honor of Michael C. Astour on his 80th Birthday, ed. G. D.Young et al. (Bethesda: CDL Press, 1997), 491–517. See also J. M. Córdoba, “Die Schlacht am Ulaya-Fluß: Ein Beispiel assyrischer Kriegführung während der letzten Jahre des Reiches,” in Assyrien im Wandel der Zeiten: XXXIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Heidelberg 6.–10. Juli 1992, ed. H. Waetzoldt and H. Hauptmann (Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag, 1997), 7–18; A. Kuhrt, “Sennacherib’s Siege of Jerusalem,” in Representations of Empire: Rome and the Mediterranean World, ed. A. K. Bowman (London: Oxford Univ. Press for the British Academy, 2002), 13–34; D. Ussishkin, The Conquest of Lachish by Sennacherib (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv Univ., Institute of Archaeology, 1982). 5 In many works cited supra nn. 3 and 4, the tactical system is either perfunctorily reconstructed—if it is at all—or examined only in specific engagements.

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military activities rather than on the tactical means they employed to achieve their goals.6 That the Assyrians, at least by the late eighth century, adhered to a tactical system that might be termed ‘standard’—in that there were established procedures in prosecuting battles—is made implicit in a passage in Sargon II’s Letter to Assur, documenting the events of his eighth campaign in 714 bce.7 As his army, exhausted from crossing mountainous terrain, confronts an alliance of enemies at Mt. U’aush, Sargon comments: “I did not send forth my (advance) warriors nor assemble my forces, I did not bring up my right and left wings, I had no care for my rear. I had no fear of his entire army….”8 The implication is that, under normal circumstances when the men were not exhausted, Sargon would have taken all of these measures.9 By further implication, any Assyrian commander would have done likewise. So in Sargon’s words can be 6

E.g. P. Gerardi, “The Arab Campaign of Ashurbanipal: Scribal Reconstruction of the Past,” State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 6 (1992): 67–103; K. Jakubiak, “Some Remarks on Sargon II’s Eighth Campaign of 714,” Iranica Antiqua 39 (2004): 191–202; W. Mayer, “Sargons Feldzug gegen Urartu-714 v. Chr.: Eine militärhistorische Würdigung,” Mitteilungen der deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 112 (1980): 13–33; D. Nadali, “La campagna di Assurbanipal contro gli Arabi: Proposta di lettura delle dinamiche di una battaglia in campo aperto,” Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici 46 (2003): 59–78; H. Tadmor “The Campaigns of Sargon II: A Chronological-Historical Study,” JCS 12 (1958): 22–40 and 77–100; and next note. 7 For text and German translation, see W. Mayer, “Sargons Feldzug gegen Urartu-714 v. Chr.: Text und Übersetzung,” Mitteilungen der deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 115 (1983): 65–132. The translation used here is Foster, Before the Muses (n. 2), 790–813. For analysis of the campaign and the battle itself, see J. Blanchard Smith, “A Tactical Re-interpretation of the Battle of Uauash: Assyria and Urartu at War 714 bc,” in Anatolian Iron Ages 3, ed. A. Çilingirolu and D. H. French (London: British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, 1994), 229–39; L. D. Levine, “Sargon’s Eighth Campaign,” in Mountains and Lowlands: Essays in the Archaeology of Greater Mesopotamia, ed. L. D. Levine and T. C. Young (Malibu: Bibliotheca Mesopotamica, 1977), 135–51; Mayer, “Sargons Feldzug” (n. 6); G. W. Vera Chamaza, “Der VIII. Feldzug Sargons II. Eine Untersuchung zu Politik und historischer Geographie des späten 8. Jhs. v. Chr. (Teil I),” Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran 27 (1994): 91–118 and idem, “Der VIII. Feldzung Sargons II. Eine Untersuchung zu Politik und historischer Geographie des späten 8. Jhs. v. Chr. (Teil II),” Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran 28 (1995/6): 235–67; P. Zimansky, “Urartian Geography and Sargon’s Eighth Campaign,” JNES 49 (1990): 1–22. 8 Foster, Before the Muses (n. 2), 798. 9 Blanchard Smith, “Tactical Re-Interpretation” (n. 7): 229, interprets this passage to mean that Sargon’s army was in disarray to the point of near mutiny: “The infantry was tired, thirsty, and out of control, scouting units could not be deployed and contact had been lost with the right and left flanks and with the rearguard.” This reads rather more into what Sargon says than is actually in the text. When the battle is over, Sargon notes that he entered his “encampment in joy and celebration, with players of lyres and flutes” (Foster, Beyond the Muses [n. 2], 799), which would suggest that the army had built a camp while Sargon was fighting the enemy.

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heard an echo of tactical procedures routinely employed by the Assyrian army. What evidence do we have for those procedures? Can we reconstruct them or, failing that, at least gain an impression of what they might have been? Much energy has been expended in recent years investigating the battle mechanics of Greek or Roman armies.10 In what follows, the same courtesy is extended to the Assyrians. Previous Suggestions In trying to assess what tactical advantages underlay Assyrian battlefield success, military historians have formulated a variety of scenarios. One, promoted by famed historian of war John Keegan, sees the Assyrian army as primarily a chariot force, part of a long tradition in Near Eastern warfare.11 All indications, however, are that the military role of massed chariotry among the Assyrians decreased rather than increased over time. While chariot charges are depicted in reliefs from the palace of Assurnasirpal II (883–859 bce) at Nimrud (fig. 1) and in bronze reliefs 10

Greek hoplite battle mechanics have been a bone of considerable contention; see V. D. Hanson, “Hoplite Technology in Phalanx Battle,” in Hoplites: The Ancient Greek Battle Experience, ed. V. D. Hanson (London: Routledge, 1991), 63–84; idem, The Other Greeks (New York: Free Press, 1995), 221–44; idem, The Western Way of War 2nd ed. (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2000), 135–218; J. E. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2005), 15–114; R. D. Luginbill, “Othismos: The Importance of the Mass-Shove in Hoplite Warfare,” Phoenix 48 (1994): 51–61; W. K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War, Part IV (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1985), 1–93; and contra A. K. Goldsworthy, “The Othismos, Myths and Heresies: The Nature of Hoplite Battle,” War in Society 4 (1997): 1–26; P. Krentz, “The Nature of Hoplite Battle,” Classical Antiquity 4 (1985): 50–61; idem, “Continuing the Othismos on the Othismos,” Ancient History Bulletin 8 (1994): 45–49; L. Rawlings, The Ancient Greeks at War (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 2007), 81–103; H. van Wees, Greek Warfare: Myth and Reality (London: Duckworth, 2004), 166–98; E. L. Wheeler, “Battle,” in Sabin et al., CHGRW, 1.186–223. For Rome, which is less contentious but no less clear, see G. Daly, Cannae: The Experience of Battle in the Second Punic War (London: Routledge, 2002), 48–112; C. M. Gilliver “Battle,” in Sabin et al., CHGRW, 2.122–57; A. K. Goldsworthy, The Roman Army At War, 100 bc-ad 200 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 171–286; A. D. Lee, “Morale and the Roman Experience of Battle,” in Battle in Antiquity, ed. A. B. Lloyd and C. Gilliver (London: Duckworth in association with the Classical Press of Wales, 1996), 199–217; Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts (n. 10), 163–232; P. Sabin, “The Mechanics of Battle in the Second Punic War,” in The Second Punic War: A Re-Appraisal, ed. T. J. Cornell et al. (London: BICS Supplement 67, 1996), 59–79; idem, “The Face of Roman Battle,” JRS 90 (2000): 1–17; E. L. Wheeler, “The Roman Legion as Phalanx.” Chiron 9 (1979): 303–18; A. Zhmodikov, “Roman Republican Heavy Infantrymen in Battle (IV-II Centuries bc),” Historia 49 (2000): 60–82. 11 J. Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: Knopf, 1993): 169–77.

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of the campaigns of Shalmaneser III (858–824 bce) on the Balawat Gates,12 by the seventh century chariots appear to have evolved into unwieldy prestige vehicles, used primarily in the royal hunt and retained on the battlefield more for their impressive appearance than any tactical advantage they afforded (fig. 2). The best explanation for the decline of chariotry is the emergence, over these same centuries, of genuine cavalry, an armament systematized by the Assyrians like none before them (see Archer, this volume). Cavalry units first appear in Assyrian reliefs of the ninth century as little more than chariot teams without the chariot. Two riders (one of them armed) sit awkwardly on their horses, one holding the reins while the other fires a bow (fig. 3).13 By the late eighth century cavalry had evolved into individual equestrians, either lancers or horse archers (fig. 4). Cavalry was cheaper than chariotry, more maneuverable, and could go places chariots could not. The evidence therefore does not support the notion that chariots constituted the linchpin of the Assyrian tactical system, and so chariots do not offer a cogent explanation for Assyrian military success. Another view, advocated by Doyne Dawson, is that the Assyrians were the first in history to deploy disciplined infantry, arrayed in serried ranks to fight in formation. Before them, argues Dawson, the ancient battlefield was graced only by formless mobs of conscripts who had minimal, if any, impact on the course of engagements.14 The evidence

12

Nimrud: E. A. W. Budge, Assyrian Sculptures in the British Museum: Reign of Ashurnasir-pal, 885-860 bc (London: British Museum, 1914): plates 14 (= fig. 1) and 17.2. Note also ibid., plates 21 and 22.1 (chariots placed in boats to cross river on campaign); 22.2 (Assyrian chariots parade in front of enemy city); 24.2 (king in chariot charges down the enemy); 25.1 (king in chariot crosses rough country); 42.1 (king in light chariot hunting lions). Chariots are so frequently depicted on the Balawat Gates that detailed documentation would be redundant; see L. W. King, Bronze Reliefs from the Gates of Shalmaneser, King of Assyria bc 860–825 (London: British Museum, 1915); A. Schachner, Bilder eines Weltreichs: Kunst- und kulturgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu den Verzierungen eines Tores aus Balawat (Imgur-Enlil) aus der Zeit von Salmanassar III, König von Assyrien, Subartu 20 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007). In all of these images, the chariots are often shown overlapping in groups of three or more and running down (or over) fleeing enemies, all presumably to suggest massed chariot operations. 13 On the Balawat Gates two-horse cavalry units are also shown armed with shields and javelins as well as bows, see King, Bronze Reliefs (n. 12), plates 15, 17, 48–9, 53–5, 57, 60, 62, 77; Schachner, Bilder eines Weltreichs (n. 12), Taf. 19b, 21a, 25b, 27a, 39a, 45b, 47a, 49a, 51a, 58a. The horses must have been yoked together in some way for this arrangement to work, cf. R. Drews, Early Riders: The Beginnings of Mounted Warfare in Asia and Europe (London: Routledge, 2004), 65–138, especially 65–6. 14 D. Dawson, The First Armies (London: Cassel, 2001), especially 159–208.

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renders this view untenable. In some of the earliest images of state-level warfare we have, on the Royal Standard of Ur or the Stele of the Vultures from Girsu (both dating to between 2500–2460 bce) organized infantry are clearly depicted.15 Not only are infantrymen shown in ranks or files, but they are uniformly equipped with helmets that tie under the chin, studded (?) war cloaks, wool skirts, stabbing spears, or battle axes (fig. 5). On the Stele of the Vultures the troops—also uniformed—are shown formed up into a kind of proto-phalanx, spears projecting from a wall of shields as they trample the enemy dead.16 Massed infantry also feature, in an admittedly vague way, in Egyptian battle accounts, such as those of Megiddo or Kadesh.17 The Assyrians may have enjoyed some advantage

15

On the Royal Standard of Ur, see J. Aruz and R. Wallenfels, Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium bc from the Mediterranean to the Indus (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003), 93–132, especially 97–100 (on the Standard). On the Stele of the Vultures, see I. J. Winter, “After the Battle is Over: The Stele of the Vultures and the Beginning of Pictorial Narrative in the Art of the Ancient Near East,” in Pictorial Narrative in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. H. L. Kessler and M.S. Simpson (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1985), 11–32. On warfare in this era in general, see W. J. Hamblin, Warfare in the Ancient Near East to 1600 bc: Holy Warriors at the Dawn of History (London: Routledge, 2006), 35–72 and 129–45. Hamblin sees organized infantry units as an integral element in Early Dynastic Sumerian warfare. Note also D. Nadali, “Monuments of War, War of Monuments: Some Considerations on Commemorating War in the Third Millennium bc,” Orientalia 76 (2007): 336–7. 16 Dawson argues in First Armies (n. 14), 85 that the depiction of ordered ranks is illusory, the “inevitable” outcome of trying to indicate thousands of conscripts in a limited medium. This objection, weak in itself, does not address their uniform equipment, which reveals the state’s hand in recruiting and organizing them. Some basic drill by way of training is hardly inconceivable against that backdrop. Even weaker is his speculation (88) that the infantry formation on the Stele of the Vultures is attempting to force a breach or gate of a besieged city, and so the formation has no bearing on open-field tactics. This suggestion is undermined by the (admittedly fragmentary) accompanying text which emphasizes open field battles fought in a protracted borderland dispute; sieges do not obviously appear until the later phases of the dispute, when the conflict widened to include neighboring states (the notation in one inscription that Eanatum, the king celebrated in the Stele of the Vultures, “destroyed Umma” is too vague to be interpreted definitively as referring to a siege; and, in any case, the continuance of the dispute reveals that Umma was not destroyed by Eanatum); see the relevant texts assembled and translated by J. S. Cooper (see below, n. 21). Hamblin in Warfare in the Ancient Near East (n. 15), 55–9 sees the “phalanx” as operating in the open field, though the details of its use remain a matter of uncertainty. 17 Megiddo: R. O. Faulkner, “The Battle of Megiddo,” JEA 28 (1942): 2–15; H. Goedicke, The Battle of Megiddo (Baltimore: Halgo, 2000). Kadesh: L. Bell, “Conflict and Reconciliation in the Ancient Middle East: The Clash of Egyptian and Hittite Chariots in Syria, and the World’s First Peace Treaty between ‘Superpowers’,” in War and Peace in the Ancient World, ed. K. Raaflaub (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 98–120; H. Goedicke, “Considerations on the Battle of Kadesh,” JEA 52 (1966): 71–80; idem (ed.), Perspectives on the Battle of Kadesh (Baltimore: Halgo, 1995); M. Healy, Qadesh 1300 bc: Clash

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in their infantry, but it is unwarranted to claim that it consisted of their inventing disciplined formations. A third view is that the Assyrians fielded a well organized and integrated army capable of impressive tactical flexibility on the field and led by aggressive commanders.18 This view accords with the Assyrian evidence more closely than do the previous two scenarios, but it leaves largely unaddressed how these characteristics played out on the battlefield. The two main types of ancient evidence available to investigate Assyrian battle mechanics are the texts of the Assyrian royal inscriptions, and the carved orthostates from Royal Palaces that depict the army in action. We shall look at each in turn. Texts The Assyrian royal records comprise a series of inscriptions in a variety of media, such as clay objects buried in building foundations, archival tablets, or carvings on stone walls or stelae. These records remain somewhat enigmatic as to their purpose and intended audience. Their propagandistic tone is overt, so that their contents cannot be taken at face value. Gross exaggeration and a degree of spin verging on outright fabrication can be identified in their accounts.19 Since the records are

of the Warrior Kings (Botley: Osprey, 1993), especially 37–9; W. Mayer and R. MayerOpificius, “Die Schlacht bei Qades: Der Versuch einer neuen Rekonstruktion,” Ugarit Forschungen 29 (1994): 321–68. On the uses of infantry in the military systems of the Old and Middle Kingdoms, see Hamblin, Warfare in the Ancient Near East (n. 15), 354–59 and 418–40. On the importance of infantry in Egyptian warfare, see I. Shaw, “Battle in Ancient Egypt: The Triumph of Horus or the Cutting Edge of the Temple Economy,” in Lloyd, Battle in Antiquity (n. 10), 239–69. Robert Drews has argued that changes in the use of infantry brought down the chariot-based kingdoms of the Late Bronze Age, i.e. well before the rise of the neo-Assyrian empire; R. Drews, The End of the Bronze Age. Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 bc (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1993), especially 135–73. 18 A. Ferrill, The Origins of War: From the Stone Age to Alexander the Great rev. ed. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1997), 65–79; R. A. Gabriel, The Great Armies of Antiquity (Westport: Praeger, 2002), 124–39; Saggs, Might (n. 1), 243–68. In Origins (this note, 70) Ferrill rather against the evidence, retains chariotry as “the elite striking force” of the Assyrian army. 19 On the inscriptions, see F. M. Fales, Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: New Horizons in Literary, Ideological, and Historical Analysis (Rome: Instituto per l’Oriente, 1981); A. K. Grayson, “Assyria and Babylonia,” Orientalia N.S. 49 (1980): 140–94. The battle of Der in 720 bce pitted the Assyrian king Sargon II against an alliance of Elamites and rebel Babylonians. Babylonian and Assyrian accounts of the battle survive in which all three combatants are credited with victory; see A. K. Grayson, “Problematical Battles

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principally concerned with the military and building activities of the king, they are essential sources for our topic, once their limitations are recognized. The king is normally presented as going on annual campaigns, so plenty of military detail is provided. It falls into three main categories: (a) preparations (and justifications) for war; (b) accounts of the king’s movements, the peoples he slaughtered and subjugated, and the towns and cities captured and looted; and (c) detailed lists of loot.20 Such material, while valuable, is of limited worth for making tactical sense of how the Assyrian army actually performed on the battlefield. In addition, the records cannot be read in a vacuum. By the neoAssyrian period, there was already a long tradition of kingly selfglorification in the Near East that went all the way back to the Early Dynastic III Period of Sumer (ca. 2600-2340 bce). In these early documents, such as the fragmentary records of a centuries-long border dispute between Umma and Lagash, battle is recorded as the crushing of a dishonorable and despicable enemy, the butchery inflicted on their forces, and the entertaining humiliation of their leaders, all interspersed with loud vaunting of the favored ruler’s wisdom and justice, divine connections, and immense power.21 The actual course of combat is passed over in almost total silence. Thus, on the Stele of the Vultures (which documents one phase of the Umma-Lagash dispute) this is the extent of the battle narrative: “He fought with him.”22 In some cases the cities’ patron gods stand in for the competing military forces, rendering the

in Mesopotamian History,” in Studies in Honor of Benno Landsberger on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday, ed. H. Güterbock and T. Jacobsen (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1965), 337–42, especially 340–41. Note also M. van de Mieroop, “Revenge, Assyrian Style,” Past & Present 179 (2003): 3–23. 20 Any annals of any of the kings provide abundant examples; see Grayson, Assyrian Rulers (n. 2) or Foster, Before the Muses (n. 2), 790–813. 21 J. S. Cooper, Reconstructing History from Ancient Inscriptions: The LagashUmma Border Conflict (Malibu: Undena Publications, 1983), 44–53; idem, Presargonic Inscriptions (New Haven: The American Oriental Society, 1986), 22–84. See also Hamblin, Warfare (n. 15), 50–63. The dispute is attested only from the Lagashite side. 22 Cooper, Reconstructing History (n. 21), 45 (text 2, col. 9). Other battle descriptions are no more instructive: “He defeated Umma” (ibid. col. 11); “he destroyed Umma” (ibid. 48, text 4, col. 2); “Uru’inimgina battled him …” (ibid. 52, text 8, col. 3). In two instances we are at least informed as to the make-up of the enemy forces: “He recruited foreigners…Enanatum, ruler of Lagash, fought with him in the Ugiga-field” (ibid. 50, text 6 col. 3) and “he levied the Ummaites and foreigners were dispatched (?)” (ibid. 51, text 7 col. 4).

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battle accounts metaphorical and allegorical rather than realistic and descriptive.23 The Assyrian royal records are the progeny of this discourse. As a consequence, they include lengthy disquisitions on the baseness of the enemy, the brilliance and justice of the Assyrian king, his closeness to the gods, the difficulties of the march, and other such themes that are not directly relevant to reconstructing the Assyrian tactical system. Accounts of actual combat, such as they are, tend to the laconic. A good example is Shalmaneser III’s account of the Battle of Qarqar, fought in 853 bce between the Assyrians and an alliance of Syrians and others: Moving on from the city Arganâ I approached the city Qarqar. I razed, destroyed, (and) burned the city Qarqar, his royal city. An alliance had been formed of…these twelve kings: 1,200 chariots, 1,200 cavalry, (and) 20,000 troops of Hadad-ezer (Adad-idri), the Damascene; 700 chariots, 700 cavalry, (and) 10,000 troops of Irhulenu, the Hamatite; 2,000 chariots (and) 10,000 troops of Ahab (Ahabbu) the Israelite (Sir’alaia); 500 troops of Byblos; 1,000 troops of Egypt; 10 chariots (and) 10,000 troops of the land Irqanatu; 200 troops of Matinu-ba’al of the city Arvad; 200 troops of the land Usunatu; 30 chariots (and) [N],000 troops of Adunu-ba’al of the land Sianu; 1,000 camels of Gindibu of the Arabs; [N] hundred troops of Ba’asa, the man of Bit-Ruhubi, the Ammonite. They attacked to [wage] war and battle against me. With the supreme forces which Assur, my lord, had given me…I fought with them. I defeated them from the city Qarqar as far as the city Gilzau. I felled with the sword 14,000 troops, their fighting men, (and) rained down upon them destruction (lit. “flood”) as the god Adad would. I filled the plain with their spread out (lit. “I spread out”) corpses (and) their extensive troops with the sword. I made their blood flow in the wadis … [and so on].24

23 E.g. “Ningirsu, warrior of Enlil, at his (Enlil’s) just command, did battle with Umma. At Enlil’s command he cast the great battle net upon it and set up burial mounds for it on the plain,” in Cooper, Reconstructing History (n. 21), 49, text 6, col. 1; “Ningirsu destroyed the Ummaite levies,” ibid. 51, text 7, col. 4. Ningirsu was the patron deity of Lagash. 24 Grayson, Assyrian Rulers (n. 2), 2.23–4; cf. J. B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament 3rd ed. (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969), 278–9 (from the Monolith Inscription). In later and briefer accounts, enemy casualties are inflated to 25,000 or more; see Grayson, Assyrian Rulers (n. 2), 2.36, 2.45, 2.52, 2.65 (the figure here is 20,500), 2.75 (29,000), 2.103 (no figure provided), 2.107 (no figure provided). Other battle notices in the annals of Assurnasirpal II and Shalmaneser III are, if anything, vaguer still: e.g., “I fought with them, brought about their defeat, (and) broke up their group. I slew 1,460 of their combatants in the pass … [and so on]” (Grayson, Assyrian Rulers [n. 2], 1.203) or “With might and main my combat troops flew against them like the Storm Bird” (ibid. 1.210) or “I fought with him (and) defeated him. I confined him to his city…” (ibid. 2.15).

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While there is certainly useful material in this account—information about the size and composition of the enemy forces, for instance—in the longstanding tradition of the Ancient Near East the combat itself is reported with minimal fuss: “I defeated them from the city Qarqar as far as the city Gilzau.” The language is also figurative rather than descriptive. It is not readily apparent what tactical arrangements (if any) can be read into “I felled with the sword 14,000 troops, their fighting men, (and) rained down upon them destruction (lit. “flood”) as the god Adad would.” Finally, consonant with tradition, the emphasis is on the glory of the king, the vileness of the foe, and the abjectness of their slaughter. At least three other battle accounts in the royal records warrant consideration. Sargon II’s Letter to Assur describes the events of his eighth campaign into Urartu in 714 bce.25 The vile Urartian king Rusa and his no less despicable ally, Metatti of Zikirte, had taken up a position at Mt. U’aush with their combined forces in a mountainous defile and then sent a messenger to Sargon inviting an engagement. At this time the Assyrian army was toiling over the mountains, and, as we noted above, it arrived on the scene exhausted and thirsty. The battle narrative that follows is about the most detailed we have from the royal records, which fast becomes a depressing realization. Tactical detail is there, but it is very limited: we read about the disposition of the enemy, their well organized forces, and the different classes of soldiers in both armies. Particularly instructive are Sargon’s comments on the tactical measures he did not take, due to the unusual circumstances of the fight. As we surmised above, this suggests that by his day there was a standard set of tactical procedures in Assyrian military operations. But we would like to know more. Who exactly were the “advance warriors,” for instance, that Sargon did not send forward? Skirmishers, scouts, missile troops, light cavalry, or even chariot units screening the main force? What is meant by “bringing up” the wings? How did the wings differ from the center, if at all? What “care” would normally be taken for the rear? When the fighting starts we get this: With only my single chariot and the horsemen who ride with me, who never leave me in hostile or friendly territory, the elite squadron of Sin-ahusur, I fell upon him like a furious arrow, I defeated him and forced him to retreat. I made a huge carnage of him, spreading out the corpses of his 25 See above, nn. 6 and 7, for relevant literature on texts of the letter and analyses of the campaign. Ancient Urartu was located in the southern Caucuses and comprised parts of modern Turkey, Armenia, Iran, Georgia, and Azerbaijan.

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warriors like malt and choking the mountain slope with them. I made the blood flow like river water in chasms and gullies…[and so on]26

Again, not a lot of information. Sargon claims to have attacked only with his royal cavalry escort, but the strength of that unit is not known.27 When confronting Rusa directly, Sargon notes that he “shot his team of horses from under him with spears and arrows,” which would suggest that the Assyrian cavalry operated in this instance as bowmen and javelin-men rather than shock troops.28 Whatever the case about that, the emphasis in Sargon’s account is on the traditional themes of the defeat and slaughter of a dishonorable enemy. Finally, the explicitly atypical nature of this particular fight limits the value of the account, even if it were fuller, since its circumstances did not apply to other engagements. In 709 bce Sargon II confronted a Babylonian rebel and his Elamite allies at Dur-Yakin on the Euphrates. After crossing the river via ramps (his men “fly[ing] over the river like eagles,” as one account puts it), Sargon attacks: “him together with his warriors I caught in a net like an eagle in flight,” and a gleeful account of the ensuing slaughter follows, which includes the detail that after the rebel leader was hit in the hand by an arrow, “he slunk away like a mongoose through the gate of his city.” A list of loot closes out the account.29 The language is again notably figurative, and while a valiant attempt has been made to interpret the “eagle-in-flight” simile as denoting a flanking movement on both wings—as an eagle’s wings fold in on its prey—it must remain a speculation, albeit a clever one.30

26

Foster, Muses (n. 2), 796. At the end of this campaign, Sargon mentions 1,000 soldiers (infantry or cavalry or a mixture?) he brought with him to attack Musasir, in Foster, Muses (n. 2, 807). MalbranLabrat in L’armée et l’organisation (n. 3, 59–75) assembles evidence for cavalry units of up to 500 strong. Letters from the Sargonid dynasty attest units of 100 cavalrymen accompanying generals (ibid., 79). Mayer in Politik und Kriegkunst (n. 3, 458) offers no figures for Assyrian cavalry unit strength. Blanchard Smith, “Tactical Re-Interpretation” (n. 7, 230) numbers Sargon’s guard at 1,000 horses. 28 Foster, Before the Muses (n. 2), 798. Blanchard Smith, “Tacitcal Re-Interpretation” (n. 7) offers two possible reconstructions of the course of this battle, which differ in how Rusa and Metatti deployed their armies. 29 For the relevant sections (333–46) of Sargon’s Annals from Khorsabad, see A. Fuchs, Die Inschriften Sargons II aus Khorsabad (Göttingen: Cuvillier Verlag, 1993), 159–61 (text) and 333–4 (translation). For a parallel and more prosaic Assyrian account, see C. J. Gadd, “Inscribed Prisms of Sargon II from Nimrud,” Iraq 16 (1954): 173–201 and especially 185–90. Babylonian accounts also survive, but are notably discrepant: see Grayson, “Problematical Battles” (n. 19), 340–42. 30 Scurlock, “Neo-Assyrian Battle Tactics” (n. 4), 504. 27

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In 691 bce Sennacherib confronted another Babylonian rebel king, again allied with the hated Elamites, at Halule on the Tigris. The battle is documented in the annals of Sennacherib and in the Babylonian Chronicle.31 When Sennacherib invaded Babylon, he was met by an allied army drawn up on the very banks of the Tigris, with the river on their right, since they “blocked my [Sennacherib’s] way to drinking water.” Sennacherib, who claims victory—probably spuriously—then notes that “I blew against the enemy on long and short sides like the attack of an angry storm.” The figurative language seems to suggest an Assyrian frontal assault on the center (the long side) combined with flanking movements on the wings (the short sides), though how the latter would work if indeed the allies’ right was covered by the Tigris is hard to envision.32 Sennacherib then shows an uncharacteristic clemency toward the supposedly defeated enemy rulers, whom he claims to have pitied and allowed to live. In actuality, they probably escaped with much of their army intact, and this is why the battle, a stalemate, is claimed as a victory by both sides. Further examples are unnecessary, as the point is by now clear. Battle accounts in the Assyrian royal records are long on bragging and short on tactical detail. Even when they provide some detail (as at Halule or Mt. U’aush), there is little or no hard information about Assyrian deployments, tactical dispositions, or maneuvers, and a marked proclivity for expression in simile or metaphor. The records do, however, tell us that Assyrian armies were made up of different classes of troops, such as royal guards, various classes of infantry and cavalry, missile troops, chariotry, engineers, pioneers, scouts, and so on;33 that the whole was

31 D. D. Luckenbill, The Annals of Sennacherib (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1924), 43–7 (Oriental Institute Prism Inscription), 88–9 (Nebi Yunus Inscription), 160 (Babylonian Chronicle); A. K. Grayson, “The Walters Art Gallery Sennacherib Inscription,” Archiv für Orientforschung 20 (1963): 83–96. For discussion, see Grayson, “Problematical Battles” (n. 19), 342; Scurlock, “Neo-Assyrian Battle Tactics” (n. 4), 509– 16. As with the battle of Der (see n. 19), both sides claimed victory at Halule. 32 Scurlock, “Neo-Assyrian Battle Tactics” (n. 4, 511) suggests that only the exposed left wing was assaulted. Perhaps so, but that is not what Sennacherib’s account says happened. This sort of uncertainty illustrates the difficulty of interpreting these propagandistic texts for tactical information. 33 This can be gleaned from, e.g., Sargon’s Letter to Assur, which specifies units of chariots, cavalry, infantry, engineers, support troops, scouts, auxiliaries, and demolition teams; see Foster, Muses (n. 2), 792–3 and 804. At one point, Sargon detaches 10,000 hand-picked veterans armed with bow, shield, and spear to confront the rebels of Musasir (the main force is identified as comprising chariotry, cavalry and “the main army”); ibid., 806–7. Corroborating information is offered by the Sargonic tablets from Fort

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well organized and well led; and that some standard tactical procedure applied, at least by the late eighth century bce. If the figurative language, as interpreted by some, does indeed conceal tactical details, the records may also suggest coordinated tactical movements by Assyrian troops on the battlefield. Reliefs The carved orthostates from Assyrian palaces are overwhelmingly concerned with warfare, and thus reveal the army in action on a variety of tasks. The images corroborate the royal records in that they depict an impressive array of Assyrian troops, many of them specialists: slingers and archers, as well as different classes of infantry, cavalry, and chariots (figs 2–4, 6–7). Even if tying particular textual terms to specific images of warrior-types proves to be a difficult proposition, the reliefs depict units equipped in a standardized manner and staffed by various ethnicities that are carefully differentiated from Assyrian troops and from each other by their clothing, equipment, and headgear.34 All such foreign troops are shown as infantry, whether light-armed or heavier spearmen, or missile troops. That finds of Assyrian weapons correspond closely with what we see in the reliefs instills confidence about the accuracy of the depictions (fig. 8).35 Whatever their function and whatever the artistic conventions of the day, there is good reason to trust that what we see in the reliefs reflects Assyrian military realities.

Shalmaneser at Nimrud; see S. Dalley and J. N. Postgate, The Tablets from Fort Shalmaneser (London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 1984), 27–47. Analogous notices for the composition of other Assyrian armies is readily gleaned by surveying the Royal Annals in Grayson, Assyrian Rulers (n. 2), e.g., 1.216, 217, 218, 2.14, 2.69, etc. A list of lodgings for state officials includes mention of recruitment officers, commanders of cohorts, royal bodyguards, charioteers, and a chief of the scouts; see F. M. Fales and J. N. Postgate, Imperial Administrative Records, Part I, SAA 7 (Helsinki: Helsinki Univ. Press, 1992), 16–19 (9); see also below, n. 46. 34 See, e.g., Malbran-Labat, L’armée et l’organisation (n. 3), 59–101; Mayer, Politik und Kriegkunst (n. 3), 440–70; Reade,“The Neo-Assyrian Court” (n. 3); Nadali, “Representation of Foreign Soldiers” (n. 3). Over time, equipment can be seen to migrate across troop categories; in later reliefs, the Assyrian conical helmet, for instance, finds its way onto the heads of “auxiliary” units that had formerly sported their own helmet styles; see Reade, op. cit. 35 See, e.g., T. Dezsö and J. Curtis, “Assyrian Iron Helmets from Nimrud now in the British Museum,” Iraq 53 (1991): 105–26, especially 116–26 for close correspondences between images and actual finds.

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When it comes to combat, sieges predominate in the reliefs, either because sieges were easier to carve than the sprawling chaos of an openfield engagement or because they showcased Assyrian military technology, yielded the greatest amount of loot, and marked the culmination of a campaign.36 The siege scenes, however, do tell us something important about how the Assyrian army went about its business. An early siege scene in the reliefs from the palace of Assurnasirpal II at Nimrud stands as a paradigm for the type (fig. 9). The image shows the king, at right and protected by a shield-bearer, discharging arrows at the besieged foe. The rest of his army is actively prosecuting the assault in a variety of ways. In front of the king, a siege engine with a blunt-head battering ram tears at the walls, from which dislodged blocks tumble. A chain lowered down from the wall has ensnared the battering ram and is trying to impede its use; two Assyrian infantrymen attempt to break the chain with hooks. Behind the engine looms a siege tower, from which archers rake the battlements. Hoses pour water over the front of the tower, since a defender has loosed a batch of burning embers against it. To the left of this scene, two sappers are shown in cavities under the wall, mining the foundations. To their left, two sappers work away on the lower courses of the wall’s masonry (probably mud bricks) with specialized flat-topped crowbars; dislodged blocks tumble to the ground. To the left of this scene (not shown in fig. 9) troops are assaulting the wall by escalade. By way of comparison, the relief of a siege of an Egyptian fortress under Assurbanipal centuries later (fig. 10) shows a similar range of assault methods: escalade, undermining, and an attempt to burn the gate, all conducted under covering fire from archers stationed at the perimeter. Siege scenes like this tell us that Assyrian troops operated in a coordinated manner, working in mutual support to achieve their goals. While shielded archers (and sometimes slingers) raked the battlements to clear them of defenders, specialist assault units scaled ladders, stormed the 36 Suggestions that sieges dominate the reliefs because siege warfare was the principal mode of Assyrian war-making are based on too simplistic a reading of the reliefs; see Dawson, First Armies (n. 14), 199. On Assyrian siege techniques see G. Frame, “A Siege Document from Babylon dating to 649 bc,” JCS 51 (1999): 101–6; T. Madhloum, “Assyrian Siege-Engines,” Sumer 21 (1965): 9–15; A. L. Oppenheim, “‘Siege Documents’ from Nippur,” Iraq 17 (1955): 69–89; P. B. Kern, Ancient Siege Warfare (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1999), 46–58; Kuhrt, “Sennacherib’s Siege of Jerusalem” (n. 4); Ussishkin, Conquest of Lachish (n. 4). Recently, it has been argued that Assyrian prowess at siege-craft has been overestimated; see A. Fuchs, “Über den Wert der Befestigungsanlagen,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 98 (2008): 45–99.

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gates, undermined the walls and, in many cases, manned siege engines and towers. In the Egyptian siege (fig. 10), the escalade teams appear to have been specially trained to scale ladders without using their hands. Supported by archers, they push upwards with shields and spears at the ready. The famed reliefs of the siege of Lachish (701 bce) from the palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh are similarly instructive: archers and slingers in serried ranks fire at the defenders, with the more forward missile troops accompanied by shield-bearers; assault teams scurry up ladders; and siege engines converge on the gatehouse and walls from a variety of angles.37 In reading these images, some caution is required. One gets the impression from the reliefs that all the action took place at once, in a terrifying, coordinated assault. And so it probably did. But in the Egyptian and Lachish scenes, as well as in some others, captives are shown emerging from the town to be led away for deportation, or worse (figs. 10, 11). In reality, this would only have happened when the siege was over, but in the reliefs the civilians seem to emerge as the fighting rages around them. These reliefs evidently show sequential events in the same frame. It is therefore arguable that the Assyrian attacks also took place in a sequence, or at least not all at once, which would undermine the interpretation of the scenes as showing carefully coordinated assaults. This possibility must be rejected. With the exception of undermining— which can be conducted in isolation—it would make little sense to send in escalade or sapper teams unsupported by missiles, or to expose vulnerable siege engines to the defenders without support from both missile and assault units. Corroboration is offered by the royal records, which offer verbal analogues for the siege reliefs, as when Sennacherib declares that during his invasion of Judaea in 701 bce he: laid siege to 46 of his [Hezekiah’s] strong cities, walled forts and to the countless small villages in their vicinity, and conquered (them) by means of well-stamped (earth-)ramps, and battering-rams brought (thus) near (to the walls) (combined with) the attack by foot soldiers, (using) mines, breeches as well as sapper work.38

37

See Ussishkin, Conqest of Lachish (n. 4), 67–118. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts (n. 24), 288; cf. Luckenbill, Annals of Sennacherib (n. 31), 32–3. Such notices are not unusual: cf. Grayson, Assyrian Rulers (n. 2), 1.216 (“I besieged the city [and] conquered it by means of tunnels, batteringrams, [and] siege-towers”) or ibid. 1.220: “I besieged the city (and) conquered it by means of tunnels, siege-towers and battering-rams” (both notices from the Annals of Assurnasirpal II). 38

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The wording strongly implies that these assaults were simultaneous. The conclusion has to be that, in prosecuting sieges, the Assyrian royal army operated as a team of specialists conducting coordinated attacks in mutual support. It is a reasonable inference that they did likewise in their open-field operations. Two open-field battle scenes stand out from the reliefs, both from the royal Palaces at Nineveh.39 The first is a battle with Arabs under King Assurbanipal, dated to about 645–635 bce (fig. 12).40 The Arabs are seen to be overwhelmed by a charge of chariots and mounted archers, supporting large-shield infantrymen who work in tandem with archers (fig. 13). Nadali notes that the cavalry and chariots are shown mostly on the margins of these images, as if encircling or hemming in the enemy.41 That observation is clearer in another open-field battle scene, the most extensive so far found: The Battle of Til-Tuba (or the River Ulai) between Assurbanipal and the Elamite king Teumann, dating to 663 or 653 bce (figs. 14–16).42 The image is sprawling and chaotic, as the fleeing Elamites are driven into the river (fig. 14). Here the cavalry and chariots are more clearly confined to the margins (see bottom of fig. 14), while spearmen and archers occupy the center. This may suggest a flanking maneuver by the mounted units. Once more, archers and spearmen are shown fighting in tandem amidst the general melee (fig. 15), which puts one in mind of the Ajax-Teucer team in Homer’s Iliad.43 39 Others are known, but cannot discussed here. For instance a series of reliefs depicts a campaign in the marshes of Southern Iraq by Assurbanipal in 640-620 bce and shows Assyrians fighting enemies on reed boats. Another from Sennacherib’s reign shows Assyrian lancers, horse archers, and infantry chasing Elamites over hilly and wooded terrain; see fig. 4 and R. D. Barnett et al., Sculptures from the Southwest Palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh (London: British Museum, 1998), plates 80–89 (Elamites) and 233–65 (Sourthern Iraq). 40 For full considerations of both the textual and iconographic evidence for this campaign, see Gerardi, “Arab Campaign” (n. 6) and Nadali, “Campagna di Assurbanipal” (n. 6). 41 Nadali, “Campagna di Assurbanipal” (n. 6), 67–9. 42 The campaign is described in Assurbanipal’s annals; see A. C. Piepkorn, Historical Prism Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal I (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1933), 61–71; the course of the battle is given typically short shrift: “I accomplished his defeat at Tell-Tuba” (ibid. 69). For a full study of this battle, see Córdoba, “Schlacht am Ulaya-Fluß” (n. 4). For the captions accompanying the reliefs, see E. Weidner, “Assyrische Beschreibungen der Kriegs-Reliefs Assurbanipals,” Archiv für Orientforschung 8 (1932–33): 175–203. An alternative, less elaborate relief sequence depicting the battle was found in the North Palace at Nineveh; see R. D. Barnett, Sculptures from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (668-627 bc) (London: British Museum, 1976), 42–3 (with pl. 24–5). 43 E.g., Hom. Il. 8.266–72 (trans. Fagles): “And Teucer came up ninth, tensing his reflex bow / and lurking under the wall of giant Ajax’s shield. / As Ajax raised the rim,

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Herodotus states baldly that Asian armies fought in a disorganized mass until Cyaxares of Lydia separated them into spearmen, archers, and cavalry around 600 bce.44 The Assyrian images of open-field battles, when viewed superficially, do seem to support Herodotus’ claim. Note, for instance, the jumbled mix of chariots, cavalry, and infantry in the (admittedly fragmentary) charge scene at Til-Tuba (fig. 16) or in the general confusion of the main fight (fig. 14). Three reasons, however, undermine Herodotus’ claim. In Assyrian battle scenes, the enemy has clearly been put to flight already: most have their backs turned to the Assyrians (as in figs. 12, 14). That is to say, the reliefs are visual analogues to the accounts in the royal records, in that they do not show the initial deployment of the Assyrians, or even the course of the fighting, but rather the culminating chase of the routed foe.45 Since the pursuit of a defeated enemy will inevitably break up any army’s initial formation, the reliefs do not depict the tactical arrangements the Assyrians used to win battles while the issue was still in doubt. Second, other reliefs show Assyrian soldiers on parade, on guard duty, on the march during a campaign, or serving as a cordon around royal hunting enclosures (fig. 6). In such scenes the men are grouped into classes of soldier with uniform equipment; they are not standing about in a hodgepodge assortment. Texts also tell us that the Assyrians mustered and trained recruits in units.46 It is inconceivable that the Assyrians would emphasize unit the archer would mark a target, / shoot through the lines—the man he hit dropped dead / on the spot—and quick as a youngster ducking under / his mother’s skirts he’d duck under Ajax’s shield / and the gleaming shield would hide him head to toe.” 44 Hdt. 1.103. 45 Contra R. D. Barnett, Assyrian Palace Reliefs and their Influence on the Sculptures of Babylonia and Persia (London: Batchworth Press, 1960), 19. Córdoba, “Schlacht am Ulaya-Fluß” (n. 4, 10), notes that some fragmentary reliefs from the Til-Tuba scene may depict an initial cavalry charge at the opening of the battle, but the placement of the fragments in the overall decorative scheme of the palace remains speculative. 46 On conquering Samaria, Sargon II recruited chariot units from among his new subjects; S. Dalley, “Foreign Chariotry” (n. 3), 36–8; Gadd, “Inscribed Prisms” (n. 29), 180. Royal correspondence also makes frequent mention of recruitment officers, recruits, and trainees; see S. Parpola, The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part I, SAA 1 (Helsinki: Helsinki Univ. Press, 1987), 47–8 (no. 48), 127 (162) for recruitment officers in charge of horses; 100–101 (124), 151 (191) for mention of recruitment officers; 14 (11) for recruits of different classes (infantry, cavalry, and charioteers); 160–61 (205) and 183–4 (235) for local men recruited as charioteers. G. B. Lanfranchi and S. Parpola, The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part II, SAA 5 (Helsinki: Helsinki Univ. Press, 1990), 66 (82) and 94 (119) for mention of recruitment officers; 106 (137) for levies from a tributary ruler; 180 (251) for cavalry and chariotry recruits. A. Fuchs and S. Parpola, The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part III, SAA 15 (Helsinki: Helsinki Univ. Press, 2001), 11–12 (15) for recruits assigned to the chief eunuch; 71 (105) for a recruitment officer

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homogeneity on these occasions, and then abandon it on the battlefield. Finally, siege scenes do show the Assyrians tackling an undefeated enemy and, as we noted above, they are seen operating as specialized units in mutual support. It is reasonable to suppose that they employed this sort of teamwork in their open-field engagements also, even if that is not the phase of the fighting stressed in battlefield reliefs. In one of the very few images of Assyrian units in the field but not on the march or chasing down a fleeing foe, they are shown ranging through wooded terrain in two lines, each with its distinctive equipment (fig. 17).47 It is reasonable to infer that these units operated in the same way on the battlefield. Conclusions In sum, the evidence for an Assyrian tactical system favors an ‘integrated’ model for how Assyrian armies fought. Their armies—which certainly evolved over time, even if that process is difficult to trace, given the state of our evidence—comprised a variety of specialists, who were mustered, trained, and stationed in units of uniformly equipped troops. Inferences drawn from the royal inscriptions and the reliefs suggest that by Sargon II’s day (at the latest) there was some form of standard tactical procedure whereby these specialists were deployed to fight in coordinated action. The precise details of that deployment evade us, since both the royal inscriptions and the carved orthostates are more concerned with documenting the destruction of the defeated foe rather than how that foe came to be defeated in the first place. That said, a number of plausible possibilities come to mind on the basis of inferences drawn from the equipment carried by Assyrian troops and comparison with other ancient armies.48 Large-shielded spearmen

with trainees ready to be send to Nimrud; 202 (335) for a recruitment officer with chariots. M. Lukko and G. van Buylaere, The Political Correspondence of Esarhaddon, SAA 16 (Helsinki: Helsinki Univ. Press, 2002), 67 (68), for recruits in different classes, and a horse trainer; 95–96 (105) for mention of a recruitment officer acting as an intermediary for a man appealing to the king. 47 It might be going too far to describe this depiction as a clear image of full Assyrian battle order, as does Barnett, Assyrian Sculptures (n. 450, 19), as the enemy appears to be already defeated, with captives driven through a wooded area toward a town at bottom right. 48 As suggested by B. Hrouda, Die Kulturgeschichte des assyrischen Flachbildes (Bonn: Habelt, 1965), 83–92.

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would best be used in the center, or in whatever frontline position where the action was expected to be at its most acute. The archer-spearman combination noted above would imply that archers were initially deployed in close support, whether as a separate line behind the spearmen or paired up with individuals, as appears frequently in the reliefs (figs. 13, 15).49 It is not necessary to conclude from this, as some do, that Assyrian battles played out as missile exchanges conducted at a distance, with the shielded spearmen acting as a sort of human rampart to protect the archers.50 The equipment of the Assyrian heavy spearman is suggestive of their role on the battlefield: helmet, scale armor, large shield, sword, and heavy thrusting spear (fig. 6). Such equipment, in other ancient contexts, was designed for use in close combat rather than for hanging back from the fray. The evidence is clear that early Greek phalanxes included archers and stone-throwers in the ranks, but nobody would argue that the primary role of the Greek hoplite—like the Assyrian, a heavy spearman—was to shield such missile troops and fight only at a distance.51 It also seems possible that many of these frontline troops were of foreign origin, for such is often the role of ethnic auxiliaries in the service of their imperial overlords. Cavalry and chariotry, staffed exclusively by Assyrians, were likely stationed on the wings, ready to swoop in for the pursuit.52 Other possibilities are that chariots screened the main force as it formed up, or adopted a rearward position, as cover in case of retreat (or possibly performed several such functions sequentially). Advance troops, probably light-armed, were most likely out front. 49 Hunger, Heerwesen und Kriegführung (n. 3, 33), reads the archer-spearman teams shown in the reliefs as representing small tactical units operating together on the field rather than being suggestive of coordinated unit deployments, but it is not clear that the artistic conventions of the reliefs allow so literal an interpretation, especially when the emphasis is on the pursuit of a defeated opponent. 50 See e.g. Dawson, First Armies (n. 14), 190–93; Drews, Early Riders (n. 13), 126–8. Dawson envisions a slightly more active role for the Assyrian spearman than does Drews, but both see the archer as central to Assyrian tactics. 51 On the ‘mixed’ early phalanx—the development of which, perhaps not coincidentally, was more or less contemporaneous with the height of Assyrian military sophistication in the seventh century—see van Wees, Greek Warfare (n. 10), 166–77. The argument that the spearmen shown in action in Assyrian reliefs only swung into action to chase down an already defeated enemy is stretched; see previous note. While the reliefs depict this phase of the battle, there is no reason to imagine the spearmen had been previously standing about inactive. 52 Such is the view of Hunger, Heerwesen und Kriegführung (n. 3), 33–4 and N. Stillman and N. Tallis, Armies of the Ancient Near East 3000 bc to 539 bc (Worthing: Wargames Research Group, 1984), 60–62.

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Explanations for Assyrian military success that rely on their use of a particular armament are to be avoided. Rather, Assyrian success stemmed from a combination of capabilities. The Assyrian military toolbox was bigger and more diverse than that of their opponents, and so furnished them with more options on the battlefield. Tactical procedures, although standardized to a degree, could be modified according to exigency, as Sargon reveals in his account of his battle with Rusa and Metatti, when he attacked with his royal cavalry only.53 As those two enemies found out to their detriment, the Assyrian army could mold its tactics to fit the needs of the day. Flexibility such as this was an advantage enjoyed by other ancient armies who followed in Assyria’s footsteps and created complicated, integrated forces of variously equipped units working in coordination. If this conclusion is correct, then the Assyrians can be seen to pioneer a form of warfare later perfected by the Macedonians and the Romans who, not coincidentally, also forged vast empires through conquest. Finally, Assyrian tactical arrangements as reconstructed here would require the rejection of arguments that ancient Near Eastern armies shunned head-on battles and preferred ruse, ambush, negotiation, or raiding to achieve victory.54 The opponents of Assyria knew otherwise.

53

See Scurlock, “Neo-Assrian Battle Tactics” (n. 4) for clever reconstructions of how particular engagements played out. 54 As argued, for instance, by V. D. Hanson, Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power (New York: Anchor Books, 2001).

ALL THE KING’S HORSE: IN SEARCH OF ACHAEMENID PERSIAN CAVALRY Christopher Tuplin Introduction The last three decades have seen an astonishing transformation in academic study of the Achaemenid Persian Empire—indeed they may be said to have seen the invention of Achaemenid Studies as a distinct historical discipline. One of the effects that this has not yet had is the production of a definitive study of what might be called the empire’s military establishment. This is perhaps odd, considering that the empire was born and died in relatively concentrated periods of warfare and that a good deal of such narrative of its history in between as is available to us is occupied by military activity or by the preparation or consequences thereof. One reason is, no doubt, that an important driver of the agenda of nascent Achaemenid Studies was the desire to see beyond that narrative. This was primarily a matter of trying to find ways to combat, evade or eliminate the perceived Helleno-centrism of almost all the written sources that purport to tell us stories about Achaemenid history, but one by-product was a relative lack of concern with military, as opposed to bureaucratic or administrative structures—the sort of things, that is, to which detailed, if localised, access could be had through documents written in languages other than Greek. Insofar as the mood of the time was a desire to establish that the alpha and omega of Persian history did not simply consist in the reading of Herodotus and that there was more to the Achaemenid Empire than the heroic defeat of Xerxes’ assault upon Balkan Greece, it is not surprising that the military establishment lost out. At least two other factors assisted. One was that the ideological selfrepresentation of the Great King in texts and iconography was seen to be (by, for example, Assyrian standards) conspicuously unconcerned with the celebration of war. Few were deceived into taking this entirely at face value, but it did mean that while the intricacies of royal inscriptions or the pictorial programme of Persepolis were being worked out, there was

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little to compel detailed engagement with military matters. The other factor was that three decades ago academic study of Archaic and Classical Greece did not pay heed to military history—whether as the study of the conduct of warfare or as an aspect of the political sociology of the Hellenic polis—that has become more normal since that time. Many of those who came to Achaemenid Studies as refugees from traditional Greek history did not bring in their baggage any special concern for the devilish detail of war and those who fought it. For these and perhaps other reasons, then, there is a lacuna in the bibliography of the empire. The present chapter will not fill it. Its purpose is to look at one aspect of the military machine of the Achaemenid kings and among other things to illustrate some of the difficulties that attend its study—difficulties that, in fact, extend to other areas of Achaemenid military history. By way of a slightly more specific setting of the scene, let me start by noting three partly contrasting views of the place of cavalry in the history of the empire: (1) Cavalry must have been the real strength of the army of Cyrus the Elder because it alone allowed coverage of the great distances of the Iranian plateau.1 The implication might seem to be that Cyrus’ remarkable career of imperial conquest was predicated upon this aspect of his military resource-base. (2) Why did the pattern of conquest break down in Balkan Greece? That is, no doubt, a single question with many answers—or a single answer with many strands. Briant has suggested that Persian cavalry were able to blow away Asiatic Greek hoplites in the sixth century in a way they could not achieve when confronting mainland ones—not because of any change in the cavalry but because of differences between the hoplite armies of mainland Greece and those of Asia Minor.2 (3) One of the most useful publications on Achaemenid warfare is a slim volume by Duncan Head, The Achaemenid Persian Army, published in 1992. The intellectual tradition to which it belongs is not academic history-writing but the collection and study of military hardware as an object of interest in its own right, and one of its strengths lies in its illustrations—not only the color reconstructions of particular types

1 M. Brosius, “Pax Persica: Königliche Ideologie und Kriegführung im Achämenidenreich,” in Krieg-Gesellschaft-Institutionen, ed. B. Meissner et al. (Berlin: 2005). 2 P. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander (Winona Lake: 2002), 539–40.

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of soldier but also (and perhaps much more) the profusion of linedrawing reproductions of primary iconographic sources. But the work is not just a catalogue and the author offers (62) the historical proposition that cavalry was actually more important to the Persians in the later Achaemenid period than it had been in the conquest era: for that later period was when they most plainly tried specifically to win battles by the use of cavalry.3 I do not propose to try and resolve all the issues embedded in these propositions—propositions that I have to some extent ripped untimely from contexts that are more nuanced than my bald report may make obvious. What I shall do is present some observations that are in one way or another relevant to the status and use of cavalry in the Persian military environment and therefore to its contribution to Achaemenid imperial history. These observations are at best prolegomena to a history of Achaemenid cavalry. I shall look in turn at iconography, texts in nonclassical languages and texts in Greek and Latin.4 Part of my purpose 3

Duncan Head, The Achaemenid Persian Army (Stockport: 1992), 62. I have not made a systematic collection of non-iconographic and un-inscribed archaeological evidence. I note in passing that in W. J. Bennet et al., Tell el-Hesi: the Persian Period (Stratum V), (Winona Lake: 1989), 322, the excavators of Tell el-Hesi infer from a possible horse-bit, horse bone and flax seed that horses may have been present on the acropolis of this putative military centre in southern Palestine. (Flax is a reflex either of fodder or oil for grooming.) This seems very slight evidence. Two IranoScythian horse bits from a Gezer tomb (E. Stern, The Material Culture of the Land of the Bible in the Persian Period [Warminster, 1982], 157) and Schmidt’s claim that some rather larger-than-usual armor scales found at Persepolis were from horse-armor are marginally better. In P. Calmeyer, “Zur Genese altiranischer Motive IX. Die Verbreitung des westiranischen Zaumzeugs im Achaimenidenreich,” AMI 18 (1985): 136, Calmeyer postulated Iranian cavalry in Babylon and Sardis on the basis of finds of characteristically West-Iranian Riemenverteiler. P. R. S. Moorey, Cemeteries of the First Millennium bc at Deve Hüyük, BAR International Series 87 (Oxford: 1980), 70–72, lists horse-bits of Persepolitan aspect from sites in Georgia, Mesopotamia, Syria-Palestine and Egypt. M. M. Voigt and T. C. Young, “From Phrygian Capital to Achaemenid Entrepot: Middle and Late Phrygian Gordion,” Iranica Antiqua 34 (1999): 236 detect Persian influence on horse-gear at Gordium. Remains of chariots from Lydia, Phrygia and Hellespontine Phrygia tend to be of local Anatolian character, though an item from Sardis-Bintepeler 89, which has wheels that recall the Apadana chariot and some from Dascylium and lynch-pins decorated with Persian figures, may come from the burial of an Iranian noble: C. H. Greenewalt, “Sardis in the Age of Xenophon,” in Dans les pas des Dix-Mille, ed. P. Briant (Toulouse: 1995): 134 n. 21; H. Kökten-Ersoy, “Two Wheeled Vehicles from Lydia and Mysia,” Istanbuler Mitteilungen 48 (1998); C. H. Greenewalt and M. L. Rautman, “The Sardis Campaigns of 1994 and 1995,” AJArch. 102 (1998): 497–98 n. 50; D. Kaptan, The Daskyleion Bullae. Seal Images from the Western Achaemenid Empire (Leiden: 2002): 1.84 n. 339; S. Ateşlier, “Pers ölü gömme geleginde ‘cenazeharmamaksa’lari’, ” Olba 5 (2002). If more has emerged about the scythed chariots from the Granicus valley mentioned in Briant, Cyrus (n. 2), 1037, I have missed it. 4

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is to give a flavour of the scope and character of some bodies of sourcematerial that may be less familiar to readers of this volume. Iconography In the public and monumental iconography at the heart of the empire the mounted warrior has no currency whatsoever. On the Apadana staircase we see the king’s empty chariot and unridden horse, while horses appear with six of the gift-bearing groups, and chariots with two of them.5 But the over one thousand images of soldiers here and elsewhere on the walls of Persepolis include no cavalrymen. The king himself is seen enthroned at Persepolis or standing with bow in hand at Behistun and Naqš-i Rustam, and he is elevated above ordinary persons by being larger in size or held aloft by figures representing his subjects, not by being placed upon a horse. It is the infantryman’s spear and the bow that symbolize Persian military power. The same was true at Susa so far as we can tell; and the rest of the heartland now has nothing to offer at all. The choice involved here is so familiar that we are in danger of undervaluing its significance. It might be fair to say that artistic tradition offered no peremptory stimulus in favor of the horseback monarch; at the same time, the significance that the horse undoubtedly had in the minds of Persians was insufficient to prompt distinctive innovation. Possibly relevant iconographic evidence from elsewhere within the empire comes from various carved or painted monuments, seals and bullae, coins, a few pieces of jewellery6 or toreutic, carpets (the design of the Pazyryk carpet includes a frieze of unarmed horsemen and a rider approaching an enthroned figure), coroplasty and Greek ceramic painting. Occasionally an item catches the attention because a horse appears in a somewhat unusual context: for example, the horse and groom on the top left side of a Memphite funerary stele whose main 5

E. F. Schmidt, Persepolis I (Chicago: 1953), pl. 27–49. Horses are provided by Armenians, Cappadocians, Saka tigraxauda, Sagartians, Sogdians and Skudra, chariots by Lydians (6) and Libyans (22)—identifications as in M. Roaf, “The Subject Peoples on the Base of the Statue of Darius,” Cahiers de la Délégation archéologique française en Iran (1974). 6 The Miho necklace is much the most striking item: P. Bernard, “Un torque achéménide avec une inscription grecque au Musée Miho,” CRAI (2000). A bracelet in New York (MMA 65.169; J. Boardman, Persia and the West, (London: 2000), pl. 5.77) has some not obviously military Persians walking beside their horses.

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scene depicts the laid-out body of a Persian-dressed dignitary;7 PTS 26 where a horse appears at the back of an audience scene and the impression on a Murašu tablet showing an audience scene in which the seated figure is approached by a horse, not a human dignitary;8 PTS 18, where two horsemen support a winged-disk and flank a central figure holding up the encircled figure who may be Ahuramazda; another bulla on which a horse suckles its young beneath a winged-disk and next to an eagle,9 and yet another on which Bes (an Egyptian deity who achieved some popularity in other parts of the Achaemenid Empire) leads a horse by its reins.10 Do such scenes hint at the possibility of the horse having special symbolic force—a possibility that might, in turn, be linked to the animal’s military significance? It is hard to be sure; and the incidence of naturalistic riderless horses in the seal(ing) repertoire as a whole is, though not negligible (there are around fifty such items readily recoverable from published sources) probably insufficient to establish that the animal was thought to have special overtones.11 Its appearance, principally on bullae from Babylonia but also occasionally elsewhere, in the shape of winged horses or in quasi-heraldic scenes (rampant or in whirling ligatures with bulls and lions), may be a little more telling.12 Even so, it might be telling us about religion rather than warfare, to use 7

The horse’s shorn mane recalls the obsequies for Masistius at Hdt.9.24. L. Legrain, The Culture of the Babylonians from their Seals [PBS 14 and 14b] (Philadelphia: 1925), no. 984. 9 D. Collon, First Impressions (London: 1987), no. 923. For other suckling horses without additional figures, cf. J. Boardman, “Pyramidal Stamp Seals in the Persian Empire,” Iran 8 (1970): no. 73; L. Bregstein, Seal Use in Fifth-Century bc Nippur (Univ. of Pennsylvania: Ph.D. diss., 1993): nos. 353–54, 356–58. In Bregstein, “Seal Use” (this note): 355 and J. Spier, Ancient Gems and Finger Rings (Malibu: Getty Publications, 1992), 114, we have mare and foal, but no suckling. On Boardman, “Pyramidal Stamp Seals” (this note): nos. 13 (pl. 831), 56 a non-suckling horses stands beneath a winged disk. 10 Bregstein, “Seal Use” (n. 9): no. 209. For Bes, see K. Abdi, “Bes in the Achaemenid Empire,” Ars Orientalis 29 (1999); idem, “Notes on the Iranianization of Bes in the Achaemenid Empire,” Ars Orientalis 32 (2002). 11 They also appear on coins: L. Meshorer and S. Qedar, Samarian Coinage (Jerusalem: 1999), 24–29, 42–43, 75–76, 175, 178; BMC Palestine 178–79, pl. 19.13–20; CNG Switzerland 29–30 (Celenderis); J. Curtis and N. Tallis, Forgotten Empire (London: 2005), no. 372 (Egypt). 12 Winged: PFS 10, 67, 99, 749, M. J. W. Leith, Wadi Daliyeh I: The Wadi Daliyeh Seal Impressions (Oxford: 1997), no. 18, Bregstein, “Seal Use” (n. 9): nos. 400–41. Quasiheraldic: Bregstein, “Seal Use” (n. 9): nos. 202, 312, 325–26, 343–49, 389, 420. Winged horses (and other horse-protomes) also appear occasionally as coin images: O. Casabonne, La Cilicie (Paris: 2004), pl. 2.19, Meshorer and Qedar, Samarian Coinage (n. 12): 125. 8

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broad terms.13 To get at the horse as weapon of war we really have to focus on images showing human use of the animal—equestrian, not just equine, images—and determine which of them belong in a specifically military sphere. This is mostly straightforward, but there is one particular category that can immediately be set aside. Hunting is undoubtedly an activity with indirect military resonance and its iconography can resemble that for cavalry warfare, but there is nothing more to be said of it in the current context, save that whatever implications the culture of horse-back hunting—well-known also from noniconographic sources—may have for the military employment of members of the socio-political elite do not in themselves establish anything about the tactical significance of cavalry. What we would like to get from the iconography is information about the armament and tactical use of cavalrymen in warfare, and perhaps some hint of their perceived importance. To do this we have to concentrate on things that certainly or possibly display horsemen at or on their way to war. I comment on five sets of material. Coinage The military image on royal coinage (darics and sigloi) was the king as archer or spearman. Mildenberg identified a new royal coinage, introduced in the fourth century, in some Rhodian-standard coins on which an obverse daric / siglos king appears together with a reverse mounted Persian.14 If he was right, the relatively late date of the cavalryman’s 13 The image of lion attacking bull is often thought to have a transcendent significance: does this extend to images of lion attacking horse? A similar question might be asked about e.g. the occasional appearance of a horse-protome in place of other real or mythical animals on rhyta. It is worth stressing the relative rarity with which horses appear on the 1400+ distinct seals used on the Persepolis Fortification texts published in R. T. Hallock, Persepolis Fortification Tablets, (Chicago: 1969). There is so far only comprehensive publication of part of the corpus, in M. Garrison and M. C. Root, Seals on the Persepolis Fortification Tablets I (Chicago: 2001), but Margaret Root has kindly confirmed that the observation holds true of material still to appear. Seals only used on NN series documents and on uninscribed tablets—cf. M. Garrison, “The Uninscribed Tablets from the Fortification Archive: a Preliminary Analysis,” in Les archives des fortifications de Persépolis dans le contexte de l’empire achéménide et ses prédécesseurs, ed. P. Briant and W. Henkelman (Paris: 2008)—have not been reviewed, but there is no reason to imagine they present a radically different picture. The corpus of 77 seals used on Persepolis Treasury tablets includes only three non-chariot equine images (PTS 18, 26, 34). 14 L. Mildenberg, “Über das Münzwesen im Reich der Achämeniden”, AMI 26 (1993); idem, “On the So-called Satrapal Coinage,” in Mécanismes et innovations monétaires dans l’Anatolie achéménide, ed. O.Casabonne (Istanbul: 2000).

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intrusion onto the king’s coins is interesting; but other numismatists continue to assign the items in question to a Carian mint producing coinage for Evagoras II of Cyprus,15 so we must be cautious. In either event the coins can only be paralleled by a small number of other issues, not always Persian, bearing a rider-image from Lycia (coins with Tissaphernes’ name), Cilicia (Tarsus), southern Palestine and Samaria.16 Tactically speaking, we see riders using both sword and spear. The Tarsian riders have a gorytus, but are not shown using a bow or any weapon. True combat scenes with visible adversary almost never appear, though one Samarian design shows a Persian riding over the fallen body of a Greek soldier with a shield.17 In several cases the horseman is combined with another military figure on the other side of the coin: variously Persian archers or spearmen, but also a kneeling hoplite and a head in Greek-style helmet. Such designs might be said to show the equipollent significance of cavalry and infantry. But if one looks at the whole data-set of coins with military images, then although it is not an especially rich source, equestrian ones do not play an especially prominent role within it. ‘Persian riders’ Another rather different category of ‘Persian rider’—the crude, part hand-made, part moulded, terracotta figures with a sort of Persian head-dress and occasionally hints of weaponry found in considerable numbers in Cyprus and the Levant—presents a delicate problem of interpretation. The crucial thing is that these are the latest version of a type of object with a long pre-Achaemenid history in the same regions. A recent discussion by Roger Moorey argues that they exist for the purpose of votive dedication and that, both before and in the Achaemenid era, the rider figures represent an idealized male 15 K. Konuk, “Influences et éléments achéménides dans le monayage de la Carie,” in Mécanismes et innovations monétaires dans l’Anatolie achéménide, ed. O.Casabonne (Istanbul: 2000): 177. Another suggestion is Memnon: see S. Hurter, “The Carian Hoard: a Summary,” in Studies in Greek Numismatics in Memory of Martin Jessop Price, ed. R. Ashton and S. Hurter (London: 1998). 16 P. Debord, L’Asie mineure au IVe siècle (Bordeaux: 1999), pl. I.14; Cilicia (Tarsus) Cilicie II 9–13, 20–27; C. M. Kraay, Archaic and Classical Greek Coinage, (London: 1974), 1032, 1035; Debord, L’Asie mineure (this note): VII.13–VIII.3; Samaria: Meshorer and Qedar, Samarian Coinage (n. 11): 15, 40, 41, 123, 178, 197; Palestine: H. Gitler and O. Tal, The Coinage of Philistia (New York: 2006): pl. 93 (XXV.1DD), pl. 94 (XXV.2Da, 3O), pl. 65 (XV.30a–c). 17 Meshorer and Qedar, Samarian Coinage (n. 11), no. 123.

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warrior.18 Moorey assumes the dedicator will characteristically be a horseman, but not necessarily or even probably a Persian one.19 The significance of anything distinctively Persian about the ‘Persian’ as opposed to earlier riders is thus that the pre-eminent rider model is now a Persian one. This is an indirect reflection of the status of Persian horsemen, but not one prompted de novo by Persian pre-eminence in that field. The riders are riders because they have always been riders, not because a distinctively equestrian imperial power has appeared on the scene. Since people in this region had historically been subject to the attentions of the Assyrian army, there was of course no good reason why the Persians should be seen as wholly novel in this regard. Sculpture and Painting in the Western Empire Even leaving hunting scenes out of account, the corpus of Achaemenidera carved or painted monuments from Anatolia, Cyprus and the Levant gives us a lot of pictures of horsemen.20 Many—whether engaged in combat or not—do not (or not certainly) display Persian characteristics of dress or armament and can largely be put to one side for the purposes of this discussion: they illustrate that Persians of course had no monopoly on cavalry and the number of images involved is indeed grosso modo similar to that of Persian ones; but what the monuments can show about tactical use scarcely allows us to discern interesting differences between Persian from non-Persian in that regard.21

18 P. R. S. Moorey, “Iran and the West. The Case of the Terracotta Persian Riders in the Achaemenid Empire,” in Variatio delectat. Iran und der Westen, ed. R. Dittmann et al. (Münster: 2000). 19 In A. Ehrlich, “The Persian Period Terracotta Figurines from Maresha in Idumaea,” Transeuphratene 32 (2006), Ehrlich similarly discusses the exceptionally rich Maresha cache of ‘Persian riders’ in terms of Idumaean identity and behaviour and its interaction with regional traditions. 20 Outside this area but within the Achaemenid era one could add the Athena Nike frieze of Greeks fighting Persians: E. B. Harrison, “The South Frieze of the Nike Temple and the Marathon Painting in the Painted Stoa,” AJArch. 76 (1972); or the Chertomlyk scabbard with a similar subject: M. Pfrommer, Chronologie und Komposition des Alexandermosaiks auf antiquarischer Grundlage (Mainz: 1998): pl. 25–26. The original behind the Alexander Mosaic takes us outside the Achaemenid era—perhaps by a long way if Pfrommer is right—as does e.g. the Lefkadia tomb-painting: P. Petsas, Ho Taphos ton Lefkadion, (Athens: 1966), Pfrommer, Alexandermosaik (this note): pl. 28. 21 There are, however, somewhat more non-Persian-dress chariot images than Persian-dress ones, although the only combat chariot image from the Tatarli tomb involves Persians: L. Summerer, “Imaging a Tomb Chamber: the Iconographic Programme of the Tatarlı Wall Paintings,” in Ancient Greece and Ancient Iran: Cross-Cultural

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Among horsemen with elements of Persian dress or armament, some turn up in processions, but only perhaps in the case of Perikle’s hērōon at Limyra can we be sure we are contemplating a consciously military scene.22 What we see is a departure-for-war, with the Lycian dynast, mounting a chariot,23 in front of a force including Persian-clad horsemen and non-Persian infantry: that is striking evidence about the composition of one particular local army, and it may seem to encapsulate the special status of Persian cavalry—except that we cannot be certain about the political back-story nor assume that Perikle chose the components of his force on purely military grounds, and there are also nonPersian horsemen present.24 The context of other procession images is mostly opaque:25 perhaps the most interesting is a slab from Sardis Encounters, ed. S. M. R. Darbandi and A. Zournatzi (Athens: 2009), fig. 6. Nor do other iconographic distinctions lack: for example, the scene on Istanbul 2301 in P. Demargne, Fouilles de Xanthos I. Les piliers funéraires (Paris: 1958): 34, pl. 4, in which a man holds or pats the nose of a horse as it stands over the body of a dead adversary is rather unusual. 22 J. Borchhardt, Die Bauskulptur des Heroons von Limyra: Das Grabmal Königs Perikles (Berlin: 1976), 49–80, figs. 12–15, pl. 20–26. 23 The same thing may have appeared on the base of an equestrian statue of Perikle: J. Borchhardt and P. Ruggendorfer, “Neufunde zur relifierten Basis des Reiterstandbildes von Zêmuri,” in Achaemenid Anatolia, ed. T.Bakir (Istanbul: 2001). A Persian figure mounts a chariot on the Satrap Sarcophagus, but not in a plainly military context: I. Kleeman, Der Satrapensarkophag aus Sidon (Berlin: 1958). Xanthos G (H. Metzger, Fouilles de Xanthos II: L’acropole lycienne (Paris: 1963), 49–61) gives us a non-Persian chariot-rider, again in a context of not obviously military nature. The unridden horses and their grooms recall figures on the essentially non-military Persepolis Apadana icon: Schmidt Persepolis I (n. 5), pl. 52. The image of Payava mounting a chariot on the main faces of his sarcophagus is not a Persian scene: P. Demargne, Fouilles de Xanthos V. Tombes-maisons, tombes rupestres et sarcophages (Paris: 1974), 61–78. 24 The latter point tends to deflect any inclination one might have to wonder whether the Persian-dressed horsemen are actually Lycians equipped in the Persian manner, i.e. a much more thorough Persification than Payava’s use of paramēridia: cf. infra, n. 35. 25 For Dascylium, M. Nollé, Denkmäler vom Satrapensitz Daskyleion (Berlin: 1992): S1, S4, S5, F2, F4: gorytoi are visible on one item, a spear may have been held on another; Sardis B269 (see text below); Silifke Inv.134, Casabonne La Cilicie (n. 12), 147, fig. 11b. The riders on a Halicarnassus block in Vienna are moving in too sprightly a fashion to be called a procession: Kleeman, Satrapensarkophag (n. 23), pl. 22e, J. Zahle, “Hekatomnid Caria, a Province of Achaemenid Anatolia,” in Hecatomnid Caria and the Ionian Renaissance (Odense: 1994): fig. 1. These cases should be distinguished from presumed funeral-ekphora scenes, four at Dascylium and one each at Karaburun, Tatarlι and on the Weeping Women sarcophagus: cf. Summerer, “Imaging” (n. 21): 275–282. Only at Tatarlι (in an unusually large version of the theme) do we certainly have participants who are armed (soldiers with reversed spears; riders with gorytoi). The chariot-riders on the Karaburun and Tatarlι ekphora friezes cannot be regarded as military. There is no telling what the lost painted frieze in the Harta tomb once showed: I. Özgen and J. Öztürk, Heritage Recovered. The Lydian Treasure (Ankara: 1996), 38.

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showing three horsemen, one of whom might be wearing a version of the neck-guard cuirass seen in various other military images.26 (It must be said that there is little else plainly Persian about them.) We are left, finally, with a little over a dozen monuments that offer pictures of equestrian combat. Some focus on a single horseman charging down his opponents—most impressive are the Can and Payava sarcophagi and the Karaburun fresco, but there are lesser examples on stelae as well.27 Others have similar scenes but with two or three horsemen acting in close concert. Others again depict battles in which horsemen are but one element in a multi-figure composition. In the first two categories the enemy is always on foot (or dead on the ground),28 and the horseman’s weapon, when identifiable, is spear or sword. In the more complex engagements duels between cavalrymen do occur, but cavalryinfantry clashes still predominate.29 Horse-archers appear in large numbers on the Tatarlı painting, but are absent elsewhere except inasmuch as the presumed Persian horsemen on Clazomenae sarcophagi, who fight with spears and rather prominent long swords, are sometimes The non-ekphora chariot-procession at Tatarlι—see Summerer, “Imaging” (n. 21): 2009: 270–71 and fig. 3—is specially tantalising as the chariots resemble the one in the combat scene elsewhere in the tomb. Also tantalising, in a different medium, is the isolated image of a horse with Nisaean profile on a sherd from Masat Hüyük, which could also once have been part of a procession: Boardman, Persia (n. 6), fig. 5.85. 26 Sardis B269: G. Hanfmann, Sculpture from Sardis (Cambridge, Mass: 1978): 156 (no. 231), fig. 401. See infra, nn. 50, 259. Outside our basic data-set, some figures on the Alexander Mosaic, including cavalrymen, seem to have a cuirass with neck guard: Pfrommer, Alexandermosaik (n. 20), 122–23, fig. 20. 27 Can: N. Sevinç, “A New Painted Greco-Persian Sarcophagus from Çan,” Studia Troica 11 (2001). J. Ma, “Mysians on the Can sorcophagus”, Historia 57 (2008), identifies the opponent as Mysian, not Greek. Payava: Demargne, Xanthos V (n. 23), 61–78. Karaburun: this has never been the subject of a proper publication. M. Mellink in “Mural Paintings in Lycian Tombs,” Proceedings of the Xth Congress of Classical Archaeology 1973 II (Ankara: 1978) provides a summary account which can be supplemented by the annual reports in AJArch. 1971–1975. The iconic central horseman may, of course, have companions (infantry or horseback). 28 An exceptional image has a horseman defeated by an infantryman (Tlos Izraza B: Zahle 1979: 325 no. 9); both seem to wear trousers, but are not notably Persian in appearance. 29 We see this on the Alexander sarcophagus—V. von Graeve, Die Alexandersarkophag und seine Werkstatt. Istanbuler Forschungen 28. (Berlin: 1970), pl.25, 26, 31—and Nereid Monument Frieze 3—W. A. P. Childs and P. Demargne, Fouilles de Xanthos VIII. Le Monument des Néréides (Paris: 1989), pl. 120–23, 46, 87—where it occurs in engagements also involving infantrymen, and a Clazomenae sarcophagus with a purely equestrian clash of Persians and Thracians: R. M. Cook, Clazomenian Sarcophagi (Mainz: 1982): G11. But it is absent on other Clazomenae sarcophagi, where there are horsemen only on one side, and the Tatarlι painting, where there are horsemen on both sides but they fight only with bows: Summerer, “Imaging” (n. 21): fig. 6.

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equipped with a gorytus.30 In none of the images of complex engagements (i.e. involving both cavalry and infantry) except Tatarlı is the proportion of horsemen high, and on the various battle-scenes of the Nereid Monument it varies quite markedly: on the city-siege frieze (II) the only equine presence is a horse or mule led by a figure who wears Persian headgear but apparently no trousers;31 on the larger podium frieze (I) there are eleven horses (nine with riders or other directly associated human figures) out of a total of more than fifty figures; on the architrave cella frieze (III) eight of the 25 fighters are on horseback.32 It should, moreover, be stressed that this—the richest surviving collection of combat scenes on a single sculpted monument—contains very few figures who are at all certainly Persian: only two horsemen come into this category, one on the architrave frieze and one in the larger podium frieze.33 This part of the architrave frieze is poorly executed and several of the horsemen are entirely characterless; but that does not apply to the podium frieze and the difficulty of fixing how many of those figures who are not (as most are) plainly in Hellenic dress might be called Persian is disturbing. Childs and Demargne label this frieze a “quasi-amazonomachy,” meaning that real-world combat has not merely been rendered generic, but in some degree mythologized.34 We are some way from military reportage, and it may be prudent to say that the funeral monument of Arbinas, if that is what the Nereid Monument is, has much less to tell us about Persian cavalry than the hērōon of Perikle of Limyra. Another

30 Clazomenae: Cook, Sarcophagi (n. 29). But the gorytus is not peculiar to these putative Persian figures: at least one hoplite has one in a departing-warrior scene on G10. Persian infantry archers appear on the Alexander Sarcophagus. Those on the Nereid monument, by contrast, lack Persian features, even ones who carry a gorytus. One of the cavalrymen on the Athena Nike frieze has a very clear gorytus, but is not using a bow. 31 Childs and Demargne, Xanthos VIII (n. 29), pl. 53 (BM 878). Persian hats without other Persian garb can be found in other media: the soldier on Athens 1295 seem pretty much Hellenic except for his bashlyk-like headgear: K. Schauenburg, “EURYMEDON EIMI,” MDAI 1975: pl. 37.1. 32 Childs and Demargne, Xanthos VIII (n. 29), 43–181, pl. 9–39, I–XXIX, LXXXI– LXXXIV (Frieze I); 187–201, pl. 115–129, XLIV–LVI (Frieze III). 33 Architrave frieze: Childs and Demargne, Xanthos VIII (n. 29), pl.120.1, XLVII. He has trousers, but appears to be without headgear and is wearing a cuirass with pteryges. Persians are shown with such cuirasses (not least on Attic vases: see infra, n. 262), but the upper part of this Nereid Monument figure looks rather out of line with his lower part. Large podium frieze: Childs and Demargne, Xanthos VIII (n. 29), pl. 33.1, XVII. I am unsure about 853 and 857 which Childs and Demargne, Xanthos VIII (n. 29), 259 also adjudge to have Persian figures. 34 Childs and Demargne, Xanthos VIII (n. 29), 262.

