I

Table of Content

Introduction................................................................................................................. ..I

A Few Considerations on Unconventional Warfare.....................................................1

The Army of a Polis: Troop types in the 5th Century BC.............................................4

Athens and Boeotia during the Archidamian War…………………………………..10

Sparta in the Peloponnesian War……………………………………………………24

Conclusions………………………………………………………………………….37

Bibliography………………………………………………………………………...43

I

Introduction

Despite the rich scholarly studies about Greek warfare, not much has been written

about what we could define Greek “unconventional warfare”,1 especially regarding

the period between the 8th and the 5

th century BC. Furthermore, the modern scholars

who have been trying to analyze the Greek way of war normally tend to two different

interpretations of how a battle was fought during Classical times: some, such as V. D.

Hanson, have seen them as being dominated by the hoplite and the phalanx, with

little room left for other kinds of troops, i.e. archers, skirmishers, light cavalry, as

well as for tactics other than just pushing forward in order to break the cohesion of

the enemy battle line.2 Others, like H. van Wees, argued that battles were in reality

more dynamic, at least until the end of the Persian Wars (ca. 479 BC), and that they

involved active use of light infantry along with the core of heavy infantrymen (whose

formation might not have been as tight as it is believed it was, especially in the 7th

-6th

century BC).3

Outside of these two different currents of thought about the battle

development, there are those scholars who have just analyzed the ancient

historiographers’ accounts of the battles that happened during this time frame,

focusing mostly on strategies and tactics rather than on the actual fighting dynamics:

some recent examples are D. Kagan’s The Peloponnesian War (Penguin 2004), M. M.

Sage’s Warfare in Ancient Greece: A Sourcebook (Routledge 2003), J. D. Montagu’s

Greek and Roman Warfare. Battles Tactics and Trickery (Greenhill Books 2006) and

U. Fantasia’s La guerra del Peloponneso (Carocci 2012): up to now, though, almost

nobody has tried to relate battle patterns and their theoretical aspects, as if they were

completely unrelated to each other, and investigate why some parts of Greece were

more receptive to military innovation than others.

Given these presuppositions, the first step of this dissertation will be to try

and define what can be considered “unconventional” in the Greek way of war: this

objective will be achieved through the analysis of a series of “anomalous” campaigns

1 See Chapter 1.

2 See V. D. Hanson, The Western Way of War, California University Press 1989; his

interpretation has been accepted, among the others, by J. Keegan in A History of Warfare, Hutchinson 1994. 3 See H. van Wees, Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities, Duckworth 2004. A similar opinion

has been expressed also by L. Rawlings in his work The Ancient Greeks at War, Manchester

University Press 2007.

II

and single battles dating back to the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC), where the

generals have introduced a degree of strategic and tactical innovation that had never

been witnessed before in the hoplite warfare. The main objective will be trying to

insert in a wider chronological perspective, at least encompassing the Persian Wars

and the first half of the 4th century BC, examples such as Pericles’ strategy in the first

years of the conflict, or the tactics adopted by Demosthenes as well as those put into

practice by their opponents, in particular Brasidas and Lysander.

The main reason for this is my belief that, instead of being isolated cases,

they are part of a development process whose roots date back to the Homeric poems

and whose speed dramatically increased around the time of the Persian Wars: by the

time of the Peloponnesian War, the situation had reached the point that the traditional,

“orthodox” hoplite warfare could not be considered “enough” to deal with the

difficulties of this specific conflict, but the two different approaches coexisted at

least until the beginning of the 4th century BC, when the use of light infantry (in

particular peltasts) became usual, also thanks to demonstrations of its effectiveness

such as the battle of Lechaeum in 391 BC.

1

1. A Few Considerations on Unconventional Warfare

1.1. Defining Unconventional Warfare for Ancient Greece: Is it Possible?

From a contemporary perspective, unconventional warfare can be defined as

follows:4

unconventional warfare is that part of “Special Warfare” that employs

violence. It can be broadly classified as offensive and defensive. It is

offensive when one government promotes the overthrow of a foreign

government or a change in its political elite. In these circumstances,

organization, manipulation and assistance are carried into another

territory: the recent (1962) affair with Cuba is an example. It is defensive

when a frustrated political group structures itself into a disciplined

organization to apply violence against the government of its own nation

or when a people fight the occupational forces of an invading army. This

classification does not preclude both types from being (and they usually

are) strategically and tactically offensive.

It is the case, for instance, of Mao’s guerrilla warfare during the Chinese

revolutionary war, of the Italian Brigate Partigiane’s actions against German troops

between 1943 and 1945, or that of some Confederate military units, such as that

under William C. Quantrill’s command, during the Secession War in the USA.5

From the previous examples it can be inferred that the so called “asymmetric

warfare”, or “guerrilla warfare”, is part of unconventional warfare: this definition

refers to situations where there is a significant disparity in power between opposing

actors in a conflict. In this sense, according to Mack power is meant as material

power, such as a large army, sophisticated weapons, an advanced economy, and so

on.6 Furthermore, what characterizes guerrilla from symmetric conflicts is that “the

4 See J. K. Zawodny, “Unconventional Warfare”, in The American Scholar, Vol. 31, No. 3

(Summer, 1962), p. 385. 5 Ibid., pp. 385f.

6 See A. Mack, “Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars: The Politics of Asymmetric Conflict”,

in World Politics, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Jan. 1975), p. 182.

2

guerrilla wins if he does not lose. The conventional army loses if it does not win”:7

its objective is the destruction of the political capability of the enemy to wage war,

since victory on the field cannot be achieved because of the already mentioned

disparity of power between the belligerents. Ideology also plays an important role,

since guerrilla forces always fight in order to change something, be it in order to free

their country from external rule, or, in the case of internal strife, to change the

political or religious situation.

Unfortunately, warfare in Ancient Greece, and more specifically the

Peloponnesian War, cannot be completely related to the definitions of both

“unconventional” and “asymmetric” warfare, as they are intended today. In fact, in

certain occasions there are some common aspects, such as:

- A significant difference in the quantity, or quality, of the troops deployed by

one of the belligerents: it is the case, for example, of the disparity between

the amount of soldiers Athens and the Peloponnesians could field at the

beginning of the Peloponnesian War: for this reason mostly the Athenians

avoided pitched battles, where their defeat would have been almost assured,

and concentrated their efforts on raids against undefended parts of

Peloponnese. The same reasoning, this time regarding quality, can be applied

to the hit-and-run tactics adopted by the Aetolians during the Athenian

invasion in 426 BC. Knowing that their light armed troops could not face

heavy infantry on the field, the Aetolian skirmishers did not let themselves

get locked into melée, where the superior weaponry of the hoplites would

have played a decisive role in determining the victor.

- The unwillingness of certain poleis to damage an enemy by directly invading

and ravaging their region, even in the case of an officially declared war: in

this kind of situations there are examples of economic and military support

given to rebellious factions, or to allies, in order to indirectly damage a target.

It is the case of Demosthenes’ expedition in Aetolia, or the later invasion of

Boeotia in 424 BC, whose objective was to deprive Sparta of its Boeotian

allies; it is probably also the case of Brasidas’ campaign in the Chalcidic

Peninsula and in Thrace.

7 See H. A. Kissinger, “The Vietnam Negotiations”, in Foreign Affairs, XLVII (Jan. 1969), p.

214.

3

However, in the Peloponnesian War there is no trace of some key aspects that

characterize asymmetric and unconventional warfare as they have been defined: for

instance,

- In most of the cases a victorious polis did not subdue the defeated enemy, as

in a war of conquest: there have been no situations where the population of an

occupied territory rebelled in order to free themselves and drive away the

invaders; this also means that ideological components have never taken part

in the process that leads to the insurrection of a certain group of individuals.

- Even when there have been insurrections, most of the times in order to

change the political asset of a region or city-state, the rebels and their external

supporters never resorted to unconventional warfare. A particularly

significant example is the rebellion led by Thrasybulus against the oligarchic

regime of the Thirty Tyrants: even though he and his men were at

disadvantage as far as number of soldiers and quality of equipment, they did

not resort to guerrilla in order to achieve victory, but faced the enemy in

pitched battles.

Given these presuppositions, it is necessary to modify the modern definition of

unconventional warfare, in order to make it applicable to the period of the

Peloponnesian War: in the specific case of this dissertation, all tactics and strategies

diverging from the traditional hoplite warfare (whose characterizing dynamics will

be briefly described in Chapter 2), will be considered unconventional, or unorthodox.

Therefore, there will be no considerations over possible ideological or political

aspects that may have led certain general to adopt innovative approaches to what had

been the Greek way of war since the beginning of the hoplite era.

4

2. The Army of a Polis: Troop types in the 5th Century BC

2.1. The Classical Hoplite: Equipment and the “Ōthismos Issue”

In the 5th century, the backbone of a polis’ army were the hoplites, i.e. heavy infantry

composed by all the citizens that could afford the cost of the panoply required to

fight in a phalanx. They were equipped with a large round shield, called hoplon

(from which derives the term “hoplite”), bronze or leather greaves; then a helmet -

whose typology would have varied according to the region the troops belonged to

and a bronze or linen armour covering the torso. The armour sometimes could have

had some pteruges (leather flaps) to protect the thighs of the hoplite. The offensive

equipment consisted in a thrusting spear and in a sword, normally called machaira or

kopis, and conceived to slash the enemy downwards, pretty much as the kukri of the

Gurkhas.8

As for the role they covered in battle, hoplites were the ones forming the

main battle line, deployed in the so called phalanx: a tight formation normally eight-

ranks deep, where the best troops were stationed on the right wing, together with the

general, as opposed to the weakest troops, which occupied the left wing.

The way the phalanxes fought, however, is not completely clear: this

uncertainty has led to two main different interpretations (depending on how the word

ōthismos literally “shoving, pushing”), which will be briefly described and analyzed

in order to better understand the issue. The first one is the “orthodox” or “traditional”

view: according to it, the ōthismos is literally a mass pushing match with the aim

being to push opponents back until the cohesion of their battle-line breaks. To

achieve this, both phalanxes charged at a slow run from about 200 metres apart.

Hoplites moved directly into shield-on-shield contact from the charge using the

momentum to smash their shields together like rams and stabbing with spears

underhand like cavalry lances. Spears were often shivered and opposing ranks

became to some extent interlaced. This was followed by intense infighting with

swords as ranks somehow managed to reform and those behind the promachoi (i.e.

the front line fighters) began to push forward until one side gave way and collapsed,

8 See A. M. Snodgrass, Arms and Armour of the Greeks, Thames&Hudson 1967, p. 97.

5

thus bringing the battle to an end. The winners normally pursued the enemy troops

for a short time, and then erected a trophy on the battlefield as a proof of their

victory.9

The second reconstruction is the so called “heretical” view, also known as

“figurative model”: here, the context of the word ōthismos is interpreted in a more

metaphorical sense. In fact, scholars adhering to this view claim that hoplite warfare

did not involve an immediate collision of the formations right at the beginning;

instead, fighting was conducted at a distance, and that the “pushing” was a figurative

expression used by the ancient authors to describe how one side was forced from the

field by another during this period of combat. In this view, the rear ranks served as

replacements for casualties, or could filter forward into the fighting to relieve the

weary front-liners, much like a less developed and ante litteram manipular system.10

It is implicitly assumed that to perform actions such as these the phalanx must have

been a much looser formation than it can be inferred from the ancient sources.

Furthermore, in more recent times some new reconstructions have been

formulated in order to try reconciling the two main theories: among them,

particularly interesting is the one by L. Rawlings, according to whom it is quite

likely that

the charge made the phalanx become very spread out, so that, as the

promachoi of both sides met, their formations were very open and there

may have been a fair degree of interpenetration of friends and foes. This

was very dangerous for individuals, [...] who might become isolated

among the enemy as their rear ranks soon arrived and the phalanxes re-

coalesced. They perhaps took the risk because the momentum of their

charge might allow them to penetrate the shield and armour of an enemy

more easily (Hanson 1989, p. 140). The impact could be severe enough

9 For a more in-depth reconstruction, see Hanson 1989, pp. 157-159; see also P. Cartledge,

“Hoplites and Heroes: Sparta’s Contribution to the Technique of Ancient Warfare”, JHS, vol. 97 (1977), p. 16; R. D. Luginbill, “Othismos: the Importance of the Mass-Shove in Hoplite

Warfare”, in Phoenix, vol. 48 (1994), p. 56; J. E. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts - A History of

Battle in Classical Antiquity, New Haven 2005, pp. 41, 71, to name some of the scholars that agree on this interpretation. 10

See for instance G. Cawkwell, Philip of Macedon, Faber&Faber 1978, pp. 150-157; H. V.

Wees, Greek Warfare, Myths and Realities, Duckworth 2004, pp. 52, 185; L. Rawlings, The

Ancient Greeks at War, Manchester University Press, 2007, pp. 53, 58, 95.

6

to shatter spears (Diod. 15.82.2) and shields (Xen. Ages. 2.14; Menander,

Aspis 75f.), although what often developed was a doratismos, a spear-

fight (Plut. Timoleon 28.1).11

Given the topic of this dissertation, since the ōthismos, in all its variants, still

represents a conventional element of warfare in Classical Greece, it is not

particularly necessary to favour one interpretation over the other. For this reason I

find reasonable to consider both the “literal” and the “figurative” interpretation on

the same level of reliability.

2.2. The Light Armed Infantry: Equipment and Role on the Battlefield

Along with the hoplites, almost all poleis could field a certain amount of light

infantry: from Pericles’ speech at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, for

instance, it may be inferred that Athens’ forces in 431 BC also included some

mounted archers within the cavalry forces, and some sixteen hundred archers on foot.

Other cities most definitely had similar or fewer numbers of specialized non-hoplite

troops to bolster their forces. Moreover, to these numbers may be added also those

that could not afford a bow and a quiver of arrows, but joined the army nonetheless:

there are enough references to stone throwers or slingers to assume that this was a

common practice on the battlefield.12

Furthermore, as H. Van Wees has argued, rowers were probably also used

during seaborne raids, such as those made by the Athenians against the Megarid and

the Peloponnese, where the hoplites were not numerous enough to guarantee the

efficacy of the action; evidence of this can be found in Thuc. 4.9.1, where an

Athenian commander equipped his rowers with wicker shields and made them fight

as peltasts, or in Thuc. 8.15 and 17.1, where the Spartan commanders gave their

rowers hoplite weapons. Particularly significant is the case of Sphacteria, as pointed

out by van Wees: “as soon as it was morning, the rest of the army also landed, out of

somewhat more than seventy galleys, everyone with such arms as he had, being all

[that rowed] except only the Thalamii” (Thuc. 4.32.2). Hence, even though the

11

See Rawlings 2007, p. 95. 12

See K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War, Vol. V, 1991, pp. 1-67 for a detailed analysis of

the evidence.

7

statement that “the very fact that it only took a shield to turn a rower into a peltast

implies that rowers could be counted on to bring their own weapons is a matter of

course” may be considered, in my opinion, a bit too hazardous,13

this does not

change the likeliness of the use of rowers to bolster military expeditions where

hoplites and specialised troops could not be present in great numbers.

Lastly, among the light infantry there were those called peltasts, named after

the pelta, i.e. the crescent shaped wicker or leather shield they used for defence.

They were equipped also with javelins and swords for the close combat, even though

at least until Iphicrates’ reform in the 4th

century BC their fighting style consisted

mostly of hit-and-run tactics: by making the best use of their superior mobility, they

managed to beat several times the slower and heavy armed hoplites. It is the case of

the Aetolian troops that repelled an Athenian invasion in 426 BC, or of the

expedition forces that landed on Pylos in 425 BC under Demosthenes’ command,

and later on besieged the Spartan garrison at Sphacteria.

Generally speaking, if we except the aforementioned episodes and a few

others, light infantry apparently did not play a pivotal role on the battlefield: most of

the times they probably did little more than throw stones, and did not act as an

organized force - they may not even have had any kind of formal leadership among

their ranks. However, they could be employed quite effectively during raids, once

again because of their superior mobility, and even during fights they could have

somehow damaged the morale of the hoplites, be it because of continuous raining of

stones or arrows or javelins, or because of their ability to frustrate most of the pursue

attempts against them.14

13

See van Wees 2004, p. 62. In the aforementioned Thuc. 4.32.2 we read ὡς ἕκαστοι ἐσκευασμένοι, “equipped as they were”: the sentence itself does not seem sufficiently clear

to argue that each rower brought his own weapons on board of the ship he would be on. Nor

does Xen. Hell. 5.1.11 (the other passage provided by van Wees to support his statement), where we read ὅ τι ἐδύνατο ἕκαστος ὅπλον ἔχων, “each man with whatever weapon he had

[could get?]”. It appears to be more likely that some may have brought weapons on board,

but that it was not probably a custom. 14

See van Wees 2004, p. 64.

8

2.3. The Cavalry: Equipment and Role on the Battlefield

Breeding and taking care of a horse required a great amount of wealth, so most of the

poleis could not field horsemen in great numbers: exceptions were Athens, which at

the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War could bolster around one thousand horsemen,

plus two hundred mounted archers;15

Thebes, since Boeotia was a region rich of

plains, and Thessalian cities too.16

Cavalrymen could equip themselves as they wished, however it can be

inferred from Xenophon’s Horsemanship that they were advised to take javelins,

usually a pair, and a slashing sword (12.11-12); as for the defensive equipment, it

seems that Boeotian-type helmets were the most preferred, since they granted a wider

field of vision than their Corinthian-type counterparts; the horsemen were also

suggested to wear a cuirass, and leather boots. From the archaeological evidence,

though, it may be argued that most of this panoply could be abandoned in order to

gain more mobility; in fact, most of the iconography related to cavalry shows

horsemen wearing a tunic and a hat (the so called petasos).

Both literature and archaeological evidence, then, lead to the conclusion that

in most cases cavalry played the same role as light infantry, i.e. they threw missiles

against heavier targets, trying to avoid melée as much as possible by abusing their

mobility: “we recommend throwing javelins from the longest possible distance”,

wrote Xenophon (Horsemanship 12.13). Their swiftness also made them very

suitable for raids, and in certain cases to contribute to “active defence” tactics such as

that devised by Pericles in the first years of the Peloponnesian War.

From the literary sources it can also be inferred that the cavalry could be

particularly effective in pursuing a defeated enemy: Xenophon’s statement that the

Ten Thousands, who completely lacked any cavalry, “would not be able to kill even

a single man if they were victorious, and that none of them would survive if they

were defeated” (Xen. An. 3.1.2) may appear exaggerated, but there are several

episodes where horsemen, with or without light infantry, defeated hoplite based

15

See Thuc. 2.13.6-8. 16

See Lendon, 2005, p. 98.

9

armies and caused the number of casualties related to the flight of the losing army to

raise by a fair amount during the chase.17

17

See for instance Thuc. 2.79; 4.42-44; 5.10.9-10. Particularly interesting is the fact that at

Delium the few Athenian cavalrymen that took part to the battle, such as Alcibiades,

protected the fleeing hoplites from the pursuing Boeotian forces (Plut. Alc. 7.4 and Plat.

Symp. 221a).

10

3. Athens and Boeotia during the Archidamian War: Pericles, Demosthenes,

Pagondas

3.1. Pericles’ strategy

Athen’s imperialistic policy, particularly on the sea, that followed the end of the

Persian Wars had given rise to many concerns into Sparta’s allies, in particular in

Corinth and Thebes. For this reason, in the summer of 431 BC the Spartan king

Archidamus, under the pressure of Sparta’s allies and government, invaded Attica

with the objective of conquering the city by engaging the Athenian army in a pitched

battle, where he could have easily had the upper hand, considering the overwhelming

number of troops at his disposal compared to those fielded by Athens.18

If the

strategy chosen by king Archidamus and his counselors to wage war in Attica was in

line with the traditional hoplite warfare as it has been reconstructed by V. D.

Hanson,19

Pericles’ answer appears to be particularly unusual: when the

Peloponnesians forces overflowed into the plains surrounding Athens and devastated

the lands around Eleusis, eventually reaching the demos of Acharnes, some 10 km

away from Athens, he had already gathered most of the population20

within the city

walls and just let the cavalry patrol the countryside, in order to disturb the

Peloponnesians by slowing them down and by attacking whatever small contingent

got isolated from the main army. In the meantime supplies came to Athens via

18

Plutarch (Per. 33.4) states that Spartans and their allies numbered to sixty thousands

hoplites: Hanson hypothesizes that they may have been between thirty thousands and sixty

thousands, and several other scholars have expressed their doubts towards the numbers given by Plutarch. Even so, the Athenians could field thirteen thousands hoplites, plus around

sixteen thousands that were dislocated in their domains, twelve hundreds cavalrymen and an

indefinite number of archers and horse archers (Thuc. 2.13.6-8), which appear to be a reasonable estimation of their forces at the beginning of the war. See Hanson 1999, p. 109;

Fantasia 2012, p. 62. On Pericles’ awareness of the impossibility of engaging the

Peloponnesians in a pitched battle, see for instance J. Ober, Thucydides, Pericles and the

Strategy of Defense, in J. W. Eadie (ed.), The Craft of the Ancient Historian: Essays in Honor of Chester G. Starr, University Press of America, 1985, p. 172s. 19

I.e. to invade the region and systematically burn or cut crops, vineyards and olive trees

while waiting for the Athenian hoplite forces to face them in a pitched battle. See V. D. Hanson, The Western Way of War , 1989, p. 23ff. 20

Not without difficulties; it seems that the Acharnians, in particular, have reluctantly

followed Pericles’ plan: see Thuc. 2.21.3 οἵ τε Ἀχαρνῆς οἰόμενοι παρὰ σφίσιν αὐτοῖς οὐκ ἐλαχίστην μοῖραν εἶναι Ἀθηναίων, ὡς αὐτῶν ἡ γῆ ἐτέμνετο, ἐνῆγον τὴν ἔξοδον μάλιστα “but

the Acharnians, believing that they were not a small part of the Athenian population, since

their land was continuously being ravaged, pressured so that they could sally and engage the

enemy in battle”.

11

maritime routes, and naval squadrons raided the coastal settlements of the

Peloponnese meeting close to no resistance (most of the troops had followed

Archidamus in Attica: see Thuc. 2.23.2; 2.25; 2.30), in what may be considered one

of the first examples of amphibious military actions in Antiquity.

The effectiveness of this use of the cavalry has been subject to different

evaluations: G. Bugh argues that the cavalry had not been used in numbers great

enough to be effective in their deterrence actions, since the democrats feared some

possible collusion between the Athenian oligarch party and the invaders.21

Hanson,

on the other hand, believes that these patrols have been sufficient to limit the

devastation of the countryside, also considering the fact that entity of the damage

done to cultivations (in particular to vineyards and olive trees) must have been very

little because of the difficulties related to the destruction of these plants.22

Fantasia

agrees on the effectiveness of the cavalry actions, but rejects Hanson’s statement

regarding the damage suffered by the countryside, preferring to agree with Kagan:

according to him, the aforementioned damage must have been quite considerable.