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striking Lycian image is also only partially Persian: when Payava rides down his enemies, he does so using armored leg-guards (paramēridia) of a sort that textual evidence, together with the Karaburun painting and other military iconographic sources,35 encourage us to see as typically Persian; but he himself is definitely dressed in Lyco-Greek, not Persian, fashion. Among horsemen on Anatolo-Levantine monuments who are unambiguously dressed à la perse, we may note that none of them, except perhaps the men on the lost Yeniceköy slab, seems to carry a shield,36 but we can distinguish those on the Alexander sarcophagus, who simply wear bashlyks, tunics and trousers from the warrior of the Can sarcophagus, with his elaborate cuirass and his mount’s chestarmor,37 the Karaburun dynast, with his paramēridia, or at least one of the Limyra hērōon riders with his Iranian riding-cape.38 Persian riders are not a homogeneous category. Seals and Bullae Next, seals and bullae. I currently have a list of 108 seal-images that certainly (62) or potentially (46) relate to land-warfare,39 and involve at least one Persian participant—quite a large body of material, which has never been systematically analyzed.40 The seal(ing)s do, of course,

35 Xen. An. 1.8.7, Cyr. 6.4.1, 7.1.2. Yeniceköy: Nollé, Daskyleion (n. 25), F5; Manisa 6226: G. Polat, “Das Grabdenkmal des Autophradates,” in Achaemenid Anatolia, ed. T. Bakir (Istanbul: 2001). Seals: see below. Also seen in hunting images, cf. n. 54. 36 They are perhaps visible on the photograph in T. Macridy, “Reliefs gréco-perses de la région de Dascylion,” Bulletin de Correspondence Héllénique 37 (1913): fig. 6. Nor am I sure about the shield of an equestrian hunter that some discern on a Limyran scene illustrated in J. Borchhardt, “Epichorische, gräko-persisch beeinflußte Reliefs in Kilikien,” Istanbuler Mitteilungen 18 (1968): pl. 55.2. 37 Prosternidion (Xen. An. 1.8.7, Cyr.6.4.1, 7.1.2), shown here as a white feature attached to the saddle: Sevinç et al., “Can” (n. 27): 395. This does not recur on monuments reviewed here, but seems to have some currency among Levantine ‘Persian riders’ in E. Stern, The Material Culture of the Land of the Bible in the Persian Period (Warminster: 2001), 493 and Ehrlich, “Terracotta Figurines” (n. 19): 47, and perhaps at Curium in J. H. Young and S. H. Young, Terracotta Figurines from Curium, (Philadelphia: 1955), 214—but most of this may be purely decorative. 38 Karaburun: see n. 27. Limyra: Borchhardt, Bauskulptur (n. 22), fig. 12 (no. 22, 26). 39 For sea-warfare we have two seals showing oared warships (both, remarkably, from the imperial heartland): PTS 32, cf. Curtis & Tallis, Forgotten Empire (n. 11), no. 440; P. Amiet, “La glyptique de la fin de l’Élam,” Arts Asiatiques 28 (1973): pl. 16 (73). There are also many coins from Levantine sources showing war-galleys. 40 The data result from a trawl for Achaemenid era seal(ing)s in a great variety of sources, including the following. Museum and collection catalogues. These are too numerous to list. Handbooks A. Furtwängler, Die antiken Gemmen (Berlin: 1900),

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come from diverse sources and represent what art historians see as a number of different styles. To treat the 108 items as a single data-set is a rough-and-ready approach, especially as the various geographic origins for seal(ing)s are not represented by equal numbers of surviving items. The fact that the proportion of seals displaying military subjects is, for example, smaller in material from Babylonia than from Dascylium, in one sense redresses the balance, but also shows that sub-sections within the putative single data-set do have distinct characters. Still, the W. H. Ward, The Cylinder Seals of Western Asia (Washington: 1910), J. Boardman, Greek Gems and Finger Rings. 2d ed. (London: 2007), P. Zazoff, Die antiken Gemmen (Munich: 1983). Specific archaeological sources Persepolis: E. F. Schmidt, Persepolis II (Chicago: 1957); A. Tadjvidi, Danestanihaye Novin darbareye Honar va Bastanshenasie asr-e Hakkamaneshi bar bonyad-e kavoshhaye panjsaleye Takht-e Jamshid. (Tehran: Ministry of Cultures and Arts, 1976); Garrison and Root, Seals (n. 13). Susa: P. Amiet, Glyptique susienne des origines à l’epoque des Perses Achéménides (Paris: 1972); idem, “La glyptique” (n. 39). Dascylium: Kaptan, Daskyleion Bullae (n. 4). Seyitömer: D. Kaptan, “Clay Tags from Seyitömer Höyük in Phrygia,” in The World of Achaemenid Persia, ed. J. Curtis and St J. Simpson, (London: forthcoming). Memphis: W. F. Petrie, Meydum and Memphis (London: 1910): pl. 34–36 nos. 21–39, 46. The Oxus Treasure: O. M. Dalton, The Treasure of the Oxus (London: 1964). Artašat: Z. Khachatrian, “The Archives of Sealings Found at Artashat (Artaxata),” in Archives et sceaux du monde hellénistique, ed. M. F. Boussac and A. Invernizzi (Athens-Paris: 1996). Documentary archives The Aršam archive: Boardman, Persia and the West (n. 6): fig. 5.21.The Murašu archive: Bregstein, “Seal Use” (n. 9); V. Donbaz and M. Stolper, Istanbul Murašu Documents (Istanbul: 1997). Other Babylonian material: J. McGinnis, Letter Orders from Sippar and the Administration of the Ebabbara in the Late Babylonian Period (Poznan: 1995); E. Ehrenberg, “A Corpus of Early Fifth-Century Seal Impressions in the Yale Babylonian Collection,” Baghdader Mitteilungen 31 (2000). There are also publications of individual items (e.g. H.P. Francfort, “Un cachet achéménide d’Afghanistan”, JA 263 (1975)) or particular sets or classes of material (e.g. Boardman, “Pyramidal Stamp Seals” (n. 9)). I gratefully acknowledge help with various items from Margaret Root, Shahrokh Razmjou and an important unpublished University of Pennsylvania dissertation on Eastern Iran by Wu Xin. The main categories of land-warfare material are as follows: (1) Combat images (50 items): here actual fighting is going on. I have included two items where it is possible that we have figures co-operating in hunting not fighting one another, viz. P. Merrillees, Catalogue of West Asian Seals in the British Museum VI: Pre-Achaemenid and Achaemenid Periods (London: 2005): no. 38; E. Porada, Corpis of Near Eastern Seals in North American Collections I: Pierpont Morgan Library (Washington: 1948): no. 830. For other arguable items cf. n. 58. (2) Prisoner parade scenes (12): a Persian figure leads roped prisoners; he may sometimes also spear or stab an adversary, but I do not count that as combat for present purposes. (3) Ambiguous military images (17): cases where an armed figure is engaged in aggressive activity but either by design or accident we do not see his adversary and cannot exclude the possibility that it was an animal. (4) Other military (28): cases in which we see an armed figure at rest or not engaged in clearly aggressive action. Excluded from any of these categories are fewer than 20 images of horse-riders in which no weapons are carried and no other parties are involved, animal or human. I have also excluded three Babylonian sealings on which a riderless horse appears to trample upon a body, though I suppose they might be said to symbolize the power of cavalry.

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corpus of seal(ing)s as a whole is homogeneous to the extent that it reflects the requirements of the seal-using class, and the widespread popularity of royal hero contest scenes and the like shows that this is not a purely arbitrary homogeneity. So I think one is entitled to use the specifically military material as a source for representations of the world of Achaemenid warfare without having to draw fine artistic or regional distinctions. In that spirit I offer the following observations: (a) Of the 108 images 40 are equestrian and 68 non-equestrian, making the latter more than half as common again as the former. It is true that, if one looks just at the 50 actual combat-scenes, the division is more even—in fact into two equal groups of 25.41 Even so, one cannot claim that there is any preponderance of equestrian military images or that this material reveals a perception that cavalry was the dominant arm of the Persian military machine. (b) There is information to be derived about the appearance and equipment of Persian horsemen. The horseman’s weapon is almost without exception the spear.42 Very occasionally one can see that he has a gorytus,43 but none of the combat scenes and only a few of the other items show a Persian cavalryman with a bow in his hand.44 There is something of a contrast here with hunting scenes, where the equestrian archer is a figure with some currency, although the equestrian spearman

41 There are two infantry combats in which a riderless horse is also present— Boardman, Persia and the West (n. 6): fig. 5.21; PTS 30—so one could choose to see the split as 27 equestrian against 23 non-equestrian. 42 The horsemen on Boardman, Gems (n. 40): 72 (pl. 864) and G. Richter, Catalogue of Engraved Gems: Greek, Etruscan, Roman (Rome: 1956): no. 135 have swords, but they remain sheathed while they wield spears. 43 Combat: Bregstein, “Seal Use” (n. 9): no. 194, Richter, Engraved Gems (n. 42): no. 135. The presumed dismounted cavalryman on the Aršam seal, Boardman, Persia and the West (n. 6): fig. 21, has a gorytus. Other: MMA 93.17.17, N. V. Sekunda, The Persian Army, 560–330 bc (London: 1992): 25; L. Legrain, Seal Impressions (London: 1951): 772 = 773; Bregstein, “Seal Use” (n. 9): 167. The same occurs with equestrian huntsmen: Bregstein, “Seal Use” (n. 9): no. 147, no. 156; A. U. Pope, A Survey of Persian Art (Oxford: 1938/9), pl. 123R (dismounted horseman); G. A. Eisen, Ancient Oriental Cylinder and Other Seals (Chicage: 1940), no. 104; H. Frankfort, Cylinder Seals (London: 1939), pl. XVIIi; Boardman, Gems (n. 40), no. 134; Louvre A788, L. J. Delaporte, Catalogue des cylindres, cachets et pierres gravées de style oriental au Louvre (Paris: 1920/23). 44 DS 71; R. L. Zettler, “On the Chronological Range of Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Seals,” JNES 38 (1979): 260; Francfort, “Un cachet achéménide,” (n. 40): fig. 5; Boardman, Gems (n. 40), pl. 904. (Note also two camel-riding archers.) The only bow in use in a combat scene is in the hands of an enemy cavalryman (DS 91). There is, however, an image of horseback archery on the Miho pectoral—Bernard, “Un torque achéménide” (n. 6).

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is still more than three times as common, and is indeed the commonest form of hunter.45 In light of this one may, of course, suspect that some or all of the items listed above in note 44—none from an explicit scene of human combat—actually belonged, in the mind of the seal-cutter or seal-user, to the world of hunting. The same may be true of a chariot from which a figure fires at an unseen target.46 Certainly the only chariot in a combat scene belongs to the enemy,47 whereas chariots appear in several hunting scenes.48 Returning to putative soldiers, two notable types of defensive equipment familiar from other sources duly appear, i.e. leg-guards or paramēridia49 and the cuirass with neck-guard,50 but no one uses a shield. In non-combat scenes headgear is generally some variant of the soft-material bashlyk. This occasionally appears in combat scenes too,51 as does a pilos-like item,52 but what we see more often is something with a rather angular profile, in some cases very reminiscent

45 The proportion between archer and spearman among hunters on foot is less heavily skewed towards the latter. But spearmen are still in a decided majority. Equestrian hunters with bows turn up in other media: Dalton, Oxus (n. 40), no. 24 (WA 12395); Aksakal in Nollé, Daskyleion (n. 25), S3; Dereköy (ibid., S4). 46 Boardman, Gems (n. 40), pl. 928. 47 Boardman, Gems (n. 40), no. 72 (pl. 864). 48 A similar phenomenon applies to the sculptural and painted monuments discussed above. Chariots are absent in explicit combat scenes except at Tatarlι, where the single chariot is a platform for archery, like the horses that accompany it. They are rarely associated with Persian figures in other contexts (twice at Limyra; once on the Satrap Sarcophagus: cf. n. 23). But they appear well over a dozen times in non-Persian contexts (both in battle on the Trysa heroon and Clazomenae sarcophagi, and in various explicitly hunting scenes). Textual evidence about Persian use of war-chariots—itself fairly patchy—is simply not matched by the iconographic record. (But I have not attempted a systematic treatment of chariots in this chapter.) 49 Francfort, “Un cachet achéménide” (n. 40): fig. 2; Boardman, Gems (n. 40), pl. 883; Furtwängler, Gemmen (n. 40), pl. xi/9. Boardman, Gems (n. 40), fig. 291 is another possibility, not dissimilar to the first three. DS 72 is a very arguable case. 50 Boardman, Gems (n. 40), no. 119 (fig. 291), no. 120 [= Furtwängler, Gemmen (n. 40): pl. xi/9], no. 122 [= M. E. Maximova, “Griechisch-persische Kleinkunst,” Arch. Anz. (1928): fig. 2]. Combined with what look like pteryges: Boardman, Gems (n. 40), no. 117 (pl. 881), no. 121 (pl. 882), no. 123 (pl. 883); Francfort, “Un cachet achéménide” (n. 40): fig. 2; and cf. the Miho pectoral: Bernard, “Un torque achéménide” (n. 6). Pteryges also appear on DS 86. A plain cuirass may appear on the seal illustrated in Head, Persian Army (n. 3), fig. 24b. 51 Head, Persian Army (n. 3), fig. 23b; Richter, Engraved Gems (n. 42), no. 135; Boardman, Gems (n. 40), pl. 1062. 52 The warrior on Boardman, Gems (n. 40), fig. 291, has a pointed helmet with crest. (Headgear with similar profile, but no crest, appears on an ambiguous item: DS 71). The photograph of Boardman, Gems (n. 40), no. 371 [Porada, Near Eastern Seals (n. 40), 834] makes the pilos-like helmet look as though it has a barred visor, perhaps misleadingly.

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of the headgear worn by the Can cavalryman.53 On the other hand I see little sign of horse-armor (as distinct from horseman-armor).54 On one seal there is a visual contrast with the lighter form of cavalry, using a different breed of horse and represented by a presumed Greek adversary, but the general absence of images showing fights between cavalry—see below—provides few chances for us to observe this sort of distinction, and some of our Persian cavalrymen appear no more protected against harm than horsemen on hunting seals.55 (c) Given constraint of space, equestrian combat scenes on seals unsurprisingly focus on a single cavalryman pitted against a single adversary. This is the norm with Greek adversaries, only varied inasmuch as an additional dead enemy soldier appears a couple of times.56 Where non-Greek adversaries are concerned things are more varied,

53 Boardman, Gems (n. 40), pl. 881 and Francfort, “Un cachet achéménide” (n. 40): fig. 2 are particularly like Can, Boardman, Gems (n. 40), pl. 864, 882, 883 rather less so. Maximova, “Griechisch-persische Kleinkunst” (n. 50): fig. 2, DS 65 and Richter, Engraved Gems (n. 42), no. 134 deviate further because, although still compact and angular there are more pronounced projections at top front or back (cf. the headgear of the rider on the putative late imperial royal coins: see p. 106). This headgear is strongly correlated with the neck-guard cuirass. It is therefore worth stressing that when a version of that cuirass is worn by infantry on seal-images, they have a quite different, close-fitting and rounded form of headgear: e.g. PTS 30; Newell 453; BN 403 = Collon, First Impressions (n. 9), no. 744; BM 89333 = Merrillees, West Asian Seals (n. 40), no. 64; Porada, Near Eastern Seals (n. 40): no. 833. I think it possible that Meshorer and Qedar, Samarian Coinage (n. 11), no. 49 and DS 64 may be meant to show an infantry neck guard cuirass; if so, the headgear conforms in each case. 54 It has been claimed on a hunting image from Tel Mazar: Collon, First Impressions (n. 9), no. 741. For the prosternidion we have to look to terracotta ‘Persian riders’ or to images from outside our data-set: Pfrommer, Alexandermosaik (n. 20), pl. 8, 20.2, 22.2, 27.2. Meanwhile Kaptan, Daskyleion Bullae (n. 4), 78f discerns paramēridia on other equestrian hunting scenes (DS 89; Sultaniyeköy: Nollé, Daskyleion [n. 25], S3]; Vezirhan: N. Asgari, Anatolian Civilisations II: Greek, Roman, Byzantine [Istanbul: 1983], B.146) and an otherwise non-Persian context on the Amathus sarcophagus. O. Casabonne, “Notes ciliciennes, 3–4,” Anatolia Antiqua 5 (1997), sees them on a hunter on a stele from Usak, where G. Polat, “Ein Neuerwerbung des UŞak Museums: eine anatolischpersische Grabstele”, Arkeoloji Dergisi presented to M.Anabolu II (Izmir: 1994), only discerned trousers. The Tel Mazar hunter may also have special protective leggings (as distinct from a paramēridion): so O. Casabonne, “Notes ciliciennes, 7–9,” Anatolia Antiqua 8 (2000): 100, comparing the trousers on certain Tarkumuwa coins. He envisages padded leather, whereas Sekunda, Persian Army (n. 43), 27 sees scale-armor. Head, Persian Army (n. 3), fig. 25, thinks the coins at least just show heavily creased clothing. Scale-armored trousers appear on an Amazon on the early classical Bologna 289 (CVA Bologna IV pl.72–74). 55 Francfort “Un cachet achéménide’ (n. 40): fig. 2. 56 Boardman, Gems (n. 40), pl. 883; DS 65.

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since we find the single horseman pitted against a chariot or two horsemen or fighting, against one enemy foot-soldier, with the assistance of a spearman.57 But for more complex images we have to look to infantry scenes, only about half of which confine themselves to one-onone combat and which can occasionally run to compositions with seven or eight figures (in one case including two dismounted horses). Does this mean that there is not much to be learned from seals about the tactical use of cavalry? Perhaps not entirely. In 46 of the 50 combat images Persian warriors are pitted against either Scythian (14) or Greek (32) adversaries.58 Those who designed images of Perso-Greek combat very largely chose to pit Greek infantry against either a quasi-royal figure (nine cases) or—most characteristically— against a Persian horseman (18 cases). But those who designed PersoScythian combat images went a different way. Two purely equestrian ones survive, though they appear so mutually similar that they might reasonably be regarded as two realisations of a single icon;59 and there is one seal impression that may show a Persian horseman pursuing an infantry Scythian.60 Otherwise we have purely non-equestrian combat.61 This may seem mildly surprising: surely Scythians characteristically lived and fought on horseback. If the Persians were also notable cavalrymen, should not their victory over such an opponent primarily be represented in equestrian icons? I suggest that what this situation discloses

57 Boardman, Gems (n. 40), pl. 864; DS 91 and ibid., pl. 882; Bregstein, “Seal Use” (n. 9): no. 194. 58 ‘Scythian’ is shorthand for adversaries wearing headgear and riding costume linking them with accredited images of Saka or other East Iranians. Not all cases are equally secure (e.g. PTS 30–31), but we are surely dealing with people whose dress links them with horse-riding. The four combat scenes not included here are three where the nature of the adversary is uncertain and the ‘Persian’ status of the attacker might also be questioned, and one where they are oriental but lack Scythian features and moreover use a chariot. 59 One may also note the Miho pectoral image in Bernard, “Un torque achéménide” (n. 6), the central part of which figures two horse-archers (each accompanied by infantrymen). The narrative / tactical status of the repeated pairs of horsemen (one archer, one not) on the main body of the Miho necklace is less clear. 60 Bregstein “Seal Use” (n. 9): no. 194. Bregstein sees it as a prisoner-image, though not of the sort represented by the twelve items mentioned supra, n. 40. I have preferred Wu Xin’s view (cf. supra, n. 40) that it is a scene of combat. 61 Interestingly, in the multi-figure infantry and cavalry picture on the Tatarlι beam, the centre of a largely equestrian composition is a confrontation on foot between a quasi-royal figure and three infantry Scythians: Summerer, “Imaging” (n. 21): fig. 6.

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is a sense that, to win true victory, one has to bring the enemy—even a Scythian one—to a proper formal battle and defeat his infantry. The conquest of the Persian empire was not encompassed by overwhelming adversaries with hordes of Iranian cavalry; it was achieved by mixedforce armies in which the infantry was of at least equipollent significance. For iconographical purposes whether fighting Greeks, who were relatively weak in horsemen, or Scythians who were relatively strong in them, the significant thing was superiority over the enemy infantry: in the Greek case this could be symbolized by having a horseman riding down an infantryman but in the Scythian case that would not be satisfactory—everyone knew Scythian horsemen were too good to be sidelined in that way and it was necessary to select the infantry arm of the Persian military to encapsulate superiority.62 Attic Vase-painting When Attic ceramic painters depicted war with Persia, they too treated the choice between equestrian and non-equestrian in a distinctive fashion. There are rather over one hundred items that may fairly be seen as pictures of Persians, of which about half have some connection with warfare.63 But only a handful show military riders. An early fourthcentury vase in Istanbul appears to shows a version of the warriordeparture scene, in which the warrior is mounted;64 the same figure appears on the other side of the vase as a sort of enthroned ruler, so our mounted warrior is presumably imagined as relatively high status. Two other fourth-century items show horsemen fighting Greek infantry,65

62 In two cases—Boardman, Persia and the West (n. 6), fig. 5.21; PTS 30—the infantry combat occurs in the presence of riderless horses: that almost seems to underline the point. 63 I have these figures from Margaret Miller, who is engaged on a full-scale study of this material. 64 Istanbul 7501: Asgari, Anatolian Civilisations (n. 54), B151. I thank Margaret Miller for showing me a photograph of this item. 65 London BM E233 (ARV2 1471(3)) = W. Raeck, Zum Barbarenbild in der Kunst Athens im 6. und 5. Jahrhundert v. Christ (Bonn: 1981), P569; Paris Louvre MN13 (ARV2 1471(1)). Similar fourth-century studies of non-Greek horsemen fighting Greek infantry, such as those on London BM E247 (ARV2 1471(4)) or Brussels A3452 = Head, Persian Army (n. 3), fig. 23c, in which the horsemen are beardless, might also have been intended as depictions of Persians, but the reciprocal iconographic interference between ‘Persian’ and ‘Amazon’ at work since the mid-fifth century makes categorization difficult. We should certainly be wary of assuming that any or all beardless riders, even ones not encountered in what are plainly Amazonomachies, are valid evidence about

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as does a mid-fifth-century Sotades vase which was evidently produced for a non-Greek market, since in this case the Persian rider is defeating his Greek opponent.66 On all of these the horsemen are unarmored and fight with a spear.67 Two final items come from ca. 480 bce—i.e. very early in the series of Attic depictions of the Persian military. The first shows a single oriental rider: he carries a bow and wears a cuirass, and appears unaccompanied and without narrative context. Williams has claimed the image once bore the superscription khōris and alluded to the battle of Marathon.68 This venturesome conjecture underlines the fact that what we see is not a combat scene. The other item is indeed such a scene, but the two unarmored horse-archers fighting a hoplite appear on the outer surface of a cup whose dominant image on the inside is of infantry combat.69 The fact that it is only these earliest items that put bows into the hands of Persian riders is notable: the densest image of horse-archers in any of the material surveyed here—viz. the Tatarlι painting—is also of a similar early date. Perhaps there is a significant pattern here. But what one can certainly say is that, if seal-cutters liked to symbolize Persian victory over Greek by showing horsemen bearing down upon infantry, Athenians celebrating Greek victory over the Persians did not feel much of a need to figure this as the hoplite achieving victory over the Persian horseman. They were more governed by a real fact—that the war on land was actually a matter of infantry against infantry—than a symbolic idea—that the conflict represented the victory of heavy infantry over a horse-borne invader—and indeed it is doubtful that such a symbolic idea occurred to them. The Perses imaginaires of fifth-century pot painters were not distinctively horsemen.70 One may perhaps add that, among less professional decorators of Persian cavalry: the willingness of Sekunda, Persian Army (n. 43), 22, to assign peltai to the latter on the basis of Würzburg K1814 is a case in point. 66 Boston 21.2286 = Raeck, Barbarenbild (n. 65), P558. 67 An item from c. 440, Raeck, Barbarenbild (n. 65), P576, has a mounted figure with two spears, in a context that need not be military. 68 Raeck, Barbarenbild (n. 65), P578. The Marathon suggestion comes from D. Williams, “A Cup by the Antiphon Painter and the Battle of Marathon,” in Studien zur Mythologie und Vasenmalerei: Konrad Schauenburg zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. E. Bohr and W. Martini, (Mainz: 1986). 69 Raeck, Barbarenbild (n. 65), P560. They also appear alongside a strange scene in which two fully armed hoplites fight a naked Greek infantryman in a scene framed by two oriental (infantry) archers. It is not easy to make any coherent narrative sense of the vase as a whole. 70 Pot-painters in other traditions did not address the topic at all until we get to certain late fourth-century south Italian representations of Alexander’s defeat of Darius.

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ceramic surfaces, the anonymous Athenian voting for the ostracism of Callias who decided to adorn his ostracon with a picture chose the figure of a Persian archer, not a Persian horseman. This is not because the latter would have been impossible because of constraints of space: another artistic voter evoked his target, Megacles, with a drawing of a shieldcarrying horseman—and one without discernible oriental features.71 Non-Greek Texts I turn now to texts (documentary and literary) from the lands of the empire written in languages other than Greek and Latin. Anatolia, Egypt, the Levant and Bactria Western Anatolia produces one extremely tantalising item. In the first part of the Lycian A text of the Xanthos Pillar Inscription (TL 44) occurs a passage which has been translated as referring to an infantry force together with “the cavalry, Achaemenid, Lycian and Median.”72 This comes a few lines before the section that refers successively to Melesander, Iasus and Amorges and has been linked with events in Thucydides (2.69, 8.28), but little more can be said of its context save that it is of course part of the self-celebration of the tomb-owner and that it comes shortly after a reference to a sacrifice. That horses are present seems certain, and the occurrence of the word “foot” in the previous line makes it initially tempting to conjecture that a military force consisting of infantry and cavalry is involved—though only, perhaps, initially.73 The alleged use of “Achaemenid” is, on the other hand, startling: it is not (I believe) otherwise attested in the non-Greek languages of subjects of the Great King except in translations of royal inscriptions, and in Archaic and Classical Greek usage it is not used as a casual metonym for ‘Persians,’ but only in contexts where it can be taken as referring specifically to the (royal) Achaemenid family. Melchert derives the relevant Lycian word hẽmenedi from hẽmen(e)—and translates it as 71

Brenne 1992: fig. 1, O2359: Megacles; fig. 7, O849: Callias. N. Cau, “La spedizione di Melesandro in Licia nel racconto della Stele di Xanthos (TL 44a, 34 ss.): un tentativo di interpretazione,” Studi ellenistici 12 (1999): 28. 73 H. C. Melchert, A Dictionary of the Lycian Language (Ann Arbor: 2004), 48, however, offers “no support for the interpretation as ‘foot-soldier’,” contra Cau, “Stele di Xanthos” (n. 72), and takes a similar view of her discovery of “schiera” in the preceding Lycian word izredi, which for him means “hand”. 72

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“combined.”74 I am not competent to judge the linguistics, but if this is an available possibility, it has to be better than “Achaemenid.” That said, “Lycian” and “Median” are certainly present and, whatever we think about the infantry, we have got horses and Persians in tantalisingly close conjunction (and in the same grammatical case). A somewhat similar, if less intimate, conjunction occurs later in the same document. Here “horseman” or esbẽt(i)– is immediately preceded by what looks like a reference to the erection of an inscribed monument,75 and followed not only by several references to Tissaphernes, perhaps qualified once as “Persian,” but also by a passage that may have had military subject matter.76 Further advances in the understanding of Lycian may one day give us a coherent narrative here, though it is surely unlikely that it will turn out to contain much in the way of tactical detail.77 Moving east and south, supplies for horses, donkeys and horsemen appear in some of the ostraca from Arad.78 The military or potentially military term degel appears twice (12,18) and the storehouse from which the documents derive might have been at a site that served as a base for guarding routes across the Negev; so perhaps the horsemen are soldiers, not just message-carriers. Onomastically speaking the environment is entirely Semitic and one text (7) refers to the “horsemen of Eliashib,” so we are not in any event dealing with Iranian cavalry. More than 900 Achaemenid and early-Hellenistic ostraca from a site in Idumaea have been published in the last decade,79 but I know of just one, rather conjectural, reference to horsemen (perhaps a royal horsemen) among them.80 It has been suggested that the riders sent by Yahweh to inspect the world in Zechariah 1.7–15 are a reflex of an Achaemenid world of mounted

74

Melchert, Lycian (n. 73), 23. Words signifying “erect,” “monument,” “write” and “decree” (at least in Melchert’s understanding of the vocabulary) can be made out. 76 The words “king,” “(military) camp / fort,” “court / precinct,” “Xanthos” and “war” are visible, again according to Melchert. 77 The word for horse recurs in TL 128 in a damaged context. 78 J. Naveh, “The Aramaic Ostraka from Tell-Arad,” in Y.Aharoni, Arad Inscriptions (Jerusalem: 1981). Horses: 1, 14, 15, 16, 26, 32; donkeys: 1, 2, 12,14, 21, 23, 24, 31,37; horsemen: 7, 8, 11. 79 Texts have appeared in at least eleven publications since 1996. For an overview (with bibliography), see P. Briant, “The Empire of Darius III in Perspective,” in Alexander the Great: A New History, ed. W. Heckel and L. Tritle (Oxford, 2009): 152–55. 80 A. Lemaire, Nouvelles inscriptions araméennes au Musée d’Israel (Paris: 1996), no. 67. A “horse ranch [rkšh] of Garpa” also appears in an ostracon of early Hellenistic date: I. Eph’al and J. Naveh, Aramaic Ostraca of the Fourth Century from Idumaea (Jerusalem: 1996), no. 97. The editors make no comment on this unique term. 75

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spies.81 Since this is apparently the first passage in the Hebrew bible in which the horse-and-rider figure plays a significant role, the conjecture is not merely whimsical. Rather more concretely, passages in Ezra (8.22) and Nehemiah (2.9) show armed men and cavalry as the components of a travelling dignitary’s escort. In Egypt, the titles of Udjahorresnet, son of Hor (not the famous one) include “scribe of the cavalry” and a Hyrcanian cavalryman has turned up in a non-military context in a demotic legal document from Saqqarâ82, but Egyptian documentation (including, most pertinently, that about members of the Elephantine garrison) is otherwise depressingly silent. An old interpretation of a Hibeh papyrus with an implied narrative about horses has disappeared in TADE, thanks to a more conservative view of the fragmentary remains of the text.83 A possible allusion to charioteers and horsemen in a Saqqarâ text may be to do with hunting.84 The famous reference in AD 9 = TADE A6.12 to someone making the image (? sealstone) of a horse and rider is merely tantalising—especially since the archive owner (Aršam) had an unusual seal on which infantry combat occurs in the presence of two riderless horses.85 At the other end of the empire, but still through the medium of Aramaic, the still only partially published late-Achaemenid documents from the archive of the satrap of Bactria give us the story of a local official’s mistreatment of a group of camel-riders, and indeed a certain amount of other militarily relevant information, but almost nothing about horses.86 There is a possible reference to horse-harnessing in 81 H.-P.Matthys, “Der Achämenidenhof im Alten Testament,” in Der Achämenidenhof, ed. B. Jacobs et al. (Stuttgart: forthcoming). 82 Udjahorresnet: O. Perdu, “Le ‘directeur des scribes du conseil’ ”, Revue d’Égyptologie 49 (1998): 179. Hyrcanian cavalryman: H.S. Smith and C.J. Martin, “Demotic papyri from the Sacred Animal Enclosure of North Saqqarâ”, in Organisations des pouvoirs et contacts culturels dans les pays de l’Empire achéménide ed. P. Briant and M. Chauveau (Paris: 2009), 60 (text 17). He has an Egyptian name (Wennefer) and matronymic (Taweret); his father's name (Merega) may be Iranian. 83 J. T. Milik, “Lettre araméenne d’El-Hibeh,” Aegyptus (1960): in this version the writer reports that he has recently found some team-horses (“chevaux d’attelage”), 6 Elamite, (2) Cilician and (2) Median, and that the Elamite ones will be brought to the recipient of the letter. TADE A3.11 still has horses and Elamites (although the word could also mean “lilies”), but the rest has gone. 84 J. B. Segal, Aramaic Texts from North Saqqarâ (London: 1983), no. 62. 85 Boardman, Persia and the West (n. 6): fig. 5.21. 86 A1: S. Shaked, Le satrape de Bactriane et son gouverneur: documents araméens du IVe s. avant notre ère provenant de Bactriane (Paris: 2004), 32–33. In C3 camels receive flour and fodder; and they are mentioned in another unspecified document (ibid., 39).

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C7,87 and a single horse certainly appears in C1. The latter document itemizes at some length the *dauša-xwar(a)—interpreted by Shaked as “viaticum”—of one Bessus (*Bayaça), perhaps the future regicide, who receives it at Maithanka while on his way from Bactra to Varnu-Aornos.88 The horse and a single donkey appear alongside four cattle, 166 sheep, five geese and thirty chickens as well as a long list of flour, other foodstuffs and wine. It is at least possible, therefore, that they are there to be eaten,89 and the only reasonable alternative is that they are draftanimals.90 Later in the list in C1 come two allusions to quite large amounts of fodder.91 The animals that consumed this fodder might, of course, include the mounts of cavalrymen accompanying Bessus, but there is no way of proving it. It is quite tempting to see this document— which not only deals in quite substantial quantities but also lists provisions for religious ceremonies and refers to sub-distributions of flour to other recipients—in terms of the information in the Persepolis Fortification archive about the feeding of traveling courts, normally royal but in one case at least satrapal. There too horses receive sustenance, and there too their functional identity is opaque.92 Babylonia Back in the middle of the empire Babylonia also has material to offer, but it too is not without its problems.93 87

C7.5: cf. Shaked, Le satrape (n. 86), 35. S. Shaked, “De Khulmi à Nikhšapaya: les données des nouveaux documents araméens de Bactres sur la toponymie de la région (IVe siècle av. n. è.),” CRAI 4, (2003); idem, Le satrape (n. 86) insisted that this was during the period when Bessus was styling himself King Artaxerxes (V). But the document is dated to the ninth month of the first year of King Artaxerxes, and I do not think that any such date ever existed for Artaxerxes V. In any case it makes no sense for the document to be dated by Artaxerxes but to refer to the king as Bessus. The real date must be 358/7 (Artaxerxes III)—so Briant, “Darius III” (n. 79)—or 338/7 (Artaxerxes IV). 89 Shaked, “La toponymie” (n. 88), acknowledges this. Hippophagy was detected by M. Gabrielli, Le cheval dans l’empire achéménide (Istanbul: 2006), in the description of some horses in the Persepolis Fortification archive as W.IN.lg-na gišINmeš. W. F. M. Henkelman, “Consumed before the King,” in Der Achämenidenhof, ed. B. Jacobs et al. (Stuttgart: forthcoming): 60, translates the term “on straw,” but (61) allows that the idea of fattening for consumption could apply to horses. 90 Donkeys also seem to appear in documents A1, B4 and B6. 91 Further references to this are reported without details in A10 and C3. 92 One other tantalizing detail: C1.33 mentions distribution of flour for the inhabitants of Asparasta—a toponym whose etymological meaning is “hippodrome.” 93 Note that the military narratives (such as they are) about Cyrus’ conquest of Babylonia in the Nabonidus Chronicle and Cyrus Cylinder mention no horses; and that various broken allusions to military events in LBAT are similarly unhelpful. 88

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Two documents confirm that equestrian military resources in Achaemenid Babylonia included chariots. One is a document from 517 that refers to the chariots of Bel-appla-Iddina, the city-governor (šākin ṭēmi) of Babylon, going to Elam.94 The purpose of the trip is unstated; all one can say is that it is possible that the soldiers’ tour of duty will last six months and that the king might have been in Susa when the document was written. The other is an undated letter written by one Guzanu, who was governor of Babylon during the first decade of the fifth century (but need not have held that office at the time of the letter).95 This appears to reveal that soldiers who should have been assigned to Guzanu had been taken by an unnamed military official.96 The soldiers involved include charioteers, but the details of the situation are obscure (modern editors provide differing translations), and, slightly disconcertingly, the only specific information about the charioteers is that one of them, Liblutu, is in charge of a group of boats about to sail to the (unknown) town of Danipinu. Turning to cavalry, a well-known Babylonian document itemizes the equipment of a cavalryman in 421 and a less famous one provides similar information nearly a century earlier in 513.97 An uncontentious understanding of both is hampered by linguistic uncertainties. The earlier text simply mentions headgear (karballatu) and two items also often attributed to infantry archers, viz. TÚG KUR.RA (which appears to be a cloak or blanket or even poncho) and TÚG širam. The

94 Dar.154: K. Abraham, Business and Politics under the Persian Empire (Bethesda: 2004), no. 92. 95 CT 22.74: F. Joannès, Textes économiques de la Babylonie récente (Paris: 1982), 24–25; Abrahams, Business and Politics (n. 94), no. 88. He is attested as šākin ṭēmi of Babylon from 497/6–494/3. C. Wunsch, “Neubabylonische Geschäftsleute und ihre Beziehungen zu Palast- und Tempelverwaltungen: Das Beispiel der Familie Egibi,” in Interdependency of Institutions and Private Entrepreneurs, ed. A. C. V. M. Bongenaar, (Istanbul: 1998): 144, thinks he was in office at the time of the letter. The alternative is that he was šangu of Sippar, an office he held in 509/8–495/4: M. Jursa, Das Archiv des Bēl-Rēmanni (Istanbul: 1999): 108 n. 456. 96 His title is rab dūri, literally wall-commander. Briant, Cyrus (n. 2), 342, wrongly reports the title as fortress-commander (rab birti), but it may be that rab dūri can legitimately be taken to have that meaning. 97 H. F. Lutz, “An Agreement between a Babylonian Feudal Lord and his Retainer in the Reign of Darius II,” UCP 9/3 (1928), from the Murašu archive; Dar.253: Joannès, Textes économiques (n. 95), 18; idem, “Guerre et économie dans l’empire neobabylonien,” in La guerre dans les économies antiques, ed. J. Andreau et al. (SaintBertrand de-Comminges: 2000): 68; M. A. Dandamaev, “The Old Iranian pasa’du,” in Archaeologia Iranica et Orientalis: Miscellanea in honorem Louis Vanden Berghe I, ed. L. de Meyer and E. Haerinck (Ghent: 1989): 564.

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debatable issue here is how to interpret TÚG širam. The term is cognate with the word sari(y)am, which historically had quite strong associations with armor, or more particularly garments with a metal plate covering. But in neo-Babylonian Akkadian TÚG širam can apply to garments, including quite mundane ones, worn by both sexes, so one could argue that—even in a military context—it might have lost any necessary suggestion of special armament.98 The later text (a document from the Murašu archive in which one Gadal-Iama undertakes to serve as a cavalryman on behalf of himself and a joint fief-holder) certainly mentions a pair of iron lances and 120 arrows and has been widely agreed to give the cavalryman an iron cuirass (šir’anu AN.BAR) and armored headgear (karballatu ša sir’anu).99 Other elements of the description are more debatable. Three (suhattu, suhattu neck-cover and suhattu headgear) have in common the word suhattu, for which (in the form šuhattu) current dictionaries supply the meaning “Binde” or “cloth.” One view is that the three constitute a single šuhattucoat with neck-piece and hood; another, older view discerns three separate items, a saddle-blanket for the horse, a sweatband for the man and a piece of head-gear made of similar material, to be worn under or instead of the “armoured head-dress”.100 Choice depends on whether one is more impressed by the fact that the items are not all mutually adjacent in the list,101 or by the fact that they all involve the term suhattu, not otherwise a term-of-art in descriptions of military equipment. In any event, the idea that the “suhattu neck-cover” alludes to the neck-guard seen in various iconographic sources must be regarded with scepticism: that is a rather solid-looking piece of gear and it is hard to see it being described with a term meaning “cloth.”102 98 See CDA s.v. sari(y)am, AHw s.v. sari(j)am; CAD s.v. siriam; S. Parpola, AssyrianEnglish-Assyrian Dictionary (Helsinki: 2007), s.v. sarianu. A. L. Oppenheim, “Review of H. H. Figulla, Business Documents of the New-Babylonian Period,” JCS 4 (1950): 191–194. 99 Šir’anu is cognate with sari(y)am and širam (just mentioned) but, unlike širam, generally held to connote armor, even in neo-Babylonian texts. 100 Single: Briant, Cyrus (n. 2), 598 (after Joannès in CANE 1481); three items: E. Ebeling, “Die Rüstung eines babylonischen Panzerreiters nach einem Vertrage aus der Zeit Darius II.,” ZA 50 (1952). 101 The plain suhattu is separated from the other two by the references to iron cuirass and armored head-dress. 102 O. Casabonne and M. Gabrielli, “A Note on Persian Armours,” in The Achaemenid Impact on Local Populations and Culture in Anatolia, ed. I. Deleman (Istanbul: 2007). Incidentally, the idea (AHw s.v., CDA s.v.) that the word for neck-protector (kūrapānu) is Old Persian is not endorsed in J. Tavernier, Iranica in the Achaemenid Period (Leuven: 2007), where the word is not listed.

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The remaining two elements in the description (kušsalṭu ša erū and depu AN.BAR šakušsalṭu) also have a shared word, šalṭu. Ebeling translated it as “shield” and identified the two items as a copper shield103 and an iron club that was “of the shield” in that it was carried attached to the shield.104 But it now seems agreed that šalṭu is a word for “quiver” and might also apply to other forms of container, while depu designates a stabbing-weapon, in which case the soldier actually had a leather quiver with copper (attachments?) and an iron sword in a leather scabbard. There is one final conundrum. Changes to linguistic understanding of the text have not altered the fact that the horseman is not said to have a bow with which to fire his 120 arrows. Ebeling has inferred that the arrows were not part of the cavalryman’s equipment but intended for the use of an infantry archer—the presumption being that the fief-holder whose service obligation is in question here was actually required to support an archer as well as a cavalryman, even though the fief is called a horse-fief. But the suggestion is not logically watertight—the putative archer would also need a bow and, if that bow can be not mentioned, so presumably can a cavalryman’s bow—and is certainly made no easier by the discovery that the text mentions a quiver as well as the arrows.105 We are, therefore, entitled to conclude that the document from 421 evokes a cavalryman at least moderately armored, equipped to fight with sword, spear or bow. He may represent a different type from the man in the document from 513; we simply cannot tell. As has already been noted in passing, the Guzanu letter and GadalIama contract relate respectively to a chariot- and a horse-estate. Compared with so-called bow-estates, these are not very commonly attested categories. There are just three references to the former from the reign of Darius,106 and fewer than twenty to the latter from the second half of the Achaemenid era, most relating to the affairs of individuals

103 Ebeling, “Rüstung” (n. 100) The determinative KUŠ indicates an item made of leather, so strictly speaking we have a copper-covered leather shield. 104 A variant on the latter reading was to suggest that an iron boss was attached to the shield, so Joannès, Textes économiques (n. 95), 18. But I cannot understand why the boss would be listed separately. 105 Oddly, the description of a Persian soldier’s weaponry in Strabo 15.3.19 mentions quiver but not bow. Perhaps in both cases the “quiver” (pharetra in Strabo) is really a gorytus (combined quiver and bow-case) and the presence of the bow is simply taken for granted. 106 CT 22.74, Dar.9, VS 6.155.

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holding fractions—often rather small ones—of such an estate.107 Turning data about apparently military estates—bow- as well as horse- or chariotestates—into evidence about ‘the army’ is a ticklish business in any case, but, despite the Gadal-Iama text and Liblutu texts discussed above, the disjunction between people linked with horse- or chariot-estates and actual military activity is, on the face of it, quite as great as in other cases,108 and by any reckoning Babylonian documentation pictures soldiers—especially ones that may in some sense be in use by the state, and not merely within a temple domain—as archers or just as “men” (ṣab) very much more often than as cavalry.109 There is some tension between this fact and Herodotus’ picture of Babylon as a place where the satrap privately owns 16,800 horses as well as having polemistērioi hippoi at his disposal (1.192). Can this tension be entirely dissipated by noting that Babylonian cuneiform documentation includes no state archives and is no more than indirectly related to the public or private domain of the country’s Iranian satraps and other elite members? Indirect evidence of this sort in Murašu documents does allow us to glimpse a ḫ aṭru of the horse-feeders, whose name (aspatūa or aspatūtu) is linguistically Iranian,110 and the “equerry’s [rab urātu] estate,” fleshed out by Stolper (1985: 96) as a fortified central facility for war or draft animals with links to the Iranian prince Arbareme (alias Secundianus’ hippeōn arkhōn in Ctesias 688 F15[5]).111 A century or so earlier we encounter in a Sippar temple-document “Šašmas-iddina and the horsemen who came back from Egypt” in 518/7 (CT 57.82)—a unique piece of evidence for the participation of horsemen from Babylonia in a politico-military event (Darius’ visit to Egypt in the fourth year of his 107

That shows that horse-estates were (as units) larger than bow-estates—which is not surprising since in any part of the world horses are expensive in upkeep. 108 The other two chariot-estate texts relate to obligations for non-military labor falling upon the estate-holders. 109 Dar.141 and 234 refer to “men of the herder of horses.” Joannès (www.achemenet .com) sees them as “soldats-palfreniers,” i.e. military grooms, but A. C. V. M. Bongenaar, The Neo-Babylonian Ebabbar Temple of Sippar (Istanbul: 1997), 131, as men who cared for the personal horses of the god; and in any event we are within a temple environment. The Ebabbar temple in Sippar did not lack horsemen; the problem (as ever) is deciding when / if they are used as part of the army of the state. 110 BE 10.80, PBS 2/1 95, 189. The term corresponds to OP *aspasθva, so Tavernier, Iranica (n. 102), 416. As the Iranian term aspastu for lucerne was known in eighthcentury Babylonia, one cannot be sure that the title reflects the Achaemenid presence, but it would perhaps be hypercritical to deny it. Ḫ aṭru titles rarely involve Iranian terms, but one may note ustaribarra [ustabar-officials] and aštebarriānu [spear-bearers]: M. W. Stolper, Entrepreneurs and Empire (Leiden: 1985), 78. 111 Stolper, Entrepreneurs (n. 110), 96.

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reign) that can be conjectured, though with no military detail, from quite independent sources. Perhaps stray data of this sort—rare as they are—do suffice to provide Herodotus with some validation. One can certainly say that the remark in 1.192 about polemistērioi hippoi—only an aside to the primary interest there, viz. the satrap’s ‘private’ wealth in horse-flesh—carries more evidential weight than the absence of Babylonian horsemen in the Army List in VII and that it deserves some explanation. At the same time, it should be clearly understood that the horsemen who went to Egypt in 518/7 were not just sent from Babylonia but actually Babylonian, and that the same applies to any other actual cavalryman we can discern in the cuneiform record.112 What we see here is nothing to do with the model primarily suggested by post-Herodotean Greek sources in which Iranians who settled in other parts of the empire served in person as cavalrymen—and presumably as distinctively Iranian ones. The cuneiform documentation thus has nothing to say on the question of whether a particular character or quality was attached to the Achaemenid military machine by virtue of its Iranian origin and equestrian heritage. The fact that Herodotus speaks of polemistērioi hippoi (and not of hippeis) might in theory mean that he is distinguishing between the origin of the horses contingently bred and maintained in Babylonia and the Iranian identity of their eventual users: but there is nothing in the cuneiform record that positively justifies such a supposition. The Imperial Heartland Coming at last to the heart of the empire, the name of the River Choaspes, which flowed past Susa and was the source of royal drinking water, means “rich in horses,” and DPd describes Persia as a land of good horses and good men, praying that Ahuramazda will protect it from attack, famine and the Lie.113 In his funerary inscription Darius describes himself as a good horseman and as a good archer and lancer, both on foot and horseback (DNb 9). All of this corresponds, of course, to the perception of Greek sources that the middle zone of Persis was rich in pasture for cattle and horses and that Persian education privileged riding 112

And indeed the Babylonian horsemen among the welcoming party when Alexander entered Babylon in 331 (Curt. 5.1.23). 113 R. Schmitt, “Choaspes,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica 5.496, ed. Ehsan Yarshater, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1992). DSp adds chariots to horses and men.

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and shooting,114 to the explicit mention of horses in the Anahita Yasht’s prayer for agricultural prosperity and military empowerment,115 and to the prevalence of ‘horse’ as an element in Persian personal names.116 At the same time symbolic expression of Persian military might elsewhere in the funerary text is not the bow or the horse but the spear (DNa 4). In the Behistun narrative horses and camels are used to ferry Darius’ army across the Tigris,117 and the only horsemen are the ones who accompany fleeing defeated rebel leaders in small numbers (DB §§ 20,32,47). The general reduction of actual military engagements to an undetailed stereotype deprives us of the chance of seeing cavalry in use in battle in a Persian text; and the fact that people flee on horseback establishes nothing about the relative importance of cavalry and

114 Middle zone: Arr. Ind. 40.3 (Nearchus), Strabo 15.3.1 (Eratosthenes): a plateau zone, with rivers and lakes, full of grassy meadows, pasture for animals and horses, arable land for everything except olives, paradeisoi. Curt. 5.4.6 is similar (but does not mention animals), as is Diod. 19.21.2f (which does). Education: Hdt. 1.136; Xen. An. 1.9.5, CEG 2.888, Strabo 15.3.18. 115 Yasht 5.130–131 and W. Malandra, Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion (Minneapolis: 1983), 130, where neighing horses, rattling wheels and snaking whips are aspects of a flourishing estate and the supplicant asks for a two-legged courser “who should be swift when mounted, skilled at turning the chariots forward in battle” and a four-legged one “who will rout both flanks of the (hostile) army which has a broad front, both the left and the right, and the right and the left”. The figuring of military power in terms of horses (but more specifically of chariots) is common in the thoughtworld of the Yashts. What all this signifies for the historian is part of the larger conundrum of the relationship between Zoroastrian tradition and world of the Achaemenids. But signs of Mesopotamian syncretism (specifically with Ishtar) and other strands of evidence about Anahita and her western reception, do bring Yasht 5 closer to that world. But it still may not follow that e.g. the spread of Anahita in western Anatolia is a reflex of military, and specifically equestrian military, settlement, so that a Roman coin type from Hypaepa with Anaitis in a chariot accompanied by winged victory—see L. Robert, “Monnaies grecques de l’époque impériale,” Revue numismatique 1976: 40–41,55—can be spun into distant evidence for the primacy of cavalry or that the find-spot association of ‘Persian riders’ with Astarte plaques gives those riders any additional significance in the present context: P. R. S. Moorey, “Novelty and Tradition in Achaemenid Syria. The Case of the Clay ‘Astarte plaques’,” Iranica Antiqua 32 (2002). 116 Asa- or Aspa- (two versions of the Iranian word for ‘horse’) appear in 58 personal names, making it a more frequent onomastic element than any of the others in the names analysed in Tavernier, Iranica (n. 102), 575–628. Tavernier deals only with Iranica that are directly transmitted or indirectly transmitted via languages other than Greek and Latin. But that is unlikely to affect the headline point. 117 DB 18: “afterwards I embarked (one part of) the army upon rafts of skin, another (part) I made camel-borne, and for another (part) I brought up horses” (Schmitt). Are these cavalry horses temporarily assigned to another use? Or horses already in use as beasts-of-burden? We cannot tell. I hesitate to infer from the different phrasing of what is said about camels and horses that those who crossed the river on horseback were simply the cavalry—i.e. that no one was put on a horse who was not on one anyway.

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infantry in rebel armies. (But the huge numbers of rebel casualties in some battles certainly cannot all—or mostly?—be cavalry.)118 Turning to documentary sources, the treasury archive is entirely innocent of horses, but the fortification archive does contain many horses and horsemen.119 Specifically military resonances are, however, elusive. The horses characteristically appear as recipients of foodrations—rations that plainly do not constitute an entire diet and so admit of little useful further speculation.120 They are normally found in fairly small groups and it would be entirely arbitrary to maintain that in the rare exceptions we are looking at cavalry forces.121 A number of texts qualify the word “horse” in one way of another. Interpretation of almost all of these additional descriptions is at least somewhat contentious, but none is likely to be military.122 There may be one or more than one category of draft-horses,123 and the fact that in the relatively few 118

§§ 18, 19, 25–31, 33, 35, 38, 41–42, 45–47, 50. The figures appear only in the Akkadian and Aramaic versions of the text. Some figures cannot be reliably restored; and there may have been divergences between the versions. Most figures (at least nine) lie between 1000 and 10,000. Four are below that range, while two (or perhaps three) are in excess of 30,000. 119 The horses that Cameron found in PT 6 were an illusion: see R. T. Hallock, “A New Look at the Persepolis Treasury Tablets,” JNES 19 (1960): 97, for a corrected reading of the text. 120 Horse rations also appear in PFAT 024, 047, 050, 058, 081: A. Azzoni, “The Bowman MS and the Aramaic Tablets,” in Les archives des fortifications de Persépolis dans le contexte de l’empire achéménide et ses prédécesseurs, ed. P. Briant and W. Henkelman (Paris: 2008): 259–60. 121 310 (NN 0534), 160 (PF 1833), 150 (Fort.706) are the only three digit figures for groups entirely composed of horses (as opposed to horses and mules). Only seven other texts mentions horse-groups larger than 50—three (1833, Fort.706, NN 534) exceed 100, four (1769, NN 2653, NN 558, NN 2326) are in the 50–99 range. 122 Dasaziyaš: cf. below at n. 144. Duddu and punna are age-categories: W. Hinz and H. Koch, Elamisches Wörterbuch (Berlin: 1987), 379, 240. Kullana (1670, 1765) and kuttukip(1766 only) are “to be fed” and “enclosed” (ibid., 562, 570). Širadakka is “a horse whose canter is beautiful”: W. F. M. Henkelman, The Other Gods Who Are: Studies in Elamite-Iranian Acculturation based on the Persepolis Fortification Texts (Leiden: 2008), 233. Kibatna and W.IN.lg-na gišINmeš (1681–3, 1946:71f) mean “on straw”: Hinz and Koch, Elamisches Wörterbuch (this note), 460; Henkelman, “Consumed” (n. 89): 60. Šašširna (S2–1918) is unexplained. Some horses are “of the king” (1668, 1669, 1765, 1784, NN 0177, NN 0447, NN 0907, NN 1054, NN 1508, NN 1656, NN 2645)— i.e. belong to the specifically royal economy. 123 This is likely for rappana: Hinz and Koch, Elamisches Wörterbuch (n. 122), 1022; Henkelman, Other Gods (n. 122), 463. The same view was taken of ber and bariš by Koch ap. Hinz and Koch, Elamisches Wörterbuch (n. 122), 149, 182. But other ideas occur in Hallock, Fortifi cation Tablets (n. 13), 47 (“mature“), Gabrielli, Le cheval (n. 89), 48 and Henkelman, Other Gods (n. 122) (“extra large”) and Hinz ap. Hinz and Koch, Elamisches Wörterbuch (n. 122) (edel, superfein). That ber is rarely predicated of horses actually on the move is not a problem: cf. below on “road-traveling” horses.

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(about 18) travel texts (category Q) that mention horses the number of animals present is almost always smaller than the number of people traveling certainly leaves open the possibility that the horses are carrying baggage for the humans, especially as such texts often also mention mules.124 Perhaps the most enticing designations are “roadtraveling” (30 documents) and pirradaziš or “express” (eight documents),125 because one view is that both allude to the use of horses in system for the rapid transmission of messages of which Herodotus provided a famous description in Histories 5.50–52.126 I do not think that this can be definitively established, and there is actually no guarantee that both terms have precisely the same reference, but in any event, Baramanuš (attested just once, PF 1673) has been taken to refer to transport-horses: Koch ap. Hinz and Koch, Elamisches Wörterbuch (n. 122), 146. I know of no alternative suggestions. The Mauparra who feeds horses or mules in PF 1665 and NN 1665 may be the one attested as a lin hutira = porter, cf. W. F. M. Henkelman, “Parnaka’s Feast: šip in Parsa and Elam,” in Elam and Persia, ed. J. Alvarez-Mon and M. Garrison (Winona Lake: forthcoming): 62. The horses occasionally acquired by officials in so-called sut transactions are likely to be pack-animals, cf. W. F. M. Henkelman, “Animal Sacrifice and ‘External’ Exchange in the Persepolis Fortification Tablets,” in Approaching the Babylonian Economy, ed. H. D. Baker and M. Jursa (Münster: 2005): 149. The presence of draft-horses contrasts with the view of Gabrielli, Le cheval (n. 89), 1–3 (from Greek sources) that horses were rarely so used. 124 Proportions vary, and in four of 14 relevant documents there are more animals than people. (NN 1803 uniquely has ten of each.) These texts are formally distinct from those (Category S3) in which horses receive rations when on the move and there is no reference to human travelers—only to the individual who gives the rations to the horses. Either the relevant travelers’ rations were recorded separately or what we see here is movement of animals from one place to another in its own right. Occasionally such texts do speak of someone “taking” horses from place to place (1781, Fort.7112, NN 1113, NN 1535, NN 1797); but the phrase also occurs in texts where ration-receiving human travelers are present (1394, NN 0447), so cannot prove the second interpretation. In favor of the first is the possibility that we have the associated human travelers’ ration record in a couple of cases (1548 and 1785; Fort.7112 and NN 0980). The relative rarity of equine travel-rations is doubtless due to the relevant horses having got much of their sustenance from grazing. 125 Road-travel: PF 1650–1655, PF 1942:12,16, PF 1946: 49,51, PF 1947: 79,81,84,86, PF 1948: 44, PFa 31.8, Fort.6780, NN 0534, NN 0548, NN 0558, NN 0599, NN 0672, NN 0753, NN 0816, NN 1057, NN 1787, NN 2007, NN 2076, NN 2329, W-2363, NN 2211, NN 2335, NN 2370, NN 2643, NN 2652. Pirradaziš: PF 1672, PF 1700, PF 2061, PF 2062, PF 2065, NN 0228, NN 0642, NN 1232. 126 The documents do not refer to horses actually on the move, but record regular rations paid over (sometimes long) periods of time: horses are plainly assigned to these categories on a long-term basis. Pirradaziš is also used of persons who receive rations while traveling, generally to or from the king, and are either qualified as pirradaziš (PF 1335, NN 0570, NN 1325, NN 2063, NN 2261, NN 2424, NN 2657, Fort.7107) or said to receive rations in a context that is designated pirradazziš (PF 0300, PF 1285, PF 1315, PF 1319, PF 1320, PF 1321, PF 1329, PF 1334, PF 2052, Fort.3567, NN 0196, NN 1271, NN 1809).

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although rapid transmission of information is potentially of military significance, we are still some way away from the Achaemenid army: for neither Herodotus nor anyone else says that the messengers were by definition soldiers. The only fairly certain horse-riders in the archive are three groups of Hapmatiyans.127 ‘Hapmatiyan’ is presumed to be a geo-ethnic term: it is not, it seems, an Iranian one but no other explanation has yet been forthcoming; and the texts that speak of them do not offer any instant enlightenment about the character or status of the riders involved.128 Otherwise we hear quite frequently of “horsemen” (mudunup),129 and occasionally of individuals with more specific, linguistically Iranian, horse-related titles.130 The only reasonable comprehensive view of these people is that so-called ‘horsemen’ are people who look after horses,131 not people who use them for some particular (e.g. military) purpose, and that the other titles are either simply Iranian alternatives for the generic description,132 or designate individuals who are further

127 PF 1179, Fort.3668, NN 1875. The word for “riders” (telinup) is the one used in the Elamite version of the DB passages mentioned supra p. 129. 128 For a little further conjecture see below. 129 Mudunra, plural mudunup. (Once, in PF 1018, the term is accompanied by the determinative for “leather”.) Over 60 documents use this term, and 41 named individuals can be identified to whom it is applied. Horsemen can be (in the categories common in the archive) “men” or “boys,” and some are šalup (the term Hallock translated as “gentlemen”). There are certainly more individual horsemen in the record than we can identify: some untitled persons who give rations to horses or horsemen are (it happens) known from other documents to be horsemen, and there will be others for whom separate evidence of this sort does not survive. Skudrian horsemen appear in PF 1957 and NN 2184, a unique occurrence among the numerous foreign workers documented in the archive. 130 Aššabattiš = horse master (PF 1978, NN 1352), hamarnabattiš = court riding master (PF 1943, NN 1284, NN 1910), manturabattiš = riding master (PF 1942, 1947), pasanabattiš = chief of good grooms (PF 1942, 1947), ukbašša = groom (NN 1289: only in relation to mules). Eleven named individuals have one or another of these titles; and two others appear both as mudunra and as either hamarnabattiš or manturabattiš. There is also a “horse accountant” in NN 2655 and a “ration-accountant of the horsemen” in NN 1290, L-2431. Two Aramaic texts (PFAT 181, 232) mention a rb swsn/h = “horse master” (i.e. the Aramaic equivalent of aššabattiš). In Azzoni, “Bowman MS” (n. 120) 262, the translation “chief of cavalry” begs the question. 131 And other equids, for mudunup can be associated with mules or donkeys. 132 An aššabattiš is ordered to give rations to (ordinary) horsemen in NN 1352; a mudunra can do that too (NN 1625; and cf. NN 1352), but it is possible that the aššabattiš is hierarchically superior. Masana can be called both hamarnabattiš and mudunra (PF 1943, 1946), Umaya both manturabattiš and mudunra. An ukbašša performs similar roles to a mudunra in NN 1289 and PF 1793. David Lewis has speculated (unpublished) that Swsdt, the rb swsn/h in PFAT 181, 232, might be Šaššadata, a mudunra in Fort.7092, Fort.7112, NN 0980.

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up the hierarchy of horse-carers.133 Some horsemen received more than the basic ration-rate, and there are even a few cases in which groups of them get meat-rations.134 That is very rare for non-elite members in the world of the archive, but one cannot assume that the horsemen in question were regularly paid in this fashion or represent a qualitatively and perhaps professionally distinct category: they may simply be getting a one-off reward for some special service.135 As with the horses we occasionally encounter large groups of horsemen—as many as 472 in PF 1367, though otherwise never in excess of 200.136 But one of the larger groups (135 in PF 1793) is made up of men who are “feeding horses and mules of the king and the princes at Karakušan”—firmly in the horse-carer category. So, once again, it would be entirely arbitrary to think of cavalrymen, even when we find groups of more than a hundred horsemen on the move.137 The two largest groups of horsemen (one traveling, one stationary) receive rations via the same man (Umartamna). In one text he is called “the horseman of Miššakka” and is assigned by the king. In a separate text another individual, Umašba, is called “horseman of Mišaka” and receives grain for royal horses at a place called Irkabbama. I take Miššakka and Mišaka to be the same name,138 though the texts disagree as to whether it is a personal or geographical one, and note the repeated association with the king (i.e. with

133 Annamašša (aššabattiš: PF 1978, NN 2206) is an official involved in suttransactions in NN 0704, NN 2284. Hiumizza (aššabattiš: NN 1352) is an apportioner for animals (seven texts) and letter-writer (1833, 1834)—both markers of status. Umaya (mudunra: 1946; manturabattiš: 1942) is an assigner (NN 2287), another higher rank function. Among people attested only as mudunra, Tiriya (NN 2015) is an assigner in NN 2671, Upriri (PF 0440) appears alongside individuals identifiable as officials elsewhere. See further infra p. 135 for other conjectures that would give ‘horsemen’ special and perhaps higher status functions. PF 1019 offers us (implicitly) the chief (iršara) of a group of horsemen: that would be another potential equivalent of Aramaic rb swsn/h (cf. supra n. 130). 134 PF 1793, NN 0751, NN 1289, NN 1352. 135 Three of the documents are letters, representing special instructions from Parnaka (i.e. the highest authority in the economic system). 136 There are more individuals in large groups of horsemen than in large groups of horses. Can we infer that horse-rearing was very labor-intensive? Three unclassified ration texts relating to Atek in years 22–24 (Fort.5232, R-2055, R-2641) record very large amounts of flour or flour and grain for horsemen and kiti (a word designating large animals and applicable to horses). There must have been numerous men and animals involved. 137 As with the 472 in 1367, 161 in NN 1515 and perhaps the 129 in NN 0980, not explicitly labeled as horsemen but getting rations from someone who is. 138 Tavernier, Iranica (n. 102), 246 notes that that this is linguistically possible (though he takes a different view).

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the specifically royal economy). So, particularly large groups of horsemen may have a distinctively royal overtone: but, to re-iterate, it is not a demonstrably military one. Are there any other grounds for asserting an indirect link between at least some horses or horsemen and the military sphere? As it turns out a number of dead-ends present themselves. (1) Five texts establish the presence of horses with the (mobile) royal court.139 There will certainly have been soldiers in this environment— Heraclides’ famous description of the king’s dinner places has the king’s bodyguards among the beneficiaries of the royal table: 689 F2—so these could have been military horses. But draft-horses are just as likely. (2) In Q-667 some horsemen are gathered to go to Irpak in Elam. Hallock’s standard translation of the verb in question (“mustered”) has military overtones in English usage, but they are not applicable to the Elamite original. (3) In a few texts we encounter the rations of “horsemen and kiti”: use of this non-standard designation for horses here and in a handful of other documents is unexplained but it would be arbitrary to detect a special, let alone a specifically military, category of animals.140 (4) In PF 1599 a horseman travels with hasup (workers) and lipte kutip. Hallock translated the latter phrase as “archers.” That would come close to establishing the presence of a military horseman, but it now seems certain that lipte kutip literally means “garment-carriers” and may metaphorically designate “chamberlains” or the like.141 There is an archer, or strictly a quiver-bearer, in the archive (PF 1560), but there are no horses or horsemen with him. (5) Another approach is to inspect the individual horsemen attested by name to discover whether they are also attested with more specific titles or function-descriptions. But the results of such inspection—which must be read on the understanding that only rarely can a belief that homonymous individuals are actually identical be more than conjectural—are mostly disappointing.

139 PF 0707–0709, NN 0554, NN 0857. On the association of category J texts with the royal food supply see Henkelman, “Consumed” (n. 89). Horses also figure in the related document preserved in Polyaenus 4.3.32. For a possible Bactrian parallel see supra p. 123. 140 Horsemen-and-kiti ration texts: Fort.5232, NN 2055, NN 2641. Kiti also appears in PF 1704, NN 1989 (where it seems to designate an animal) and PF 0291, PF 1344, NN 0254, NN 1907 (where it seems to be a place). 141 W. F. M. Henkelman, “An Elamite Memorial: the šumar of Cambyses and Hystaspes,” Achaemenid History 13 (2003): 117–29.

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(a) There is a certain case of a porter who also feeds royal equids, and possible associations of horsemen with the functions of pirradaziš (express-messenger: see supra n. 126) and caravan-leader—these are rational professional overlaps, but not military ones.142 (b) A matira (Udana) receives rations for a horse in NN 1073 (and a homonym is a small cattle supplier in PF 0066), which makes personal identity possible in cases of homonymy between matiras and horsemen or people receiving rations for horses.143 Matira (= bazikara) is a title associated with tax-collection. A similar association appears in the person of Battišša / Batteša, a horseman giving grain to horses in NN 1503, but linked with dasaziya-horses (tribute-horses) in NN 1656 and himself entitled dasaziya in 1942.144 There is nothing military here. (c) There is no reasonable case for identifying Irdabadduš the groom (ukbašša) with Irdabadduš the da’upattiš, whether that title is rendered ‘police-officer’ (so Hallock), or more probably ‘governor’ (Tavernier).145 The idea of police recurs in the case of Šada, a horseman in 1780, but designated ibbazanu in 1079. Tavernier takes an ibbazanu to be a policeofficer, but the literal meaning (“he who strikes”) hardly requires this: ‘driver’ (Hallock) or Peitschenträger (Hinz & Koch) are feasible alternatives.146 (d) There is an interesting cluster of material around an individual called Bakadada. Three elements come into question: (i) T-351 is a letter from Irtuppiya ordering the provision of rations to two horsemen, Mananda and Bakadada, who it seems are also 142 Mauparra the porter (lin hutira) feeds royal mules in NN 1665 (as well as, by a strange numerical coincidence, being attested as a porter in PF 1665) Umaya: NN 1655 (horseman); PF 1335 (pirradazziš). (He is also a “messenger” (hutlak) in NN 2147.) Turpiš: PF 1765, PF 1946, NN 1625, NN 1823 (horseman); PF 1341, NN 1268 (caravanleader). 143 Umartamna: NN 2183 (matira), PF 1367, PF 1946 (horse-related) Mawukka: PF 1965 (matira), PF 1654, NN 2339 (horse-related); Tetukka: NN 1995, NN 2008 and—if identical with Attukka: Henkelman, “Elamite Memorial” (n. 141): 164—PF 0443, PF 0567 (matira), PF 1639 (horse-related). 144 cf. C. J. Tuplin, “Taxation and Death. Certainties in the Fortification Archive?”, in Les archives des fortifications de Persépolis dans le contexte de l’empire achéménide et ses prédécesseurs, ed. P. Briant and W. Henkelman (Paris: 2008), 331–335 (on matira = bazikara) and 328–29 (on dasaziya). 145 NN 1289 (ukbašša), NN 1285 (da’upattiš). Hallock’s rendering assumed the Iranian original to be *tāyu-pāti (thief-taker). But a link with dahyu is more likely: Tavernier, Iranica (n. 102), 418; Hinz and Koch, Elamisches Wörterbuch (n. 122), 258. Dahyu is the word used of lands / peoples in the lists of imperial subjects in royal inscriptions: but we should not leap to any conclusions about the scale of the dahyu which Irdabadduš controlled. 146 Tavernier, Iranica (n. 102), 432. A Šada also appears in PF 1011 = PFa 29, PF 1044 as maršaparra = quarter-master: Tavernier, Iranica (n. 102), 426.

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described as nakpinip—a term that Hinz & Koch interpret at Feldjäger or Gendarme.147 No linguistic justification is offered for this and I doubt that it can be accorded any independent weight, but what lies behind the interpretation may be the fact that men named Mananda and Bakadada are encountered elsewhere with the designation “lanceman.”148 (ii) In 1017 Bakadada the pamanyukara receives flour for a group of ten horsemen. Hinz & Koch already wondered whether this might be a military title, and Tavernier explicates it as a “military expression, possibly -ya extension of pavant-, ‘protecting’, followed by kara-, ‘maker’.”149 (iii) The three texts mentioned earlier (supra, n.128) that refer to the mysterious Hapmatiyan riders are documents in which flour or wine rations are passed to them by one Bakadada. Each of these elements is individually problematic. To discover military associations for the Hapmatiyan rider texts involves a precarious chain of conjecture.150 Pamanyukara occurs only once, and the assumption that ‘protection’ has a military overtone does not have to be made. The term ‘lanceman,’ which is attested quite frequently, looks more promising, but lancemen are not attested in the performance of duties

147 148 149

Hinz and Koch, Elamisches Wörterbuch (n. 122), 981. Mananda: NN 1747, NN 2493, NN 2522; Bakadada: NN 0885. Tavernier, Iranica (n. 102), 509; Hinz and Koch, Elamisches Wörterbuch (n. 122),

133. 150 One of the riders’ locations (Karakdum) may be identical with Karikda, and Karikda may be a ‘special’ place inasmuch as (a) R-156 shows that it has taššup—a word sometimes held to designate soldiers, though also capable of meaning “officials”: Tuplin, “Taxation and Death” (n. 144): 369–372; (b) a wine provider there (Raddukka: NN 0612) is once called an “investigator” (pirrašakura: Fort.3568) and is also associated (NN 0031, NN 0094) with a location (Ukanduma) that has a baribara and with unnamed locations (PF 1620, Fort.3562) where he supplies wine according to royal orders written by the taššup, here certainly officials. Baribara was translated by Hinz and Koch, Elamisches Wörterbuch (n. 122), as Umwallung, Hochburg, but the interpretation of Tavernier, Iranica (n. 102), 440, “roofed place,” is more neutral. That these data locate Hapmatiyan riders in the military complement of a royal fort is not impossible; but the conjecture is plainly insecure. I would stress that taššup does not have to entail soldiers (indeed may never demonstrably do so: I hope to discuss this elsewhere) and that we are not entitled to turn Karikda’s designation as a village (humanuš: NN 0156, Fort.3668) into evidence of military character just because humanuš in DB (Elamite) 13 is replaced in DB (Old Persian) by didā = fortress: places called humanuš can be Royal Road stopping places or sites at which the nomadic court is fed or adjacent to a palace and paradeisos, and they may doubtless be adjacent to a fort too; but mere use of the term creates no presumptions.

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that are explicitly military (they look more like inspectors than soldiers), and it is at least possible to argue that the term’s primary significance is as a designation of hierarchical status.151 That would mean that any horseman who is also a lanceman is not an ordinary horseman, but it would also mean that, when we encounter such a horseman, we are not as such encountering a member of the Achaemenid cavalry.152 The question is whether the conjunction of these individually problematic elements around the single name of Bakadada is more than accidental and gives them a collective significance, tipping the balance in favor of military explanations. The sad truth is that Bakadada (equivalent to Greek Megadates) is probably too commonplace a name for this argument to carry much force—and that the argument is specious anyway: proof that the same Bakadada is involved would still not guarantee that he is the officer in charge of a group of cavalrymen. We may feel that, in the Iran of ca. 500 bce, a senior figure carrying out inspections on horseback and in the company of other men on horseback is unlikely to have been unarmed. But it is not simply playing with words to say that, even on the most optimistic prosopographic assumptions, the Bakadada texts are not evidence in favor of such a feeling and do not constitute part of a dossier about the Achaemenid army.153 Equine husbandry was doubtless thriving in the territory covered by the fortification archive, though not perhaps equally in all that territory’s sub-regions. (Rather few documents place horses in the region of Persepolis itself or the lands to the west or south-east thereof; instead 151 I hope to discuss this elsewhere. For the designation lanceman (in its various Elamite forms) see W. F. M. Henkelman, “Exit der Posaunenbläser. On lance-guards and lance-bearers in the Persepolis Fortification archive,” ARTA 2002.007. 152 There are three or four other cases of homonymy between lancemen and horsemen or people giving rations to horses. Turpiš: NN 1189 (lanceman), 1765, 1946, NN 1625, NN 1823 (horse-related). Tiriya: NN 2195 (lanceman), 2061, Fort.7110, NN 2015, NN 2671 (horse-related). Ubaruda: NN 1647 (lanceman), NN 2328 (horse-related). Zamuš (lanceman in PF 1247) would be another case if the name is associated with zbwš in PFAT 024, 047, 050. But such cases add nothing to what is or is not proved by Bakadada and Mananda, since the issue is the significance of “lanceman.” (Two of them have rather common names, making a supposition of personal identity hazardous in the first place.) 153 It is salutary to note that, before it was clear that lipte kutip are not archers (see supra p. 134), the single text mentioning them would have been a star attraction in this dossier: for the man giving them and some hasup their rations is a horseman called Bakadada. One may add that lipte kutip (in their correct guise) and hasup may be something other than run-of-the-mill workers, so even here Bakadada has slightly special associations, cf. Henkelman Other Gods (n. 122): 340, 414.

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they are most commonly found in the Kamfiruz and Fahliyan regions or in an area to the north of the Royal Road. This is in striking contrast to the distribution of human settlement.)154 There seems to be no institutional distinction between the rearing of horses and that of other animals: certainly horses and other equids are found at “stockyards” (nutannuš), like other animals.155 I have already noted that the archive may contain evidence for horses as a taxation category; that too would not, in principle, distinguish horses from other animals. There is also a case to be made for horses entering the Persepolis economy from the autonomous pastoralists of the Zagros. Henkelman has conjectured that such a source is reflected in a small number of documents about the acquisition-by-exchange of stocks of sheep and, since Greek historical sources record Alexander’s extraction of horses, packanimals and sheep from the Uxians of the Zagros (a group with which the Achaemenid kings had had a long-standing arrangement of their own), it is surely possible that, as a matter of fact, some of the horses encountered in the archive were of similar origin.156 Once again equids and non-equids are not in fundamentally different categories. I do not wish unduly to play down the impact in the archive of horses as distinct from other small and large cattle, but there is also nothing that establishes their overwhelming importance; and if, when we read of horsetribute in Greek sources dealing with geographical contexts other than the Zagros,157 we are perhaps apt to assume that it represents an equine 154 Of 55 named places that are either explicitly the location of horses (38) or places where accounts are drawn up which refer to horses (17), 44 are certainly or arguably in Kamfiruz, Fahliyan or to the north of the royal road. A further 14 places may be linked with horses via documents which name no location but are sealed with a seal for which we can derive a geographical association from other parts of the archive: of these only one is in the Persepolis region. See Henkelman, Other Gods (n. 122), 497, for the differential population density of the Persepolis, Kamfiruz and Fahliyan regions. 155 This is attested both explicitly (horses: NN 571; asses: NN 2262, NN 2287, NN 2671; camels: NN 2670, NN 2676) and via references to horses being “maintained” (halsaka) (about 40 documents) or “in pasture” (seven documents), terminology also proper to sheep or cattle: Henkelman, “Animal Sacrifice” (n. 123). It is true that, whereas account-documents about asses (ANŠE) are entirely in line with those relating to sheep and goats as evidence of a share-breeding system—cf. Henkelman, “Animal Sacrifice” (n. 123): 157—the surviving portions of the one such document explicitly about horses (NN 0571: ANŠE KUR.RA) lack the characteristic references to animals being assigned to a herdsman (and also to their being slaughtered). 156 Henkelman, “Animal Sacrifice” (n. 123); Arr. 3.17. Arrian pictured Alexander’s animals as tribute (phoros), but that may not be the appropriate term in the Achaemenid situation, so I hesitate to link the archive’s taxation-horses directly with the Zagros. 157 Aspendos: Arr. 1.26.3. Cilicia: Hdt. 3.90. Issus derived its name from Luwian asu(wa) = horse. Datames, having left Ace by ship, reaches Cataonia with horses (Nep.

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resource for military purposes,158 it is an assumption that we cannot legitimately seek to validate by citing the fortification archive. That the horses of Persis are the potential raw-material of warfare is something that could have been said before a single tablet came out of the ground, and the recovery and reading of nearly five thousand of them has not really made it any more true. The blunt and not, of course, very recondite truth is that it is not the archive’s function to deal with the army or illuminate the Achaemenid military environment. The difficulty of discovering cavalry matches the difficulty of discovering soldiers of any sort, as I hope to demonstrate elsewhere. There must, of course, have been military units in Fars and Khuzestan, and their personnel and animals must have consumed the sort of commodities that are dealt with in the fortification archive. But any directly pertinent records were evidently dealt with by a different arm of the bureaucracy—or, at the very least, stored centrally in a different office. It would be good to be able to make a rational choice between those options—it makes a difference to our sense of the degree of separation between civilian and military—but we are unlikely ever to be able to do so. In any case, the fact remains that the historian of Achaemenid cavalry warfare is as ill-served by texts from the imperial heartland as by those from the rest of the non-Greek-speaking parts of the empire. In this as in other respects our situation would be parlous indeed, were it not for the narrative of Achaemenid imperial history compiled by a series of Greek historians and available to us either in their own words or in the summaries, excerpts and allusions of their later readers. I turn now to some of this material. Greek and Latin Texts Texts Outside Straight Military Narrative I start not with military narrative as such, but with some Greek perceptions of the role of horses and horsemen in the Persian environment as

Dat. 4); I assume he collected them in Cilicia. Cappadocia: Strabo 11.13.8 (1500, 2000 mules, 50,000 sheep). Armenia: Xen. An. 4.5.24, 34, Strabo 11.14.9. 158 It may seem near explicit in Herodotus on Cilicia (given a parallel reference to money for a cavalry-garrison). But levying of white horses might reflect a different agenda. They have special associations elsewhere (Chariot of Zeus: Hdt. 7.40, Xen. Cyr.8.3.11, Curt. 3.3.11. Sacred: Hdt. 1.189. Sacrifice: Hdt. 7.113), and 360 would do

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seen in a number of texts that are not simply telling the story of military encounters: (1) Xenophon adduces Persian practice in two contexts in his equestrian treatises (Eq. 6.12, 8.6). One is the habit, shared with Odrysians, of downhill racing—something that does not or need not damage a horse’s health and is a fortiori proof that riding down hills in an ordinary fashion will not be harmful. The other is mounting a horse with someone else’s help, as distinct from the springing mount (anapēdan), done either hanging onto the mane or using a spear as a sort of vaulting pole (cf. Eq. 7.1f). These citations certainly presume that no one could reasonably regard Persians (or Thracians) as a poor model for equestrian behaviour. But the situation is not entirely straightforward. The ‘Persian mount’ is suited to those who are unwell or not in the first flush of youth (Hipparchicus 1.17): Greeks surely had ways of dealing with such circumstances, ones that would naturally include procedures identical or similar to Persian ones. So why does Xenophon adduce the Persian model? Were all Persians helped to their horses irrespective of age? If so, given Xenophon’s insistence that an ability to mount at the spring from both sides is a key military skill, this is not actually a sign of excellence. Perhaps, then, citation of the Persian model is somewhat double-edged. It is curious that when Xenophon comes to recommendations about armor and weaponry (Eq. 12) he does not take the opportunity to note they include—though also go beyond—Persian practice,159 including Persian practice explicitly described as superior in Hellenica.160

nicely for a daily sacrifice to the Sun—cf. M. Boyce, History of Zoroastrianism II (Leiden: 1982), 110—though sun-related horses are not necessarily white (see infra n. 172). That Mardonius—a vice-regal figure, who used the king’s tent—rode a white horse at Plataea does not make such animals normal military kit. (Aesch. Pers. 318 imagined Persian cavalry on black horses, for what it is worth.) For horse-levies with religious purpose cf. Strabo 11.14.9 (Armenia sent 20,000 Nisaean horses for sacrifice at the Mithrakana). 159 For example, the hand- and foot-guards and the protective woven ephippion are not plainly attested in a Persian context—N. V. Sekunda, Persian Army (n. 43), 27 detects a kheir on certain Tarkumuwa coins, but the case is arguable—while the neck-guard does not sound like the one seen on Persian cavalry and infantry. 160 Aelian (16.25) reports that Persians trained horses to tolerate the noise of battle. Equine response to noise is barely touched in Xenophon, and certainly not with crossreference to Persians. The Macedonians beat their shields at Gaugamela to frighten chariot-horses (Diod. 17.58.3). In Polyaenus (7.8.1) the Persians are frightened by Croesus’ Lydians clattering spears against shields, while their horses are discomfited by the gleam of weapons.

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Persian equine husbandry turns up in one of Xenophon’s nonequestrian treatises. In Oeconomicus (12.20), Ischomachus underlines the need for a master to supervise his slaves properly by citing the observation of a barbarian that what fattens a horse most quickly is “the master’s eye.” The barbarian is surely Persian, though a similar point is also attributed to a Libyan in Pseudo-Aristotle.161 The story does say something about the association of Persians and horses. But it surfaces in Oeconomicus when the discussion is already of masters and slaves and in Pseudo-Aristotle as an illustration of the Persian method of household management (one also practised by the Sicilian tyrant Dionysius); in both cases the Persian story has a contextual suitability that is not simply to do with perceived equine professionalism. Once again, then, one may feel that the allusion to Persia happens not because Persians are the acknowledged masters of horsemanship but because they combine an undoubted equine connection with other not entirely desirable social and political characteristics. (2) Greeks knew that there was a special breed of horse in the Persian domain, the Nisaean, so-called from the region of Media with which it was particularly associated.162 What is not clear is that they thought this of any significance in military terms. Masistius rode a Nisaean at Plataea (Hdt. 9.20), but it is not suggested that this was any less exceptional than the fact that Mardonius rode a white one during the same campaign. It is certainly the only occasion on which a Nisaean is explicitly mentioned in a military context, and it is tempting to find it significant that Herodotus fails to say that the whole cavalry unit that caused the Greeks such trouble was mounted on these special animals, though one must also acknowledge that, since they were not operating against other cavalry, the point might not have seemed so important. The previous year Xerxes had been delighted to prove that his horses were faster than those of the Thessalians (Hdt. 7.196), but we are not told that even these were Nisaean, although if they were in some sense Xerxes’ personal horses, it is quite possible. Xenophon took there to be a characteristic ‘Persian horse’: we can infer that from his judgement that 161 He is answering the question of a king, and his Persian identity is explicit in [Arist.] Oec. 1345a2. 162 Hdt. 3.106, 7.40, 9.20; Arr. 7.13.1; Diod. 17.110.6; Arist. Hist. an. 632a30; Strabo 11.13.7, 14.9; Arr. 156 F178; Dio Chrys.3.130, 36.41; Himer. 12.36; Luc. Hist. 39; Charit. 6.4.2; Iamblich. fr.1.20; Heliod. 9.19.1; Philostr. V A 1.31, 2.12; Max. Tyr. 33.4a.5 etc. A full list can be compiled from TLG (bearing in mind that the term was written both Nisaios and Nêsaios).