Finally, Ober inserts them in a wider picture, arguing that they were just one of the

several initiatives taken by Pericles to reassure the demos of the efficacy of his

strategy, and to channel the growing discontent of the population into these military

“diversions”: according to him, also the expeditions against the Peloponnese and the

Megarid are to be interpreted as a demonstration of the Athenian non-passivity

towards the enemy’s initiative.23

Furthermore, Ober underlines how Thucydides states that a similar strategy

had been adopted by the Syracusans in 415-413 BC, and how the Greek author

focuses on the analogies between the Sicilian city and Athens (i.e. both of them had

democratic regimes, and suffered invasions from much stronger armies).24

If we

consider the fact that Thucydides reports repeatedly that the cavalry’s sallies were

made on a regular basis (in Thuc. 7.27.5 it is clearly said that they happened daily:

ἵπποι τε, ὁσημέραι ἐξελαυνόντων τῶν ἱππέων πρός τε τὴν Δεκέλειαν καταδρομὰς

21

See G. R. Bugh, The Horsemen of Athens, Princeton University Press, 1988, pp. 88s. 22

See V. D. Hanson, The Wars of the Ancient Greeks, Cassel 1999, p. 110, and Hanson

1989, pp. 23f. 23

See U. Fantasia, La guerra del Peloponneso, Carocci 2012, p. 64; D. Kagan, The

Archidamian War, Cornell University Press 1990, pp. 67s. in particular the considerations

regarding military expenditures in the first year of war; Ober 1985, pp. 176s. 24

Ibid. pp. 180s.

12

ποιουμένων καὶ κατὰ τὴν χώραν φυλασσόντων, […] “and of the horses, since the

horsemen were making daily incursions against Decelea or were on patrol, […]. See

also Thuc. 2.22.2; 3.1.2), in my opinion Ober’s statements appear to be the most

likely interpretation, since it would be quite difficult to accept that the cavalry, which

was made of the richest and noblest Athenian citizens, could be involved in risky

military actions with very few chances of success, unless some influential member of

the democratic party wanted them to die - and there is no hint of such intent in any of

the ancient sources. There are, however, traces of distrustfulness towards the noble

hippeis after the battle of Amphipolis in 422 BC; in that episode they may have

behaved cowardly, possibly abandoning the field right at the start of the battle, and

for this reason cavalry had never been deployed again outside of Attica.25

For this

reason, then, it is impossible to deny completely the existence of some internal strife

between democrats and oligarchs that may have led to attempts to eliminate

influential nobles through dangerous missions against the enemy.

On a wider perspective the general consensus leans towards the hypothesis

that Pericles’ strategy had been planned to work in a much shorter time period; as D.

Kagan has noted, “he [Pericles] was over sixty years old when the war broke out and

believed that his own leadership was crucial for the successful operation of his

strategy. He could not count on ten more years of active political life”.26

The

Athenian statesman had probably hoped the Peloponnesians would have looked for

peace once they realized they could not conquer Athens. However this did not

happen (for instance, they refused a peace treaty proposed in 430 BC). Furthermore,

even if the Athenian economy managed to bear the enormous expenses caused by the

conflict, most scholars tend to believe that it has been possible only thanks to

measures introduced after Pericles’ death. Some of them, such as the eisphora, are

the direct consequence of the increase in prestige Athens experienced among her

allies thanks to the achievements of the 426-425 BC; and those achievements

themselves were completely in contrast with the overall passivity of the strategy

devised by Pericles.

25

See J. McInnes, “The Athenian Cavalry in the Peloponnesian War and at Amphipolis”, in The Classical Review, Vol . 25, n. 7 (Nov. 1911), pp. 194f. According to him, support may

be found in Aristophanes’ Wasps (produced in 422 BC): at the verse 288 we read “There will

come along a rich man, one of those who are betraying Chalcidice”. 26

See Kagan 2003, p. 353.

13

In any case, the measures taken by Pericles to defend Attica had been enough

to stall the situation for the first seven years of the war: by avoiding pitched battles,

he ensured that Athens’ military strength would be preserved almost intact, and that

the city itself would not fall, despite the epidemic that decimated the population in

the years 430-428 BC. However, because of the scarce amount of resources invested

in the strategic sectors outside of Attica (such as the Gulf of Corinth) the raids

against Sparta’s allies have not been incisive enough to let the Athenians enter into

peace negotiations with the Peloponnesians on equal grounds.27

Ultimately, though, it is my opinion that Pericles’ decision of not engaging

the preponderant enemy forces in a pitched battle to drive them away from Attica can

be probably considered the best way to deal with the invasions: at least if we assume

that the Athenian fleet could apply pressure high enough in other military zones to

gain considerable advantages in case the Peloponnesians would not retreat to defend

their own territories; or if Athens could hope in reinforcements coming from its allies

- and both conditions had not been met: it is quite interesting to note that the similar

strategy adopted by the Syracusans during the last Athenian expedition in Sicily had

succeeded in defeating the enemy only after the arrival of Gilippus from Sparta and

thanks to the changes in the diplomatic asset of the island.

3.2. Demosthenes in Aetolia, 426 BC

After Pericles’ death in 429 BC, the Spartans and their allies kept invading Attica

every summer, while the Athenian forces, weakened by the losses suffered because

of the plague, remained inside the city walls or operated in different parts of Greece

following the previous years’ raid based strategy. In 426 BC, though, a small army

made of Athenian hoplites and mariners, as well as troops from Naupactus, invaded

Aetolia under the command of the strategos Demosthenes: he got persuaded by his

Messenian allies that Aetolia would have been easy to conquer, for its inhabitants

“were great and warlike, yet their habitation was in villages without walls and at a

great distance one to another, and were but light-armed and then they could be all

subdued with no difficulty before they could unite themselves for defense” (Thuc.

3.94.4).

27

If we exclude the diplomatic events after Pylus and Sphacteria in 425 BC. See par. 3.4.

14

The whole operation appears to have been planned very carelessly: for

example, according to Thucydides, there is no evidence of exploration of the territory

before the invasion; furthermore, the Athenian general, once again convinced by the

Messenians to march onwards, did not wait for his Locrian allies, who could have

bolstered his force with some light infantry (the word used is ἀκοντιστής, “javelin

thrower”) and, more importantly, could have given some important intelligence

about the region and its denizens’ customs. Instead, he advanced further in the

mountains, seemingly falsely reassured by the fact that the Aetolians did not face his

army and “trusting the fortune” (τῇ τύχῃ ἐλπίσας, Thuc. 3.97.2).

In reality the Aetolians were buying time to gather their forces, and at

Aegitium they engaged the Athenians in battle,

descending some from one hill, some from another, charged at the

Athenians and their allies and shot at them; and when the Athenians

advanced, they retreated, while they went forward as the Athenians fell

back: this fight lasted long and had been nothing but a series of flights

and chases, both disadvantageous for the [heavily armored] Athenians28

who in the end had to retreat while suffering great losses. Demosthenes’ troops were

not suited to fight on rough terrains against agile fighters who did not let themselves

be locked down in a melée where the superior hoplite equipment would make them

at disadvantage; also, the general himself does not seem to be able to find any

solution to this issue, thus showing no particular initiative or flexibility when being

in non-optimal situations: for example, the Spartan commander’s at the battle of

Lechaeum in 391 BC, finding himself in a similar position, ordered the first ten year-

classes (the youngest, i.e. those that could run faster) to drive off the peltasts that

were assailing them (Xen. Hell. 4.5.14); the stratagem did not work out, probably

because the Spartans did not get rid of their panoply during the chase, so they got

exhausted quickly, but it is my belief that the reasoning behind this order was

definitely the right one.

28

Thuc. 3.97.3.

15

3.3. The Battles of Olpae and Idomene

After the Athenian expedition in Aetolia, in the Autumn of 426 BC, we find

Demosthenes leading his troops and his Acarnanian and Messenian allies in the

battle of Olpae, an Acarnanian fort that had been occupied by troops coming from

Ambracia, a Corinthian colony allied with the Peloponnesians, led by the Spartan

Eurylochus: it was a crushing victory for the Athenian general, and it was followed

by the defeat of another Ambracian army that was approaching to Olpae without

knowing of the rout of their allies.

In these two battles Demosthenes, who has evidently learnt from his past

mistakes, is able to use them to his advantage: this is quite clear in the setting and

execution of the ambush against the reinforcements coming from Ambracia. In fact

he gets close to the enemy with a night march, then occupies the higher of the two

hills at Idoumene, and finally deploys some light armoured native troops in

strategically important points to cut every possible escape route of the enemy: after

the battle, their less cumbersome equipment and their better knowledge of the

territory put them on an extreme advantage against the fleeing Ambracian hoplites.

Moreover, he makes use of some completely new stratagems, such as deploying his

Doric dialect speaking Messenians in the first ranks so that they could deceive the

Ambracian patrols - who spoke the same dialect, since their city was a Corinthian

colony.

Furthermore, in the case of Olpae, the Athenian strategos manages to nullify

the effects of Eurylochus’ unorthodox array, which is quite extraordinary per se: as

far as I know, there is no other evidence for other commanders deploying themselves

on the left wing and it can be argued that the Spartan general did this deliberately to

exploit the advantage of having a longer battle line. By bringing with him his best

troops Eurylochus also made sure to have the best chances of quickly destroying the

Athenian right wing: given the importance of the generals in phalanx battles, routing

Demosthenes’ troops could have probably led to the collapse of the entire army.

Nevertheless, with his stratagem of hiding in ambush the four hundred

Acarnanian soldiers, the Athenian general manages to turn the tables; furthermore,

these troops might be seen as one of the first examples of the use of tactical reserve,

which has normally been made go back to some centuries later, during the Second

16

Punic War;29

and considering what Thucydides writes about this deploying choice

(Thuc. 3.107.3 ὁ Δημοσθένης δείσας μὴ κυκλωθῇ λοχίζει ἐς ὁδόν τινα κοίλην καὶ

λοχμώδη ὁπλίτας καὶ ψιλοὺς ξυναμφοτέρους ἐς τετρακοσίους, ὅπως κατὰ τὸ

ὑπερέχον τῶν ἐναντίων ἐν τῇ ξυνόδῳ αὐτῇ ἐξαναστάντες οὗτοι κατὰ νώτου

γίγνωνται. “Demosthenes, fearing to be surrounded, placed in ambush in a certain

hidden space some hoplites and skirmishers numbering four hundreds in total, so that

they should strike where the enemy overreached, if a chance had arisen during the

battle”) there is little doubt that the Athenian general had done it with the specific

purpose of countering Eurylochus’ plan. Basing on the same passages from

Thucydides’ work both D. Kagan and U. Fantasia have shown deep appreciation for

what has been defined Demosthenes’ tactical genius: still, they do not refer to the

aforementioned particular aspect of the employment of a “tactical reserve”.30

3.4. Pylos and Sphacteria

In 425 BC Demosthenes had joined a fleet headed towards Sicily and when the ships

arrived near Pylos, he urged the two commanders Eurymedon and Sophocles to stop

there and cooperate in building a fort, for “there was great store of timber and stone

and that the place itself was naturally strong and desert” (Thuc. 4.3.2 καὶ ἀπέφαινε

πολλὴν εὐπορίαν ξύλων τε καὶ λίθων, καὶ φύσει καρτερὸν ὂν καὶ ἐρῆμον αὐτό τε καὶ

ἐπὶ πολὺ τῆς χώρας) and “there was a haven, and the Messenians, the ancient

inhabitants of the region, who spoke the same dialect the Lacedaemonians did, would

both be able to annoy them much with raids in their lands and be also faithful

guardians of the place”.31

This passage already implicitly reveals that Demosthenes’

plan was not fruit of a series of fortuitous events, but that he had probably gathered

some intelligence about the region before sailing, in order to be able to discern the

best place for creating an outpost.32

29

See Giovanni Brizzi, Il Guerriero, l’Oplita, il Legionario, Il Mulino 2002, p. 105. 30

See Kagan 2003, p. 81, and Fantasia 2012, p. 78. 31

Thuc. 4.3.3: τῷ δὲ διάφορόν τι ἐδόκει εἶναι τοῦτο τὸ χωρίον ἑτέρου μᾶλλον, λιμένος τε προσόντος καὶ τοὺς Μεσσηνίους οἰκείους ὄντας αὐτῷ τὸ ἀρχαῖον καὶ ὁμοφώνους τοῖς

Λακεδαιμονίοις πλεῖστ᾽ ἂν βλάπτειν ἐξ αὐτοῦ ὁρμωμένους, καὶ βεβαίους ἅμα τοῦ χωρίου

φύλακας ἔσεσθαι). 32

See Kagan 2003, p. 221.

17

The only thing that in this particular campaign can be believed to have

happened by chance is the sudden storm that forced the Athenian fleet to find shelter

in Pylos’ haven; because of that, despite the fact that Eurymedon and Sophocles had

at first refused to support Demosthenes’ plan, their troops were employed to fortify

the site and only then they sailed for Corcyra, leaving Demosthenes there with five

triremes and their crews. After an initial period of Spartan disinterest regarding this

Athenian action, when words of the occupation of Pylos reached king Agis, who had

led the Peloponnesian army in the invasion of Attica that year, he hastily went back

and started requesting military help from the cities around Laconia.

Just before being besieged by land and sea, Demosthenes’ outpost was made

stronger by the crew of a Messenian pirate ship which was “accidentally” passing by

and willingly joined his forces and provided weapons to those that had none (Thuc.

4.9.1 ἀλλὰ καὶ ταῦτα ἐκ λῃστρικῆς Μεσσηνίων τριακοντόρου καὶ κέλητος ἔλαβον, οἳ

ἔτυχον παραγενόμενοι); Thucydides reports it as a coincidence (ἔτυχον), but, given

my previous considerations about Demosthenes’ careful planning of this campaign, it

seems reasonable to assume that he had made contact with some native communities

in order to ensure himself some sort of logistical support.

Moreover, the Athenian general managed to send a message to his colleagues

at Corcyra and to hold the position until their arrival. After that, a naval battle saw

the Athenians victorious, and suddenly the situation got reverted: the besieged were

now some four hundred Spartan hoplites along with their Helot orderlies, who had

previously landed on the island of Sphacteria. Because of the fact that almost one

third of them were Spartiates, the Spartan government tried to seek peace, but could

only obtain a truce. At the end of this truce, Demosthenes was appointed leader of

the military operation on the island by the democratic party’s leader Cleon. Because

of the dense brush and woods he could not get a clear idea of the Lacedaemonian

defenses, so at first Demosthenes decided to starve the enemy without risking his

troops in a blind attack. Thucydides is quite clear in relating this cautiousness to the

failure of the previous year in the forests of Aetolia (Thuc. 4.30.1 ἀπὸ δὲ τοῦ

Αἰτωλικοῦ πάθους, ὃ διὰ τὴν ὕλην μέρος τι ἐγένετο, οὐχ ἥκιστα αὐτὸν ταῦτα ἐσῄει.).

But then some soldiers, who were cooking their meal in a particularly windy day, set

the whole wood afire (Thuc. 4.30.2), an event that the author defines as ἄκων,

“unintentional”, but that can be very reasonably adduced to an order by the Athenian

18

general itself to solve the issue of the forest covering his enemy’s positions.

Demosthenes could now see the Spartans, and asked for some more troops, which

were led to him by Cleon himself, and after two days they secured a bridgehead on

the island, forcing the Spartans to retreat to the other extremity.

Another aspect that supports the hypothesis of careful planning by

Demosthenes is the fact that once he had a clear idea of the number of his enemies he

asked for some more troops, as to avoid possible failures. Also, the strategy he

adopted to fight the Spartan hoplites is once again time inspired by his previous

experiences in Aetolia: he divided his troops, mainly skirmishers, in small

contingents and ordered them to shoot at the enemy from the distance, and to retreat

if they tried to force them in close combat (Thuc. 4.32.4 οἱ πολέμιοι ἔσεσθαι ψιλοὶ

καὶ οἱ ἀπορώτατοι, τοξεύμασι καὶ ἀκοντίοις καὶ λίθοις καὶ σφενδόναις ἐκ πολλοῦ

ἔχοντες ἀλκήν, οἷς μηδὲ ἐπελθεῖν οἷόν τε ἦν: φεύγοντές τε γὰρ ἐκράτουν καὶ

ἀναχωροῦσιν ἐπέκειντο). With this hit-and-run tactic he exhausted the

Lacedaemonian troops, who at a certain point retreated to the last fortification they

held on the island: once again, the fact that they surrendered when a Messenian

“commando” attacked from what had been considered an impassable terrain shows

how thorough had been Demosthenes’ information gathering about the site (Thuc.

4.36.1-2).

As a side note, the comparison made by Thucydides between this episode and

the Thermopylai (Thuc. 4.36) can be probably considered a stylistic device to make

the narration more tragic, much like what he wrote about the Athenian dead after the

battle of Aegitium, who were part of “the very best died in this war” (Thuc. 3.98.4

τοσοῦτοι μὲν τὸ πλῆθος καὶ ἡλικία ἡ αὐτὴ οὗτοι βέλτιστοι δὴ ἄνδρες ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ

τῷδε ἐκ τῆς Ἀθηναίων πόλεως διεφθάρησαν) - even though in the case of the

Aetolian expedition it may be argued that the “hidden objective” was to throw

discredit on Demosthenes because of his affiliation with Cleon and the radical

democrats.33

33

Some doubts about the reason why Thucydides had to stress so much about the loss of

these troops during the battle of Aegitium and in the subsequent retreat have been raised also by E. C. Woodcock; however, he does not venture himself up to theorizing that it would

have been another mean to portray Demosthenes as an incompetent commander. See Eric

Charles Woodcock, “Demosthenes Son of Alcysthenes”, in Harvard Studies in Classical

Philology, Vol. 39 (1928), p. 95.

19

When it comes to evaluating the figure of Demosthenes, the few modern

historians who have focused on the topic tend to see Thucydides’ accounts as biased

by different aspects: the most common are the considerations regarding Demosthenes

being politically related with Cleon, who at the time was the leader of the democratic

party in Athens. Given the fact that Thucydides was oligarchic, and that his opinion

on Cleon was particularly negative34

, it does make sense that he portrays

Demosthenes as an incompetent, selfish and “lucky” commander as this would have

partially discredited also his political leader. Another hypothesis, supported in

particular by G. Wylie in his article “Demosthenes the General - Protagonist in a

Greek Tragedy?”, is that Demosthenes would have been a “difficult” and scarcely

charismatic character: this might explain why he never managed to rise to fame and

to benefit of a stable political or military office, especially if compared to other

statesmen like Cleon, Nicias, Alcibiades, Thrasybulus, whose military skills were

clearly below his35

: evidence for this theory might be the fact that between the

various campaign he has led, there is no other sign of him taking active part to the

political live of Athens; furthermore, his position during the expedition in Sicily (413

BC) is subordinated to that of Nicias and Lamachus, possibly because of some

political rearrangement following Cleon’s death in 422 BC at Amphipolis.36

In regard of his achievements, almost every scholar agrees on the fact that

Demosthenes was a military genius who anticipated many of the innovations in

Greek warfare that became customary in the first half of the 4th

century BC, in

particular those involving the employment of light infantry and the systematic use of

cunning and intelligence to overcome the enemy forces. It is a common opinion, for

example, that Iphicrates’ introduction of massive use of peltasts and their success

during the Corinthian War and in the following conflicts had been based on the

“experiments” made by Demosthenes during his campaigns in Acarnania and

34

Cleon has been portrayed as one of those demagogues that brought Athens to ruin while pursuing their own glory at the expense of the state. See supra. For some more specific

considerations on the bias the author held against the politician, see M. H. B. Marshall,

“Cleon and Pericles: Sphacteria”, in Greece & Rome, Second Series, Vol. 31, No. 1 (April 1984), pp. 19-36. An opinion similar to that of Thucydides is expressed also by Aristophanes

in several of his plays. 35

G. Wylie, op. cit, p. 27. 36

Ibidem, p. 27-28.

20

Peloponnese: (for this reason G. Wylie even asserts, possibly too enthusiastically,

that “it was Demosthenes' misfortune to be trapped in a time warp”37

).

Furthermore, the studies that portray the Athenian general as a military genius

have some flaws that negatively influence their conclusions: for example, the most

recent38

works regarding this general clearly adopt the hoplite warfare vision as it has

been reconstructed by V. D. Hanson in The Western Way of War: that is, a frontal

collision between two phalanges, where the one who could apply the strongest

ōthismos (push) would likely break the enemy’s formation and force them to flee,

thus winning the battle. It has to be bore in mind, though, that in more recent times

other scholars, such as H. van Wees and L. Rawlings have reinterpreted the battle

between phalanges, arguing that in reality it was a much more flexible and dynamic

way of fighting than what can be inferred from Hanson’s representation.39

In

particular, one of their hypotheses, regarding the ability of the hoplites to

successfully operate in scattered formations on rough terrains, would greatly

diminish the importance assumed by the ambush Demosthenes had organized during

the battle of Olpae, as well as the hit and run tactic he has used to exhaust the

Spartans at Sphacteria (see Thuc. 4.32.3-4).

In my opinion, then, it would be wiser to give up on the idea of Demosthenes

as a lone genius of warfare who anticipated times and broke free of the typical

hoplite warfare restrictions, although it is possible that to certain environments, such

as the Athenian oligarchic circles, he might have appeared as such.

Still, if we exclude his first expedition in Aetolia, he was successful in all the

various war theatres where he was the general, proving to be a first-rate commander

capable of adapting his tactics and strategies to the specific condition of every

different environment and enemy. Particularly significant is the episode of Olpae,

where very innovative is also Eurylochus’ choice to deploy himself and his best

troops on the left instead of the traditional right wing, almost certainly to exploit the

chances of routing Demosthenes’ army by crushing at the same time its elite soldiers

and its general: a tactic that has been used effectively by Epaminondas at Leuctra in

37

Ibidem, p. 29. 38

The others date back to the early 20th century. 39

See chapter 2, p. 5.

21

371 BC.40

The same objective was in Cyrus’ the Younger mind when he tried by all

means to persuade Clearchus to lead his Greek mercenaries in the middle of king

Artaxerxes’ army, for “that was the place where the Great King was: “and if we win

there,” he said, “we will have reached our objective” (Xen. An. 1.8.12). Goes to the

credit of Demosthenes the fact that he had been able to nullify this move and use it to

his advantage.

For these reasons, then, it is probably more appropriate to see him as a

representative key figure of a new innovative approach to warfare that has been

developing throughout the whole 5th

century mostly in Athens, but with some

personalities of prominence also in Thebes and Sparta - as it will be shown in the

next paragraph and chapter, and that will culminate in the first half of the 4th century

BC - right before the rising of the Macedonian phalanx - with commanders like

Xenophon, Iphicrates, Agesilaus II of Sparta, Epaminondas and Pelopidas.