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tribute-horses encountered in western Armenia were smaller, though thumoeidesteroi (An. 4.5.36), but we cannot tell whether the ‘Persian’ type was specifically Nisaean. The only comment he ever makes about Persian cavalry having an advantage over their opponents depends on a difference of weaponry, not animals (Hell. 3.4.14).163 The various ways in which other authors mark distinctions of quality within the cavalry complement of Persian forces could all refer to equipment and training.164 Meanwhile the normal associations of Nisaeans in Greek literature are with luxury and privilege: they are the possession of kings, often expensively caparisoned, and beneficiaries of royal favor or the object of sacrifice to the gods,165 not the state-of-the-art tool of groups of hundreds or thousands of fighting men.166 Herodotus pictures the Nisaean as a large breed—larger even than Indian horses, the one species in which India did not produce the largest specimens as would befit a wondrous land on the margins of the world.167 Insofar as we can trace the Nisaean in visual evidence, it is easier to be sure of its distinctive head-profile than any unusually large dimensions.168 There are seal-images in which a contrast seems intended between ‘Persian’ and ‘Scythian’ mounts, but on the Apadana, for example, where only some of the horses brought by subject peoples appear Nisaean, the size-differentia is not very conspicuous. In any case,

163 Ironically the effect was reversed at Granicus (Arr. 1.15.5) where the Macedonians’ cornel xusta out-perform the Persians’ palta. Again nothing is said about the horses. 164 apolelegmenē (Hdt. 7.41), epilektoi (Polyaen. 7.14.2), delecti equites (Curt. 3.9.4), aristoi / kratiston (Diod. 17.59.5, 60.5, Arr. 1.15.2, 3.15.1), dress or accoutrement (Polyaen. 7.28.2; Diod. 14.22.6), sungeneis cavalry (Diod.17.20.2, 59.2), basilike ilē (Plut. Vit. Alex. 23). 165 Sacrifice: Strabo 11.14.9, Philostr. V A 1.31. 166 The statement of Aristoph. Gramm. 2.593 that Nisaeans were brave in war is a unique addition to the normal repertoire of comment in grammarians and lexica. The “Nisaean cavalry” of Polyb. 30.25.6 are a contentious entity, and unparalleled, even in Hellenistic times. Since they appear in Antiochus IV’s Daphne extravaganza, they are unreliable evidence about real warfare. The same author’s statement that all of Asia gets horses from Media (5.44.7, cf. 10.27) is more significant, though it does not specify Nisaean horses in particular. 167 It is a slight puzzle that the Indians with their large horses (3.106) are riding kelētes in the army list (7.86). Description of the Nisaean as large recurs in many postHerodotean references. 168 The characteristic head-profile of the king’s horse on the Apadana (presumed to be Nisaean) is displayed with one degree of clarity or another by a large number of horses in various media (one can easily assemble over 40 examples). This is surely intentional, as there are also many horses (in a similar range of media) that do not display the characteristic. On pictorial evidence at Persepolis for various breeds, cf. K. Afshar and J. Lerner, “The Horses of the Ancient Persian Empire at Persepolis,” Antiquity 53

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we do well to infer from the run of the iconographic material— Persepolitan and otherwise—and the general lack of attention to the matter in the written evidence that the Achaemenid military establishment did not achieve (and probably had no thought of achieving) uniformity of breed amongst its cavalry-units, and that its opponents did not consider breed of horse to have given it any systematic advantage in this aspect of war. (3) A number of oracles or omens in Herodotus associate Persians and horses. The Salamis oracle (7.141) pictures the Persian army as consisting of horse and infantry, which is not particularly telling, even if the horses are mentioned first.169 More interesting is the omen preceding the defeat of Croesus (1.78) in which horses eat a profusion of snakes at Sardis. But it is the alien quality of the horse that is the point, not its use as a military instrument. Snakes are children of the earth and hence indigenous, whereas the horse is a hostile intruder (polemion kai epēluda). Since the accompanying military narrative figures the Lydians as superior in cavalry, we cannot reasonably take the omen as intended to underline or play upon a metonymous relation between Persians and horses. Three generations later, a horse gave birth to a hare as Xerxes set out to march through Europe (7.57), and this signified that Xerxes would advance full of pride and self-confidence and return running for his life. There is perhaps a better chance that this omen was chosen because a horse could fittingly stand for Persia in a military context. The most celebrated item in the Herodotean dossier is Darius’ selection as king by means of a piece of manipulated sunrise hippomancy—a story so well established in Greek consciousness that even Ctesias, normally eager for non-Herodotean versions of the Achaemenid past, incorporated it in his Persika (688 F13[17]).170 The story plainly reflects a thought world in which the horse is a special image or locus of power,

(1979); A. S. Shahbazi, “Asb (horse),” in Encyclopaedia Iranica, ed. Ehsan Yarshater, 2.724–730 (London: 1987); Gabrielli, Le cheval (n.n. 89), 5–34. 169 cf. 8.100, where Mardonius says after Salamis that the invasion’s outcome depends on men and horses, not planks of wood. In Diodorus (11.6.1) Xerxes asks Demaratus if Greeks can flee more swiftly than his horses can run—a conceit absent in Herodotus’ version of conversations between the two. In a different prophetic text, Isaiah 41.2, the Persian army is figured in terms of bow and sword. 170 He devises an equine omen of his own earlier in the work when Oebares (homonym of the groom in Herodotus) is carrying horse-dung when he first meets Cyrus, and a priest sees this as an omen of wealth and power (688 F8d[13]).

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but need it have much to do with the perceptions of Greeks or any one else about the role of the horseman in Persian war-making? If the story is of genuinely Persian origin, we should probably put it in the context of other evidence about sacred horses and their association with the sun—a religious, not a military, background, with the horse as symbol of divine force, not weapon of war.171 If the story is a Greek artefact, it may still be partly prompted by that religious background, but the claim that Darius marked his accession by having an equestrian monument carved in stone suggests that iconography has played a role too. Precisely what the iconographic prompt was, however, and how much of a military character it had we cannot tell. In the end, the tale entails little more than that elite Persians rode horses. (4) By the time we reach the world of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia that proposition—that elite Persians are found on horseback—has become structural in a way that it is not in Herodotus, or at least that Herodotus finds no occasion to say that it was. The entimoi must come to court with horse and spear (8.1.6, 8), Persian kaloi kagathoi try never to be seen going anywhere on foot (4.3.23; cf. 8.8.19),172 the royal household includes epimelētai responsible for horses and dogs,173 the king’s grand procession is an overwhelmingly equestrian event,174 and Persians sent to the provinces are organised into cavalry and chariot forces by their satraps (8.6.10). (This last point finds its reflection in more straightforwardly historical sources—which confirm the impression that the raw numbers of people involved under this head are not very large.) The really striking thing about cavalry in the Cyropaedia is that it is not native to the Persian way of making war.175 A major strand in the narrative of Cyrus’ rise to power is the creation of a new-style army in which non-elite Persians (dēmotai) are turned into properly armed infantry, 171 cf. supra, nn. 157, 158. Sun and horses: Xen. Cyr. 8.3.12, 24, An. 4.5.35; Curt. 3.3.11. Horses sacrificed to sun: Xen. An. l.c., Cyr. 8.3.12; Paus. 3.20.4; Ov. Fast. 1.385; Philostr. VA 1.31. Horse sacrifice (other than to sun): Hdt. 7.113 (river); Arr.6.29; Tac. Ann. 6.37; Yašt 5.21. 172 The importance of equestrian issues in the denunciation of contemporary Persia in 8.8.19–22 is notable. 173 This recalls the satrapal household of Herodotean Babylonia, also replete with horses and dogs (1.192). We are, of course, in the world of the hunt here, not that of warfare. 174 Heraclid. 689 F1 reported that the king was always on horse or chariot outside his palace. 175 Ael. 11.13.9 on the Median origin of Persian phenomena includes archery and horsemanship along with dress, royal magnificence, and quasi-divine treatment of kings.

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elite Persians acquire horses and the skills to use them, and the range of people recruited as cavalry then seems to expand even further.176 Xenophon’s vision of the importance of cavalry as an element of the Achaemenid military environment in the fourth century must be taken seriously: he was, after all, a well-qualified observer. His sense that horsemanship belonged most properly to other Iranians than the Persians themselves can at least be compared with the fact that in the iconography of the imperial heartland it is non-Persian Iranians who wear riding costume. One may also recall that the premier breed of horses in the Persian domain came from Media.177 But his belief that a military transformation in favor of cavalry was already accomplished in the time of Cyrus—a belief reflected in the role played by cavalry in the battle at Thymbrara and a version of the occupation of Babylon that involves cavalry as well as infantry—remains to be assessed or nuanced. (5) For another fourth-century perception of cavalry as the dominant form of Persian fighting one may recall Demosthenes’ assertion in 333 (reported in Aeschines 3.164) that Alexander, trapped in Cilicia by the arrival of Darius’ army, was about to be trampled by the Persikē hippos. (Exactly the same idea occurs in Arrian 2.6.5, where Darius is urged to exploit Alexander’s delay in Cilicia and move to Issus where, his advisers say, he will trample the Macedonians with his cavalry.)178 Similar phrasing is already found in Xenophon (Hell. 3.4.12), describing Tissaphernes’ expectations of success on suitable ground against a Spartan army under Agesilaus that lacked cavalry. That parallel makes one wonder whether, in phrasing things as he did, Demosthenes was deliberately suggesting that Alexander to all intents and purposes was 176 The growth of the cavalry force emerges in 5.2.1 (2000), 6.1.26, 2.7 (10,000), 8.3.16–17 (40,000). Even the first figure seems in excess of the number of homotimoi actually available to Cyrus at the relevant time. Subsequent growth is represented as reflecting acquisition of more horses and / or more territory, but the acquisition of more people is not explained. Median, Armenians Hyrcanian, Cadusian and Sacian cavalry remains separate. 177 That two of Xerxes’ hipparchs were sons of Datis (Hdt. 7.87) and therefore Medes is poetic. 178 Moreover Arrian has Memnon suggest that cavalry should trample (katapatein) fodder to impede the Macedonians (1.12.9); and in the retreat from Issus (2.11.3) the Persian cavalry trample on each other. Comparable rhetoric recurs in Curtius’ version of Darius’ exhortation before Gaugamela (4.14.4). Herodotus made Alexander of Macedon warn the Greeks in 480 that Xerxes’ army would trample them (katapatein again), though without reference to cavalry (7.173). The image occurs in purely infantry (and non-Persian) contexts in Xen. Hell. 4.4.11, Oec.8.5.

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without cavalry. If so, then in view of the fact that cavalry was actually an important part of the Macedonian war machine, he was expressing a striking degree of disdain for Alexander—which is not, of course, improbable. In our present context the interesting question is to what extent his attitude is based on positive valuation of Persian cavalry or negative valuation of Macedonian and how much his certainty of the outcome, and the implied contrast with Granicus and everything that had happened since then, was based on the fact that the king was now in the field pasēi dunamei. One could, for example, maintain that Demosthenes crafted this particular sound-bite precisely because the Macedonians prided themselves on their cavalry and that he was effectively saying that, with a full Achaemenid royal army in play, the pitifully small Macedonian force, even with its much vaunted horsemen, would be swept away by the Persians’ cavalry alone, without the rest of Darius’ troops even needing to be involved. Read thus, the passage’s apparent identification of Persians and cavalry is not quite as straightforward as may appear at first sight. (6) The general picture of Persia and things Persian presumed in nonhistoriographical Athenian literature is not replete with equestrian elements.179 A passage in Aristophanes’ Knights (606) shows that lucerne was already known as ‘Median grass’ in Greece by 424 bce. But the ancient assumption was that this was because the plant reached Greece, perhaps by accidental seeding from stored fodder during the Persian invasions of Greece in the early fifth century,180 so the name is a continuing tribute to an historical event rather than proof that Persians were seen as specially connected with horses. Decoding the significance of the facts that (a) hippalektruones (cock-horses) occur quite often in Greek and especially Attic art between the mid-sixth century and ca. 480 bce, (b) Aristophanes, through the character of Euripides in Frogs, once associates them (and tragelaphoi: goat-stags) with Median tapestries and (c) the cock (alektruōn) was called the “Persian bird” is quite tricky. But if, as Williams is tempted to believe, the popularity of the cock-horse 179 C. J. Tuplin, Achaemenid Studies (Stuttgart: 1996), 132–77. The investigation of fifth-century Greek poetic reception of Persia in B. Hutzfeld, Das Bild der Perser in der griechischen Dichtung des 5. vorchristlichen Jahrhunderts (Wiesbaden: 1999) also throws up little. 180 Plin. HN 18.144; J. A. S. Evans, “Cavalry about the Time of the Persian Wars: a Speculative Essay,” CJ 82 (1986/7): 103.

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from the mid-sixth century onwards reflects the influence of Iranian textile design, then Aristophanes is simply a later witness to the reception of such textiles, and the data belong with such direct evidence as we have of the use of equine imagery in decorative arts (supra, nn. 6, 7): that is, they say something about the role of horses in Iranian minds, but very little specifically about warfare or about Greek perceptions of Persians at war.181 And even if the hippalektruōn, which was not unknown in Greece before ca. 550, became a naturalized Greek image in the last three generations of the Archaic era for reasons that had little to do with the existence of a Persian empire,182 Aristophanes’ belated connection of the two will still primarily be a comment on Iranian textiles—an association of Aeschylus, whose xouthoi hippalektruones Euripides is making fun of, with the barbarian enemy that adds a wicked twist to his mockery. Otherwise Attic comedy has nothing certain to offer. That the dancing horsemen of Metagenes Thouriopersai fr.7 KA were a chorus of Persian cavalrymen is a rather brave conjecture. The Persian overtones in various parts of Aristophanes’ Knights do not include anything horserelated.183 The remark in Plato’s Laches (191C) about Spartans fighting Persian infantry at Plataea “like hippeis” may be a paradoxical joke based on the natural expectation that Persians, not Spartans, fight on horseback—though since, among Greeks, the Spartans were preternaturally slow in taking to cavalry warfare on their own account, the contrast does not establish much about the horsiness of Persians.184 (7) A final text worth consideration is Aeschylus’ Persians—the earliest surviving Greek literary engagement with the Persian war-machine.185 The description of the heartland contingent in the opening ‘army list’ (16–32) mentions horses twice generically (18, 26) and twice in reference to specific commanders (29, 32), though both of the latter

181 D. Williams, “Hippalektryon” Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae 5 (1990). 182 The thing may actually have an eastern and even ultimately Iranian origin in any case, cf. J. Doerig, “Xouthos hippalektruōn. La monture fabuleuse d’Okéanos,” Mus. Helv. 40 (1983): 147 and plate I (a Luristan item). But that is a different matter. 183 Tuplin, Achaemenid Studies (n. 179), 144–45. 184 The ostensible point of the comparison turns on the association between cavalry and the tactic of retreating and then wheeling back (anastrophē) to attack. 185 The remnants of another poetic evocation of 480, Timotheus’ Persae, touch the equestrian world only when Xerxes prepares to flee on a chariot (189–92).

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passages may be about chariots.186 Later references to the army note that it consists of cavalry and infantry (hippēlatas kai pedostibēs leōs: 126), mention the king’s “Syrian” chariot (84), and picture hippiokharmas klonous (105) as a characteristic of Persian warfare, alongside reiterated reference to conquest of walls or cities. Elite losses include Diaixis and Arsaces hippianaktēs (996) and Artabes the Bactrian, “leader of 30,000 dark horse” (318).187 In a play dominated by a sea-battle, this may seem quite a heavy equestrian presence. At the same time, the stereotypical military contrast between Persians and Greeks is in terms of bow and spear, or bow and ship’s ram; and since line 279 says that bows and arrows were actually not much use at Salamis (cf. 269), the preponderance of references to archery in the play is not simply due to their being stressed in the Salamis narrative.188 What we see here is no more than that the bow was a greater element of qualitative distinction between Greek and Persian military mores than the horse. Both societies had men who fought on horses, and in Greek society such men were necessarily high status because the horse was an expensive piece of military kit. But standard Greek infantry did not carry bowsand-arrows, whereas many of their Persian counterparts did. No one could claim that mainland Greek successes against Persia were especially due to Greek cavalry—indeed the most notable Greek cavalry in 480 had been on the wrong side—so the spear versus bow stereotype was naturally dominant. Such impact as horses do have on the text of Persians is an acknowledgement that cavalry was quantitatively more prominent in a Persian than a Greek army.189 But there is nothing here to prove anything about the relative importance of cavalry and infantry within a Persian army in Aeschylus’ perception of the real world. And, even if there were, the likely reliability of Aeschylus’ perception is only too clear from the contrast between the Greek stress on archery and the

186

Sosthanes the hippōn elatēr (32) is a chariot-driver; Artembares hippiokharmēs (29) may be too, given the Homeric chariot associations of the word, so E. Hall, Aeschylus: Persians (Warminster: 1996), 110; but contrast H. Broadhead, The Persae of Aeschylus (Cambridge: 1960), 42 and A.F. Garvie, Aeschylus Persae (Oxford: 2009), 59. The Lydians are ascribed chariots too (41f). 187 It is curious that Curtius (7.4.30) postulates a total Bactrian cavalry potential of precisely 30,000. 188 I am not sure it signifies much either that the chorus says that no messenger has come either on foot or horseback (14). 189 So, too, with texts such as “Simonides” VII, XVI, XIX. It did not harm fifth-century association of Trojans-Phrygians with the Persian enemy that they could be linked with bows and horses (e.g. Soph. fr.859, E. Tr. 1209–13).

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Persian king’s encapsulation of his own military power in the shape of “the spear of a Persian man.” The General Incidence of Cavalry Episodes In the course of work on the Achaemenid military environment I have assembled a catalogue of military episodes, which in its current form runs to 445 entries.190 One must say straightaway that the definition of episodes and entries is not an easy matter. The reported mobilization of a large army involving infantry and cavalry for a campaign that generates no narrative in which that cavalry is visibly used (e.g. Diodorus on campaigns in Egypt in the 450s: 11.74–75) is an item as much as a single military encounter such as the Battle of Malene (in which cavalry participate: Hdt. 6.29) or the Battle of Pterie (in which, though present, they apparently do not: 1.76). There can also be questions about what constitutes ‘Persian cavalry.’ Might it be the case, for example, that too many of the horsemen with Spitamenes in Sogdiana in 328 were Scythian or Massagetan for the episodes he was involved in to count—quite apart from the possible objection that we are already beyond the Achaemenid era by then anyway.191 Should we include the thousand horsemen of the Paphlagonian King Otys mentioned in Hellenica (4.1.3), on the ground that Paphlagonians were supposed to supply cavalry-troops to the Persians, when on this occasion he is co-operating with the Persians’ opponents—and no military action actually occurred?192 So one should not be too obsessive about the precise figures. All the same the fact that of the 445 entries only 76 explicitly involve cavalry is quite striking, and at the very least issues the important warning that narrative data for Achaemenid cavalry are rather limited—especially since many of the episodes generate little or no narrative detail.

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Almost all from Greek or Latin texts. Exceptions are the battles of the Behistun narrative (17 items) and five damaged and enigmatic entries in Babylonian astronomical diaries. 191 The narratives involved are mostly too unspecific for this to matter much for analysis of Achaemenid military practice. But can we rely on accounts of the Polytimetus massacre (Arr. 4.5.4–6.2; Curt. 7.7.30–39) as evidence that Bactrian and Sogdian cavalry as well as Scythian were accomplished at shooting arrows while wheeling around an enemy? On the other hand, Persian armies made use of Scythian or Sacan cavalry, so such tactics may have their place in the Achaemenid record. 192 Some evidence is from occasions when they refused (Xen. An. 5.6.8) or were fighting—again with 1000 horsemen—alongside a rebel (1.8.5). Six decades later Paphlagonian cavalry fought for the Persians at Granicus.

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It is, of course, certain that the data-set understates the incidence of cavalry use. If one compares the cavalry-free versions of the last phase of Plataea in Diodorus or Plutarch with what appears in Herodotus one sees what trouble we are likely to be in when authors such as Diodorus and Plutarch are our only sources. There can also be some strange silence—even amidst a general excess of silence. In Herodotus’ account of Cyrus’ fight with the Massagetae (1.214) neither side is credited with cavalry, despite what the historian then shows that he knows about the Massagetae as horsemen and despite his affecting to know enough about the battle to assert that it was the hardest (iskhurōtatē) ever fought between barbarians. Tissaphernes uses cavalrymen to summon troops to Ephesus in 408 (Xen. Hell. 1.2.6),193 but they do not figure in Xenophon’s narrative of the subsequent fighting or in Hellenica Oxyrhyncia, despite the fact that there were cavalry in Thrasyllus’ army. Artaxerxes III reportedly had 30,000 cavalry when he attacked Egypt in 343 (Diodorus 16.40.6), but the only appearance of any of them in the Diodoran description of the invasion is an allusion to Rhosaces’ pollē men hippos, ouk oligē de pezikē stratia in 16.46.2, and neither Rhosaces nor his troops figure at all in the ensuing narrative.194 At the Battle of Cypriot Salamis we hear about a Persian commander on horseback and the measures taken to neutralize the danger he presented (Hdt. 5.111– 12), but we are left to wonder whether he was part of a cavalry unit at all—and may well guess that he was not.195 And then there is the most famous silence of them all, the cavalry-force carried to mainland Greece in 490 that is then wholly unremarked in Herodotus’ account of the fighting at Marathon. In the last case, at least, the best explanation is the simplest one, viz. that the number of cavalry present (they had all had to be brought by ship) was insufficient to have any decisive impact upon the battle; and the fact that the Persians mounted the campaign even on that basis is an indication that they did not see themselves as dependent upon cavalry to achieve their military goals. (It was a miscalculation, but that does not alter the point—indeed, it rather underlines it.)196 We certainly 193

Other horsemen-messengers: Hdt. 5.14, 8.54, 98. Earlier (Diod. 16.41) we hear of the accumulation of fodder at Sidon in preparation for the Egyptian war—though only because Sidonian rebels destroyed it. 195 The same may be true of Megabyzus in Ctesias 688 F14(40). 196 I shall say a little more about Marathon in C. J. Tuplin, “Marathon: in Search of a Persian Perspective,” in Marathon: the Battle and the Deme, ed. K. Buraselis and K. Meidani (Athens: forthcoming). 194

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cannot assume that all silences are a reflex of relative tactical insignificance; but I do not believe that the fact that fewer than twenty percent of our pieces of evidence about Persian military operations speak of cavalry is entirely insignificant. The data collected by Greek historians did not lead them to assign Persian warfare such a strongly equestrian character that the horsemen it did involve could not be rather frequently lost sight of. The Place and Number of Cavalry in Itemised Military Forces We sometimes encounter military forces that are entirely composed of cavalry, or appear to be—not just when horsemen are deployed by themselves in the context of a campaign that also involves infantry (as, for example, in the various operations carried out by cavalry at Plataea before the decisive battle), but also in more free-standing contexts.197 No doubt that does reflect a military environment in which cavalry was sufficiently important to have an independent role, and we sometimes even see a sort of identification of the satrap-at-war and cavalry— accompanied by a contemptuous (but arguably misplaced) confidence in that cavalry’s superiority. When both cavalry and infantry are present to an author’s mind, the cavalry is sometimes mentioned first in an itemised list. Thus Xenophon (Oec. 4.5) pictures a standard Persian force as consisting of cavalry, gerrophoroi, archers and slingers, and Ctesias 688 F9 describes the military resources of the Median city of Barene donated to Croesus as consisting of cavalry, light-armed soldiers, javelineers and archers.198 But this is not at all standard and scarcely a valid argument for anyone’s perception that cavalry was the dominant arm of the military establishment. Infantry are normally listed first because there are normally more foot-soldier infantry than horsemen. That does, however, raise the question of the proportions between infantry and cavalry numbers. We are accustomed to regard the classical Greek norm as a ratio of roughly 10:1. How do the data about Persian forces compare with this? Often, of course, there are no numbers at all. Sometimes where there are numbers, there is no subdivision of a global number of troops into 197

Hdt. 5.98; Xen. An. 6.4.24, Hell.3.2.1, 4.13, 4.8.17; Diod. 14.36.3; Polyaen. 7.14.3; sch. Dem.4.19; Curt. 4.9.25, 16.20f. The troops with Bessus after Darius’ murder in 330 seem to be overwhelmingly cavalry, as are those of Spitamenes in Sogdiana in 328. 198 Contrast the Median army of Hdt. 1.103.1: aikhmophoroi, toxophoroi, cavalry.

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infantry and cavalry.199 Where infantry and cavalry are distinguished, there are irritating instances in which the infantry is assigned a number but the cavalry is simply said to be numerous (pollē).200 There is a similar tendency to speak of “many cavalry” (not just “cavalry”) in contexts where no figures are being supplied at all.201 Perhaps there is a default assumption at work here that Persian forces are cavalry-rich, and one that is strong enough to make historians neglect quantification even when it should have been possible.202 Where two numbers are available, the proportions of infantry to cavalry vary quite considerably, from 30:1 (Artaxerxes II against the Cadusians) down to 1:1 (Arrian’s version of Granicus).203 Different sources on the same event can vary wildly too: Arrian’s statistics for Gaugamela give a ratio of 25:1, whereas other authors have about 4.5:1 or 4:1.204 In a rare case where a source itemizes all the components within an army (Curtius 3.2.3–9, on Issus) we see variations from contingent to contingent. On three occasions—Diodorus’ account of the 343 reconquest of Egypt and of Granicus, and Nepos’ of the army of Mardonius—we actually find the standard Greek 10:1 ratio.205 Otherwise ratios are either in excess of 20:1 or below 8:1. The fairest way to summarize the data is probably to say that (a) Greeks did assume that the cavalry: infantry ratio in Persian armies was normally higher than in Greece, but (b) when dealing with (fantasising about) really large armies they abandoned this principle because the desire to produce a vast total was accompanied by a sense that the only ‘realistic’ way to do this was to magnify the infantry numbers. The second part of this should not be neglected. By Greek standards there were a lot of cavalry at Granicus and even more in Tithraustes’ army of 355 bce.206 But the possibility of such relatively large congregations of cavalry in a single place did not

199 Hdt. 4.87, 4.143, 8.113, 9.96; Diod. 11.74, 14.22, 15.2, 15.41, 16.22, 16.42; Just. 11.6; Arr. 2.8.8; Plut. Vit. Alex. 31. 200 sch.Dem. 4.19; Diod. 14.99, 15.91. 201 Xen. Hell. 1.2.6, 1.3.5, 3.2.14; Xen. An. 6.5.7, 29; Diod. 13.51, 16.46, 17.81; Polyaen. 5.16.2. 202 Does the Persian practice of hobbling horses at night (Xen. An. 3.4.35: not that it was universal, cf. Polyaen. 7.21.6) reflect the generally larger number of horses in Persian forces? 203 Plut. Artax. 24; Arr. 1.14.4. 204 Arr. 3.8.6; Curt. 4.12.13 (4.5:1); Just. 11.12.5; Diod.17.39.4, 53.1–2 (4:1). 205 Egypt: 16.40; Granicus: 17.19; Mardonius: Nep. Paus. 1.2. 206 Granicus: 10,000 in Diod. 17.19; 20,000 in Arr. 1.14.4. Tithraustes: sch.Dem. 4.19.

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lead Greeks to express the appalling size of royal armies by turning them into unimaginable hordes of horsemen. The Origin of Cavalry Forces In the great majority of cases cavalry units appear in military narrative without the remotest information about where they come from—that is, how they are recruited, where they are based when not on campaign and so forth. Twice our sources speak of a Persian commander having “barbarian cavalry.”207 This is not the rather superfluous observation that it might at first sight seem, but marks an important, if inadequately specified, difference between cavalry and infantry forces: in a fourth-century context the latter were liable to include—even be dominated by—Greek mercenaries, but no Persian general was going to call on Greeks for cavalry.208 But to discover what sort of barbarians are involved one must look elsewhere. Herodotus’ information about the army of 480–479 is the fullest source. Here cavalry units are defined ethnically, but unlike infantry units they are not provided by all of the nations purportedly represented in the army: in fact, only nine nations are involved in 480, reduced to five in the force left with Mardonius.209 Herodotus affects to believe that all subject peoples could have provided cavalry but, whether or not we take that seriously, the fact is that he is witness to an understanding that the cavalry establishment of Persian armies was the product of only part of the empire—not strictly the Iranian part in ethnic terms, since, whatever he may have assumed about the Cissians (Elamites), inclusion of Indians both in 480 and in Mardonius’ select force apparently took him to a different ethno-cultural area, but certainly in geographic terms the heartlands (Elam, Persia, Media) and points east.210 Given his willingness to believe that infantry was drawn from every corner of the empire, this limitation deserves to be taken seriously. 207

Nep. Dat.8 (Autophradates); Diod.14.99 (Struthas). The co-existence of Iranian cavalry and Greek infantry in a single fourth-century army is visually captured (in a Lycian context) by the Limyra heroon frieze: Borchhardt, Bauskulptur (n. 22), 49–80, figs. 12–15, pl.20–26—though there are also non-Iranian horsemen present, and the overall commander here is Perikle, not a Persian. 209 The number of overall commanders (“hipparchs”) is reduced from three (7.87) to one (9.20). 210 One experiences some temptation to think that what Herodotus interprets as evidence for Indians in Greece was really evidence about Iranians from the Indian frontier lands. 208

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The ethnic-contingent principle recurs in the armies of Artaxerxes II, Artaxerxes III and Darius III. In the first two cases there is no further useful information about cavalry. In the third the historical accounts are at best unsystematic in their reports of cavalry units (many national groups are mentioned at Gaugamela without it being clear whether they have cavalry as well as infantry contingents), but it is interesting to compare the origins of those that are explicitly identified with what appears in Herodotus. What emerges is that the only extra group that comes from outside the area defined by Herodotus are the Armenians and Cappadocians.211 That does not take us very far west, and involves regions that owed horse-tribute (cf. n. 158) and were subject to significant Iranization, so it may be appropriate to see the situation more in terms of an extension of ‘Iran’ than of a breach of the Herodotean principle that, for the purposes of royal armies, a special cachet continued to attach to Iranian cavalry.212 Since the capacity to produce cavalry did exist among other, non-Iranian subject peoples,213 their general failure to figure as cavalry-providers in the complement of Persian royal armies is striking.214 The presence of Hyrcanians at Granicus is also striking: why should cavalry from northern Iran be available to commanders raising an army in Anatolia? In fact, they are not an isolated phenomenon. On the one hand, there are also Medes and even Bactrians at Granicus, as well as horsemen from Paphlagonia and unidentified alla ethnē, of which the former are relatively local and the latter might not be (Diodorus 17.19); on the other hand, there are Hyrcanians among the troops mobilized against Xenophon’s booty-raid in the Caicus valley in 400/399 (An. 7.8.15). These groups highlight the point already made 211

Armenians appear in Curtius’ account of the army at Babylon before Issus (the account of the battle is innocent of such details); both they and the Cappadocians are at Gaugamela in Arr. 3.11.7. (Curt. 4.12.12 does not specify that they had cavalry.) The other additional names are Hyrcanians, Parthians, Arachosians, Cadusians, Tapurians, Derbices, Caspians. (I assume that Curtius’ Barcanians could be Herodotus’ Paricanians.) Note also that Arr. 7.6.4 (on Alexander’s incorporation of ‘oriental’ cavalry) mentions Sogdians, Arachosians, Areians and Parthian as well as Bactrians and Persians. 212 For an early post-Achaemenid reference to cavalry from / in Cappadocia cf. Diod. 18.16.2, where in 322 Ariarathes has 15,000 cavalry and 30,000 infantry. Mithrobuzanes, the leader or hyparch of Cappadocia (Arr. 1.16.3, Diod. 17.21.3) died at Granicus, so perhaps there were Cappadocians among the alla ethnē of Diod. 17.19.4. 213 e.g. Egypt (Diod. 15.42.4) or Babylon (Curt. 5.1.23; and see supra) or Anatolian Greek states (Xen. Hell. 3.4.15). 214 I hesitate to take the rhetoric of Xen. An. 5.6.8 as evidence that Paphlagonians might have enrolled in a royal army.

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about preference for Iranian cavalry in a world in which Persians might employ Greek infantry.215 But they also stand in contrast to the groups of cavalry in the Granicus force that are not ethnically designated, viz. those under Memnon, Arsamenes and Rheomithres, of which the first two are described as the “own cavalry” (idioi hippeis) of the commanders in question (Diodorus 17.19). These groups are most naturally seen in terms of the system for the levying of cavalry forces from estateholders described by Xenophon (Cyr. 8.6.10) and the recorded groups of horsemen, numbered in hundreds rather than thousands, associated with satraps or other relatively high-status figures—in other words, the two sets of data which underpin Sekunda’s model of ‘dukes’ and ‘knights.’ That is an attractive model, so far as it goes (and, of course, supplies further Iranian—perhaps normally specifically Persian— horsemen), but Granicus shows that it does not entirely account for the cavalry potential of a provincial region. The only further clue is that Xenophon attaches the label of “royal misthophoroi” to the Hyrcanian horsemen of the Caicus valley. That recalls Xenophon’s other systematic descriptions of the provincial military establishment (Cyr. 8.6.1–9; Oec. 4.5–11) in which the payment of misthos and the actual term misthophoros occur. Any attempt to devise a neat marriage between these passages, whether as a whole or as regards their deployment of the concept ‘mercenary,’ and the general run of evidence faces intractable problems.216 But so far as our present topic is concerned, the label helps to confirm that the ethnic cavalry groups really do represent a species of military provision distinct from that of what we might call the satrapal court, and that groups of Iranians could be despatched to settle in specific provincial areas as coherent ethnic communities that were a charge upon the state’s resources.217 What we cannot know is how universally this happened across the geographical space of the empire, and in particular outside Iran: for example, does the evidence from Babylonia surveyed above provide any reason for postulating that it happened

215 In the Caicus valley there, in fact, are also non-Greek infantry (“Assyrian hoplites”). 216 C. J. Tuplin, “Xenophon and the Garrisons of the Achaemenid Empire,” AMI 20 (1987). 217 Perhaps the Hyrcanian cavalryman at Saqqarâ (supra n. 82) is analogous; if so, his Egyptian name and matronymic indicate the community’s presence into a second or subsequent generation. Other non-Persian Iranians in Egypt—Bactrians (TADAE D2.12), Chorasmians (D3.39), Caspians (B2.7, 3.4, 3.5, 3.8 [Scroll IIIA recto 6], 3.12), Hyrcanians (B8.3, Segal Aramaic Texts (n. 84): no. 5 ) — include some with military associations.

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there? Nor, by and large, can we be sure to what extent units of cavalry encountered in particular narrative contexts without quantification or other descriptions were enrolled from state-funded as opposed to satrapal court cavalry resources.218 Since they were anyway very largely all Iranians, our Greek sources, one suspects, did not really care. The Characterization of Persian Cavalry Discussion of episode statistics, army-numbers and sources of recruitment constitutes a rather abstract approach to our topic—though the issue of the origins of cavalry units does begin to pose questions about uniformity and diversity. In what ways do our sources offer a more individuated picture of Persian equestrian warfare? Is it distinctive, colorful or exotic? More generally, how much specific attention is paid to the appearance, equipment or utilisation of cavalry? We read occasionally of horses with golden bridles, but they are normally royal gifts, not fighting machines (for an exception see below), and of little more significance here than the Babylonian cavalrymen suo equorumque cultu ad luxuriam magis quam ad magnificentiam exacto recorded by Curtius (5.1.23) at the ceremonial entry of Alexander into the city. (There were “Babylonians” at Gaugamela, but no specific claim that they included cavalry.)219 The plate-covered Ur-cataphracts at Issus and Gaugamela (Curt. 3.11.15, 4.9.3) are unusual from a GrecoMacedonian point of view—and indeed in the record of Achaemenid cavalry—but the narrative is more interested in the disadvantage they were at when facing Thessalian horsemen than in any exotic color.220

218 Tithraustes’ 20,000 (“mostly cavalry”) in sch. Dem. 4.19 are likely to be mixed, as at Granicus. Struthes’ “numerous barbarian cavalry” (Diod. 14.99.2) might be more purely satrapal. The cavalry that intervenes belatedly at Cyzicus (Diod. 13.51.7) and assists the Bithynians in Xen. An. 6.4.24, 5.7, 30 can certainly just be Pharnabazus’ “own cavalry,” as are the “cavalry he [Tissaphernes] had come with” in 3.4.13 (cf. 1.2.4— providing quantification). In Hell. 3.2.15 the cavalry of Tissaphernes and of Pharnabazus are on each wing of an army: that too might sound like court cavalry, but Diod. 14.39 gives a figure of 10,000, which (if reliable) suggests otherwise. The 20,000 cavalry of Autophradates in Nep. Dat. 8 could (like 103,000 [sic] Cardaces) represent Iranian levies taken from forces assembled for an Egyptian campaign—something distinct from the Anatolian groups he also had. 219 Curt. 4.12.10. If they did, they might have been people like Gadal-Iama (supra p. 125). On the other hand, one finds it hard to associate him with the “luxurious” horsemen of Curt. 5.1.23. 220 cf. Arr .2.11.3 on the difficult retreat of hōplismenoi Persian horsemen—if he had in mind what Curtius was talking about, he found a very dull way of describing it.

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The horses of the younger Cyrus and his entourage (Xen. An. 1.8.3, 6–7) carry face- and chest-protectors and protective covers for the legs of their riders. Perhaps that gives them a slightly exotic appearance. But their makhairai are explicitly Greek—which rather spoils any effect— and Xenophon does not even mention what Ctesias 688 F20 (Plut. Artax. 11) reports, that they wore epithōrakidia phoinika.221 Masistius is the exotic Persian cavalryman most likely to come to mind: his horse is Nisaean, has a gold bridle and is finely adorned (9.20), and he himself wore a hard-to-pierce gold scale-breastplate—though under a red chiton and not immediately visible. Some have wondered whether he is another Ur-cataphract.222 But Herodotus, unlike Plutarch (Arist. 14), does not say that his entire body (head included) was encased in armor, and we should resist the idea that he was distinct in type, rather than status and, accordingly, quality of accoutrement, from standard Persian cavalrymen of his time. The other notable horseriding generals in Herodotus are Mardonius, of whom we are told only that his horse was white (see supra, n.159), and Artybius, who had trained his mount to kick hoplites, but is otherwise not described (Hdt. 5.111–12). It is not at all clear that Artybius is part of a cavalry unit—the Persian army involved had reached Cyprus by sea and may well have had a very limited cavalry complement—or is fighting against cavalry, and it is unlikely that the levade was standard practice. In the army list Herodotus reveals that some Persian cavalrymen had strange beaten bronze and iron poiēmata on their heads (7.84), while Sagartians used lassos (7.85), but such things do not leech into the narrative, and more generally the characteristics of the five distinct groupings of ethnically defined cavalry have no impact in the description of cavalry activity. Herodotus certainly had some sense of the general oddness of Persian military dress—one recalls the Marathon Athenians (6.112) as the first who had “endured the sign of Median clothing and the men wearing it”—and the scales (7.61) do recur in gilded form on Masistius, but in general he is frankly no more interested than Xenophon or any other Greek historians in trying to suggest that the cavalry component of Persian armies was something specially weird and wonderful. Even the hippotoxotai (9.49) are not a military exoticum, just a tactical problem. 221 Like Masistius in Hdt. 9.22.2, and Cyrus’ entourage in Cyropaedia 7.1.2 (khitōnes phoinikoi). 222 e.g. Evans, “Cavalry” (n. 180): 99.

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Tactical Use The tactical problem is, of course, important. Horse-archers do represent a distinct, and distinctive, way of fighting. This prompts two observations. First, hippotoxotai are encountered only rarely. Although texts and iconography may invite us to believe that cavalrymen sometimes carried a bow and arrows in a gorytus hanging at the hip, it is uncommon to find textual references to men actually firing arrows while on horseback. It was a practice sometimes specifically associated with Scythians / Sacae,223 but there is no reason to limit it to them,224 and the low incidence of recorded horse-archery, which is in line with the evidence of combat iconography and with Xenophon’s presentation of Persian cavalry, is probably a function of the relative infrequency with which circumstances arose in which it served a distinctive enough purpose to be preserved in the sort of historical tradition at our disposal.225 That leads, secondly, to more general questions about the extent to which textual sources alluding to cavalry in combat provide circumstantial detail about how it was used—either in terms of tactics (deciding how and where to deliver an attack on an enemy force) or in terms of what actually happened at the point of conflict. The answer is that there is not a wealth of such detail and what there is can often seem rather unremarkable. When cavalry operate together with infantry in more or less formal battle conditions they will often be found on the wings, as would have

223 cf. Arr. 4.4.4, 4.5.5. The hippotoxotai at Plataea (9.49.2) could theoretically have come from the ranks of the Sacae: but see infra pp. 163, 165. 224 There is no reason to postulate Sacae among the cavalry executing what came to be called the “Parthian shot” in Xen. An. 3.3.10. 225 Both at Plataea and near the River Zab horse-archers are deployed with other missile-troops (horsemen throwing spears in one case, infantry archers and slingers in the other) against infantry who cannot respond effectively. They are just one element in the long-range harassment of soft targets. Head, Persian Army (n. 3), 33, suggested that horse-archers ceased to be a feature of Persian practice; that Tatarlι and the two vases are from the first half of the Achaemenid period whereas Xenophon’s prevailing image of close-combat Persian cavalry in Cyropaedia was presumably informed by later classical models might go with this. But the incidents near the Zab belong in the later era, and Cyrus’ cavalry is envisaged using bows at Thymbrara (Cyr. 7.1.39). That specialist horse-archers ceased to exist depends on the assumption that they ever existed (except inasmuch as e.g. Sacan ethnic contingents may have contained them).

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happened in most Greek armies.226 When this is not wholly the case, the ensuing narrative may still privilege those on the wings and note the activities of only a part of any cavalry positioned elsewhere: Gaugamela comes into this category. At Cunaxa, on the other hand, the narratives (or what survives of them) do concentrate a good deal of attention on the cavalry at the centre of Cyrus’ army, largely because Cyrus’ death was, or could be presented as, a crucial determinant of the battle’s outcome. Other scenarios occur. In one cavalry are placed in front of infantry: that was the case at Granicus and in a satrapal force facing the 10,000 at the Centrites.227 Granicus was essentially fought as a purely cavalry battle so hardly counts as an example of conjoined cavalry-infantry warfare, while at the Centrites both parts of the Persian force fled before the Greeks made contact, making it rather hard to assess the original tactical intentions of its commanders (Xen. An. 4.3.22–23). At Plataea Herodotus’ description of the dispositions that still obtained at the start of the definitive battle (9.32) speaks of the cavalry being deployed “separately” (khōris) from the infantry, but rather oddly he fails to explain what exactly that is supposed to mean. I shall return to Plataea later. Whether horsemen are fighting alone or alongside men on foot, we are unlikely to hear much about their internal order of battle other than, for example, that they are suntetagmenoi (Xen. Hell. 4.8.19) or drawn up pamplēthesi ton hippeōn taxesi (3.4.22)228 or operating kata telea (Hdt. 9.20, 22, 23),229 or in turmae (Curt. 4.16.20f). The rather more specific reference to an embolos formation in Arrian (1.15.7) and Diodorus (17.19, Granicus) is exceptional,230 as is Xenophon’s

226 e.g. Cunaxa: Xen. An. 1.8.5,9 9.31; Diod.14.22.5. Issus: Arr. 2.8.5; Gaugamela: 3.11.3–8; Thymbrara: Xen. Cyr. 7.1.3, 19. Other: Xen. Hell. 3.2.15 (where no engagement develops), Polyaen. 5.16.2, 7.21.7. We cannot tell in the case of Xen. An. 6.5.7 (tetagmenous epi phalangos hippeas te pollous kai pezous). 227 Granicus: Arr. 1.14.4, Diod. 17.19. Centrites: 4.3.3. 228 Not much more than a way of underlining the size of the force—large enough to be traveling with a baggage train that included camels. Other examples of baggage train with cavalry forces: Polyaen. 7.21.6; Arr. 4.17.7. 229 This is not specifically equestrian technical terminology: cf. 7.211.3 (Thermopylae), where a contrast with attacking pantoiōs corresponds to that in 9.22 with attacking homou pantas. 230 Asclepiodotus 7 affirms that cavalrymen typically operate in squadrons of 50–100 and that both Greeks and Persians use oblong or square formations. It is hard to assess

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delineation (Hell. 3.4.13–14) of the differently shaped formations adopted by similar-sized units of Persian and Greek cavalry, in a skirmish resulting from a chance encounter in 396.231 The latter passage also comments on differences in weaponry which benefited the Persians,232 while the former is part of what is probably the richest description of actual fighting between Persian and non-Persian cavalry that we possess. In light of this it is ironic that Arrian (1.15.4) declares that the fighting at Granicus was more like pezomakhia than hippomakhia. Since the battle developed from a more-or-less frontal assault on a cavalry army lined up along a river bank,233 Arrian’s observation sounds plausible, but it leaves us wondering what a more genuine Persian cavalry battle was supposed to have been like. An answer of sorts is forthcoming in his account of Gaugamela (3.15.1–2). Here a group of Parthian, Indian and Persian cavalry attack the Macedonians head-on and in deep formation.234 What ensued did not involve “spear-throwing or wheeling of horses as is the rule in cavalry battles,” but the grim business of striking and being struck—a description that would suit Granicus or indeed the cavalry skirmish of 396, except that on that occasion the Greeks probably yielded fairly quickly.235 It may be the case that Granicus is reported in some detail because it was unusual—though the fact that it was so historically crucial is probably as much to the point. But it is depressingly and perhaps suspiciously hard to find a proper description of a specific cavalry engagement that actually conforms to what Arrian represents as the norm. Issus and other parts of Gaugamela certainly do not come up with anything of the sort. The range of battle-field tactics on display is small and mostly fairly banal.

the validity of a generalisation like this. The latter part does not prima facie cohere with what Xenophon observes in Hell. 3.4.13. 231 The account of another chance encounter in Curtius (4.16.20) provides less detail. For another reference to attack in depth in a different tactical context, see infra at n. 234 (Arrian on Gaugamela). 232 Oddly enough a similar advantage is enjoyed by Macedonians over Persians in 334 (Arr. 1.15). 233 At least in Arrian’s conception; Diodorus had them some way back from the river-edge. 234 es bathos te gar, hoia dê iladon tetagmenoi, anestrephon hoi barbaroi kai antimetōpoi tois amph’ Alexandron xunpesontes ktl. 235 There are overtones of Xenophon’s famous description of the infantry fighting at Coronea (Hell. 4.3.19).

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Outside the confines of formal battle, cavalry might be used to reconnoitre,236 to attack supply-lines, foragers, looters or other scattered victims,237 to encompass the destruction of productive land,238 to slaughter enemies in flight from a defeat and defend one’s fellow-soldiers in a similar situation,239 or to harass a moving or stationary armed force that was unprotected by cavalry. Mostly the mode of operation is wholly or largely unspecified,240 but in two cases in the final category the attackers ride at the enemy, discharge missiles, wheel away and then return to the attack.241 If the victims essay a counter-attack, the attackers can simply withdraw—except that at Plataea the sally only comes after the death of Masistius and the Persian response is to abandon previous tactics and pile in en masse in the (unfulfilled) hope of recovering the corpse. In more formal contexts, it is assumed in Polyaenus (7.14.3) that cavalry will attempt to ride round the flanks of an opposing force, and that is certainly a feature of Arrian’s depiction of Gaugamela and of the Battle of Thymbrara in book seven of the Cyropaedia.242 How often anyone actually achieved a circumvention of this sort, or gained anything from having done so, is less clear. (Arsames’ success in Polyaenus 7.28.2

236

Xen. An. 2.2.14 (implied) 2.4.24, Cyr. 5.4.4. Supply-lines: Hdt. 9.39, Polyaen. 7.14.2 (both at night). Foragers / looters: Xen. Hell. 3.4.22, 4.1.17–19 (there are also some chariots), 4.8.17, An. 6.4.23; Hell. Oxy.14 Chambers; Diod. 14.36.3. Scattered victims: Xen. An. 2.5.32. 238 Hdt. 4.128, 9.14; Xen. Hell .3.2.1, An. 1.6.1; Arr. 1.12.9, 3.28.8; Curt.4.9.7. 239 At least Xen. An. 2.4.6 makes Clearchus envisage both of these possibilities (cf. 3.1.2). Of the former (for which cf. Xen. Cyr. 4.1.11, 3.5) no straightforward example comes to mind; Hdt. 4.121–25, 5.98 and Xen. An. 6.5.15 are variously not the same thing. For the latter cf. Hdt. 9.68 (but highlighting the Boeotian cavalry), Xen. An. 6.5.29. 240 In Xen. Hell. 4.8.17, Struthas’ horsemen are to surround and drive off (into captivity?) careless looters. In Hell. Oxy.14.5 attackers ride round (perihippeuein) their Greek adversaries; it is not clear whether this means something like the Struthas case or alludes to them riding around the entire Greek force, discharging missiles or engaging in the sort of to-and-fro attack envisaged in the cases mentioned in the next note. A picturesque vignette of Pharnabazus riding into sea to help his Spartan allies (Xen. Hell. 1.1.6) is unaccompanied by a clear suggestion of what he and his fellow-cavalrymen were actually doing as they splashed around at the edge of the Dardanelles. 241 River Zab: Xen. An. 3.3.6, 3.4.2. Plataea: Hdt. 9.20–22. (Similar operations in the next phase at Plataea, 9.49,52, are not specifically described. In Xen. An. 7.8.15, where “hoplites,” peltasts and cavalry attack Xenophon’s force, the arrows need not come from the cavalry.) There are shades here of Arrian’s picture of a “proper” cavalry-battle, but these are precisely not engagements with other horsemen. 242 Arr. 3.13.2–4, 14.1–2. Pammenes’ victory (Polyaen. 5.16.2, Front. 2.3.3), when fighting for Artabazus, is another case—assuming that his “numerous and warlike” cavalry was Persian. 237

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involves a false desertion stratagem.) For all we can tell direct, more or less frontal, attack was the more common approach.243 We might infer from another desertion story in Polyaenus (7.21.7) and Frontinus (2.7.9) that one model for a formal battle was that in which cavalry on one wing begin the engagement and are rapidly followed up by infantry. At Cunaxa, on the other hand, there is no clear suggestion that any of the king’s cavalry was sent into battle in advance of the infantry line: but things are complicated here by the presence of war-chariots—as well as by the unsystematic nature of Xenophon’s (and indeed Diodorus’) narrative.244 At Issus the Persians waited for Alexander to attack them, so the question does not arise. In his account of Marathon Herodotus famously comments that the Persians thought their opponents mad to be launching an infantry attack (oute hippou huparkhousēs sphi oute toxeumatōn, 6.112.2), but one cannot tell exactly how the Persians are supposed to have thought cavalry or archers should have been deployed, had they been present. It is also difficult to be sure how to interpret the belated involvement of cavalry in the fighting at Malene (6.29): is it the result of a deliberate decision about the order in which the two elements of a joint infantry / cavalry force should be deployed in an engagement at which both were present from the start, or does it just means that the horsemen had not yet been on the scene when the fighting started? The first view is probably preferable, but still leaves the situation rather unclear;245 speaking of the cavalry being

243

It appears to be intended in Polyaen. 7.14.3, despite the fact that nothing is said about the topography to explain why Autophradates’ purely cavalry force could not attempt an attack on the flanks or rear or Orontes’ purely (Greek) infantry one. 244 No one is much interested in the king’s battle-strategy or tactics. Front. 2.3.6 has him deliberately keep his centre back in order to draw Cyrus into being encircled, but other sources see it as a consequence of his army’s greater size causing it to extend beyond his adversary’s left wing. 245 When the Greeks fought the Persians at Malene, hoi men sunestasan khronon epi pollon, hē de hippos husteron hormētheisa epipiptei tois Hellēsi. to te dē ergon tēs hippou touto egeneto kai tetrammenōn tōn Hellēnōn ktl. Hormētheisa husteron does not mean “arriving late,” so the preference must be for the first approach. Failure to indicate the place from which they set out or for there to be a clear implication as to its identity is odd in terms of Herodotean usage; but the most obvious, if not clear, implication is that they were setting out from wherever the whole force had been before the question of fighting Histiaeus arose. L. Scott, Historical Commentary on Herodotus Book 6 (Leiden: 2005), 150, thinks they had to be summoned from Atarneus. Evans, “Cavalry” (n. 180): 104, believed that the cavalry had been away on some other task and just happened to return at a time inopportune for Histiaeus, and saw the situation as parallel with the supposed absence of the cavalry at Marathon securing the road through Probalinthos to Athens.

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kept “in reserve” is perhaps to introduce tactical overtones that are inappropriate.246 Another conundrum is the role of cavalry in the decisive battle at Plataea. In the previous parts of the campaign—both before and after the two armies moved from their initial positions in relatively open ground to the east of the modern road to Thebes—the Persian cavalry had harassed Greek positions and supply-lines with some success. Their role in the decisive show-down depends on two questions. First, are the one thousand logades with Mardonius in the final battle (9.63) to be identified as the one thousand Persian cavalry of 8.113? If so, they are quite a modest group of horsemen, but in the rather confined space in which the crucial Spartan-Persian engagement was fought they would still represent a bulky presence. Unfortunately, arguments can be put on both sides, views differ and the question does not seem definitively resoluble.247 Second, are the cavalry mentioned in 9.60 (to whom those in Plut. Vit. Arist. 17 correspond) to be conceived as launching a new softening-up attack ahead of, but integral with, the main attack? Or does the passage just refer to the cavalry who were already harassing the Greeks (9.57), and thus belong with the situation that preceded the battle proper rather than counting as the first stage of that battle? On this point my preference is for the second view. I think we have to take it that, once Mardonius decided upon launching an attack to break the deadlock and attempt to win the war, the cavalry was removed from the scene and did not re-appear until the Persians were in flight—at which point Theban as well as oriental cavalry play a role in providing protection. As I have already noticed, the crucial killing ground was not an

246 Other examples do not come to the mind. The cavalry lurking at the back of Cyrus’ army in the battle of Thymbrara in book seven of Cyropaedia are not a reserve in any useful sense of the word: they are there because of the formation adopted by Croesus and are engaged in fighting from the start of the battle. 247 D. Asheri, Erodoto: Le Storie, Libro IX: La battaglia di Platea (Rome: 2006), favors the identification with cavalry. M. A. Flower and J. Marincola, Herodotus Histories Book IX (Cambridge: 2002), think them an elite infantry group, parallel to the 1000 cavalry of 8.113. The Sacae, adjudged the best cavalry performers at Plataea, cannot be the logades, who must logically be Persian. (We have no information that allows us to make sense of the plaudits won by the Sacae, and if we have to assume after all that they relate to conduct in the whole campaign or in defending retreating Persians during the rout, then so be it.) There is prima facie a paucity of specifically Persian cavalry at Plataea. This goes with various other oddities: thōrēkophoroi (8.113) is not a standard Herodotean term-of-art; that all Persian soldiers are apparently wearing jewellery (8.113) is unexpected (unless the Persian presence is very limited); an unexplained distinction is introduced between dunatōtaton and asthenesteron (9.31).

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area in which a large body of cavalry would have enough room for manoeuvre to be certainly more of a benefit than a liability.248 Where anything specific is said at all, cavalrymen for the most part fight by throwing spears at their opponents, by thrusting spears at them or by wielding swords.249 The terms used for the spears and swords vary from author to author.250 If there is any substantive significance to these variations, it is between the usage of Herodotus and that of other authors.251 But our sources do not establish a watertight practical distinction between throwing and thrusting spears,252 and (at least in later Achaemenid contexts) the same body of cavalry may successively use spears in both fashions and then have recourse to swords. It is in line with this that Arrian’s assumption in the passage from the Gaugamela narrative discussed above is that the same sort of cavalry can do wheeling missile-attacks and frontal hand-to-hand fighting. The view that underpins Xenophon’s treatment in Cyropaedia is that there was a single type of cuirass-wearing cavalryman whose primary purpose was to fight hand-to-hand. There is probably an element of programmatic simplification here but, as a perception of the core character of Persian cavalry from a well-qualified observer, it deserves attention. A century earlier Herodotus postulated a Persian cavalryman equipped with fish-scale

248 The alleged oracle about fighting on land belonging to Demeter (Plut. Vit. Arist. 11) is predicated on the fact that the final battle near the Demeter sanctuary (9.62) was on terrain not good for cavalry. 249 We should probably not imagine that the levade (Hdt. 5.111–112) was standard practice. 250 Herodotus has aikhmai (7.61, 84) or uses the verbs kat- or esakontizein (9.17, 49) and enkheiridia (7.61, 84); Xenophon has palton (An. 1.5.15, 8.3, 6–7, 27, Hell. 3.4.13, Cyr. 1.2.9, 4.3.9, 12, 5.2.1, 6.2.16, 7.1.2, 8.8.22, Eq. 12.11) or xuston (Cyr. 4.5.58), while describing the throwing of a palton with akontizein (An. 1.8.27, Cyr. 4.3.9,12, Eq. 12.11; cf. Plut. Vit. Artax. 9, 11) and makhaira (An. 1.8.6–7, Cyr. 7.2.1; cf Diod. 14.22.6) or kopis (Cyr. 5.2.1); sources dealing with Alexander use palton (Arr. 1.15.2,5—it is inter alia a throwing weapon), saunion (Diod. 17.20) or doru (Plut. Alex. 16) and kopis (Arr. 1.15.7, 8, Plut. Alex. 16) or xiphos (Diod. 17.20). 251 Aikhmē is Herodotus’ regular term for the spears of non-Greek peoples; and Xenophon was still prepared to use it in the fourth century when writing that members of the elite had to present themselves at court with horse and aikhmē (Cyr. 8.1.8). Enkheiridion (also confined to non-Greeks in Herodotus) is prima facie further from makhaira / kopis and undoubtedly has strong associations with short weapons or daggers, but is a weapon for close combat in 1.214 (perhaps even for cavalry combat: this is Cyrus’ final fight with the Massagetae, and Herodotus fails to specify) and I do not feel we can absolutely sure whether Herodotus intended to suggest that his cavalrymen only carried (e.g.) an akinakes. 252 The horsemen attacking en masse to recover Masistius’ body (9.22) must have been wielding some sort of close-combat weapon.

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breastplate, spear, sword and bow—not, on the face of it, much different from the Xenophon model—and all of the cavalry-fighting at Plataea can readily be assigned to soldiers of this type. One may add that the anakhorēsis and hupostrophē of the cavalry squadrons in 9.22 are not, in principle, different from the exeligmoi of which Arrian speaks, even if they do occur in an attack upon stationary infantry troops, not in an engagement between cavalry. (The fact that the Greek contingents of 479 were largely devoid of cavalry inevitably means that events at Plataea cannot give us a rounded impression of early fifth-century Achaemenid cavalry practice.) Even horse-archery does not have to be assigned to an entirely distinct form of cavalryman: it is only the fact that we know Sacae to have been present that raises that theoretical possibility. What that reminds us, of course, is that in the Herodotean model any diversity in type is the result of ethnic diversity not of a decision by tactical experts that there have to be different types of horseback soldier for different contexts of use. But, to re-iterate, the colorful Sagartians with their lassos never appear in what we read of actual events, and such distinctions in dress and equipment between Persians, Medes and Cissians on the one hand and Bactrians, Sacae, Indians and the rest on the other, as Herodotus may attest, are not something we can map on to operational distinctions in the historical record.253 This general sense of uniformity in the classical written record does, however, have to be set alongside the elements of non-homogeneity in the depiction of Persian military horseman noted earlier in the discussion of iconographic evidence. Texts and pictures agree that horsemen predominantly used spears or swords rather than bows: actual horse archery is rare in both categories of evidence, even if some pictures— mostly ones that do not explicitly show combat—have the gorytus as part of a horseman’s equipment.254 (The availability of spear, sword and

253 The Sacae won the prize for best cavalry performance at Plataea (9.71). There is nothing in the narrative that seems to correspond distinctively to a putative Sacan form of cavalry. 254 Swords are more prominent in texts than the iconography of actual combat, where one can only cite the Clazomenae sarcophagus images: Cook, Sarcophagi (n. 29), G1, G11, G13. A galloping rider (with no adversary) on some Samarian coins also seems to wield a sword: Meshorer and Qedar, Samarian Coinage (n. 11), no. 15, 40. The Can cavalryman has an akinakēs on his belt, a rare but—pace Sevinç et al., “Can” (n. 27): 395—not unique phenomenon, as the horseman on Boardman, Gems (n. 40), no. 72 (pl. 864) also has one, while the horseman on Richter, Engraved Gems (n. 42), no. 135 has a slashing sword (only the hilt is visible). On both seals the warriors are wielding spears against their adversaries.

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archery equipment recalls the Babylonian Gadal-Iama.) But if the classical evidence tempts us to postulate that Persian cavalrymen always had cuirasses (either scale-covered or ‘bronze,’ not in principle inconsistent designations) and metal helmets—a view that does actually require us to say that it is a mere accident that the Alexander historians never had occasion to note Persian cavalry cuirasses255—there is a distinction in the pictorial evidence between horsemen who have a squarish form of head-gear and a solid-looking cuirass with neck-guard and those who appear to have a soft bashlyk and no body armor.256 A further problem is that Xenophon on the face of it presents paramēridia (protecting the rider’s legs), and prometōpidia and prosternidia (protecting the horse’s head and chest) as standard, whereas in the pictorial evidence paramēridia appear intermittently and horse-armor is almost unknown.257 Now, we can say that horse-armor was perhaps not worth the effort of including in small-scale images like seals and coins, might have been added in paint on some other images and is, after all, present on the particularly well-realised Can horseman; and we can say that paramēridia may only have started to become at all normal in the later Achaemenid period (they are unknown in Herodotus), reducing the time frame within which they could impinge upon iconography—though it is unfortunate for that argument that they are already present at Karaburun in the first half of the fifth century. But evasions of this sort are not so readily available where headgear and cuirasses are concerned. We cannot, for example, reduce the problem by supposing that cuirasses were

255 We can sustain that on the grounds that some of the individuals they talk about at Granicus are exactly the sort of people who, on Xenophon’ evidence (An. 1.8.6–7), would be most likely actually to have cuirasses. 256 In seal images of actual combat the preponderance is with the former type (cf. above n. 53). In other combat iconography the situation is the reverse: only the Can cavalryman is of the former type, whereas we have versions of the bashlyk at Clazomenae, Tatarlı, Yalnιzdam, on the Alexander Sarcophagus, and perhaps at Kö(y) basi: Zahle, “Hekatomnid Caria” (n. 25): 328 no. 20. (Some figures with neck-guard cuirasses on the Alexander Mosaic—Pfrommer, Alexandermosaiks (n. 20), 122–23, fig. 20—have bashlyks; one has a metal helmet with cheek-pieces.) On the Limyra heroon frieze (not an image of combat but certainly of military import) some horsemen have bashlyks, but one seems to have a Phrygian helmet: Borchhardt, Bauskulptur (n. 22), fig. 12 (no. 22). (That is certainly more plausible than the suggestion of Borchhardt, Bauskulptur (n. 22), 60—i.e. that he is wearing a royal upright tiara.) It is frustrating that the headgear of the three processing horsemen from Sardis (above n. 26), one of whom may have a neck-guard cuirass, is indistinct (or, as I suspect, never fully carved). 257 Their presence is not a matter of entire certainty in some seal images. The wellarmored Can cavalryman notably does not have paramēridia, even though he may have some horse-armor: Sevinç et al., “Can” (n. 27): 397.

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regularly worn under the tunic as by Masistius, because the solid cuirass with neck-guard presented by the iconographic evidence—and also attested there for infantrymen—is entirely missing from classical texts, and cannot even persuasively be discovered in the Gadal-Iama inventory. It is true that Curtius presents us with some heavily armored cavalry at Issus and Gaugamela, but what he is talking about, which is something that protects horses as well as horsemen, is quite unlike what we see on seals and sculptured monuments, and is best regarded as a novelty of the very late Achaemenid era of which no pictorial record survives.258 Our best bet for restoring some consonance between textual and pictorial evidence, while continuing to see the former as presenting an essentially uniform model, would be to argue as follows: (a) Xenophon is misleading in suggesting that paramēridia and horsearmor were standard. Rather they were most likely to be used by the high-status cavalry units associated with a king or prince: that is where we see them in the Anabasis (1.8.6–7) and Cyropaedia (7.1.2), and Xenophon simply ought not to have let them in at 6.4.1. (b) Scale-plate cuirasses were standard in Herodotus’ time and were regularly worn under the tunic.259 As time went on the solid cuirass with

258 3.11.15: equi pariter equitesque Persarum, serie lamnarum obdita genus tenus graves, agmen…aegre moliebantur. 4.9.3: equitibus equisque tegumenta erant ex ferreis lamminis serie inter se conexis. That horses as well as men have scale-armor takes us beyond anything in the pictorial record of pre-Hellenistic western Asia. For Assyrian evidence, see J. K. Anderson, Ancient Greek Horsemanship (Berkeley-Los Angeles: 1960), pl. 5; R. D. Barnett and W. Forman, Assyrian Palace Reliefs (London: 1960), pl. 119, 120, 122, 129; Y. Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands (London: 1963), 432; J. W. Eadie, “The Development of Roman Mailed Cavalry,” JRS 57 (1967): pl. 9. Further east talk of cataphracts in sixth-century Chorasmia—B. Rubin, “Die Entstehung der Kataphraktenreiterei im Lichte der chorezmischen Ausgrabungen,” Historia 4 (1955): 265, summarizing the views in Tolstov 1948 (nondum vidi)—seems to be based on a combination of later archaeological evidence and a misreading of Herodotus (Hdt. 1.215), which mentions horse-cuirasses (the equivalent of Xenophon’s prosternidia) but not full-scale horse-armor. The same misreading is found in e.g. K. Abdulaev, “Armour of Ancient Bactria,” in In the Land of the Gryphons, ed. A. Invernizzi (Florence: 1995): 181. S. P. Tolstov, Auf den Spuren der altchoresmischen Kultur (Berlin: 1953), provides no reason to adjust this view. Arr. 3.13.4 is better—but very non-specific—evidence about the practices of Central Asian peoples in the later fourth century. All the same, one rather fears that Curtius has imported some anachronistic Parthian color into his version of what appeared in his source. 259 It is safest to leave aside the single Attic vase showing a Persian horseman wearing a Greek cuirass: Raeck, Barbarenbild (n. 65), P578. That can be compared with various vases on which Persian or quasi-Persian infantry do the same: Raeck, Barbarenbild (n. 65), P553, P555, P573, P574, P577, P580, P584. But this may be one of the contexts

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neck-guard came into use as an alternative for cavalry (as for infantry) but Greek observers were insufficiently interested by the change or by the new cuirass’s most distinctive feature—the neck-guard—to draw specific attention to it.260 When Xenophon talks about cuirasses this may be what he has in mind, and its existence may indeed have helped to prompt his insistence upon a model of Persian cavalry devoted to hand-to-hand fighting and unconcerned with akrobolizesthai.261 But there continued to be cavalrymen who wore less visible body-armor but were available for similar tactical purposes. What is hard to make out is whether the sort of status distinction just postulated for paramēridia would apply here. Were the younger Cyrus and his companions at Cunaxa wearing the neck-guard cuirass? And what about the king, whom Cyrus allegedly wounded dia tou thōrakos to a depth of two fingers?262 Should a neck-guard cuirass have kept out a spear-shot? We do not know what they were made of and the appearance of rigid solidity that characterizes them does not perhaps prove that they were metal. The color scheme of the Can sarcophagus led its excavators to describe the cuirass as a solid wicker framework covered in leather.263 (c) Metal helmets were not standard for all cavalry in Xenophon’s view: they are assigned to the entourage of the Elder and Younger Cyrus (though the latter chose not to wear one), but not to the generality of Persian cavalry in Cyropaedia 6.4.1. The helmet of the renegade satrap Satibarzanes fits this picture.264 Herodotus, too, says that only some Persian horsemen had beaten bronze and iron poiēmata on their heads

in which vase-painters play games with the image of the national enemy, cf. M. Miller, “Imaging the Persians in Classical Athens,” in Herodotus and the Persian Empire, ed. R. Rollinger et al. (forthcoming). The Greek-cuirass wearing Persian infantryman on the Alexander Sarcophagus could be another matter—a sign, like his peltē, of influence from the Greek mercenaries that had become a familiar part of the Persian military establishment: von Graeve, Alexandersarkophag (n. 29), pl. 72 (GD5); Head, Achaemenid Persian Army (n. 3), 29c. 260 Xenophon recommends that the cavalryman’s cuirass should have a neck-protector (supra, n. 159), but what he describes is plainly an encircling collar, not the feature we see on Persian items. 261 The over-simplification involved in this is clear from two other features: (1) Xenophon knew that fourth-century Persian cavalrymen could carry more than one spear (An. 1.5.15, 1.8.3) and that these spears could be thrown (1.8.27, Hell. 3.4.14); but in Cyropaedia he explicitly assigns them a single palton (6.2.16, 7.1.2). (2) The account of Thymbrara actually has Cyrus’ cavalry throwing spears and shooting arrows (Cyr. 7.1.39). 262 Xen. An. 1.8.27, Ctes. 688 F20. 263 Sevinç et al., “Can” (n. 27): 295. 264 Diod. 17.83.5, Curt. 7.4.33.

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instead of the “so-called tiarai or soft caps” (i.e. bashlyks) of the infantry and the rest of the cavalry (7.84) It is odd, of course, that Herodotus uses circumlocution where Xenophon and Arrian use the ordinary word kranos.265 We could counter that, if Xenophon can fail to draw attention to the distinctive character of the neck-guard cuirass, as we have hypothesized, he can also use kranos for something that was not entirely ordinary, but the fact that the helmet of which he speaks in Cyropaedia has a crest (lophos) spoils this argument. Such a thing is visible on one seal image, but almost all the other horsemen in our pictorial evidence for combat who do not have bashlyks wear headgear of squarish profile that is certainly uncrested and need not be made of metal.266 (Once again, the color coding leads the excavators of the Can sarcophagus to say that that cavalryman’s headgear is made of leather.)267 The simplest conclusion is that, just as the scale-cuirass was followed, but not wholly displaced, by the neck-guard cuirass, so the bronze-and-iron confection known to Herodotus was followed by the square head-gear of the pictorial evidence, and that the wearing of crested metal helmets was the preserve of socially elite cavalrymen. (d) There is one further problem, not yet broached. Several parts of the textual evidence suggest that cavalrymen might have shields: that is implicit in Herodotus’ evidence and explicit in Cyropaedia (4.5.58, 5.2.1) and Arrian (7.13.2).268 But the pictorial evidence provides no secure example of such a thing. Claims to the contrary assume that certain later fifth-century vase-paintings of beardless horsemen carrying peltai are valid evidence about Persian equipment, which seems to me to be a dangerous assumption.269 Each of the pieces of textual evidence is odd. In Herodotus the shields are called gerrha, and in Herodotean usage that refers to the large pieces

265 He does the same with ‘Assyrian’ infantry head-gear (7.63.1). S. West, “Herodotus and His Sources of Information,” in Herodotus and the Persian Empire, ed. R.Rollinger et al. (forthcoming), has wondered whether this is because Herodotus was looking at a pictorial source. 266 Boardman, Gems (n. 40), fig. 291. The case of the Yeniceköy riders is unclear because of the loss of the original monument: Nollé, Dakyleion (n. 25), F5. Munro spoke of “conical” headgear, but what appears on Macridy’s photograph seems more complicated than that and leaves on wondering what the sculptor intended: Macridy, “Reliefs” (n. 36): fig. 6. But it is unlikely that it was anything like the Can sarcophagus model or its analogues on seal-images. 267 Sevinç et al., “Can” (n. 27): 395. 268 I am not quite sure that the shields and swords in Curt. 4.9.3 are for cavalrymen. 269 pace Sekunda, Persian Army (n. 43), 21–22.

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of equipment used to make a shield-wall (9.61, 62, 102), so one may wonder whether he really meant to say that such things were carried on horseback.270 In Xenophon—where they are also called gerrha, which in his usage means something quite different from the shield-wall equipment—the shields appear only in two passages referring to servants carrying the shields and swords of cavalrymen in non-operational circumstances. This phenomenon turns up at the stage at which Persian homotimoi are being metamorphosed into cavalrymen but then disappears entirely. The shields are the ones that the homotimoi would have carried as infantry soldiers and one may suspect that their temporary retention in the story-line (though never actually on the arm of any mounted homotimos) is another small Xenophontic oversight. In Arrian we are told that Atropates, the satrap of Media, brought a squadron of a hundred Amazons to Alexander, women equipped like cavalrymen, except that they had an axe and a peltē in place of a spear and shield (here aspis). This is not from Arrian’s principal sources, and he proceeds to trash the whole idea of Amazons, concluding that, at best, Atropates must have dressed up some ordinary women in the gear Amazons are supposed to have worn. Axes and peltai are, indeed, appropriate for Amazons, and I am inclined to see what is said about spears and shields as a generic or formulaic gloss on ho legomenos dē tōn Amazonōn kosmos (perhaps from Arrian’s source) and not one driven by considered knowledge of Persian cavalry equipment. These four lines of argument, then, would permit one to keep the textual and pictorial accounts reasonably in line with one another without multiplying tactical entities. Any force they have properly applies only to ‘Persian’ horsemen—that is, to the model of cavalry assigned by Herodotus to Persians, Medes and Elamites. But, since there is no future in trying to relate the more or less inadequate indications Herodotus provides for the appearance of other cavalry-producing nations to any of the pictorial phenomena, this limitation is acceptable. One has to keep insisting that all of our evidence, written and pictorial, is operating at some degree of abstraction from messy reality and that in a large gathering of oriental cavalry there will certainly have been elements of

270 Admittedly cavalry shields of the relevant construction-type are known from Dura and Pazyryk: Sekunda, Persian Army (n. 43), 16; Head, Achaemenid Persian Army (n. 3), fig. 10 (Dura); Head, Achaemenid Persian Army (n. 3), fig. 32r; III: T. Talbot Rice, The Scythians (London: 1961), 127 fig. 31 (Pazyryk). But the only gerrhon we know Herodotus to have been aware of is the large format one.

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diversity that we cannot directly see, even if there are, of course, some we can reconstruct. For example, the characteristic differences between western and eastern Iranian versions of basic riding costume visible on the Apadana and elsewhere will naturally have shown up in cavalry contingents. The question is not whether informed observers could tell Bactrian from Persian cavalrymen (I am sure they could), it is whether the Achaemenid military establishment provided for more than one type of cavalry in tactical terms. It is sometimes said that there were light javelin-throwing cavalrymen and heavy land-and-sabre assault cavalrymen. What I have been arguing is that the evidence at our disposal does not require us to agree with that analysis. Of course it cannot be denied that, whenever one goes back to the iconographic corpus, one is struck again by the prima facie distinction between images of heavy cavalry and images of what looks like lighter cavalry. But what the two types are shown doing is generally pretty much the same: one cannot see a distinction between (in the terms of Cyropaedia) distance-skirmishing (akrobolizesthai) and manly closequarters combat and then align it with the heavy / light distinction.271 A proximate reason for this is that the iconographic corpus has its favored combat clichés. Defenders of the two-model analysis can say that, as a consequence, it is only the appearance and equipment of the individual cavalryman that can count as evidence—and that any impression that more than one type of appearance might be present must be underlined and privileged. The alternative view would be that the reason why the combat clichés were acceptable in the first place is that no one drew sharp distinctions between different tactical contexts and that, as a consequence, distinctions in appearance are only differences between species within a genus not genera within a class. One thing is certain: the existence of this problem highlights in an exemplary fashion the patchiness of our evidence about Achaemenid cavalry and the intrinsic peculiarities of particular categories within that evidence. Performance Relative to Others Xenophon (An. 5.6.8) has Hecatonymus of Sinope claim that the barbarians think that the Paphlagonian cavalry is stronger than the whole of 271 Even horseback archery cannot be entirely assigned to one side of the divide, since, although wearers of the neck-guard cuirass never even have a gorytus on sculpted or seal images, the Miho pectoral shows such a figure firing a bow at a fleeing adversary.

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the cavalry of the king.272 That is on the face of it a bizarre thing to say. Hecatonymus is an unsympathetic character, with a manipulative agenda, and therefore not someone intended to be the purveyor of balanced and objective judgements. Still, his observation makes more sense—that is, the threat that underlay it was slightly more worth making—against a background of lower estimation of Persian cavalry than one might expect. And the historical record certainly shows it failing as well as succeeding. Sometimes the problem is other cavalry. Near the start of Persian imperial history Persian cavalry is for Herodotus decidedly inferior to Lydian.273 In the decisive battle with Croesus outside Sardis we do not see Cyrus sweeping all before him as the master of a new model of cavalry-dominated army.274 On the contrary, he uses camels to neutralise the advantage enjoyed by the Lydians, who are a well-established cavalry power, and the battle is then fought on foot.275 A generation later the cavalry of Darius I is out-performed by that of the Black Sea Scythians and only rescued by infantry intervention (Hdt. 4.128). At the end of the empire’s history the cavalry of Darius III is worsted in small-scale encounters as well as set-piece battles.276 There is a consistent pattern here of disadvantage against other reputable cavalry-producing nations. By contrast Persian horsemen of course have no difficulty with the indifferent cavalry of Greek states that have devoted no serious attention to this form of warfare. The skirmish of Hellenica 3.4.13–14 is paradigmatic. But it is equally paradigmatic that, once steps have been taken on the Greek side to address the problem, we are reading only a couple of pages later about a serious defeat for Persian cavalry. That brings us to the more interesting question of how Persian cavalry deals with infantry. Success is possible when it is dealing with an enemy 272 hippeian hēn autoi hoi barbaroi nomizousi kreittō einai hapasēs tēs basileōs hippeias. This is rendered more concretely by Waterfield: it “could overcome the king’s cavalry at full strength.” Paphlagonians were the only cavalry on Cyrus’ right wing at Cunaxa. Is this a sign that he rated them highly—or that they were of peripheral importance? Xenophon’s narrative says nothing about what they actually did in the battle; they certainly did not impede Tissaphernes’ passage through that sector of the battle line on his way to the Greek camp. 273 Lydians as cavalry-specialists: 1.27. At 1.79–80 he seems to imply Lydian force at Sardis consisted entirely of cavalry; the narrative of Pteria is unspecific on the point. 274 Not that it would be a new model even further east than in Lydia: the Assyrian military had had a considerable cavalry and chariot establishment, and indeed been very keen to source horses from Media. 275 A similar idea is enshrined in Polyaenus 7.8.1. 276 Curt. 4.9.25, 16.20.

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who is on the defensive,277 is deployed as a new element in an engagement already in progress (especially when there are no horsemen on the other side),278 can attack its adversaries in the rear,279 or when they have been tricked into a false sense of security.280 In all of these cases the enemy has no horsemen of his own or has been deceived by a stratagem. But much of the time we find it in difficulties. In the first phase at Plataea a mass cavalry attack is unable to rescue Masistius’ body. At Miletus in 412 Tissaphernes’ force of mercenaries and cavalry, fighting alongside Milesian and Spartan units, is defeated by Argives and Athenians, who are not said to have any cavalry.281 Eleven years later, having broken through at Cunaxa, he takes his cavalry to the Greek camp—a relatively soft target—rather than continuing to engage in the battle proper, for example by trying to take the Greek hoplites in the flank or rear.282 During subsequent operations in Mesopotamia he abandons attempts to use cavalry against the ten thousand,283 once the latter have shown their ability to confront and defeat the substantial unit commanded by Mithradates (3.4.2).284 At the Centrites satrapal cavalry flees from the risk of being caught between two bodies of infantry (4.3.3, 21) and in Bithynia a force of “infantry and many cavalry,” the latter including Pharnabazus’ hippikon as well as native Bithynian horsemen, can handle peltasts, but retreats and re-groups when Greek cavalry are brought to bear, and is entirely discountenanced by a determined threat from a combination of hoplites and cavalry (6.5.26–31). The narrative ends with the remark that the enemy cavalry made off “as though they were 277 Plataea (where there is quite a strong sense of the cavalry dictating events in terms of the pressure put upon the Greeks); Mithridates see infra, n. 284. 278 Malene (Hdt. 6.29), Cyzicus (Diod. 13.51.7). In the latter they do not have to do much or any actual fighting. 279 7.14.2, 28.2; Front. 2.3.3 and Polyaenus 5.16.2. 280 Polyaenus 7.27.2. 281 Thuc. 8.25. There is admittedly no explicit comment about the part played by the cavalry. 282 Xen. An. 1.10.8 specifically notes his failure to anastrephein. The alternative Ctesias-Ephorus tradition is somewhat kinder about him: cf. Tuplin, “Ctesias as Military Historian,” in Ktesias und der Orient, ed. J. Wiesehöfer, G. Lanfranchi and R. Rollinger (Stuttgart: forthcoming). 283 The troops who attack looters in 3.5.2 might be horsemen (and there are horsemen west of the Tigris in 3.5.12), but there is no explicit sign of cavalry being used against the main Greek army. 284 It is remarkable that, having secured 200 slingers and 50 cavalry, the Greeks can deal decisively with a force of 1000 cavalry and 4000 slingers / archers, whereas previously a mere 200 horse and 400 slingers / archers had brought them to a near standstill. This says little for the quality of Persian horsemen.