3.5. Pagondas and the battle of Delium, 424 BC

In 424 BC an Athenian army led by the strategos Hippocrates invaded Boeotia and

occupied Delium: once the troops had finished erecting a fort, the main part of the

army fell back towards Attica, but got intercepted by a Boeotian army led by the

Boeotarch Pagondas. As D. Kagan has written, he “arranged his troops with

ingenuity and originality”:41

he put the cavalry and the light infantry on the wings to

prevent any possible manoeuver done by the Athenians, and he arranged the Theban

hoplites holding the right flank in a twenty-five men deep phalanx (see Thuc. 4.93.4

ἐπ᾽ ἀσπίδας δὲ πέντε μὲν καὶ εἴκοσι Θηβαῖοι ἐτάξαντο, οἱ δὲ ἄλλοι ὡς ἕκαστοι

ἔτυχον), the first case of what would become a custom during the short period of the

so-called “Theban hegemony” in the following century. The Athenians were in the

usual eight men deep phalanx (see Thuc. 4.94.1 Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ οἱ μὲν ὁπλῖται ἐπὶ ὀκτὼ

πᾶν τὸ στρατόπεδον ἐτάξαντο ὄντες πλήθει ἰσοπαλεῖς τοῖς ἐναντίοις) so their battle

line was longer than the Boeotians’ one, which could have favored a encirclement of

40

See Plut. Pel. 23.1 “Epaminondas was drawing his phalanx obliquely towards the left, in order that the right wing of the Spartans might be separated as far as possible from the rest of

the Greeks, and that he might thrust back Cleombrotus by a fierce charge in column with all

his men-at-arms”. 41

Kagan 2003, p. 283.

22

the latter’s left wing, but at the same time their own left wing could have easily been

routed by the much deeper Theban right wing.

In fact, when the two armies collided, the Athenian right wing managed to

put to flight their direct opponents (Thuc. 4.96.3), while on the other hand the left

wing held ground against the Boeotian right wing, “little by little” (κατὰ βραχὺ, Thuc.

4.96.4) retreating instead of collapsing and fleeing under their push. At this point,

under the threat of being caught in a pincer and probably lose the battle, Pagondas

showed great tactical skill: he sent two cavalry squadrons to aid the left wing without

having the Athenians notice it; when they saw them appear at their back they

panicked thinking it was the vanguard of another Boeotian army (Thuc. 4.96.5), thus

losing their momentum and giving enough time to the Theban phalanx to finally put

the Athenian wing into a rout which spread to the rest of the army, which fled out of

the battlefield (Thuc. 4.96.6).

Modern scholars have already pointed out the importance of the innovative

array of the Theban phalanx,42

but among all of Pagondas tactical stratagems what

really stands out is the use he made of the cavalry: at first he deploys it to the flanks

to avoid being surrounded, then he sends part of it to actively support a faltering

sector of the Boeotian phalanx. Considering the risks and the importance related to

this kind of actions on the battlefield, we could argue that in Boeotia, a place rich of

plains and thus more suitable to horse breeding than other Greek regions, the use of

mounted forces was at a more advanced stage compared, for instance, to Laconia or

even Attica43

: particularly in the latter, the cavalry was also normally employed to

protect the flanks of the phalanx, or engage the enemy skirmishers, or protect the

retreat of the hoplites in case of defeat, as it can be inferred from Plat. Plat. Symp.

221a (the one speaking is Alcibiades): ἔτυχον γὰρ παραγενόμενος ἵππον ἔχων, οὗτος

δὲ ὅπλα. ἀνεχώρει οὖν ἐσκεδασμένων ἤδη τῶν ἀνθρώπων οὗτός τε ἅμα καὶ Λάχης:

καὶ ἐγὼ περιτυγχάνω, καὶ ἰδὼν εὐθὺς παρακελεύομαί τε αὐτοῖν θαρρεῖν, καὶ ἔλεγον

ὅτι οὐκ ἀπολείψω αὐτώ “in fact I was in the cavalry, while he was marching with the

infantry. They were already retreating, he and Laches, since the men had broken

42

Ibid.; Lendon 2005, pp. 78-82. 43

Even though the Athenians could benefit of some Thessalian cavalry, a region traditionally friend with Athens and particularly famous for its horsemen, the role that they assigned to

the mounted forces, especially during pitched battles, was definitely of secondary importance.

It is quite clear at Delium, since Hippocrates left his three hundred hippeis behind to guard

the fort he had built a few kilometers away from the battlefield.

23

formation, and I happened to see them, immediately I told them not to fear, and I said

that I wouldn’t have abandoned them”.44

This particularly aggressive use of the cavalry may be also confirmed by the

panic that caught the victorious Athenian right wing when they see the horsemen sent

by Pagondas: such extreme reaction could be explained only if we suppose that the

Athenian hoplites were completely scattered and unable to regroup in a somewhat

tight formation, something hinted also in Thuc 4.96.4. In fact, that would have been

the only situation where they could have been seriously damaged by a charge,

assuming that the cavalry was equipped with thrusting spears or with javelins strong

enough to be used effectively in melée, as it has been argued, for instance, by P.

Sidnell.45

44

About this episode see also Plut. Alc. 7.4: ἔτι δὲ τῆς ἐπὶ Δηλίῳ μάχης γενομένης καὶ

φευγόντων Ἀθηναίων, ἔχων ἵππον ὁ Ἀλκιβιάδης, τοῦ δὲ Σωκράτους πεζῇ μετ᾽ ὀλίγων ἀποχωροῦντος, οὐ παρήλασεν ἰδών, ἀλλὰ παρέπεμψε καὶ περιήμυνεν, “After the battle at

Delium, and while the Athenians were fleeing, Alcybiades, on horse, while Socrates and

some others were retreating on foot, after seeing them he did not leave them, but rode

alongside with them and defended them”.

45 See Philip Sidnell, Warhorse. Cavalry in Ancient Warfare, Hambledon Continuum, 2006,

pp. 31s.

24

4. Sparta in the Peloponnesian War: Brasidas and Lysander

4.1. Brasidas in the Chalcidice Peninsula: early achievements

While apparently sharing some similarities with the figure of Eurylochus - the

Spartan general who decided to deploy himself and his best troops on the left wing

instead of the right, as custom would have dictated, during the battle of Olpae -,46

the

character of Brasidas is far more controversial when it comes to the actual evaluation

of the extent of his “unorthodoxy” in warfare. As in the case of Demosthenes, he has

been deemed as a military genius by most of the scholarly tradition: the fact that at a

first glance Thucydides himself represents him a very gifted commander in his work

surely has given foundation to this idea. However, enthusiastic works such as T.

Rutherford Harley’s “A Greater than Leonidas”, whose clear intent is to argue that

Brasidas was

“second to no Spartan in courage and endurance, excelled them all, if not

other Greek generals as well, even during his short life, in grasp of

military principles, in energy, enterprise, leadership, in military genius”47

are most likely being overly positive in judging his actions.

In fact, the first time Brasidas appeared in Thucydides’ work, he “happened”

(ἔτυχε; Thuc. 2.25.2) to be close to the city of Methone and managed to defend it

while it was under attack by the Athenians in one of the raids they led against the

Peloponnesian coast in 431 BC: despite the small entity of the achievement, he

earned the commendation of Sparta (Thuc. 2.25.2).

The same audacity can be found during the attack at Pylos in 425 BC, where

Brasidas was the trierarch of one of the ships of the Spartan fleet: he got wounded

many times while trying to land ashore in order to obtain a foothold on the peninsula,

and he lost his shield, which was later on used by the Athenians as part of the trophy

they erected to celebrate the victory (Thuc. 4.11.4-12.1).

According to Rutherford Harley, the episode of Methone would be a tangible

proof of his skills, since “there is such a thing as the seizing of opportunities and

46

See Chap. 3, p. 15. 47

T. Rutherford Harley, “A Greater than Leonidas”, in Greece and Rome, Vol. 11, N. 32

(Feb. 1942), p. 68.

25

finding work to turn to advantage”:48

however, Thucydides clearly calls the rescue of

Methone a τόλμημα, a “daring” or even “reckless action”, which leads to suppose

that Brasidas may have done it “on the spur of the moment”, without any careful

planning or reconnaissance, much like his desperate attempt to land at Pylos in 425

BC. If this is really the case, then he would have neglected the most basic steps that

commanders are expected to follow in order to avoid disaster, relying purely on

surprise effect and luck, which by themselves cannot be considered part of the

qualities that make a general a genius.

Following the Athenian defeat at Delium and the siege failure at Megara,

Brasidas gathered a small force made of helots and mercenaries and headed to the

Chalcidice Peninsula in order to seize it from Athens’ hegemony. This move

represented a clear break with the main strategy adopted by Sparta in the early years

of the conflict, which, as we have seen previously, only contemplated summer

invasions of Attica to lay waste the countryside and hopefully draw the Athenian

army outside of the city walls and defeat it in a pitched battle.49

This already, more

than the other two aforementioned episodes, shows the level of strategic

understanding and resourcefulness - very close to recklessness, as G. Wylie has

rightfully noticed,50

especially considering the events at Pylos - that were

characteristic of Brasidas and that the modern scholarship do not consider were that

common in the contemporary military elite of Sparta.51

Proof of this would be the

fact that he received almost no support for his expedition, and that he had to recruit

helots and mercenaries; all the “official” efforts of the Peloponnesian League had

been directed once more towards the devastation of Attica.

One may actually wonder why would the Spartans continue sticking with that

strategy: in my opinion, the best and most balanced explanation is the one given by

D. Kagan, who states that

48

Ibid., p. 69. 49

See Chapter 3, p. 10. 50

See G. Wylie, “Brasidas: Great Commander or Whiz-Kid?”, Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura

Classica, New Series, Vol. 41, N. 2 (1992), pp. 75-95. 51

Furthermore, the fact that Brasidas was only an officer (possibly of low grade, considering

his position in most of the episodes that involved him before 424 BC: according to Wylie

1992, p. 76, at the siege of Methone he may have had no higher grade than that of a lochagos, a “company commander”) may have played a role: it was customary for Lacedaimonian

armies with a solid presence of Spartan troops to be led by the kings or by their relatives and

not by mere officers: see G. Wylie, “Lysander and the Devil”, in L’Antiquité Classique, T.

66 (1997), p. 77.

26

The answer lies in the traditional conservative caution of the Spartans,

their unwillingness to send any considerable army far from the

Peloponnese. Beyond that, however, the undertaking was dangerous.

Between Heraclea and Thrace lay Thessaly, formally allied to Athens, a

flat land and difficult for a hoplite army to march through safely […].

There was also the problem of supply.52

These reasons somehow explain why the Chalcidic Peninsula and Thrace had not

been considered relevant military objectives until 424 BC, even though they were

crucial to Athens’ economy because of the resources coming from there, in particular

silver, crops, and wood for the fleet; depriving Athens of these supplies would have

seriously hurt their economy and their military potential, especially at sea, and would

have potentially brought Athens to consider signing a peace treaty way before the

events at Sphacteria.

However, during the summer of 424 BC Brasidas had finally managed to

obtain permission to act on his own accord on behalf of Sparta; with the pretext of

supporting Perdiccas, the king of Macedon, in his conflict against the king of the

Lyncestians, Arrhabaeus, he led his small force of 1700 hoplite trained helots and

mercenaries through Thessaly and managed to avoid fights with the natives thanks to

his diplomacy and skilful speeches;53

after having come to some agreement with

Arrhabaeus – a situation which left Perdiccas disgruntled to the point that he cut part

of the economic support he was supposed to provide to Brasidas - he headed towards

the Chalcidice Peninsula.

Here, he marched against the city of Acanthus, probably because of its

strategic position in the peninsula; by profiting of internal dissent among different

factions in the city, he got admitted to the assembly, where he held a very persuasive

speech, which ultimately led the Acanthians to revolt against Athens. This unusual

and peaceful way of achieving the objective of detaching Acanthus from Athenian

rule is normally seen as one of the many examples of Brasidas’ military genius - or,

in the case of more cautious historians, skill.

52

Kagan 2003, p. 288. 53

See Thuc. 4.78.1-3. As it has been already pointed out, Thessalian common folk were

friendly to Athens; furthermore, no Greek state would accept potentially hostile armies in

their own territory. It goes to Brasidas’ credit, then, to have been able to cross the whole

region with his army by exploiting Thessaly’s political fragmentation.

27

To strengthen even further these modern views, Brasidas’ capture of

Amphipolis also puts in great evidence the supposed unorthodoxy of his methods. In

fact he moved towards the city at the beginning of December, a month when military

campaigns were normally avoided: he reached another settlement, Bormiscus, at

dusk; after a meal he kept on marching during the night until he reached the city of

Argilus, whose citizens, according to Thucydides, were some of the most

enthusiastic supporters of Sparta in the region. They immediately declared rebellion

against Athens, and Brasidas could reach the bridge on the river Strymon, not far

from Amphipolis, before dawn, despite the presence of a small Amphipolitan

garrison. We may assume that the quickness of his march and of the seizure of the

bridge and thus, indirectly, of all the lands surrounding Amphipolis caught everyone

by surprise: Thucydides states quite clearly that, if Brasidas had attacked the city

immediately, he could have conquered it with ease (Thuc. 4.104.2), since the shock

of his arrival had to be added to a situation which was already in turmoil because of

internal strife between the citizens. However, he did not, and preferred waiting for

some traitors inside of the city walls to open the gates: probably because he feared

that he could fail, considering the scarce experience Spartan military had in siege

craft, and also considering the scarce forces at his disposal.54

Unfortunately for him, the pro-Athenian faction, led by the strategos Eucles,

managed to maintain control of the city; at the same time, word had been sent to

another strategos, the historian Thucydides, who at that time was at Thasos with a

small fleet, to come in aid of the besieged. Because of the fact that Thucydides was

quite influential in that region,55

Brasidas decided to offer the Amphipolitans the

chance to capitulate with very favourable conditions, most probably in order to seize

the city before the arrival of the Athenian reinforcements: he proclaimed that “any of

the Amphipolitans and Athenians who chose, might continue to enjoy their property

with full rights of citizenship; while those who did not wish to stay had five days to

depart, taking their property with them” (Thuc. 4.105.2).

These terms had a strong impact on the besieged; Kagan’s reconstruction of

what may have happened inside of the city once the population had known Brasidas’

54

See Kagan 2003, p. 295. 55

Mostly because he was the owner of the mining concessions in that part of Thrace. See

Thuc. 4.105.1.

28

condition appears to be the most likely:56

the Athenian settlers could not trust

completely the rest of the citizen, partially because of their different origins and

partially – we can imagine - because they cared more for their safety and properties

than for the alliance with Athens. Most of the population ended up finding the

proclamation “a fair one compared to what their fear had suggested” (Thuc. 4.106.1),

and Brasidas managed to seize the city a few hours before Thucydides reached the

port of Eion, some three miles away from Amphipolis, saving it from an attack the

Spartan general made at dawn of the next day (Thuc. 4.107.2).

After the conquest of Amphipolis most of the Athenian allies in Chalcidice

and Thrace fell under Spartan control or willingly rebelled, the latter probably hoping

to receive support from Brasidas, who had sent word to Sparta for reinforcements,

which never arrived: according to Thucydides, “partly through envy on the part of

their chief men, partly because they were more bent on recovering the prisoners of

the island and ending the war” (Thuc. 4.108.7); to these reasons I would add once

again Spartan rulers’ concerns of economic nature and their conservative mentality

as well, which probably had not been dispelled by Brasidas’ achievements.57

From this campaign’s events it can be inferred that Brasidas was indeed a

gifted general, especially from a strategic perspective: considering the fact that after

the capitulation of Amphipolis he asked for reinforcement, it is quite reasonable to

assume that he was planning on applying even greater pressure in a region that he

considered of major importance for the outcome of the war, as it has been argued,

among the others, by Kagan and Fantasia.58

Furthermore, if we analyze in detail his actions, there is plenty of material to

support the statement that he had introduced a degree of innovation until then

unknown in the Spartan military: he led his troops through potentially hostile

territories, such as Thessaly, relying on his diplomatic skills, convincing both the

Thessalians and, later on, the inhabitants of Acanthus and Amphipolis of his good

will; in the latter case, in particular, he managed to portray himself and the Spartans

as the liberators of Greece from the Athenian rule, even though it did not take long

before Sparta’s government sent their own governors in the “freed” cities. Quoting

56

Although interesting, I agree on the fact that Bauman’s arguments on the topic do not seem

to be persuasive enough, as Kagan has pointed out in his work. See R. A. Bauman, A Class XI (1968), p. 175, in Kagan 2003, pp. 297f. 57

See Kagan 2003, pp. 302f. 58

Ibid.; Fantasia 2012, p. 87. More doubtful about Brasidas’ true objectives in Thrace is

Wylie 1992, pp. 94f.

29

Thucydides’ possibly ironical words, he must have been “not a bad speaker, for a

Spartan” (Thuc. 4.84.2).

Going on with the analysis, he moved towards Acanthus during winter, a

season when military activity was usually avoided, and even more so in cold regions

such as Chalcidice and Thrace; he led his men in night marches, and managed to get

in touch with dissidents in most of the cities he had planned to seize from Athenian

rule, meaning that he had made good information gathering as well as establishing

some kind of espionage network before making his moves. Also, the statement that

his swift marches and timings caught the Athenian commanders completely by

surprise does not seem without foundation: the vital bridge on the Strymon river was

poorly defended, and Thucydides, one of the two strategoi dispatched to defend

Amphipolis, was not at the port of Eion, from where he could have easily provided

support to the city, but he was on a not better specified mission at Thasos, half a day

of navigation away. It does not surprise, then, that most of the modern scholars,

although partially exonerating the ancient historian from the direct responsibility of

Amphipolis’ capitulation, still attribute to him part of the blame for not being able to

anticipate Brasidas’ actions.59

However, the fall of Amphipolis can hardly be considered a military success

of Sparta, as it has been argued by G. Wylie:60

Athens’ forces had not suffered any

significant defeat. Furthermore, even the economic damage caused by the loss of the

Thracian and Chalcidic possessions, although considerable, could have been

recovered, especially if we consider the fact that by the beginning of spring of 423

BC Sparta and Athens signed a one year long truce, which substantially nullified

many of the advantages the Peloponnesians had gained with Brasidas’

accomplishments. 61

By the end of 421 BC, the Athenians had recaptured most of the

rebellious cities.62

To a more accurate analysis, then, what really strikes in the character of the

Spartan general is what we could call the “swiftness of mind” that makes him seize

whatever opportunity would arise and turn it, most of the times, in a success. It is the

case of the aforementioned Methone and Megara episodes, but it is also the case of

59

See Wylie 1992, pp. 83f.; Kagan 2003, pp. 299-302; Fantasia 2012, pp. 88. 60

See Wylie 1992, p. 84. 61

See Kagan 2003, p. 304. 62

As it has been pointed out in H. D. Westlake’s Essays on the Greek Historians and Greek

History, Manchester 1969, pp. 141f.

30

his march towards Amphipolis: another peculiar aspect (rare, for a Spartan!)63

is his

capability to deliver convincing speeches to audiences that were not always

particularly favourable to Sparta, as in Acanthus and Amphipolis itself. The

expression used by G. Wylie, “nerve war”, brilliantly describes the effects that his

proclamations must have induced in the citizens of those cities: and the results

themselves show how much he could achieve even without the sole use of brute

force.64

To use the words of another scholar, G. Grote, the speech held in front of the

assembly of Acanthus is one of the most interesting in Greece’s history,

partly as a manifesto of professed Lacedaemonian policy, partly because

it had a great practical effect in determining, on an occasion of

paramount importance, a multitude which, though unfavourably inclined

to him, was not beyond the reach of argument65

In his last campaign, furthermore, he proves to give particular importance to

intelligence and information gathering, activities that were still not that usual in the

5th century BC, and that somehow bring him near to the figure of the Athenian

general Demosthenes.

However, the gap between the two is considerable: despite his exploits, or

“daredevil actions”, as G. Wylie has called them, Brasidas never managed to obtain

independent command before the crisis in which Sparta fell after Pylos and

Sphacteria, while Demosthenes, after his defeat in Aetolia, had been appointed

strategos various times before his death in 413 BC. This may have been due to the

traditional Spartan distrust towards unorthodox methods, but the suggestion, once

again by G. Wylie, that a clue may be found in the two exhortations made

respectively by Demosthenes and Brasidas to their troops before Pylos, is quite

fascinating and in my opinion very reasonable:66

while Demosthenes (quietly, we

may imagine) pointed out all the advantages that their position could give against the

Spartans, who had to manage to disembark before engaging in close combat, and

then appealed to the Athenian virtue and military skills for a final exhortation,

Brasidas on the other hand

shouted out to them, that they must never allow the enemy to fortify

himself in their country for the sake of saving timber, but must shiver

63

See for instance Plut. Lys. 6.5 about Callicratidas’ Spartan character. 64

See Wylie 1992, p. 80; Kagan 2003, p. 293. 65

See G. Grote, A History of Greece, London 1850, p. 179. 66

See Wylie 1992, p. 78.

31

their vessels and force a landing; and bade the allies, instead of hesitating

in such a moment to sacrifice their ships for Lacedaemon in return for her

many benefits, to run them boldly aground, land in one way or another,

and make themselves masters of the place and its garrison.67

Perhaps then, Brasidas was a bit too reckless for the Spartan officials to give him

high responsibility roles, especially considering the importance given to the Spartiate

class and the shock received after some of them surrendered at Sphacteria - which

will be followed by an even greater shock at Lechaeum in 391 BC, when a full mora

of Spartiates had been decimated by Iphicrates’ peltasts. This would also add another

reason to the fact that once he finally managed to obtain independent command, he

had to recruit Helots and mercenaries instead of being given Spartiate or Perioikoi

troops.

4.2. The Battle of Amphipolis, 422 BC

After the year-long truce signed by Sparta and Athens in 423 BC, the Athenian

leader Cleon sailed to Chalcidice to recapture part of the rebellious cities, then

headed towards Amphipolis in order to drive out Brasidas and his army: after some

time of inactivity, where the two armies deployed themselves repeatedly without

engaging in battle, Cleon decided to reconnoitre the terrain in front of Amphipolis

(Thuc 5.7.4). This is something that any general planning to besiege a city had to do

in order to get a good picture of the situation, as it has been stressed by Kagan: it

goes to Cleon’s credit as a commander, along with his success in storming Torone

and Galepsus, two of the cities that had defected from Athens earlier. Seeing that

nobody was on the city walls, he “thought to retire at pleasure without fighting [...].

Indeed, it seemed a mistake not to have brought down engines with him; he could

then have taken the town, there being no one to defend it” (Thuc. 5.7.5); but as he

and the troops he had with him started to fall back, Brasidas rushed out with 150 of

his men and charged the Athenians on their right (unprotected) side (Thuc. 5.10.6);

the Athenians, confused and probably partially scattered, began to flee, especially

after they got attacked by the rest of Brasidas’ troops, which sallied from the

Thracian gates of the city (Thuc. 5.10.7-8). The rout then became general, and Cleon

himself died, according to Thucydides while he was fleeing, or while fighting

bravely if we give credit to Diodorus’ account of the battle, which is probably

67

Thuc. 4.11.4. For Demosthenes’ speech, see Thuc. 4.10.

32

referring to Ephorus as a source.68

Brasidas also died shortly after the end of the

battle, because of a wound he received at the very beginning of the fight.