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being pursued by cavalry.” The Greeks do have horsemen at their disposal, but no pursuit is actually mounted and the comment is a neat way of underlining the unwillingness of a body of horsemen to confront Greek hoplites. This result recalls the defeat of Pharnabazus’ cavalry by Athenian infantry a decade earlier (Hell. 1.2.16) and also casts some light on the fact that, when he added the Cyreans to his existing forces, Thibron was prepared to confront Tissaphernes’ cavalry in a way that had not previously been the case.285 In the same way, a few years later Pharnabazus’ horsemen can defeat Greek cavalry but still back off when hoplites threaten to become involved (3.4.13, 4.1.17), and the failure of an anonymous Persian cavalry-commander to do the same in the Pactolus plain in 395 (Hell. 3.4.22–24) led to a serious defeat. We can begin to see that Autophradates’ discomfiture at the hands of Orontes’ cavalry (supra n. 246) and Chares’ self-proclaimed “sisterof-Marathon” victory over a predominantly cavalry force are simply part of a pattern.286 One is bound to wonder whether Tissaphernes’ conviction that his cavalry would flatten (katapatēsai) Agesilaus’ army in the Maeander valley (3.4.12, 20),287 or Dercylidas’ fear that Pharnabazus would harm Hellespontine Greek cities kataphronōn tēi hippōi (3.2.1), were entirely valid. Tissaphernes is certainly implied to fear a bad outcome on less favorable terrain and, whatever was the case in Dercylidas’ time, Pharnabazus showed little appetite for serious military confrontation with Agesilaus: his military successes came from chance encounters and he is eventually forced to parley, admitting when he does so that he has been driven from house and home by the Spartans (4.1.33). General Impression Having dissected the written record, it may be useful as a preliminary to drawing together the threads of this discussion to return to the general impression of the role of cavalry created by the headline narrative of Achaemenid military history. In Herodotus not only is Cyrus not cavalry-dominant against Lydia, but cavalry does not figure at all in his subsequent military activities. This is particularly striking in the case of the campaign against the 285

Hell. 3.1.5; cf. Diod. 14.36. sch. Dem. 4.19. It seems reasonable to assume that Chares’ force was predominantly composed of Greek mercenaries. 287 Agesilaus was largely (though not wholly: 3.4.13–14) without hippikon. 286

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Massagetae since neither side is explicitly represented as having any cavalry at all, despite what Herodotus shows immediately afterwards he knows about Massagetan devotion to cavalry. When we reach Darius and Scythia there is certainly cavalry, but it is still inferior to that of the opponent involved. (4.136 says the invasion force was predominantly infantry, though in the context—about speed of movement—this need not be saying that the predominance is exceptionally large.) In the Ionian Revolt narrative the Artybius incident is probably not about a cavalryunit at all, and the only story that highlights cavalry fighting—Histiaeus’ death at Malene—is hard to assess: the intervention of horsemen resolves an engagement, but the situation is opaque and it is not clear that the episode demonstrates the tactical centrality of cavalry. The Plataea narrative starts with a narrative of Persian cavalry failure (Masistius)—indeed perhaps two such narratives, since the strange Phocian stand-off (Hdt. 9.17) raises the idea that cavalry could not deal with a solid infantry group—and, although cavalry units then prove good at discomfiting the Greeks, there is no explicit sign of their playing a part in the final decisive battle. The cavalry are described as separately stationed (9.32) from the army of ethnic contingents, and this turns out to be quite apt: Plataea does not look like a battle that Mardonius tried, or perhaps ever intended, to win with a cavalry strike force. When the Athenians contend that their victory at Marathon means that they, not the Spartans, should be stationed opposite the Persians, they are arguing from the precedent of an infantry battle—and nobody rebukes them for irrelevance (Hdt. 9.27). The next tactically circumstantial account of a large-scale Persian battle in our sources does not arrive until Cunaxa nearly eight decades later, and it is the only one until we get to the Alexander battles a further seven decades after that. This certainly comes over as a cavalrydominated battle in a way that Plataea does not. In the first instance that is because the surviving narrative material concentrates on just two aspects or sectors of the battle. One is the behaviour of the Greek mercenaries: that has nothing to do with cavalry, of course, but also nothing to do with the outcome of the battle—in other words it is an irrelevance. The other is the personal confrontation between Cyrus and Artaxerxes and Cyrus’ death—seemingly immediately subsequent in Xenophon, more distantly so in others: this, by contrast, has everything to do with cavalry and with the battle’s outcome. What is hard to make out is how far the initial strategy for winning the battle of either Artaxerxes or Cyrus was centred on cavalry. As Xenophon presents it Cyrus only

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launched himself towards the king—on the way allegedly routing a force of 6000 cavalry with just 600 of his own—in response to a threat of encirclement and at a time at which some on his own side thought he had already won (An. 1.8.21–24).288 I am not sure whether this can be quite right, but no other source provides a genuinely alternative handle on the situation.289 Still, if Cunaxa became primarily a cavalry battle, this is arguably a function of the weakness of Cyrus’ position: his best bet of victory was to kill the king and his best bet of achieving that was with a rapid cavalry strike at the heart of the enemy army. The king, by contrast, is not recorded doing anything that suggests he saw cavalry as the primary element in his army or his strategy. Once we get to the set-pieces of the Macedonian campaign things are different again. Granicus is in effect an entirely cavalry battle, and the narratives of Issus and Gaugamela pay much attention to cavalry and are quite consonant with supposing that it was as much a Persian as a Macedonian view that cavalry would make a crucial contribution to the outcome. When we take into account Xenophon’s insistence in Cyropaedia upon the equestrianization of Persia as a crucial feature in his (manipulated) ‘history’ of the empire’s origins, we may wish to conclude that what he saw in early- to mid-fourth century Persia was what we see in 330s Persia—a military power for whose large-scale armies cavalry had become of fundamental importance. In fact, if there was a systematic weakness in the military response to Alexander it was not over-dependence on Greek mercenaries, as some believe was the case or at least was what Greek sources said was the case, but over-dependence on a cavalry arm that actually did quite well—but not well enough. But had there really been a fundamental change since 150–200 years earlier? The incidence of recorded cavalry events does increase in the second half of Achaemenid history.290 But perhaps this is a function of

288 Xen. An. 1.7.11,8.24. J. K. Anderson, Military Theory and Practice in the Age of Xenophon (Berkeley-Los Angeles: 1970), 184, suggests that this was possible because the king’s cavalry was stationary at the time as a side-effect of the encircling movement. 289 It is in the subsequent phases of the battle that we start to get slightly more of a sense of the different take on events in the various sources, cf. Tuplin, “Ctesias” (n. 282). 290 77% of the cavalry items in the catalogue (see n. 190) belong to the period after 412 (less than 40% of the empire’s history), whereas only 47% of the non-cavalry items belong to the same period.

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the different sorts of warfare being recorded and the different historiographical and personal profiles of Herodotus as against Xenophon. The sense of cavalry being at most equipollent with infantry in Herodotus’ vision of things may seem to be encapsulated in the space around Xerxes as he marches to war (7.41, 55): he is immediately preceded and followed by four groups of a thousand soldiers (two of infantry closest to him, with two of cavalry in front and behind) and then come 10,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry.291 One is tempted to contrast the predominantly equestrian royal procession that Xenophon creates in Cyropaedia (8.3.1–23) or the fact that in Cyrus’ camp it is cavalry that are closest to the king (8.5.9). At the same time, the former is not a procession to war, while in the latter (where there are no numbers) the reason for the cavalry’s position is that in case of emergency they take longer to prepare for action and must therefore be as far as possible from the camp’s perimeter. Xenophon is engaging with practicalities here—recycling an observation already made in the dark days after the murder of the generals in autumn 401 (An. 3.4.35)—not with issues of military pecking order. Moreover, any equestrian predominance in Xenophon might also be contrasted with Curtius’ picture of Darius III marching to war from Babylon—the closest parallel really to Herodotus—in which the equestrian presence is not very prominent at all.292 In the end these varied and not-quite-commensurate data had probably best not be pushed to yield a pattern of actual or perceived change over time, and we have to stick with the battle narratives. It is plain that we can find operations being carried out by independent bodies of horsemen at all periods, so any view that cavalry became more important in the later period really has to depend upon the largescale battles. Moreover, since so few large-scale battles are properly described in our sources and since Cunaxa, which in any case belongs 291 Even so, the equipollence is not perfect: some of the aikhmophoroi are described as “best and noblest”; no such qualification attaches to any cavalry. This, incidentally, sits ill with the observation of P. Hunt, “Military Forces,” CHGRW 1.126, that the horse was the marker of the Persian elite and “peasant levies which added mass to the Persian army gained little social power from their participation.” One or other of the bodies of 1000 involved here might be the one whose commander is the chiliarch pictured in Greek sources as playing a special role in controlling access to the king at court. But whether this putative high official was an infantry (Diod. 11.69, Plut. Vit. Them. 22) or a cavalry commander (Arr. 3.23.4; cf. 3.9.1, 21.1) remains unresolved. 292 Admittedly we cannot judge how big a group the horsemen of 12 nations in Curt. 3.3.13 is supposed to be.

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well into the second half of Achaemenid history, is hard to assess, this resolves into a question about Plataea. If it is true that Mardonius did not try to win Plataea with cavalry, whereas Darius III in some sense did attempt to win Issus and Gaugamela with them, is this a significant contrast? The answer must be that we cannot be sure that it is. The story of the Plataea campaign is, ironically, that Mardonius’ initial use of cavalry to harass the enemy drove the Greeks to withdraw to a position in which it was difficult or impossible for cavalry to be the spearhead of a decisive conflict and victory. Did he allow that to happen because he would never have tried to win the battle with cavalry in the first place? Or was it a misjudgement that he thought could be retrieved, because he thought he had detected a sufficient degree of disorder among the Greeks for them to be vulnerable to any form of attack? Or did he have an open mind all along about the sort of engagement that would finally decide the issue? In 490 Datis and Artaphernes had believed that it was not necessary to be able to deploy a substantial cavalry force in order to defeat a Greek hoplite force. Did Mardonius still believe that, despite the outcome at Marathon, this was still substantially true—either as a general proposition or (at least) if the hoplite enemy was not on the offensive? These are not just rhetorical questions, but the fact that they have answers does not mean that those answers are easy to determine. So far as the larger question of continuity or change between 479 and 333 goes, it is very tempting to think that the rather static tactical world of the shield-wall and arrow-barrage—as practised at Plataea and Mycale,293 another entirely non-cavalry battle, if one believes Herodotus—is a different one from that of Granicus, Issus and Gaugamela (and indeed Cunaxa), and that something had changed in the century and a half between Xerxes and Darius III. If that is right one might also want to privilege such differences as there are between the Herodotean and Xenophontic versions of a Persian cavalryman: enkheiridion becomes kopis or makhaira, aikhmē becomes palton, and the presumably supple, scale-covered cuirass becomes the more solid neck-guard cuirass because there is a greater expectation that, in the right circumstances, direct assault by cavalry on the enemy might be the key to victory. And yet. The historical success-rate of Persian cavalry remains not very high. Greek accounts (the only ones we have) of notable Persian military achievements—for example, Artaxerxes III’s reconquest of

293

Hdt. 9.61, 62, 72, 99, 102.

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Egypt—are not moved to highlight the cavalry contribution; Xenophon— having constructed a fictive history of Cyrus intended to highlight the equestrianization of Persia and the creation of what, on the view under discussion here, is the new, later Achaemenid model of heavy strike cavalry—produces an account of the battle of Thymbrara in which cavalry always operates together with infantry and cannot resolve the problem presented by a large and well-disciplined Egyptian infantry force;294 and the tactical character of the set-piece battles with Alexander might be subject to its own element of the accidental. When Darius III opted for ground propitious for cavalry in 333 and 331, he was after all only doing what Mardonius had tried to do in 479 when he ceded Attica and withdrew to the Asopus valley. The accident was that Darius could actually achieve his option in 331 and only ended up on less satisfactory terrain in 333 thanks to a decision that looked so bizarre that Greek historians could only talk about Fortune or the hand of god, whereas Mardonius ended up fighting the decisive engagement in one of the more unsuitable bits of southern Boeotia.295 The essential purpose of this chapter has been to pursue some of the lines of thought that might illuminate the importance of cavalry as a feature of Achaemenid war-making. What has emerged may be summarized as follows: (1) Cavalry is not a particularly privileged subject in any of the forms of iconography available for us to assess—whether we are looking at items that might be said to reflect Persian views fairly directly, or at ones that have a more indirect take on the environment created by the empire. Designers of images who chose to engage with the military world at all did not behave as though cavalry was its dominant feature. Infantry can seem just as important—and sometimes more important: it depends on context. (2) The corpus of texts from the imperial period in languages other than Greek is large, if unevenly distributed between the empire’s regions. But the quantity of material in this corpus that plainly deals with actual military horsemen is extremely modest. One may hesitate to say that this demonstrates anything about the perception of Persian cavalry

294 It is interesting that the summary in Anderson, Military Theory (n. 288), 190, of the lessons Xenophon intended to convey through this battle highlights the importance of flank attack as such, not the use of cavalry to deliver it. 295 Arr. 2.6.6–7, 7.3; Plut. Vit. Alex. 20; Curt. 3.8.20, 29.

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among peoples in Anatolia, Egypt, the Levant and points east or even about its actual relative importance in the Persian war-machine: the nature of most of the texts involved makes that an unjustified sort of response; and when the Persian king himself speaks symbolically of the Persian spear he is picking a symbol that is equally appropriate to cavalry and infantry and doubtless doing so precisely because it is appropriate to both. But it still seems worth noting that there was nothing about the circumstances in which Darius and his generals won 19 victories in a year—nothing about what distinguished the victor from the vanquished armies, even when the latter were not Iranian—that prompted creation of a stereotype summary battle narrative that mentioned horsemen. In any event, it is certainly the case that this category of material provides very little hard information to add to what can be excavated from classical texts and the inventory of Gadal-Iama’s equipment remains an unusually impressive exhibit. It presents us with a warrior who in abstract terms is not so very dissimilar to the Persian cavalryman of Herodotus or Xenophon. But what we are to make of this and what sort of real military functions people like Gadal-Iama actually fulfilled remain hard to assess. (3) Greek literary texts do reveal that there was some special association between Persians and horses / horsemen, that the cavalry fighting in Persian armies was likely to be largely Iranian, and that the equestrian component of such armies could be expected to be proportionately larger than in a Greek or Macedonian one. What is not clear, whether from observations and assumptions encountered outside military narratives or from the record of actual warfare, is that this ever entailed a judgement that Persia’s military power rested primarily upon cavalry. Members of the Persian socio-political elite might characteristically be horse-riders, but there were elite infantry units too and—at least until Greek mercenaries become a serious issue—it was they, together with other Persian or more broadly Iranian components, who supplied the core infantry presence when there was serious fighting to be done. One should not think the preference for Iranian cavalry marks cavalry out as the premier arm of the military establishment. There is remarkably little sign that Greeks found Persian cavalry inherently exotic or awesome, and there is no perceptible demonizing of the Iranian horseman. The most obvious pertinent observations in classical sources are Herodotus’ comment about the sang froid of the Athenians at Marathon, and Parmenion’s evocation of the huge and

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shaggy Bactrians and Scythians in Curtius (4.13.5). But the former is nothing to do with cavalry, and the latter is not phrased as though it were.296 There is also little sign that Greeks thought there to be anything radically unusual about the ways in which Persians used cavalry: detail is often scant, but what is there is mostly presented in a matter-of-fact fashion and does not disclose great tactical inventiveness. Nor is it at all certain that we need to postulate the existence of more than one type of Persian cavalry intended for different tactical contexts or to think that different contexts were meant to be addressed by horsemen of different ethno-cultural origins; the written and pictorial records are both inadequate, but they do not leave a firm impression that Persian cavalry fighting was a business marked by a particularly large degree of tactical flexibility or specialisation.297 Perhaps that has some bearing on the fact that the evidence before us, admittedly a heavily skewed selection from the battle honours of Persian cavalry over the empire’s two centuries of history, does not reveal the king’s horsemen to be particularly remarkable in their achievements. If there is any question of cavalry becoming more important in the later Achaemenid era, it does not seem to have made much difference. But the proposition that there was such a change remains hard to demonstrate. The great military event in the first half of Achaemenid history was the invasion of a land mostly not suited to cavalry warfare, and the one battle fought on terrain that was supposed to buck that trend was eventually settled on a particular part of that terrain that did not. Perhaps that fact tended to diminish Herodotus’ interest in recovering details about the role of cavalry in earlier parts of Achaemenid history, leaving us with an undue sense of unwillingness on the part of Persian commanders of that era to build battle-plans around cavalry. At the same time, it remains purely conjectural that early Persian successes against Asiatic Greeks were predicated to any special degree on the ability of Persian cavalry to sweep aside the infantry, and the implied

296

In Hdt. 3.118, Intaphernes threads the extremities of mutilated door-keepers on his horse bridle. We should not, I think, assume that this was normal (the point of the story is that Intaphernes is behaving transgressively) or that those facing Persian cavalry had to tolerate the sight of rotting battle-trophies adorning the harnessing. 297 Xenophon’s comparison of Hyrcanian horsemen and Spartan (infantry) Sciritae (Cyr.4.2.1) yields an ambiguous tactical picture, as Sciritae were used in varied contexts (Thuc.5.67–8, 71–2, Xen.Hell. 5.2.24, 4.52–5, RL 12.3, 13.6, Diod.15.32, Hesych. s.v. Skeirites, Timae. Lex.Platon. 1002a21). That it suggests that Hyrcania produced “light” cavalry is possible.

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contrast with Marathon and Plataea fails if there were almost no cavalry at the former and those that were at the latter could in the end play no decisive role.298 In other words, although as good sceptical historians we may suspect misrepresentation, we do not really have the grounds for re-inserting anything into the record. Of course, the empire lasted too long for complete immutability to be a viable option, and the iconographic evidence proves that at some stage there came cavalrymen who did not look entirely like those described by Herodotus. But my suspicion is that the status of cavalry within the military establishment was not so very different in the era of Darius III from what it had been in that of his great ancestor and namesake or even that of the Founder; and that at none of these junctures should we overestimate that status or believe that it was primarily the king’s horsemen that gave him his power.299

298

The view also makes assumptions about the development of ‘hoplite’ fighting in any area that are not now universally shared among historians of Greek warfare. See C. J. Tuplin, “Marathon: in Search of a Persian Perspective,” in Marathon: the Battle and the Deme, ed. K. Buraselis and K. Meidani (Athens: forthcoming). 299 This chapter was written during the tenure of Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship, and I gratefully acknowledge the release from pedagogic and administrative duties that this benefaction afforded. I must also acknowledge the quite remarkable degree of patience displayed by the editors in dealing with a dilatory contributor and apologize humbly both to him and to my fellow-contributors.

A CUP BY DOURIS AND THE BATTLE OF MARATHON Peter Krentz An Elegant Scene The interior of a cup by Douris in Baltimore, painted in the early fifth century bce, shows two beardless warriors—one with chiton, greaves, corselet, helmet, and round shield, the other with a sleeveless shirt over a long-sleeved, long-legged garment, a pointed cap with long flaps, and a quiver—running in step together (fig. 1).1 Not just their legs, but also the angle of their heads and the bend of their right arms match wonderfully. Perhaps most striking are the parallel spears they carry. Why is an archer carrying a spear and not a bow? What does this scene represent? Several other early red-figure vases show comparable combinations of running warriors.2 The closest parallel is the interior of a cup in London credited to Onesimos (D. Williams) or the Proto-Panaetian Group (Hartwig), with a single pair of warriors running to the left, the archer slightly in the lead, holding her bow in her left hand and an arrow in her right (fig. 2). A second is the fragmentary Vatican psykter by Myson, though here the hoplite is in the lead (fig. 3). A third is the Hamburg cup by Apollodoros (D. Williams) or the Pedieus Painter (von Bothmer), which shows three hoplites and two archers with axes in their right hands (fig. 4). Each archer turns to look back at the next hoplite. A fourth is the Arezzo krater by Euphronios, which shows four Amazons on side B running to join the fight on side A (fig. 5). The second of these figures is an archer with her bow in her left hand, running to the left in parallel with a hoplite.

1 Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University B8 = ARV2 442/215 = Beazley Archive Database 205260. In future notes I will abbreviate this database as BAD. To see the entry on each vase, go to the pottery section of the Beazley Archive at http://www.beazley .ox.ac.uk/BeazleyAdmin/Script2/default.htm. I would like to thank Garrett Fagan, Ann Steiner, and Michael Toumazou for commenting on an earlier draft of this essay. 2 The four cups listed in this paragraph are: London E45 = ARV2 316.8, 1645 = BAD 203248; Hamburg 1983.277 = BAD 1558; Vatican AST428 = ARV2 238, 242.77 = BAD 202178; Arezzo 1465 = ARV2 15.6, 1619 = BAD 200068.

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Three of these four vases certainly depict Amazons, and the other (the Hamburg cup) might too, though it lacks any certain indicators. Dyfri Williams argued, therefore, that the warriors on the Douris cup “must certainly be Amazons” given their long hair, the Eastern-looking shield device, their similarity to the figures on the Hamburg cup, and the possibility that the Arezzo krater influenced Douris and Onesimos, who both worked in Euphronios’ workshop.3 Aliki Kauffmann-Samaras followed Williams, including the Douris cup in her catalogue of Amazons in the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae.4 Other scholars have not seen Amazons. When he published the Douris cup in the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, David Robinson commented that “there is nothing to prove that these figures are female and so Amazons”.5 No breasts, for instance. Neither J. D. Beazley, Dietrich von Bothmer, Ellen Reeder Williams or Diane Buitron-Oliver identified the figures as Amazons.6 The treatment of the hair is indecisive, for though Douris makes less of the hair than Euphronios and Onesimos do, this cup falls within the range of how Douris treats Amazons’ hair elsewhere.7 Wulf Raeck claimed that early fifth-century Athenian painters show Greeks with Corinthian helmets and Amazons with Attic or Ionic.8 But for Douris, at any rate, this rule does not hold. While the hoplite’s equipment would suit one of Douris’ Amazons, his Amazon archers—in contrast to the running ones painted by other artists— do not wear the long-sleeved tops and trousers seen on this cup. They look like his Amazon hoplites, with helmets, tunics, and, over the tunics, 3 Dyfri Williams, “Apollodoros and a New Amazon Cup in a Private Collection,” JHS 97 (1977): 162. 4 Aliki Kauffmann-Samaras, s.v. “Amazones” in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC) vol. 1.2 (Zurich: Artemis, 1981), 759 with pl. 520. 5 David M. Robinson, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. United States of America. The Robinson Collection, Baltimore, MD, vol. 2 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1937) 16. 6 J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters. 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963) 442; Dietrich von Bothmer, Amazons in Greek Art (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957); Ellen Reeder Williams, The Archaeological Collection of the Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1984) 159–60; Diane Buitron-Oliver, Douris, A Master-Painter of Athenian Red-Figure Vases. Forschungen zur antiken Keramik, II. Reihe, Kerameus (Mainz: von Zabern, 1995) 8. 7 For other Amazonomachies by Douris, see ARV2 428.16 = BAD 205060; ARV2 429.27 = BAD 205071 (no head visible on the fragments); ARV2 445.256, 1569, 1653 = BAD 205305. 8 Wulf Raeck, Zum Barbarenbild in der Kunst Athens im 6. und 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr. Habelts Dissertationsdrucke, Reihe Klassische Archäologie, Heft 14 (Bonn: R. Habelt, 1981) 30.

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thin shirts that usually have a wavy line under the breasts. The shirt on the Baltimore cup calls to mind the attire of several Greek hoplites on vases depicting Greeks fighting Persians, where some hoplites wear composite corselets and others only plain shirts, perhaps padded linen corselets (figs. 7–8). Finally, none of our running Amazon archers carries a spear, and it seems a stretch to maintain, as Dyfri Williams does, that Douris’ archer carries an axe. The axe-head is not visible, in contrast to the Hamburg cup. The parallelism suggests that both warriors carry spears. The shaft of the archer’s spear looks slightly thicker than the hoplite’s, which might imply that the hoplite is carrying a javelin, since Greek art usually shows javelins thinner than thrusting spears.9 If not Amazons, then who? A young Greek hoplite and a beardless Scythian archer? So Maria Frederika Vos, who includes the Douris cup in her catalogue of Scythian Archers in Archaic Attic Vase-Painting.10 The scene would then belong on a long list of Scythian archers shown with hoplites, an especially popular subject between 530 and 500 bce We see archers and hoplites arming, inspecting the entrails of sacrificed animals, departing, standing, crouching, and shooting from behind the cover of the hoplite’s shield. The closest parallel Vos cites for the Douris cup is a fragment of a red-figure plate found on the acropolis (fig. 8). The fragment preserves only the parallel right legs of an archer with a bow and a hoplite with a spear, walking toward the left (note the angle of the spear, which is too vertical for the figure to be running). The only running Scythian archers I have found are running away from the fighting.11 If the archer on the Baltimore Douris cup is a Scythian, he would also be unusual in lacking a bow, for “on the Attic vases Scythians are rarely or never without their bows.”12 9 See, for instance, the pair of spears on a Corinthian aryballos with a still life of hoplite equipment, ca. 650–600: Anthony Snodgrass, Early Greek Armour and Weapons (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1964), pl. 33 = Berlin, Staatliche Museum 3148. 10 Maria Frederika Vos, Scythian Archers in Archaic Attic Vase-Painting (Groningen: J.B. Wolters, 1963) no. 193, followed by Williams, Archaeological (n. 6) 160. 11 Vos, Scythian (n. 10), nos. 212, 228–230, 237. Gloria Ferrari Pinney, “Achilles Lord of Scythia,” in Ancient Greek Art and Iconography, ed. Warren G. Moon (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1983), 124 n. 31, mentions two other examples. Two exceptions: a black-figure amphora dated to last decade of the sixth century, on which a hoplite runs toward the left between two running Scythian archers, none of whom has a spear (Laon 37.979 = BAD 7016), and a black-figure olpe dated to about 500, on which an archer running to the left looks back at a hoplite running behind him, both carrying spears (the hoplite, two spears) in an upright position (Salerno 14909 = BAD 24427). None of these warriors seems to be charging to engage, and both vases may in fact post-date Marathon (see n. 22). 12 Vos, Skythian (n. 10), 48.

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Vos argued that the vases reveal an otherwise unknown use of Scythian archers as mercenaries in the sixth century.13 She explained the Scythians’ disappearance from Athenian vases after 500 with the suggestion that the Persians cut off the supply. She believed that the Greeks, with the exception of the Cretans, had no native archers in the Archaic period. Scholars have challenged all these ideas. Persians could not have prevented Scythians from hiring themselves to the Athenians even if they had wanted to. Arrowheads found at Greek sanctuaries show that archers played a more important role in Archaic warfare than literary sources suggest, and Greeks might have adopted some of the typical Scythian archer attire in addition to the superior Scythian bow.14 Some scholars, including Karl-Wilhelm Welwei and Gloria Ferrari Pinney, have denied that there were any Scythian mercenary archers in Athens, maintaining that the vase painters are not consistent in how they portray the archers.15 Pinney even suggested that ‘Scythian attire can be disassociated from its specific ethnic meaning, and employed…to indicate the function of archer’.16 So Douris’ spear-carrying archer and hoplite might both be Greeks. If so, did Douris have in mind a particular occasion, mythical or historical? Did archers and hoplites, both carrying spears, ever run together toward a battle? A Possible Occasion If we were to ask simply about running hoplites, the question would have an obvious answer. One battle is still famous today for running, as it was in the fifth century bce—though not for the same run. Herodotus says that the Athenians advanced ‘at a run’ (dromōi) for eight stadia at the battle of Marathon in 490.17 In fact he uses the word dromōi four times in a single paragraph. Descriptions of the lost painting of the battle in the Stoa Poikile confirm Herodotus. The left side of the painting showed the Athenians

13

Ibid., 61–88. François Lissarrague, L’autre guerrier: archers, peltastes, cavaliers: sur l’iconographie du guerrier (Paris: La Découverte, 1990); Hans van Wees, Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities (London: Duckworth, 2004) 170. 15 Karl-Wilhelm Welwei, Unfreie im antiken Kriegsdienst, vol. 1 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1974), 8–17; Pinney, “Achilles” (n. 11). 16 Pinney, “Achilles” (n. 11), 1983: 130. 17 Hdt. 6.112. 14

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and Plataeans closing with the enemy for hand-to-hand combat,18 with the Plataeans, distinguished from the Athenians by their caps, each coming to help as fast as he could.19 In other words, the painting showed both the Athenians and the Plataeans charging at a run, with the Plataeans identifiable not by their running, but by what they had on their heads. A second confirmation of the charge at a run comes from Aristophanes, who says that the Athenians ran out with spear and shield to fight the barbarians.20 No wonder, then, that the running hoplite became a theme in Athenian art. “The image of a running warrior in armor,” Sarah Morris has suggested, “became a symbol of the Athenian victory over Persia.”21 The length of a Greek stadion, 600 feet, differed from place to place. Excavation has shown that it varied from as short as 167 meters at Halieis, where one foot = 0.278 meters, to as long as 192 meters at Olympia, where one foot = 0.320 meters.22 Most likely Herodotus heard this story from Athenians. On the Attic standard (one foot = 0.296 18

Paus. 1.15.3. [Dem.] 59.94. Evelyn B. Harrison, “The South Frieze of the Nike Temple and the Marathon Painting in the Painted Stoa,” AJArch. 76 (1972): 353–78, collects the testimonia on the painting. E. D. Francis and Michael Vickers’ suggestion that this Demosthenes passage refers to a different painting, in which the Plataeans are shown hurrying down from Oenoe, strikes me as implausible, involving as it does the assumption that Pausanias mistook allies coming to help the Athenians for enemies joining battle with them. See “The Oenoe Painting in the Stoa Poikile, and Herodotus’ Account of Marathon,” BSA 80 (1985): 102–104. John Boardman, “Composition and Content on Classical Murals and Vases,” in Periklean Athens and Its Legacy: Problems and Perspectives, ed. Judith M. Barringer and Jeffrey M. Hurwit (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 2005): 67–69 and David Castriota, “Feminizing the Barbarian and Barbarizing the Feminine: Amazons, Trojans, and Persians in the Stoa Poikile,” ibid., 91–92 accept their suggestion, but Mark Stansbury-O’Donnell, “The Painting Program in the Stoa Poikile,” ibid., 79 gives several strong arguments against it. 20 Ar. Vesp. 1081: ekdramontes. 21 Sarah P. Morris, Daidalos and the Origins of Greek Art (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1992), 303. A painted plaque from the acropolis is perhaps the best known example; see Botho Graef and Ernst Langlotz, Die Antiken Vasen von der Akropolis zu Athen, vol. 2 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1933), no. 1037. Richard T. Neer in Style and Politics in Athenian Vase-Painting (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002), 258 n. 72, prefers to see this plaque as showing a hoplitodromos, on the grounds that the figure is not fully armed. But as far as we know, contestants in the race in armor did not carry spears. Red-figure examples of running hoplites who are not hoplitodromoi include: Leipzig T505= ARV2 336.21= BAD 203458; Leipzig T3631 = ARV2 341.81 = BAD 203514; Paris CP11358 = ARV2 342.13, 1597 = BAD 203537; Orvieto 110 = ARV2 342.14, 1598 = BAD 203538; St. Petersburg 1542 = ARV2 413.23 = BAD 204505. There are earlier black-figure examples, such as Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum 4436 = ABV 1672.5bis = BAD 275390 and Alpine (NJ), S. Tray: XXXX350158 = Beazley Paralipomena 24.32ter = BAD 350158. 22 David G. Romano, Athletics and Mathematics in Archaic Corinth: The Origins of the Greek Stadion (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1993), 17. Romano puts the Corinth stadion slightly shorter still, at about 165 meters. 19

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meters), eight stadia would be a little over 1400 meters (0.9 miles). Since Hans Delbrück’s Die Perserkriege und die Burgunderkriege (1887), scholars have generally been skeptical that heavily armed Greek hoplites could have covered this distance at a pace that could be called dromōi.23 They have either lessened the speed, by translating dromōi as “at the quick step,”24 or the distance, assuming that the Greeks began to run only when they came within bowshot. The Weight of Hoplite Equipment Most scholars writing in English today estimate the weight of a hoplite’s equipment as 70 pounds (33 kilograms) or more, a figure that goes back to Delbrück, who took the figure 72 pounds from W. Rüstow and H. Köchly’s Geschichte des griechischen Kriegswesens von der ältesten Zeit bis auf Pyrrhos (1852).25 These are German pounds, each equal to 500 grams or 0.5 kilograms, as is clear from places where Rüstow and Köchly give weights in both pounds and kilograms. Their original estimate, therefore, was actually about 36 kilograms (79 avoirdupois pounds).26 23 Hans Delbrück, Die Perserkriege und die Burgunderkriege (Berlin: Walther & Apolant, 1887), 56, defended further in Delbrück, Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politischen Geschichte, vol. 1, Das Alterthum. 3rd ed. (Berlin: G. Stilke, 1920), 67–71 = History of the Art of War, vol. 1 Antiquity, trans. W. J. Renfroe (Lincoln: Greenwood, 1975), 83–86 n. 7. 24 G. B. Grundy, The Great Persian War and its Preliminaries: a Study of the Evidence, Literary and Topographical (London: J. Murray, 1901), 188, followed by F. Schachermeyr, “Marathon und die persische Politik,” Historische Zeitschrift 172 (1951), 28, and Andrew R. Burn, Persia and the Greeks: The Defence of the West, c. 546-478 bc, 2nd ed. (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1984), 249 n. 26. In modern terms ‘quick step’ means 120 steps per minute, each step 2.5 feet, or a pace of 3.4 mph. W. W. How has persuaded most scholars that ‘at the quick step’ is too slow in “On the Meaning of BAΔHN and ΔPOMΩI in Greek Historians of the Fifth Century,” CQ 13 (1919): 40–42. He favors “double-time,” in modern terms 180 steps per minute, each step 3 feet, or a pace of 6.1 mph. 25 Delbrück, Perserkriege (n. 23), 56 n. 1 cites W. Rüstow and H. Köchly, Geschichte des griechischen kriegswesens von der ältesten zeit bis auf Pyrrhos (Uarau: Verlagscomptoir, 1852), 44. In 1920 Delbrück was still repeating the estimate, conceding that Rüstow and Köchly lacked evidence, but asserting that the fact that hoplites were heavily armed cannot be denied (Geschichte [n. 23], 71 = History [n. 23], 86). That he did not question the Rüstow-Köchly figure is perhaps less surprising when one considers the weight soldiers carried in his day: Austrians 27.75 kg, French 27.75 kg, English 28.3 kg, Germans 29 kg, Italians 30.5 kg, Russians 31.3, Swiss 31.4 kg; see Perserkriege (n. 23), 56 n. 1. 26 In his English translation of Delbrück’s History (n. 23), 86, Walter J. Renfroe presumably had in mind avoirdupois lbs (1 lb = 0.454 kg). In their analysis of individual items of equipment, Rüstow and Köchly give some weights in both kg and lbs, which makes clear that they are speaking of German lbs ([n. 25], 11–20). I suspect that some

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Even this lofty figure has been exaggerated—in 1994 Richard A. Gabriel and Donald W. Boose gave the weight of a panoply (a full set of hoplite equipment) as 85–90 pounds (39–41 kilograms).27 But, as I say, most scholars writing in English today favor 70 avoirdupois pounds, which Victor Davis Hanson describes as “an incredible burden to endure for the ancient infantryman, who himself probably weighed no more than some 150 pounds.”28 Rüstow and Köchly’s figures do not deserve this veneration. They did not weigh museum pieces or attempt to reconstruct the equipment. As a result, a reviewer, Theodor Bergk, dismissed their figures as “purely hypothetical attempts,” while Hans Droysen justified his decision to

other readers of Delbrück’s original German, which gives the total figure for the Greeks only in lbs, were similarly misled. J. F. C. Fuller, for example, gives the precise figure of 72 lbs in Armament and History: a Study of the Influence of Armament on History from the Dawn of Classical Warfare to the Second World War (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1945), 47. Delbrück gives the weight carried in Germany as both 58 lbs and 29 kg in Perserkriege (n. 23), 56, with lbs in the text and kg in the note, so Delbrück was certainly thinking of half-kg lbs. 27 Richard A. Gabriel and Donald W. Boose, Jr., The Great Battles of Antiquity: a Strategic and Tactical Guide to Great Battles That Shaped the Development of War (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1994), 146. 28 V. D. Hanson, The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2000), 56, where he says that modern estimates range from 50 to 70 lbs. He prefers the higher figure himself in Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience (London: Routledge, 1991), 78 n. 1, and The Other Greeks: the Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization (New York: Free Press, 1995), 230, 244, 247, 273. Others who put the total at 70 lbs or more include Josiah Ober, “Hoplites and Obstacles,” in Hanson, Hoplites (above) 181; James P. Holoka, “Marathon and the Myth of the Same-Day March,” GRBS 38 (1997): 337, 340–41; Antonio Santosuosso, Soldiers, Citizens, and the Symbols of War: From Classical Greece to Republican Rome, 500-167 bc. History and warfare. (Boulder, Colo: Westview Press, 1997), 35; Paul Cartledge, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Ancient Greece (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998), 170; Adam Schwartz, “The Early Hoplite Phalanx: Order or Disarray?” Classica et Mediaevalia 53 (2002), 46 (adding the weight of weapons to 30 kg of armor would put the total around 70 lbs); Tom Holland, Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West (New York: Anchor, 2005), 195. Peter Hunt puts the weight of the armor, including the shield, at 50–60 lbs, so he too would reach nearly 70 if he included weapons, sandals, and chiton (“Military Forces,” in CHGRW, 1.115). When Walter Donlan and James Thompson tested the feasibility of the Marathon run in experiments at Penn State in the 1970s, they cited “information supplied by” Albert J. Gagne, curator of the Higgins Armory Museum in Worchester, Massachusetts, a museum that specializes in mediaeval armor. Gagne’s information, whatever it was, led to an estimate of just under 35 lbs (16 kg) for a bell cuirass, helmet and sword. Adding 15.5–17.5 lbs (7–8 kg) for the shield, Donlan and Thompson put the total at about 50 lbs (23 kg), not counting greaves, weapons, and other clothing, which would add at least 10 lbs. See “The Charge at Marathon,” Classical Journal 71 (1976), 341 n. 4.

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ignore them by calling them “arbitrary estimates.”29 After all the archaeological discoveries of the past century and a half, especially in the German excavations at Olympia, we can do better today. In 1995 Eero Jarva published a restudy of the armor from Olympia, and in 2002 Johann Peter Franz reported weights for various pieces of equipment in the extensive Axel Guttman collection.30 To account for the corrosion of bronze and the almost complete disappearance of leather and linen, Franz added 33% to each weight to come up with estimates based on actual finds. Scholars can also draw on the experience of hoplite re-enactors who have tried to reconstruct various pieces of hoplite equipment. Peter Connolly was a pioneer in this regard, but he now has many followers in groups such as the Hoplite Association in London, the Sydney Ancients, and the Hoplitikon of Melbourne.31 One member of this last group, Craig Sitch, makes sophisticated pieces that he sells from his company’s website.32 Let us examine the equipment piece by piece, focusing on the early fifth century. The most popular helmet in the Archaic period, the Corinthian helmet, was hammered out of a single sheet of bronze and completely covered the head except for eye holes.33 Jarva finds the usual range to be between 1.2 and 1.5 kilograms, with a few as high as 2 kilograms. Franz gives the average weight as 1.6 kilograms, which he corrects to 2.1. The style of this helmet changed over time. In the last quarter of the sixth century, it became harder and thinner. The average thickness was reduced from 1.2 to 0.7 millimeters, with an increase in the distance between the skull and the helmet to allow for additional padding. The late Corinthian helmets weighed 0.9 kilograms or less; if we add 33% for the padding, we get 1.2 kilograms. Most helmets worn at the battle of Marathon probably weighed even 29 Theodor Bergk, Review of W. Rüstow and H. Köchly, Geschichte des Griechischen Kriegswesens, in Zeitschrift für die Alterthumswissenschaft 5 (1853): 434; Hans Droysen, Heerwesen und Kriegführung der Griechen (Freiburg: Mohr, 1889), 3 n. 2. 30 Eero Jarva, Archaiologia on Archaic Greek Body Armour (Rovaniemi, Finland: Pohjois-Suomen Historiallinen Yhdistys, 1995); Johann Peter Franz, Krieger, Bauern, Bürger (Frankfurt: Lang, 2002). 31 Hoplite Association: http://www.hoplites.org/index.htm. Sydney Ancients: http:// sydneyancients.5u.com/. Hoplitikon of Melbourne: http://hoplitikon.com/Mission .htm. 32 Go to http://www.manningimperial.com/. 33 Jarva, Archaiologia (n. 30), 134; Franz, Krieger (n. 30), 344; P. H. Blyth and A. G. Atkins, “Stabbing of metal sheets by a triangular knife: an archaeological investigation,” International Journal of Impact Engineering 27 (2002): 461; Tim Everson, Warfare in Ancient Greece: Arms and Armour from the Heroes of Homer to Alexander the Great (Stroud: Sutton, 2004), 130–36.

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less than that. The hoplite on the Douris cup wears the ‘Attic’ helmet typical of the early fifth-century vases showing Greeks fighting Persians. It had hinged cheek pieces and did not cover the ears. The Plataeans wore the kuneē (literally “dog’s skin”), a leather cap still lighter than the Attic helmet.34 Hanson estimates the ‘bell cuirass,’ formed out of two plates of bronze 2–10 millimeters thick, at 30–40 pounds (15–20 kilograms), citing Plutarch’s Demetrius 21 for breastplates weighing 40 pounds.35 But these heavy iron breastplates were probably worn by horsemen. A wellpreserved early example of a bell cuirass found at Argos, with an average thickness of 2 millimeters, weighs 3.4 kilograms in its current state.36 It may have been worn by a horseman as well (no shield was found in the tomb), and later examples are thinner, 0.6–1 millimeters. Franz gives the average weight of his examples as 3.6, which he corrects to 4.8, with a corrected range of about 3.5–5.5.37 Bronze plate cuirasses were never the only option. Homer and Alcaeus mention padded linen corselets, probably made of wool stuffed between two layers of quilted linen. By about 525 bce, a new type, the shoulderpiece corselet, had replaced the bell cuirass, to judge by Athenian vasepainting.38 Bronze-workers adapted to the disappearance of demand for the bell cuirass by making the ‘muscle’ cuirass for the wealthy, a form that echoes the anatomy of the wearer and must have taken much more time to make. Most hoplites, however, wore the shoulder-piece corselet. Debate continues about how it was made. According to Herodotus, the pharaoh Amasis gave the Spartans a wondrous corselet in which each thread was made of 360 individual strands of linen.39 Tim Everson maintains that this thread—cord, really—was 1–1.5 centimeters thick, and woven into a stiff shirt. Cheaper ones would presumably have been made of thinner cords; Everson suggests 0.5 centimeters.40 Alternatively, the

34

[Dem.] 59.94. Hanson, Other (n. 28), 247 for the thickness, Western (n. 28), 78 for the weight, followed by Hunt, “Military” (n. 28): 113. In Wars of the Ancient Greeks (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian, 2004): 38, Hanson is less extreme, saying the early cuirass “may have weighed over 20 pounds (9 kg).” This is still too high. 36 Jarva estimates that it would have weighed more than 8 kg originally. See his Archaiologia (n. 30), 135–136. 37 Franz, Krieger (n. 30), 345. 38 Paul Cartledge, Thermopylae: the Battle that Changed the World (Woodstock: Overlook, 2006), 144, would like to think that conservative Spartans continued to wear bell cuirasses. 39 Hdt. 3.47. 40 Everson, Warfare (n. 33), 87–96, 140–159. 35

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stiff linen corselet could have been produced by gluing layers of linen cloth together, perhaps on a leather base. The Hoplite Association has found that using a leather core speeds up construction. Andy Crapper, one of the founding members of the group, tells me that after six years of experience he makes an 8 pound (3.6 kilogram) corselet by gluing a dozen or so layers of good mid-weight cloth onto a leather core.41 Peter Connolly had earlier achieved the same figure.42 Vase paintings sometimes show bronze scales added to the corselets, either over the whole or just covering the right side. Crapper’s reconstruction of this composite corselet, fully covered with bronze scales, weighs 15 pounds (6.8 kilograms), which he judges “about as heavy as is practical.” Though little of it is visible, the running hoplite on the Douris cup is wearing one of these shoulder-piece corselets: the star or sunburst design on the right shoulder-piece is typical, and a couple of the pteruges (strips that provided protection without sacrificing flexibility at the waist) appear on the hoplite’s right side. We cannot tell whether the corselet is the lighter or heavier version, because the shield covers the front of the corselet where the bronze scales would appear. Odds are that it would not have had scales: on red-figure vases, the plain corselets outnumber the composite ones by about two to one, and as Everson observes, artists might have exaggerated the proportion of composites because they are visually more interesting. The greaves, shin-guards that could cover the knee (as on the Douris cup), were made of a thin layer of bronze, to which linen padding was sewn or, later, glued.43 Like the helmet, the greave became thinner over time. Jarva concludes that an average pair weighed about 1.6 kilograms; Franz gives a general average of 1.3 kilograms for a pair, corrected to 1.7. Jarva says the late Archaic greaves in Olympia and Copenhagen would have weighed less than 1 kilogram, so correcting by Franz’s 33% we may set the average weight of a pair of greaves at Marathon at 1.3 kilograms. The greatest challenge for a running hoplite would have been managing his aspis, a roughly round, concave shield, about 0.90 ± 0.10 meters (35 ± 2.6 inches) in diameter, with an offset rim that allowed the shield

41 Andy Crapper reported to me on the weights of his equipment in a personal email dated 11 September 2007. 42 Peter Connolly, Greece and Rome at War (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1981), 58. 43 Jarva, Archaiologia (n. 30), 136–37; Franz, Krieger (n. 30), 346.

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to rest on the shoulder.44 A warrior inserted his left arm up to his elbow into an arm-band (porpax) in the center and gripped a leather loop at the right edge of the shield. The shield was made out of wood. It could be, but was not necessarily, covered with a thin sheet of bronze on the exterior and leather on the interior. Hanson describes the shield as “not much more than an inch to an inch and a half thick,” made of hardwood (in The Wars of the Ancient Greeks he twice specifies oak).45 He estimates the weight between 15 and 20 pounds (7–9 kilograms).46 The hoplite shield cores that have survived with sufficient wood to be identified, however, turned out to be poplar and willow. One, dated to the mid-sixth century bce, probably came from a grave in eastern Sicily and is now in Basel. It was made of willow strips, 0.14 meters wide, laminated and pegged together.47 A second, dated to the early fifth century bce, probably came from an Etruscan tomb at Bomarzo and is now in the Vatican’s Museo Gregoriano Etrusco. It was made of poplar boards 0.20–0.30 meters wide, glued together with no trace of lamination.48 The Chigi olpe seems to show the first type, strips of wood laminated across each other in layers to prevent splitting (see fig. 3).49

44 For descriptions, see Hanson, Hoplites (n. 28), 67–71 (good on the importance of resting the shield on the shoulder) and Western (n. 28), 65–71; Everson, Warfare (n. 33), 120–22. In his Argivische Schilde (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989), Peter Bol catalogues 279 bronze outer fittings found at Olympia. He estimates the diameters for 78 of these (his catalogue does not give a diameter for his A278, perhaps because it is so large— 1.20 m—that it was probably intended for ceremonial or display use). The 78 diameters range from 0.77–1.10 m. The mean is 0.90 m, and the middle 50% fall between 0.88 to 0.92 m. 45 Hanson, Western (n. 28), 70 for the thickness, 65 for hardwood; Hanson, Wars (n. 35), 26 and 57 specify oak. Santosuosso, Soldiers (n. 28), 10, also describes the shield as “made of hardwood (such as oak).” 46 In Hoplites (n. 28), 69, Hanson puts the weight at “over 15 lbs (6.8 kg).” In Western (n. 28), 65, he says 16 lbs (7.3 kg), while in Wars (n. 35), 57 he mentions 20 lbs (9 kg). 47 See G. Seiterle, “Techniken zur Herstellung der Einzelteile (Exkurs zum Schild Nr. 217),” in Antike Kunstwerke aus der Sammlung Ludwig, II. Terrakotten und Bronze, ed. Ernst Berger (Mainz: von Zabern, 1982), 250–263 and David Cahn, Waffen und Zaumzeug (Basel: Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig, 1989), 15–17. 48 P. H. Blyth, “The Structure of a Hoplite Shield in the Museo Gregoriano Etrusco,” Bolletino dei Musei E’Gallerie Pontifice 3 (1982): 5–21. Aristophanes (fr. 65) and Euripides (Cyclops 7, Heraclidae 376, Suppliants 695, Trojan Women 1193) mention shields made of willow. 49 A contemporary ovoid krater from Aegina also shows shield interiors with concentric hatched triangles. See Sarah P. Morris, The Black and White Style: Athens and Aigina in the Orientalizing Period, Yale Classical Monographs, 6 (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1984), 79. Morris notes a different pattern on Protoattic cups found in the Kerameikos cemetery at Athens.

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This type continued in use for a long time: A fourth-century bce porpax shield found at Olynthos in northern Greece consisted of crossing pieces of wood 0.06 meters wide.50 A third example, from Olympia but so poorly preserved that the method of construction cannot be determined, was either willow or poplar.51 Poplar and willow are both on the list of woods recommended for shields by the Roman naturalist Pliny.52 Flexible, rather soft woods, they tend to dent rather than split. P. H. Blythe’s reconstruction of the well-preserved shield in the Vatican weighs 6.2 kilograms, just under 14 pounds. Nowhere is it even close to an inch thick. The bowl varies from 7–11 millimeters, while the side walls are 12–18 millimeters. This shield, which is on the low end of the range in diameter (0.82 meters), had a bronze facing on the exterior and a leather lining on the interior. Blythe put the weight of the bronze facing at 3 kilograms, lowering the weight of an unfaced wooden shield, 0.82 meters in diameter, to only 7 pounds (3.2 kilograms). The type of wood used would make a considerable difference to the shield’s weight. The following table compares the densities (the dry weight per unit volume of wood) of several kinds of wood:53 Common Name

Current Name

Medium Density in kg/m3

Oak European Lime Radiata pine Willow Yellow poplar

Quercus sp Tilia vulgaris Pinus radiata Salix alba Liriodendron tulipifera

815 545 513 385 380

The wooden part of a shield made of willow or poplar will weigh roughly half as much as one the same size made of oak, and two-thirds to threequarters as much as one made of lime and pine. These deductions are borne out by the experience of re-enactors who have tried to replicate ancient shields. Craig Sitch of Manning Imperial

50 David M. Robinson, Excavations at Olynthus, X: Metal and Minor Miscellaneous Finds (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1941), 443–44. Unfortunately the remains of the wood were not analyzed. 51 Bol, Schilde (n. 44), 3. 52 Plin. HN 16.209. 53 Wood densities taken from http://www.worldagroforestrycentre.org/sea/Products/ AFDbases/WD/, accessed on 17 September 2007. Because wood density varies not only with species, but also with growth conditions (faster growth is less dense) and parts of the tree (the trunk is more dense than the branches), precise calculations would not be appropriate.

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in Australia makes several versions: one of poplar, 0.84 meters in diameter, that weighs 4.3 kilograms (9.5 pounds), and another of radiata pine, 0.85 meters in diameter, that weighs 6.5–7 kilograms (14.3–15.4 pounds—samples vary).54 The Hoplite Association in London produces shields made of lime and pine, 0.93 meters in diameter and weighing 14 pounds (6.4 kilograms).55 In poplar or willow, their shields’ weight would be comparable to what Sitch’s poplar model weighs. Sitch’s heaviest version, 0.91 meters in diameter, faced with brass and lined with leather, weighs 9 kilograms (19.8 pounds). Most shields, however, were not faced with bronze.56 A good, serviceable shield could have been made entirely of perishable materials, and most probably were. Some that did have bronze used it only for the rim and the fittings. In short, while some hoplites at Marathon could have carried shields in the 15–20 pound range, most probably carried a lighter one, many a much lighter one. The hoplite’s thrusting spear, to judge by vase paintings, varied between 2.1 and 2.4 meters (7–8 feet) long, with a rather thin cornel or ash shaft about 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) in diameter, an iron spearhead and a bronze butt spike.57 Markle has calculated that an eight-foot spear would weigh one kilogram (2.2 pounds), including the spearhead but not the butt spike. Jarva adds 0.25 kilograms for the butt spike and so estimates the weight of a typical hoplite spear as about 1.5 kilograms (3.3 pounds). Franz compares Marcus Junklemann’s reconstruction of a Roman hasta, which weighed 1.6 kilograms (3.5 pounds). As a secondary weapon, the hoplite normally carried an iron sword.58 In the early fifth century, vases show both a straight cut-andthrust sword (xiphos), usually with leaf-shaped blades, and a curved, single-edged slashing sword (machaira). Extant examples are not well 54 For an online catalogue, go to http://www.manningimperial.com/index.php. For the pine shield, item no. 117, see http://www.manningimperial.com/item.php?item_id =117&g_id=2&c_id=10 (additional information was supplied by Cherilyn Fuhlbohm and Craig Sitch in a personal email dated 17 April 2008). For the poplar, item no. 486, see http://www.manningimperial.com/item.php?item_id=486&g_id=2&c_id=10. All these shields have a bowl about 10 centimeters deep. 55 For details, go to http://www.4hoplites.com/Aspis.htm, accessed on 11 April 2008. The Hoplite Association prefers a deep bowl of 16 centimeters. 56 Snodgrass, Armour (above, n. 9), 64. 57 On the spear, see Minor M. Markle, III, “The Macedonian Sarissa, Spear and Related Armor,” AJArch. 81 (1977): 323–39; Jarva, Archaiologia (n. 30), 138; Franz, Krieger (n. 30), 347. 58 J. K. Anderson, Military Theory and Practice in the Age of Xenophon (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1970), 37–38; Jarva, Archaiologia (n. 30), 138; Franz, Krieger (n. 30), 347–48.

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preserved, so calculating the weight is difficult. Because the preserved half of a machaira from Etruscan Vetulonia, originally 0.70 meters long, weighs 0.45 kilograms, Jarva thinks the weight of swords plus scabbards would fall into the 1.5–2 kilogram range. Franz notes that a Roman gladius weighed 2.2 kilograms. Other clothing, such as a pair of sandals and a chiton (undershirt), would add another kilogram or so. We can now calculate the total weight carried by an Athenian hoplite at Marathon as follows: Helmet Corselet Greaves (pair) Shield Spear Sword Clothing Total (rounded)

1.2 kg 3.6–6.8 kg 1.3 kg 3.2–6.8 kg 1.5 kg 1–2 kg 1 kg 13–21 kg

or or or or or or or or

2.6 lbs 8–15 lbs 2.9 lbs 7–15 lbs 3.3 lbs 2.2–4.4 lbs 2.2 lbs 28–45 lbs

Earlier warriors, who sometimes wore additional upper arm guards, lower arm guards, belly guards, and the like, made from very thin bronze, could have added a few kilograms more. These estimates remain estimates, but they are not arbitrary or purely hypothetical. Rather than upwards of 32 kilograms (70 pounds), hoplite carried a maximum of about 23 kilograms (50 pounds), which means that the Greeks kept to S. L. A. Marshall’s recommendation that a soldier’s load should not exceed a third of his body weight.59 At Marathon, a fully equipped hoplite, such as the one on Douris’s cup, might have carried no more than 13 kilograms (28 pounds). Without greaves and chest protection, a warrior could have carried only 9 kilograms (20 pounds).60 Remember that it was up to the individual what armor he wore. The minimum Homer’s Odysseus said he needed to fight—helmet, shield, spears—would have protected all vital organs.61 In the opinion of the

59 S. L. A. Marshall, The Soldier’s Load and the Mobility of a Nation. Washington: Combat Forces Press, 1950. 60 The finds at Olympia suggest that one out of three hoplites who wore a helmet also wore greaves, and one out of ten a bronze cuirass; see Louis Rawlings, The Ancient Greeks at War (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 2007) 46. It may be also worth noting that in the fourth century Dionysius of Syracuse had ten times as many shields, daggers, and helmets made for his mercenaries as corselets (Diod. 14.43.2–3). 61 Hom. Od. 18.376–80.

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Spartan king Demaratus, the only essential piece of defensive equipment was the shield, and Aristophanes has the Marathon fighters charge simply “with spear, with shield.”62 The Feasibility of the Run at Marathon In Die Perserkriege und die Burgunderkriege, Delbrück argued that the idea of an army of at least 10,000 heavily armed men running 4800 feet without losing formation was “eine militärische Absurdität.”63 He cited current Prussian military practice, which restricted men carrying a load of 29 kilograms to running two minutes, walking five minutes, and running two minutes. They ran at a speed of 2.7–2.9 meters per second (= 6.1–6.5 miles per hour). Delbrück reported that the director of the Military Central Physical Training School confirmed to him personally that two minutes would be the most that a column with field equipment could run and still reach the enemy in condition to fight. Delbrück was apparently irritated by Amédée Hauvette’s 1894 Hérodote, Historien des guerres médiques, in which Hauvette dared to suggest that Herodotus ought to be believed.64 Hauvette cited the recent accomplishments of one Captain de Raoul, who claimed he had achieved impressive results with his training methods. In 1898 de Raoul and Félix Regnault published a book, Comment on marche, provoking a longer defense of his views from Delbrück.65 In the winter of 1889/90, de Raoul claimed, he trained a platoon from the 16th Infantry Regiment. Each man carrying a rifle, a saber, 100 rounds of ammunition, and rations, they covered 20.5 kilometers (12.7 miles) in 106 minutes, a pace of 3.2 meters per second (= 7.2 miles per hour). They rested two hours and returned in 185 minutes, a pace of 1.9 meters per second (= 4.1 miles per hour). In another performance, they carried field equipment for 11 kilometers in 80 minutes, a pace of 2.3 meters per second (= 5.1 miles per hour), and proceeded to target practice, in which they bested all their rivals.

62

Plut. Mor. 220A; Ar., Vesp. 1081. Delbrück, Perserkriege (n. 23), 55. 64 Amédée Hauvette, Hérodote, Historien des guerres médiques (Paris: Hachette, 1894), 261. 65 I have seen Regnault’s brief article, “La marche et le pas gymnastique militaries,” La Nature 1052 (1893): 129–130, but not Regnault and de Raoul’s book, and have had to rely on Delbrück’s summary (see n. 23 for references). 63

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Delbrück viewed these claims with great skepticism, complaining that de Raoul used not a regiment or even a company, but a single platoon of 34 men who were presumably specially selected. Athenian farmers, fishermen, charcoal burners, potters, and sculptors, he said, would have had neither the time nor the energy to train for running. But as we have seen, his Prussians carried almost twice as much weight as the Greeks at Marathon, and the Greeks did not necessarily run as fast as the pace covered by the Prussian regulations. Similar problems bedevil the often-cited conclusions of Walter Donlan and James Thompson. In the 1970s, Donlan and Thompson attempted to put the feasibility of the Marathon run on a more scientific footing by conducting tests both in the field and in a human performance laboratory at the Pennsylvania State University. In a laboratory test in 1973, they had ten male college students carrying fifteen pounds, including a nine-pound shield, attempt to run a mile at a pace of seven miles per hour (= almost 3.2 meters per second). Two students failed to finish the distance, and only one, a member of the varsity track team, was judged able to fight after the run. Donlan and Thompson did not report their data on energy expenditure and heart rate, but they said that: It was calculated that for a subject to run the measured distance carrying a total weight of 13.6 kg (30 lbs.), including the nine-pound shield, would require 90–95% of his maximum capability. While this is not an unusually high figure for well-trained men to run a mile, relatively untrained men would have experienced considerable difficulty.

In 1977 they had 13 students, similarly equipped, run 565 yards at the same pace. This time they reported that the students reached 93% of their maximum work capacity. Again they did not report their data, but by using “established formulae” they concluded that: Given a total panoply weight of 50–70 lbs. (including a 15-lb. shield, carried isometrically), a grade of approximately 2 1/2 % (which simulates uneven terrain), and a reduced rate of 5 mph for 1.5 minutes, wellconditioned men can traverse a distance of 220 yards with sufficient energy reserves to engage in combat.

These experiments are far from ideal. Laboratory tests will never settle the argument to everyone’s satisfaction, since it is uncertain how similar college students, even ones judged above average in physical fitness, are to ancient Greek farmers, who had a leaner diet and were used to walking and carrying. But if we are to have such tests, they should be done with greater accuracy as far as what we do know: less weight, and the slowest

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pace that would still qualify as a run, about 4.5 miles per hour (two meters per second).66 To my mind, we would do better to look at soldiers in the field than at college students in a lab. De Raoul’s platoon is not the only instance of soldiers running successfully with weight.67 To qualify for the Expert Infantryman Badge in the modern U. S. army, soldiers have to cover 12 miles in 3 hours or less, carrying a 35-pound backpack and a rifle. I would dare to assert that if our soldiers today can manage 12 miles at a pace of four miles per hour (= 1.8 meters per second), ancient Greeks could have done 0.9 miles at a pace of 4.5 miles per hour (two meters per second). It is true that men today are bigger. But we should not underestimate the work capacity of farmers accustomed to hard physical labor.68

66 Physiologists distinguish walking and running gaits on the basis of the duty factor, or the fraction of the stride duration for which each foot is grounded. When the duty factor is greater than 0.5, a person is walking, whereas if the duty factor is less than 0.5, the person is running. Another way to put this definition is to say that to be walking a person must have at least one foot in contact with the ground at all times; if there is a moment when neither foot is on the ground, the person is running. To go faster people take longer and quicker steps until they reach a speed of 2.0 meters per second (= 7,200 mph or 4.5 miles per hour), when they spontaneously change gaits from walking to running, regardless of how long their legs are. See A. Hanna, B. Abernethy, R. J. Neal, and R. Burgess-Limerick, “Triggers for the Transition Between Human Walking and Running,” in Energetics of Human Activity, ed. William Anthony Sparrow (Champaign, Illinois: Human Kinetics, 2000): 126–127. 67 Another example: P. H. Blythe drew my attention to a report by Lieutenant Colonel J. C. C. Schute about a British Battalion challenged to move 24 km with 30 kg in less than 3.5 hours, and again 24 km with 20 kg in less than 3 hours (4.3 and 5.0 mph = 1.9 and 2.2 m*s−1 respectively), and then to attack with full battle procedure. Schute reported that the “vast majority” of the battalion passed this test. See J. C. C. Schute, “The First Battalion,” Royal Green Jackets Chronicle 38 (2003): 43–47. 68 Hanson has an illuminating passage about the “uncanny strength” of middle-aged, pot-bellied farmers who could outwork his buff college friends when they came to visit his family farm. See Other (n. 28), 264–265. In a recent report on the remains of over 141 cremated individuals, the vast majority of them male, found in an undisturbed tomb in use from the early ninth century to the mid-seventh century at Eleutherna on Crete, Anagnostis P. Agelarakis describes the adult males as robust men in exceptional physical condition. “In addition to the pleasures of working in agriculture, in logging or in quarrying,” he says, “preparatory or executed polemic activities in carrying a heavy body armor and the shield, the cutting with the spear or sword and/or the throwing of the javelin would have imposed on skeletomuscular systems compatible changes to those documented among the majority of Male individuals of this population sample.” See The Anthropology of Tomb A1K1 of Orthi Petra in Eleutherna (Crete: Nicholas Chr. Stampolidis, Univ. of Crete, 2005), 64. Agelarakis is now working on other cemeteries found on Paros and Thasos. It will be interesting to learn if these sites confirm the Eleutherna findings, which suggest that Greek males were in good condition for fighting.

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Delbrück’s clinching argument, as he saw it, was that when Julius Caesar’s Romans charged at the battle of Pharsalos, Pompey had his troops remain stationary, confident that his enemies would lose their formation and tire themselves out as they ran.69 Caesar’s veterans realized the danger, checked their charge about half-way, and caught their breath before charging again. The difficulty here is that Caesar does not actually say how far apart the two battle lines were. Delbrück assumes 600–700 feet by analogy with an earlier confrontation in Spain.70 And Caesar’s legionnaires were more heavily equipped than the Greeks at Marathon. Their heavy shield, the single-grip scutum, weighed about 10 kilograms (22 pounds). No wonder they stopped. If Pharsalos shows anything, it shows that warriors might spontaneously stop to catch their breath. Anyone who doubts that the Greeks at Marathon could have jogged eight stadia is free to believe that they stopped (just out of missile range?), caught their breath, regrouped, and made their final charge. Herodotus’ brief account does not, I think, rule out this possibility. Herodotus says that the Persians were surprised to see the Athenians charging without the support of archers or cavalry.71 For my purpose, it does not matter whether Herodotus had a source for what the Persians were thinking or whether this is Greek conjecture about what the Persians were thinking. Because Hippias, the former tyrant of Athens, accompanied the expedition, the Persians knew what sort of forces the Athenians had, and the Athenians knew that they knew. So either Herodotus had a source who knew that the Persians were surprised to see the Athenians charging without their archers and cavalry, or he had a source who conjectured that the Persians were surprised to see the Athenians charging without their archers and cavalry. Either way, the passage implies not that the Athenians had no archers or horsemen, as has often been assumed,72 but that their archers did not fight as archers or their horsemen as horsemen. The Athenians charged athroos, ‘all together’, hoplites and light-armed and dismounted horsemen, all with

69 Caes. B Civ. 3.92–93, cited by Delbrück, Geschichte (n. 23), 71 = History (n. 23), 86. 70 Caes. B Civ. 1.82.4. 71 Hdt. 6.112.2. 72 For example, Vos says in Scythian (n. 10, 60) that “it is a fact that at Marathon they had no archers at their command.” If the Athenians had had no archers, Hippias would have told the Persians so, and they would not have been surprised to see the Athenians charging without archers.

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spears or swords.73 The light-armed would have included citizens as well as the slaves freed on the motion of Miltiades.74 Back to the Cup by Douris Let us return to the painting in Douris’ cup. I have used it as a peg on which to hang a discussion of the running charge at Marathon, which I find entirely plausible once the weight of hoplite equipment in 490 bce is properly assessed. I would like to think that the cup by Douris in Baltimore commemorates that famous run. On this interpretation, Douris commemorated the moment when the Athenians, those with little defensive armor as well as those fully equipped, ran together against the Persians at Marathon. There may or may not have been anyone with the full dress of a Scythian archer, including a quiver, who ran into the battle. (One would suppose the archers had time to throw down their bows and quivers.) These iconographical indicators convey the point that the Athenians all charged together. If the difference in the thickness of the spear shafts is significant, then the Douris cup suggests that an Athenian hoplite handed

73 Hdt. 6.112.3. LSJ s.v. athroos mistranslates athrooi here as “in close order.” In a good parallel, Pindar has the leaders of the Cadmeans run quickly, athrooi, in their bronze armor (Nem. 1.51), but here they are running into the infant Heracles’ bedroom, and so “all together” or “all at once” rather than “in close order.” Or take Thucydides’ account of the Plataeans, escaping from their besieged city on a dark and stormy night: they proceeded athrooi along the road to Thebes (3.24.1). I intend to take up the purpose of the Athenians’ run elsewhere. Van Wees asserts that Herodotus’ assertion (6.112.3) that the Athenians at Marathon invented the tactic of charging the enemy at a run “is blatantly untrue since running into battle had long been common practice,” in Warfare (n. 14), 180. Neither the vase paintings he cites, nor the start of the race in armor at Olympia (the hoplitodromos) in 520, nor the few occurrences in literary sources of warriors charging dromōi before Marathon (Paus. 4.8.1 and 4.11.5, describing the First Messenian War) persuade me that any Archaic Greek army had previously run into battle all together. Individuals or small groups are another matter. 74 For Miltiades’ motion, see Arist. Rh. 1411a10; Dem. 19.303. For a discussion of arguments against the authenticity of the Miltiades decree, see Debra Hamel, Athenian Generals: Military Authority in the Classical Period (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 164–67. She inclines against it. But the Athenian assembly must have authorized the decision to go to Marathon, and the general Miltiades is as likely as anyone to have proposed the motion— much more likely than anyone else, in my opinion. For the slaves, see Paus. 1.32.3, 7.15.7. John Henrik Schreiner, Two Battles and Two Bills: Marathon and the Athenian Fleet (Athens: Norwegian Institute at Athens, 2004), 20 n. 10, 58–59 and van Wees, Warfare (n. 14), 180 take issue with Peter Hunt, Slaves, Warfare, and Ideology in the Greek Historian (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998), 27, who maintains that the Athenians had slaves but no light-armed citizens at Marathon.

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his thrusting spear to an archer and ran with his thinner javelin, presumably to throw it and then fight with his sword. As Aristophanes says, the Athenians fought the Medes with swords (xiphoi) over the land at Marathon.75 Over his long-sleeved shirt, the ‘archer’ wears what may be a linen corselet, worn by hoplites on several vases showing Greeks fighting Persians (see figs. 6–7).76 How does the shield device, a stylized lion’s head, fit? It is not simply ‘eastern-looking,’ but actually copies Achaemenid bracteates, small decorations of precious metal attached to clothing and presumably included in the loot from the captured Persian camp.77 It therefore makes the viewer think of a conflict with the Persians. A lion’s head also brings to mind Heracles, whose iconography regularly includes a lion’s skin. When the Athenians arrived at Marathon, they camped at the sanctuary of Heracles,78 and Heracles appeared in the painting in the Stoa Poikile.79 So the lion’s head on the shield may be a double allusion to the battle of Marathon. The obvious objection to this interpretation is that the cup is an early work of Douris, conventionally dated to the decade 500–490, that is, before Marathon. But the chronology of late sixth- / early fifthcentury Athenian pottery has been a topic of debate recently. Even if we do not follow the radical down-dating advocated by E. D. Francis and M. Vickers, we may still accept the arguments of Richard Neer, advocating the less extreme view of Renate Tölle-Kastenbein, who argued that the chronology of early red-figure needs to be adjusted moderately, down perhaps 10–15 years.80 That would put the Douris cup in the decade or so after Marathon.81 75

Mēdoisi diexiphisō peri tēs chōras Marathōni (Ar. Eq. 781). Several of the warriors in the arming scenes on a famous cup by Douris wear the garment: Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum 3694 = ARV2 427.3, 1652 = BAD 205047. 77 On the shield device, see Williams, Archaeological (n. 6), 160 and Margaret C. Miller, Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century bc (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997), 58–59. For the loot, see Plut. Vit. Arist. 5.5. 78 Hdt. 6.108.1. 79 Paus. 1.15.3. 80 Neer, Style (n. 21), 186–205 and Renate Tölle-Kastenbein, “Bemerkungen zur absoluten Chronologie spätarchaischer und frühklassischer Denkmäler Athens,” Arch. Anz. 88 (1983): 573–84. See also Victor Parker, “Zur absoluten Datierung des Leagros Kalos und der ‘Leagros-Gruppe’,” Arch. Anz. (1994): 365–73 on the date of Leagros, named as kalos on both black- and red-figure vases. The traditional date for his kalos-time is 510– 505, but Parker argues for 490–485. 81 Neer, Style (n. 21), 258 n.67, suggests that the Douris and Onesimos cups were painted before the Euphronios krater. We might suppose that Douris inspired Onesimos, sitting next to him (as Beazley imagined), and then their teacher Euphronios. 76

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The battle of Marathon inspired more than its share of rituals and dedications,82 so it would not be surprising for a cup from the 480s to reflect the great victory. Out of all the vases reflecting the wars with the Persians, Dyfri Williams has connected a handful of red-figure cups to Marathon: another cup by Douris in Paris, showing a Greek hoplite standing over a fallen Persian archer with a military standard; one by the Painter of the Oxford Brygos, showing Greeks arming, Greeks fighting Persians, and on the interior two heroes rising from an altar (perhaps Heracles and Theseus); one by the Triptolemos Painter in Edinburgh, showing Greek hoplites fighting mounted Persian archers and, on the interior, a Greek hoplite about to kill a fallen Persian archer (fig. 6); one by the Painter of the Paris Gigantomachy in New York, showing Greeks and Persians fighting (fig. 7); and finally one in Orvieto attributed either to Onesimos (Beazley) or the Antiphon Painter (D. Williams), showing a Persian mounted archer looking backwards (fig. 9).83 The most important of these for the historian are the cups in Edinburgh and Orvieto, which—if only we could be sure that they refer to Marathon— would suggest that Persian mounted archers were present at the famous battle.84 I suggest that the cup by Douris in Baltimore be added to that list— that when painting the cup, Douris had in mind how the Athenians charged together at Marathon. Since the Spartans had not arrived, the only allies the Athenians had were the Plataeans. Despite Miltiades’

82 See Michael Jung, Marathon und Plataia: Zwei Perserschlachten als “lieux de mémoire” im antiken Griechenland (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006), 27–224. 83 Dyfri Williams, “A Cup by the Antiphon Painter and the Battle of Marathon,” in Studien zur Mythologie und Vasenmalerei. Konrad Schauenburg zum 65. Geburtstag am 16. April 1986, ed. Elke Böhr and Wolfram Martini (Mainz: von Zabern, 1986), 75–81. The cups are: Paris G117 = ARV2 433.62 = BAD 205108; Oxford 1911.615 = ARV2 398.9, 399 = BAD 204329; Edinburgh 1887.213 = Beazley ARV2 364.46 = BAD 203838; New York 1980.11.21 = ARV2 417.4 = BAD 204549; Orvieto 65 = ARV2 1595 = BAD 203387. On the Oxford Brygos cup, note A. A. Barrett and M. Vickers, “The Oxford Brygos Cup Reconsidered,” JHS 98 (1985): 17–24. 84 Williams, “Cup” (n. 83), 76, suggests that the letters chori[.] on the Orvieto cup represent chōris hippeis or ‘the cavalry are apart’, the message first attested in the entry under those words in the Byzantine Suda. He suggests that the cup shows an Ionian Greek who mounted a horse and shouted his message to the Athenians. If the vase alludes to Marathon, and if there is anything to the Suda story, it seems easier to me to suppose that the mounted archer is a Persian, one of those said to be apart. If that is right, “apart” more likely refers to the horses being away from the plain rather than embarked on board ships. The Suda entry does not mention ships or re-embarkation.

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fears, there was no wide-spread desertion, and the Athenians, rich and poor, made the charge that preserved their young democracy. Douris drew two of them as they neared the Persians, running confidently forward, spears up off their shoulders, spear-grips already reversed to an overhand position. The fighting is about to begin.

“THOSE WHO SAIL ARE TO RECEIVE A WAGE”: NAVAL WARFARE AND FINANCE IN ARCHAIC ERETRIA Hans van Wees Introduction Two broken blocks of poros stone covered with inscriptions on two sides were found in excavations at Eretria in March 1912. The blocks had been built into the classical wall surrounding the harbour, but they had originally formed a single large slab nearly two feet square and a foot thick, which must have formed the corner of an Archaic building— perhaps the anta of a temple—which stood near here. On the face of the stone, two or three rules of legal procedure had been inscribed around 525 bce, and not much later the following regulation was added, cut vertically and untidily down the side of the block: Those who sail are to receive a wage if they go beyond the Petalai or Kenaion. Everyone must contribute. Those who are in the country … … Anyone who took … … will not be open to dispute.1

τòς πλέoντας : ἀρ[έσ]θαι μισθòν hoίτινες ἄν π[ε]ταλὰς : ἒ κεναιoν [ἀ]μείπσoνται : φέ[ρ]εν δὲ πάντας τòς ἐπιδ[έ]μoς ἐóν[τας---] ------ oνγνoν - νασεν hóς [ἄ]ν hελoι ------------- ιαρφιν -- ἀναφισβετεει

This landmark law introduced pay for the crews of warships in Eretria, some 40 years before we have our first evidence for pay anywhere else, in the Athenian navy of 480 bce. Yet the meaning of the inscription has been recognised by few, and its historical significance has not been seriously discussed. The institution of naval pay entails nothing less than a transformation of public finance, and if this occurred a generation

1 IG XII.9 1273.1274, lines 10–16 = SEG 41.725. Dated to 550–525 bce by L. H. Jeffery, Local Scripts of Archaic Greece. rev. ed. (Oxford: 1991), 84, who is reported by F. Cairns, “The ‘Laws of Eretria’ (IG XII.9 1273 and 1274): Epigraphic, Historical and Political Aspects,” Phoenix 45 (1991): 298–9, to have deemed possible his subsequent down-dating to “525 at least.” For the reconstruction of the original block, see E. Vanderpool and W. P. Wallace, “The Sixth-Century Laws from Eretria,” Hesperia 33 (1964): 381–91: ca. 60 cm long; ca. 54 cm high (minimum); ca. 25 cm thick.

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or so earlier than is generally assumed, we need to reconsider the development of naval warfare and state-formation in Archaic Greece. The Letter of the Law: Text and Interpretation Few studies of early Greek naval history mention the Eretrian law; if it is cited at all, it is usually dismissed as obscure.2 One reason for this neglect is that all detailed discussions of the inscription until recently concentrated heavily on the longer and more easily readable text on the face of the stone which is of great importance to numismatists in particular because it includes an early reference to “valid money” (chrēmata dokima), to which we will return. Another reason is that the most authoritative publications of the inscription have adopted reconstructions of our law on naval pay which made it hard to understand. The text as published in 1915 by Ziebarth in Inscriptiones Graecae gave the first three lines as I have cited them, but in the following lines added misleading restorations suggested by Hiller von Gaertringen, most notably the word ellimenion or ‘harbour tax’ at the end of line 5. Not only does this involve reading el where the stone says en, but it requires seeing limenion where there is clearly nothing but blank space.

2 See infra, n. 5. To my knowledge, apart from Cairns, “The Laws of Eretria” (n. 1), only H. van Wees, Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities (London: Duckworth, 2004), 205, and V. Gabrielsen, “Warfare and the State,” in CHGRW 1.257, cite the law, in passing, as evidence for naval pay. K. G. Walker, Archaic Eretria: a Political and Social History from the Earliest Times to 490 bc (London: 2004), 192–96, discusses the law without considering this interpretation. W. Pritchett, The Greek State at War. vol. 5 (Princeton: 1991), 379 n. 541, and H. van Effenterre and F. Ruzé, Nomima, recueil d’inscriptions politiques et juridiques de l’archaïsme grec. vol. 1 (Rome: 1994), 333, say that the law did not concern naval pay, but offer no reasons for their view. The law is not mentioned in discussions of early navies by e.g. L. Scott, Historical Commentary on Herodotus, Book 6 (Leiden: 2006), 466–78; idem, “Were There Polis Navies in Archaic Greece?” in The Sea in Antiquity, ed. G. Oliver et al., (Oxford: 2000), 107; H. Wallinga, Ships and Sea-Power before the Great Persian War (Leiden: 1993); idem, “The Athenian Naukraroi,” in Peisistratos and the Tyranny. A Reappraisal of the Evidence, ed. H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, (Amsterdam: 2000); P. de Souza, “Towards Thalassocracy? Archaic Greek Naval Developments,” in Archaic Greece: New Approaches and New Evidence, ed. N. Fisher and H. van Wees, (London: 1998); or in discussions of Athenian naval pay by J. Morrison et al., The Athenian Trireme. 2nd ed. (Cambridge: 2000), 118–20; W. Loomis, Wages, Welfare Costs and Inflation in Classical Athens (Ann Arbor: 1998), 32–61; V. Gabrielsen, Financing the Athenian Fleet (Baltimore: 1994), 110–14; W. Pritchett, The Greek State at War. vol. 1 (Berkeley: 1971), 3–29; or in the discussion of misthos by M. Trundle, Greek Mercenaries. From the Late Archaic Period to Alexander (London: Routledge, 2004), 15–21, 82–98.

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Ziebarth’s adoption of this blatantly impossible supplement led him to misunderstand the law as a set of harbour regulations; in the first three lines, he saw a decree stipulating payment for ferry services. This interpretation found its way into Local Scripts of Archaic Greece, which summarised the law as pertaining to “shipping and harbourage.”3 A new edition of the text was published in 1964 by Vanderpool and Wallace, who ditched the old supplements, improved various readings, and crucially argued that when the original slab was cut in half to make two blocks for the new city wall, more of the inscribed text had been chiselled away than previous editors assumed. At least one line is missing from the inscription on the face of the stone: at the top of the lower half of the block one can just see the bottom of some lost letters. A gap of one line in the text horizontally inscribed on the face of the stone would mean a gap of one letter, or at most two, in the middle of the text vertically inscribed on the side. Vanderpool and Wallace noted that on the front of the block the text just before the gap was written in a different hand from the text just after the gap, and therefore posited that there were not one but two missing lines: the first continued and completed the text above the gap, while the second line just visible below the gap began a new text, cut by another mason. If two lines were missing from the text on the face, there would be a gap of about five letters in the middle of the text on the side, so the easy, straightforward and minimal restorations proposed by Ziebarth for its first three lines were no longer possible, and the four remaining lines became even more open to interpretation. As a result, the editors simply gave up on our law: they conceded that “no restorations…occur to us,” and dismissed the text in a single short paragraph as being impossible to interpret beyond having something to do with “payment of sailors.”4 Almost everyone who has subsequently discussed the law has shared their bafflement about its supposedly “almost hopeless obscurity.”5 The exception is Francis Cairns, who in 1991 observed that there was not strictly any need to posit an extra line lost in the gap between the blocks, since, of the two lines on the face immediately above the gap, only the first was cut in a distinctly different style. The change of hand

3

Jeffrey, Local Scripts (n. 1), 85, 87. Vanderpool and Wallace, “Laws from Eretria” (n. 1): 391. 5 L. Robert, Bulletin épigraphique (Paris: 1965), no. 322; J. Vélissaropoulos, Les nauclères grecques (Geneva: 1980), 24–25; M. Gagarin, Early Greek Law (Berkeley: 1986), 92; van Effenterre and Ruzé, Nomima (n. 2), 331–33. 4

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could well have come at the end of this first line, and everything that follows before and after the gap could be a single text, cut by a single hand. He went on to offer a plausible restoration of that text, which did not require the additional line. Moreover, Cairns raised a major objection to Vanderpool and Wallace’s reconstruction: the insertion of an extra line would disrupt the boustrophedon-pattern which is otherwise perfectly maintained throughout.6 I would add a second, and surely decisive, objection: it would be an incredible coincidence if the text on the side of the block had lost five letters in the middle of each line yet still made perfect sense with a single letter inserted in the gap—and also remained perfectly aligned despite the slanting of the lower lines. Clearly there can never have been more than a one-letter gap in the text on the side of the stone: Cairns’ restoration must be right, and it is adopted here. There cannot be much doubt about the meaning of the text thus restored. Ziebarth’s idea—that “those who sail” are ferrymen and that the law tells “everyone” who travels on a ferry to “contribute” to their “wage” by paying the fee—is hardly tenable. One can see the point of a law which stipulates specific rates for specific ferry routes, such as the Athenian law of 446 bce which Ziebarth cited as a parallel (IG I3 41), but a law merely stating in general terms that passengers must pay the ferryman would be quite redundant. Not only that, but it would have been very vaguely expressed, especially in its hazy reference to “those who sail” rather than specifically to “ferrymen” (porthmeis), a word already familiar to Homer (Od. 20.187–8). Strangest of all, the law would have prescribed payment to ferrymen only for routes “beyond the Petalai Islands and Cape Kenaion,” the extreme northern and southern ends of Euboea, towards unspecified destinations across the open seas: by implication it would have made ferry services within the Straits of Euboea free of charge.7 One might consider the theoretical possibility that “those who sail” were Eretria’s envoys abroad, especially its representatives at international religious festivals, who were guaranteed a “wage” for their services. 6

Cairns, “Laws of Eretria” (n. 1), 299–300. In Archaic Eretria (n. 2, 192–96), Walker, who adopts Vanderpool and Wallace’s text, cites as parallels the same later ferry regulations as Ziebarth does, but argues that the law may have had wider application and entailed the imposition by Eretria of “conditions and fees on all those sailing in Euboean waters” (196). This stretches the possible meaning even of his version of the text, and is certainly incompatible with Ziebarth’s or Cairns’s readings. C. Constantakopoulou, The Dance of the Islands (Oxford: 2007), 224–27, rightly omits the Eretrian law from her list of ferry regulations. 7

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But again it would be odd for the law to be expressed so vaguely when “sacred envoys” (theoroi) could have been specified, and it is highly unlikely that such a small recurrent expense would require a special levy to which “everyone must contribute,” rather than being provided for from a regular fund. An Archaic Athenian law, probably one of Solon’s, for instance, decreed that “travel money and other expenses for the sacred envoys who go to Delphi” should be allocated by the public treasurers from the “naukraric silver.”8 The only plausible explanation of the law is the one offered by Cairns: “those who sail” are the crews of warships—rowers, sailors, marines— and the law stipulates that these shall all receive a “wage” (misthos) if, and only if, they serve on naval expeditions which go beyond the Straits of Euboea (1991, 310–12).9 Such long-distance operations would by definition be offensive rather than defensive, and would take more than a single day—two reasons why it may have seemed necessary to pay crews for their services. The crews of the five Eretrian ships which famously crossed the Aegean in 499 bce to support their old ally Miletus (Hdt. 5.99), for example, will have received wages according to the terms of this law. Payment on such a large scale was a major drain on public resources, and accordingly the law envisaged a source of special funding: a levy to which “everyone,” i.e. every tax-payer, was obliged to contribute. In short, the first three lines of the law constitute a perfectly clear and coherent measure which regulates naval funding in a manner very familiar from Classical Athens, but pre-dating by up to 40 years the earliest Athenian evidence. The remainder of the text is hard to reconstruct. The beginning of line four could in principle be the continuation and conclusion of the previous line, which would then read: “everyone who is in the country must contribute.” In view of the blank spaces separating the two lines, however, it is more likely that line four starts a new clause, which is concerned with “those who are in the country” as opposed to “those who

8 Androtion FGrH 324 F 36. Both the name of the fund and the name of the treasurers, kōlakretai, point to an Archaic date, and the formulation is very similar to laws attributed to Solon by Aristotle (Ath. Pol. 8.3), as S. D. Lambert, The Phratries of Attica (Ann Arbor: 1993), 385–88, points out. 9 Cairns, “Laws of Eretria” (n. 1): 310–12. Xen. Hell. 4.8.24 uses tous pleontas to describe a naval force; cf. Thuc. 1.27.1 (hoi pleontes are those who join a military / colonizing expedition to Epidamnus, as opposed to those who stay at home) and 6.31.1 (Athenians “voted to sail,” i.e. launch a naval expedition).