This, once again, strengthens the already mentioned feeling that Brasidas may

have been overly aggressive and reckless when in combat, or even when developing

strategies, a behaviour that may have brought him and his men to a disaster much

before Amphipolis: in this perspective, Wylie’s hypothesis that things may have

gone differently if Demosthenes led the Athenians instead of Cleon, although very

speculative, cannot be completely rejected.69

First of all, the general consensus among modern scholars is that Cleon may

not have been a very experienced commander, even though he had conducted some

brilliant operations, such as at Sphacteria, Torone and Galepsus; this means that his

defeat at Amphipolis may be seen more as a result of his own errors rather than of

Brasidas’ genius.70

Furthermore, Thucydides’ acrimony towards Cleon, which has

been already highlighted in the previous chapter,71

erupts here in all its bias: the

Athenian general is cowardly and incompetent, as opposed to the heroic and genial

Spartan commander; considering the fact that there are two completely diverging

versions of Cleon’s death, we may wonder if the figure of Brasidas and his planning

of this battle have been “tweaked” a bit by exaggerating his skill in order to make

Cleon appear worse than he actually was.72

Moreover, despite being undisputedly a gifted general, Brasidas’ biggest

hindrance from being considered a military genius is probably the fact that he was a

hoplite commander only: as G. Wylie has underlined, “We look in vain for examples

of his effective use of other arms such as cavalry and peltasts. He never captured a

city without the help of traitors. He probably knew little of naval tactics; few

Spartans did”, whereas generals such as Demosthenes could efficiently use light

infantry, or cavalry, as Pagondas did, or were able to storm cities using their

poliorcetic skills, as Cleon did.

68

See Thuc. 5.10.9 and Diod. 12.74.2. As noted by Kagan, “there was no good reason why

Diodorus, or his probable source Ephorus, neither of whom is particularly friendly to demagogues, democrats or Cleon, should have abandoned the account of Thucydides to

invent Cleon’s bravery. Most likely, they are merely reporting an alternate account” (Kagan

2003, p. 330). 69

See Wylie 1992, p. 93. 70

Ibid., p. 92. 71

See Chapter 3, p. 18. 72

See McInnes 1911, pp. 194f.; Kagan 2003, pp. 328f.

33

34

4.3. Lysander, the Lion and the Fox

If it is true that Brasidas has used “non-spartan” methods in order to achieve his

objectives, the same can be said about the Spartan commander Lysander, who has

distinguished himself in the late years of the Peloponnesian War: there is little to be

said about him before 408 BC, when he became admiral of the Peloponnesian fleet,

but by 405 BC he had destroyed the last Athenian fleet at Aigospotami, and in 404

BC he had Athens capitulate, thus bringing the conflict to an end. Much could be

said about his character and personality, since the ancient sources often give

contradictory accounts, but this paragraph will focus mainly on his greatest military

achievement, i. e. the aforementioned victory of Aigospotami.73

The main sources for this battle are Xenophon’s Hellenica and Diodorus

Siculus’ Bibliotheca Historica. In the first one, the Athenian fleet sailed towards

Aigospotami in order to intercept the Peloponnesian fleet after the latter had stormed

the city of Lampsacus, which was situated on the other side of the Hellespont (Xen.

Hell. 2.1.21). The day after their arrival, at sunrise the Athenians arrayed their fleet

as if he wanted to give battle, but Lysander did not put out, so they went back to the

harbour (Xen. Hell. 2.1.22-23). Lysander then sent out some ships to observe the

Athenians, who sailed out to offer battle for the next four days (Xen. Hell. 2.1.24).

Meanwhile Alcibiades came to the Athenian camp and offered to help, but the

strategoi rejected it. On the fifth day, as soon as the Athenians retreated and had

disembarked to prepare supper, Lysander gave order to sail with all speed and caught

the Athenians completely by surprise: according to Xenophon, only the admiral

Conon managed to escape, with no more than ten ships out of 180 (Xen. Hell. 2.1.28).

All the prisoners were executed (Xen. Hell. 2.1.32).

As B. Strauss has noticed, in this account “Sparta's triumph is the result of

Lysander's judicious use of scout ships and the strict discipline imposed on his fleet”,

whereas Athenian overconfidence had bred indiscipline:74

however, Xenophon’s

narration is quite unreliable. The Greek author, in fact, seems to be quite focused on

favouring Lysander over Conon and his colleagues, especially if we consider the fact

that the Spartans managed to capture 170 ships and some thousands crew with hardly

73

For some modern thoughts on Lysander, see for instance W. K. Prentice, “The Character of Lysander”, in American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Jan.-Mar. 1934), pp. 37-

42 and Wylie 1997. 74

See B. Strauss, “Aegospotami Reexamined”, in The American Journal of Philology, Vol.

104, No. 1 (Spring 1983), pp. 24f.

35

a fight. From Lys. 21.11, though, we know that twelve ships made it to the Peiraeus,

the defendant himself leading two of them; for obvious reasons, these cannot be the

same eight that followed Conon, who did not go back to Athens but fled instead to

Cyprus. Furthermore, even the execution of all the Athenian prisoners is quite

suspect: from Lys. 21.10 it can be inferred that the deliverer of the oration expected a

substantial number of survivors from Aegospotami to be in the jury; something

impossible if we were to believe Xenophon’s statement that only the crew of the

Paralus went back to the city.75

Diodorus Siculus’ version is also not immune to unreliability issues: his

narration is quite similar to that of Xenophon, however he gives some particulars that

are absent in the Hellenica; for instance, the Athenians, after having tried to offer

battle by deploying themselves in formation, did not know what to do, since the

Spartans refused to fight and they had depleted their supplies (Diod. 13.105.2). Then

Alcibiades offered the strategoi to supply them and to bring allies, if he could get a

command role in the operation, but his proposal got refused (Diod. 13.105.3-4). At

this point, since the enemy refused to attack, the strategos Philocles started a

somewhat complicated manoeuver (Diod. 13.106.1) and got routed by Lysander,

who fell on the rest of the Athenian fleet, catching it completely by surprise (Diod.

13.106.3): the Athenians, confused and being attacked also on the land, fled

chaotically in all directions (Diod. 13.106.5).

In this case, then, Lysander’s victory should be attributed to a badly

performed manoeuver by part of the Athenian fleet; furthermore, the Spartan

commander would not have scouted the Athenian camp, as stated by Xenophon, but

he would have resorted to deserters’ information instead. Also, Conon and the other

strategoi would not have been caught completely by surprise and fled immediately,

but they would have tried to put up a fight despite having most of the ships ashore.

Alcibiades’ role would also change, as Strauss has noted, from that of an “ideal

patriot” to that of a “stage villain”.76

At this point, one may wonder which of the two accounts should be taken in

exam in order to try to reconstruct the dynamics of this battle: modern scholarship

75

See C. Ehrhardt, “Xenophon and Diodorus on Aegospotami”, in Phoenix, Vol. 24, No. 3

(Autumn 1970), pp. 225f. 76

See Strauss 1983, p. 26.

36

has been shifting from one version to another for quite a long time.77

Given the

objective of my analysis, which is the determination whether Lysander has been

using unconventional tactics or stratagems in order to achieve victory, I will be using

both.

In fact, in either account the Spartan admiral proves to be knowledgeable in

information gathering, be it thanks to scouts or to deserters, in order to know when to

strike the Athenian fleet in its weakest moment, i. e. while preparing supper

according to Xenophon, or while doing some clumsy manoeuver according to

Diodorus. Furthermore, as highlighted by a study on the topography of the section of

Hellespont around the city of Lapsaki (ancient Lampsacus) done by B. Strauss, “we

can be sure that Lysander was upon the Athenian fleet very rapidly indeed [...]. The

favorable nautical conditions of the Hellespont made it possible for Lysander to

move with decisive speed”.78

As in the case of Brasidas’ campaign in the Chalcidic

Peninsula and in Thrace, then, when it comes to determining the victor at

Aigospotami, intelligence and the ability to seize the right moment to attack, as well

as the swiftness of its execution, probably played a role as decisive as the mistakes

made by the Athenians.

Despite the fact that the battle of Aigospotami represents only an episode of

the historical action of Lysander, it is another significant example of a way of

behaving that, in the Spartan environment, can be possibly justified with the

assumption that Lysander, much like Brasidas, is a borderline figure between

traditionalism and innovation.

In this perspective, the motto that Plutarch reports having been said by

Lysander, “where the lion's skin will not reach, it must be patched out with the fox's”

(Plut. Lys. 7.4), seems to be justified, then: what could not be achieved by following

the traditional Spartan way, could be achieved by a clever use of diplomacy,

espionage, and stratagems.

77

Among those favoring Xenophon’s version we find for instance G. Grote, History of

Greece, vol. 6, pp. 438-39; K. J. Beloch, Griechische Geschichte, vol. 2.1, Strasbourg 1914, p. 425 n. 1; Busolt, Griechische Geschichte, vol. 3.2, pp. 1618-21. D. Musti, Storia Greca:

Linee di Sviluppo dall’Età Micenea all’Età Romana, Laterza 2006, p. 437, and Fantasia 2012,

pp. 187f. also refer quite clearly to Xenophon: Fantasia, in particular, explicitly judges Diodorus’ narration as “less reliable” (p. 187). On the other hand, Ehrhardt 1970, pp. 225-28

prefers referring to Diodorus’ account. 78

See B. Strauss, “A Note on the Topography and Tactics of the Battle of Aegospotami”, in

The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 108, No. 4 (Winter 1987), p. 745.

37

Conclusions

The episodes that have been analyzed in this dissertation surely represent a break

with the traditional Greek way of war, as it had been until the Peloponnesian War.

However, if we consider other situations, sometimes temporally quite distant from

the late 5th century BC, other examples of innovative or even unconventional tactics

and strategies can be found.

For instance, as we have seen, at Olpae Demosthenes makes use of

stratagems such as attacking at dawn and disguising his men as Peloponnesians.

However, before him, Cimon did the same against the Persians at the battle of the

Eurymedon river, in 469 BC, if we were to believe Diodorus Siculus’ account of the

episode. 79

According to him, Cimon disguised his troops as Persians, and led them

into a night attack against the Persian camp. It may be supposed that this narration

has been enriched by fictionalized elements, but even Plutarch’s account (Plut. Cim.

12.4-13-4) somehow magnify Cimon’s strategic and tactical skills, thus making

Diodorus’ version more believable overall. Going even more backwards time wise,

another night raid has been conducted by Odysseus and Diomedes in Book 10 of the

Iliad.

Even Demosthenes’ and Eurylochus’ innovative deployment of their troops

has at least one antecedent, i.e. Miltiades’ array of the Athenian army at Marathon, in

490 BC: in that situation, in order to match the length of the enemy battle line, he

significantly reduced the depth of the Athenian centre: he consequently made it more

vulnerable to the corresponding Persian sector, but on the same time he gave more

power to the wings (as Herodotus underlines in 6.111.3). This is also quite surprising,

since in the middle of the army traditionally stood the best troops available to the

Great King.80

Moreover, other ancient generals facing the same situation just

stretched their battle line while maintaining a homogeneous depth throughout the

79

See Diod. 11.61.1-7. 80

It was such a deep rooted tradition that even in 401 B. C., during the battle of Cunaxa, Cyrus the Young will try to persuade his Greek mercenaries to charge King Artaxerxes’

position (and he will charge there himself, in a desperate attempt to bring the battle to a swift

end). See Xen. An. 1.8.12 τῷ Κλεάρχῳ ἐβόα ἄγειν τὸ στράτευμα κατὰ μέσον τὸ τῶν πολεμίων, ὅτι ἐκεῖ βασιλεὺς εἴη: κἂν τοῦτ᾽, ἔφη, νικῶμεν, πάνθ᾽ ἡμῖν πεποίηται, “[Cyrus the

Young] urged Clearchos to lead the troops in the midst of the enemy, because that was the

place where the Great King was: «and if we win there», he said, «we will have reached our

objective»”.

38

whole formation.81

It is very likely, but not sure, that the Athenians had been arrayed

in this manner by Miltiades himself, who was the strategos in charge the day of the

battle. Herodotus is not clear on this point (see Hdt. 6.111.1 ὡς δὲ ἐς ἐκεῖνον

περιῆλθε, ἐνθαῦτα δὴ ἐτάσσοντο ὧδε οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ὡς συμβαλέοντες “When it was

his day [to commandthe army], the Athenians arranged their formation in this

manner […]”). In any case, the choice of placing less troops in the middle, if not

casual - which obviously meant that they would not be able to be on par with the

enemy centre but at the same time assured that the wings would have the upper hand

(and win the battle, once they charged the remaining Persian troops) - would

anticipate the analogous decision taken by Hannibal during the battle of Cannae, in

216 B. C.82

Furthermore, even the choice of deploying the troops on advantageous terrain,

as Demosthenes did at Idoumene, or as Pagondas did at Delium, is something that

can be found also in past conflicts: for example, Leonidas occupied a narrow passage,

in proximity of a defensive wall, in order to stop the Persian advance at Thermopylai

in 480 BC. The same had been done by the Greek fleet, which deployed itself at

Cape Artemisium, one of the narrowest straits between Greece and Euboea, in what

may be considered one of the first joint operations between land and sea forces in the

Antiquity.83

If we consider later episodes, moreover, we find the same unorthodox array

of Pagondas’ phalanx at Delium reused in the battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, where the

Thebans, led by Epaminondas, achieved a crushing victory against the Spartans led

by king Cleombrotos (Xen. Hell. 6.4.3-15). As for Demosthenes’ effective use of

light armed troops at Pylos and Sphacteria, Iphicrates will bring the peltast to an even

more effective role in the early 4th century BC, to which the traditional hoplite

81

An example could be the decision taken by P. Cornelius Scipio during the battle of Zama

in 202 BC: see Brizzi 2002, pp. 89f. 82

The objections made by N. A. Doenges, The Letters of Themistokles, Arno 1981, p. 13, do

not seem to be justified enough in his statement that “the similarities between Marathon and Cannae are just superficial: the Athenians wouldn’t have any intention of surrounding the

Persians in order to trap their whole army”. For an exhaustive description of Hannibal’s

tactic at Cannae see Brizzi 2002, pp. 70-73. 83

See M. M. Sage, Warfare in Ancient Greece. A Sourcebook, Routledge 2003, p.85: “This

failure [the retreat from the Tempe pass] led in June to a decision to select a position where

the fleet and the army could act jointly. The obvious point to defend against a combined naval and land operation was chosen: Thermopylae on land and Artemisium on the sea. This

line offered the advantages to the Greeks of ready communication between land and sea

forces, confined spaces that favored their naval tactics of ramming as well as their infantry

methods, and it was far enough north to protect important states in central Greece”.

39

warfare could not answer properly, as the episode of Lechaeum (391 BC) clearly

shows.84

From this brief diachronic analysis, it is quite clear that those episodes of the

Peloponnesian War that fall under the definition of unconventional warfare are not

isolated products of particularly ingenious minds; as it has been shown, even in the

case of particularly brilliant commanders, an antecedent to their tactics or stratagems

can almost always be found. It may be stated that Lysander’s motto “where the lion's

skin will not reach, it must be patched out with the fox's” has always been present in

Greek warfare. Hence, it may be worth considering the episodes that have been

analyzed in the previous chapters as part of a wider developing process that has been

coexisting with the traditional approaches to warfare since the Homeric Poems. To

put it simply, the use of stratagems and cunning, as well as the clever use of

environments, intelligence, traitors, or just the reliance of other types of troops apart

from the hoplites has always been present, even though in a “minority ratio”

compared to the conventional warfare. It may be argued that the first major blow to

the “pure” hoplite warfare have been the Persian Wars: in order to win an enemy

whose approach to war was completely different from theirs, the Greeks in general,

and the Athenians in particular, had to adapt to the new necessities caused by the

exceptionality of the situation. In fact, the Persians preferred engaging the foe from

the distance, in order to disrupt the enemy battle-line with uninterrupted arrow fire

coming from their composite bow armed archers, both mounted and on foot. From

Hdt. 1.214.2-3 we know how would be the evolution of a typical battle:

αὐτοὺς διαστάντας ἐς ἀλλήλους τοξεύειν, μετὰ δὲ ὥς σφι τὰ βέλεα

ἐξετετόξευτο, συμπεσόντας τῇσι αἰχμῇσί τε καὶ τοῖσι ἐγχειριδίοισι

συνέχεσθαι. χρόνον τε δὴ ἐπὶ πολλὸν συνεστάναι μαχομένους καὶ

οὐδετέρους ἐθέλειν φεύγειν. τέλος δὲ οἱ Μασσαγέται περιεγένοντο, ἥ τε

δὴ πολλὴ τῆς Περσικῆς στρατιῆς αὐτοῦ ταύτῃ διεφθάρη καὶ δὴ καὶ αὐτὸς

Κῦρος τελευτᾷ, βασιλεύσας τὰ πάντα ἑνὸς δέοντα τριήκοντα ἔτεα.

Initially the shot arrows against each other while keeping the distance,

and afterwards, when they finished the ammunitions, after getting into

melée they fought with spears and swords. They kept fighting for a long

84

See Chapter 3, p. 15 for a more exhaustive description of the battle of Lechaeum.

40

time and none of them wanted to retreat, but in the end the Massagetae85

managed to rout the Persians. Most of the Persian troops died on the

battlefield, and Cyrus himself perished there, after 29 years of reign.

The fear of the Persian archers may have been one of the reasons that made the

Athenians leave their position at Marathon and rush downhill to get into melée as

soon as possible, in order to minimize the time they would have been exposed to

Persian arrow fire.86

Interestingly enough, after the experiences of the 490-470 BC in

Greece first, and in Ionia after, there is evidence proving that Athens trained a corps

of archers, and used Scythian archers as some kind of police force.87

Furthermore,

the fact that Thucydides clearly numbers only the bowmen, without specifying the

amount of light infantry that the Athenians could field at the outbreak of the

Peloponnesian War, can be interpreted as a sign of the importance given to them on

the battlefield.

Miltiades’ and Cimon’s unorthodox tactics, too, may possibly be brought

back to some external influence: since Miltiades had been the tyrant of the Thracian

Chersonese before it became part of the Persian Empire, it may be supposed that he

and his son Cimon could have borrowed some guerrilla tactics from the native people

of that region. Thracians, in fact, were quite renowned for their skirmishers, whose

skills made them very requested on the mercenary scene: eight hundred peltasts from

85

The Massagetae were a population of scythian ethnicity, who lived south of the Aral lake, between the Araxes and Iaxartes rivers (see Hdt. 1.201). Since their army was composed by

horsemen and foot soldiers (and in particular the latter were καὶ τοξόται τε καὶ αἰχμοφόροι,

“both archers and spearmen”: see Hdt. 1.215.1) it may be argued that it shared similarities with both the armies of the sedentary populations to the south (such as the Persians) and to

the nomadic tribes to the north. 86

Even though it appears quite unlikely that the Athenian hoplites may have run for more than a kilometer, modern scholarship almost unanimously agrees on the fact that they had

rushed towards the Persian battle-line. The word δρόμῳ may be interpreted also as “double-

time pace”. This appears to be the most reasonable translation, since “the thinness of the

center of the Greek line made it mandatory to arrive in a state of at least semi-order to avoid an almost instant rout by the crack Persian troops in the center. The Greek army would have

been comprised of young and old men […] of varying levels of fitness (there is no evidence

at all of aerobic training for Greek hoplites) with the result that the charge would have had to have been short enough for the oldest and most unfit of the soldiers to arrive in battle order

and ready to engage” (Rudolph H. Storch, “The Silence is Deafening: Persian Arrows did

not inspire the Greek Charge at Marathon”, Acta Ant. Hung., II, 2001, pp. 381-394: p. 390). 87

See E. Baughman, “The Scythian Archers: Policing Athens”, in C. Blackwell (ed.), Demos,

Classical Athenian Democracy, A. Mahoney & R. Scaife 2003; D. Braund, “In Search of the

Creator of Athens' Scythian Archer-Police: Speusis and the "Eurymedon Vase", Zeitschrift

für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 156 (2006), pp. 109-113.

41

Thrace took part to the Ten Thousands’ expedition,88

and even later, some of them

composed the nucleus of Iphicrates’ light armed troops during the Corinthian War.

In conclusion, what is the answer to the question “has the warfare in Ancient

Greece ever been unconventional?”? Considering all what has been said in this

dissertation, it may be asserted that yes, war in Greece has sometimes taken different

paths from the tradition. However, as it has been already affirmed, these unorthodox

elements have always been present, although “dormant” from time to time, in the

Greek way of war. In this perspective, then, it is necessary to specify in comparison

to what we can speak about unconventional warfare: in my opinion, it would be

reasonable to refer it to the idealized perception of warfare, as it is, for example, in

Greek historiography.

In fact, since the times of the Iliad, there are some discrepancies between the

idealization and the crude reality of war. For example, archers in the Homeric

Corpus, such as Paris, Pandarus and Teucros, are considered heroes of less

importance. Since it kills from afar with almost no risks for the warrior, their weapon

of choice is a coward’s weapon, as opposed to the sword and the spear, which require

the wielder to be in melée range in order to be effective. Archers usually fail to kill

their target, and are usually killed in close combat by more skilled heroes, or by other

archer heroes, in some sort of Dantesque contrapasso ante litteram.89

However, at

the same time, they are praised for their marksmanship: Philoctetes, another archer

hero, and his men are τόξων εὖ εἰδότες, “well experienced in the use of the bow”

(2.718; 720), and Pandarus is a “strong man […] immeasurable [in his valour]” (Il.

5.244-245). Odysseus himself takes pride in his marksmanship, as shown in Od.

8.215-220.

This dichotomy may be caused by the fact that there is a different perception

of the use of the bow in warfare and in the agones, the sport competitions: in war, the

point of view is that of the elite whose ideals are reflected in Achilles’, Hector’s and

all the other heroes’ code of conduct. Obtaining geras, which is both the physical

prize and social appreciation one can receive by the warrior’s assembly, required that

88

See Xen. Anab. 1.2.9. 89

Particularly significant is the case of Pandarus: considering that he only manages to wound

Menelaus and Diomedes (a fact that makes him curse at his bow out of frustration: see Il.

5.204-5; 212-216), and gets killed by Diomedes in a duel shortly after, it could be argued

that his death represents some kind of retribution for his wrongs and for him being an archer.

42

the heroes fought their enemies in close combat, not that they killed them from afar,

anonymously. Being near to the target also made it possible for the winner to seize

the corpse or the panoply and bring it back to the camp as a proof of their andreia, i.e.

of their valour. In the agones, however, bows were considered on par with all the

other tools used in order to prove one’s skill: adept bowmen were usually recognised

and praised for their marksmanship, and in the Homeric Poems there are at least two

major bow competitions, one being in Il. 23.859-883, the other being in Od. 19.572-

581).

To conclude this dissertation, a similar reasoning can be done for the scarce

importance so often given to any non-hoplite troops in the works of the Greek

historians:90

Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon and all the others have been fighting

as or along with hoplites. As the authors of the Middle Ages magnified the noble and

chivalrous aspects of medieval warfare, Classical Greek historians probably wanted

to channel mostly this aspect of their military experience (as well as all the related

ideology - that of the citizen soldier) towards their audience, where we may suppose

that some may have also fought as hoplites in battle. Their perspective, then, is

almost completely focused on them, at the expense of a more balanced view on battle

dynamics: this is probably the reason why the episodes of the Peloponnesian War

that have been analyzed in the previous chapters stand out as innovative, or even

unorthodox as opposed to the traditional hoplite warfare.

90

See for instance the considerations made by van Wees 2004, pp. 62-65.

43

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