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sail.” What follows may have set out how their ‘contributions’ were to be assessed and / or collected.10 Scholarly reluctance to accept that the law refers to the introduction of naval pay is no doubt due in part to the authority of Vanderpool and Wallace, whose text leaves the meaning of the law wide open. The crucial obstacle to wider acceptance, however, has surely been that the introduction of pay for rowers in sixth-century Eretria implies a level of public naval organisation which seems incompatible with our usual picture of navies in Archaic Greece as consisting of nothing but privately owned and funded ships, only rarely and briefly mobilised in the public service of the city. In this picture, based mainly on Thucydides’ account of early Greek history, Corinth was the only mainland Greek city to develop a public navy before 500 bce; such navies did not emerge elsewhere in the Greek homeland until a few years before the Persian Wars.11 The implications of the law for state and naval organisation in late sixthcentury Eretria, and late Archaic Greece at large—not considered by Cairns, whose main interest lay in the text on the other side of block— therefore need a closer look. The Spirit of the Law: Implications of Naval Pay A “wage” (misthos), as the term is used in the poems of Homer and Hesiod, is a reward for services rendered, agreed in advance. The poets emphasize the importance of keeping promises and making the wage “secure.” This applies equally to the humble “agreed wage” offered to a hired farmhand12 and to the prestigious “secure wage” of a chariot and horses as the reward for a heroic spying mission—the latter promised by Hector, who at the insistence of the volunteer for the job swears an oath that the wage will consist specifically of Achilles’ chariot and horses (Il. 10.303–32). Even grander is the “agreed wage” which, according to Herodotus, was offered to Hippocrates for betraying Zancle: half of all 10 Cairns in “Laws of Eretria” (n. 1: 310) suggests, however, that the blank spaces were left to avoid faulty and damaged parts of the stone. 11 Thuc. 1.13–14; discussed further below. See e.g. Gabrielsen, “Warfare and the State” (n. 2), 253–54; idem, Financing the Athenian Fleet (n. 2), 33–34; van Wees, Greek Warfare (n. 2), 207; de Souza, “Towards Thalassocracy?” (n. 2), 285–86 (first public ships in Athens: 491 bce); Scott, Herodotus (n. 2), 466–78; idem, “Polis Navies” (n. 2), 105–106; Wallinga, “Athenian Naukraroi” (n. 2); idem, Ships and Sea-Power (n. 2), 140–47; B. Jordan, The Athenian Navy in the Classical Period (Berkeley: 1975), 16–20 (late 480s). 12 Il. 21.444–45; Od. 18.358; Hes. Op. 370.

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movable property and slaves in the city, and all of the slaves and movable property in the countryside (6.23.5). At all these levels, what defines the reward as a “wage” is that it is fixed in advance, unlike gifts or favours which are by definition discretionary and not subject to negotiation.13 Wages in this sense seem of limited significance in early Greece. Although hired agricultural labourers did work for a wage, they received it only at the end of their period of service, which normally lasted a full year, and in the meantime they subsisted on rations of food and drink provided by their employer.14 These rations, rather than the final wage payment, probably constituted the bulk of their income. Soldiers and rowers were not normally rewarded with an agreed wage at all in the Homeric world, but instead volunteered their services and expected a combination of food and drink, gifts, and shares of booty in return. Telemachus’ crew on his voyage to the Peloponnese, for instance, consisted of twenty high-status “volunteers” (ethelontêres: Od. 2.291–2), who followed him “out of friendship” (3.363); he provided bread and wine for the duration of the journey, and gave them a “fine feast of meat and sweet wine” on their return home, by way of “traveller’s reward” (hodoiporion).15 Agamemnon’s fellow-commanders in the Trojan War were repeatedly reminded that they owed him loyal service in exchange for the feasts to which he invited them, and conversely they reminded him that they were fighting for his sake, not their own, and that he was under an obligation to offer them hospitality.16 The tens of thousands of “allies” (epikouroi) who came to the aid of Troy stressed that they had nothing directly at stake in the war and expected to be “begged day and night” for their continued help (Il. 5.483–92). They received provisions from the Trojans and at least occasional gifts to keep up morale, as Hector reminded them: “I exhaust the people to raise gifts and food,

13 See H. van Wees, “The Law of Gratitude: Reciprocity in Anthropological Theory,” in Reciprocity in Ancient Greece, ed. C. Gill et al. (Oxford: 1998), 15–20, for this definition of “gift” and “favour.” 14 Payment of wage at end of year: Il. 21.444–45, 450–51; cf. M. L. West, Hesiod. Works and Days (Oxford: 1978), 309–10, on Hes. Op. 602. Rations: Od. 18.360–61; cf. Hes. Op. 441–42, 559–60, 765–67. 15 Provisions: Od. 2.288–91, 337–415; hodoiporion: 15.506–507. Alcinous also provides a feast for a ship’s crew (Od. 8.34–39, 55–61) and provisions for their journey (13.69, 72: surely for the crew, not for their passenger Odysseus, who will be asleep throughout the night-time journey); cf. the feasts offered to volunteers for a raiding party at Od. 14.249–51. 16 Feasts: Il. 4.257–64, 341–46; 17.248–61; obligatory hospitality: 9.68–73. Service as a favour to Agamemnon: Il. 1.148–60; cf. Od. 24.114–19.

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while I build up the spirit of each one of you” (Il. 17.225–26). But there was no question of either the Trojans’ allies or Agamemnon’s comrades serving for an agreed wage, and this distinguished them from what would later be called “mercenaries.”17 The major reward for military service in Homer was a share of the spoils. All participants in a raid or campaign received a “fair share” of the booty, and some non-participants might also receive a share, in compensation for previous losses or in recognition of their high status. “Fair” (isos) did not mean strictly equal but in proportion to the merit of one’s claims. The same principle applied to the distribution of booty after the battle of Plataea in 479 bce, when according to Herodotus, “each received what he deserved” (9.81).18 However abundant the spoils, Archaic Greek practice was to divide them up completely, as after Achilles’ raids or the capture of the Persian camp at Plataea, without leaving a “common store” for future use.19 Soldiers might complain that their shares were smaller than they deserved, and even that they went home “empty-handed,”20 but this only reinforces the point that the sole significant reward for military service was usually a share of the spoils, which of course, unlike a wage, could not be fixed in advance, and indeed would not be forthcoming at all if the expedition failed. The various rewards for military service mentioned by Homer were all handed out by kings and commanders, but they were regarded as ultimately awarded by communities and armies. The shares of booty allocated by Agamemnon were spoken of as awarded by “the Greeks,” and he evidently acted in the name of the army as a whole.21 Similarly, the feasts which he provided for his comrades were called “public” (dēmia, Il. 17.250). Clear evidence for direct levies on the community at large is Hector’s reminder, already quoted, that he has drained the resources of “the people” (laos) to provide for his allies, so that the legendary wealth of Troy has shrunk to nothing: “many of our possessions have been sold and have gone to Phrygia and Maeonia,” presumably in exchange for

17 An exception is Othryoneus, whose services are conditional upon the promise of being given Priam’s daughter Cassandra in marriage (Il. 13.363–82), which is a ‘wage’ of sorts. 18 “Fair share”: Il. 11.705; Od. 9.42, 549; cf. H. van Wees, Status Warriors. War, Violence and Society in Homer and History (Amsterdam: 1992), 299–310. 19 Il. 1.123–26; cf. 11.704–705; Hdt. 9.81 (“they divided up the rest”). 20 Od. 10.41; cf. Il. 1.163–68; 2.225–31, 235–38. 21 Il. 1.162, 276, 299, 366–69, 392; 2.226–28; 16.56; 18.444.

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supplies (Il. 18.291–92; cf. 9.401–403). Similarly, the regent of Knossos related that once, when Odysseus’ fleet was stranded in his territory, he had offered private hospitality to Odysseus himself, but had provided at public expense for all the others: “barley flour and sparkling wine and cattle to sacrifice, which I collected from the people” (dēmothen ageiras, Od. 19.196–98). The principle of levying contributions among the people was so well established that leading men might charge to the community even the cost of their hospitality to visiting strangers. As Alcinous put it when offering gifts to Odysseus: We will compensate ourselves later by collecting among the people (ageiromenoi kata dēmon), for it is hard for one man to do favours for free.’ (Od. 13.14–15)

The proposed gift of a tripod and cauldron would hardly make a dent in the fairy-tale wealth of Alcinous and his peers. Yet Homer insisted that the people must contribute. The special levy to fund military expenses decreed by the Eretrian law thus had precedents a century or two earlier,22 but the “wage” which this levy funded was something new: a fixed payment which replaced food, drink and a share of spoils as the reward for service. It is not strictly speaking impossible that the wage was offered in addition to, rather than instead of, these traditional rewards, but it seems unlikely. In Classical Athens, at any rate, the crews of warships were expected to pay for their own provisions out of the wages they received,23 and did not normally receive a share of booty. By 470 bce, Athens was using the money raised by ransoming prisoners and selling off booty to pay the wages of its naval personnel, but reserved any surplus “for the city” (Ion of Chios, FGrH 392 F13), diverting it into public building works on the Acropolis (e.g. Plut., Vit. Cim. 13.2), instead of handing it out to the troops.24 It seems safe to assume that the Eretrians adopted a similar system when they first introduced pay for naval service between 525 and 500 bce.

22 See H. van Wees, “Homer and Early Greece,” Colby Quarterly 38 (2002): 94–117, for the view that the Homeric poems reflect the world of ca. 700-650 bce, against the more common view they reflect an earlier world. 23 So rightly Trundle, Greek Mercenaries (n. 2), 82–90; Loomis, Wages (n. 2), 32–61, contra Pritchett, Greek State (n. 2), 1.3–29. 24 See Pritchett, Greek State (n. 2, 5.378–438), for the uses and sale of booty; at 379 n. 541, he raises doubts about the reliability of the early evidence for Athenian naval pay just cited (see infra).

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The Eretrian law thus entailed three important changes. First, the reward for military service in naval warfare was now fixed in advance, and surely equal for all members of the crew (as it was later, though bonuses might be offered to some); it was no longer to be determined on an individual basis as a ‘fair’ reflection of each man’s status, personal merit, and contribution to the campaign. Secondly, the reward for naval service was now to be funded entirely from special ad hoc tax levies, rather than primarily from booty; the old practice of providing supplies for military forces by ‘collection among the people’ was thereby much extended. Thirdly, booty became ‘public’ revenue, sold off for the proceeds to be stored in a public treasury, instead of ‘common’ property, to be shared out by an army or community.25 By adding this potentially large new stream of income to the city’s public revenues, by greatly expanding the scope of taxation, and by adding the wages of hundreds, if not thousands, of naval personnel to the city’s expenditures, our short and simple law on naval pay transformed Eretria’s financial organisation, and pushed the city to a much higher level of state-formation. The Law in Context: Late Archaic Naval Warfare The radical changes which the law represents occurred about a generation earlier than one would have expected on the basis of Thucydides’ widely accepted account of early Greek naval history, and this may seem to preclude the interpretation which we have set out above. Yet what we can reconstruct of other late sixth-century developments in naval warfare provides a perfectly plausible setting for the introduction of naval pay and all that it entailed. For most of the Archaic period, Greek military activity at sea was essentially predatory: the objective, so far as we can tell, was either to carry off wealth plundered or extorted from the victims, or to settle overseas territory after eliminating or enslaving the native population.26 The dominant type of ship used on all such expeditions 25 A similar distinction was made by Kurt Latte, who in 1947 argued for a development from ‘Kollektivbesitz’ to ‘Staatsschatz,’ in Kleine Schriften zu Religion, Recht, Literatur und Sprache der Griechen und Römer, ed. O. Gigon et al. (Munich: 1968), 294–312. 26 On the crucial role of spoils and land as an incentive in Archaic warfare, see F. Frost, Politics and the Athenians: Essays on Athenian History and Historiography (Toronto: 2005), 175–90, who, however, goes too far in arguing that this shows a lack of publicly organized warfare. See A. Jackson, “Sea-Raiding in Archaic Greece with Special

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was the pentekontoros, the “fifty-oared galley,” a term which apparently also included larger ships with crews of up to 120 men. Herodotus estimated the average complement of a penteconter at 80 men.27 The second half of the sixth century saw two crucial new developments: the emergence of ‘hegemonic’ naval warfare and the invention, or at any rate the spread, of the trireme as the dominant ship of war. ‘Hegemonic’ warfare differs from ‘predatory’ warfare insofar as its primary goals are political rather than economic: its objective is above all to increase or defend the city’s international status and power, rather than to seize wealth and resources for its citizens. Although political and economic goals can of course go hand-in-hand, they need not always do so, and a hegemonic war may bring prestige and power without also bringing material benefits. An early example of such a war is the conquest of Naxos by the Athenians under Peisistratus, ca. 540 bce: the result was what would now be called regime change, as Peisistratus handed the island over to the exiled local oligarch Lygdamis to rule. Naxos at the time had a large fleet and an army of 8,000 hoplites, so this campaign must have required many ships and much manpower, but produced only political gains and little in the way of plunder.28 At about the same time, the Athenians under Peisistratus fought long and hard to defend Sigeion, an overseas territory on the Hellespont which they had seized in a predatory campaign around 600 bce, but now came under persistent attack from Mytilene, a powerful opponent.29 Rather than

Attention to Samos,” in The Sea in Antiquity, ed. G. Oliver (Oxford: Hadrian Books, 2000), 133–44, for the public organization of naval raiding in Archaic Samos. 27 Hdt. 7.184.3; the figure is close to the average of the range of 50–120 which Thucydides (1.10.4) quoted from the Iliad (2.509–10, 719–20, cf. the “hundred-benched ship” at 20.247), and is consistent with representations in art which from the late eighth century bce onwards show two-level ships with many more than 50 (but far fewer than the trireme’s 170) oarsmen. See L. Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World, rev. ed. (Princeton: 1995), 43–76. Herodotus offered the figure of 80 as an average, so it is unlikely that he assumed a standard crew of 50 plus a contingent of 30 Persian marines. It is also unlikely that he meant that 80 was the average crew of all four types of nontrireme ship which he had mentioned earlier (7.97), because triaconters, “small horsetransports,” and kerkouroi, or cargo ships in Casson, Ships and Seamanship (this note, 163–66), must all have had much smaller crews. His multiplication of 80 by 3,000, as if all 3,000 non-triremes in the Persian fleet were penteconters was either an oversight or a deliberate sleight of hand to inflate the numbers. 28 Hdt. 1.64.2; [Ar.] Ath Pol. 15.3. Both narratives are compressed and problematic, but an expedition with Athenian forces seems most likely. Resources of Naxos: Hdt. 5.30.4. 29 Hdt. 5.94–95, which, however, conflates Peisistratus’ campaigns to defend Sigeion with the initial capture of the city by the Athenians two generations earlier.

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leave Sigeion to be defended by its inhabitants, the Athenians sent forces overseas to support them, another campaign which must have been very costly without producing material gain. Lygdamis of Naxos is said to have been involved in regime change on Samos where he helped Polycrates to take power (Polyaenus 1.23.2), and Polycrates not only continued the seaborne raids and high-seas piracy for which the Samians had long been famous, but also pursued more ambitious goals. “Polycrates is the first Greek of whom we know to have set his sights on thalassocracy…. He had high hopes of ruling Ionia and the islands” (Hdt. 3.122.2), and in fact managed to seize “a large number of islands and many cities on the mainland,” launch an attack on Miletus, and capture the entire fleet of Lesbos when it came to Miletus’ aid (3.39.4). One of his smaller conquests, Rheneia, he literally chained to its neighbour Delos so as to dedicate it to Delian Apollo, thereby renouncing all material gain he might have derived from it in favour of enhanced international prestige. This dedication was surely meant to trump the ‘purification’ of the island staged by Peisistratus, another costly symbolic gesture designed to assert a leading status in the Aegean.30 Hegemonic naval warfare escalated further when Sparta entered the fray. Sparta controlled the largest territory of any Greek state and had built up a hegemonic position in the Peloponnese over the previous generation, so that its resources of citizen, subject and allied manpower were unrivalled. In 525, the Spartans sent “a large force” to Samos and mounted a forty-day siege of the city in a failed attempt to depose Polycrates. Not much later they successfully invaded Naxos to depose Lygdamis, and in 511 bce sent a fleet to effect a regime change in Athens, the first of several unsuccessful attempts.31 Eretria was very much part of these hegemonic rivalries. The city’s international standing and long history of maritime activity is well attested: Eretrians had been pioneer travellers and settlers in the eastern and western Mediterranean since the eighth century; they had, in their endless warfare against their neighbour Chalcis, famously been able to call on allies from across the Greek world, including Miletus; and they

30 Thuc. 1.13.6; 3.104.1–2; cf. Hdt. 1.64.2 with B. M. Lavelle, Fame, Money and Power. The Rise of Peisistratos and ‘Democratic’ Tyranny at Athens (Ann Arbor: 2005), 228–30 on Peisistratus’ gesture. Constantakopoulou, Dance (n. 7), 47–49. 31 Samos: Hdt. 3.54, 56. Lygdamis: Plut. Mor. 859d (also credits Sparta with expelling tyrants from Ambracia, Thasos and Miletus, all of which would have required lengthy naval expeditions); cf. Thuc. 1.18.1. Athens: Hdt. 5.63; [Ar.] Ath. Pol. 19.5.

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were, alongside the Athenians, one of only three Ionian communities to have voting rights in the major international organisation of Archaic Greece, the Delphic Amphictyony.32 More specifically, both Peisistratus and Lygdamis had taken refuge in Eretria during periods of exile from their cities, and Eretrian troops had helped to establish Peisistratus as tyrant in Athens, and perhaps Lygdamis in Naxos as well. It seems likely that the Eretrians vied with Naxos for hegemony over the Cycladic islands which separated them, since Strabo claims that at one time Eretria “ruled the Andrians, Tenians, Ceians and other islanders,” while Herodotus reports that by the end of the sixth century Andros, Paros and other Cyclades “were dependent on” Naxos.33 Eretria was even credited with having succeeded the Naxians—and the Spartans and Samians before them—as the dominant naval power, and although the lists of thalassocracies which tell us this are late, impossibly schematic and unreliable in their chronology, they do show that Eretria had a reputation as a major player in the Aegean in the late sixth century.34 As such they were the only mainland Greek city other than Athens to send ships in support of the Ionian Revolt; later tradition claimed that the Eretrian contingent had played a leading part.35 The second major new development was the adoption of the trireme, triērēs, an oared galley with 170 rowers and a crew of 200 men in total. The precise nature and origin of the trireme continue to be much disputed, but our concern here is with its spread rather than invention. According to Herodotus, even the Samians under Polycrates, the greatest Greek naval power of the archaic age, used only penteconters and other “long ships” until about 530 bce, but by 480 bce the trireme

32 Eretrians overseas: see summaries of evidence in e.g. Walker, Archaic Eretria (n. 2), 141–55; V. Parker Untersuchungen zum Lelantischen Krieg und verwandten Problemen der frühgriechischen Geschichte (Stuttgart: 1997), 45–59. Allies in war against Chalcis: Thuc. 1.15.3; Miletus: Hdt. 5.99; one can accept the historicity of this information without also believing in the construct of a great Lelantine War, ca. 700 (critically discussed by J. Hall, History of the Archaic Greek World, ca. 1200-479 bce (Malden: 2007), 1–8, contra e.g. Parker, Untersuchungen zum Lelantischen Krieg (this note); cf. Walker, Archaic Eretria (n. 2), 156–71. Voting rights in Amphictyony: Aeschines 2.116. 33 Strabo 10.1.10; Hdt. 5.31.2; cf. Walker, Archaic Eretria (n. 2), 122–25, 270. Peisistratus and Lygdamis in Eretria: Hdt. 1.61.2–4, 64.1–2; [Ar.] Ath Pol. 15.2–3. 34 Lists: Diod. 7.11 = Eusebius, Chron. I 225 Schoene, and similar information in Eusebius’ Canon, Syncellus and Jerome, tabulated in J.L. Myres, “On the list of ‘thalassocracies’ in Eusebius”, JHS 26 (1906): 84–130; cf. de Souza, “Towards Thalassocracy?” (n. 2), 277–88. 35 Hdt. 5.99.1, 102.3. Later tradition: Lysanias of Mallos, FGrH 426 F 1 (Plut. Mor. 861b–d); cf. Pl. Menex. 240a–c; Walker, Archaic Eretria (n. 2), 274–77.

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was in use almost everywhere as the main ship of the line.36 The very first Greek contingents of triremes mentioned by Herodotus appear in 525 bce when triremes from Samos, Lesbos and perhaps other Greek cities and islands served in the Persian imperial fleet which attacked and helped conquer Egypt.37 The Persians had had no navy before this time, and the most likely explanation for the sudden appearance of numerous triremes in eastern Greek cities is that the Persians created their navy by funding the construction and manning of these ships by subject and ‘allied’ states on the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean, initially mainly by Phoenican and Cypriot cities, but increasingly by Greeks as well.38 The entire Persian fleet of 600 ships mobilised in 512 for Darius’ expedition into Scythia appears to have consisted of Greek contingents, and some of the main naval states must already have had Persian-funded triremes similar in numbers to the forces they deployed at Lade in 494 bce: Samos 60, Lesbos 70, Miletus 80, and Chios 100.39 Outside the Persian sphere of influence, the earliest force of triremes explicitly mentioned by Herodotus is, strikingly, the Eretrian fleet of five ships sent to Ionia in 499 bce.40 As far as military finance is concerned the fundamental difference between the trireme and the penteconter is the size of its crew, and the 36 Polycrates rose to power with a fleet of 100 pentekonters: Hdt. 3.39.3; cf. 3.41.2, 124.2, this type of ship was used by all previous naval powers: Hdt. 1.163.2, 164.3 (cf. 1.152.2); see also Thuc. 1.14.1. For the role of triremes by 480 bce, see below. 37 Cambyses asked Polycrates to contribute 40 triremes: 3.44; he also employed a ship from Lesbos with a crew of 200, i.e. a trireme (3.13.1–2, 14.4–5), in an important diplomatic mission which surely points to a sizeable contingent from the island. See Wallinga, Ships and Sea-Power (n. 2), 118–22. 38 Persian navy: Hdt. 3.34 (Cambyses, the first Persian king to rule the sea); 1.143, 151 (his predecessor Cyrus unable to attack islands). Navy ‘depended’ on Phoenicians and Cypriots: 3.17, 19. See further Wallinga, Ships and Sea-Power (n. 2), 118–39, although I would argue that before the Ionian Revolt the Greek cities themselves controlled the ships funded by the Persians—and that Polycrates’ triremes were also funded by Persia, not Egypt (contra ibid., 84–101). 39 Hdt. 4.87, 89, 97, 137–8 for the 600 ships of 512 (used to build ship-bridges rather than in combat, so perhaps including penteconters: cf. 7.36.1). Although 600 is a large and round number, it is in line with the numbers of triremes in 494 given at Hdt. 6.8. In 480, the cities which had provided 600 ships in 512 contributed only 277 or 310 triremes to the Persian fleet (Hdt. 7.94–5; Diodorus 11.3.7), but this was after many of them had revolted and the main naval states—Miletus, Chios and Lesbos—had been depopulated in 494/3 (6.20, 31). 40 The only earlier attested triremes are the one in which the Peisistratids sent Militiades to the Chersonese, ca. 515 bce (Hdt. 6.39) and the trireme of Philippos of Croton, ca. 510 bce (Hdt. 5.47); the latter was privately owned, the former may have been, too. Another single trireme appears in an undateable and legendary Athenian story at Hdt. 5.85.1.

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correspondingly small numbers of such ships in the hands of private owners. Since the trireme required a crew of 200, rather than the penteconter’s average of 80, a fleet like the Chians’ force of 100 triremes at Lade required two-and-a half times as much manpower as Polycrates’ fleet of 100 penteconters had done only a generation earlier. A penteconter and crew were costly enough, and it is obvious that very few individuals would have had the means or the motivation to trade in their privately owned penteconters for triremes, given that the bigger ships were more expensive to build, to equip with oars, and above all to man with a crew more than twice as large. A few private triremes are attested, even in the Classical Athenian navy, but they were necessarily very rare.41 A city which wanted to keep up with the Persian-funded Ionian navies and build a fleet of more than a few triremes therefore needed to construct it at public expense. The Eretrian force of five triremes sent to Miletus in 499 was just about small enough to make it possible in principle that they were the private ships of a handful of very rich and ambitious men like their leader, a top athlete whose victories had been advertised by Simonides, the most famous poet of the age (Hdt. 5.102). Assuming, however, that Eretria did not send out every single trireme it could find, but only half or fewer of its available ships, the likelihood is that the city was indeed constructing public triremes by 500 bce.42 The trends in the late sixth-century naval warfare were thus towards a type of hegemonic war which could be very costly without paying for itself in spoils or territory, and towards the use of warships which required public funding for their construction and much greater

41 Hdt. 8.17; Plut. Vit. Alc. 1 (Cleinias); cf. Hdt. 8.47; Plut. Vit. Alex. 34.2 (Phayllus of Croton). S. Hornblower, “The Dorieus Episode and the Ionian Revolt (5.42–8),” in Reading Herodotus, ed. E. Irwin and E. Greenwood, (Cambridge: 2007), 178, convincingly argues that Alcibiades also owned a private trireme (Thuc. 6.50.1); cf. Jordan, Athenian Navy (n. 11), 91; contra e.g. Gabrielsen, Financing the Athenian Fleet (n. 2), 1–2, 201–203; van Wees, Greek Warfare (n. 2), 208. 42 An inscription (SEG 34 [1984] 898) which perhaps dates to the late sixth century— so A. Ritsonis, “Eine Hermesstele aus Eretria,” Athens Annals of Archaeology 17 (1984): 147, contra B. C. Petrakos, “Dédicace des aeinautai d’Érétrie,” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 87 (1963): 545–47, who dated it to the late fifth century—reveals the existence in Eretria of an “association of permanent seafarers,” aeinautai. Their title, also borne by a powerful body of men in Archaic Miletus—Plut. Mor. 298cd, cf. V. Gorman, Miletus, the Ornament of Ionia (Michigan: 2001), 108–10—may point to a group charged with maintaining a public fleet. Cf. Scott, “Polis Navies” (n. 2): 107; Vélissaropoulos, Les nauclères grecques (n. 5), 21–26; and aeinautai in third-century Chalcis (IG XII.9, 909, 923).

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manpower for their operation. Traditional means of financing warfare struggled to meet these new demands. According to Herodotus, Miletus failed to subject Naxos in 500 bce, as well as in its subsequent revolt from Persia, because its fleet lacked sufficient funding (5.31.2, 34.3, 36.3). Thucydides argued that only tyrants who could raise far greater revenues than was traditionally possible were able to build navies (1.13.1), and it is no coincidence that—with the exception of one clearly fictional tale about Cypselus of Corinth—the only Archaic tyrants to whom special fund-raising measures were attributed are precisely those most heavily engaged in hegemonic naval warfare: Peisistratus and his son Hippias, Lygdamis, Polycrates.43 In this context, the introduction of naval pay makes excellent sense as a way of overcoming some of the major limitations of earlier warfare: it put an end to dependence on supplies brought from home or acquired by ‘living off the land’ in enemy territory to feed naval forces, and it put an end to dependence on booty to reward the crews. The first limitation was noted by Thucydides, who argued that the Greek army in the Trojan War was relatively small, and that “the cause was not so much a lack of manpower as a lack of money. Because of a shortage of supplies they brought a smaller army, a force only as large as they expected to be able to find food on the spot while it waged war” (1.11.1–2). Even these troops, he imagined, had had to spend much of their time raising provisions by plundering and even cultivating land across the Hellespont—which explained why it took them ten whole years to capture Troy. In Thucydides’ own day, by contrast, troops not only raised supplies by plundering, but also used their pay to buy provisions from traders who followed the fleet or from markets in nearby allied or neutral towns.44 This meant that an army or navy could draw on the surplus resources of many communities and individuals, rather than merely on what it brought from home or took by force from the enemy. Forces that received wages could accordingly be much larger in size, and be deployed for much longer periods of time. 43 Peisistratus and / or Hippias’ 10% or 5% tax on agricultural produce: Thuc. 6.54.5; [Ar.] Ath Pol. 16.4. Polycrates: Hdt. 3.122–3; Athenaeus 540ef (citing Clearchus fr. 44). [Ar.] Oec. 2.2.2–4 cites fund-raising schemes by Hippias, Lygdamis and Polycrates (cf. Hdt. 3.46), as well as the fictional story about Cypselus (2.2.1); note that Cypselus’ successor Periander, ca. 600 bce, is explicitly said to have raised no revenue other than regular taxes on trade (Aristotle F 611.20 Rose = Heracleides FHG ii F 5). See the collection of material in L. de Libero, Die archaische Tyrannis (Stuttgart: 1996). 44 See e.g. P. Krentz, “Archaic and Classical Greek War,” in CHGRW, 1.147–85, 150–54; van Wees, Greek Warfare (n. 2), 104–105, 219; Pritchett, Greek State. vol 1 (n. 2).

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The second limitation, a dependence on booty to provide crews with a reward for service—in addition to simple sustenance—meant that it would have been hard to recruit manpower for campaigns which could not be expected to produce large quantities of spoils or lead to the occupation of land which could be shared out. Raising crews for brief defensive campaigns would presumably not have been difficult, but for offensive action other incentives were needed. Cities could and did impose a formal obligation of military service on their citizens, but before the introduction of a wage such obligations could only have applied to well-off men who could afford to spend time away from home. Forces raised on the basis of compulsory service alone would therefore necessarily have been small. As a result, a city’s ability to wage hegemonic wars with political goals, rather than merely predatory campaigns, was severely limited. One way to make hegemonic wars feasible was to turn the whole citizen population into a leisure class which could devote itself to warfare at the expense of a serf population, as happened at Sparta. The only other way was to introduce pay for service and so make it possible to recruit large numbers of poorer citizens and indeed non-citizens who would not otherwise have been able, let alone willing, to serve in wars where the prospects of a reward in plunder or land were slim. The Eretrians’ efforts to keep pace with developments in naval warfare during the second half of the sixth century, and especially after 525 bce, thus provide a perfect context for a law which introduced naval pay and arranged for taxation to cover the wage bill. It also provides a plausible context for the first minting of coins by the city. Although a couple of coins have been identified as an older Eretrian currency, the attribution is highly insecure, and it seems more likely that the “valid money” and “staters” mentioned in the inscription on the other side of the block which we have been discussing consisted of weighed rather than coined silver, or coins struck by other cities, as Cairns has argued. After 525, or perhaps 510, however, the city certainly did produce its own silver coins in some quantity,45 and the need to pay its rowers was surely a major stimulus. In short, everything points in the same direction: naval pay was one of a range of institutions established in Eretria between 525 and 500 bce, which provided the city with a state-ofthe-art, tax-funded, and fully state-controlled navy. 45 See F. Cairns, “XPHMATA ΔOKIMA, IG XII 9, 1273 and 1274 and the Early Coinage of Eretria,” ZPE 54 (1984): 144–55; C. Kraay, Archaic and Classical Greek Coins (London: 1976), 91–92.

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hans van wees Conclusion: The Development of Naval Warfare Revisited

The Eretrians revolutionised the funding and organisation of their fleet in order to meet the challenges posed in the late sixth century by the rise of hegemonic, as opposed to merely predatory, naval warfare, and the rise of the trireme as the main, and soon only, ship used in combat. The main reason why scholars have not drawn this conclusion long ago is that it contradicts Thucydides’ account of naval developments in mainland Greece, and specifically that it seems to put Eretria a generation ahead of Athens in creating a centralised navy. Athens is commonly believed not to have had a fleet of public triremes until 483 bce and not to have instituted naval pay until later still. It seems unlikely that Athens could have lagged 20–40 years behind its neighbour. The evidence for Eretria, however, is clear, and it should lead us to reconsider the history of the navy in Athens, and in mainland Greece at large. For the first building of public warships in Athens, we have the testimony of Herodotus and Thucydides that the city had hardly any triremes at all until a few years before the Persian Wars. Both historians assumed that all two hundred Athenian triremes which fought at Salamis had been built on the proposal of Themistocles in 483. Thucydides added that until then Athens, like everyone else except Corinth, Corcyra and some Sicilian tyrants, had had an “insignificant” number of ships, “and most of those were penteconters” (1.13.2, 14.1–3; Hdt 7.144.1–2). But Thucydides was certainly exaggerating. Herodotus’ detailed lists of contingents for the naval battles of 480 bce show that every community except Locris and a few small Cycladic islands contributed triremes, and triremes only.46 Such exaggeration is not surprising, because Thucydides was intent on showing that the deployment of manpower and wealth, especially in naval warfare, had never in history been as great as during ‘his’ Peloponnesian War—which was therefore a more important historical event than anything which preceded it.47 As for Herodotus, one of his major themes was how Greece, despite its poverty and weakness, 46

Hdt. 8.1; 8.43–6. Apart from Athens (180 ships), Corinth (40) and Aegina (see below), the eleven contingents from Euboea, the Peloponnese and the West Greek islands contributed exclusively triremes (ranging from two to 20 ships); two Cycladic islands provided triremes and penteconters (Ceos two of each, Cythnos one of each); another three contributed penteconters only (Melos 2, Siphnos 1, Seriphos 1); at Artemisium, Locris provided 7 penteconters. 47 Thuc. 1.1.1; see S. Hornblower, A Commentary on Thucydides. Vol. I: Books I–III (Oxford: 1991), 3–51; L. Kallet-Marx, Money, Expense and Naval Power in Thucydides’ History 1–5.24 (Berkeley: 1993).

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had miraculously managed to defeat the vast power and wealth of Persia. He firmly identified as the turning point of the war the Athenian decision to face the Persians at sea, which in turn was possible only because Athens had recently built ships with which to wage war against Aegina: “the fact that this war was going on saved Greece at that time because it forced the Athenians to become seafarers.”48 Herodotus may have played down Athens’ naval resources for the sake of a gripping story of victory against all odds thanks to a fortuitous last-minute decision. Since in different ways the agendas of both historians encouraged them to think that Athens and Greece had almost no triremes until a few years before the Persian invasion, their accounts are rather suspect. Other sources suggest that Athens had triremes much earlier, and in view of developments in Eretria this alternative tradition deserves to be taken seriously. According to the Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians, and later sources, Athens built only one hundred triremes in 483 bce, yet it did launch two hundred triremes against the Persians in 480 bce. By implication, on this version of events, the city must already have had a hundred triremes, or something close to that, before it built another hundred in 483.49 If so, the 70 vessels which Athens sent against Paros in 489, and against Aegina shortly before or after, vaguely called “ships” (nēes) by Herodotus, must have been triremes.50 And if Athens had a fleet of 70 triremes in 489, it is likely that the 20 vessels sent to Ionia ten years earlier, which Herodotus again calls simply “ships,” were also already triremes. As it happens, we know that Herodotus’ contemporary Charon of Lampsacus did explicitly call them “triremes.”51 48

Hdt. 7.139, 144.2; cf. Pl. Leg. 706c; Plut. Vit. Them. 4.4. For the themes of the Histories, see H. van Wees, “Herodotus and the Past,” in Brill’s Companion to Herodotus, ed. E. Bakker et al. (Leiden: 2002), 337–43. 49 [Ar.] Ath. Pol. 22.7; cf. Plut. Vit. Them. 4.1, 3; Polyaenus 1.30.6. Cf. H. van Wees, “Politics and the Battlefield: Ideology in Greek Warfare,” in The Greek World, ed. A. Powell (London: 1995), 157–58, 173 n. 10. Wallinga, Ships and Sea-Power (n. 2), 148–57, and J. Labarbe, La loi navale de Thémistocle (Paris: 1957) unconvincingly argue that the tradition implies two separate lots of 100 ships built simultaneously between 483 and 480. 50 Hdt. 6.92–3, 132; Nep., Milt. 7. These 70 ships included 20 recently bought from Corinth, which Herodotus calls “ships” (6.89) and Thucydides “long ships” (1.41.2), but which are likely to have been triremes since it is hard to see why Athens would have needed to buy penteconters, rather than mobilise a few more privately owned ships, and since the Corinthians had a reputation as trireme-builders (Thuc. 1.13.2). 51 FGrH 262 F10. The fact that Herodotus vaguely calls them “ships” in the same sentence in which he calls the Eretrian ships “triremes” (5.99.1) suggests to some that he thought the Athenian ships were not (all) triremes—see J. Morrison and R. Williams

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If Charon was right, it becomes conceivable that the creation of a publicly owned fleet of triremes was among the reforms instituted by Cleisthenes in 508 bce. According to a fourth-century local historian, Cleisthenes created fifty naukrariai, “ship-captaincies,” which, he said, were similar to the hundred “symmories” which existed in his own day (Cleidemus FGrH 323 F 8). These symmories must be the groups of men who were liable to subsidise the cost of triremes in the fourth century, and it may be that by creating a predecessor of this institution, Cleisthenes established a fleet of fifty public triremes.52 The earliest operation of this fleet would have occurred in 506, when the Athenians sailed up the Straits of Euboea, past Eretria, to attack another major city, Chalcis, which they conquered and deprived of its land, a staggering feat which would hardly have been possible without a powerful navy.53 Shortly afterwards, the Aeginetans destroyed Athens’ harbour at Phaleron, an offensive which gains added point if a brand new navy of triremes was stationed there (Hdt. 5.81). Athens no doubt replaced any ships lost, and the construction of an entirely new, fortified harbour at Piraeus began about a decade later to protect the city’s triremes from repeat raids.54 Beyond Athens and Eretria, we only have glimpses of naval developments, but these do tend to confirm that public trireme navies were widespread well before the Persian Wars. If in the years around 490 bce Athens’ fleet already consisted of triremes, the Aeginetan fleet of 70 ships which managed to defeat the Athenians at that time must have consisted of triremes as well, and a navy on that scale could hardly have existed without public funding.55 The same must be true of the fleet of

Greek Oared Ships 900-322 bc (Cambridge: 1968), 129—but the generic “ship” (naus) is by far the most common word for a warship in Herodotus, and in most cases clearly does refer to triremes (especially at 6.8; 8.1–2, 42–8); note especially that in his account of Themistocles’ fleet-building (7.144), Herodotus speaks only of “ships,” never of “triremes.” 52 There is widespread scepticism towards the idea that the naukrariai before or after Cleisthenes had anything to do with naval organisation, despite their name, see e.g. Gabrielsen, Financing the Athenian Fleet, (n. 2), 19–26; idem, “The Naukrariai and the Athenian Navy,” Classica et Mediaevalia 36 (1985): 21–51; C. Haas, “Athenian Naval power before Themistocles,” Historia 34 (1985): 29–46. I hope to argue elsewhere, however, that this is unjustified. 53 Hdt. 5.77. Note e.g. the suggestion of Walker, Archaic Eretria (n. 2), 255–59, that the Athenians must have had help from Eretria in order to achieve their conquest. 54 Thuc. 1.93; Diod. 11.41–3; with Dion. Hal. 6.34.1 for the starting date. 55 Hdt. 6.93; by 480 bce, they select their “30 best ships” to fight at Salamis, reserving “other ships” for the defence of Aegina itself (8.46.1).

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Corinth which Thucydides regarded as the first and only more or less modern navy in mainland Greece before Athens, and which had at least 40 triremes by 480. Around 500 bce, according to Thucydides large numbers of triremes were built in Sicily and Corcyra, and Herodotus reports that Thasos in 493 bce decided to use its mining revenue to build “long ships” (Hdt. 6.46.2), by which he must here mean triremes, since the decision was a reaction to an attack by a fleet of triremes (6.5.3, 26, 28.1). Finally, as noted above, in 480 bce almost all cities contributing to the allied fleet sent triremes, and triremes only, rather than mainly penteconters as Thucydides imagined and as one would have expected if many warships had still been privately owned. Most states evidently had navies that were publicly owned and funded by this time, and it is unlikely that all of these were created suddenly and simultaneously in the last few years before the Persian Wars. The construction and maintenance of public ships required new institutions and procedures hardly less complex than the introduction of naval pay, and this too may date further back at Athens than our sources tell us. We need no longer consider anachronistic stories which imply regular pay for Athenian rowers in 470 bce, and some form of pay ten years earlier at Salamis—even if many other details of these stories are not particularly reliable.56 Before these dates, we simply have no direct evidence at all, but if we accept that the 70 ships which laid siege to Paros and Aegina around 490 were triremes, and therefore carried a force of 14,000 men, we are almost forced to assume that these men were paid wages, since they could hardly have sustained themselves from what they brought along or could plunder on the spot. One late source claims that the cost of the expedition against Paros was fifty talents, and naval pay would indeed have amounted to roughly that sum.57 The exponential increase in the volume of Athenian coinage towards the end of the sixth century—“tetradrachms were pouring from the mint in huge quantities”—may in part have been stimulated by naval pay for the crews of a new fleet of triremes.58 It is even conceivable that crews were paid

56 Pay in 470: supra (n. 24); pay in 480: [Ar.] Ath. Pol. 23.1; Plut. Vit. Them. 7.6–7 (citing Phanias of Lesbos), 10.6–7 (citing Cleidemus FGrH 323 F 21). 57 Nep. Milt. 7.6, says that the fine of 50 talents imposed on Miltiades (cf. Hdt. 6.136.3) was meant to cover the cost of his failed expedition. Attested Athenian public pay before ca. 440 was either two or four obols, so Loomis, Wages (n. 2, 9–12, 17), and the campaign lasted 28 days (26 days of siege [6.135.1], plus two days’ travel): at four obols a day, the cost of pay for the whole expedition would have amounted to just over 43.5 talents. 58 Kraay, Greek Coins (n. 45), 62.

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wages in Athens before this happened in Eretria, in order to finance expeditions to Sigeion and the conquest of Naxos under Peisistratus, and that naval pay was one of the reasons why Athens was amongst the earliest Greek cities outside Asia Minor to start coining, ca. 550 bce, along with Aegina, Corinth and Corcyra.59 Thucydides thus underestimated the development of Greek navies before the Persian Wars. By the end of the sixth century not only Corinth, but also at the very least Eretria, Athens and Aegina, and in all probability quite a few other states, had navies which consisted of dozens of triremes and which were fully publicly owned and controlled. These fleets were dwarfed by the huge armadas of two hundred triremes each, which Athens and Syracuse constructed about a generation later, and as a result they were almost wiped from the historical record. Yet in many ways the earlier, smaller, trireme navies of the late sixth century were historically more important than the famous fleets of the Persian Wars, because it was their creation which established the mechanisms and principles of state control and public funding, without which the spectacular naval expansion of the 480s would have been impossible.60

59

For the dates, see Kraay, Greek Coins (n. 45), 43–5, 60–2, 80, 128. A German-language version of this paper appeared in the proceedings of a conference held at Mannheim: F. Burrer and H. Müller (ed.), Kriegskosten und Kriegsfinanzierung in der Antike (Darmstadt: 2008), 128–50. It is derived from part of a broader paper which I delivered not only at the conference but in different versions also at seminars in Swansea, Tokyo, Kyoto and London, and it has been much improved by the excellent comments and suggestions made by the audiences on each occasion. Special thanks are due to Michael Crawford for his helpful suggestions and advice. 60

COINAGE AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF GREEK WARFARE Matthew Trundle A coin is one of many types of money. By the Classical age, when the Greeks talked of money (chrēmata) they thought of coinage.1 Coinage had appeared in the Greek cities in the mid-sixth century bce, an innovation imported from the east and attributed to the Lydians (Hdt. 1.94).2 For a while it existed alongside several media of exchange, like utensils, but eventually supplanted them all.3 Sometimes Greeks would use the term ‘silver’ (argyrion) or ‘customary thing’ (nomisma) for money. Aptly, though, and more regularly the Greek word for money was chrēmata, which meant ‘useful things’ or tools.4 Literally, then, money was a means by which ends might be achieved. In addition to assisting with developing community identity and the economic life of the Aegean, its impact transformed many of the ways in which the Greeks had previously fought their wars. Money became a means, a principal means, by which the Greeks waged ever larger and more rapacious wars. Money’s appearance coincided with, and no doubt facilitated, many of the developments that we see in the later archaic poleis. For example, 1

D. M. Schaps, The Invention of Coinage and the Monetization of Ancient Greece (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 2004), 16. In addition, for discussion of the origins and early concepts of coinage see D. M, Schaps, “The Conceptual Prehistory of Money and Its Impact on the Greek Economy,” in Hacksilber to Coinage, ed. M. Balmuth (New York: The American Numismatic Society, 2001), 93–103; R. Seaford, Money and the Early Greek Mind (Cambridge; Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004); C. Howgego, Ancient History from Coins (London: Routledge, 1995), 1–23; R. M. Cook, “Speculations on the Origins of Coinage,” Historia 7 (1958): 275–92; R. Knapp, “Greek Coinage, Mercenaries, and Ideology,” Eulimene 3 (2002): 183–96; C. M. Kraay, “Hoards, Small Change, and the Origin of Coinage,” JHS, 84 (1964): 76–91; W. Wallace, “The Origin of Electrum Coinage,” AJArch. 91 (1987): 385–397. 2 In addition to n. 1 above, for the early uses of coinage in the Greek cities specifically see H. S. Kim, “Archaic Coinage as Evidence for the Use of Money,” in Money and its Uses in the Ancient Greek World, ed. A. Meadows and K. Shipton (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2001), 7–21; S. von Reden, “Money, Law and Exchange: Coinage in the Greek Polis,” JHS 117 (1997): 154–76; T. R. Martin, “Why Did the Greek Polis Originally Need Coins?” Historia 45 (1996): 257–82. 3 Von Reden, “Money” (n. 2): 154–76, especially 156–161. 4 S. von Reden, Exchange in Ancient Greece (London: Duckworth, 1995), 173–75; L. Kallet-Marx, Money, Expense and Naval Power in Thucydides’ History 1–5.24 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1993), 29–30.

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there is little doubt about the association of money and the Archaic age tyrants. Thucydides (1.13.1) associated the rise of tyrannies with the growing amounts of wealth (the term used is chrēmata) of the Greek states. Tyrants used money to undermine traditional aristocratic rule as well as to urbanise and centralise state infrastructure. Money enabled monarchs to hire mercenaries, and hired soldiers supported tyranny as they continue to do today. Aristotle (Pol. 1311a) reflects that the difference between a tyrant and a monarch lies in the former’s desire for money (chrēmata) and the latter’s desire for honour (timē). To Aristotle (Pol. 1285a, 1311a) a state’s citizens protected legitimate rulers, while tyrants always required the protection of mercenaries, which meant they needed money in order to pay them. Several Greek traditions associate early coinages with single rulers rather than communal city-states. Such traditions saw the reform of weights and measures and the establishment of prices in the careers of proto-tyrants like Pheidon of Argos (Hdt. 6.127.3) or lawgivers like Solon of Athens (Arist. Ath. Pol. 10; see Plut. Vit. Sol. 15.2–5).5 Of early tyrants, Polycrates became the paradigm. Herodotus (3.56) describes him as the first Greek to mint coins. He too desired money (chrēmata) as he desired naval hegemony over the Aegean—the two are not unrelated—and he is lured to his death by his desires for power and particularly cash (Hdt. 3.122–125). Other tyrants had similar financial appetites. We may note the story of Maeandrius (Hdt. 3.142) in which money became the focus and point of contestation of his resignation from his tyranny. Pisistratus established his dominant position at Athens with money from Thrace and hired men both from the northern Aegean and Argos (Hdt. 1.61.3–4; Arist. Ath. Pol. 15.1–3).6 Fourth-century tyrants picked up economically where their earlier counterparts left off. Dionysius I exceeded all other Greeks of his generation in wealth and power. Mercenaries supported his tyranny and money figures as a constant tool of power and redistribution during his reign. Ps-Aristotle (Oec. 1349a–b) recites nine stories by which this tyrant raised cash or defrauded the people under his power. As a typical tyrant, indeed the best example of the type, according to other sources Dionysius happily stole from temple treasuries or minted fake coins to 5

Note also that in Solon Frag. 4.5–6 (see also Diod. 7.12.5) a public slave arbitrated the validity (dokimon) of coins. 6 Most recently see B. Lavelle, Fame, Money and Power: The Rise of Peisistratos and ‘Democratic’ Tyranny at Athens (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigam Press, 2005).

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raise money to support his regime (Diod. 15.13.1, 14.3). He is often associated with mercenaries both in waging campaigns against his external enemies and in keeping the people of Syracuse in slavery for his own benefit (Diod. 14.65.2–3).7 Money in this period had long facilitated mercenary service and facilitated the process towards fully professional warfare. A common theme, then, of tyranny from the sixth to the fourth century was the need for money to support the tyrant and his regime. Money for tyrants became a goal of power in itself and an important tool in maintaining power as well. Money attracted men into the orbit of powerful autocrats both within and outside the Greek cities. It attracted the stateless and the professional, the wanderer and the opportunist. Money and the mercenary soldier went hand in hand. Money enabled men to become dislocated from the land and often from their own communities. As easily movable wealth, men could return home rich or establish new lives apoikia. Mercenary mobility was a theme of the Archaic age and became one again in the fourth century bce.8 Coins assisted in this mobility on a larger scale than previously seen. Coins assisted with the growth of numbers of men able to move outside the polis in the later sixth, fifth and fourth centuries bce. De Ste Croix identified mercenaries as the first example of mass hired labour in the ancient world.9 Coinage facilitated the appearance of large-scale armies of mercenaries in the later fifth and the fourth centuries bce.10 Money made it easier to provision these large numbers of troops and provided a common medium of exchange across the Mediterranean, which was both easily transportable with the recipient or with an army and useful across political boundaries.11

7 H. W. Parke, Greek Mercenary Soldiers (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1933), 63–72 remains an excellent summary of Dionysius and his mercenaries. 8 On mercenary mobility see G. Tagliamonte, I Figli di Marte: mobilità e mercenariato italici in Magna Grecia e Sicilia, (Rome: Archaeologica 15, 1994); N. Luraghi, Tirannidi Archaiche in Sicilia e Magna Grecia: da Opanezio di Leontini alla Caduta dei Dinomenidi (Florence: Centro di Studi sul Pensiero Politico, 1994); M. Trundle, Greek Mercenaries (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), 63–79, 114–117; R. Knapp, “Coinage” (n. 1), 183–96; P. McKechnie, Outsiders in the Greek Cities of the Fourth Century bc (London and New York: Routledge, 1989), 79–93. 9 G. E. M. De Ste Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (London: Duckworth, 1981), 182. 10 M. Trundle, Mercenaries (n. 8), 83, 115–117. 11 See Schaps, Invention (n. 1), 146–49.

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In addition to mercenary outsiders, coinage also enabled the incorporation of non-hoplite specialists into the armies of the Greek cities from amongst individuals of the lower strata of communities, like slingers and archers, or from outlying regions of the Greek world like the peltasts of Thrace or archers of Scythia.12 Coinage enabled the purchasing of equipment for archers within Athens who otherwise could not afford bows and arrows and provided payments for those poorer men who required money to pay for their service to the state.13 Thucydides (2.13.8) describes a standing force of archers at Athens in 431 bce and its upkeep must have cost the state money.14 Of course, the biggest outlay for Athens in particular came in the payments to the poor rowers in the Athenian fleet. The silver coinage of Athens made the Athenian navy possible, as we shall discuss in much more detail below. In the Classical period large scale minting of coins can often be associated with military activity.15 The Arcadian cities, once freed from Spartan control in the wake of the Theban invasion of the Peloponnese in 369 bce, struck coins that both indicated their newfound liberty and their need to pay the new standing army of 10,000 men.16 Once war began, a community or monarch would mint (or acquire) coins to hire and pay troops.17 According to the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia historian (Hell. Oxy. 19.2), the Persians were particularly good at providing money early in a campaign, but particularly bad at paying these troops once hired. This observation illustrates the need to enrol troops and get a campaign moving, but also the dependence of the men once enrolled on 12 Most obviously the Dii who, according to Thucydides, 7.27–29, came to Athens expecting a hefty two drachmas a day. 13 H. van Wees, Greek Warfare, Myths and Realities (London: Duckworth, 2004), 62 notes a very expensive three drachmas for a bow alone. 14 References to Athenian archers: at Plataia (Hdt. 9.21.3–22.1; Diod. 11.30.4; Paus. 1.27.1; Plut. Arist. 14.3–15.1); a brigade formed after the Persian Wars Aeschines (2.174) and Andocides (3.7). An inscription (IG 13 138) stipulates a tax on individual members of Athenian land forces at the rates of two drachmae a year (line 2) for cavalrymen (hippeis), one drachma (line 2) for hoplites (hoplitai) and three obols (lines 3–4) for citizen (astoi) and foreign (xenoi) archers (toxotai). On this inscription see M. Jameson, “Apollo Lykeios at Athens,” Arkhaiognosia 1 (1980): 213–236. 15 C. Howgego, History (n. 1), 36; R. Williams, The Silver Coinage of the Phocians (New York: The American Numismatic Society, 1976), 22; G. K. Jenkins, Ancient Greek Coins (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1972), 175. 16 See C. T. Seltman, Greek Coins: A History of Metallic Currency Down to the Fall of the Hellenistic Kingdoms (London: Methuen, 1955) 137; Xen. Hell. 7.4.33. 17 There are plenty of references to this in the ancient sources, for example Xen. Anab. 1.1.9–10, Hell. 6.1.27; Diod. 12.14.1, 15.2, 14.44.2, 62.1, 15.2.4, 14.3, 15.2, 16.73.3, 30, 91.1; Dem. 50.7.

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their employers for food and eventually payment. Coins may indeed have symbolised initial contractual relationships in hiring men into service with an army.18 Coins both physically and symbolically demonstrated to the men the identity of their employer or paymaster (misthodotēs). Coins thus bore markings to that effect. This has led some scholars to consider that the origins of coinage lie in mercenary service.19 Rulers in western Asia Minor stamped their marks on electrum coins to identify the coin’s provenance and guarantee its value. Thus, coinage often carried the identity of the employer. This had always been the case with the great Persian kings. Darius gave his own name—and image—to his Darics. By the early fourth century Agesilaus could claim defeat at the hands of coins (i.e. the archers on Persian coins) rather than any military force (Plut. Vit. Ages. 15.6). The coins of the Persian kings carried the image of the king in the gear of an archer. This became true in a communal sense for the coins minted by Greek states like Athens. Greek cities that chose to mint coins placed their own civic symbols on them as an illustration of state rather than personal identity. The Corinthian Pegasus, Aeginetan turtles and Athenian owls identified clearly the civic provenance of a payment in coin. Athenian coinage heralded to the subject allies of the empire the origin of their payments and the power of Athens. By the fifth century, non-Persian kings on the periphery of the Greek world began to identify themselves closely with their coins. Alexander I of Macedon minted coins with his name on them in the middle of the fifth century.20 Persian satraps copied Athenian coins in the latter stages of the Peloponnesian War—the obverses carry their images (not that of the Great King) and reverses reflected Athenian practices of placing Attic owls and olive sprigs on them. One coin deliberately identified its origin with the letter BAS for Great King emblazoned next to Athenian symbols (one would of course expect ΑΘΕ for “of the Athenians”), stating clearly and, no doubt, to their Greek military employees the allegiance and identity of their employer.21

18

M. Trundle, Mercenaries (n. 8), 114–117. See for example Cook, “Origins,” (n. 1): 275–92; Knapp, “Coinage,” (n. 1): 183–196; Kraay, “Hoards,” (n. 1) 76–91. 20 Seltman, Coins (n. 16), plate 27 no. 13. 21 Jenkins, Coins (n. 15), 103, plates 218 and 219. For discussion see C. Harrison, “Numismatic Problems in the Achaemenid West: The Undue Influence of “Tissaphernes,” 19

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This trend of personalising the identity of coinage for mercenary markets developed further in the fourth century. Egyptian Pharaohs minted coins for Greek mercenaries with Attic owls side by side with a papyrus plant rather than the Athenian olive sprig, and with the names of individual rulers clearly shown, like that of Tachos. The influence of these non-Greeks minting coins for Greek mercenaries affected coinage on the Greek mainland. Boeotarchs in the 390s, like Epaminondas, began putting their names on Theban coins.22 The Phocian commanders who seized the Delphic sanctuary in the 350s bce placed their names on coins for the many thousands of mercenaries hired to protect them and the sanctuary (Diod. 16.24–31). Interestingly, the sources liken these men to tyrants (Aesch. 2.130–1; Plut. Mor. 249F, 401F; Athenaeus, 6.231D; Polyaenus, 5.45). Much of the money came from the dedications at the sanctuary. The complete devastation of the land by Philip in 346 bce put an end to all coinage in Phocis. As if to reinforce the significant bond that coinage might make between an employer and his men, the coinage of the defeated Phocian generals became taboo. Anyone found holding coins of the Phocians faced death as a temple robber (Diod. 16.60.1). As a result very little of it has survived. Coins, therefore, both theoretically and tangibly recognised personal and military relationships. Philip II of Macedon, victor over the Phocians in the Sacred War, felt no prohibition to place his name and symbols associated with himself on his coins—the so-called Philippeioi.23 Philip’s career demonstrates well the successful use of money in warfare and diplomacy. Philip had won more victories with coin than with military muscle. His professional army came from the mined and minted resources of Mount Pangaeus. Diodorus (16.8.6–7) summed up Philip’s ability to purchase mercenaries and open the gates of Greek cities through bribery. Less flatteringly, Theopompus (Fr. Gr. Hist. 115 F. 225) called his followers ‘prostitutes’ given over to all manner of excess at Philip’s encouragement. Money laid the foundations for Philip’s kingdom to overcome the Greek world and for that of his son to conquer the Persian Empire. As a

in Oikistes: Studies in Constitutions, Colonies and Military Power in the Ancient World, ed. V. B. Gorman and E. W. Robinson (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 301–19. 22 I. Carradice, and M. Rice, Coinage of the Greek World (London: Seaby, 1988), Plate 10 no. 140. 23 On Philip’s coinage see T. R. Martin, Sovereignty and Coinage in Classical Greece (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1985).

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corollary both Philip and Alexander in turn made fortunes—Alexander a massive fortune—from Macedonian conquests. Ancient Greek communities had since the time of Homer seen warfare as a means to accrue wealth.24 The limited resources of the polis meant that predatory and exploitative means to achieve prosperity were necessary for a comfortable life. Plato (Phd. 66c) thought “all wars [were] undertaken for the acquisition of wealth” and even suggested (Resp. 372e–374a) that military forces were a necessary means by which communities might augment their own resources and prevent their neighbours from doing the same thing in reverse. Aristotle (Pol. 1.8, 1255b37, 1256b1, 1256b23–27, 1333) described war as a natural mode of wealth acquisition. Warfare in the ancient Greek world has even been described as a natural mode of production.25 The poverty of the Greek communities and their interest in plunder might well explain the regularity with which the Greek states fought wars in the period after the Persian invasions to the rise of the Macedonians in the latter half of the fourth century bce. Plunder supplemented an otherwise poor agrarian way of life. The Greeks made war for reasons that ranged from greed, plunder and profit to honour and glory.26 Economic and selfish motivation often got hidden in the sources. In antiquity, grievances, ultimata and noble causes justified aggression, masking the economic and predatory motives that underpinned the real reasons for many wars. As Moses Finley noted about Rome’s extremely lucrative Mediterranean wars of the middle Republic, “the fact that Rome waged these wars for reasons of defence rather than imperial design would come as no comfort whatsoever to those many thousands of people enslaved as a result of them in places like Epiros or Agrigentum.”27 Roman sources justified Rome’s aggressions.

24 H. van Wees, Greek Warfare, Myths and Realities (n. 13), 34–43; T. Rihll, “War, Settlement and Slavery in Early Greece,” in War and Society in the Greek World, ed. J. W. Rich and G. Shipley (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), 92–105 and most recently L. Rawlings, The Ancient Greeks at War (Manchester and New York: Manchester Univ. Press, 2007), 151–57. As P. Millett states in “Warfare Economy and Democracy in Classical Athens,” in War and Society in the Greek World, ed. J. W. Rich and G. Shipley (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), 183–4, “as far as the Greeks were concerned warfare was conceived as highly profitable.” 25 Rihll, “War” (n. 24), 105. 26 Van Wees, Warfare (n. 13), 19–43. 27 M. Finley, “Empire in the Greco-Roman World,” G&R 25 (1978): 1–15. For the nature of the debate regarding Roman motivations for the acquisition of their empire see the series of articles W. V. Harris, “On War and Greed in the Second Century bc,”

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Cicero (Rep. 3.15.24) believed Rome’s empire grew “in Justice”. The basis of ideas that Rome’s empire came about from defensive motivations rests in notions that Rome’s neighbours behaved just as (and more) aggressively than the Romans did themselves. Of course, we now question the whole notion of defensive imperialism, but as with Roman warfare it is almost impossible to dis-embed the economic motivation for ancient Greek war-making from political, religious and defensive or pre-emptive considerations. Rather than attesting indemnities and the wealth accrued by greedy individuals via plunder, Greek victories attest mass dedications of captured booty to temples. Indeed such dedication was a regular practice. Snodgrass reckons that about a thousand helmets per year were dedicated at Olympia alone between 700 and 500 bce.28 Even without indemnities imposed by the victors, and with the large percentage of dedications to Panhellenic temples, there can be no doubt that successful wars were lucrative for those involved. All would agree that for the Greeks a victorious war was highly profitable. Certain factors, however, limited the ability of the Greeks to wage wars of aggression alongside unabated acquisition of the resources of others. The absence of standing armies within the various early poleis, Sparta perhaps excluded (though Sparta as we shall see below had its own problems regarding long-distance and long-term wars), left the ancient Greek states at a severe disadvantage in their abilities to wage major wars of aggression and subsequently to annex and hold territories in subjugation for the purpose of tribute collection or taxation. Thus, Homeric and even early Archaic period wars in the Greek world seem like raids and skirmishes for marginal land and movable plunder, and the hoplite from which this warfare emerged defended his own land (and the marginal land of his fellow citizens) as much as he transgressed marginally that of his neighbours.29 War was not natural and treaties and 17–29; E. S. Gruen, “Material Rewards and the Drive for Empire,” 30–45 and J. Rich, “Fear, Greed and Glory: The Causes of Roman War Making in the Middle Republic,” 46–66, in Roman Imperialism, ed. C. B. Champion (Oxford: Blackwells, 2004). 28 A. Snodgrass, Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment (London: J. M. Dent, 1980), 131. For example, a few years before the Persian wars a force of 600 Phocians killed 4,000 Thessalians and they dedicated half the captured shields at Abae and half at Delphi (Hdt. 8.27.4). 29 On early Greek warfare see van Wees, Warfare (n. 13), 95–97, 153–65; Rawlings, Greeks (n. 24), 19–42; J. Latacz, Kampfparänese, Kampfdarstellung und Kampfwirklichkeit (Munich: Zetemata, 1977); P. A. L. Greenhalgh, Early Greek Warfare (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1973). On early raiding see A. Jackson, “Wars and Raids for Booty in the World of Odysseus,” in War and Society in the Greek World, ed. J. Rich and G. Shipley (London: Routledge, 1993), 64–76.

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oaths kept a relative peace.30 Fears of reprisals and adverse consequences may also have played a role in societies that were smaller and in which consequences were greater in defeat, but generally did not prevent individuals from attempting raiding missions. Perhaps, most importantly, the lack of central organization and financial reserves restricted the abilities of early Greek states to sustain campaigns and impose long-term authority over far-flung territories.31 The argument of what follows is that the nature of Greek war-making changed with the spread of coinage and the rise of navies—in particular the Athenian navy—and the tribute in coin paid to the Athenians by their subject allies within the Aegean basin. Both a navy and coinage required high levels of central administration and came to rely on the circulation of large amounts of silver coinage, a corollary of which was the professionalization of the military system that supported the Athenian empire. The effective professionalization of naval warfare left the Athenians with little option but to continue expanding their imperial holdings in order to pay for the troops and ships required to defend and maintain the integrity of the empire in a cycle that necessitated expansion—a Periclean-style status quo, envisaged at the start of the great Peloponnesian War (Thuc. 2.13), was in the long run not an option and one that Alcibiades, or perhaps more subtly Thucydides (6.18) realised, when he argued strongly that without expansion the Athenian empire would wear away (tribō). Pericles’ strategy of countering Spartan invasions with large-scale naval operations was, after all, expensive.32 Perversely, the monetisation of the Aegean and in particular its military systems left states after the war enslaved to new conditions of expensive, aggressive and professional war-making that, as I have argued elsewhere, led indirectly to their eventual domination by resource- and coin-rich Macedonian monarchs.33 Naval power changed the dynamic of relationships and community interaction in the Aegean. It enabled the penetration of forces across vast distances, often without warning.34 Unlike land-based armies, navies could appear quickly and without obstruction. Large navies required enormous initial investment and their maintenance constant 30

Rawlings, Greeks (n. 24), 10; van Wees, Warfare (n. 13), 16–18. For an overview of this see van Wees, Warfare (n. 13), 235–39. 32 P. J. Rhodes, A History of the Classical Greek World (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 92. 33 M. Trundle, “Money and the Great Man,” in Ancient Tyranny, ed. S. Lewis (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 2006), 65–76. 34 L. Rawlings, The Ancient Greeks at War (n. 24), 111. 31

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manual, material and, as demonstrated below, financial support. The mid-sixth century bce saw the appearance of the three banker warship or triērēs, commonly today called the trireme.35 Triremes became the backbone of several large navies in the eastern Aegean around 500 bce. These new navies required and were the product of a more cohesive and solid infrastructures. They also consumed huge resources. There is, perhaps, no coincidence that coined money appeared in the Aegean basin at the same moment as these new three-banked vessels. Thucydides (1.13–15) links naval power with money and the ability to wage major wars. It is no surprise that wealthy regions and states produced the first large navies: Phoenicia, Egypt, Miletos, Samos, Corcyra and Corinth.36 The Athenians became a major naval power late, but in a single moment. The start-up cost for their navy was vast. Herodotus (7.144) does not state how much Athens’ new two hundred strong navy cost to build, but it would have run to at least one hundred talents.37 Isocrates (Areopagus 7.66) later stated that the ship-sheds alone cost one thousand talents. Armed with so large a navy, the Athenians now posed the same kind of threat to all those living in the Aegean basin as any of the great naval powers. Polycrates of Samos, according to Thucydides (1.13.6) the first Greek to aim at thalassocracy in the Aegean, had a large navy himself. Unsurprisingly Polycrates also had great interests in money (chrēmata), which became a prerequisite for naval maintenance. He was well known for his predatory activities at sea (Hdt. 3.39, 3.44).38 Navies may have provided a defensive arm against other naval raiders or even given security for coastal communities fearing starvation from siege, but large communal navies also made piracy and long-distance raiding an easy and attractive means of acquisition. The maintenance

35 Van Wees, Warfare (n. 13), 206; J. S. Morrison, J. F. Coates and B. Rankov, The Athenian Trireme (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000); H. T. Wallinga, Ships and Sea-Power Before the Persian War (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 103–29; L. Casson, The Ancient Mariners (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1991), 83–96. 36 Rawlings, Greeks (n. 24), 107. 37 C. G. Starr, The Influence of Sea Power on Ancient History (New York and Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1989), 92 n. 23; Rawlings, Greeks at War (n. 24), 113. van Wees, Warfare (n. 12), 307 n. 24 puts the initial fleet at a hundred ships following Arist. Ath. Pol. 22.7; Plut. Vit. Them. 4.1.3; Polyaenus, 1.30.12. 38 See P. de Souza, “Towards Thalassocracy? Archaic Greek Naval Developments,” in Archaic Greece: New Approaches and New Evidence, ed. N Fisher and H. Van Wees (London: Routledge, 1998) 282; see also H. T. Wallinga, Ships (n. 35), 162; A. Jackson, “Sea-Raiding in Archaic Greece with Special Attention to Samos,” in The Sea in Antiquity, ed. G. Oliver (Oxford: J. and E. Hedges, Archaeopress, 2000), 133–49.

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of an expensive navy ironically almost necessitated such acquisition of resources by one means or another. Herein lay a vicious cycle. Thucydides (1.13) recognised the significance of navies on the one hand and money on the other to his age and his history.39 Chrēmata— money—was now central to naval archē—empire—and to war. As he stated (1.11), earlier ages could not prosecute great wars, not due to lack of manpower, but due to lack of money. There is an implicit fear of money and its role in this new warfare encapsulated in Pericles’ speech at the start of the great Peloponnesian War in which he reassures the Athenians of their fiscal strength (Thuc. 2.13): 600 talents a year in tribute from the allies, 6000 talents in coin on the acropolis, a further 500 talents of un-coined gold and silver and “not a little” in other sanctuaries. In an earlier speech (Thuc. 1.141–144) he noted that the importance of money, or to be more precise the lack of it, even extends to the resources of their enemies, and Pericles allayed fears that the Spartans might appropriate the resources of the sacred treasuries of Delphi to hire the foreign sailors of the Athenian fleet, thus further acknowledging the power of money. Athenians seem to have had a peculiarly mercenary bent in warmaking in the sources even before the Persian wars. The story of Aristagoras’ visit to both Sparta and Athens illustrates this well (Hdt. 5.97). Cleomenes of Sparta declined an alliance with the Ionians despite Aristagoras’ sales-pitch of weak and wealthy Asians, while the Athenians on the contrary enthusiastically embraced it, hoodwinked by the ease with which the wealth of Persia might be theirs. Herodotus (5.97.3) blames the many Athenians in the assembly in opposition to the wisdom of the Spartan monarch. After Marathon (Hdt. 6.132.1), Miltiades persuaded the Athenians to give him money (chrēmata) and men to lead into the Aegean on an unspecified venture saying he would greatly enrich (kataploutizō) them in a country from which they could easily carry away gold (chrysos). The fleet invaded Paros demanding 100 talents, which was no small sum at all. Themistocles extorted “large amounts” from Andros, Paros and Carystos (Hdt. 8.111).40 Then in the aftermath of the Persian invasions, the Athenians wanted to continue

39 Thucydides’ obsession with money has been well noted, see for example L. KalletMarx, Money (n. 4); L. Kallet, Money and the Corrosion of Power in Thucydides: the Sicilian Expedition and its Aftermath (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2001). 40 Van Wees, Warfare (n. 13), 260 n. 32 suggests such demands were “common practice.” Samos had demanded 100 Talents from the Siphnians (Hdt. 3.58).

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the war explicitly to restore what they had lost in the Persian devastation of Attica in 480 and 479 bce and avenge the wrongs they had suffered in the war (Thuc. 1.96).41 Finally, later in the fifth century Athenian motives for economic gain are clear. Many Athenians saw Sicily as a potential source of wealth. Thucydides (6.24.1–4) outlined the different reasons that attracted different types of Athenians to the Sicilian expedition. Money (argyrion) attracted the poor and those described as the soldiers, called the stratiōtai, and here he probably means men accustomed to military service and therefore not wealthy men, hoping that Sicily would yield long-term wages (misthophoria) for years to come. Money underpinned Athenian thinking regarding Sicily, and even the Athenian ambassadors, according to Thucydides (6.46.3–5) were duped by their potential allies the Egestans, who showed them the same precious objects again and again as they naively toured each Sicilian household. Money became a significant factor in Athenian thinking in the period during and after the Persian wars. After the defeat of the Persians, the Athenians had imposed a tribute (phoros) upon the allies within the Delian League. The precedents of tribute came from earlier imperial models, the Lydians (Hdt. 1.6.2, 27.1) and naturally the Persians (Hdt. 3.89–96, 6.42.2), just as coinage itself had come from the Lydians and had been adopted by both Persians and Greeks. By the 440s almost all the allies save for Samos, Chios and the cities of Lesbos contributed money rather than ships and men. The level of tribute was increased in the 420s to build up exhausted reserves. Decrees of this time illustrate well this increase as much as they also show the meticulous care and painstaking enforcement of the financial contributions of the allies within the empire.42 By 425 bce the great Panathenaia had become a festival associated with the assessment of the tribute.43 By the 420s—if not earlier depending on the dating of these decrees, and the 420s now seems most likely—Athenian coinage was the principal medium of 41 A. Jackson, “The Original Purpose of the Delian League,” Historia 18 (1969): 12–16. 42 Cleonymus (Meiggs & Lewis 68 = IG 1(3) 34 = Fornara 133 in 426/5 bce), Kleinias (Meiggs & Lewis 45 = IG 1 (3) 34 = Fornara 98 in 425/4 bce) and a decree requiring the allies to use Athenian weights and measures and silver coins (Meiggs & Lewis 45 = IG 1 (3) 1453). See also A. Blamire, “Athenian Finance, 454–404 bc,” Hesperia 70 (2001): 111. 43 Meiggs & Lewis 2 65.5–9, 29–32; 69.26–33.

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payment of the phoros.44 Coinage and empire had become inextricably intertwined.45 Athenians justified the tribute through war. Property achieved and held through warfare had always been a justification of ownership in itself. Thus, Pericles justified the appropriation of imperial resources for beautifying the city by stating that Athenians do the fighting while the allies spend “not a horse, not a ship, not a hoplite, but only money, which belongs not to the givers, but to the takers” (Plut. Vit. Per. 12.2–3). This idea is also central to Aristophanes’ Wasps (672–79, 684–85, 1099–1101, 1114–21). Thucydides (1.99; see also Plut. Vit. Cim. 11) explains the transformation of the Delian League into empire as the result of Ionians’ reluctance to fight. They paid tribute rather than contributing ships and men and did not want to spend time away from home; thus they augmented Athenian naval power with money (and on occasion hulls), but weakened themselves so that their revolts were easily quashed. Money and empire were thus integral in the late fifth century bce. Thucydides and Aristophanes both present a central ethos of imperialism as economic. Thucydides knew that tribute and its display demonstrated the income by which the Athenians had power (Thuc. 1.122.1, 143.5; 2.13.2, 3.46.3), and not un-relatedly, their naval power (Thuc. 1.121.3; 2.13.2; 6.17.7; 7.66.2). In Aristophanes’ Knights (1365– 67), Demos asserts that he will ensure payment to rowers who return to port. The Knights refers to the triremes as misthophoroi (554–55), not only because the Athenian fleet enabled purchased manpower, rowers, sailors, soldiers, but it also transported the misthos for the rowers and from the allied states to the imperial centre. Incidentally, misthophoros was a new word in the later fifth century, not found prior to the 420s and one which symbolises the new age of increasingly specialised and professional services.46 The misthophoros earned misthos in coined money

44 For debates on the dating of the decrees see H. B. Mattingley, The Athenian Empire Restored (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1996) and contra M. B. Walbank, Athenian Proxenies of the Fifth Century bc (Toronto: Stevens, 1978), especially chapter two. 45 Good outlines of the processes and development of imperial control can be found in P. J. Rhodes, History (n. 32), 41–53; B. D., Meritt, H. T. Wade Gery, and M. F. McGregor, The Athenian Tribute Lists (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1939–1953); M. F. McGregor, The Athenians and their Empire (Vancouver: Univ. of British Columbia Press, 1987); R. Meiggs, The Athenian Empire (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1972). 46 Trundle, Mercenaries, (n. 8), 15–21.

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(chrēmata), and as military personnel stand in opposition to national servicemen. This misthophoria is what the soldiery and poor hoped for in the years to come from Sicily. The soldiers in this passage are just that— stratiōtai—regular soldiers first and citizens, farmers, hoplites second. Most famously the Wasps (707–712) contextualised the small amount of coined money received as a daily wage by the common citizen-servants of empire against the enormous tribute and resources that poured into the city every year from the Athenian world. Thus, the redistribution of imperial revenues was a central tenet of the Athenian empire. To these new themes associated with empire we might add annual and constant year-round campaigning, which was something new to the Greeks and the result of the increased significance of naval warfare and something specific to the Athenians (Plut. Vit. Cim. 11; Nic. 9).47 We can relate this to an Athenian trait known as polypragmosyne, or ‘busybodyness’.48 Athenian naval power is linked to Athenian polypragmosyne, a disposition criticised by the Corinthians in the speeches prior to the great Peloponnesian War (Thuc. 1.70–71) and unsurprisingly praised by Pericles in the funeral oration (2.40). Alcibiades saw the opposite of this ‘busybodiness’—inaction or apragmosyne—as the greatest threat to Athens in his speech before the assembly about the Sicilian expedition (6.18.6–7). But polypragmosyne drained money from the treasury— money that needed replenishing on a regular basis if the Athenians could prosecute warfare in the new and enlarged scale, on a constant and regular basis. Xenophon (Anab. 7.1.27) estimated that the total annual revenue of the Athenian empire in 431 bce was one thousand talents. The siege of Potidea, from which Athens derived little compensation, may have cost as much as 2000 talents (Thuc. 2.70.2; Isoc. 15.113). Major wars thus required investment. We can guess that the costs of the Sicilian expedition were enormous, running to at least 150 talents per month for the fleet, crews and army.49 The Egestans could only muster 47 See V. D. Hanson, The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilisation, New York: The Free Press, 1995), especially 327–55. Van Wees, Warfare (n. 13), 115–30 has challenged the idea that Greek warfare transformed from a “good old days” of one-off pitched battles to the horrors of fifth-century total war, but he would agree that the growth in navies, infrastructure and resources enabled Greek states to fight more sustained wars. Most recently see Rawlings, Greeks (n. 24), 63–78, who highlights the garnering of supply structures as crucial in the process to more sustained campaigning. 48 LSJ s.v. polypragmosyne states “frequently used as an epithet for the restless Athenians.” See Ar. Ach. 833, for its use to illustrate the Athenian trait of never being satisfied with what they have. 49 Rhodes, History (n. 32), 93.

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a total of sixty talents up front (6.8.1) and a further thirty on arrival (6.46.1), despite claiming that they would pay for the whole war (Thuc. 6.6.2–3). A fragment of an inscription (Meiggs & Lewis 78 = IG 1(3) 93 = Fornara 146) suggests 3000 talents set aside for Sicily in 416/5 bce and further investment of about 500 talents followed (in three instalments: 300T = Thuc. 6.94.4; IG 1(3) 370; 120T = Thuc. 7.16.2; IG 1 (3) 371; unspecified amount, IG 1(3) 371). Thus Athenian investment in its own imperialism was huge.50 Money invested into warfare was by the fifth century a necessity, especially at high-pressure times. We know of the money-collecting ships (argyrologoi) pressing the allies for cash. The Sausage-seller and Demos allude to such ships collecting tribute to pay misthos to soldiers and rowers in the Knights (1065–66, 1070–72). Thucydides (2.69, 3.19, 4.50.1, 4.75) presents four sailings in 430/29 bce, 428/27 bce, 425/24 bce and in 424 bce of such argyrologoi during the Archidamian War. Tribute was their aim, while Xenophon (Hell. 1.1.8, 12; 4.8.30, 35; see also Plut. Vit. Alc. 35.5–6) described missions to extort money by any means in order to pay crews in the latter phases of the Peloponnesian War. Not only the allies, but Athenians felt the pinch of war, as some two hundred talents were raised by the citizens of Athens as a tax—eisphora—during the financial crisis during the siege of Mytilene as early as 428 bce.51 Finally Athenians made their wars pay for themselves in the fifth century bce. Samos had to refund Athens 1200 talents after its defeat in 439 bce.52 Alec Blamire sees Athenian decisions to set aside monies, about one thousand talents, early in the war from the funds of the acropolis as evidence of their worries about the potential costs of the war (Thuc. 2.24.1).53 One consequence of monetisation of the Athenian imperial money economy was urbanisation and with that the development of industries reliant upon coinage, dis-embedded from traditional economic activities and related specifically to empire. One such industry reliant upon 50 V. Gabrielsen, “Naval Warfare: its Economic and Social Impact in Greek Cities” in War as a Cultural and Social Force, eds. T Bekker-Nielsen, and L. Hannestad, (Copenhagen: Det kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 2001) 72–98; D. Kagan, The Archidamian War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 1974), 37–40, thought the war would have cost about 2000 talents a month. 51 Thuc. 3.19.1. A. Blamire, “Finance” (n. 42): 110 thinks that Mytilene created special circumstances at the prospect of a new and expensive siege, thus needing special contributions from Athens and allies. 52 Isoc. 15.111; Diod. 12.28.3; see Meiggs and Lewis 55; IG 1(3) 363; Fornara 113 for figures of 1400 talents spent on the war, see also Thuc. 1.117.3. 53 Blamire, “Finance” (n. 42): 109.

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a cash-holding free poor was the brothel—often simply called the factory (ergasterion)—housing the pornē or lowest status prostitute.54 These pornai, appear in direct contrast to the courtesans or hetairai of the wealthy. The pornai were almost always slaves and they paid a tax—the pornikon telos—to the state (almost certainly on their behalf by their owners). The derivation of their name from the verb to buy or to sell (pernēmi) defined their status unlike the euphemistic hetairai, deriving from the Greek word for a companion. The pornai can only have functioned in an urbanised environment within a cash economy.55 They thus differed from the hetairai of Athenian aristocrats whose ambiguous identity left them engaged in a world of the gift, the symposium within the houses of the rich (rather than the brothel), and of implied friendship (and they did not pay the tax). Access to cheap prostitutes became part of Athenian democratic ideology. Accessible sex-slaves were part of the redistributed spoils of empire alongside the coinage that flowed to the citizen poor for state service. Thus, one piece of evidence points to Solon as laying the foundations for such access. A fragment (number three) of the early fourth century playwright Eubulus has Solon concerned about adultery.56 To prevent young men straying to the wives of fellow Athenians, he bought female slaves and established them in brothels. Eubulus’ speaker even stated that this was something “democratic” (dēmotikon). The price for such access was only an obol. The fiction of this as a historical reality need not detain us, but the fact that the idea that Solon, the so-called founder of Athenian democracy, may have created or was associated with public brothels for common use, reflects an ideology that linked communal equality and the democracy with access to both cheap available sex and the money with which to purchase it.

54 See L. Kurke, Bodies, Coins, Games and Gold (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1999), 175–219; L. Kurke, “Inventing the Hetaira: Sex, Politics and Discursive Conflict in Archaic Greece,” Classical Antiquity 16 (1997): 106–150; J. Davidson, Courtesans and Fishcakes (London: Harper Collins, 1997), 78–91; E. Keuls, The Reign of the Phallus (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: Univ. of California Press, 1993), 153–204. For the evidence see H. Herter, “Die Soziologie der antiken Prostitution im Lichte des heidnischen und christlichen Schrifttums,” Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 3 (1960): 70–111. 55 Herter “Prostitution,” (n. 54): 71–72. 56 Ath., Deipnosophistae, 13.569d, notes that Philemon speaking in Eubulus’ Brothers says Solon did this, and further that Nicander in his History of Colophon recorded that Solon erected a temple to public Aphrodite with the first profits of these brothels.

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Importantly the low-class and cheap prostitutes originated and functioned within the context of the Athenian empire.57 Athenian naval strategies had brought a new kind of warfare to the Aegean—siege warfare—this was a high-stakes endeavour involving major financial costs, payments in coin for the poor who rowed in the fleet, as we have seen above, which in turn enabled their use of cheap prostitutes and so forth, but the ultimate cost of this new kind of warfare was oikeiōsis, the destruction and literally the appropriation of the losing city, the murder of all the male adult citizens and the enslavement of the women and children.58 One presumes that, and to complete this cycle, the great numbers of female and child slaves, unable to work in agriculture or, for the women at least, in large-scale mining operations, found themselves purchased cheaply by pornoboskoi—or pimps—and crammed into ergasteria to work as both prostitutes and in the related textiles industry.59 Empire provided the preconditions of this industry: large amounts of circulating coinage, an urban centre, and a cheap female and child slave market resulting from Athenian war-making. By contrast the polis’ use of male chattel slavery had practical limitations. Male chattel slavery had been part of the process of establishing citizen identity at Athens as scholars like Walter Beringer and Ian Morris have shown.60 Male slaves would certainly have assisted in agrarian and industrial production, and without doubt such use of slavery was one way, in the words of the Greek philosophers, “to achieve the good life,” but a high number of such male slaves was dangerous.61 Even Greek colonists in the Archaic age preferred to annihilate the local male population or to sell them into slavery elsewhere rather than become an armed camp of overseers, as was the case at Sparta.62 Slaves were never a majority of the population even in wealthy poleis like Athens.63 57

Herter “Prostitution,” (n. 54): 79 n. 148. Thuc. 4.128; Xenophon (Hell. 2.2.3) preserves a list of states that had suffered at the hands of the Athenians, including Melos in 415 bce. 59 Davidson, Courtesans (n. 54), 85–90. A later proverb stated, “She said to Athena, ‘I shall apply myself to Aphrodite’s work and vote like Paris against you!’” interrelating weaving and prostitution. 60 I. Morris, Burial and Ancient Society (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987); W. Beringer, “Servile Statuses in the Sources for Early Greek History,” Historia 31 (1982): 13–32. 61 M. Berent, “Anthropology and the Classics: War, Violence and the Stateless Polis,” Classical Quarterly 50 (2000): 257–289, especially 270. 62 Berent, “Anthropology,” (n. 61): 269. 63 N. Fisher, Slavery in Classical Greece (London: Bristol Classical Press, 1993), 34–57. 58

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The ability of states to exploit the institution of slavery, therefore, only went so far. War produced abundant slaves, but in the world of Athens those slaves were predominantly women and children who as we have already discussed found their way into urban exploitative industries rather than into industrial or agrarian production. Money interrelated with this process, giving women and children a value (albeit low cost) in industries that empire made possible and at the same time excluding men from enslavement, out of fear of bringing too many potentially violent and dangerous outsiders into Attica. Ironically chattel slavery and money were both features of the Athenian, as opposed to the Spartan, socio-economic system, and both clearly formed the basis of what Athenian society became in the later fifth century. Coined money, empire, democracy, an urban centre and naval power were all interconnected. Money made empire possible, kept it safe by providing and funding ships and men and at the same time money was a symbol of the power of the Athenian empire and symbol of the subservience of the allies to Athens as the display of tribute, in particular, at the festival of the city Dionysia demonstrated.64 The Athenian empire monetised warfare within the Aegean. The effects of this monetisation on warfare were many. The naval and subsequently the land arms of Athens’ military became professionalised and dependent upon the income of war. Professional and continuous military employment dislocated those in the military from other sources of income and especially from the land. Poor rowers—in the Aegean and not necessarily just in Athens—never had the same relationship as wealthier hoplites to the land and thus became increasingly dependent on military wages. Money in the end proved decisive, as Persian gold overcame Athenian silver. Many of the rowers in the Athenian navy came from the allied states.65 Lysander’s four obols a day attracted Ionian rowers more readily than Athens’ three.66 If fourth-century evidence is instructive here, Athenian trierarchs had plenty of trouble hiring, maintaining and retaining the service even of Athenians crews, while on campaign.67 The loyalty of non-Athenians must have been severely stretched in the face of better and even consistent wages. In land warfare mercenaries had grown in numbers in the period of the fifth to the 64 65 66 67

Isoc. 8.82. Thuc. 1.121.3, and see 1.143.1–2. Xen. Hell. 1.5.1–9. Dem. 50. For discussion see Rawlings, Greeks (n. 24), 169–71.

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fourth century bce.68 The fact that money enabled fleets, larger professional armies and longer, more sustained wars naturally meant that the cost and the stakes of wars in Greece grew exponentially. In the process of its professionalization, war by necessity became more aggressive. Thucydides (6.18.2–3) made Alcibiades say—in arguing aggressively for his countrymen to set out on the imperial expedition to Sicily—that the Athenians, having embarked upon holding an empire, could not limit their imperialism. He tells the assembly that it cannot fix the point at which the empire shall stop and that they must not be content with retaining what they have, but must seek more. He goes on to say that they should not be turned from this venture by the do-nothing (apragmosyne) policy of Nicias, for if the city sinks into inaction (hēsuchazō) then it will wear away (tribō) and decay (engēraskō). He concludes: In short, my conviction is that a city not inactive (apragmōn) by nature could not choose a quicker way to ruin itself than by suddenly adopting such a policy, and that the safest rule of life is to take one’s character and institutions for better and for worse, and to live up to them as closely as one can.

Pericles’ policy of sustained defence, creating fortress Attica and enclosed empire—it is noted specifically for the period of the great Peloponnesian War—could not have worked in the long run. Naval warfare required more resources, longer terms of service and long, drawnout sieges in which the stakes for winners and losers were greater than in infantry engagements between traditional hoplite armies. Money was central in this, as Thucydides, Pericles, Lysander and Cyrus the Younger had seen. Athenian treasuries, large as they were, could never have sustained a long war and as it was they were drained within a few years of the start of the Archidamian War, hence the raising of cash by Athenian citizens for the Mytilenian campaign and the harsh reassessments of tribute in the mid-420s bce noted above. Expeditions like those to Egypt in the 450s—even Melos in 416—and to Sicily in 414 bce were products of necessity as much as of hybris—Athenian polypragmosyne and naval dependence with its monetary associations necessitated aggression—and Alcibiades was right that Athenians could not place limits on their empire if their dominance in the Aegean was to continue for long. 68

Trundle, Mercenaries, (n. 8), 44–46.

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On the other hand, and to illustrate the point, Sparta’s traditional land army faced the opposite problems to those of Athens and problems that earlier archaic poleis had always experienced.69 Tied to their helots and their land, they could not wage a sustained war of attrition, which left them with only the option of short annual invasions of Attica, which carried few lasting effects.70 Thucydides (1.80.3–4) has Archidamus admit Spartan inferiority to Athens in money, a point made by Pericles (Thuc. 1.141.3, 142.1), when he had stated that the Peloponnesians are farmers and lack money individually or publicly, but that, most importantly, he said that they will be hindered by a lack of money. Archidamus (or Thucydides 1.83.2) knew well that war had become an affair of expense or outlay (dapanēs) rather than only of arms (hopla). Without money the Spartans could not afford year round campaigns, launch fleets to challenge Athens or employ specialists who were dislocated from the land in long drawn out wars of aggression. In the words of Moshe Berent:71 The limited resources of the polis meant that control of the helots (that is, a form of coercion) had to come at the expense of the ability to conduct external war. Also the control of the helots perhaps contributed to Sparta’s having less economic motivation than the typical polis to go to war.

Helots contributed to the war effort, and in all probability rowed the small Spartan fleet, prior to the Spartan-Persian alliance of 412 bce72 It was not until Persian money enabled Spartan naval power parity and superiority in the Aegean that the war turned their way. We should note here that monetised professional warfare finally overcame Spartan traditional styles of war-making when, in 383 bce, they enabled their

69 On the Spartan army see P. Cartledge, Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta (London and Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1987), 427–31; J. Lazenby, The Spartan Army (Warminster: Aris and Philips, 1985); and most recently A. Powell and S. Hodkinson (ed.), Sparta and War (London: Duckworth and the Univ. Press of Wales, 2006). 70 On the limited nature of agricultural devastation by Greek warfare see L. Foxhall, “Farming and Fighting,” in War and Society in the Greek World, ed. J. Rich and G. Shipley, (London: Routledge, 1993), 134–45; V. D. Hanson, Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece (Pisa: Giardini, 1998), especially Chapter 6; against the arguments that war minimally damaged agriculture see J. Thorne, “Warfare and Agriculture: The Economic Impact of Devastation,” GRBS 42 (2001): 225–53. 71 Berent, “Anthropology,” (n. 61): 269. 72 See B. Bertosa, “The social status and ethnic origin of the rowers of Spartan triremes,” War & Society 23 (2005): 1–20. On helots at war see P. Hunt, Slaves Warfare and Ideology in the Greek Historians (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998), 13–18, 53–82.

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Peloponnesian allies to provide money in lieu of manpower in a similar vein to what the Athenians had done with their allies in the Aegean.73 The cost to the allies per man was three Aeginetan obols a day (4.325 Attic obols), about the going rate for the hire of a mercenary. This was a real sign of the times. By the later 360s, admittedly in response to a political and military crisis, Agesilaus found himself in the bizarre situation of fighting in Egypt against the Persians in order to raise money to pay mercenaries to fight for the Spartan cause in the Peloponnese.74 Here we have a good example of Spartan imperial interests fuelled by financial needs. Each of these three examples of Spartan policies transforming in response to new conditions of warfare illustrates the importance of raising capital to pay for professional wars. The money had to come from somewhere. The sources are full of tales of the ways in which commanders raised money to pay both native and foreign soldiers for warfare, some ludicrous and apocryphal—like Jason of Pherae’s extortion of money from his mother, with stories that his soldiers were chasing after him (Polyaenus, Strat. 6.1.2–3)—others ingenious—like Timotheus selling harvested crops to the very people he was besieging in order to pay his troops.75 Domestic revenues were finite. These might include mining operations like those of the Athenians at Laureum76 or at Pangaeum,77 indirect and direct taxation within an empire like that of Persia,78 liturgies of wealthy citizens like that of Athenian trierarch,79 borrowing from the gods in the temples, as the Athenians did at the end of the great Peloponnesian War or the Phocians at Delphi. Borrowing was a common means by which trierarchs funded many campaigns even while at sea and Aeneas Tacticus (13.1–3) advised making the wealthier citizens of a city provide or provision (xenotrophein) mercenaries with promises

73

Xen. Hell. 5.2.21. Plut. Vit. Ages. 36–37; Diod. 15.90–92; Xen. Ages. 2.28, 31. On Agesilaus’ mercenary activities see E. Millender, “The Politics of Spartan Mercenary Service” in Sparta and War, ed. S. Hodkinson, (London: Duckworth and the Univ. Press of Wales, 2006), 241–272, especially 261–62; Parke, Soldiers (n. 7) 90, 111; W.K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War II (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1974), 89–90; Cartledge, Agesilaos (n. 69), 314, 325–29, 392. 75 Ps-Aristotle, Oec. 2.2.23, at Samos. 76 Arist. Ath. Pol. 15.2 referring to Peisistratus. 77 Diod. 16.8.7. See also Diod. 5.38.2–3 for Carthage. 78 Hdt. 3.89–117; Xen. Cyr. 7.5.69; Arist. Pol. 1313b for Dionysius I; Parke, Soldiers (n. 7), 72. 79 Dem 2.36, 49. 6. 74

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of compensation in the event of victory.80 All of these methods were short-term solutions. No state had infinite resources, and in Greece especially there was always a dearth of precious metals for coinages. When funds ran out ancient mechanisms ceased. Twice in the fourth century Athens had to make peace when short of money to prosecute war.81 Athenian law-courts suspended business in the absence of money to pay for expenses.82 Field armies and navies regularly turned to other ‘jobs’ to make ends meet, not necessarily always piracy, as when Athenian crewmen became field hands at Corcyra.83 Alternative means for funding professional wars were necessary and the only alternative available in the absence of infinite domestic resources and complex systems of national debt maintenance as we have in the modern world was war. In these conditions of later fifth-century professional needs, war was its own natural reward. The easiest way to pay for professional armies was to have them feed themselves from the lands in which they fought, pay them with coins yielded from plunder and to have the war pay for itself. The Spartan Brasidas realised this in the 420s in Thrace and no doubt the Athenians had realised this as well much earlier with their mobile fleets: Themistocles, Cimon and Pericles each have stories attached to them of clever ways of funding campaigns.84 Armies cannot plunder the lands they are supposed to be defending and by association those of their allies. That is not to say they did not. For example, in 406 bce impoverished sailors (nautai) and soldiers (stratiōtai) conspired against their commander’s orders to attack the city of Chios, their ally. The commander, Eteonicus, had to threaten the city to provide money for their pay or else.85 Professional warfare encouraged aggressive wars. In 351 bce, Demosthenes (4.28–29) advocated paying Athenian mercenaries in a proposed war in Thrace from the plunder taken as revenues from their campaigns. In the wake of the Social War, Athens had no resources. Obviously such a policy could only apply in the country of the enemy. Plundered goods fell into two types, the despoiled arms (skula) of the

80 Dem. 50, 49.6–8, 11–2, 44, and 15; Xen. Hell. 6.2.11–2; see V. Gabrielsen, Financing the Athenian Fleet (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1994), 116–117. 81 Xen. Hell. 5.4.66, 6.2.1. 82 Dem. 39.1.17, 45.1.4. 83 Xen. Hell. 6.2.37. 84 Themistocles (Herodotus, 8.19), Cimon (Plut. Vit. Cim. 9.2–4) and Pericles (Plut. Vit. Per. 11.4). 85 Xen. Hell. 2.1.1–5.

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enemy and the goods, people and chattels (leia) of a territory.86 Selling captured civilians into slavery was the main source of revenue for armies in the field.87 Professional soldiers were employed with wages, but their interest in booty as a means of revenue creation meant that they were never far removed from being plunderers in the Greek world. Their regular pay through employment separated them from the plunderer by the thinnest of threads. Booty was of paramount importance in the provisioning and financing of fleets and field armies.88 The point is that professional wars encouraged more offensive and aggressive strategies. Defensive wars gave opportunities for plunder to the enemy and drained a state’s already diminishing resources. Defensive wars did not generate booty. Professional and more complex wars created a vicious cycle whereby commanders needed the army to take booty in order to pay the men and the increased amount of warfare requiring more professionals who in turn needed to be paid from presumably diminishing returns of plunder. As the generals in theory owned and distributed the communal plunder of an army, a semblance of professional service was maintained even within mercenary armies, but stealing booty for its own sake and for the needs of payment severely dislocated the mercenary from being a regularly paid and professional soldier. As a plunderer, he was no different from a raider or a pirate. As a soldier, he sought a beneficial end to his term of service, as surely most soldiers did not see constant military service as an end in itself. The cities and their soldiers became trapped in a vicious cycle of plunder and warfare in the fifth and fourth centuries bce. Let us conclude with the cautionary tale of the Third Sacred War (356–346 bce), in which the Phocians held the shrine of Delphi for a decade with an army of mercenaries against the forces of Locris, Thebes, Thessaly, and finally Macedonia. The Third Sacred War kept thousands of mercenaries employed in central Greece at the same time as

86 For a full discussion of booty see W.K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War I (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1971), 55–6; W.K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War V (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1991), 58–152. 87 Pritchett, State I (n. 87), 82; Rawlings, Greeks (n. 24), 151. Thucydides, 6.62, states that the Athenians made 120 talents from the sale of the Hyccarians at Egesta. 88 This relationship is discussed in two articles by J. A. Krasilnikoff, “Aegean Mercenaries in the Fourth to Second Centuries bc: A Study in Payment, Plunder and Logistics of Ancient Greek Armies,” Classica et Mediaevalia, 43 (1992): 23–36, and “The Regular Payment of Aegean Mercenaries in the Classical Period,” Classica et Mediaevalia, 44 (1993): 77–95.

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Demosthenes produced his First Philippic, advocating that war in Thrace might pay for itself. It is regrettable that Diodorus, our main source, never specified how much the individual Phocian mercenaries were paid. They were probably paid above the average, for on several occasions the generals raised the rate of misthos by half as much again and to double its original amount, and so they attracted a considerable army of mercenaries.89 Roderick Williams, using Demosthenes’ figure of two obols a day for maintenance of those soldiers that he proposed could live off the Thracians, concludes that if this had been a daily rate, the total wages bill for the Phocian mercenaries would have been 1,622 talents for the ten years of the war.90 His equation assumes there were 8,000 mercenaries serving for ten years. Thus 8,000 (men) multiplied by 1/3 drachma (two obols per day) multiplied by 3,650 days (which was the duration of the war) produces a total of 9,733,332.3 drachmas or 1,622 talents as the total wages’ bill. A higher figure for the wages paid to each mercenary may be countenanced based on the fact that Demosthenes’ 351 bce figure was certainly a minimum designed for subsistence rather than wages, and it does not consider the special increments paid by the Phocian generals to their men—which could have seen that total double or even treble. Thus, 8,000 (men) multiplied by 3,650 (days) multiplied by four Attic obols (daily wage) provides a wages bill of 19,466,664 drachmae or 3,244.4 talents as the total cost of the war—or, if trebled, 4,687 talents. Neither of Williams’ sources referred to the Phocian situation specifically, so the figures remain speculative, and Demosthenes was dealing with payments for subsistence (sitēresion) and not wages (misthos). We can safely conclude, however, that the war was very expensive and the Phocians had no Aegean empire of allied tribute payers to support a wages bill anywhere between 162 and 468 talents or more each year. The upper figure is closer, one suspects, to the Phocian costs and when set against the 600–1000 talents that the Athenians were annually collecting at the start of the great Peloponnesian War from their enormous empire—and remember the Athenians had to run a huge navy with that money—it puts the costs of ancient wars into stark perspective. No wonder the Phocians lost that war. Theirs was a defensive struggle to hold Phocis and, perhaps equally as important, the Delphic oracle. The legacy of Athenian polypragmosyne, of naval imperial money hegemony, 89 Diod. 16.25.1, 30.1, 36.1. See Trundle, Mercenaries (n. 8), esp. 94–96 for detailed discussion. 90 Williams, Coinage (n. 15), 54.

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was offensive warfare or bust, which the Phocians discovered to their cost and which the master of aggression Philip utilised to the full. To return then to where we began, the economic motivation that drove the ancients into wars is clear, but the economic benefits of those wars can only be seen retrospectively at the end of a campaign. The Romans imposed enormous indemnities upon their defeated enemies, in particular the great monarchs of the east. They plundered territories extensively and enslavements rose to enormous proportions. But the post factum nature of these indemnities still requires a leap of faith by modern scholars clinging to more defensive and less cynical imperial designs in senatorial decision-making of the third and second centuries bce. Additionally, the aristocratic sources make it near impossible to accredit to the mindset of noble politicians such grubby motivation for war-making as economic gain. For the Greeks, generations earlier, money had transformed warfare in the fifth century. Our Greek sources appear more aware of the role of greed in war-making. Professional fleets and armies required payment in money. Money came from empire and empire was a product of war. Money generation required aggression, invasion, plunder and extortion. The Athenians created the conditions for this new Greek world. The Athenian empire had monetised warfare in the whole Greek world in this period. The effects of this monetisation on warfare were many. The naval and subsequently the land arms of military systems became professionalised and dependent upon the income of war. In the process they monetised the Aegean and enslaved themselves and their fellow Greeks to a process of constant aggression and internecine warfare. No wonder the legacy that they bequeathed to the fourth century was one of competition and chaos, of professional armies, the failed expansion of Sparta and Thebes and the final emergence of a military power whose financial and military resources outstripped anything the Greek world had to offer. Thus money influenced warfare in the later Classical period in several significant ways. Professionalisation resulted in the incorporation of poor insiders (as light troops and naval personnel) and specialist outsiders (as mercenaries) into the armies of various Greek states. Money facilitated the hiring of larger numbers of men than previously into various kinds of military service. These developments facilitated larger and more sustained campaigns. Coinage introduced and symbolised new kinds of relationships and new powerful leaders emerged, usually on the periphery of the Greek world. Coins reflected personal relationships if not contracts, and became a means to bind men to others’ service.

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The symbolic value of the coin became the testimony to the relationship either between a state and its citizens or its subject allies (as, for example, with Athens), or as a symbol of the relationship between individuals with reciprocal ties of responsibility and investment towards each other. Finally, all of the factors raised above led to a new kind of warfare in the eastern Mediterranean, initially at sea, which created a cycle of dependence on coinage as a means of waging what became necessarily more offensive and aggressive wars.

THE CARTHAGINIAN NAVY: QUESTIONS AND ASSUMPTIONS Louis Rawlings This chapter considers both the institutional and operational aspects of the Punic navy, and argues that an appreciation of both is essential for understanding the nature of Carthaginian ‘thalassocracy’. This chapter will discuss the current state of our knowledge in a number of key areas: the Punic naval landscape embodied by its network of harbors and naval bases, the resources of the state, the organisation and structure of fleets, and their modes of operation. Since a navy can also be considered within its traditions and through its approaches to campaigning and fighting, engendered in the experience of the crew and commanders, these will also receive consideration. It will be argued that a holistic investigation of these aspects can expose some elements of Punic naval ideology, and can also contribute to an appreciation of the complexity and sophistication of Punic naval affairs. Perspectives on Punic Thalassocracy In 1958, George and Colette Picard likened the city of Carthage to a ship anchored off the African coast. The image was recast by Fernand Braudel in 1969 when he remarked that, “Carthage, on the hill of Byrsa between its two lagoons, was compared by Appian to a ship at anchor.”1 We might forgive Braudel, a medievalist, whose unrevised manuscript remained unpublished until after his death, for confusing an ancient and a modern account. Or perhaps conflating the two descriptions, for Appian did indeed describe the physical layout of the city (App. Pun. 96), although without recourse to metaphor. Nevertheless the analogies of Braudel and the Picards, while topographically evocative, also reveal their fundamental conception of Carthage as a maritime state. The ‘city as ship’ is a motif with a long pedigree: it goes back to Alcaeus, and, in a 1

G. C. Picard and C. Picard, La vie quotidienne à Carthage au temps d’ Hannibal IIIe siècle avant Jésus-Christ. (Paris: Hachette, 1958), 168: “Pendant plus de la moitiéde de son existence (814–450 environ) Carthage fut pareille à un navire, à l’ancre devant la côte d’Afrique”; F. Braudel, The Mediterranean in the Ancient World (trans. S. Reynolds), (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2001), 213.

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Phoenician context, to Ezekiel.2 Appian himself employed it; not in his description of the topography of Carthage, but during the final negotiations between the Romans and Carthaginians on the eve of the Third Punic War. The consul, L. Marcius Censorinus, is made to state that he regarded a city by the sea as like a ship tossed by circumstances and vicissitudes (App. Pun. 87). It was safer inland, which is where he suggested or, rather, commanded, that the Carthaginians relocate to.3 Censorinus was not the only Roman commander to be attributed such a view. Cicero makes Scipio Aemilianus, the eventual destroyer of Carthage, compare inland and coastal settlement, and argue that maritime cities put themselves at risk in several ways (Cic. Rep 2.4.7–8). Enemies could arrive at any time from the sea, traditional customs are transformed by foreign ways and merchandise, trafficking the sea and moving to other lands scatters the population, causing the people to forget how to farm and fight, while the influx of luxuries leads to moral degeneracy. In Scipio’s view, contact with the sea brings military, but primarily commercial and cultural dangers, and he cites Carthage as a specific example. He sees only one advantage: a man can get anything from overseas and can export his own produce (2.4.9)—a commerce that, given the thrust of his argument, is made to seem morally problematic. Censorinus also compared naval affairs with merchants’ gains: both had the potential for increases, but they could also bring crowds of losses (App. Pun. 87). By implication, the power of Carthage was like a commercial risk.4 Our understanding of Punic thalassocracy has been driven by such conceptualisations. The notion that Carthaginian naval power was a commercial thalassocracy was most immoderately put by Arnold Toynbee.5 He characterised the Carthaginians as parasites drawing a middleman’s profit from trade in the Western Mediterranean. The navy furthered this parasitic existence by supervising a monopolisation of trade through a “wooden wall.”6 He saw evidence for this in the

2

Alc. frg. 6, 208a; note also Pl. Resp. 488a–e; Leg. 758a, 945c. Ezekiel 27 (on Tyre). This speech is, perhaps, the cause of Braudel’s slip. 4 A. Cristofori, “The Maritime City in the Graeco-Roman Perception. Carthage and Alexandria: Two Emblematic Examples,” in The Sea in European History, ed. L. François and A. K. Isaacs (Pisa: Edizioni Plus, 2001), 1–24. 5 A. J. Toynbee, Hannibal’s Legacy: the Hannibalic War’s Effects on Roman Life, vol. 1 (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1965), 38. 6 Toynbee, Hannibal’s Legacy (n. 5), 33, 38. The work was published in 1965 and the ‘wooden wall’ image appears to draw vitality from the contemporary Soviet ‘Iron Curtain’. 3

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restrictions placed on Roman access to Africa and Sardinia in two early Romano-Punic treaties detailed by Polybius (3.22–4). Toynbee’s views derived, in part, from the perception of the Carthaginian empire held by scholars such as the Picards,7 and from a more or less general consensus held since Kahrstedt and Gsell of reading Carthaginian society as commercially driven.8 As Griffith had put it: [Carthage was] essentially a commercial city; a nation of merchants has neither the time nor the inclination to subject its business to periodical interruptions for campaigning overseas…they enjoyed a maritime supremacy that…encouraged them to forget…how to carry arms.9

The influence of Scipio’s characterisation seems evident (Cic. Rep. 2.4.7– 8). A somewhat more sophisticated evaluation of commercial thalassocracy came from Whittaker, who, denying that the Carthaginians held a formal archē in the earlier period, suggested that they relied on a profitable collusion with other Phoenician cities, and only gradually became more imperialist in response to the threats posed by Syracuse and, later, Rome.10 The notion of a commercial people pursuing commercial policies remains seductive, as Lancel has observed.11 What have tended to remain obscured by this image are the other points made by Appian’s Censorinus. He argued that the Carthaginians were reminded of past dominion and power (App. Pun. 86), and were aroused by looking at the empty sea; they wished again to have great fleets and captured spoils (88). The sea had led them into “wrongdoing”, imperialistic follies and wars: The sea made you invade Sicily…during a treaty you plundered merchants (especially ours) and threw the crews overboard to conceal the crime, as a penalty you gave us Sardinia. You lost Sardinia because of the sea… (App. Pun. 86).

In the view of Censorinus, the sea made the Carthaginians aggressive imperialists and plunderers. Cicero’s Scipio also recognised that the

7

Cited by Toynbee, Hannibal’s Legacy (n. 5), 29 n. 1, 33. U. Karhstedt, Geschichte der Karthager von 218–146 bc (Berlin: Weidmann, 1913), 70–3; S. Gsell, Histoire Ancienne de l’Afrique du Nord, vol 2, 3rd edn. (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1924), 113. 9 G.T. Griffith, The Mercenaries of the Hellenistic World (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1935), 208. 10 C. R. Whittaker, “Carthaginian Imperialism in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries,” in Imperialism in the Ancient World, ed. P. Garnsey and C. R. Whittaker (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1978), 59–90. 11 S. Lancel, Carthage: A History (trans. A. Nevill) (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 121. 8

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many luxuries supplied by the sea enter through import or capture (Cic. Rep. 2.4.8). Cicero (Leg. agr. 2.87) asserted that Carthage had been destroyed because of Roman fear of Carthaginian aggression, for Carthage possessed not only a vast population, good territory and was well furnished with harbors and walls, but it also seemed to jut out of Africa to threaten Rome’s most prosperous provinces.12 Such philosophical views appear to have some basis in reality. One might note the concerns of the Romans in both the first and second ‘Polybian’ treaties (ca. 509 and ca. 348 bce), about Carthaginian attacks on Latium and Rome’s other allies in Italy (3.22.11, 24.5–10). Cato’s famous brandishing of fresh Carthaginian figs in the Roman Senate was aimed at reinforcing his point about the proximity of Carthage to Italy.13 There has, in fact, been some modern recognition of the Punic navy for what it often was perceived in antiquity to be: a vessel of warfare and aggressive state policy. There have been a number of politico-strategic studies that attempt to establish a narrative of action in a specific war (or wars), and the political and military imperatives at each turn.14 These are valuable contributions in their own right, but they do not generally present an overview of the institutional or ideological aspects of the navy, or place it in the broader context of Punic militarism. Recently, however, several scholars have begun to redefine our understanding of these issues. Eckstein has argued that Carthage was no less bellicose than Rome. Indeed, both states existed in what he terms a “militarized interstate anarchy” where “the militarized culture that developed within individual states as a consequence of and as an adaptation to the cruel environment [“of fiercely competitive polities”—p. 178] also strongly 12 Fear of aggression is emphasised by J. Rich, “Fear, Greed and Glory: the Causes of Roman War-making in the Republic,” in War and Society in the Roman World, ed. J. Rich & G. Shipley (London: Routledge, 1993), 63–4, 66 and by A. M. Eckstein, Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War and the Rise of Rome (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2006), both in Roman and, more generally, in inter-state bellicosity. 13 Plut. Vit. Cat. Mai. 27; the figs also suggested the fecundity of the region and the tempting rewards of its conquest. On economic motives for the Third Punic War see W. V. Harris, War and Imperialism in Republican Rome, 327–70 bc (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1979), 239 and n. 4 for further references. 14 Notable examples are W. W. Tarn, “The Fleets of the First Punic War,” JHS 27 (1907): 48–60; W. L. Rogers, Greek and Roman Naval Warfare (Annapolis: Stevens & Brown, 1937); J. H. Thiel, A History of Roman Sea-Power Before the Second Punic War (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co., 1954); J. F. Lazenby, The First Punic War (London: UCL Univ. Press, 1996); B. Rankov, “The Second Punic War at Sea,” in The Second Punic War: a Reappraisal, ed. T. Cornell, B. Rankov and P. Sabin (London, BICS supp. 67, 1996), 49–57; A. K. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000).

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contributed in itself to a war-prone world.”15 Even in the period prior to the acquisition of its land empire in Africa (in the fifth and fourth centuries bce), Carthage had campaigned in Sardinia, Sicily and North Africa, and may have established early territories on a number of islands such as Ibiza and Malta. Indeed, Ameling has argued for an extensive and regular commitment to military affairs by the Carthaginian elite and general population, both by land and sea, throughout the lifetime of the city.16 Medas has revealed the long-term commitment of the Carthaginians to the art of maritime conflict, as well as the complexity and sophistication of their approaches to the sea and organisation of their navy.17 The present study builds upon these insights and attempts to draw out some further observations about the nature of Punic naval warfare, reflecting upon the naval ideology and strategic culture of the Carthaginians. It will argue that the fleet can be understood as both an expression of the cultural and military outlook of the Carthaginians, and also as a flexible tool in the expansion and maintenance of Carthaginian imperial power. The Punic Naval Landscape The ‘ship at anchor’ metaphor of the Picards reflects a broader view of the pattern of Phoenician settlement in the western Mediterranean, where, in general, communities were sited on defensible promontories, offshore islands, or at river mouths and lagoons.18 These do indeed appear to reflect a topographic ideology constructed in nautical terms. Promontories, for example, give good views of the sea and are landmarks for sailors, while also easily defensible from inland threats. Beyond this evident practicality for seafarers, the liminality of many Phoenician urban sites also suggests a desire to remain detached from

15

Eckstein, Mediterranean Anarchy (n. 12), 177. W. Ameling, Karthago. Studien zu Militär, Staat und Gesellschaft (Munich: Beck, 1993), 190–210, 223–5. 17 S. Medas, La Marineria Carthaginese: le navi, gli uomini, la navagazione (Sassari: Carlo Delfino, 2000). 18 Representative examples of offshore islands include: Motya, Sulcis, Mogador, Gades, Cerro del Villar; capes and promontories: Toscanos, Nora, Tharros, Bithia, Panormus, Lixus, Lepcis Magna, Carthage, New Carthage, Ras Melqart. On the characteristic location of Phoenician settlements in the west see M. E. Aubet, The Phoenicians and the West (trans. M. Turton) (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993). 16

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the hinterland, not to become indigenous. Often, modern interpretation of Phoenician sites has focused on commercial motivations and activities.19 Undoubtedly these played a part, but it is also the case that proximity to the sea allowed for more than commercial relationships, and fostered cultural, social, political and military contacts. Sea travel brings coastal communities much closer together than movement overland. Walking inland from Lilybaeum for a whole day could bring a person to Segesta, some 24 miles distant, but by ship they could be in Carthage (Liv. 29.27.6–8). Cato’s purpose in brandishing a Tunisian fig in the Senate House was to show the Romans that Carthage was only three days’ sail away. For the Phoenicians, such a perception of nautical proximity may have helped maintain a sense of collective identity and a broader notion of community or ethnicity beyond the urban site. The Carthaginians may have exploited such links when drawing many western Phoenician settlements into their empire. Whittaker has suggested there had been an element of collusion and the marriage of interests in the process. We do not know whether the Carthaginians encountered naval resistance from other Phoenician communities, but it is possible that there was an element of acquiescence brought on by the military potential of the Carthaginian fleet. We do hear reports of the Carthaginians being called in to defend Phoenician communities from external threats.20 Eckstein wryly observes that “originally Carthaginian hegemony in Western Sicily was rather loose, with [Phoenician] towns having some independence but dependent on Punic military power for survival, and viewing Carthage as their protector—whom it would be unwise to cross.”21 It was a common characteristic of ancient states to expand their power under the cloak of defending the interests of weaker parties, and it was just as much a feature of Punic imperialism as it was that of Syracuse or Rome.22 It is embedded in the concept of phylakē, which a number of thalassocracies adopted. This is to say “defending and protecting one’s own interests…as well as the interest of others, through the deployment of military force.”23 Carthage in all periods 19

Aubet, Phoenicians and the West (n. 18), 278–80. Whittaker, “Carthaginian Imperialism” (n. 10): 64, 70. Justin 44.5.3, for example, reports that Carthage came to the aid of Gades and consequently added part of the province to its possessions in Spain. But cf. Vitr. De Arch. 10.13.1–2 on a Punic siege of Gades (pre-358 bce). 21 Eckstein, Mediterranean Anarchy (n. 12), 160. 22 Ibid., 160, 178–80. 23 V. Gabrielsen, The Naval Aristocracy of Hellenistic Rhodes (Aarhaus: Aarhus Univ. Press, 1997), 43. 20

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appears to have been familiar with the concept of ‘helping others to help oneself ’, which it applied beyond its Phoenician allies, as its intervention in Segesta in 410 (Diod. 13.43.3–4) and in Mamertine Messana in the 260s bce indicates (see below). Understanding the nature of Punic imperialism and the formation of a Punic naval landscape in the western Mediterranean is difficult, however. When, for example, we consider the nature of the Carthaginian control of coastlines and defensive systems, we encounter a variety of textual and archaeological problems. We have almost no understanding of when and how Carthaginian influence and control was extended beyond its own immediate coasts. Polybius’ own interpretation of the Romano-Punic treaties that he had consulted (via experts in archaic Latin) was that as early as 509 bce and certainly by the second treaty (ca. 348 bce), Carthage had asserted its control over Africa, Sardinia and those parts of Sicily “under Carthaginian rule (dynasteia)” (3.23.5). Similarly the Periplus of the Pseudo-Scylax (111) states that “all the towns and emporia in Libya from the Syrtis of the Hesperides to the Libyan Pillars of Heracles belong to the Carthaginians.” It gives us a fourth century bce perspective of Punic dominance over the African coast from Lepcis Magna (“within the chora of the Carthaginians” 110) to the Atlantic. In places, control can be dated earlier, since Dorieus had been driven away from Cinyps, twelve miles east of Lepcis Magna, by the Carthaginians and the local tribe of Macae at the end of the sixth century bce (Hdt. 5.42); it is even possible that Lepcis was a Carthaginian colony, established as early as the mid-seventh century bce.24 When and how the intervening coastline came to belong to the Carthaginians is obscure. The balance of probability is that they encountered no significant sea forces belonging to any indigenous coastal tribes.25 Ps-Scylax’s account has the flavour of a sailor’s handbook of the Mediterranean coast, and reflects the state of knowledge of anchorages and cities along the African shoreline in the period broadly contemporary to Polybius’ second treaty between Rome and Carthage (ca. 348 bce).26 Unfortunately it does not describe military installations, but

24

See E. Lipiński, Itineraria Phoenicia (Studia Phoenicia 18) (Leuven: Peeters, 2004),

346. 25 The evidence for Libyan seafaring rests on such images as those at the H1 haouanet of Kef-el-Blida: see M. Longerstay, “Representations de navires archaïques en Tunisie du Nord. Contribution à la chronologie des haouanet.” Karthago 22 (1990): 42, but dating is controversial and it may be of the Punic era, Lancel, Carthage (n. 11), 224–5. 26 Lipiński, Itineraria Phoenicia (n. 24), 268.

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merely mentions the presence of harbors, anchorages and cities. The section detailing the coast from Utica to the Atlantic does not even give sailing times between locations; which impedes identification, although Lipiński’s recent study has shed some light on the situation.27 The archaeology of many locations within the putative zone of Carthaginian control tends to be thin and it is often difficult to discriminate Phoenician from Punic material. At times, all we can say is that any Punic fleet sailing west might have used such harbors, but we rarely hear of these movements. One expedition that travelled along this coast, commanded by Hanno, is described in his own Periplus, a Greek version of which survives (GGM I 1–14). His fleet of sixty penteconters, probably in the sixth or fifth centuries bce, travelled from Carthage (unfortunately the Periplus does not mention any intermediate anchorages), to the Atlantic Moroccan coast, founding several cities and then exploring beyond these bases, before returning to Carthage. The extent of the explorations is controversial. Modern writers cannot agree as to whether he got as far as Cameroon or Gabon.28 However, one of the colonies, Thymiaterion (Tangiers), “a city of the Phoenicians,” was known to Ps-Scylax (111). The purposes of the expedition are also controversial, often viewed as an economic enterprise to open up new markets; the colonisation however, might have also reflected land hunger.29 There may also have been a desire on Hanno’s part to achieve notoriety and glory in the act of discovery, of which the original account, apparently set up in the temple of Cronos (probably Baal Hammon), was itself a celebration. For the most part, our surviving accounts of Punic military naval infrastructure and activity focus on the coasts of Tunisia, Sardinia, Sicily, and, to a lesser extent Spain, because this was where the Greeks and Romans mostly encountered it. Here we are better informed about naval installations, both from the literary and material records. The bases in Sicily, in particular form the backdrop of the main military narratives of Punic warfare through the fifth to third centuries bce. The Punic stations at Motya-Lilybaeum, Drepana, and Panormus were all strongly fortified and exploited large anchorages. Excavations at Motya revealed that prior to its destruction in 397/6 bce, an event detailed by Diodorus (14.47–53), the island possessed defensive walls, fortified tower gates 27

Ibid. For recent summaries of the debate and bibliographies, Medas, La Marineria Carthaginese (n. 17), especially 79; Lipiński, Itineraria Phoenicia (n. 24), 435–75. 29 Cf. Arist. Pol. 1273b19; Whittaker, “Carthaginian Imperialism” (n. 10): 74–6. 28

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and a small artificial harbor.30 The lagoon of Marsala, in which it was situated, at times, accommodated hundreds of ships. Polybius (1.42) mentions that, in the third century, Lilybaeum (Marsala), the community that replaced Motya in the area, was strongly protected by walls and a deep moat, as well as the lagoons. Due to its western location it was a natural port of call for Punic forces crossing from Africa and could be reinforced quickly. The base could also be supported by Drepana (Trapani), which was some thirteen miles northeast. According to Polybius, the Carthaginians “had always given great attention to the protection of Drepana,” due to its strategic location and excellent harbor.31 The proximity of the two settlements allowed for mutual support in times of danger, which was usually effective, since despite prolonged pressure, and a large-scale siege during much of the latter stages of the first Punic war, the Romans failed to make any headway against either until the defeat of the Punic fleet at Aegates. Further along the northern coast, Panormus (Palermo) enjoyed a substantial harbor, and, during the third century bce, a tower on the seafront, a wall and a trench (Polyb. 1.38.9, 40.7–8). Polybius regarded it as the main city of the Carthaginians in Sicily, and it played an important part as a jumping-off point for campaigns along the northern coast, as well as providing a link once the Carthaginians had established a base on the Lipari isles. At times, the Carthaginians could also rely on the harbor installations of allied Greek states in Sicily; they occasionally appear to have controlled them directly, as with Minoa, the harbor of Acragas, whose Carthaginian-appointed governor (Paralus, or Synalus—Diod. 16.25.5) received and supported Dion’s expedition in 357/6 bce (Diod. 16.9.4–9). The mere presence of a Punic fleet might deter an attack on such an ally, as seen in the arrival of sixty ships in the harbor of Acragas that caused Agathocles to abandon his attempt on the city (312 bce, Diod. 19.102.8). Other harbors fell into Punic hands during the course of wars, or for periods of time after the peace settlements.32 Such gains temporarily extended the range of Punic thalassocracy and operations.

30 B. S. J. Isserlin and J. du Plat Taylor, Motya, a Phoenician and Carthaginian City in Sicily Volume I, Field Work and Excavation (Leiden 1974); A. Ciasca, et al, Mozia (Rome: 1989). 31 Polyb. 1.46. The community known from its coins as RSMLQT (Ras Melqart, Cape Melqart) may have also possessed a suitable anchorage, although it has not been identified. 32 E.g. in 396 bce the Carthaginians gained Messana through assault, Diod 14.57. They also occupied Catana, probably because it had remained a tribute-paying ally from 406 bce, Diod. 14.60.7, 61.4; cf. 13.114.1, 14.96.3.

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Of course, Carthage itself was a major naval base and we benefit from Appian’s description of the city, its defensive walls, arsenals and two harbors (App. Pun. 96–7). While the outer harbor was commercial, the inner circular ‘Cothon’ possessed an admiral’s watchtower on a central island, surrounded by ship-sheds situated on it and the mainland. Appian claimed the Cothon had a capacity for 220 warships, while Hurst’s excavations have suggested 170 or so ship-sheds. He was able to date them to the second century, although they may have been built in the third. Such construction indicates a measure of strategic vision, involving military and logistical planning, and social and institutional commitment and organisation. It was likely to have required considerable expenditure and labour, deployed over an extended period (or periods) of time. Excavations have indicated that the harbors of Carthage underwent several refinements.33 How far these developments were part of a coherent policy, or were ad hoc changes, is difficult to assess. We also have information about other sites, particularly if they played a role in the campaigns of Agathocles or the Romans, but also if mentioned by Polybius in his account of the Truceless War, for which he probably relied on a pro-Punic source.34 For example, Appian (Pun. 110) described Hippo Acra (Hippagreta, modern Bizerta) in the context of Calpurnius Piso’s unsuccessful attack in 148 bce. He noted that it was a large city with an acropolis, city walls, harbors and docks that had been built by Agathocles.35 According to Polybius (1.70.9, 73.3, 77.1, 82.8, 88.1), it had resisted the army of Mathos before eventually going over to the rebels. The ancient port has been confirmed by archaeology to lie to the north of the city and was protected from both the north wind and enemy action by a long pier.36 It appears to have maintained a squadron of ships, perhaps of local origin or crew, since we hear of it in action against Agathocles (Diod. 20.55.3) and during the Third Punic War (App. Pun. 25). Bases were vital elements in maritime power, providing protection and points of supply for naval personnel and ships; their anchorages provided some respite from the elements. When combined with the 33 Lancel, Carthage (n. 11), 178–92; we hear of a fire in the dockyard in 368, which presumably necessitated rebuilding (Diod. 15.73.3). 34 F. W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius, vol. 1. (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1957), 65, hereafter HCP 1. 35 It was probably the place where he constructed the fleet mentioned at Diod. 20.55.5. 36 Lipiński, Itineraria Phoenicia (n. 24), 383–4.

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strategic location of watchtowers, they formed part of a network of communication and ‘early warning,’ based on signals and fast ships. Livy (29.23) reports that in 204 bce, “every headland along the [African] coast had lookouts (speculae),” watching for Scipio’s invasion fleet. Parts of a complex of garrisoned watch points have been located on Cap Bon. Ras ed-Drek could comfortably house a garrison of around fifty, and clay slingshot and catapult ammunition has been found on the site. The fort was some 18 miles distant from Kelibia, but was visible, and Kelibia commanded views to the southeast as far as Neapolis. Kelibia has been identified as ancient Aspis / Clupea (‘the Shield’). Although the remains lie beneath a Turkish fortress, occupation can be traced as early as the fifth century bce.37 The position was captured by Regulus (Polyb. 1.29.2–5), and probably also by Agathocles (Diod. 20.6, 20.17), and successfully resisted a Roman assault in 147/6 bce (App. Pun. 110). The harbor evidently could protect at least forty warships, the amount the Romans had to resist a Punic siege in 255 bce.38 On the west coast of the Cape, within sight of Carthage, Ras Fortass, possessed three-metre thick walls and towers. It was situated on a 100-meter-high spur and was possibly constructed during the fifth century bce. Elsewhere on Cap Bon, a large cliff-top community at Kerkouane possessed a kilometre-long defensive double wall to the landward.39 Its civilian population may have been protected by a garrison that would have manned the walls; the two towers would have provided watch points. In fact, coastal observation stations were a common feature in the Mediterranean. The Roman fleet approaching the Punic naval camp in the Ebro estuary in Spain (217 bce) initially was observed from hilltop towers that had been sited by the natives to watch for pirates.40 However, on this occasion, the Carthaginians were not able to board their ships in time to respond effectively. Small islands off the coast, such as Kerkenna, Zembra, the Cani isles, La Galite, Pantelleria, and the Maltese archipelago also appear to have 37

Ibid., 373 and n.183 with references. Polyb. 1.29.9. It also protected several thousand Roman defenders. Thiel, Roman Sea-Power Before the Second Punic War (n. 14), 229–31. 39 M. H. Fantar, Kerkouane, cité punique du cap Bon, vol. 1 (Tunis: Institut National d’Archéologie et d’Art, 1984), 144–50. This city seems to have been destroyed in the middle of the third century bce, perhaps during Regulus’ invasion of the peninsula, Lancel, Carthage (n. 11), 269. 40 Liv. 22.19; note that Pliny (Plin. HN 35.48) remarks on the Spanish “watch towers of Hannibal and the turrets of earth placed on the mountain ridges,” although these could refer to inland or coastal positions. 38

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acted as bases and watch points. Kerkenna, for example, had a harbor useable for warships (Diod. 5.12.4), while Lampas (Lampedusa), had “two or three towers” according to Ps-Scylax (111); they may have been for observation or agriculture.41 These islands could be regarded as positions of ‘passive defence’ and might provide advance warning for Carthage, and other cities along the African coast, of the approach of hostile invasion fleets or raiders.42 Indeed, it had been suggested that the Carthaginians may have developed relatively complex distance ‘semaphore’ networks.43 However, Polyaenus’ ingenious system for communication by fire signal between Africa and Sicily seems an implausible exaggeration.44 His story, however, at least reflects the expectation that the Carthaginians might attempt to solve the issues of long-range communication. Pantelleria, for instance was within sight of Cap Bon and may have possessed a beacon for communication.45 The Carthaginians certainly communicated with fire signals (Polyb. 1.19), although it is not known the absolute range of these or the complexity of the messages they could convey. In fact, the Carthaginians appear to have relied on swift ships, such as that of Hannibal the Rhodian, to convey messages and intelligence between Lilybaeum and Carthage (Polyb. 1.46, see below), and Hannibal Barca expected that the news of his arrival at Kerkenna would be relayed to Thapsus or Hadrumentum by ship, and thence to Carthage (Liv. 33.48). Such systems of passive defence could not prevent determined forces such as those of Agathocles, Regulus, or Scipio Africanus, although they may have provided some warning that they were on the way. Nevertheless, when provided with squadrons, they allowed control of stretches of coastline and the sea itself, or at least allowed for the possibility of interception of unwelcome or vulnerable shipping.46 Of course they allowed for the protection of commerce, which was a fundamental element

41 Lipiński, Itineraria Phoenicia (n. 24, 380) suggests agriculture, but note the possible parallels of fortified towers on farms in Rhodes, the Cyclades, Attica and the Crimea: Gabrielsen, Naval Aristocracy (n. 23), 105; J. Pečirka, “Homestead farms in Classical and Hellenistic Hellas,” in Problèmes de la terre en Grèce ancienne, ed. M. I. Finley. (Paris: Mouton, 1972), 123–8. Hannibal stopped at his tower, where his ship was moored, during his flight in 195 bce (Liv. 33.48.1). 42 C. G. Starr, “Coastal Defense in the Roman World,” AJPhil. 64 (1943): 56–70. 43 J. G. Demerliac, and J. Meirat, Hannon et l’empire punique (Paris: Les Belles Lettres 1983), 343–52; Medas, La Marineria Carthaginese (n. 17), 20–23. 44 Polyaenus 6.16.2, cf. Polyb. 10.44; Medas, La Marineria Carthaginese (n. 17), 22. 45 Demerliac and Meirat, Hannon (n. 43), 350. 46 App. Pun. 25, 110. On Punic ‘piracy’ see Ameling, Karthago (n. 16), 119–40.

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of the concept of phylakē.47 It is in that sense that we might understand some of the ‘wooden wall’ clauses of the Polybian treaties, which seem concerned not merely with trade, but with Roman raids and colonisations (from which potential predators might operate).48 Thalassocracy and Resources While bases were essential in the maintenance of thalassocracy, it required the construction and deployment of ships of war to provide active defence, and to allow the projection of power. These relied on three main elements: the materials for ship construction, sources of finance and the assemblage of manpower. While details are not always clear, we have some understanding of how the Carthaginians attended to these matters. Ship construction involved the collection of materials from a potentially wide geographic area. Greek writers in the fifth century were able to reflect that it was the power of thalassocracies that allowed them to command such resources.49 A naval power could exploit and dominate access to ship-building materials ([Xen.] Ath. Pol. 2.11). Regions good in timber might be poor in other materials (such as flax, esparto, copper or iron), but a thalassocracy could combine the resources of several areas, while denying its enemies access to them ([Xen.] Ath. Pol. 2.12). Athens appears to have collected materials at the Piraeus and undertaken construction there.50 We learn that similar material could be stored at Punic bases. In 151 bce, Roman spies reported that Carthage was in the process of stockpiling much material (Liv. Per. 47.4). Livy (26.47) records that on the fall of New Carthage in 209 bce, sailcloth, esparto (for rope-making), iron, bronze and timber for ship construction were captured, along with varieties of catapults and scorpions (some of which could have been placed on warships).51 47

Gabrielsen, Naval Aristocracy (n. 23), 43. Polyb. 3.23.2; 3.24.2, 5, 8. Note at 23.2 Polybius may have retrojected back a notion from the second treaty in his explanation of the clause at 3.22.5, Walbank HCP (n. 34), 1.345. 49 A. Momigliano, “Sea Power in Greek Thought,” Classical Review 58 (1944): 1–7 (= Secondo contributo alla storia degli studi classici. Rome: Storia e Letturatura 1960: 57–67); L. Rawlings, The Ancient Greeks at War (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 2007), 111–12, 161. 50 IG II2 1604.32; R. Meiggs, Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1982), 334–35. 51 Cf. Liv. 22.20, Punic esparto collected at Longuntica. Also traces were found on the Marsala wreck: Medas, La Marineria Carthaginese (n. 17), 188. 48

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The Punic hinterland was well furnished with timber. African forests provided cedar and Aleppo pine (Plin. HN 16.76), whilst Corsican silver fir and the forests of Spain and Gaul would have been available for exploitation.52 We do not understand the logistics of moving wood to construction points. Athens in the fourth century stockpiled timber and hulls at its harbors, and it seems likely that the Carthaginians did the same.53 Appian (Pun. 121, 134) described how a fleet of triremes and pentēreis had been built out of stored old material, during the Roman siege of Carthage. It is probable that Carthage was the main construction point for the fleet. There is some evidence for a fourth-century dockyard at Carthage, where the circular harbor later developed. It was probably accessed by a navigation channel cut to link it with the lake of Tunis south of the city.54 One Punic inscription at Carthage (CIS 354) mentions carpenters, although not in an obviously military context. The excavation of the ship-sheds at Carthage revealed charred wood and copper nails, deposited during the final Roman assault in 146 bce, and indications of metalworking and cloth-dyeing activity have been discovered in the harbor region.55 The ship-sheds allowed warships to be drawn out of the water, dried out and repaired (evidence of barnacles has been found on the floor of ship sheds, possibly deliberately removed). Other bases may have also undertaken limited repairs to ships. The Marsala wrecks, two ships excavated in the 1960s and 1970s off the west coast of Sicily, suggest that, to some extent, ship-construction could be decentralised. Punic fleets might, perhaps, be raised from ships made throughout the empire, at least during the First Punic War and afterwards. New Carthage, founded in the 230s, had large shipyards and arsenals, although it is unclear whether its squadron during the Hannibalic war had been constructed there (Polyb. 10.8.2; Liv. 26.47, 51; App. Hisp. 23). The Marsala excavations revealed the wood of the two wrecks to have been green. If this made the ships less seaworthy than those constructed of seasoned timber, it might imply these were pressed

52 Meiggs, Trees and Timber (n. 50), 142; Medas, La Marineria Carthaginese (n. 17), 185–7. 53 V. Gabrielsen, Financing the Athenian Fleet: Public taxation and social relations (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1994), 127–29. 54 H. Hurst, Excavations at Carthage. The British Mission, vol. II. 1: The Circular Harbour, North Side. The Site and Finds Other Than Pottery (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1994), 44–5, Lancel, Carthage (n. 11), 183–4. 55 Hurst, Excavations at Carthage (n. 54), 44.

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into service in a hurry. They were built with Syrian acer (maple) for the keel and sternpost, with oak frames and dowels, and pine planking. Their survival was due, in part, to the ballast, unusual for warships, suggesting they were under-crewed (since crews tended to provide the mass needed to sit galleys in the water correctly). The ballast stones came from the island of Pantelleria, and the dunnage (the twig lining used to protect the hull from ballast) was fresh at the time of sinking— consisting of winter-picked privet, pistachio, fern, myrtle, almond, apricot and cherry twigs. The resin putty had not dried before ballasting, so that the dunnage had become pressed into it, which indicates that these ships had been hastily constructed on the island, before sailing to their doom. The timbers of the Marsala ships were labelled with alphabetic construction marks, suggesting that they were “pre-fabricated kits.”56 The implications of these marks seem reasonably well understood. They allowed for rapid mass-production of ships for any place that possessed the template. This may explain how in 261 bce the Romans were able to construct 100 quinquiremes, supposedly in 60 days, by modelling them on a captured Punic warship.57 The wrecks are also suggestive of variable ship quality in the Punic fleet, although the possibility exists that the Marsala ships were built in Pantelleria to meet an emergency in the context of the First Punic War. The green wood and lead sheathing of the hull of the Marsala wrecks might have made them relatively slow in the water, and perhaps not ideal combat vessels if, indeed, that was what they were intended for— they are considerably smaller than ‘fives’ of the main battle fleets of the period. Prefabrication might not produce exceptional quality ships, but at least it facilitated a minimum standard of design. On the other hand, it is clear that extremely well made craft did exist. Polybius (1.47.5) mentions a blockade running ‘four’ of exceptionally fine quality, as was Hannibal the Rhodian’s ‘five’ (1.46). Presumably the quality of the rest of the fleet lay in between.58 Fleets were expensive. It has been estimated that to construct and outfit a trireme cost in the region of one and half to two talents; larger ships

56 H. Frost, “The prefabricated Punic Warship,” in Punic Wars (Studia Phoenicia 10) ed. H. Devinyer and E. Lipiński (Leuven: Peeters, 1989), 127–35. 57 Plin. HN 16.192, cf. Polyb. 1.20.15; Florus 1.18.7; Oros. 4.7.8. 58 At Drepana the Punic squadron was nevertheless a “superior build” to the Roman fleet—Polyb. 1.51.4.

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will have cost rather more.59 Building a fleet of two hundred triremes may have cost in the region of 300–400 talents, although for the most part it is likely that hulls and tackle were stored and reused, so that there was a limited and gradual renewal and replacement of the oldest and most damaged ships. The main expense, after the initial capital outlay of construction and equipment, and which was a burden for the length of its operation, was the payment of crews. Carthage was renowned for offering high rates of pay for its mercenaries (Diod. 16.81.4) and it is likely that similar remuneration was offered to those crewing warships. Maintaining a fleet over an extended period of time would have placed a heavy, if not intolerable burden on state finances and would have been particularly wasteful off-season. On a reasonable estimate of the amount of pay, say one drachma per day per crewman, a quinquireme (excluding marines) would cost 9,000 drachmas every month. A fleet of 200 might, over a campaigning season of five months (May to September), cost 9,000,000 drachmas, or 1500 talents. Marine contingents (say 40 per ship), would have added around another 200 talents. These estimates are probably near the high end, but in comparison make the indemnities paid to Rome seem rather reasonable.60 At times, the Carthaginians suffered from financial problems during campaigns, promises might be made offering bonuses to inspire their men, for which the state might have to pick up the tab. On one occasion, so the story goes, the fleet provided a solution by marooning a group of mutinous mercenaries on the ‘bony’ island (Osteodes) as it subsequently was called, due to the human remains that characterised the place (Diod. 5.11.1; cf. Zon. 8.13). The First Punic War is evidence of the fact that the costs of naval warfare could exhaust even the most prosperous of states. In order to fund its naval construction and military manpower, Carthage appears to have drawn tribute from the empire (Polyb. 1.71.1– 2). Some Sicilian towns rendered phoros, although perhaps as war indemnities of limited duration.61 In Africa, taxation of the cities on a permanent basis seems probable. Lepcis Magna (Liv. 34.62) contributed

59 C. G. Starr, The Influence of Sea Power on Ancient History. (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1989), 92 n. 23, L. Casson, “A Trireme for Hire (Is. 11.48),” CQ (n.s.) 45 (1995), 241–45. 60 After the First Punic War, a down payment of 1,000 talents and then 220 talents per year for ten years (Polyb. 3.27.5–6), and after the Second Punic War, 200 talents a year for fifty years (Liv. 30.37). 61 Whittaker, “Carthaginian Imperialism” (n. 10): 72–73; Diod. 13.59.3, 13.114.1; 14.65.2.

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a talent a day, and the densely populated chōra must have been profitably taxed. Certainly, the Libyans and the towns of the hinterland might be squeezed by overenthusiastic governors like Hanno the Great (Polyb. 1.72.1–3). Some communities within the Carthaginian archē struck their own money, Gades, Panormus, the community of RSMLQT and Cossyra for instance. Their coins might possibly pay local forces or be used to render tribute.62 Unfortunately it is impossible to quantify the amount of tribute Carthage received, since we have almost no other evidence. We do know that the Carthaginians appointed officials with financial responsibility for paying the military forces, who Livy (33.46.3) calls ‘quaestors’. At times, they appear to have issued coins, as is evident from several series dating to the end of the fourth century with MHSBM ‘paymasters’ on the exergue.63 We are unclear whether the Carthaginians operated a liturgical system of trierarchies, as we see in Athens or Rhodes.64 Nor is it clear whether emergency taxes or patriotic donations by private individuals supplemented the income of the state. Private ownership of warships that operated independently of state control or with its tacit approval was common in many maritime communities.65 For the most part Carthage appears to have ‘owned’ its fleets: ships were constructed using state resources and commanded by state appointed officials. However, Hannibal Barca possessed at least one ship, which he used to flee from Carthage in 195 bce (Justin 31.2; Liv. 33.48) and Hannibal the Rhodian in 250 bce outfitted his own warship (Polyb. 1.46.6). Ameling suggests that the quality of ‘the Rhodian’s’ crew and his own seafaring ability might constitute an example of a Punic privateer, whose considerable experience at sea had been earned through piratical actions.66 He considered that it reflected a situation in which state-structures were relatively weak, and where many noble Carthaginians indulged in piratical actions for profit and prestige.67 It is, of course, possible that ‘the Rhodian’s’ sailing experience may have come 62 L. I. Manfredi, “Carthaginian Policy through Coins,” in Phoenicians and Carthaginians in the Western Mediterranean (Studia Phoenicia 12), ed. G. Pisano. (Rome: Universita degli Studi di Roma – Tor Vergata, 1999), 72–73. 63 Manfredi, “Carthaginian Policy,” (n. 62), 72. 64 See the detailed studies of Gabrielsen, Financing the Athenian Fleet (n. 53) and Naval Aristocracy (n. 23). 65 V. Gabrielsen, “Warfare and the State,” in The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare, vol. 1, ed. P. Sabin, H. van Wees, and M. Whitby (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007), 250–53. 66 Ameling, Karthago (n. 16), 134–37. 67 Ibid., 138–40.

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from the fourteen years of war against Rome. Yet many states relied on private ownership to constitute or augment their fleets. In Hellenistic Rhodes, for example, it seems that a substantial section of the elite possessed their own warships and fast transports which might be pressed into military service.68 The largest fleets required a huge deployment of manpower. Two hundred ‘fives’ might be crewed by as many as 60,000 rowers and other crewmen, excluding marine contingents. This was one and a half times the commitment of the Athenians during their most intense naval activity of the fifth century.69 Estimates of the population of Carthage and its hinterland in the third and second centuries have been put in the order of 250,000 and one million respectively. Half of these were likely to have been males, with perhaps a maximum of a quarter being able-bodied men of military age who might be available to be pressed into service. However, citizens in this category may have numbered at most 30,000, and perhaps rather less.70 Such figures suggest that operations such as those of the Ecnomus campaign, involving over 100,000 men, were major demographic commitments, and it is perhaps understandable why the walls of Carthage were supposedly draped in black cloth in mourning after a major naval disaster (Diod. 19.106.3). Furthermore, if the estimates of the manpower requirements of fleets (when compared to the population of able-bodied citizen males) reflect the right orders of magnitude, it is a distinct improbability that large fleets could have been constantly in existence, particularly if crewed substantially by citizens. It would have had too great an impact on the everyday life of the city and countryside. Nevertheless, thousands of citizens are likely to have seen regular service at sea, particularly in times of conflict.71 Even so, it seems demographically probable that, as with classical Athens, ships’ crews included many allies, subjects, mercenaries and, perhaps in emergencies, slaves, although in what proportion is unclear.72 Such an assumption draws some support from the statement by Livy (26.20.9) that 68 Gabrielsen, Naval Aristocracy (n. 23), 102; cf. A. H. Jackson, “Sea-raiding in archaic Greece with special attention to Samos” in The Sea in Antiquity, ed. G. Oliver et al. (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 2000), 133–49. 69 According to Thuc. 3.17, in 431 and 428 Athens had over 250 triremes at sea, which would have to have been manned by approximately 40,000 men. 70 For discussion of population of Carthage and the fleet, see Ameling, Karthago (n. 16), 203–10; Medas, La Marineria Carthaginese (n. 17), 118–22. 71 Ameling, Karthago (n. 16), 208. 72 Thiel, Roman Sea-Power (n. 14), 307 ff.; Ameling, Karthago (n. 16), 194–96. On slaves: App. Pun. 9.35; J. M. Libourel, “Galley Slaves in the Second Punic War,” Classical Philology 68 (1973): 116–19.

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“men of all races” crewed a Punic squadron stationed at Tarentum in 211 bce. He also defines some Punic crews as socii navales (21.50.4; 23.41.9), while socii are mentioned along with the captured Carthaginian ships listed on the columna rostrata set up to mark Duilius’ victory at Mylae (CIL i2 2.25). These allies were likely to have been recruited from Sicilian, Liby-Phoenician, and Phoenician coastal communities. In 205, replacement crews were drawn from the ‘Carthaginian’ settlers of Pityusa, but the people of Gades refused to admit Mago’s fleet, because, in the past, the Punic garrison had stolen property whilst the owners had been serving on ships (Liv. 28.37). Mercenary soldiers certainly acted as marines, as at Drepanum (Polyb. 1.49.10); some may even have served as officers, since a number of ship commanders incited a revolt among Spanish tribes after being reprimanded for their performance at the battle of the Ebro river (Liv. 23.26). Pericles had noted that rowing was a more or less full time occupation (Thuc. 1.142), and it might be said that this applied as much to the oarsmen of Carthage as it did to Athens. Polybius (6.52.1) declared that the Carthaginian crews were better trained than the Romans because “seamanship had long been their national calling and they occupied themselves with the sea more than any other people.” Yet it is also clear that the Athenian or Carthaginian navies were rarely at sea in their entirety. In any case, the coherence and practice of crews would be limited by the sailing season, and it would have been unlikely that they were kept together during winter months, particularly if crewmen had other occupations, or perhaps farmsteads, to attend to. It is probably likely that all crews needed a period of familiarisation in order to reach their peak, although past practice and “long experience” (Diod. 20.5.2) would make that process swifter and the optimum level higher.73 In fact, it is clear that crews varied in skill and commitment, although the sources regard the aggregate quality of most Punic fleets as high.74 In 250 bce, Hannibal the Rhodian reportedly had the “best” crew (Polyb. 1.46). How such a crew became regarded as superior to the rest is unclear. Perhaps it was by intensive practice together, or a wealthy captain willing to offer bonuses might have been able to attract and cherry-pick the most experienced.75 At the other end, the crews who were pressed into service in 241 bce were insufficiently practiced by the time of their 73

Rawlings, Ancient Greeks (n. 49), 116–17. E.g. Diod. 20.5.2, Polyb. 1.51.4. 75 Bonuses suggested by the practice in Athens, see Rawlings, Ancient Greeks (n. 49), 115–16. 74

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engagement at the Aegates Isles; the Roman crews had several months’ advantage over them in terms of training and campaigning experience by the time the fleets engaged (Polyb. 1.61.4). The Fleets and the Ships The demographic and economic factors at play make it clear that we should not consider the Punic fleet as having a permanent existence, constantly cruising the sea and enforcing a monopoly of trade in the Western Mediterranean. The evidence suggests rather that many fleets were ad hoc assemblages for specific campaigns, even if some ships were in long-term public or private operation. There are times when we are told that, in preparation for campaigns or as reinforcements, the Carthaginians constructed warships, gathered freighters and manufactured other supplies, along with raising money, levies and recruiting mercenaries.76 Fleet sizes varied depending on their missions and available resources. The largest war fleet was deployed at Ecnomus, 330 warships according to Polybius, though his figures have been challenged.77 Most large Punic fleets rarely numbered more than 200 warships, but they might be accompanied by substantial numbers of transports (see below). Other forces were much smaller: at Alalia sixty warships joined their Etruscan allies to engage the Phocaeans.78 Seventy ships sailed to rendezvous with Hannibal in 217 bce (Polyb. 3.96.8–11; Liv. 22.11.6–7). Indeed fleets and squadrons range from a few units to grand armadas, which suggests that the Carthaginians did not necessarily have a standing fleet, so much as a collection of hulls that they manned on an ad hoc basis, according to perceptions of need and the ability to recruit crews. Of course, in addition to the main squadrons that we hear about, other ships might be stationed across the empire, while even the fleets that we know about

76 Diod. 11.1.4–5; 14.54.4–6, 77; 16.73.3 cf. Plut. Vit. Tim. 25.1; A. C. Fariselli, “The Impact of Military Preparations on the Economy of the Carthaginian State,” in Phoenicians and Carthaginians in the Western Mediterranean (Studia Phoenicia 12), ed. G. Pisano. (Rome: Universita degli Studi di Roma – Tor Vergata, 1999), 60. 77 Tarn “Fleets” (n. 14): 48–60, argued that the largest fleets numbered rarely more that 200 quinquiremes and he reduced the Ecnomus fleet and others to comply with his calculations. 78 Hdt. 1.166, similar numbers were employed in Hanno’s Periplus; see also Diod. 13.54.1; Liv. 23.32.5. Thirty ships at Diod. 20.32.4; 20.61.5; 22.8.3. Ameling, Karthago (n. 16), 196.

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sometimes changed their composition as they sailed, collecting more ships or detailing others to various missions and garrisons. This inevitably complicates our picture. It is possible that the total of all Punic galleys in the third century (excluding transports) lay in the region of five hundred, as this is the figure Livy reports were destroyed at the end of the Hannibalic War (30.43). Polybius (1.63.6) states that the total number of losses for the Carthaginians in the First Punic War was also around five hundred, but it is clear that he means this as gradual attrition over the twenty-four years of conflict. The period of Carthaginian naval power spanned the sixth to third centuries (with some minor activity in the second) bce. It was a period of technological evolution, beginning with penteconters and the developments of the trireme in the sixth century, ‘fours’ and ‘fives’ in the fourth century, and, at the end of that century, ‘sixes’ and ‘sevens’, although the Carthaginians appear to have resisted the gigantism of contemporary Hellenistic fleets, and to have not gone in much for ships larger than the ‘five’.79 Other ships were used; the Marsala wrecks might have been of hēmiola (‘one and a half ’) design, or perhaps were fast transport ships.80 This might not preclude their temporary use as combat craft. Some transports could be fitted with temporary rams, as it appears the Marsala wrecks were.81 Our understanding of the types of craft in use is hindered by the terminology employed by our sources and our general ignorance of the concepts underlying the classification of polyremes. It is likely that our literary sources employed shorthand terms that masked the true complexity of the make-up of fleets and obscured the diversity of ships, or indeed ship-designs within such a class as the ‘five’ (pentērēs, quinquireme).82 However, it seems clear that fleets were often a mixture of quality, design and size. The force left by Hannibal in Spain in 218 bce (Polyb. 3.3.14) contained fifty ‘fives,’ two

79

‘Fours’ constructed in Carthage: Plin. HN 7.207. Gigantism: G. R. Bugh, “Hellenistic Military Developments,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Hellenistic World, ed. G. R. Bugh (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006), 275–77. 80 Medas, La Marineria Carthaginese (n. 17), 174–76. 81 L. Casson, “Merchant Galleys,” in The Age of the Galley: Mediterranean Oared Vessels since Pre-Classical Times, ed. R. Gardiner and J. S. Morrison (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1995), 119–23. 82 See J. S. Morrison (with contributions by J. F. Coates), Greek and Roman Oared Warships, 399–30 bc (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 1995) and Medas, La Marineria Carthaginese (n. 17), 139–52 on the possible designs of polyremes, noting that there appear to have been some differences in design between ships of Greek and PhoenicianCarthaginian construction.

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‘fours’ and five ‘threes.’ The Carthaginian fleet during the ‘Truceless War’ consisted of triremes, penteconters and the largest of their skiffs (akatia) (Polyb. 1.73.2), perhaps because the potential for enemy action at sea was limited and did not warrant the launch of those ‘fives’ that had survived the Roman triumph at the Aegates in 241 bce, perhaps also because the cost of manning them was prohibitive for the cash-strapped republic. According to Livy (30.43), 500 oar-powered ships “of all types” were towed out to sea and burned by Scipio at the end of the Second Punic war. Warships, transports and merchantmen might sail together: Diodorus (14.59.7) mentions transports (olkades) and “ships with rams” (chalkemboloi) present at the battle of Catana,83 while Livy (25.27) reports that Bomilcar sailed for Syracuse in 212 bce with 130 warships and 700 transports. Modes of Operation Rankov’s observations on the importance of bases and friendly shorelines in determining the abilities of fleets to operate in defence and offence, while not new (it goes back at least to Gomme’s 1933 essay), nevertheless is systematically worked through for the Second Punic War.84 He argues that the impotence of the Punic fleet during the war was due to the fact that it was denied essential bases in Sicily, while several attempts to gain a foothold in Sardinia also failed. The strategic and logistic limitations of galley warfare are applicable to the Punic navy throughout its history. In basic terms, each ship on a daily basis consumed resources: water, food, and firewood. Men also needed opportunities to come ashore to cook and sleep. Such was the situation at the Ebro in 217, the crews had disembarked and dispersed when the Romans were sighted. Such considerations explain the importance of friendly bases and shorelines in the operations of war fleets. It is why some Punic squadrons sailed alongside armies and had a synergic relationship with them. We see instances of symparapleia (“sailing along the coast with”) in 480 (Diod. 11.20), 396 (Diod. 14.56.2, 59.3–7) and 217 bce (Polyb. 3.95.3–4; Liv. 22.19). In essence, the army provided a friendly shore for the fleet, enabling the crews to camp and cook in safety. The fleets were 83 Diodorus 14.60.7 notes that the Carthaginian triremes put into Catana after the victory. 84 Rankov, “Second Punic War” (n. 14); A.W. Gomme, “A Forgotten Factor of Greek Naval Strategy,” JHS 53 (1933): 16–24.

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accompanied by transports and supply ships (e.g. Diod. 14.59.7) and helped to feed the army. This could make the movement of forces fairly predictable: in 396 and 217 enemy armies and fleets came to meet them by moving along the coast in the opposite direction.85 For limited periods of time, fleets might operate without such constraints, as is indicated by the voyage from Carthage to Sardinia to Pisa (and Cosa: Liv. 22.11), and back by a fleet of seventy ships sent to rendezvous with Hannibal in 217 bce (Polyb. 3.96.8–10). The fleet of Mago in 205 travelled from the Balaearics to Genoa, with a substantial infantry and cavalry force (Liv. 28.46.7–11). These movements were risky however, we hear of several fleets being forced off course, dispersed or damaged by storms (e.g. Liv. 21.49; 23.34; Diod. 19.106.3). The endurance of galley crews was limited to only a few days sailing without respite.86 The maximum recorded by a Carthaginian fleet was the six-day pursuit of Agathocles from Syracuse to Cap Bon (Diod. 20.5–6). The relative swiftness of ships along coasts, and the exploitation of the effect of ‘nautical proximity’ mentioned above, meant that fleets readily performed logistical roles as suppliers of land forces and bases (Diod. 14.63.4). Scipio captured 63 merchant ships loaded with grain and arms at New Carthage in 210 bce. At this stage in the war, they were unlikely to have been an ad hoc gathering, but part of a regular supply system for the Punic armies in the region. At times, the fleet could run blockades; in 250 bce, fifty ships, with supplies and 10,000 troops sailed through the Roman blockade of Lilybaeum,87 while individual ships might undertake this regularly (Polyb. 1.47). Ships also were essential for the transportation of land forces to theaters of operation. In 215 bce, fleets landed troops in Sardinia (Livy 23.40.10) and Italy (Liv. 23.41.10), while in 203 a fleet brought Mago’s army from Liguria to Africa (Liv. 30.19). From the Himera campaign (480 bce) to the Second Punic War, troops needed to be ferried from Africa to Sicily whenever Carthage flexed its military muscle in this region. Transportation of horses, chariots and elephants were also effected with seeming efficiency.88 85

See Rawlings, Ancient Greeks (n. 49), 76–77, 80 n. 27, 120. L. Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1995), 292–99; Rankov, “Second Punic War” (n. 14), 51. 87 Polyb. 1.44.2, cf. Diod. 24.1.2; Walbank HCP (n. 34) 1.108–9. 88 J. H. Thiel, Studies on the History of Roman Sea-Power in Republican Times (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co., 1946), 36; Rankov, “Second Punic War” (n. 14), 52. 86

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Of course, Punic fleets undertook combat roles. We have descriptions of major battles such as Alalia (mid-sixth century bce), Catana 396, against Pyrrhus 276, or those of the Punic wars (Mylae 260, Sulcis 257, Ecnomus 256, Hermaea 255, Drepana 249, Aegates 241, Ebro 217), as well as a host of minor engagements. These are susceptible to analysis for combat techniques and tactics (see below). Warships also performed raiding activities. That those communities on the Italian coast feared Punic ships is suggested by Polybius’ account of the Romano-Punic treaties. The various reports of raids in the First and Second Punic Wars show that they were an important, though not decisive, element of naval warfare.89 One raid on the Great Harbor of Syracuse in 312 bce apparently involved fifty penteconters, which sank two Athenian merchant ships (Diod. 19.103.4–5). Warships clearly acted in anti-shipping or privateering roles on other occasions, for example the raids on Roman and merchant shipping at Utica, Hippo Acra and Carthage during the Third Punic War, or the complaint by Censorinus about the drowning of merchant crews (App. Pun. 86), in earlier times. These seem somewhat anti-commercial or, perhaps, protectionist, but may have been driven by personal booty- or glory-seeking, or by public desperation (App. Pun. 25). The only overtly commercial conflict appears to have been an obscure war with Massilia over “the seizure of some fishing boats” (Justin 43.3.3–5), but it is unclear whether this was a fullblown ‘Cod War’ over access to fisheries or just piratical actions that escalated into a ‘War of Jenkins’ Ear.’ Perhaps one of the most intriguing tasks performed by the Carthaginian navy was that of diplomatic missions. We hear of generals and admirals undertaking negotiations directly with foreign powers, concluding alliances and negotiating peace terms. The Carthaginian authorities probably ratified these and we learn that the senate debated their terms. However, on some occasions, the Punic fleet itself appears to have been involved in some ‘gun-boat’ diplomacy. In 280 bce, a certain Mago sailed with 120 ships on an embassy to Rome to offer help against Pyrrhus (Justin 18.2.1–5). When this was declined, the source accuses him of intriguing with Pyrrhus (18.2.4). Regardless of whether we believe the accusation of Punic perfidia, the negotiations with Rome seem more likely to relate in some way to Polybius’ third treaty in which the Carthaginians undertook to provide ships in the war with Pyrrhus

89

Zon. 8.16; Polyb. 1.56.10–11, 3.96.8–11; Liv. 21.49, 51; 22.11.6–7.

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(Polyb. 3.25.2–5). The embassy seems to have been a conspicuous display of military power and willingness to get involved in the defence of Italy. Another occasion in which warships were employed was in support of the embassy to Syphax in 206 by Hasdrubal, son of Gisco. He arrived at the king’s harbor with seven triremes, but these were unable to prevent Scipio’s two quinquiremes from sailing in and undermining the negotiations (Liv. 28.17). Punic ambassadors were brought by trireme to warn Timoleon not to wage war or even to land in Sicily (Diod. 16.66.5–6). The choice of a warship in this instance was probably for speed and security, since Timoleon’s squadron was already sailing along the southern Italian coast, but it would have reinforced the Punic stance. Timoleon apparently feared that his crossing would be opposed, “since the Carthaginians controlled the sea” (Diod. 16.66.7) and when he arrived at Rhegium he was intercepted by twenty Punic triremes. Diodorus reports that both parties were invited to the Rhegian assembly and while the Carthaginians were entangled in a long-winded debate, Timoleon slipped away to his ship and evaded the Punic fleet (Diod. 16.68.4–6). Evidently this was Punic diplomacy in force, for “the Carthaginians expected that Timoleon would be persuaded to sail back to Corinth” (68.5). There are parallels with the Mamertine affair, where Hanno, the local commander came off worse in a debate in the Mamertine assembly, but also warned the Romans directly that he would not let them “wash their hands in the sea.”90 It had originally been Hannibal, a commander whose fleet was stationed in the Lipari Islands, who had approached the Mamertines after their defeat by Heiro II at the river Longanus, and who had installed Hanno and a garrison, evidently with a squadron of ships (Diodorus 22.13.7). The employment of warships in diplomatic exchanges also appears a common feature of Athenian diplomacy. Their triremes often provided the physical intimidation to support the coercive stances of the democracy in negotiations with enemies and in embassies to allies. The deployment of such instruments of war during diplomacy gave the impression that the Athenians commitment towards the maintenance of their thalassocracy was wholehearted and uncompromising.91 The Carthaginian stance, exemplified by Hanno and

90 Dio 11. fr. 43.5–10; Zon. 8.8–9; cf. Diod. 23.1.4, for the embassy’s boast that “the Romans would not dare to wash their hands in the sea.” 91 S. Potts, “Power Made Public: Athenian Displays of Power and Aegean Diplomacy in the Fifth and Fourth Century bc,” in Public Power in Europe. Studies in Historical Transformations, ed. J. S. Amelang and S. Beer (Pisa: Edizioni Plus, 2006), 153–55.

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by the mission sent to Timoleon, also appears aggressively assertive and similarly concerned with maintaining the impression that the Carthaginians could enforce their rule of the sea. Military Engagements The intimidating effect of Punic naval display, suggested by the role of ships in diplomatic activity, can be perceived more directly in the qualities shown by ships in battle. It is in combat that we can perceive Punic nautical ideology at its most martial. The ethos of Punic crews appears to have centred on pride in their seamanship. Their skill and prowess was primarily demonstrated through speed and manoeuvre. The psychological effect of swift and precise rowing, was well understood. Xenophon observed: “Why is a fully manned trireme a cause for fear in her enemies and an elation to her friends if not by her speed through the water? Why do the men on board not hamper one another? Is it not just because they are seated in order, and swing forward and backward in order….”92

This can be compared to Polybius’ account of the actions of Hannibal the Rhodian’s warship: “After fitting out his own ship, he set sail, and crossed to one of the islands that lie before Lilybaeum, and next day when he found the wind was favourable, he sailed in at about ten o’clock in the morning in full sight of the enemy who were thunderstruck by his audacity. Next day he at once made preparations for departure, but the Roman general, with the view of guarding the entrance more carefully, had fitted out in the night ten of his fastest ships, and now he himself and his whole army stood by the harbor waiting to see what would happen. The ships were waiting on either side of the entrance as near as the shoals would allow them to approach, their oars out and ready to charge and capture the ship that was about to sail out. But the ‘Rhodian’, getting underway in the sight of all, so far outbraved the Romans by his audacity and speed that not only did he bring his ship and her whole crew out unhurt, passing the enemy’s ships just as if they were motionless, but after sailing on a short way, he pulled up, lifting his oars out of the water as if to challenge the enemy, and no one venturing to come out against him owing to the speed of his rowing, he sailed off, after thus

92 Xen. Oec. 8.8; J. S. Morrison, and J. F. Coates. The Athenian Trireme (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986), 103–6; Casson, Ships and Seamanship (n. 86), 128; 280 nn. 42–44.

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having with one ship successfully defied the whole Roman fleet. After this he several times performed the same feat and was of great service by continuing to report at Carthage the news of most urgent importance, while at the same time he kept up the spirits of the besieged and struck terror into the Romans by his venturesomeness.” Polyb. 1.46.6–13

Evidently ‘the Rhodian’ understood the impact of display on the enemy. His audacity also inspired other captains to run the blockade (Polyb. 1.47.3), including a very well built ‘four’ that eventually ran aground and was used by the Romans with a picked crew to interdict the port (1.47.10). At Lilybaeum in 218 the Carthaginians attempted to fight an engagement of manoeuvre (Liv. 21.49), “employing elusive tactics and seamanship…and preferring to pit ship against ship rather than man against man.” Livy attempts to score a moral point, and we must be suspicious of a stereotypical Punic-Roman antithesis. Nevertheless, the Carthaginians do appear generally to have preferred manoeuvre to boarding, as befitted their supposed superiority in seamanship. This operated on both the level of the individual ship and the squadron or fleet. The Punic tactics at Ecnomus attempted to break up the compact Roman formation, using the Punic superiority in speed and manoeuvre by drawing off the centre in order to effect a double envelopment of the sections guarding the transports. Clearly the priority was to prevent the invasion by getting amongst the vulnerable troop and supply carriers. But the plan appeared to involve dividing the action up into smaller, more manageable, engagements in which the Punic squadrons might hope to have the advantage. However, the Roman fleet proved to be too well trained and organised, and, despite local Punic successes, it was the Romans who were able to defeat the centre swiftly enough to return and save the reserves and transports.93 The failure ought not to obscure the ambition of the Punic battle plans. We see similar strategic and tactical principles at work at Drepana, where Adherbal, in a bold encirclement, led his fleet out of the harbor as the Romans entered it from the other side. The Carthaginians were able to use their swiftness, derived from their superior seamanship and ship

93 Goldsworthy’s account in The Punic Wars (n.14, 110–15) seems more plausible than the reconstruction of G. K. Tipps, “The Battle of Ecnomus,” Historia 34 (1985): 432–65. Cf. Lazenby, First Punic War (n. 14), 81–96.

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construction to gain the open water, penning the Romans against the coast. Consequently: if any of the ships came under pressure from the enemy, their speed made it easy for them to retreat safely into open water, and thus to execute a periplus, swinging around their pursuers to take them in the flank, and as the enemy struggled to turn around, due to the heaviness of their hulls and poor oarsmanship of the crews, they rammed them repeatedly and sank many. Polyb. 1.51.6–7

Furthermore, during the battle, Punic ships were readily able to come to the aid of any of their own in danger, since they could use the open water to cross behind the sterns of their own line (1.51.8). For these tactics to be effective, the speed of a ship had to be combined with manoeuvre, oarsmen would have needed to be able to alter their stroke, possibly even to act independently on each side, and to have been able to back water swiftly when required. Perhaps the greatest factor, though, would be the skill of the steersmen (kybernetai), whose ‘situational awareness’ and precision in steering would optimise the rowers’ efforts. Communication within the ship needed to be disciplined, and coordination between the captain, pilot, officer of the bow, helmsman and oarsmen imperative for a successful ramming attack to be performed.94 The dog-fighting skills of the Carthaginians were also evident at Mylae, where “trusting to their swiftness, they sailed around their enemy, trying safely to ram him either in broadside or on the stern” (Polyb. 1.23.9). The Roman corvus, however, nullified this by binding ramming ships to their victims and exposing them to capture by marines (1.23.6, 10). We are told specifically by a pro-Carthaginian source, Sosylus—a tutor and friend of Hannibal Barca—that the Carthaginians favoured the diekplous (Sosylus FGH B 176 F 11). It involved sailing through the enemy line, perhaps in column, or perhaps on an individual basis, and out-turning the enemy to strike them in the side or rear. Polybius notes that this was one of the most effective tactics, but available only to skilled crews.95 It appears that very large fleets were difficult to coordinate and control. The sheer number of ships involved at battles such as Ecnomus and Hermaea probably rendered manoeuvre more difficult and less subtle,

94 95

Medas, La Marineria Carthaginese (n. 17), 191. Polyb. 1.51.9; J. F. Lazenby, “The Diekplous,” G&R 34 (1987): 169–77.

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and appears to have favored the Romans’ preference for boarding.96 Similarly, at Catana in 396, Diodorus stresses the size of the Punic fleet (500 warships and transports) and how it crowded around the Greek vanguard, with little attempt to undertake ramming manoeuvres. Further subtlety may have been lost when transports, often significantly outnumbering the warships, were part of the fleet. Although the tactical use of transports in combat occurs in the story of a kyklos of transports inside which Punic triremes were deployed against Dionysius (Polyaen. 6.16.3), this formation was often regarded as the stance of an inferior fleet, which lacked the ability to outmanoeuvre its opponent (cf. Thuc. 2.83–4). Effective communication amongst a squadron or fleet could convey a tactical advantage. The Carthaginian admirals at Ecnomus and Drepana used signals to direct the battle (although in the former engagement the Romans too exerted a high degree of control and nullified this Punic advantage).97 A carving of a warship prow on a stele in the Carthaginian tophet depicts a standard, with sun or lunar symbol and streamers (or a cadeuceus), which might have acted as a flag for recognition and communication.98 Similar standards were represented on fifth- and fourthcentury eastern Phoenician coins,99 and possibly in the depiction of a ship from the cave sanctuary of Grotto Regina, Palermo (Phoenician Panormus).100 The Barcid issues depicting a warship prow with a streamer in full flow is, perhaps, for identification.101 Frontinus reports that Cato employed captured Punic standards to deceive and defeat some Punic warships (Strat. 4.7.13).102 The story suggests that ships were routinely identified and evaluated (as friend or foe) in this way. This would have been particularly important in a navy that preferred the ‘open play’ of turn and manoeuvre, which might quickly break up the battle-lines 96 The only Punic successes in direct engagements in the First Punic War came with somewhat smaller fleets, at the Lipari islands in 262 (Polyb. 1.21.7), and at Drepana; Goldsworthy, Punic Wars (n. 14), 127. 97 Polyb. 1.27.10; 1.50.8, 51.1. 98 S. Moscati (ed.), I Fenici (Milan: Bompiani 1988), 558. 99 E.g. a coin of Sidon ca. 380 bce, Medas, La Marineria Carthaginese (n. 17), fig. 43. 100 Medas, La Marineria Carthaginese (n. 17), 194. 101 Ibid., 160–62. Listed as series 4(a)–(c) in E. S. G. Robinson, “Punic Coins of Spain and their bearing on the Roman Republican series”, in Essays in Roman Coinage: Presented to Harold Mattingly, ed. R. A. G. Carson and C. H. V. Sutherland (Oxford: Univ. Press, 1956), 37–8. 102 F. Quesada Sanz, Estandartes Militares en el Mundo Antiguo (Aquila Legionis 8) (Madrid: Signifer Libros, 2007), 32.

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into small, sometimes individualistic, engagements, where the influence of steersmen revolved around their ability to identify and respond to the evolving tactical situation. The role of Punic marines is often underplayed in modern accounts. This is primarily due to the portrayal in Polybius and the Roman tradition, which stressed the Romans’ innate superiority in infantry engagements. On a number of occasions Roman marines overpowered their Punic counterparts, perhaps due to the invention of the corvus.103 On the whole, Roman success appears due to the fact that they embarked larger complements of soldiers to act as marines. It was how Hannibal the Rhodian’s ship was eventually captured by the very swift ‘four’ that the Romans had previously seized (Polyb. 1.47.9). Similarly, although archers and slingers had exchanged fire during the pursuit of Agathocles’ fleet to Africa, in close quarters the tyrant’s ships had the advantage since they had many more soldiers (Diod. 20.5.2–3). Nevertheless, when one hears that the Carthaginians captured enemy ships and their crews during engagements, we may assume that marines were involved in some capacity.104 At times, the Carthaginians embarked ground forces onto the ships to swell their complements in expectation of naval battle (Polyb. 1.49.10, 60.3). Polybius (1.51.2–3) notes that the battle of Drepana was initially evenly matched, “since the marines in both fleets were the very best men of their land forces.” This allowed Punic advantages in seamanship and position to become decisive. The embarkation of ground forces was a potential benefit of symparapleia, yet at Catana, with their land forces absent due to a detour around an active lava flow from Etna, Carthaginian marines appear to have still fought effectively. Diodorus characterises the engagement as: one where the steersmen laid their ships broadside in the fighting and the struggle came to resemble conflicts on land. For they did not drive upon the opposing ships from a distance in order to ram them, but the vessels were locked together and the fighting was hand to hand. Diod. 14.60.3

Indeed in their eagerness to get to grips, some men failed to jump the gap between ships while boarding (Diod 14.60.3). Marines were also

103 Thiel, Roman Sea-Power (n. 14), 101–28, Lazenby, First Punic War (n. 14), 68–70; Goldsworthy, Punic Wars (n. 14), 106–8, 113–14, 115–16, but see Medas, La Marineria Carthaginese (n. 17), 197–203, who argues that Polybius overplayed its effectiveness. 104 E.g. Diod. 19.107.2. The flagship of Pyrrhus, a ‘seven,’ was captured in a naval engagement, Polyb. 1.23.4, Plut. Vit. Pyrrh. 24. See Rawlings, Ancient Greeks (n. 49), 123

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effectively deployed in amphibious operations, as in the two surprise attacks by Hamilcar on Agathocles collected by Polyaenus (6.41.1–2), and we may infer their use in the successful seizure of Messana in 395, which involved storming the harbor defences (Diod. 14.57. 3). It is clear that the boldness and evident courage of Hannibal the Rhodian and his crew, and their effective use of seafaring knowledge were not unique.105 There are a number of other audacious exploits by Punic captains and admirals recorded in our sources. By exploiting the right weather conditions, Hannibal, a trierarch, had sailed a fleet and substantial reinforcements into Lilybaeum under the nose of the blockading Roman forces.106 Punic vessels undertook numerous raids on harbors, in which familiarity with local conditions was essential. In an action of which ‘the Rhodian’ would have been proud, one swift trireme successfully lured out the garrison ships of Messana, opening the port up to a raid in force laying in wait behind a nearby promontory (Polyaenus 6.16.4). Ten triremes, by night, raided the harbor of Syracuse in 396 and rammed all the ships along the shore, sinking almost all of them,107 while in 312 bce fifty penteconters entered the Great Harbor and sank two Athenian merchant vessels (Diod. 19.103.4). The boldness of Himilco’s manning of a hundred ‘best’ triremes for the attack on Dionysius’ fleet beached at Motya, was only foiled by the deployment of the new invention of bolt shooters, which unsettled the attackers. Once Dionysius’ fleet of two hundred warships was at sea, the heavily outnumbered Carthaginians were forced to withdraw (Diod. 14.50). Strategic thought and opportunism were combined in the seizure of Messana in 395 bce, when the Punic fleet took advantage of the absence of troops away on campaign to exploit their ‘nautical proximity’ and sail into the harbor to assault the city (Diod. 14.57.1–3). Dionysius himself almost opened Syracuse up to this stratagem a short while later, but his advisors alerted him to the danger (Diod. 14.61.2). The ruination of two Roman fleets off cape Pachynus in 249 (Polyb. 1.54.5–8) was due in no small part to the pinning actions of Carthalo, whose force held the two Roman fleets apart on a coast with few anchorages, at least until the storm signs encouraged him to round the cape (with difficulty). Knowledge of the conditions of the sea appears in a number of Punic on the reasons why small complements of marines might overpower the crews of enemy vessels. 105 Hannibal the Rhodian’s awareness of the local channels and conditions around Marsala, see Polyb. 1.47.1–2. 106 250/49 bce, Polyb. 1.44.2, Lazenby, First Punic War (n. 14), 126–8. 107 Diod 14.49; cf. Livy 21.49, the sails of a Punic fleet are spotted in the moonlight.

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operations—the sailing of Punic fleets into Lilybaeum during the First Punic War took advantage of particular winds. It is clear that the Carthaginian kybernetai possessed awareness of local conditions and of the weather signs of approaching storms, for it was they who persuaded their admiral, Carthalo, to shelter his fleet near cape Pachynus while the Roman fleets were smashed by its power. However, the Carthaginians were not immune to weather conditions: sixty triremes and 200 transports were reportedly destroyed by a storm crossing from Africa to Sicily in 311 bce (Diod. 19.106.3), while the loss of horse and chariot transports in similar conditions was a setback for the Himera campaign in 480 bce (Diod. 11.20.2). The ruthless actions of Punic naval forces, which are paralleled by their land forces, are a grim expression of their militaristic attitudes.108 In the naval battle near Catana (396 bce), the Carthaginians cruised back and forth among the wreckage of Leptines’ fleet, killing the many Greeks who did not manage to swim ashore. Diodorus (14.60.5, cf. 14.66.4) reports that the Sicilian Greek fleet led by Leptines lost as many as one hundred ships and 20,000 men: “the whole place was full of corpses and wreckage.” Prisoners might be subjected to cruel treatment, such as those Athenian sailors who were captured in the Great Harbor of Syracuse in 312 bce, whose hands were cut off,109 or the report of Roman prisoners crushed beneath ships keels during the First Punic War (Val. Max. 9.2. Ext. 1). Punic cruelty apparently extended to its own men, as the dubious aetiology of the ‘bony’ island (Osteodes, Diod. 5.11.1; cf. Zon. 8.13, see above) and of the story of Xanthippus’ drowning (Val. Max. 9.6 ext.1; App. Pun. 4; Zon. 8.13) suggest. One might (perhaps rightly) dismiss such stories as a topos of Carthaginian barbarity and bloodthirstiness, but it is evident that other states often conducted naval warfare in a vicious and seemingly unrestrained fashion, where rules of engagement (if any existed) did not preclude the mutilation or slaughter of the enemy, should the opportunity arise.110 A number of features appear to recur throughout our period, as much as the sources allow us to perceive them. On the whole, we can regard 108 Eckstein, Mediterranean Anarchy (n. 12), 163, 204; L. Rawlings, “Hannibal the Cannibal? Polybius on Barcid Atrocities,” Cardiff Historical Papers 9 (2007). 109 312 bce, Diod. 19.103.4–5, but note that Punic crews who fell into Agathocles’ power were treated in a similar fashion. 110 E.g. Xen. Hell. 2.1.31–2; cf. Paus. 9.32.9; Plut. Lys. 9. Further examples see Rawlings, Ancient Greeks (n. 49), 124, 127 n.27; 195.

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the Carthaginians as having a relatively coherent naval combat ethos and set of traditions. We find repeated examples of captains and crews acting with boldness, bravery, swiftness, skill, knowledge, stratagem and tactical acumen, but also with a sharp appreciation of the brutal realities of warfare. While manoeuvre was favoured, at least until the enemy ships were put out of action, the marines also performed reasonably, except when heavily outnumbered. An understanding of psychological factors also appears in a number of our examples, reinforcing the observations made about the diplomatic display of Carthaginian thalassocracy. Conclusion The Carthaginian navy was a complex tool, used for a broad range of missions and was far beyond being the mere arm of a commercial people’s monopolistic trading ambitions. There are still poorly understood, but perceptible complexities of infrastructure, fleet construction and operation, which this discussion has attempted to illuminate. Control over widely distributed bases gave the Carthaginians the strategic advantages to promote their thalassocracy. There was an effective exploitation of the effect of nautical proximity: coastal friends and enemies were forced to look to the sea, since they might swiftly feel the effects of Punic naval power. While major bases such as Carthage and New Carthage were focal points for the construction of fleets, smaller harbors such as at Pantelleria may have been employed to build ships. The existence of good anchorages and the logistical infrastructure provided by bases allowed for the more or less permanent stationing of ships at strategic locations, with the attendant ability to control or intercept those making use of the waters. Swift responses to threats would have been facilitated by the existence of pre-assembled and crewed ships. Yet economic and demographic constraints meant that the Carthaginian fleet could not be maintained indefinitely, nor was it usually necessary. For the most part, Punic fleets were called into being by the resolutions of the Carthaginian authorities in the furtherance of particular policies. Just like other navies in antiquity, notably classical Athens, the Carthaginian navy performed varied military roles, some defensive, others downright aggressive. In those operations we can perceive some elements of Punic strategic culture and martial ideology. There appears to have been an emphasis on acquiring and displaying skill, and it

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appears that the Carthaginians were comfortable with employing stratagem to achieve objectives. Yet this is coupled with the prestige of martial success that led many Punic fleets to act with boldness, aggression, vigour and commitment. Operations at sea had their psychological impact on the home community. The Carthaginians tried to persuade the Syracusans that Agathocles had been defeated by showing them the rams taken from his invasion fleet, abandoned as his army marched inland (Diod. 20.15–16). The news of naval disaster might create panic in Carthage itself, especially, it seems, when there was a fear of enemy invasion of Africa.111 We might dismiss these reports as rhetorical devices of Greek and Roman writers, although the misery of witnessing the scuttling of the Punic fleet at the end of the Second Punic War (“as if it were their own city in flames”: Liv. 30.43), was undoubtedly genuine, and the reports of walls being draped in mourning with black cloth or ships’ prows with hides (Diod. 19.106.3; 20.9.1) suggest the intimate connection of Carthage to its fleet. Furthermore, the reprimands and punishments meted out to commanders and captains112 would suggest that defeat at sea was keenly felt among the crews, population and authorities. Several generals are known to have committed suicide after naval defeats.113 The “most distinguished Carthaginians” were part of the crews who crucified their commander, Hannibal, in Sardinia in 257 bc. This may have been a mutinous lynching of a serially unsuccessful commander, but it is possible that the citizens in that fleet regarded themselves as empowered in some way to mete out this punishment, either as a jury of peers or on the instructions of the home authorities.114 It is rare to find evidence for the celebration or glorification of the navy in Carthage. This is not because of some commercial distaste of the

111 Cf. Diod. 20.9.2–3, where Agathocles’ arrival in Africa led to the assumption that the Punic fleet had been destroyed. 112 Diod. 20.9.10, “the gerousia reprimanded all the navarchs of the fleet”; Liv. 23.26, the naval captains had been reprimanded by Hasdrubal after the defeat of the Ebro. Diodorus 20.10.3–4, notes how the Carthaginians expected their generals to be first to brave danger, but after wars they plagued them with lawsuits. 113 Justin 19.2.7–3.12; Diod. 14.76.3: Himilco in 395 bce Diod. 20.61.5–8: Hasdrubal in 307 bce. 114 Polyb. 1.24; Liv. Ep. 17; Dio. 11 fr. 43; Zon. 8.12. But according to Orosius 4.8.4 Hannibal is stoned to death, which would suggest mutiny. Further references in K. Geus, Prosopographie der literarisch bezeugten Karthager (Studia Phoenicia 13) (Leuven: Peeters, 1994), s.v. Hannibal (3), 71 n. 422.

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more muscular arm of Punic thalassocracy. Punic epigraphic and iconographic habits are rather different from the Greek world. Punic public and private inscriptions commemorating martial achievements are not extant; there are only a handful of depictions of ships on Punic stelai, such as that of the ship prow from the tophet (see above), which might suggest pride or interest in the fleet.115 Other naval powers, such as Athens also rarely commemorated their naval achievements in stone.116 The warship coinage issues of (probably) Hasdrubal in Spain is a rare, but a dynamic, symbol of Carthaginian (or Barcid) naval pride.117 We should not forget the fleet itself and its installations. These show Carthaginian commitment and pride in the navy. The massive excavation and construction of the Cothon, with the colonnaded beautification of its martial ship sheds (Appian Pun. 96), is commensurate with the expense and labour involved in the ship-shed complexes of other states, such as Rhodes.118 Of course, the military harbor was developed alongside a rectangular, commercial harbor, which involved a similar investment in labour and capital. Nevertheless, if Carthage was like a ship moored to the African coast, it was just as much a warship as a merchantman.

115

The epigraphic glorification of military achievement may have been placed in temples, if we believe that Polybius (3.33.18, 56.4; cf. Livy 28.46.16) consulted Hannibal’s own inscription on a bronze pillar or altar deposited at the temple of Lacinian Hera; Walbank HCP (n. 34) 1.364–5. Cf. the supposed deposition of Hanno’s Periplus in the temple of Cronus (Baal Hammon), GGM 1. 116 B. Strauss, “Perspectives on the death of fifth-century Athenian seamen,” in War and Violence in Ancient Greece, ed. H. van Wees (London and Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2000) 261–83. 117 Medas, La Marineria Carthaginese (n. 17), 160–62. 118 Rhodes: Gabrielsen, Naval Aristocracy (n. 23), 38–39.

PHALANGES IN ROME? Nathan Rosenstein Amid the morass that is early Roman history, the formation of a phalanx in the mid-sixth century has long seemed one of the very few secure footholds.1 The bases for this belief are well-known, principally the testimony of two ancient authors, buttressed by the evidence of iconography and archaeology. Livy, in his description of the Roman army that faced a force of rebellious Latins in 340 bce, remarks in passing: “Previously, the Romans used clipei; then, after they became stipendiarii, they made scuta instead of clipei; what had been a phalanx like the Macedonian phalanges began to be drawn up as a battle line by maniples with the soldiers in the rear drawn up in more detachments.”2 His assertion is repeated in greater detail by the anonymous, apparently secondcentury, author of the fragment known as the Ineditum Vaticanum, which purports to reproduce a debate prior to the outbreak of the First Punic War between a Carthaginian speaker and a Roman named Kaiso: When the Carthaginian had spoken thus, Kaiso replied: ‘This is what we Romans are like . . . [W]ith those who make war on us we agree to fight on their terms, and when it comes to foreign practices we surpass those who have long been used to them. For the Tyrrhenians used to make war on us with bronze shields and fighting in phalanx formation, not in maniples; and we, changing our armament and replacing it with theirs, organised our forces against them, and contending thus against men who had long been accustomed to phalanx battles we were victorious. Similarly the Samnite shield was not part of our national equipment, nor did we have 1

So recently e.g. Richard E. Mitchell, Patricians and Plebeians. The Origin of the Roman State (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1990), 35–41; Stephen P. Oakley, A Commentary on Livy Books VI–X. 4 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997–2005), 2.453; Tim Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome. Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000264 bc), (London: Routledge, 1995), 183–85; Gary Forsythe, A Critical History of Early Rome (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2005), 113–15. Cf. John E. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts. A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity. (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2005), 183–86. 2 Liv. 8.8.3: clipeis antea Romani usi sunt; dein, postquam stipendiarii facti sunt, scuta pro clipeis fecere; et quod antea phalanx similis Macedonicis, hoc postea manipulatim structa acies copeit esse: postremi in plures ordines instruebantur. On the textual difficulties in this passage, see Oakley, Commentary on Livy, (n. 1), 2.459, 467.

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nathan rosenstein javelins, but fought with rounds shields and spears; nor were we strong in cavalry, but all or nearly all of Rome’s strength lay in infantry. But when we found ourselves at war with the Samnites we armed ourselves with their oblong shields and javelins, and fought against them on horseback, and by copying foreign arms we became masters of those who thought so highly of themselves.3

Scholars since Fraccaro have generally attributed the establishment of a hoplite phalanx to King Servius Tullius, and his new phalanx in turn becomes the culmination of a package of reforms that also comprised the creation of the comitia centuriata and of new tribes in which membership was based on residence rather than descent. The latter, it is usually thought, aimed at expanding the manpower pool from which hoplites for the new phalanx could be drawn, while the former gave it a voice in decisions about war and peace.4 This reconstruction, finally, forms part of a broader narrative that ascribes Rome’s transformation from a backwater into a central Italian powerhouse during the sixth century to the arrival of Etruscans, who introduced a host of innovations that greatly strengthened the city, among which was the hoplite phalanx, long in use among them. Material evidence would seem to offer strong confirmation—at least of the Etruscan phalanx. Seventh- and sixth-century representations of hoplites are abundant, while the weapons and armor recovered from central Italian burials—for example, the Tomba del Guerriero at Tarquinia, ca. 680, the roughly contemporary Regolini-Galassi tomb at Cervetere, or Tomb 43 from Narce from the mid-seventh century— would seem to embody the reality reflected in these images quite clearly. The Avvolta tomb at Tarquinia is reported to have contained “a full set of body armor (helmet, corselet, greaves), two circular bronze shields… eight javelins, a double-edged sword and, inside a bronze-lidded vase, the remains of a ‘killed’ chariot.”5 3 Ineditum Vaticanum, ed. H. von Arnim, “Ineditum Vaticanum,” Hermes 27 (1892): 118–30 (= Jacoby FGrHist 839 F.1), 3, in Cornell’s translation, Beginnings of Rome (n. 1), 170. Cf. Diod., 23.2.1; Ath. 6.273 e–f; Sall. Cat. 51.37–38. 4 Plinio Fraccaro, Opuscula 4 vols. (Pavia: Presso la rivista “Athenaeum,” 1956–75), 2.287–92, summarized in Cornell, Beginnings of Rome (n. 1), 181–83. On the reforms of Servius Tullius generally, see recently Cornell, ibid. 173–97, although Cornell believes that Servius simply changed the institutional basis of a pre-existing hoplite army rather than creating a phalanx de novo; Forsythe, A Critical History (n. 1), 111–15. 5 P. R. Stary, Zur eisenzeitlichen Bewaffnung und Kampfesweise in Mittelitalien 2 vols. (Mainz am Rhein: P. von Zabern, 1981); N. Spivey and S. Stoddart, Etruscan Italy: An Archaeological History, (London: B.T. Batsford, 1990), 129 (tombs and quote); Anthony Snodgrass, “The Hoplite Reform and History,” JHS 85 (1965): 116–19.

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A few scholars have voiced doubts about this broad consensus. Momigliano wondered “how the Etruscans ever managed to combine an army of hoplites with their social structure founded on a sharp distinction between nobles and clientes,” and William Harris in an aside suggested that the Roman phalanx might be “fictitious.”6 More serious criticisms have come from Spivey and Stoddard’s careful reexamination of the Etruscan archaeological remains. They noted of the bronze corselet from Tomb 43 that it was merely “ornamental sheet bronze . . . It is not functional and it is expensive. It is conspicuous display, not advanced military technology.” “[A]rms and armour as grave goods,” in their view: serve as enhancements of burial, as indicators of rank; amongst the deposits of domestic effects, the arms and armour are objects inspiring pride and reverence…. Viewed in this light, the evidence from graves is likely to be misleading when it comes to claiming that the Etruscans fought with hoplite phalanxes. The burial of arms and armour in itself is a form of ritual, but the nature of the armour buried suggests that in the world of the living it was primarily an appurtenance of ritual…. Panoplies such as that from the Osteria necropolis at Vulci . . . datable to 630–620 bc, should be understood as luxury acquisitions either from the Greek world or produced under Greek influence for the same ritual purposes as the extravagant ‘Orientalizing’ panoplies.7

Yet these criticisms only indirectly affect our understanding of the establishment of a hoplite phalanx at Rome, for they question only whether Etruria could have been the source for such a development, not the 6 Arnaldo Momigliano, “An Interim Report on the Origins of Rome,” JRS 53 (1963): 119; William V. Harris, “Roman Warfare in the Economic and Social Context of the Fourth Century bc.,” in Staat und Staatlichkeit in der frühen römischen Republik, ed. W. Eder (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1990), 508. Futher doubts that Etruria’s social structure would have permitted the development of a true hoplite phalanx in B. d’Agostino, “Military Organization and Social Structure in Archaic Etruria,” in The Greek City: From Homer to Alexander, ed. O. Murray and S. Price (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 59–82. Christiane Saulnier, L’Armée et la Guerre dans le monde Étrusco-Romain (VIII e-IV e s.) (Paris: Diffusion de Boccard, 1980), 105–15, argues that two components made up the early Roman army, one equipped as hoplites and the other with less expensive weapons and armor, which fought in two separate lines; cf. Peter Connolly, Greece and Rome at War (London: Macdonald, 1981), 95, who similarly imagines the Servian army comprising a phalanx and a contingent armed with the various weapons and equipment described by Livy at 1.43.1–7. See also the brief critique in John Rich, “Warfare and the Army in Early Rome,” in A Companion to the Roman Army, ed. Paul Erdkamp (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007). 7 Spivey and Stoddart, Etruscan Italy (n. 5), 129–31; cf. John Rich, “Warfare in Early Rome,” in Papers from the EAA Third Annual Meeting at Ravenna 1997 4 vols., ed. Mark Pearce and Maurizio Tosi et al. (Oxford: Archaeopress, 1998), 6.

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development itself. A much more serious challenge comes from quite a different direction. Hans van Wees has completely redrawn the conventional picture of the evolution of phalanx combat, first in a paper published in 2000 and recently in a book that is surely the most important contribution to the study of Greek warfare in recent years.8 Van Wees argues that true phalanges did not come into being around 650 bce, as scholarly consensus has long held. Rather, combat remained fluid and ‘Homeric’ throughout most of the seventh and sixth centuries. Although hoplite arms and armor and especially the large, round aspis were in use all during this time, they do not imply much less necessitate combat in a densely packed mass of uniformly equipped soldiers. Instead, combat was organized around the ties of kinship and dependence that pervaded civilian life. Leading men went to war surrounded by relatives and retainers who might or might not be armed as hoplites, while formations comprising different types of fighters and adapted to a looser style of combat characterized battles. The critical change that transformed these types of battles into true phalanx combat came only at the very end of the sixth century, when the community, acting as the polis, acquired enough authority over the lives of individual citizens to override the social matrices in which they were enmeshed and compel them to take their places in uniformly armed formations regardless of who they were stationed next to. Van Wees has not convinced all doubters, but he has convinced me, and his conclusions if correct put the problem of the Roman phalanx on an entirely different footing.9 For if the Greeks did not develop a true phalanx until the very end of the sixth century at the earliest, then the possibility that a similar phalanx was established at Rome fifty years earlier becomes vanishingly remote.10 This conclusion in turn raises the question of just how and when the phalanx came to Rome. Clearly, this will have to have happened sometime after the turn of the sixth century, but beyond that certainty is difficult. The ancient sources offer little guidance. As we have seen, the 8 H. van Wees, “The Development of the Hoplite Phalanx: Iconography and Reality in the Seventh Century,” in War and Violence in Ancient Greece, ed. H. van Wees (London: Duckworth and the Classical Press of Wales, 2000), 125–66; idem, Greek Warfare. Myths and Realities (London: Duckworth, 2004), 166–84, 233–35. 9 Doubts: Adam Schwartz, “The Early Hoplite Phalanx: Order or Disarray?” Classica et Mediaevalia 53 (2002): 31–64. 10 C. E. Smith, The Roman Clan: The Gens From Ancient Ideology to Modern Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006), 286–89 and Rich, “Warfare and the Army” (n. 6, 17) have drawn similar conclusions about the early Roman army on the basis of van Wees’ work.

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anonymous author of the Ineditum Vaticanum puts the change in the context of Rome’s wars with the Etruscans, which could mean anytime from the early fifth century on. Yet the fact that the existence of an Etrurian phalanx is open to serious doubt renders equally dubious his claim that the Romans adopted the tactic from their northern neighbors. The passage from Livy quoted above implies a date prior to the institution of the stipendium—that is, payment for military service—but this is of little help as a terminius post quem since there is no agreement about when the Romans began paying their soldiers. Opinion is divided between the late fifth century in connection with the siege of Veii, which is where Livy and Diodorus put it; the period of the Second Samnite War, where it fits much better into the longer and more distant campaigns that this conflict entailed; or even later still.11 Iconographic representations of hoplite weaponry or the items themselves recovered from burials prove equally unreliable, since these cannot in and of themselves demonstrate that they were used in a phalanx. Consequently, we are thrown back on more general considerations. The adoption of the classical phalanx in Greece appears to be a textbook example of what is often termed ‘peer-polity interaction,’ which in this case simply means that once one polis adopted it, probably in the context of a major reorganization of the polis itself, other poleis were compelled to follow suit or risk being overcome.12 So one might search for a Roman military context in which the adoption of phalanx tactics makes sense as a response to some external threat. But unfortunately no likely fifth or fourth century candidate is forthcoming. During the fifth century, Rome’s opponents were mainly the Aequi and Volsci, hill-tribes whose military institutions will have been at an even more rudimentary level than Rome’s. Fighting seems to have been characterized by repeated raids and counter-raids, a form of conflict that would seem ill-suited for mass-infantry. The various Latin cities that Rome occasionally went to war against in the fifth and fourth centuries are likely to have been no 11 Liv. 4.59.11–60.8, cf. Diod. 14.16.5. Late fifth century: see for example Michael Crawford, Coinage and Money under the Roman Republic: Italy and the Mediterranean Economy (London: Methuen, 1985), 22–24; Cornell, Beginnings of Rome (n. 1), 187, 313; Oakley, Commentary on Livy (n. 1), 1.630–32; for the late fourth century see Kurt Raaflaub, “Born to Be Wolves? Origins of Roman Imperialism,” in Transitions to Empire. Essays in Greco-Roman History, 360-146 bc, in Honor of E. Badian, ed. Robert W. Wallace and Edward M. Harris (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1996), 280. 12 Colin Renfrew, “Introduction: Peer Polity Interaction and Socio-political Change,” in Peer Polity Interaction and Socio-political Change, ed. Colin Renfrew and David Cherry (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986), 1–18.

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more tactically sophisticated than their larger neighbor, while as we have seen there is no warrant for postulating an Etruscan phalanx. More importantly, the Republic’s overall record against these opponents was one of success, albeit the victories it won were neither easy nor without setbacks. It is difficult to see in the military challenges Rome faced in this period anything grave enough to necessitate a complete change in the way it waged its wars. The Samnites are another matter of course, but in this case scholars generally believe that the struggle against them gave rise to a shift away from phalanges and to a legion organized in maniples, as Livy and the author of the Ineditum Vaticanum claim, owing, it is thought, to the deficiencies of the phalanx against an enemy fighting in small, flexible bands on rugged terrain.13 It seems perverse, then, to stand this proposition on its head and claim that precisely the same sort of tactical problem demanded the phalanx as its solution. Only the great Roman defeat at the Allia in 390 might seem to have presented a challenge of such magnitude that it could have impelled a major tactical overhaul. Although at least one scholar has suggested that the defeat was the occasion for the switch from phalanges to maniples, it is equally plausible to suppose that the Republic’s forces, however they were arrayed, were simply overwhelmed by the mass of the Gauls, and so in anticipation of future combat a stronger, more solid formation was deemed necessary.14 Attractive as this reconstruction might seem, however, there are objections. The first is from the sources, specifically Livy, who for what it is worth claims that the Romans dropped the phalanx when they began paying their soldiers, which he dates to the siege of Veii, that is, before the defeat at the Allia.15 This is awkward but not insurmountable. The second problem however seems to me much more substantial, and that is the very notion that a major military defeat would have led the Romans to undertake a wholesale revamping of the way they fought their battles. Rome’s record down to that point had been one of overall success. However they had been fighting, that tactical system

13 E.g. F. E. Adcock, “The Roman Conquest of Italy,” in The Cambridge Ancient History, 1st. ed., vol. 7, The Hellenistic Monarchies and the Rise of Rome, ed. S. A. Cook, F. E. Adcock, and M. P. Charlesworth (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1928), 601; Lawrence Keppie, The Making of the Roman Army: From Republic To Empire (London, 1984), 18–19. 14 H. Stuart Jones and Hugh Last, “The Early Republic,” in The Cambridge Ancient History, Cook et al. (ed.), (n. 14), 568; Harris, “Roman Warfare” (n. 6, 508) for the Allia as the incentive for the switch to maniples. 15 Liv. 4.59.11–60.8, cf. Diod. 14.16.5.

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had gotten them through a very difficult fifty years in the mid-fifth century, when Rome lost ground against the Volsci and Aequi. Earlier the same system had enabled Rome during the sixth century to establish the hegemony over Latium and the Pomptine region that is reflected in the first treaty with Carthage.16 So this was a system that worked, and to throw it out because it had failed once, albeit spectacularly, seems quite an extreme step. For behind such a reconstruction lies the assumption that military change in the absence of major technological change is often sudden and transformative, and there is every reason to doubt that this was very often true. Rather, pre-industrial warfare seems very like farming in that each is a matter of life and death, even if in the one case the outcome is swift and in the other much more gradual. But in either case the consequences of failure are dire, which leads to a reluctance to embrace radical change. One stays with what has worked in the past, and when things go wrong, the tendency is not to wipe the slate clean and start fresh but to make smaller, incremental adjustments to correct flaws in a winning formula and try again. This argument is pure speculation, of course, but it gains credibility from what we know about what the Romans actually did when they lost battles. As is well-known, later Roman tradition put the blame for the Allia on religious flaws, not tactical weaknesses, very much in line with a general tendency to ascribe defeat to a failure to observe proper ritual procedure or to recognize that a complete breakdown in the pax deorum had occurred. Where non-religious, human error was identified, the tendency was to see this in moral rather than organizational terms: the soldiers had not displayed sufficient bravery or discipline or their leader had not set them a proper example of courage.17 Once, it is true, a tactical shift followed a major defeat, when Marius reformed the legions by substituting cohorts for maniples as the basic units of maneuver following the catastrophe at Arausio.18 But this change seems to me to exemplify precisely the sort of incremental change being suggested here. Cohorts had long been part of the legions’ tactical repertoire, used

16 Polyb. 3.22.1–10; see Cornell, Beginnings of Rome (n. 1), 210–14 and Forsythe, A Critical History (n. 1), 122–24 for recent discussion. 17 Nathan Rosenstein, Imperatores Victi: Military Defeat and Aristocratic Competition in the Middle and Late Republic (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1990), especially 73 on the Allia. 18 Keppie, Making of the Roman Army ( n. 13), 63–68 for a brief discussion of Marius’ innovations. On the earlier employment of cohorts, see M. J. V. Bell, “Tactical Reform in the Roman Republican Army,” Historia 14 (1965): 404–22.

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apparently from time to time as the situation required even though in set-piece battles maniples remained the staple of Roman combat. However, the socii who fought alongside the legions apparently were regularly marshaled for battle in cohorts. The legion after Marius remained a formation of heavily-armed infantrymen, only more so because the velites were henceforth equipped as regular legionaries. Marius did not eliminate maniples; he simply folded them by threes into the cohorts, apparently preserving within each the traditional division by age into hastati, principes, and triarii. And the cohorts themselves continued to be arrayed in the three-line quincunx formation (however it may have operated in combat). Marius in other words simply improved upon what was already there; he did not start over from scratch. Indeed, the one instance in which the Romans do seem to have departed significantly from their standard tactical repertoire and tried something rather different was an unmitigated disaster: Cannae, where the gaps between the maniples seem to have been closed up to the point where the legions took on something of the aspect of a phalanx.19 If a strictly military perspective does not help us move forward, perhaps we ought to consider the problem from the vantage point of stateformation, as van Wees’ reconstruction of the development of the Greek phalanx suggests. The question then is at what point did the Republic gain sufficient loyalty from and control over its citizens to overcome the social bonds that otherwise structured the ways in which they went to war? One might suppose, following a suggestion Nilsson made in the early part of the last century, that this might have occurred in the midfifth century.20 Nilsson argued that the creation of censors for the first time in 443 was the consequence of the introduction of the phalanx, because at that point it became necessary to know each citizen’s wealth in order to determine whether he was obligated to serve as a hoplite in it. The theory is ingenious, since Nilsson links the creation of censors to the introduction in the previous year of the military tribunes with consular power, which again might be connected with some type of military reform. However, it is open to criticism on two grounds. The first is that the election of censors for the first time in 443 does not necessarily mean that no census had ever been conducted prior to that date. But secondly, 19 See Gregory Daly, Cannae: The Experience of Battle in the Second Punic War (London: Routledge, 2002), 158–61. 20 Martin Nilsson, “The Introduction of Hoplite Tactics at Rome: Its Date and its Consequences,” JRS 19 (1929): 5.

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and more importantly, the struggle of the orders was at its height during the mid-fifth century, and whatever else one can say about that poorly understood phase in Roman history, it was certainly not a time when the community was gaining greater control over its citizens. Quite the opposite: the state was in danger of tearing itself apart and was preserved by the need to compromise differences in the face of grave external threats.21 The struggle of the orders in fact makes it very difficult to imagine the Roman state at any point during the fifth and much of the fourth centuries gaining the sort of increased control over its citizens that Greek poleis developed in the later sixth that led to the creation of the first true phalanges. Rather, and perhaps surprisingly, Rome had already acquired a ‘state’ army—as opposed to an assemblage of bands arrayed by clan or some other social tie—well before that date. For if not only the creation of the centuriate assembly and the tribal reform but a fundamental alteration in the composition and organization of the army are correctly dated to the mid-sixth century, then the one thing we can be sure of is that the centuries were its basic tactical units. This must be true not simply because of the obvious link between the army and the centuriate assembly but because of the survival of the century itself as a fundamental part of the Roman army long after centuries has ceased to play any tactical role in battle. Not only the manipular legions of the middle Republic but the cohort-legions of the late Republic and Empire contained centuries. Their preservation exemplifies precisely the sort of incremental change described earlier, and it strongly suggests that the centuries themselves must go back to the very earliest stages of the Roman army. Consequently, there ought to have been some relationship between them and the new tribes, but how the latter were divided up among the centuries is a notorious crux. Cornell has offered what seems the most plausible reconstruction.22 He theorizes that the members of each Servian tribe were divided into sixty groups. When an army had to be mobilized, every group in a tribe was required to contribute a specific number of men, then the contingents from the groups in each tribe came together with the contingents from the corresponding groups in the other tribes to form the sixty centuries that constituted a Servian legion.

21 22

Raaflaub, “Wolves?” ( n. 11), 290–92. Cornell, Beginnings of Rome (n. 1), 192–94.

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If Cornell’s theory is correct, then it entails a couple of important consequences. The first and most important is that the mechanism for mustering an army combined in the centuries men from the different tribes and hence from different localities—much as the second-century levy that Polybius describes did—and thereby neutralized in a military context whatever social bonds and obligations had structured the soldiers’ civilian lives. This conclusion seems confirmed by the oath that until 216 the soldiers within each century swore voluntarily among themselves, vowing that they would not break ranks in battle.23 Such an oath fits easily into a context in which men who had no pre-existing social ties to one another were called upon to undergo the dangers of combat together and had to assure themselves that they would not fail one another. The obvious point at which such a need would arise is when men from different tribes and regions were thrown together in the centuries under the system for forming them that Cornell conjectures. The Romans for once therefore appear to have been somewhat ahead of similar developments among the Greeks, who only reached this degree of state-development about half a century later.24 However—and this is the second consequence—alongside this state-controlled warfare there flourished a way of waging war in which civilian links among the fighters were replicated on the battlefield. The Fabian gens’ private war against Veii, which as is well-known ended disastrously in 478 at the Cremera, is the obvious case in point, but other examples indicate that similar bands of clansmen or comrades and their dependents were a regular feature of sixth- and fifth-century central Italian warfare.25 How many of the wars Rome fought during these years were fought by the one sort of army or the other is impossible to say. Livy writes as if the state army marched out time and again to oppose raiding parties during the fifth century, but it may be that clan- or comrade-based forces responded as often as not or were themselves the aggressors. The important point is that once we rule out the possibility that Servius introduced a phalanx to Rome, military operations in defense of the city’s territory in either case were carried out by forces organized as small groups that

23

Liv. 22.38.2–5, cf. Frontin. Str. 4.1.4. Cf. Smith, The Roman Clan (n. 10), 290. 25 Louis Rawlings, “Condottieri and Clansmen: Early Italian Raiding, Warfare, and the State,” in Organized Crime in Antiquity, ed. Keith Hopwood (London: Duckworth with the Classical Press of Wales, 1998), 97–128; Smith, The Roman Clan (n. 10), 290–95. 24

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fought as more or less independent tactical units rather than in a large, undifferentiated mass. Thereafter the centuriate army appears gradually to have supplanted levies based on other principles, probably as fighting moved away from raid and counter-raid and towards the wars of expansion in the later fifth and fourth centuries. And in view of the difficulty of finding an appropriate context or occasion for its transformation into a phalanx, the most economical solution seems to be to dispense with this phase altogether. While this step entails rejecting the explicit testimony of Livy and the author of the Ineditum Vaticanum, it offers one important advantage, and that is the ability to make some sense out of what is otherwise a hopelessly confused tradition about when precisely the shift to maniples occurred. As already noted, Livy puts it at the very end of the fifth or early fourth century, while the Ineditum Vaticanum locates it nearly seventy-five years later, and each position has its modern defenders.26 Plutarch, too, contributes to the confusion when he reports that Camillus introduced several reforms in Roman arms and armor during his fifth dictatorship in 367, which some scholars identify as the date when the change was made, while other sources seem to put it later, in the early third century.27 This confusion does not simply mean that the Romans did not really know when the legions first began fighting in maniples. More importantly it suggests that what little they did know offered a number of developments that could plausibly be identified as the transition point. The shift from centuries to maniples in other words was not simple or quick but encompassed a number of stages that gradually transformed Rome’s sixth century army into the force that Polybius describes four hundred years later.28 It is well to remember just how complex that transformation will have been. At some point, two independent centuries had to be brigaded together to form a maniple; the move may initially have been only temporary, since each century in the new maniple preserved

26 Late fifth or early fourth centuries, e.g. recently, Cornell, Beginnings of Rome (n. 1), 187 and 313, although at 354 he dates the reform instead to the period ca. 311. Late fourth century, recently, Forsythe, Critical History (n. 1), 304–6. 27 In 367: Plut. Vit. Cam. 40.3–4; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 14.9–10, cf. Edward T. Salmon, Samnium and the Samnites (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1967), 107, but contra Elizabeth Rawson, “Literary Sources for the Pre-Marian Army,” Papers of the British School at Rome 39 (1971): 27. Early third century: see ibid., 26, followed by Oakley, Commentary on Livy (n. 1), 2.454–56, and, further, below. 28 Cf. John Rich, “Warfare in Early Rome” (n. 7), 6.

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its own centurion and perhaps its own standard.29 Be that as it may, the creation of maniples should be viewed as distinct from the decision to marshal the maniples or centuries in three lines, which may have followed or co-existed with the practice of arraying the army in four lines.30 This step however may or may not be identical with the institution of the quincunx formation, with its distinctive gaps between the units. The positions and weaponry of the hastati, principes, and triarii in the earliest three line formation also constitute a notorious crux: to judge by their name, the principes ought to have formed the front line, not the second where we find them in the second century, while soldiers called hastati ought to have been armed with thrusting spears rather than the swords and pila that Polybius reports.31 Yet none of these innovations need have entailed the organization of the legion by age groups, so that by the mid-second century the hastati were composed of younger men, the principes of men in their prime, while the oldest recruits made up the triarii and the youngest and poorest served among the velites.32 The latter fought as a separate arm of the legion, a step which may go back to the original Servian reform or possibly constituted a subsequent development. The former is more likely if the ancient division between classis and infra classem distinguished between heavily and lightly armed soldiers. Yet such a distinction is closely bound up with the assumption that Servius’ reforms established a phalanx army, so that the classis / infra classem dichotomy separated the hoplites who would fight in the phalanx from those who would not.33 Take away the phalanx however, and it is not clear what the classis / infra classem division would actually have entailed in terms of weaponry or place in the line of battle. Sixthcentury Greek hoplites and lightly armed soldiers fought intermingled; there seems no reason why the classis could not have contained both. That situation will have ended when the Roman authorities were able to insist upon uniformity of armament among the various categories of 29 Standards: Polyb. 6.24.6, although Frank W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius, 3 vols. (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1957–79), 1.707 suggests that the second signifer was chosen merely as a substitute in case anything befell the first on the basis of Varro, Ling. 5.88. 30 App. Hisp. 1.1 for a four-line battle array, dated to 358. 31 Polyb. 6.23.1–16. On these problems see Rawson, “Literary Sources” (n. 27), 17–18. 32 Polyb. 6.23.1, cf. Liv. 8.8.6. 33 On this distinction, see Michel Humm, Appius Claudius Caecus. La république accomplie (Rome: École française de Rome, 2005), 256, 261 n. 106 for sources and bibliography.

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infantry within the legion. The hypothesis then is that a gradual process of transformation makes for a much more convincing way of seeing the change than the notion that at some point the Romans created a phalanx and then later junked it for maniples.34 Unfortunately, the state of our evidence makes it impossible to assign even an approximate chronology to these stages, much less associate them with specific events or military challenges. At a guess, the bulk of them ought to belong in the later fourth and early third centuries, when a number of other developments suggest that the Republic’s government began to exercise an increasing degree of control over its citizens. It incorporated the Latins into the citizen body after 338, established several new tribes in the ensuing decades, and oversaw an expansion of the ager Romanus, the relocation of several thousand citizens there, and the departure of many more thousands of Romans and allies to colonies throughout Italy. The abolition of nexum in 326 or 313 seems to belong to this development as well, in that this legislation intruded in a decisive way into what had previously been a private social arrangement between citizens.35 The regular collection of tributum to fund warfare in this period, even if it had previously been levied from time to time, likewise put the state into a new fiscal relationship with its citizens. Most interesting from this perspective are the efforts to restrict the ascendancy of a few particularly successful aristocrats through laws limiting re-election to the consulship. These attempts were only intermittently effective. The lex Genucia of 342 seems to have permitted election to the consulate only once every ten years and to have been observed for about two decades until the surrender of two Roman armies at the Caudine Forks in 321. Thereafter, a handful of leaders dominated the consulship for the remainder of the Samnite Wars, but iteration became increasingly rare after 289.36 On one level, the struggle for re-election to the consulship represents an effort by some aristocrats to increase their chances of gaining that honor by preventing a few men from monopolizing the office as 34 On the manipular reform cf. Humm, Appius Claudius (n. 33, 268–83) for discussion and extensive bibliography, who, however, assumes the existence of a phalanx from which the manipular army was developed. Humm also suggests a “prémanipulaire” stage in the transition to maniples (275), while Anne-Marie Adam, “Évolution de l’armement et des techniques de combat aux IVe et IIIe siècles, d’après les sources historiques et archèologiques,” in Guerre et diplomatie romaines (IVe et IIIe siècles). Pour un réexamen des sources, ed. Emmanuèle Claire and Silvie Pittia (Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l’université de Provence, 2006), 247, 250–51 suggests an even more gradual evolution. 35 Cornell, Beginnings of Rome (n. 1), 380–81. 36 Ibid., 371–72.

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well as an attempt by the senate as an institution to increase its control over the conduct of public affairs.37 Viewed from a somewhat different angle however it is clear from later cases in which a powerful figure succeeded in transgressing these limits that they often represented instances of popular initiative without the approval of the senate.38 In other words, efforts to limit the political success that any aristocrat could enjoy entailed a restriction on the citizens’ freedom to select whomever they wished to lead them to war. All of these developments, taken together, might seem to afford a suitable context for a growing regulation of how the citizens went to war. However, this is all merely speculation. The only thing we can be certain of is that by time of the Pyrrhic Wars the transformation of the army was all but complete. As Rawson noted some years ago, from this period comes our first apparently reliable evidence for the developed manipular army. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in a fragment probably from his account of the battle at Beneventum in 275, mentions that “the soldiers whom the Romans call the principes” were the mainstays of Roman battles.39 Rawson suggests that Dionysius’ ultimate source for the passage was a Greek author, possibly Hieronymus of Cardia, who was a contemporary of the events. Plutarch, also probably drawing on Hieronymus, recounts how a few years earlier at Asculum the Romans fought fiercely with their swords against the sarissas of Pyrrhus’ men. Plutarch also mentions the Roman army’s “retreats and parallel advances,” which may be an attempt to describe maniples in a three-line quincunx formation moving forward and falling back during the fighting.40 Elsewhere, he describes how Pyrrhus was wounded in the same battle by what appears to have been a pilum.41 So apparently the manipular army had arrived. But curiously, the Dionysius fragment recounts how the principes fought with “cavalry spears that they held fast in the middle with both hands.” Rawson takes this as evidence for the survival of phalanx tactics in the Romans’ second line of battle: after the hastati had softened up the enemy with their swords and pila, they “left it to the phalanx-like principes to break up

37 Rosenstein, Imperatores Victi (n. 18), 166–70; Cornell, Beginnings of Rome ( n. 1), 371–72. 38 Nathan Rosenstein, “Competiton and Crisis in Mid-Republican Rome.” Phoenix 47 (1993): 313–38. 39 Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 20.11.2, cf. Rawson, “Literary Sources” (n. 27), 24–25. 40 Plut. Vit. Pyrrh. 21.6. 41 Plut. Vit. Pyrrh. 21.9.

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[the enemy] formation.”42 But as this paper has tried to show, the likelihood that the manipular army ever evolved from a classical phalanx is very remote. Rather, the arresting feature of Dionysius’ description lies less in the spears themselves than in the fact that the principes needed two hands to use them. They must have been some type of sarissa. The spears that the triarii normally carried in Polybius’ day he describes as dorata, that is the typical thrusting spears that classical hoplites wielded with one hand while the other held their shields.43 No scholar has ever suggested that the putative archaic Roman phalanx was at any point armed like its Macedonian or Hellenistic counterparts. But as will be recalled, in the passage quoted at the beginning of this paper Livy describes the Roman army before maniples were introduced as arrayed in “a phalanx like the Macedonian phalanges.”44 What may have come down to Livy therefore is a rather garbled memory of what Dionysius reports at Beneventum: that for this battle the Romans, having been beaten twice before by Pyrrhus’ mercenaries armed with the sarissa, decided to arm their principes with the same weapon to counter the mass-assault that Pyrrhus had employed at Asculum.45 Although we know of no precedent for this sort of ploy, there is something of a sequel. Half a century later in 225, Polybius reports that the military tribunes in Flaminius’ army ordered the triarii to pass their spears forward to the front ranks in anticipation of an assault by a much larger force of Gauls.46 What happened at Beneventum has the appearance of a similar improvisation, one of the many adjustments that the Roman army made over the period between the mid-sixth and the early third century.47 Some were soon discarded; others, having proved their worth, were incorporated in a long evolution that culminated finally in the manipular legions that would go on to conquer an empire for Rome.

42

Rawson, “Literary Sources” (n. 27), 25. Polyb. 6.23.16. 44 Above n. 2. 45 Plut. Vit. Pyrrh. 21.6–7. 46 Polyb. 2.33.1–4. On Polybius’ claim that the spears were intended to cause the Gauls’ swords to bend and become useless, see Walbank, Commentary on Polybius (n. 28), 1.209. 47 Cf. Adam, “Évolution,” (n. 34), 250–51. 43

CAESAR AND THE HELVETIANS David Potter The Helvetian campaign was the turning point of Caesar’s career. His previous experience of command consisted of his term as pro-praetorian governor in Hispania Ulterior, with two (ultimately three) legions against enemies that appear to have lacked coherent organization. That he should have been successful is scarcely surprising, for his operations appear to have been little more than organized raids designed to win treasure and some credit at Rome with minimal risk.1 The situation that he would confront in Gaul during the spring of 58 bce would be very different, and it was at this time that he appears to have begun to learn the art of command. Thus while the essential message of the Commentarii may be to demonstrate Caesar’s innate possession of the virtus required of a general, the text reveals, subconsciously, the growth of Caesar as a general as he absorbed the lessons of contemporary warfare. While readers are meant to feel ‘instinctive genius,’ what we may also see is the refinement of the ability to command through trial and error.2 Amongst the unusual aspects of Caesar’s early career was the fact that he did very little military service. Although he might have had plenty of opportunity if he had chosen to serve (the account of youth in the biographical tradition occludes closer connections with the Sullan elite than might have been expected of the son-in-law of Cinna), he appears 1 For discussion of the Spanish campaign see now A. Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2006), 148–51. 2 A. Goldsworthy, “‘Instinctive Genius’: The Depiction of Caesar the General,” in Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter: The War Commentaries as Political Instruments, ed. K. Welch and A. Powell (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 1998), 193–219. On the issue of reliability, I am in general agreement with Goldsworthy, Caesar (n. 1), 185–90 that Caesar’s ability to distort the narrative of actual actions was limited, though the interpretation of events is manifestly tendentious. The point that, beyond the rhetoric, the Commentarii also reflect Caesar’s progressive development as a general, is properly stressed by K. Kagan, The Eye of Command (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 2006), 148–51. Good recent studies of the rhetorical aspects of Caesar’s writings are A. M. Riggsby, Caesar in Gaul and Rome: War in Words (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 2006); W. Batstone and C. Damon, Caesar’s Civil War (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2006). Classic analyses of Caesar’s dishonesty remain M. Rambaud, L’art de la déformation historique dans les Commentaires de César 2nd ed. (Paris: Les Belles Lettres,1966) and J. Collins, “Caesar as a Political Propagandist,” ANRW 1.1 (1972): 922–66.

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to have deliberately chosen to avoid service in areas where he would confront Marian armies.3 With exception of brief service under Marcus Thermus at the siege of Mitylene, Caesar had not held any of the junior commands typical of Romans who might aspire to command armies of their own. For Caesar, the command of armies against serious opponents was something that he knew only at second hand. To a greater degree than his narrative admits, the conflict with the Helvetians involved significant ‘on-the-job’ training for Caesar as a commanding officer. It appears that consciously and sub-consciously, Caesar turned to the example of his uncle, Gaius Marius, whose tactics proved insufficiently well developed for the army of his own day.4 On the level of propaganda Caesar’s desire to present his campaign as a parallel to the campaigns of Marius against the Cimbrians and the Teutons was no more than a continuation of his use of Marius’ reputation as part of his personal political fashioning. In addition, the fact that the Tigurini, part of the Helvetian confederation, destroyed a consular army in 107 gave Caesar the chance to claim that he was exacting personal revenge.5 Such references are plainly conscious elements of the account, and remain so into the account of the campaigns of 57, where Caesar reminds his readers that the Belgae were the only Gallic people to resist the Cimbrians and Teutons, and that the Nervii were in fact related to those paragons of barbarism.6 It is perhaps significant that no further reference is made to the Cimbrians and Teutons until book seven, when they are adduced in the speech that Critognatus gives at Alesia, advising his fellows to follow the example of their ancestors in the period of the Cimbrian invasion by eating their dead, and by a sort of rhetorical curiosity, equating the Romans with their former bogeymen.7 As Caesar gained confidence that he could justify his actions simply through his own success, he ceased to recall the distant past to justify himself. Such variations in style are a result of the serial composition.8 More serious issues arise with the specific narrative of the campaign. 3 For the nature of the biographical tradition see H. Strasburger, Caesars Eintritt in die Geschichte (Munich: Neuer Filserverlag1938), 72–80. 4 The possibility of Marian influence on Caesar is adduced by J. Harmand, L’armée et le soldat à Rome de 107 à 50 avant notre ère (Paris: A.J. Picard, 1967), 492. 5 Caes. B Gall. 1.7.4; 13.2; 14.3. For more on this theme see Riggsby, Caesar in Gaul (n. 2), 176–78. 6 Caes. B Gall. 2.29.4. 7 Caes. B Gall. 7.77. 8 T. P. Wiseman, “The Publication of the De Bello Gallico,” in Welch and Powell, Artful Reporter (n. 2), 1–10; for a review of different positions, see Riggsby, Caesar in Gaul (n. 2), 9–14.

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Plutarch’s Life of Marius offers a key to understanding what may be regarded as subconscious elements of Caesar’s narrative. In describing the campaigns against the Cimbrians and the Teutons, Plutarch plainly has very different traditions for the decisive battles of Aquae Sextiae and Vercellae (102 and 101 respectively). For the second of these actions he exploits, directly or indirectly, the memoirs of Sulla and Lutatius Catulus, impugning Marius’ claim that his generalship led to the victory.9 Since neither was present at Aquae Sextiae, Plutarch appears to have had a Marian tradition for that battle. In this case Marius’ campaign opens with a successful attack on the Ambrones in a river, who are explicitly described as being responsible for the Roman defeat at Arausio, a parallel to Caesar’s description of the Tigurini, whom Caesar defeated at the crossing of the Arar before the main battle.10 Between this action and the final battle outside Bibracte, Caesar attempted to employ a variation of Marius’ tactics at Aquae Sextiae by deploying two legions with Titus Labienus so that they could attack the Helvetians from ambush while he engaged them with his other four legions (the action failed due to incompetent scouting by a subordinate). At Aquae Sextiae itself, Marius awaited the attack of the Teutons, who charged uphill at the Romans, just as the Helvetians did at Bibracte.11 The main difference between the engagements is that Marius laid an ambush for the Teutons that was sprung as the main attack faltered, while Caesar was himself surprised by the Boii and Tulingi, as he pursued the main body of the Helvetians.12 The difference in these details should reassure us that Caesar has not simply repeated a narrative borrowed from the generation of Marius as his own battle description, but is rather describing a series of military actions that were consciously modeled on the narrative of Marius’ operations. From Maniples to Cohorts: The Tactical Transformation of the Roman Army The army that Caesar commanded in Gaul was a product of changes that had been taking place in the course of the previous century, as the structures of the military forces that had defeated Hannibal and humbled

9 10 11 12

Sulla fr. 4–6 Chantraine; Catulus fr. 1–3 Chantraine. Plut. Vit. Mar. 19; Caes. B Gall. 1.12.3. Plut. Vit. Mar. 20.8. Plut. Vit. Mar. 20–21; Caes. B Gall. 1.25.

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the kings of the Hellenistic world were gradually altered in the face of new threats. The tale of this transformation is of some importance both for the question of how major institutions of the Roman Republic could develop, and for the issue of how the army was able to play a decisive role in the transformation of the Republican system of government. While Polybius’ description of the army around 150 provides a touchstone from which to begin the exploration of the development of the Caesarian army, it must also be admitted that it is a unique document. We have nothing like it for the army of the next century, with the result that, in order to understand what was happening, we have to rely on battle descriptions (which, indeed, we must also use, to supplement Polybius’ vision of the earlier army). Battle descriptions can be a mixed blessing. They may, as in the case of Caesar, give us an idea of how Caesar thought that good (and occasionally bad) military operations worked. They will often do so despite the omission of basic points that the general would take for granted and, since they reflect the general’s primary interest (himself), they will only coincidentally give us a soldier’s eye view of combat. That said, the Caesarian battle description was at least the product of a participant who desired to present himself as a credible (if ingenious) narrator. They may not offer up the whole truth, or even a very full account of what happened, but they will, at least, tend to avoid anachronisms such as reference to institutions that may no longer exist or misinterpretation of contemporary practice. This will be the best that we can do for the mid-first century. The same qualities of generally decent, reasonably accurate, narration also seem characteristic of Polybian descriptions, which also, occasionally, offer a perspective on Roman practice derived from a non-Roman point of view a century earlier. These narratives, when taken with the discussion of the army in book six may therefore be taken as a reasonable picture of standards of conduct in the first half of the second century bce, and allow for some reconstruction of the underlying theories of Roman generalship. Descriptions in Plutarch and Appian likewise seem to derive (when not, in the case of Plutarch, overwhelmed by Sullan propaganda) from informed contemporaries in the century that separates Polybius from Caesar, allowing some impression of the tactics that were employed even though they might fall well short of the kind of detail required to attempt the minute-by-minute recreations that some historians now favor of events in, for instance, the American Civil War. When all these sources are taken together, a reasonable outline of military practices may emerge, though it is important to note that one must allow that the

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key figure in determining what any army actually did on the battlefield was the general, and various generals in this period had quite different preferences.13 The army described by Polybius is itself changed from the earliest manipular legion, for which we have evidence from Plutarch’s Life of Pyrrhus and Dionsyius of Halicarnassus (and a variety of antiquarian sources) in that the infantry has supplemented the spears that were the principle weapon in the early period with the Spanish sword (probably in the wake of the First Punic War), and the adoption of a heavier throwing spear (described by Polybius) that may have been developed in the course of the second century (on this point we simply do not have enough information to know for certain).14 The crucial features of the manipular legion—the quadripartite division of infantry into velites, hastati, principes and triarii, and the election of centurions to command the maniples from the ranks—were plainly intact in 150. They were no longer so in the army of Caesar.15 The major changes that had taken place were a tendency to use the cohort of five to six hundred men rather than the maniple of one hundred and twenty men as the main tactical unit, the elimination of light infantry (usually, though not in all cases) from the body of the legion, changes in the mode of recruitment for the army as a whole, and the transformation of the centurionate, so that officers were socially distinct from the men they commanded.16 13 The account offered here differs from the engaging discussion in A. Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War, 100 bc–ad 200 (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1996), 171–247 in that Goldsworthy’s mixing of evidence from different periods has the effect of creating an idealized “Roman unit’s battle,” while I will be suggesting that this may not be the best way to treat the army of the late Republic. 14 For the earliest manipular legion see E. Meyer, “Das römische Manipularheer, seine Entwicklung und seine Vorstufen,” Kleine Schriften 2nd ed. (Halle: N. Niemeyer 1924), 2, 231–85 (still invaluable); E. Rawson “The Literary Sources for the Pre-Marian Army,” Papers of the British School at Rome 39 (1971): 13–31 = idem, Roman Culture and Society: Collected Papers (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1991), 34–57; S. P. Oakley, A Commentary on Livy Books vi–x (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997–2005), 2.451–66. On the Polybian pilum see Goldsworthy, Roman Army at War (n. 13), 199. 15 See M. J. V. Bell, “Tactical Reform in the Roman Republican Army,” Historia 14 (1965): 404–22, still useful in defining the discussion; P. Erdkamp, “The Transformation of the Roman Army in the Second Century bc,” in War and Territory in the Roman World / Guerra y territorio en el mundo romano, ed. T. N. del Hoyo and I. Arrayás, BAR 1530 (Oxford: John and Erica Hedges 2006), 41–51; idem, “Polybius and Livy on the Allies in the Roman army,” in The Impact of the Roman Army (200 bc–ad 476), ed. L. de Blois and E. Lo Cascio (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2007), 47–74. For recent summaries see also N. Sekunda, “Military Forces,” in CHGRW, 1.356–7 (more accepting of Bell’s analysis than will appear below) and B. Rankov, “Military Forces,” in ibid. 2.30–32. 16 On this point, generally omitted in recent discussion, see Harmand, L’armée et le soldat à Rome (n. 4), 349–50.

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The fact that most of our detailed information for the army between the time of Polybius and that of Caesar is concentrated in the period of Marius’ wars with the Cimbrians and Teutons has perhaps elevated that period to an importance it does not necessarily deserve in the history of the Roman army. Indeed, the points stressed by the Elder Pliny, Plutarch, and Sallust in their discussions of what Marius achieved—the enrolment of men from the lowest census class, enhanced physical conditioning, the elimination of subsidiary standards, and a redesign of the pilum—do not amount to anything like a thorough restructuring of the Roman army. Moreover, coincidental details suggest that Marius was not the only Roman interested in military reform at that time. The army that he chose to take over in southern Gaul had received special instruction in swordsmanship under its previous commander, Rutilius Rufus, who had introduced training techniques from a gladiatorial ludus (these would seem to have remained a feature for the next century to judge from the fact that Caesar is described as acting like a lanista in shouting out advice on weapons handling to troops in North Africa).17 The reform of legionary standards that Pliny attributes to Marius is manifestly connected with actions taken by other generals at roughly the same time. Indeed, in his discussion, Pliny says that: Gaius Marius assigned an eagle to each legion as its special symbol in his second consulship. Even before then it had been their first symbol, with four others—wolves, minotaurs, horses, and boars—going in front of their respective ranks; a few years earlier the custom had come in that the others should be left in camp and only the eagle taken into battle. Marius got rid of those emblems altogether.18

Pliny’s statement that the other symbols were carried “in front of their respective ranks,” makes it plain that they were implicitly linked with the old quadripartite organization, and that a shift away from that style was in train before Marius’ second consulship, though it would appear, that such changes were matter of an individual general’s discretion. As early as 211, in his description of the battle of Ilipa, Polybius observes that 17

Val. Max. 2.3.2; see also [Caes.] B Afr. 71 (n. 27 below). Plin. NH 10.4.16: Romani eam legionibus Gaius Marius in secundo consulatu suo proprie dicavit. erat et antea prima cum quattuor aliis. lupi, minotauri, equi, aprique singulos ordines antiebant. paucis ante annis sola in aciem portari coepta erat, reliqua in castris reliquebanntur. Marius in totum ea abdicavit. In light of this the novel view of J. E. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2005), 228–29 that the cohort was a first century development under Greek influence is unlikely. 18

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units of three maniples are “a formation of infantry that is called a cohort by the Romans.” The observation that three maniples are one cohort probably goes back to his source since a three-maniple formation does not seem to be an obvious or direct ancestor of the later cohort, which, in any event, derives linguistically from a root indicating shared occupation of space.19 It is more likely, given the fact that units for the auxiliary legions were raised by locality, that a cohort initially meant a unit from one location that (probably) contained maniples of all four troop types.20 The move from maniple to cohort was not universal. It appears, for instance, that when Metellus fought Jugurtha in 108, he did so with an army drawn up in the old style. In this case, Sallust’s discussion of the opening stages of the battle of Muthul includes the detail that “changing his formation on the right side, which was nearest to the enemy, Metellus drew up the battle line in three ranks,” which may be read to imply that the column was proceeding in traditional order of march with the hastati on the left. Sallust then does also say that Metellus interspersed archers and slingers amongst his maniples, though this point should probably not be pressed since the word is used only twice elsewhere in the Bellum Jugurthinum, once in this same chapter with reference to Jugurtha’s army, and elsewhere with reference to Marius’ dispositions. The fact that even Caesar will use the word for stylistic variation suggests that no weight can be placed on its usage in first-century authors for the history of Roman military institutions.21 A better case for manipular

19

OLD s.v. “cohors.” For units of allies at this period see Polyb. 6.21.4; 26.6; recent work, see Erdkamp, “Polybius and Livy” (n. 15), 47–74, who insists that allied units were organized so that they would fight as if they were Roman, which is likely true; the point is also extractable from Livy 8.11.14–17. Our actual knowledge of the way that allied cohorts were organized is admittedly nil—see the comment of Meyer, “Das römische Manipularheer” (n. 14), 222—and the best evidence is quite likely the meaning of the word. It may also be significant that there was no standard size for an auxiliary legion—for the range of variation see A. Afzelius, Die römische Kriegsmacht während der Auseinandersetzung mit den hellenistischen Grossmachten (Copenhagen: Aarhus Univ. Press, 1944), 63. 21 Sall. Iug. 49.6: ibi commutatis ordinibus in dextro latere, quod proximum hostis erat, triplicibus subsidiis aciem instruxit, inter manipulos funditores et sagittarios dispertit. For changes in formation from march order see Polyb. 6.40.11–14. Compare also Sall. Iug. 49.2: Dein singulas turmas et manipulos circumiens…; Iug.100.2: primos et extremos cum expeditis manipulis tribunos locaverat. For Caesar’s usage see Caes. B Gall. 2.26, 40; B Civ. 1.76 and 2.28. The situation seems to be complicated by the fact that manipularis evidently remained in common usage to mean “fellow soldier,” see especially Caes. B Gall. 7.47, 50; B Civ. 2.27 and 3.91. For the argument that Metellus used traditional unit divisions, based on the text of Sall. Iug. 49.6, see Bell, “Tactical Reform” (n. 15), 415–16. 20

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organisation can be based on the mention of expedites manipuli or ‘light armed troops’ in Marius’ army who are under the command of military tribunes.22 Tribunes could lead multiple maniples in battle in the Polybian army, and the fact that these men are explicitly distinguished from the slingers, archers, and Ligurians (all light troops outside legionary organization) would suggest that the velites had not yet been banished completely from late second-century legions. This should perhaps not be surprising since Marius’ army was essentially that of Metellus with the supplementum including men below the usual census qualification that Marius had brought with him. Even if it is correct to see Metellus’ army as using traditional tactics, Pliny’s statement about the abandonment of traditional standards in battle should suggest that Metellus’ practice was the exception rather than the rule. It does not, however, mean that all armies subsequently followed Marius’ lead or that velites were entirely removed from the legions, with their role on the battlefield being taken by auxiliaries. In 49 bce, Caesar confronted an army that was largely trained to fight as velites, though in this case it suits his purpose to describe the tactics of his enemy as being “barbarous”: This was the style of fighting that their soldiers employed: they would rush forward at first with great speed, daringly taking some position, not maintaining their ranks to any great extent, they would fight dispersed in open order; if pressed, they do not think it disgraceful to retreat and abandon the position, a style of fighting to which they had become accustomed in fighting continuously with the Lusitanians and other barbarians; it generally happens that a soldier becomes accustomed to whatever place he is stationed, so that he acts more in accord with the customs of the area.23 See also L. Keppie, The Making of the Roman Army (London: Batsford, 1984), 64–65 for a model of the late Republican cohort based on earlier maniples. For the issue of whether maniples continued to be significant for the internal organization of the legion (a point upon which deep disagreement is possible), see M. Speidel, The Framework of an Imperial Legion: The Fifth Annual Caerleon Lecture in honorem Aquilae Legionis II Augustae (Cardiff: National Museum of Wales, 1992), 10 and 40 n. 10; although he is concerned with the imperial period, it does appear that the titles of centurions in Caesarian legions did look back to the manipular structure, see especially M. Radin, “The Promotion of Centurions in Caesar’s Army,” CJ 10 (1914–15): 304 on Caes. B Civ. 1.46, and 307–9 on CIL 2.4147; 3.1480, 3846, 13360; 8.2877, 2938, 3001; 14.4007. 22 Sall. Iug. 100.2. 23 Caes. B Civ. 1.44.1–2: genus erat pugnae militum illorum, ut magno impetu primo procurrerent, audacter locum caperent, ordines suos non magnopere servarent, rari dispersique pugnarent; si premerentur, pedem referre et loco excedere non turpe existimarent cum Lusitanis reliquisque barbaris barbaro genere quodam pugnae assuefacti; quod fere fit, quibus quisque in locis miles inveteraverit, ut multum earum regionum consuetudine moveatur. On rhetorical aspects of this passage see Batstone and Damon, Caesar’s Civil War (n. 2), 149 and 153.

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In terms of the history of Roman letters, it is possible that Caesar owed elements of this description to a contemporary, but the circumstances of the campaign suggest nonetheless that he was not inventing a description of the battle. His men were in trouble precisely because Pompey’s men fought differently than other legionaries (implying that they were un-Roman for doing so merely drives home the point). In terms of the history of the Roman army, the significant point is that Caesar could say that some Roman legionaries fought in a very different style from his own. It must have been conceivable (or, indeed, well known) to readers that the use of the legionary as a light infantryman did not disappear in Spain even though, elsewhere, light infantry were removed from the main force of the legions whose soldiers were trained in a very particular series of battlefield maneuvers. The fact that both Caesarian and Pompeian armies (in Greece) appear to have been trained in these tactics suggests that these had, by and large, become the mainstream tactics of armies outside of Spain. For these men, the standard phases of an infantry battle clearly envisaged only lines of infantry armed with pila advancing against each other. Perhaps the clearest description of what this meant is offered in the account of the battle of Munda in the Bellum Hispaniense, where the author writes that “the battle cry and the advance, the things that most often terrify the enemy, were relatively equal; when they turned from these two aspects of battle to the actual fighting, a great number of the enemy, smitten with pila, fell in a mass”.24 In his own accounts of the battle with the Helvetians, Ariovistus, and Pompey at Pharsalus, Caesar makes it clear that he regarded the throwing of pila as a distinctive phase of an attack—hence it was worth noting that the Germans attacked so fast at Vesontio that there was no time to hurl pila, and that his men could observe the impact of their pila volleys on the Helvetians.25 At Pharsalus Caesar and Pompey drew up their armies at a distance that was double that of an expected advance into battle (hence Caesar’s point that when his men realized that Pompey’s men were not

24 [Caes.] B Hisp. 31: congressus enim et clamor, quibus rebus maxime hostis conterretur, in conlatu pari erat condicione. ita ex utroque genere cum parem virtutem ad bellandum contulissent, pilorum missu fixa cumulatur et concidit adversariorum multitudo. In his analysis of the “unit’s battle” Goldsworthy places the “advance” after the discharge of pila as a distinct phase of combat, in Roman Army at War (n. 13), 201–6. This is selfevidently legitimate since an advance followed the discharge, but it is notable that it does not seem to be the way that a Roman would have divided up the phases of combat, which involves two psychological stages and two combat phases. 25 For various accounts of the potentially devastating impact of the pilum phase see Goldsworthy, Roman Army at War (n. 13), 197–201.

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advancing, they stopped half way to collect themselves). Caesar also makes it plain that this distance was calculated to be that which would end in the hurling of pila and final assault with the gladius as he says that Pompey’s men “were up to the task: they received the thrown weapons and the attack of the legions, they kept their ranks, hurled their own pila and reverted to the sword.”26 How different was all this from the behavior of a legion in the time of Hannibal? The answer is that it was substantial, and that the key difference between the two periods arose from different views of the way to use space on a battlefield. Issues of the use of space are critical in all periods of Roman warfare. In the passage from the Bellum Africum mentioned earlier, Caesar is issuing instructions connected with the use of the ground: In the face of this sort of enemy, Caesar did not command his own forces like a general commanding a veteran army and a victor in great actions, but like a lanista training new recruits as gladiators: he told them how many paces they should withdraw from the enemy, and how they should turn to face their opponents in as little space as possible, how they should advance, how they should withdraw and threaten to charge, and almost in what place and how they should throw their weapons.27

Indeed, the action of Caesar’s troops at Pharsalus who “learned and experienced from previous battles stopped of their own will in about the middle of the space between the two armies” is only comprehensible if they had been drilled to expect a certain action once they had moved a specific number of paces.28 At the same time, when Caesar’s men are in trouble, that difficulty tends to involve loss of control of the space

26 Caes. B Civ. 3.93.2: Neque vero Pompeiani rei defuerunt. Nam et tela missa exceperunt et impetum legionum tulerunt et ordines suos servarunt pilisque missis ad gladios redierunt. 27 [Caes.], Bell. Afr. 71.1: Caesar contra eiusmodi hostium genera copias suas non ut imperator exercitum veteranum victoremque maximis rebus gestis, sed ut lanista tirones gladiatores condocefacere: quot pedes se reciperent ab hoste et quemadmodum obversi adversariis et in quantulo spatio resisterent, modo procurrerent modo recederent comminarenturque impetum, ac prope quo loco et quemadmodum tela mitterent praecipere. 28 Caes. B Civ. 3.93.1: sed nostri milites signo dato cum infestis pilis procurrissent atque animum advertissent non concurri a Pompeianis, usu periti ac superioribus pugnis sua sponte cursum represserunt, ne consumptis viribus adpropinquarent, parvoque intermisso temporis spatio ac rursus renovato cursu pila miserunt celeriterque, ut erat praeceptum a Caesare, gladios strinxerunt. The phrase celeriterque, ut erat praeceptum a Caesare suggests that Caesar had his own view as to how long the pilum phase should last and restricted it because he felt that his men’s attack with the sword would be decisive (and lessen the opportunity for Pompey’s less-skilled men to do serious damage to his own line from a distance).

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necessary to fight effectively. Thus at the battle of the Sambre he notes that the soldiers of the twelfth legion were “crowded together and an impediment to themselves,” while at Carrhae, a sign that Publius Crassus’ men were doomed was that they were “crowded into a small area,” a fate that would later befall the army as a whole as Parthian heavy cavalry kept its members “in a narrow space”.29 Polybius had earlier noted that a Roman soldier was expected to control the three feet on either side of him, and that, at the end of the day at Cannae, the Romans, unable to maintain their formation in maniples were huddled together and did not fight back as they were killed.30 The Move from Velites to Auxilia From Caesar’s description of the Pompeian army in Spain, as well as from the description of the peril into which his army in Africa stumbled, it appears that he did not expect light infantry to occupy a significant space on the battlefield, though he does make it clear, not only in the case of his Spanish adventure, but also in the case of the defeat of Sabinus and Cotta, that the legions of his sort could be placed in grave danger if their enemies insisted on pelting them with weapons from a distance rather than fighting head-on. This fact is also central to Plutarch’s narrative of the destruction of Crassus’ army at Carrhae. It appears from Crassus’ response to the Parthian appearance that he viewed the purpose of the light infantry to be simply clearing away the light troops from the other side so that the heavy infantry could get to grips with its rivals (it never seemed to have occurred to Crassus that he might confront a foe who would inconveniently fail to alter his own traditional tactics to conform to those that might readily result in his own annihilation).31 Caesar himself obviously did not include enough light infantry to be able to handle swarming attacks by his enemies in Spain or North Africa and, throughout his time in Gaul he seems to have experimented with various different kinds of units.32 For Caesar, light troops were not envisioned as playing a role in the direct confrontation between main battle lines—and if there were only so many mouths one could support

29 30 31 32

Caes. B Gall. 2.25.1; Plut. Vit. Crass. 25.5, 27.2. Polyb. 18.30.6 and 3.116.10–11. Plut. Vit. Crass. 24.4. Harmand, L’armée et le soldat à Rome (n. 4), 45.

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on campaign, those spots would not be given over to troops he did not consider important for winning a decisive battle. Is this why Labienus, who knew his tendencies better than anyone, raised so many light troops for the African campaign? Caesar’s view of the value of light infantry marks a radical difference between his style and that of Roman generals about whom Polybius wrote. Polybian descriptions of major battles in the war with Hannibal stress the role of velites advancing in front of the main battle line in beginning the attack of the legions. Indeed, in so doing, he expressly distinguishes between the velites at the battle of Ilerda and other light infantry, writing: For this reason, Scipio, receiving the slingers through the intervals of his units divided them between each flank, behind the men who had been placed there; the velites in front, he placed the cavalry behind them.33

At Baecula, Polybius also distinguishes between velites and a “select group of infantry” from the totality of the “light troops” who held the center of the line (probably including the rest of the velites, though this is not made explicit, and Livy’s version of these events is too vague to enable any conclusion to be drawn).34 At Zama Scipio used the velites to shield the army as a whole from the impact of Hannibal’s elephant charge.35 Although it is hard to be absolutely certain about this, given the Carthaginian slant to the narrative, it appears that Sempronius Longus opened the battle of Ticinum by sending his velites to clear the area in front of the heavy infantry for an attack.36 In general terms velites seem

33 Pol. 11.22.10: τὸ τηνικαῦτα δὲ διαδεξάμενος ὁ Πόπλιος διὰ τῶν διαστημάτων ἐν ταῖς σημαίαις εἴσω τοὺς ἀκροβολιζομένους, καὶ μερίσας ἐφ’ ἑκάτερον κέρας ὀπίσω τῶν παρατεταγμένων, πρῶτον μὲν τοὺς γροσφομάχους, ἐπὶ δὲ τούτοις ἐπιβάλλει τοὺς ἱππεῖς, τὰς μὲν ἀρχὰς μετωπηδὸν ποιούμενος τὴν ἔφδον… 34 Pol 10. 39.1: τοὺς δὲ γροσφομάχους καὶ τῶν πεζῶν τοὺς ἐπιλέκτους ἐξαφιεὶς ἐκέλευε προσβάλλειν πρὸς τὴν ὀφρὺν καὶ καταπειράζειν τῆς τῶν πολεμίων ἐφεδρείας; 3: κατὰ δὲ τὸν καιρὸν τοῦτον ὁ Πόπλιος τοὺς μὲν εὐζώνους ἅπαντας ἐπαφῆκε, συντάξας βοηθεῖν τοῖς προκινδυνεύουσι 35 Pol. 15.9.9–10: τὰ δὲ διαστήματα τῶν πρώτων σημαιῶν ἀνεπλήρωσε ταῖς τῶν γροσφομάχων σπείραις, παραγγείλας τούτοις προκινδυνεύειν, ἐὰν δ’ ἐκβιάζωνται κατὰ τὴν τῶν θηρίων ἔφοδον, ἀποχωρεῖν, 36 Pol. 3.73.1–3: ἤδη δὲ σύνεγγυς ὄντων ἀλλήλοις, συνεπλέκησαν οἱ προκείμενοι τῶν δυνάμεων εὔζωνοι. τούτου δὲ συμβάντος οἱ μὲν Ῥωμαῖοι κατὰ πολλοὺς τρόπους ἠλαττοῦντο, τοῖς δὲ Καρχηδονίοις ὑπερδέξιον γίνεσθαι συνέβαινε τὴν χρείαν, ἅτε δὴ τῶν μὲν Ῥωμαίων πεζακοντιστῶν κακοπαθούντων ... These troops are presumably the 6000 javelin-armed infantry of 3.72.1; the stress on javelins makes it likely that they were velites.

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to have been used to set up the attack of the more heavily armed men behind them, and they could indeed withdraw through the gaps between maniples. Light-armed troops in Caesarian armies seem simply to have functioned to keep other light troops away from the main lines of the legions: there were no men occupying the ground in front of Caesarian legions when they began their advance into combat. The difference in the use of light troops also suggests a change in the perception of the way that a battle would be won. As battle descriptions of the Caesarian age make plain, battles involving large numbers of light infantry tended to be battles where one side aimed at wearing down the other. This would also appear to have been an essential aspect of battle in the fourth and third centuries where the system of line reliefs that Polybius describes as fundamental to Roman tactics was plainly designed to exhaust an enemy—a point also made by Livy in his description of the battle of Veseris, a fiction that was designed, it seems, to take advantage of the description that he had used for the manipular army.37 Set battles in the age of Caesar appear to have been envisioned as much shorter events, at least when Celtic armies were involved since it seems to have been felt that once the first attack was broken (if it was broken) then victory would follow quite rapidly.38 Indeed, this perception of the nature of battle with Celts goes back to the age of Polybius who makes precisely this point.39 The problem, of course, was that one had to be able to break the initial assault, and the set battle involved risks that Caesar himself would soon cease to be willing to run under anything but exceptional circumstances, and that other generals had found ways of circumventing in the decades before he arrived in Gaul. The change in the nature of battle between the time of Polybius and that of Caesar—everywhere but, perhaps, Spain—is likely a consequence

37 Livy 8.10.1–7: P. Sabin, “The Mechanics of Battle in the Second Punic War,” in The Second Punic War: A Reappraisal, ed. T. Cornell, B. Rankov and P. Sabin, BICS supplement 67 (London: Institute of Classical Studies, Univ. of London, School of Advanced Study, 1996), 65–66; see also D. Hoyos, “The Age of Overseas Expansion,” in A Companion to the Roman Army, ed. P. Erdkamp (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2007), 71–73, who notes that some battles were shorter—e.g. Pydna—but this depended upon the tactics adopted by the enemy. Note the astute observation of L. Rawlings, “Army and Battle During the Conquest of Italy,” in ibid. 57 that “the move to maniples was a move towards missile combat.” See also the valuable observation of Meyer, “Das römische Manipularheer” (n. 14), 220–21 on the significance of the integration of velites into the basic structure of the legion as compared to the use of light troops in Greek armies; and Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts (n. 18), 180 for a good discussion. 38 Goldsworthy, Roman Army at War (n. 13), 227. 39 Polyb. 2.33.2.

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of the fact that the major threats faced by Rome in the age of Marius were manifestly from Celtic tribes, and, in the next generation, initially from other Roman armies, which may have influenced the move away from set battles to ones where field works played a greater part (see infra 325–8), just as battles with Celts had influenced a move towards the tighter formations that were characteristic of the armies for which cohorts were the basic tactical unit. The change in these battle tactics was accompanied by an equally significant change in the nature of the infantryman and the officer corps. Changes in Legionary Recruitment There were two changes in the nature of recruitment in the course of the century before Caesar. The first, which is poorly—and inaccurately— documented is connected with the social status of soldiers. The second, even more poorly documented is the move towards armies entirely recruited from specific areas rather than by social class (essentially the Italian model of recruitment in the mid-Republic as opposed to the Roman mode based on the dilectus in which age group and class predominated over location).40 It is Sallust who connects the decline in the social status of soldiers with Gaius Marius, and the destruction of the Republic, saying that in 107: [Marius] in the meantime enrolled soldiers, not as was the custom of our ancestors, from the classes, but as was the pleasure of each person, many of them from the lowest class. Some say that he did that because there was a lack of good men, others say that the decision stemmed from the ambition of the consul. Whoever is poorest is most useful to a man seeking power since, having no property of his own, he has no concern for it, and considers anything honorable for which there is pay.41

40 For the mid-Republican dilectus see P.A. Brunt, Italian manpower, 225 bc–ad 14, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 631–33; there is, however, no obvious reason to doubt that the dilectus regularly took place at Rome well after 150, see passages adduced in the next two nn. 41 Sall. Iug. 86.2–3: ipse interea milites scribere, non more maiorum neque ex classibus, sed uti libido cuiusque erat, capite censos plerosque. id factum alii inopia bonorum, alii per ambitionem consulis memorabant, quod ab eo genere celebratus auctusque erat et homini potentiam quaerenti egentissimus quisque opportunissimus, cui neque sua cara, quippe quae nulla sunt, et omnia cum pretio honesta videntur. Compare Plut. Vit. Mar. 9.1–2, possibly not deriving from this passage but an independent witness to the existence of the tradition. See also Harmand, L’ armée (n. 4), 13, noting that the requirement for new recruits would have been especially heavy given recent losses. Gell. NA 16.10.14

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The problems with this analysis have long been recognized: the traditional census qualification for an assiduus, or man registered above the lowest class, had been so eroded by the end of the second century that the gap between the assiduus and the proletarius had become virtually indistinguishable—the final change coming, perhaps in the 120s, when the census qualification was lowered to 375 sesterces.42 The second point is that since this was only a supplementum to the army in Africa, the numbers were not very large. These points are both not self-evidently united to the final point, which is the assumption that soldiers who were now poor were more likely to follow an ambitious general. The issue is in fact the observable one, which is that armies twenty years after 107 were willing to follow generals against the Republic. This might indeed be the result of a sense that no actual recompense for their labors was forthcoming from the government of the senate and people. It may also have been reinforced by the second development alluded to above: the tendency towards recruitment of entire, large-scale, units from individual districts. Although the evidence for the middle Republic is ambivalent, it would appear likely that the traditional style of dilectus, whereby men were summoned to Rome for incorporation into the legions remained the norm—that would explain why tribunes could be involved in trying to control the actions of consuls in what was plainly a series of urban theatrical events during the dilectus in the 140s and 130s—and certainly the supplementum recruited by Marius in 107 appears to have been gathered at Rome.43 There could be exceptions, of course, in times of emergency, but in most years there were not so many men required that the business could not be carried out as Polybius describes it. This changed with the Social War.44 With all of Italy now liable for conscription, entire legions were raised from individual districts, and it seems quite likely that this situation had been obtained during the war when locally raised Italian armies had fought Roman forces that in

knows of a tradition different from that of Sallust that would place the recruitment of capite censi in the Cimbric war. It is impossible to know how seriously to take this. 42 For a good summary of the issues see L. de Light, “Roman Manpower and Recruitment during the Middle Republic,” in Erdkamp, Companion to the Roman Army, (n. 37), 124–27. 43 App. Hisp. 65, 78; Cic. Leg. 3.20, with L. R. Taylor, “Forerunners of the Gracchi,” JRS 52 (1962): 26. 44 On the point see P. A. Brunt, “The Army and the Land in the Roman Revolution,” JRS 52 (1962): 74 = idem, The Fall of the Roman Republic and Related Essays (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 254.

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some cases may have been made up of neighbors—Pompeius Strabo, for instance, is known to have had a personal relationship with one of the generals he faced and to have had a staff chock full of men from Picenum, and at this point in time, Etruria held a great number of men who had served with Marius prior to his return from Africa in 87 (his memory remained powerful in the area—so much so that the arch-Sullan Catiline would have a henchman equipped with an eagle of Marius raising men for a rural revolt in 63).45 In the later years of the civil war, it was, for instance, an army from Samnium that sought to defend the Republic from Sulla at the Colline Gate.46 Pompey raised two legions from Picenum to support the Sullan cause, while Minatius Magius, from Aeculanum in Campania, although less renowned than the others, raised a legion on his own and assisted in the capture of Herculaneum. After the first round of civil wars, it seems to have become standard practice for consuls to designate regions of Italy for specific armies, while provincial governors seem to have had the power over recruitment within their provincia: thus C. Calpurnius Piso prevented Pompey from raising troops in Transalpine Gaul, while in 54 Caesar allowed him to do so in Cisalpine Gaul.47 It was presumably from citizens that Caesar raised his additional legion in Spain in 61/60, and Cicero held a dilectus amongst citizens in Cilicia in 51.48 In Italy itself, the institution of regional conquistores (if they were not in fact already agents for the recruitment of Italian troops in earlier generations, a point upon which there is no evidence), made it possible that entire legions could continue to come from specific districts.49 Thus in 64, Murena is said to have recruited heavily 45 For Pompeius Strabo’s links with leaders on the other side see Cic. Phil. 12.27; for his staff see CIL 12 709 with N. Criniti, L’ epigrafe di Asculum di Gn. Pompeo Strabone (Milan: Vita e pensiero, 1970), 88–90 (14 out of 33 equites on the staff were from Picenum). On Marian supporters in Etruria in 87 see Plut. Vit. Mar. 41.2; App. B Civ. 1.67.305 with discussion in Harmand, L’armée (n. 4), 252 and Brunt, “Army and Land” (n. 44), 79 on the possibility that this stemmed from veteran settlements after the northern wars, following R. E. Smith, Service in the Post-Marian Roman Army (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 1958), 51. For Marians in Etruria driven from their lands, which were distributed to Sullan colonists, see Cic. Mur. 49; Sall. Cat. 28.4. 46 Vell. Pat. 2.27; App. B Civ. 1.432–3. Note that Pontius Telesinus appears to have been associated with Marcus Lamponius, the Lucanian (see also App. B Civ. 1.416) who commanded his people against Rome in 90 (App. B Civ. 1.181). 47 Dio 36.37.2; Caes. B Gall. 6.1.2; for this point in general see Smith, Service (n. 45), 49–51. 48 Plut. Vit. Caes. 12.1; Cic. Att. 5.18.2. 49 The evidence for conquistores is slim—see Cic. Mur. 42; Mil. 67 (Livy 23.32.19 may be an anachronism)—see also discussion in Smith, Service (n. 45), 50; Harmand, L’armée (n. 4), 247; Brunt, Italian Manpower (n. 40), 632–34; Keppie, Making (n. 21), 69–70.

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from Umbria, while the army that Crassus led to ruin at Carrhae seems to have been largely from Lucania.50 All of this pales in comparison with Caesar’s actions in Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul. Of the legions in his army, legiones VII, VIII, IX and X were already in his province when he arrived, legiones XI and XII were raised to meet the Helvetian threat, legiones XIII and XIV were recruited for the campaign of 57, and legiones VI and XV were recruited in 54–53 after the destruction of the fourteenth legion (it remains an open question where the five cohorts destroyed along with legio XIV came from). Legio V, was raised entirely from Transalpine Gaul in the winter of 52–51.51 The stress on the social class of legionaries evident in Sallust was very much less significant than the tendency to recruit what were in effect regional armies to serve under generals who were either already, or would become, regional patrons. The Transformation of the Centurionate In the age of Polybius, centurions were elected by their men after the dilectus.52 It appears that men who had previously been centurions might expect that they would be elected again, but this was not guaranteed, a fact that underlies actions in 171 described by Livy. In this case, centurions from former campaigns demanded that they be enrolled at their former ranks—the spokesman for this group whom Livy offers up as the sort of ideal mid-Republican centurion is a man named Ligustinus, who claims that he grew up with a single iugerum to his name.53 After a full exposition of his virtues, Ligustinus allows that he and his fellow centurions will accept whatever rank is given them. The interesting point here, in contrast to Polybius’ statement that centurions were elected is that Ligustinus’ promotions are all battlefield promotions granted by his generals, who are likewise implicitly capable of bestowing rank independently on the choice of their men. It is likely that the actual creation of centurions in the second century allowed for some sort of combination between a general’s ability to reward a good soldier, and election 50 For Murena see Cic. Mur. 42; for Crassus see Plin. NH 2.147 with Brunt, “The Army and the Land,” 75 (n. 44) = idem, Fall, 255 (n. 44) and, initially, Harmand, L’armée et le soldat à Rome (n. 4), 247 and 255. 51 Harmand, L’armée (n. 4), 251, 257–58. 52 Polyb. 6.24.1–2. 53 Liv. 42.34; for appointment of centurions by officers see Varr. Ling. 5.91.

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(especially at the beginning of a campaign). Both Polybius and Livy concur, however, with the image of the centurion as a man of modest background. This is not true of centurions for whom there is good information in the mid-first century. Evidence for a change in the status of centurions emerges first in the immediate context of the proscriptions. The list was initially posted by a Fufidius, identified by Orosius as a primipilus. He is likely from an Arpinate family that was later linked with that of Marcus Cicero—and his bête noire, the consul Calpurnius Piso. It is also likely that he was added to the senate, became praetor in 81 and governor of further Spain in 80. That identification is virtually guaranteed by the speech of Lepidus in Sallust’s Histories, where he is described as the most repellent of all mortals (an obvious reference to his role in the proscriptions). To have been added to the senate by Sulla, he must already have obtained equestrian status, and if he is indeed from the Arpinate Fufidii, the family was established at the equestrian level in the previous generation.54 One possible equestrian predecessor to Fufidius—and this remains open to question—might be the father of Pompey’s legate, Marcus Petreius—if it is correct to identify him with the Gnaeus Petreius, a primipilus from Atina decorated for valor by Marius in 102.55 In the same generation as Fufidius was Lucius Petronius from Placentia who attained equestrian rank in time to fall victim to Cinna.56 Two of the primipili listed on the staff of Pompeius Strabo in 89 are of recognizably upper class status (one municipal, the other possibly equestrian).57 P. Considius, who fouled up the attack Caesar had planned to launch against the Helvetians, is another likely equestrian centurion.58 The grandfather of the noted jurist, Ateius Capito, was a Sullan centurion

54 See T. P. Wiseman, New Men in the Roman Senate 139 bc-ad 14 (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1971), 232; for the significance of the career see Harmand, L’armée (n. 4), 325. 55 Plin. HN 22.11; for discussion see C. Nicolet, L’ordre équestre à l’époque républicaine (312–43 av. J.-C.) (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1966–1974), 976–77; it is also possible that the legate was from Aricia. 56 Val. Max. 4.7.5 with Nicolet, L’ordre équestre (n. 55), 977–78. 57 Criniti, L’ epigrafe di Asculum (n. 45), 176–78, especially on the notion that the Salvienus who is primipilus here is the same as the Salvienus who brings Sulla news of a prophecy before Chaeronea (Plut. Vit. Sull. 17.4; August. De Civ. D. 2.24; described as a miles in both cases), noting that a common soldier would not be entrusted with such a mission. 58 Caes. B Gall. 1.21.4, and, on his probable career, Nicolet, L’ordre équestre (n. 55), 804.

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who must have acquired considerable wealth since his own son, Capito’s father, became praetor.59 In the generation after Sulla there are several other centurions who can be identified as either equestrian or, at the very least, of high municipal status. These include N. Granonius from Luceria, where he was quattuorvir, possibly before he served as a centurion under Lentulus Spinther in Cilicia and then under Pompey, probably in the civil war.60 Lucius Firmius, from Sora rose from primipilus to tribunus militum (a certain indicator of equestrian status) probably in the service of Caesar (he certainly served under the triumvirs).61 The Lucius Septimius who murdered Pompey had once been a primipilus in his army and was plainly equestrian since he had risen to the rank of tribunus militum before Gabinius seconded him to Ptolemy.62 In 49 Caesar captured a man named Lucius Pupius who was commanding troops in Picenum, and seems to have been a man of local standing (hence it was worth mentioning that he was captured, along with the fact that he had once been a primipilus of Gnaeus Pompey).63 The Accius Paelignus who opened the gates of Sulmo to Caesar was evidently serving with the rank of praefectus, and was of enough standing that Cicero mentioned his name in a manner suggesting that he thought Atticus might know who he was.64 So too must once have been the Asinius Dento, a primipilus who was killed on Mount Amanus while serving under the command of Bibulus in 51. Cicero’s method of referring to the incident suggests that he was differentiating losses according to social class since he wrote: He lost the whole first cohort along with the primipilus, Asinius Dento, and the other centurions of the same cohort, as well as Sextus Lucilius, the son of the rich and splendid Titus Gavius Capito, who was serving as tribunus militum (Att. 5.20.4).

Dento is presumably worth mentioning in this case because he was a more important person than the others, while not quite so significant as Sextus Lucilius, the possible son of a man whom Marius and Cinna had thrown off the Tarpeian rock in 87.65 59

Tac. Ann. 3.75 with Nicolet, L’ordre équestre (n. 55), 847. Dessau, ILS 2224. 61 Dessau, ILS 2226 with Nicolet, L’ordre équestre (n. 55), 878. 62 Caes. B Civ. 3.104 with Nicolet, L’ordre équestre (n. 55), 977–78. 63 Caes. B Civ. 1.13.4. 64 Caes. B Civ. 1.18.1; Cic. Att. 8.4.3; on the form of his name see Nicolet, L’ordre équestre (n. 55), 756. 65 Cic. Att 5.20.4: For the identity of Lucilius see Shakleton Bailey ad loc., adducing Vell. Pat. 2.24.2 and noting that splendidus is an adjective usually reserved for members 60

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At first glance the list of centurions about whose social background we are informed may not appear especially impressive. We know the names of more than 400 Roman knights and cannot trace the military service (if any) for the overwhelming majority of them. What is perhaps more significant than our ability to make a short list of such people is the fact that Caesar and Cicero seem to expect to find men of local standing (equestrian or otherwise) holding the position of centurion or praefectus. For these men it does not appear to be a social step down, but rather a position that fits their rank. This is very different from what seems to have been the case prior to 150. So too does the fact that Caesar includes centurions with tribuni militum in his references to the administrative group of a legion, and that centurions were expected to speak in councils of war (as they did in advising against Sabinus’ march from his winter quarters). This would imply that there was not a vast social gap between commanders, staff officers, and centurions. On the other hand, the fact that centurions received a bonus five times that of an average legionary suggests that the gap between themselves and their men may have been rather more substantial (and grew).66 Cicero, likewise suggests that the fact that his centurions hated him was a special sign of Piso’s poor character, something he alleged to have been vividly on display as governor of Macedonia in 57–55.67 The transformation of the officer corps so that the centurionate could accommodate men born with more than a single iugerum to their name is a likely consequence of a shift from traditional Roman patterns of recruitment to the legions to one that more closely resembled that used of the equestrian order. Nicolet, L’ordre équestre (n. 55), 929 suspects an origin from Arpinum instead. 66 Harmand, L’armée (n. 4), 333–39, 341, 355–56. Given that senior centurions were supposed to be part of councils of war in the Polybian period (Polyb. 6.24.2), the simple fact of inclusion is not especially significant; rather it is the language that Caesar uses implying that these men are roughly on a par with each other. It also appears that centurions could be promoted within the centurionate, which might again suggest that men in this rank were on a rough par with each other, assuming of course, that Caesar was not engaging in a massive exercise in social-engineering by arranging for peasants to become men of standing. For their rate of compensation relative to other ranks see Caes. B Gall. 8.4.1. In the concilium of Pompeius Strabo only primipili are listed (see the discussion in Criniti, L’ epigrafe di Asculum [n. 45], 176–78), which does seem to be a different situation from that which obtained under Caesar. It may also be significant that Caesarian centurions can be seen to be promoted, see Radin, “Promotion of Centurions” (n. 21), 311, noting significant jumps in rank at Caes. B Civ. 3.53; 1.46. 67 Cic. Pis. 96; note too that centurions are depicted as having a special role (along with concubines) in handling Antonius (consul in 63) in Caelius’ prosecution speech— see Quint. 4.2.124 in both cases with Harmand, L’armée et le soldat à Rome (n. 4), 337.

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by the Italians to provide men for the legions. There were numerous distinguished Italians who must have had some military experience who commanded the armies of the rebellion in the 90s (though none presumably who had commanded a legion, a possibly crucial factor in the success of Roman armies during the war).68 It is of some interest that it was the centurions who united to support Sulla when he marched on Rome in 88.69 Changing the Battlefield The army that Caesar led into Gaul was the product of various changes that had been taking place in the course of the previous half century. Some of these changes were explicitly attributed to individual generals, but for the most part they were not. Moreover, as the Spanish campaign in 49 suggests there was still considerable variation in the way that an army might be trained even as the final round of civil wars began. Caesar’s army fits a pattern that developed for fighting Celts in Gaul. His initial inclination does seem to have been to recall the campaigns of Marius, but there is reason to think that the experience of battle in the summer of 58 taught Caesar to think better of imitating Marian tactics. Marius was notoriously cautious, awaiting the enemy attack at Aquae Sextiae and Vercellae, while taking no steps to fortify his defensive position. After the battle at Bibracte, Caesar would never again surrender the tactical initiative, unless he had chosen to fight with the advantage of earthworks. At Vesontio, Caesar attacked uphill, while, against the Belgae, he relied on earthworks to break up an initial assault, enabling the rout of disordered attackers with cavalry and light troops—the same tactics he used at Alesia.70 Elsewhere, when confronted with superior forces, Caesar and his lieutenants favored using the camp itself to gain an advantage against enemies drawn into an attack on the fortifications—a tactic that Quintus Titurius Sabinus was able to employ as well.71 The tactical and operational use of field fortifications appears to have been a development of the 80s. The record of the battles of the Social

68 69 70 71

For lists see App. B Civ. 1.181; Vell. Pat. 2.16.1. Plut. Vit. Sull. 18.5; Oros. 5.21.3. Caes. B Gall. 1.52, 2.9–10, 7.88. Caes. B Gall. 3.6 and 19, 5.51 and 58.

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War, albeit poor, does not suggest that the use of entrenchment as a tactical device was yet well established in the Italian peninsula. Indeed, the anecdote about Marius’ encounter with Pompaedius Silo suggests that Marius used his camp to avoid battle rather than as a tool to be used in aggressive campaigning.72 That at least would be a reasonable way to understand his observation that if Silo was the great general he thought himself to be, he could make Marius come out of his camp. It is with Sulla’s campaign in Greece that we begin to see a change, as Sulla used a long wall from his base at Eleusis to the sea as a way of constraining the actions of the defenders of Athens, and field fortifications were plainly used at the battle of Orchomenus to channel the cavalry of Archelaus into areas where they could be easily defeated.73 The success of this tactic may suggest that it was unfamiliar. The civil war that ensued after Sulla’s return from Greece rapidly degenerated into a series of efforts on the part of Sulla’s enemies to relieve the younger Marius at Praeneste, though even after this it seems to have been felt that the appearance of a relieving army might naturally cause a besieging force to abandon its position. It did not in these cases, but again the doctrine appears to have been sufficiently novel that Pompey himself seems to have expected that Sertorius would withdraw from the siege of Lauron rather than risk being trapped between the relieving force and the defenders in 76.74 He was surprised when Sertorius took the city anyway. It was perhaps Lucullus who best understood the possibilities of using a camp to dictate the actions of his enemies, something that he did repeatedly in the course of his campaigns against Mithridates, nowhere, perhaps so notably, as in the initial confrontation around Cyzicus. Such lessons were not lost upon Pompey, who encircled the positions of Mithridates during the campaign of 66 with massive walls.75 The previous year, however, had revealed that, in the hands of less capable generals, the use of fieldworks could be disastrous. Triarius’ army is said to have broken at Zela after some portion of it was forced back into a muddy trench.76 Finally, of course, there was Crassus, who used massive fortifications around the final position of Spartacus to force the battle that he wanted.77 The use of fieldworks was

72 73 74 75 76 77

Plut. Vit. Mar. 33.4. App. Mith. 130. Plut. Vit. Sert. 18.3; Vit. Pomp. 18.3; App. B Civ. 1.109. App. Mith. 455; Plut. Vit. Pomp. 32.3. App. Mith. 403. Plut. Vit. Crass. 10.4–6.

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not therefore for the novice, and the novice might not have understood what it meant to be able to transform the natural contours of the ground to suit one’s tactical purposes. That would appear to be one point that may be derived from the remarkable letter that Pompey would send to Domitius Ahenobarbus at Corfinium in 49: A letter from you was delivered to me on February 17 in which you say that Caesar has made camp at Corfinium. What I thought and warned would happen is happening, that he would not wish to fight you at present, and would trap you, having brought up all of his forces so that there would not be a clear path for me to you so that I could link those forces of the best of citizens with these legions of whose loyalty I have my doubts.78

Pompey understood perfectly what Caesar would try, and that there was no point in his attempting to relieve Domitius once Caesar had done what he predicted Caesar would do. That would be to play into Caesar’s hands. Domitius, who had chosen not to seek a praetorian province, seems to have missed the point completely. After the Helvetian campaign, Caesar rapidly abandoned the Marian pattern for one better adopted to the skills of his army, and continued to develop a style of warfare based on a combination of fixed defenses and aggressive assault in the course of the civil war. Narratives of campaigns of the 80s and 70s show that this mode of combat had been introduced in those years. It was perfected by two of Sulla’s generals— Lucius Licinius Lucullus and Gnaeus Pompey—before it was adopted by Caesar, whose mastery of the techniques of operational blockades enabled him to win stunning victories—at Corfinium and Ilerda—in the first year of the war. In the course of the narrative of the Ilerda campaign he paid, perhaps unintentionally, tribute to the memory of Pompey’s campaigns in his observation that the soldiers of Afranius had so adapted themselves to Iberian methods of warfare that they no longer fought like Romans (see supra n. 23). Caesar’s point, interesting as we have already seen from the point of view of the history of the development of the army, is very similar to an observation that appears in Plutarch’s Lives of Sertorius and Pompey, suggesting strongly that Poseidonius or Sallust—Plutarch’s likely source here—had picked up 78 Cic. Att. 8.12d.1: litterae mihi a te redditae sunt a.d. XIII Kal. Mart., in quibus scribes Caesarem apud Corfinium castra posuisse. Quod putavi et praemonui fit, ut nec in praesentia committere tecum proelium velit et omnibus copiis conductis [per] te implicet, nec ad me iter tibi expeditum sit atque istas copias coniungere optimorum civium possis cum his legionibus de quarum voluntate dubitamus.

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this point from writers of the period.79 The context in both places is criticism of Metellus, and the observation is not likely to have emerged from Metellus’ dispatches. Did Sallust have this from Pompey, and had Caesar appropriated this topos from the pen of the man whose mastery of warfare he had come to emulate in Gaul? Lindsay Hall has persuasively argued that Caesar saw himself as the “Roman Pompey” in response to Pompey’s presentation of himself as the “Roman Alexander.”80 In so doing, it would also appear that Caesar learned what it was to be a Roman general from his rival. If so, perhaps it was the ultimate compliment that he could pay the master when he attempted to emulate Pompey’s style of positional warfare at Dyrrachium; far from being, as Caesar suggests, a new form of warfare, it is the sort of warfare that Pompey had perfected.81 But Pompey was still the master, and Caesar the pupil. It is perhaps too easy to forget that Pompey had no desire to fight at Pharsalus. At Dyrrachium he had allowed Caesar to negate the superior fighting qualities of his own troops through positional warfare. At Pharsalus he knew that he could not depend upon his men to resist the infantry of Caesar in the open field. But then so did Caesar, who, like Pompey, recognized that the battle would turn on the cavalry action. When that attack failed, Pompey withdrew to his tent knowing that the day was lost.82 Military change in the period before Caesar was neither well organized nor particularly straightforward. Rather it was a process of trial and error. Lacking anything that resembled a staff college, the Roman army could not develop central drill manuals or doctrines. Rather, men who would command learned from their own commanders, leading at times to distinctively different styles on the battlefield—at the time that Sertorius’ men were ‘going native’ and using primarily the tactics of light infantry in battle, Lucullus was leading an army that was virtually devoid of light infantry against Mithridates.83 The wise general might 79 Plut. Vit. Sert. 12.6–7; Vit. Pomp. 17.2. See also n. 23 above, and, for the historiographic source tradition (possibly Poseidonius, taken over by Sallust) see C. Konrad, Plutarch’s Sertorius: a Historical Commentary (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1994), 134–35, though as noted in the text official communication may be the original font of information. 80 L. G. Hall, “Ratio and Romanitas in the Bellum Gallicum,” in Welch and Powell, Artful Reporter (n. 2), 29. 81 Caes. B Civ. 3.47.1. 82 Caes. B Civ. 3.94.5–7. 83 On this point see Plut. Vit. Luc. 27; Front. Str. 2.5.33 with Bell, “Tactical Reform” (n. 15), 422.

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even surround himself with men who had a wide variety of different experiences. Caesar, for instance, had as one legate Titus Labienus, who had served Pompey, and even a man who had served Sulla, yet he initially seems to have drawn upon different experiences.84 Caesar began his career as a Marian general, modeling his conduct in war upon that of his uncle. He very rapidly dropped Marius’ old style tactics, and adopted himself to the practice of the post-Sullan age, possibly with the aid of the writings of Sulla and his generals, as well as with men like Labienus and Sabinus at his side during the early years in Gaul, and with the aid of their subordinates. Sulla could indeed not abolish his own example, and it was for that reason that Caesar could become one of the two consummate military leaders of his generation.

84

For the Sullan P. Considius, see n. 58 above.

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INDEX Abu Simbel 2 Achaemenid, see Persia, Persians Achilles 210, 212 Acragas (Agrigentum 233), 261 Adad 89 Adherbal 279 Adunu-ba’al 89 Aegean 12, 44, 59, 209, 216–217, 227–228, 235–237, 243–247, 249–251, 277 Aegates Isles 261, 272, 274, 276 Aegina, Aeginetans 4, 193, 222–226, 231 Aeginetan obol 247 Aeneas Tacticus 15, 41, 247 Aeneid 2 Aequi 293, 295 Aerisius 30 Aeschylus 2 (Persians), 25, 28–29, 31, 147, 148 Aetolia, Aetolians 30–31, 46 Aetolus, son Mars 30 Afranius 327 Africa, Africans 30, 253, 255–259, 261, 263–264, 266, 268, 275, 282, 284, 286–287, 310, 315–316, 319–320 Agamemnon 4–12 Agathocles 261–264, 275, 282–284, 286 Ageiras 212 Ager Romanus 301 Agesilaus 145, 174, 231, 247 Aha 7 Ahab (Ahabbu) 89 Ahenobarbus, Domitius 327 Ahuramazda 105, 128 Ajax 96 Akkad 7, 81, 125, 129 Akatia (skiffs) 274 Alalia, battle of 272, 275–276 Alcaeus 2, 191, 253 Alcibiades 219, 235, 240, 245 Alesia, siege of 306, 325 Alexander I of Macedon 231 Alexander III (the Great) of Macedon 10, 14–15, 34, 37–38, 41–42, 45, 47, 49–51, 108, 110–112, 119, 128, 138, 145–146, 154, 156, 162, 164, 166, 168, 170, 175–176, 179, 231, 233, 328

Aleppo 266 Allia, battle of 294–295 Amanus, Mount 323 Amasis 191 Amazons 30, 116, 118, 170, 183–185, 187 Ammonite 89 Amorges 120 Anabasis, of Xenophon 167 Anahita Yasht prayer 128 Andrians 217 Andros 217, 237 Antiochus III 29, 40, Antiochus IV 142 Antiphon Painter 119, 203, fig. 9 Apadana 104, 109, 142, 171 Apollo 216, fig. 4 Appian 253–255, 262, 266, 287, 308 Aquae Sextiae, battle of 307 Arabia, Arabs 89, 96, 109–110 Arad 121 Arar, river 307 Arausio, battle of 295, 307 Arbareme 127 Arcadia, Arcadians 230 Archaic 2, 9, 17, 36, 40, 45, 77, 102, 120, 147, 185–186, 190, 192, 201, 205–210, 112, 214–215, 217, 219, 220, 227–229, 235, 243, 246, 259, 303 Archelaus 326 Archers 10, 12, 40, 44, 63, 71, 85, 93, 94, 95–97, 99, 107, 110–111, 114, 117, 119, 124, 127, 134, 137, 151, 158, 162, 173, 183–186, 2–201, 203, 230–231, 282, 311–312 Archidamus, Spartan king 28, 41, 246 Archilochus 2, 9, 43 Archidamian war 241, 245 Arezzo Krater, by Euphronios 183–184, fig. 5 Argana 89 Argive Shield 43–44 Argos 191, 228 Aristagoras 237 Aristotle, Aristotelian 26, 28, 32, 49, 141, 209, 223, 228, 233 Aristophanes 146–147, 187, 197, 202, 239 The Knights 146–147, 239 Wasps 239

360

index

Armament 30, 44, 85, 100, 106, 108–109, 125, 289, 300 Armenia, Armenians 90, 104, 139–140, 142, 145, 154 Arpinate family 322 Arpinate-Fufidii family 322 Arrian 152, 159–161, 164–165, 169–170 Arrows 25, 66, 67, 91, 94, 125–126, 148–149, 158, 161, 168, 230 Arsaces 148 Arsamenes 155 Artabas 148 Artaphernes 178 Artaxerxes II 152, 154, 175, Artaxerses III 150, 154, 178, 123, Artaxerxes IV 123 Artaxerxes V 123, Artrooi 201 Artybius 157, 175 Arvad 89 Asculum 302 Asopus Valley 179 Aspis (concave shield) 170, 192, 195, 263, 292 Assiduus 319 Assur, letter to 83, 90 Assur 3, 89 Assurnasirpal II of Assyria 84, 89, 94–96 Assyria, Assyrians 2, 3, 6, 8, 11–12, 17, 37–38, 69, 70, 77 (Neo-Assyrian), 71–101, 108, 125, 155, 167, 169, 172 Athenian Aristocrats 242 assembly 201, 337 coinage 225, 230, 231, 235, 241 symbols on 230, 232 tribute in 235, 238 constitution 223 democracy 1, 13, 204, diplomacy 277 economy 241, 242 borrowing 247 chattel slavery 244 law courts 247 treasuries 245 wealth, money 237, 238, 239, 241, 245, 249, 251 empire 235, 243, 244, 251 imperialism 240, 241, 245 farmers 198 armies/troops 16, 39, 51, 173, 174, 200, 216, 223, 230, Herodotus and 157, 186, 187, 200, 201, 216, 218, 223, 237

intellectual life of 28, 32 law of 208, 209, 248 literature 146 Marathon 175, 180, 196, 237 mercenaries 248 merchant ships 276, 283 navy, fleets 13, 17, 209, 235, 236, 237, 239, 242, 243, 245, 248, 270, 271 pay 205, 206 213, 225, 230, 250 sailors 284 triremes 219 ostracism 120 paintings 184, 186, 187, 201 on vase 186, 191 polypragmosyne 240, 245, 250 pottery 202 money 237, 238, 239 prostitution at hetairai 242 pornai 242, 243 Scythians and 186 seafarers 223 Sicilian expedition 37, 39, 238 Slaves in 201 society 13 tax 230, 247 eisphora 241 Thucydides and 237, 238, 239, 243, 245 tribute 235, 239, 240, 250 phoros 238 triremes 218, 219, 222, 223, 224, 277 crews 244 rowers 225, 230 trierarchs 244, 247 Athens Acropolis 2, 103, 185, 187, 213, 237, 241 Apragmosyne 240 Aristagoras 237 casualties, war 39 casus belli 4 coinage 230, 231, 248 power 231, 244 relationships 252 democracy 4 Hippias 200 imperial 3 Malene, battle at 162 military, professionalization of 244 headgear 111 navy Classical Athens naval funding 209, 214, 236

index naval roles 285 resources 223 Corinth 225, 230 development 223, 224, 226 Eretria 217, 222 Inscriptions, commemorative 287 pay 225, 226 Solon 228 triremes Aegina 224 crews 213, 270 fleets 222, 223, 224 Herodotus 223, 236 rowers, poor 230, 244, 271 Thucydides 222, 223 trierarchies 269 warships, building 222, 223 materials 265, 266 Peisistratus 217, 228 political transformations 26 Potidea, siege of 240 pottery, protoattic cups 193 Scythian archers 186 slavery, chattel 243, 244 social war 248 Sparta and 13, 216, 246 Sulla 326 tax, eisphora 241 Atropates 170 Attic 111, 118–119, 146–147, 166, 184–185, 187, 191, 131–232, 138, 244, 247, 250 Attica 179, 238, 244–246, 264 Atticus 323 Atina 322 Autophradates 174 Auxiliaries 92, 99, 312 Avoirdupois 188–189 axe 170, 183, 185 Axel Guttman Collection 190 Baal Hammon 260 Ba’asa 89 Babylon, Babylonians 81, 87, 91–92, 94, 103, 105, 113, 114, 123–124, 127–128, 145, 149, 154–156, 166, 177 Neo-Babylonian 114, 125 Bactria, Bactrians 120, 122, 165, 171, 181, 148, 154–155 Baecula, battle of 316 Bahdi-Lim, governor of Zimri-Lim 69 Bakadada 135–137 Balaearics 275 Balawat Gates 71, 85

361

Barbarian, Barbarians 44, 141, 147, 150, 153, 156, 171, 186, 187, 312 Barene 151 Bashlyk (soft headgear) 112, 115, 166, 169 Battle-axe 30, 86 Battering rams 36, 95 Behistun monument 104, 129, 149 Bel-appla-Iddina 123 Belgae 306, 325 Bellum Africum 311 Gallicum 328 Hispaniense 313 Jugurthinum 311 Beneventum, battle of 302–303 Bibracte 307, 325 Bibulus 323 Bireme (dieres) 12 Bit-Ruhubi 89 Bithinia, Bithinians 156, 173 Black-figure 187, 187, 202 Boats 74, 85, 96, 124, 276, Boars 310 Boii 307 Booty 3, 155, 211–214, 220–221, 234, 249, 276 Bowmen 61–62, 71, 77, 91 Breastplate 30, 157, 165, 191 Britain 5 Bronze 56, 70, 84, 158, 166, 168–169, 190–195, 202, 265, 287, 289, 291, fig. 8b Bronze Age 3, 23, 37–38, 44, 46, 57–58, 60, 62–64, 68, 73, 76, 78, 87 Byblos 89 Byrsa 253 Cadmean 201 Caesar, Caesarian 4, 15, 18, 200, 305–329 Caligula 5 Callias 120 Calpurnius Piso 262, 320, 322, 324 Calpurnius Piso, C. 320, 322 Cambyses (Persian king) 134, 218, 340 Cameroon 260 Camillus 299 Campania 320 Cani islands 263 Cannae 38–39, 296, 315 Can Sarcophagus 110, 112, 116, 169 Cap Bon 263 Capito, Ateius 322 Capite censi 318–319 Capito, Gavius 323

362

index

Cappadocia, Cappadocians 154 Caria, Carians 30, 107, 109, 166, 249 Carrhae 315, 321 Carthage, Carthaginians 17–19, 22, 29, 47, 247, 253–288, 295, 316 Carthalo 283–284 Carystos 237 Catana 261, 274, 276, 281–282, 284 Catana, battle of 274 Cataphract 12, 39, 48, 53, 156–157, 167 Catiline 320 Cato the Elder 256, 258, 281 Caudine Forks 301 Cavalry 10, 12, 17, 30–31, 40, 45, 47–51, 53–54, 57, 59–60–79, 82, 85, 89, 90–93, 96–97, 99–100, 101–182 Ceians 217 Celeres 13–14 Censor 296 Celts, Celtic 13–14, 25, 42, 317–318, 325 Celtiberian 25, 46 Censorinus, Marcius L. 254, 255, 276 Centrites 159, 173 Centurion 300, 309, 312, 321–325 Cervetere, Regolini-Galassi tomb 289 Chaeronaea, battle of 48, 322 Chalcis 216–217, 219, 224 Chalcus, son of Athamas 30 Chalkemboloi (Ships with rams) 274 Chaniotis, A. 11 Charaes 174 chariot 7, 17, 40, 42, 43–49, 51, 53, 57–79, 82, 84–87, 89–90, 92–93, 96–99, 103–104, 106, 108–110, 115, 117, 122–124, 126–129, 139–140, 144, 148, 161–162, 172, 210, 275, 284, 290 Charon of Lampsacus 223–224 Chigi, olpe (vase) 193 China, Chinese 60 (charioteers) Chios 214, 218–219, 238, 248 chiton 157, 183, 189, 196 Choaspes, river 128 Choerilus of Samos 33 Chremata 227–228, 236–237, 240 Chremata dokima (valid money) 206 Cicero 16, 234, 254–256, 320, 322–324 Cilicia 107, 122, 130, 139, 145, 320, 323 Cimbrians 306–307, 310 Cimbric War 319 Cimmerians 67 Cimon 248 Cinna 305, 322–323 Cinyps 259 Cissia, Cissians 153, 165

Citizens 201, 215, 221, 228, 234, 240–241, 243, 245, 247, 252, 270, 287, 292, 296, 297, 300–302, 320, 327 Civil War 320, 323, 325–327 Classis 300 Claudius 5 Clausewitz Clibanarius 12 Cleidemus 224–225 Cleisthenes 24, 224 Cleomenes 237 Clientes 291 Cloak 37 86 (war cloak), 124 Cohorts 30, 93, 295–296, 307, 311, 318, 321 Coinage 205–252 Colline Gate 320 Comitia Centuriata 290 Commander 3–4, 7–8, 13–15, 40, 42, 45, 50, 52, 55, 83, 87, 93, 124, 148, 150, 153–155, 159, 177, 181, 211–212, 232, 247–249, 253–254, 271, 277, 286, 310, 324, 328 Comes, Comitati 16 Commentarii 305 Conquistores 320 Considius, P. 322 Corcyra, Corcyraeans 12, 222, 225–226, 236, 248 Corfinium 327 Corinth, Corinthians 4, 12, 30, 38–39, 184, 185, 187, 210, 220, 222–223, 225–226, 236, 240, 277 Corinthian helmet 190 Pegasus coin 231 Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum 184 Corselet 183, 185, 191–192, 196, 202, 290–291 Corsica, corcyrans 266 Corvus 280, 282 Cossyra 269 Cothon 262, 287 Cotta 315 Crassus, Publius 315, 321, 326 Cremera, battle of 14, 298 Crete, Cretans 2, 12, 30, 186, 199, 311 Critognatus 306 Croesus 140, 143, 151, 163, 172 Cronos, temple of (Baal Hammon) 260 Ctesias 143, 150, 151, 157, 173 Cuirass 110, 112, 115–118, 125, 164, 166–169, 171, 178, 196 bell cuirass 189, 191–192

index Cunaxa, battle of 159, 162, 168, 173, 175, 178 Custom, Customary 27, 254, 310, 312, 318 Cyclades 217, 264 Cyclades Islands 217, 222 Cynoscephali, battle of 48 Cypriot 151, 218, 258 Cypselus 220 Cyropaedia 144, 158, 161, 163–164, 167–169, 171, 176–177 Cyrus II (the Great) of Persia 102, 123, 143–145, 150, 158, 163–164, 172, 174, 177, 179, 218 Cyrus the Younger 157, 159, 162, 168, 175–176, 245 Cyzicus 156, 173, 326 Daikyu (Japanese bow) 71 Dalley, S. 77 Damascene 89 Damascus 76 Danipinu 124 Daric 106, 231 Darius 119,126–129, 143–144, 172, 175, 180 Darius III 145–146, 151, 154, 172, 177–179, 182 Dascylium 113 Datis 178 Dawson, D. 85, 87, 99 Deepu (stabbing weapon) 126 Delium, battle of 49 Delos, Delian 216, 239 (League) Demia 212 democracy 1, 4 polis 13 dēmotikon 242 Demoratos, Spartan king 197, Demosthenes, the orator 26–27, 145, 187, 248, 250 Demothen 212 Dento, Asinius 323 Delphi 209, 216 (Amphyctyony) 217, 232, 234, 237, 247, 250 deprivation 1, of neighbours 2 Dercylidas 174 Diaxes 148 Dicaearchus 32 Dictatorship 299 Diekplous 280 Diet 10, 130, 198

363

Dilectus (selection, recruitment) 318–321 Diodorus, the historian 32, 42, 50, 143, 149–150, 152, 154–155, 160, 162, 218, 232, 250, 277, 281–282, 284, 293 Dionysia 244 Dionysius 30, 47, 141, 196, 228–229, 247, 281, 283, 302–303 Dionysius of Halicarnassus 302 Donkey 68–69, 121, 123, 132 Dorieus 219, 259 Douris Cup 183–204, fig. 1 Drepana 260, 261, 267, 276, 279, 281–282 Drepanum 271 Dromoi 186, 188, 201 Dynastic Period 86 (Early III), 88 Dyrrachium 327–328 Duilius 271 Eagle 91 (wing military formation), 105, 310, 310, 320 Ebro 272, 274, 276, 286, 263 Ecnomus 270, 272, 276, 279, 281 Egesta, Egestans (Segesta) 238, 240, 249, 258, 259 Egypt 1–4, 7–8, 11, 30, 37 chariots 58–59, 61–62, 66, 69, 73–76 Elam, Elamites 87, 91–92, 96, 122, 124, 132, 134, 136–137, 153, 170 elephant 26, 40–45, 48–51, 122, 275, 316 Elephantine 122, 155 Eliashib 121 Ellimenion (harbour tax) 206 Empire 7–8, 12–13, 15–17, 26, 70, 73, 81, 88, 100–102, 105, 108, 118, 120, 122–123, 128, 139, 147, 153, 155, 172, 176, 179, 181–182, 231, 232–235, 237–245, 247–251, 255, 257–258, 266, 268, 272, 297, 303 Engineers 92 Enlil 89 Ennius 2 enslavement 1, 243–244, 251 Epaminondas 49–50, 232 Epidamnus 209 Epikouroi (allies) 211 Equestrian 67–68, 70, 85, 106–120, 123, 128–129, 140–141, 144–148, 151, 159, 176–177, 179–180, 322–324, 324 (Knights) Eretria, Eretrian 205–226 Eteonicus 248 Ethelonteres (volunteers) 211

364

index

Etna, Mount 282 Etruria, Etruscans 13, 45, 114, 193, 196, 272, 290–291, 293–294, 320 Euagoras, of Cyprus 107 Euboea 208–209, 222, 224 Eubulus 242 Eurasian steppe 67–68 Euripides 31, 146 (The Frogs), 147 Eurphrates 91 expansion Assyrian 76 Athenian empire 235 Carthaginian imperial power 257 cultural expansion 31 Roman 34, 301 naval 226 Sparta and Thebes 251 technical expansion 31, 46 transmarine 14, 18 wars of, 299 expedites manipuli (light armed troops) 312 Ezekiel 254 Ezra 122 Fabian, gens 298 Fabii at Cremera 14 Fabius Maximus 2 Fahliyan region 138 Farmers 10, 198–199, 240, 246 Firmius, Lucius 323 Flaminius 303 Frontline 71, 77, 79, 99 Frontinus 33, 162, 281 Fufidius 322 Gabinius 323 Gabon 260 Gabrielsen, V. 13 Gadal-Iama 125–127, 156–167, 180 Gades 269, 271 Gaugamela, battle of 154, 156, 159, 160, 161, 164, 167, 176, 178, 140, 145, 152 Gaul, Gauls, Gallic 14, 42, 266, 294, 303, 305, 306–307, 310, 315, 317, (Transalpine, Cisalpine) 320, 325, 328–329 Genoa 275 Germany, Germans 5, 188–189, 313 Gifts 104, 156, 211, 213, 242 Gigantomachy 203, fig. 7 Gilzau 89–90 Gindibu 89 Girsu 2, 86 (Stele of the Vultures)

Gladiator, Gladiatorial 310, 314 Gladius 14, 25, 46, 48, 54, 196, 314 God/s 3 (god-king), 28, 32, 56, 88 (Patron), 89 (Adad, Ningirsu), 90, 127, 142, 179, 247 Gorytus (quiver) 107, 111, 114, 158, 165 Governor 69, 123, 124, 135, 261, 270, 305, 320, 322, 324 Granicus, battle of 142, 146, 149, 152, 154–155, 156, 159–160, 166, 176, 178 Granonius, N. 323 Greaves 30, 183, 189, 192, 196, 290 Grotto Regina at Palermo 281 Guards 16, 92, 93 (bodyguards), 112, 115 (leg-guards), 137 (lance-guards), 141 (foot-guards), 192 (shin-guards), 196 (arm-guards) Gu-edena 7 Guzanu 124, 126 Hadad-ezer (Adad-irdri) 89 Hadrumentum 264 Halieis 187 Hamatite 89 Hamburg Cup, by Apollodoros or Pedieus Painter 183–185, fig. 4 Hamilcar 283 Hannibal Barca 15, 38–39, 49, 263–264, 269, 272–273, 275, 280, 287, 307, 314, 316 Hannibal, crucified in Sardinia 286 Hannibal, Naval Commander 277 Hannibal the Rhodian 264, 267, 271, 278, 282–284 Hanno 260, 264, 269, 277 Hanson, V. D. 8–9 Hapmatiya, Hapmatiyans 132, 136 Hasdrubal, son of Gisco 277, 286–287 Hasta, Roman 195 Hastati 296, 300, 302, 309, 311 Hecatonymus 171–172 Hector 210–212 Hegemony, hegemonic 31, 215–216, 219, 223, 228, 250, 258, 295 Heiro II of Syracuse 277 Hellespont, Hellespontine 103, 174, 215, 220 Helmet/s 14, 30, 42, 86, 93, 99, 107, 115, 166–169, 183–185, 190–191, 193, 196, 234, 290, fig 8a Helots 246 Helvetians 305–329 Hêmiola (one and a half design) 273

index Heracles 28, 201, 203, 259 Heraclitus 2 Herculaneum, battle of 320 Hermaea, battle of 276, 280 Hermopolis 75 Herodotus 2, 4, 25, 30, 97, 102, 127–128, 131, 139, 141–145, 150, 153–154, 157, 159, 162–170, 172, 174–175, 177–178, 180–182, 186–187, 191, 197, 200–201, 206, 210, 212, 215, 217–220, 222–225, 228, 236–237, 248 Hesiod 28, 210 Hetaira (courtesan) 242 Hezekiah 95 Hibeh papyrus 122 Himera Campaign 275, 284 Himilco 283, 286 Hippocrates 28, 210 Hippo Acra 262, 276 Hispania Ulterior 305 Hittite, Hittites 1, 8, 37–38, 58–59, 61–63, 76, 86 Homer 1, 3–4, 9, 11, 28, 32, 41–42, 58–59, 96, 148, 191, 196, 208, 210–213, 233–234, 292 Odysseus 196 Hoplite infantry 9–11, 13, 17, 18, 24, 25, 34, 37, 42–47, 52, 55, 99, 102, 107, 119, 157, 173, 174, 178, 181, 183–203, 215, 230, 234, 239, 244, 245, 290–293, 296, 300 Hoplite, Phalanx 9–10, 183–204, 86 (proto-phalanx) Hoplitodromoi 187, 201 Horace 32 Horses 40, 53, 58, 60, 63- 64, 66–78, 85, 91, 97, 103–106, 109, 111, 115, 117–118, 120, 123, 126–135, 137–149, 152, 156–157, 160, 167, 172, 180, 203, 210, 275, 310 humiliation 1, of Carthage 29 of leaders 88 Hybrias 2 Hyksos 1, 7, 62, 74 Hyperesiai 13 Hyrcania, Hyrcanians 154–155 Iasus 120 Iberia, Iberian 327 Iconography 101–104, 106, 144–145, 158, 165–166, 170, 202, 289, 292 Idumaea 121 Ilerda, battle of 316, 327

365

Iliad 1, 9, 58, 59, 96, 215 India, Indians 142, 153, 160, 165 Ineditum Vaticanum fragment 289, 293–294, 299 Infra classem 300 Inscriptiones Graecae 206 Inscriptions 1, 3, 62, 76, 81, 87, 91 (prisms), 98, 101, 120, 135, 205, 287 Ionia 12, 109, 175, 203, 216–219, 223, 237, 239, 244 Ionic 184 Iran, Iranians 102–105, 112, 113, 117–118, 121, 127–129, 132, 137, 145, 147, 153–156, 171, 180 Irhulenu 89, 79, 85–87, 91–34, 96–97, 101–182, 189, 197, 199, 145, 275, 282, 290, 293, 296, 301, 309, 311, 313, 315–318, 328, fig. 5 Irkabbama 133 Iron 14, 34, 49, 125–126, 158, 168–169, 191, 195, 254, 265, fig. 8a Irqanatu 89 Ischomachus 141 Isocrates 236 Israel, Israelite 76–77, 89 Issus 152, 156, 160,, 162, 167, 174, 178 Istanbul 118 Iugerum 321, 324 Jason of Pherae 247 Javelin 14, 30–31, 85, 91 (Javelin-men), 151 (Javelineers), 171, 185, 199, 202, 290, 317 Judaea 95 Jugurtha 311 Justinian 258, 269, 276, 286 Kadesh, battle of 1, 2, 59, 62–63, 76, 86 Kaiso 289 Kalhu 77 Kamfiruz region 138 Karaburun 109–110, 112, 166 Karakusan 133 Karballatu (head gear) 124 Keegan, J. 8, 21 Kelibia 263 Kenaion 205, 208 Kerameikos 193 Kerkenna 363 Kerkouroi 215 Kunee (dog’s skin) 190–191 Kurkh Monolith 76 Kush 75–76

366

index

Kushites 75–76 Kybernetai (Steermen) 280, 284 Kyklos 281 Labienus, Titus 307, 316, 329 Labienus 316 Lade 218–219 La Galite 263 Lampas 264 Lancers 85, 96, fig. 4 Lanista 310, 314 Laos (people) 212 Latins 289, 301 Latium 256, 295 Laureum 247, Lauron, siege of 326 Legion, Legionary 4, 14, 26, 30, 35–38, 42–43, 47, 51, 54, 200, 294–297, 299–301, 305, 329 Legionnaires 200, 296 Legionaries 16, 39, 42, 296, 313, 321 Lendon, J. 11 Lepcis Magna 259, 268 Leptine 284 Lesbos 216–218, 225, 238 Levant, Levantine 73, 75–76, 107–108, 112, 120, 180 Lex Genucia 301 Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae 184 Liblutu 124, 127 Light troops (generic) 9, 13, 17, 25, 30, 36, 40, 44–46, 93, 99, 151, 200, 202, 251, 300, 309, 312, 313, 315–317, 325, 328 Liguria, Ligurians 275, 312 Ligustinus 321 Lilybaeum 258, 260–261, 264, 275, 278, 279, 283–284 Limyra 111–112, 115, 153 Linear B 59 Lion 78, 85, 105–106, 202 Lipari isles 261, 277, 281 Livy 2, 4, 13, 14, 25, 29, 263, 265, 269, 270, 273–275, 279, 283, 287, 289–291, 293–294, 298–299, 303, 309, 311, 316, 317, 320–322 Locris, Locrians 46, 222, 249 Longanus River 277 Lorica Segmentata 49–50 Lucania 320–321 Luceria 323 Lucilius, Sextus 323 Lucullus, Lucius Licinius 326–328 Ludus 310

Lugal 3 Lusitania, Lusitanians 312 Lutatius Catulus 307 Lycia, Lycians 4, 107, 109–111, 120, 121, 153 Lydia, Lydians 97, 103–104, 140, 143, 172, 174, 227, 238 Lygdamis 215–217, 220, Lysander 244, 245 Macedon, Macedonians 12, 14, 17, 45, 48–50, 100, 140, 142, 145–146, 156, 160, 176, 180, 231–233, 235, 249, 303, 324 phalanx 14, 25, 29, 30, 32, 43–46, 48, 51, 290 Machaira (slashing sword) 195–196 Maeander river 174 Maeandirus 228 Maeonia 212 Mago 271, 275–276 Magnesia, battle of 40 Maithanka 123 Malene, battle of 149, 162, 173, 175 Mamertine Affair 277 Maniples 29, 289, 294–296, 299–303, 307, 311–315, 317 Manneans 71, 75 Marathon, battle of 119, 150, 157, 162, 174–175, 178, 180–204, 237 Marcus Aurelius 5, 33 Mardonius 140, 141, 143, 152–153, 157, 163, 175, 178–179 Marian 13, 299, 306–307, 309, 320, 327, 329 Mari 69 Marius, Gaius, Marian 15, 18, 30, 295–296, 305–329 Marius 15, 18, 30, 295, 296, 306–307, 310–312, 318, 319–320, 322–323, 325–326, 329 Marsala 261, 266, 267, 273, 283 Masistius 105, 141, 157, 161, 164, 167, 173, 175 Massagetan, massagetae 149, 150, 164, 175 Massilia 276, Mathos 262 Matinu-ba’al 89 Medes 71, 154, 165, 170, 202 Medinet Habu 74 Megacles 120 Megiddo 8, 86 Melesander 120

index Memnon 155 Mercenaries 10, 34, 36, 63, 153, 168, 173–175, 177, 180, 186, 196, 212–213, 228–229, 232, 245–251, 267–268, 270, 272, 303 Mesopotamia 1, 2, 23, 71, 73, 76, 103, 129, 173 Messenian War, first 26, 36, 201 Messana 259, 261, 283 Metatti of Zikirte 90–91, 100 Metellus 311–312, 328 Midias of Messene 30 Miletus 173, 209, 216–220 Military Tribune 296, 303, 312, 319, 322–323 (tribunus militum) Miltiades 201, 203, 225, 237 Minatius Magius of Aeculanum 320 Minoa 261 Minos of Crete 12 Miššakka (Mišaka) 133 Missile troops 90, 92–93, 95, 99, 158, fig. 7 Misthos (wage) 155, 209–210, 239–241, 250 Mithradates 173 Mitylene 46, 306 Mob/s 42, 65, 85 Motya 260, 261, 283 Murasu 125, 127 Murena 320–321 Musasir 91–92 Muthul, battle at 311 Mutiny 83, 286 Mycale, battle of 178 Mycenae, Mycenaeans 3, 44, 58–61 Mylae, battle of 271, 276, 280 Mytilene 215, 241 Napata 75 Naqs-i Rastam 104 Naram-Sin 2 (Victory Stele) Narmer-palette 7 Naukrariai 224 Naukraric silver 209 Naxos, Naxians 215–217, 220, 226 Near East 1, 7, 8, 11, 12, 17, 58–79 (chariots), 81–100 (Assyria), 101–182 (Persia) Nehemiah 122 Nepos 152 Neriad 110–111 Nervii 306 New Carthage 265 Nexum 301

367

Nicias 245 Nimrud 84–85, 93–94, 98, fig. 1, 3, 8a, 9 Nineveh 95–96, fig. 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 Ningirsu 89 Nisaean 110, 140–142, 157 Nomisa (see coinage) 227 Nubia, Nubian 75–77 Odrisians 140 Oenoe, the Oenoe Painting 187–188 Onesicritus 32 Oligarch 215 Olkades (transports) 274 Olympia 187, 190, 192–194, 196, 201, 234 Olynthos 194 Onesimos 183–184, 202–203, fig. 2, 9 Orchomenus 326 Orosius 286, 322 Orthostates 87, 93, 98, Osteodes (Bony Island) 268 Othryoneus 212 Otys, Paphlagonian king 149 Oxford Brygos 203 Pachynus 283–284 Pactolus plain 174 Paelignus, Accius 323 Palace/s 3, 23, 59, 74, 84, 87, 93–97, 136, 144, fig. 1–7, fig. 8a, fig. 9–17 Palastine 8, 103, 105, 107 Panathenaia 238 Pangeaeus, mountain 232, 247 Panoply, Panoplies 36, 42, 188, 198, 291 Panormus 260, 261, 269, 281 Pantelleria 263 Paphlagonia, paphlagonians 149, 154, 171–172 Parameridia, leg guards 112, 115, 116, 166–168 Parminion 180 Paros 199, 217, 223, 225, 237 Parthian 12, 154, 158, 160, 167, 315 Pausanias 187 Pax Deorum 295 Payava Sarcophagus 109–111 Peisistratids 218 Peisistratus 215–217, 220, 228, 247 Peloponnese, Peloponnesians 49, 211, 216, 222, 230, 246–247 Peloponnesian War 4, 10, 13, 22, 39, 222, 231, 235, 237, 240–241, 245, 247, 250 Peltasts 10, 12, 30, 45, 161, 173, 186, 230

368

index

Pentekonter 12, 218 Pentekontoros (Ship with fifty-oared galley) 215 Penthesilea 30 Pericles 29, 235, 237, 240, 245, 246, 248, 271 Perikle 109, 111, 153 Perfidia (treachery) 276 Persepolos 101, 103–104, 106, 109, 113, 123, 130–131, 135, 137, 138, 142 Perses, son of Perseus 30 Persia, Persians 8, 11, 13, 16–19, 25, 29–30, 34, 36, 44, 48, 51, 101–182 (cavalry), 185–189, 191, 200–204, 212, 215, 218–223, 230–232, 237–238, 244, 246–247 Persian Wars 10, 12–13, 47, 210, 224–226, 230, 233–234, 236–238 Persis (region) 128, 139 Petalai 205, 208 Petreius, Gnaeus 322 Petreius, Marcus 322 Petronius, Lucius 322 Phalanx, Phalanges 9–10, 14, 18, 23, 25, 29–30, 32, 34–36, 38, 43–51, 54, 86, 99, 159, 289–304 Pharnabazus 173–174 Pharsalos (Pharsalus), battle of 200, 313–314, 328 Pheidon of Argos 228 Philippos of Croton 218 Phillip II of Macedon 10, 30, 32, 34, 38, 42, 45, 48–49, 232, 233, 246, 251 Phocaea, Phocaeans 268, 272 Phoenicia, Phoenicians 18, 30, 218, 236, 254–255, 257–262, 264, 267, 269, 271–273, 281, 286 Phrygia, Phrygians 31, 103, 148, 167, 212 Picenum 320, 323 Pila 300, 302, 313–314 Pilos (helmet) 115 Pilum/ pila 14, 30, 48, 54, 300, 302, 309, 310, 313–314 Pindar 201 Pioneers 92 Pirates, Piracy 215, 236, 248–249, 263–264 Pisa 275 Pisaeus 30 Piye 75 Placentia 322 Plato 2, 32, 147, 233

Plataea, battle of 15–159, 25, 51, 112, 140–141, 147, 151, 161, 163, 165, 173, 175, 178, 181 Plataea, Plataeans 187, 201, 203 Pliny the Elder 29–31, 49, 194, 263, 310, 312 Plutarch 28, 299, 302, 307–310, 315, 327–328 Demetrios 191 Poiêmata 158, 168 Polis, polieis 4, 10, 13, 16, 23, 102, 210, 227, 229–230, 234, 243, 246, 292–293, 297 Polyaenus 161–162, 216, 232, 264, 283, Polybius 2, 14, 25, 29, 30, 32, 53, 255–256, 259, 261, 262, 265, 267, 271–273, 276, 278, 280, 282, 284, 287, 298–300, 303, 308–312, 315–317, 319, 321, 324 Polycrates 215–220, 228, 236 Pompey, Pompeian 4, 200, 313–315, 320, 322–323, 326–329 Porne (prostitute) 242–243 Pornovoskos (pimp) 243 Porpax (arm band) 192–194 Porthmeis (ferrymen) 208 Poseidonius 327 Postgate, J. N. 78 Potidea 240 Praefectus 323–324 Praeneste 326 Praetor, Praetorian 4, 305, 322–323, 327 Priam 212 Primipilus 322–323 Principes 296, 300, 302–303, 309 Pritchett, W. K. 8 Proletarius 319 Prometheus 28, 31–32 Proscription 321–322 Protagoras, of Plato 32 Proteus 30 Proto-Attic 193 Proto-Panaetian 183, 193, 228, fig. 2 Provincia 320 Prussian 197–198 Pterie, battle of 149 Pteruges 192 Ptolemy 323 Punic (see Carthaginian) First Punic war 2, 268, 273, 274, 276, 281, 282, 284, 289, 309 Second Punic war 14–15, 39, 47, 51, 84, 270, 275, 276, 296, 317 Punic navy 253–287

index Pupius, Lucius 323 Pydna, battle of 48, 317 Pyrrhus 48–49, 276, 282, 302–303, 309 Pyskter, by Myson 183, fig. 3 Qarqar, battle of 75–76, 89–90 Quatuorvir 323 Quincunx 296, 300, 302 Quinquiremes 277, 276, 272, 277, 332 Ramps 91, 95 Ramses II 1, 2, 7, 63 Ramses III 75, 74 Ras Ed Drek 263 Recruitment: Assyrian 93, 97, 98; Persian 156; Roman 309, 318–320, 324 Regulus 263–264 Reliefs 2, 3, 58, 60, 62, 69, 74, 75, 77, 84, 85, 93–100, 112, 317, fig. 8 Resources 1, 2, 151, 209, 215, 220, 223, 234, 236, 237, 240, 245, 248, 249, 251 Babylonia 123 Carthage 269 coinage, Macedon 232 imperial 239 Iran 155 Mycenaean 59 Naval 223, 272 polis 233, 246 Punic 253, 274 Spartan 216 Thalassocracy and 265 Thucydides and 237 Troy and 212 Rhegium, Rhegians 275, 278 Rheneia 216 Rheomithres 155 Rhodes 264, 269–270, 287 Rome, Romans 2–3, 4–7, 11–30, 40, 42, 45–56, 82, 84, 87, 100, 114, 167, 194–196, 200, 233–234, 251, 254, 255–256, 258–259, 260–329 Romulus 14 Royal Road 138 Rufus, Rutilius 310 Sabinus, Quintus Titurius 315, 324–325, 328 Sacae 158, 163, 165 Salamis, battle of 2, 148, 222, 224, 225 oracle concerning 143 Salamis (in Cyprus) 150

369

Sallust 310, 311, 318–319, 322, 327–328 Histories 322 Saltu (quiver) 125–126 Salvienus 322 Samaria, Samaritan 77, 97, 105, 107, 165 Sambre 315 Samia, Samians 216–217 Samnite 4, 289–290, 294, 301 Samnite War (Second) 293 Samnium 320 Sardinia, Sardinians 255, 257, 259–260, 274–275, 286 Sargon of Akkad 7 Sargon II of Assyria 70, 81–88, 90–92, 97–98, 100 Sarissa 303 Satibarzanes 168 Saunion 14, 164 Scipio Aemilianus 254 Scipio Africanus 264, 274–275, 277, 316 Scouts 69, 90, 92–93 Scutum, scuta 14, 28, 37, 48, 54, 200, 289 Scythes, son of Jupiter 30 Scythia, Scythians 31, 67, 103, 117–118, 142, 149, 158, 170, 172, 175, 181, 185–186, 200–201, 218, 230 Sea Peoples 1, 64, 74 Segesta, Segestans (Egesta) 238, 240, 249, 258, 259 Sempronius Longus 316 Senate 256, 258, 276, 302, 319, 322 Sennacherib 82, 92, 94–96 Seneca 29, 32 Serf, serfs (see Helots) 221 Sertorius 326–328 Servian 291, 297, 300 Servius 300 Sesterces 319 Shalmaneser III 71, 76, 85, 89, 93 Sianu 89 Shield/s 14, 23, 25–26, 29 (clipei), 30–32, 36–37, 40, 42–43, 46, 48, 65, 85–86, 93–99, 107, 112, 115, 120, 126, 140, 169–170, 178, 183–185, 187,189, 191–200, 202, 234, 257–261, 263, 264, 268, 270, 274, 275, 277, 284, 289–290, 303, 316 Siege engines 94–95, Siege tower 94–95 Sigeion 215–216, 226 Siglos 106

370

index

Silo, Pompaedius 326 Simonides 148, 219 Sin-ah-usur 90 Sinope 171 Sippar 127 Slaves, slavery 13, 24, 141, 201, 211, 228–229, 242–244, 249, 251, 270 Slingers 10, 93–95, 151, 158, 173, 230, 282, 311–312, 316, fig. 8 Social War 248, 319, 321, 325–326 Socii 271, 295 Sogdiana, sogdians 104, 149, 151, 154 Soldiers (generic) 10, 11, 14, 26, 29, 41–42, 47, 50, 52, 54, 55, 66, 75, 76, 81–82, 90–91, 95, 97, 104, 109, 115, 121, 124, 127, 131, 134, 136–137, 139, 151, 161, 163, 165, 170, 177, 188, 199, 211–212, 228, 238–241, 247–250, 271, 282, 289, 292–295, 298, 300, 302, 312–313, 315, 318–319, 327 Solon 208–209, 228, 242 Sora 323 Sotides, vase 119 Spain, Spanairds 18, 42, 200, 258, 260, 263, 266, 271, 273, 287, 305, 313, 315, 317, 320, 322 Sparta, Spartans 2, 4, 9, 13, 23, 25, 26, 28, 30, 38, 45, 47, 50, 51, 145, 147, 161, 163, 173, 174, 175, 191, 197, 203, 216, 217, 221, 230, 234, 235, 237, 243, 244, 246–248, 251 Spartacus 326 Spear/s 2, 25, 30–31, 35–36, 40, 42, 48, 51, 59–60, 65, 72, 86, 91–92, 95–96, 104, 107, 109–110, 113–114, 119, 126, 129, 140, 144, 148–149, 158, 160, 164–165, 168, 170, 178, 180, 183, 185–187, 194–197, 200–202, 204, 290, 300, 302–303, 309 Spearmen 44, 93, 96–97, 99, 106–107, 114–115, 117, 127, 186, fig. 6, 13, 15 Spinther, Lentulus 323 spitamenes 149, 151 Stadia 186–188, 200 Stele/ai 2–3, 7, 75, 86–88, 105, 116, 110, 120, 281, 287 Stipendiarii 28, 289 Stipendium 293 Stoa Poikile 186, 187, 202 Strabo 126, 128, 139–141, 320, 322, 324 strategeia 1 Sudan 75

Suhattu (head gear) 125 Sulcis, battle of 257, 276 Sulla 4, 306–308, 320, 322–323, 325–327, 329 Sulmo, gates of 323 Sumer, Sumerian 3, 7, 81, 86, 88 Supplementum 312, 319 Susa 104, 124, 128 Sword 2, 14, 25, 30, 35, 40, 42, 46, 49, 89–90, 99, 107, 110, 114, 126, 143, 164–166, 169–170, 189, 195–196, 199, 201–202, 290, 300, 302–303, 309–310, 314 Symparapleia (sailing along the coast with) 274, 282 Syphax 277 Syracuse, Syracusan 30, 230, 255–258, 274, 278, 283–284 Syria, Syrians 8, 30, 68, 71, 86, 89, 103, 129, 148, 267 Tablets 59, 87, 93 (Sargonic), 106, 130–131 (Persepolis Treasury) Tachos 232 Tarpeian rock 323 Tarquinia Tomba del Guerriero 290 Avvolta tomb 290 Tarsus 107 Taurus Mountains 69, 71 Technology 17, 21–25, 28–30, 32–38, 41, 43, 46, 49–57, 68, 70, 72–73, 94, 291 Telemachus 211 Tenians 217 Tetradrachms 225 Teucer 96 Teumann, Elamite king 96 Teutons 306–307, 310 Thapsus 264 Thebes, Thebans 2, 45, 163, 201, 249, 251 Themistocles 222, 224, 237, 248 Theocritus 32 Theophrastus 32 Theoroi (sacred envoys) 208 Thermus, Marcus 306 Thessally thessalians 31, 141, 156, 234, 249 Thibron 174 Thimiaterion 260 Third Sacred War 232, 249 Thrace, Thracians 48, 110, 140, 250 Peltasts 12

index Thrasyllus 150 Thucydides 2, 12, 26, 28, 37, 47, 120, 201, 210, 214–215, 220, 222–223, 225- 226, 228, 230, 235–239, 241, 245–246, 249 Thutmosis III 7 Thymbrara, battle of 145, 158, 159, 161, 163, 168, 179 Ticinum 316 Tigres 92, 129, 173 Tigurini 306–307 Til-tuba, battle of 96–97 Timoleon 277–278 Timotheus 247 Tissaphernes 107, 121, 145, 150, 156, 172–174, 231 Tithraustes 152, 156 Trade 18, 76, 219, 220, 254, 265, 272 Triaconters (as small horsetransporters) 215 Triarii 296, 300, 303, 309 Triarius 326 Tribes 13, 68, 259, 271, 290, 293, 297–298, 301, 318 Tributum 301 Trierarch 13, 244, 247, 269, 283 Triptolemos Painter 203, fig. 6 Trireme 218–219, 222–224, 239, 266–268, 273, 277, 283–284 crews 213, 244, 270 rowers 225, 230 trierarchs 244, 247 Aegina 224 fleets 222, 223, 224 Herodotus 223, 236 rowers, poor 230, 244, 271 Thucydides 222, 223 trierarchies 269 warships, building 222, 223 materials 265, 266 trêrês 217, 236 Triumvir, triumviri 323 Troy, Trojan War 2, 31–32, 148, 187, 193, 211, 212, 220 Truceless War 262, 274 Tyrant/s 30, 141, 200, 216–217, 220, 222, 228–229, 232, 282 Tyrrenus 30 Tyrrhenians 289 Tyrtaeus 2, 9, 41, 43 Tulingi 307 Tullius, Servius 290 Tunisia 260

371

U’aush, Mountain 83, 90, 92 Udjahorresenet 122 Ugiga-field 88 Umbria 320 Umma 1, 7, 86, 88–89 Ummaite levies 88–89 Umašba 133 Ur 2, 65 (royal standard of) Urartian king Rusa 90–91 Urartu 71, 83, 90 Usunatu 89 Utica 260, 276 Van Wees, H. 10–11 Varnu-Aornos 123 Vegetius 30, 42, 50 Veii, Veientes 14, 293–294, 298 Velites 296, 300, 309, 312, 315–317 Vercellae 325 Vergil, see Virgil Veseris, battle of 317 Vesontio 313, 325 Veterans 92, 200, Vetulonia 196 Violence 1, 7, 82 Virgil, 2, 32 Virtus 49, 305 Volsci 293, 295 Vulci, Osteria necropolis 291 Wadis 89 warriors 2, 8, 17, 32, 42, 59, 62, 83, 90–91, 117, 165, 183–184, 196 Wealth 1, 13, 32, 78, 158, 191, 212, 215, 242, 323 acquisition of 233 chrēmata 223 hoplites 244 and manpower 222 and power 143, 228 movable wealth 229 of Alcinous 213 of Asians 237 of citizens 247, 296 of Persia 223, 237 of poleis 243 plundered 214 private 128 source of, 238 Wood 4, 61, 70, 96, 98, 143, 193–194, 254, 265–267, 274 Wool 86 (skirts), 191 (corselets)

372 Xanthippus 284 Xanthos, Pillar Inscription 120 Xenophon 30, 38, 40, 45, 48, 140, 141, 144, 145, 150, 151, 154, 155, 157–162, 164–172, 175–180, 240–241, 278 Xerxes 101, 141, 145, 147, 177–178 Xiphos/xiphoi (sword) 164, 195

index Yahweh 121 Yenicekoy slab 112, 169 Zagros Mountains 69–71, 138 Zama, battle of 51, 316 Zechariah 122 Zela 326 Zembra 263

ILLUSTRATIONS Chapter 3 Fagan

Fig. 1: Chariot charge from Northwest Palace at Nimrud, ca. 865–860 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

Fig. 2: Heavy war chariot from North Palace at Nineveh, ca. 645–635 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

Fig. 3: Early two-horse cavalry team, Northwest Palace at Nimrud, ca. 865–860 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

Fig. 4: Assyrian lancers from Southwest Palace at Nineveh, ca. 700 bc. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

Fig. 5: Ranks of uniformly equipped infantry on the “War Side” of the Royal Standard of Ur, ca. 2500 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

Fig. 6: Assyrian spearmen from North Palace at Nineveh, ca 645–635 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

Fig. 7: Missile troops from siege of Lachish, Southwest Palace at Nineveh, ca. 700 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

Fig. 8: Slinger from reliefs of the siege of Lachish alongside comparable finds of Assyrian military equipment (including slingshots from Lachish itself) that correspond precisely with the carved image. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission. Upper right: Assyrian iron helmet from Northwest Palace, Nimrud. 8th century bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission. Centre right: Bronze scale armor, 9th–7th century bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission. Lower right: Slingshots from Lachish. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

Fig. 9: Siege scene from Northwest Palace at Nimrud, ca. 865–860 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

Fig. 10: Assault on an Egyptian fortress, North Palace at Nineveh, ca. 668–667 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

Fig. 11: Siege of Lachish, Southwest Palace at Nineveh. Captives emerge from the gatehouse of the city. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

Fig. 12: Destruction of Arab camp under Assurbanipal, from North Palace at Nineveh, 645–635 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

Fig. 13: Archer-spearman team from the Arab campaign of Assurbanipal, North Palace at Nineveh, 645–635 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

Fig. 14: Battle of Til-Tuba, Southwest Palace at Nineveh, 663–653 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

Fig. 15: Archer-spearman team from Battle of Til-Tuba, Southwest Palace at Nineveh, 663–653 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

Fig. 16: Charge of Assyrians at Battle of Til-Tuba, Southwest sPalace at Nineveh, 663–653 bce. British Museum. Photo: G. Fagan, with permission.

Fig. 17: Assyrian troops in formation drive fugitives toward a fortified position, Southwest Palace at Nineveh, ca. 700 bce. Drawing from A.H Layard, The Monuments of Nineveh (1853).

Chapter 5 Krentz

Fig. 1: Interior of a cup attributed to Douris (Hartwig). Baltimore (MD), Johns Hopkins University B8= Beazley ARV2 1569 = Beazley Archive Database 205260. After Paul Hartwig, Die griechischen Meisterschalen der Blüthezeit des strengen rothfigurigen Stiles (Stuttgart: W. Spemann, 1893), pl. 22,2.

Fig. 2: Interior of a cup attributed to Onesimos (D. Williams) or to the ProtoPanaetian Group (Hartwig). London, British Museum E45 = ARV 2 316.8, 1645 = Beazley Archive Database 203248. After Paul Hartwig, Die griechischen Meisterschalen der Blüthezeit des strengen rothfigurigen Stiles (Stuttgart: W. Spemann, 1893), pl. 13,1.

Fig. 3: Psykter attributed to Myson (von Bothmer). Rome, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco Vaticano AST428 = ARV2 238, 242.77 = Beazley Archive Database 202178. Photo Vatican Museums.

Fig. 4: Cup attributed to Apollodoros (D. Williams) or the Pedieus Painter (von Bothmer). Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe 1983.277 = Beazley Archive Database 1558. Photograph courtesy of the museum.

Fig. 5: Detail of side B of a krater attributed to Euphronios (Furtwängler). Arezzo, Museo Nazionale Archeologico 1465 = ARV 2 15.6, 1619 = Beazley Archive Database 200068. After A. Furtwängler and K. Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei (Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1904–32), pl. 62.

Fig. 6: Side B of a cup attributed to the Triptolemos Painter (Beazley). Edinburgh 1887.213 = Beazley ARV2 364.46 = Beazley Archive Database 203838. After Paul Hartwig, Die griechischen Meisterschalen der Blüthezeit des strengen rothfigurigen Stiles (Stuttgart: W. Spemann, 1893), pl. 55.

Fig. 7: Drawings of a cup attributed to the Painter of the Paris Gigantomachy (Beazley). New York 1980.11.21 = ARV 2 417.4 = Beazley Archive Database 204549. After Eduard Gerhard, Auserlesene griechische vasenbilder, hauptsächlich etruskischen Fundorts, vol. 3 (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1840-1858), pl. 166.

Fig. 8: Fragment of a red-figure plate from the Acropolis. After Botho Graef and Ernst Langlotz, Die Antiken Vasen von der Akropolis zu Athen, vol. 2 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1933), no. 14.

Fig. 9: Interior of a cup attributed to Onesimos (Beazley) or the Antiphon Painter (D. Williams). Orvieto 65 = ARV 2 1595 = Beazley Archive Database 203387. Drawing by J. D. Beazley, courtesy of the Beazley Archive.