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The Hoplite Reform and History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

A. M. Snodgrass
A. M. Snodgrass*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Extract

I have tried to analyse elsewhere the archaeological evidence for Greek armour and weapons, and their possible effects on tactics, in the critical period of the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. There, I was of necessity concerned with the monumental evidence, and did not look far beyond it. But there are historical implications which should be faced and also, I think, some further historical support for the conclusions there reached.

The conclusions were briefly these. The equipment of arms and armour, which modern writers tend to group together as the ‘hoplite panoply’, was originally a motley assemblage. Certain of its components—the long iron sword and spear—were part of the equipment of most warriors of the era, and of many periods before and since. Other items resemble those used by Mycenaean warriors some five centuries earlier: these include the bronze plate-corslet, the greave and (an optional accessory) the ankle-guard. I cannot believe, with some scholars, that such advanced and costly products of the bronze-smith had been produced continuously throughout the Dark Age that followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilisation; and indeed for at least 400 years there is no evidence of any kind that they were. Rather, they were revived or readopted: the corslet apparently under the influence of the metal-working cultures of Central Europe and Italy, the greave and ankle-guard spontaneously, although the Epic tradition had never forgotten their earlier use. Other items again, the closed helmet of the type that the Greeks called Corinthian, and the large round shield with arm-band and hand-grip, were Greek variants devised as an improvement on foreign models, principally the metal open-faced helmets and round single-grip shields used by the Assyrians, Urartians and other Eastern peoples. The combination of all these elements together was an original Greek notion; as was their later association with a novel form of massed infantry tactics, the phalanx.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 85 , November 1965 , pp. 110 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1965

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References

1 Early Greek Armour and Weapons (Edinburgh, 1964), esp. pp. 83–4, 89–90, 136–9, 193–204.

2 Aristotle, , Pol. 1289b 36–40, 1297b 16–28Google Scholar: fr. 611, 51: cf. Strabo xiv 643: Plutarch, , Mor. 760–1.Google Scholar Note also the metal corslet of Timomachos the Aegeid (Aristotle fr. 532 (Rose), in Schol, on Pindar, , Isthm. 6(7). 18 Google Scholar; cf. on Pyth. 5. 101).

3 On this question see Kirk, , BSA xliv (1949), 144–53.Google Scholar

4 E.g. the Romans and Dacians in Trajan's day: Cichorius, , Reliefs der Traianssaüle, pls. 69 etc.Google Scholar The shield of the later Medieval knights: R. W. Oakeshott, The Archaeology of Weapons, figs. 132–3.

5 BSA xlii (1947), pl. 19A (Benaki Museum): lii (1957), pl. 3A (from Eretria, in Athens): Early Greek Armour 62. To these we may now add a sherd from the Kerameikos, , AA 1963, 649 Google Scholar, fig. 5.

6 Webster, , BSA l (1955), 41–3Google Scholar and From Mycenae to Homer, 169 f. on the shield: cf. Early Greek Armour 58–60, and 159–63 (chariot).

7 BCHl lxxxi (1957), 322–86.

8 Attic: AM xvii (1892), pl. 10; Robinson, , Harcum, and Iliffe, , Greek Vases in Toronto, pl. 9. 120.Google Scholar Argive: Tiryns i, pl. 15. 5; Argive Heraeum ii, pl. 57. 4; JHS lxxiv (1954) pl. 8. 3; BCH lxxviii (1954), 413, fig. 4; and another unpublished sherd from Argos, shown to me by Prof P. Courbin.

9 See especially MissLorimer, , BSA xlii (1947), 80–108.Google Scholar This view was rightly criticised by Hampe, Roland, Ein frühattischer Grabfund, 82–3.Google Scholar

10 Cf. Myres, , Homer and his Critics, 183 and pl. 6.Google Scholar

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11 CVA Berlin i, pls. 28. 1; 44. 2: BSA xxxv (1934–5), pl. 52 a: Hampe, op. cit. fig. 37, upper right.

12 Kallinos i 5, 14; cf. 10. Archilochos fr. 3.

13 Frr. 2 and 6.

14 CVA Berlin i, pls. 42. 4; 44. 2; Welter, , Aus der Karlsruher Vasensammlung (Bausteine i), pl. 1. 2Google Scholar (all Attic). Artemis Orthia, pls. 92. 3 and 104. 1 (Laconian). To these we may add many terracotta figurines of mounted warriors, such as Tiryns i 83 fig. 20; Perachora i. pl. 100. 166; Argive Heraeum ii, pl. 48. 245.

15 See JHS lxxxiv (1964), 107–8.

16 Mémoires de l' Académie des Inscriptions xxxvii (1902), 157 f.: cf. S.B. Bayr. Ak. Wiss. 1911, 37 f.

17 Helbig, , Abh. Bayr. Ak. Wiss. (philos.-philol. Klasse) xxiii. 2 (1905), 265–317 Google Scholar: Hermes xi (1905), 101–115: cf. CRAI 1904, 190–201. Contrast Ed. Meyer, , Kleine Schriften ii (1924), 274 f.Google Scholar

18 Fr. vi-vii, 21–5 (Diehl, ALG3). See Nierhaus, R. JdI liii (1938), 90–114 Google Scholar on this theme.

19 Cf. Adcock, , The Greek and Macedonian Art of War, 7f.Google Scholar

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21 i 13.4.

22 Kirk, , BSA xliv (1949), 119–23Google Scholar with references.

23 Kirk, op. cit., 137–9.

24 Fr. vi–vii and viii, passim.

25 See Meyer, Eduard, Kleine Schriften ii, 271–2Google Scholar: Nilsson, M. P., Klio xxii (1929), 241–4Google Scholar: Early Greek Armour 181–2.

26 Artemis Orthia pls. 183, 191: BSA xv (1908–9), pl. 7, etc. An example was found at Tegea, , BCH xlv (1921), 429 Google Scholar, no. 377, fig. 42.

27 Boardman, , BSA lviii (1963), 1–7.Google Scholar

28 The Greek Tyrants, 41–2 (Pheidon as possible creator of the Argive hoplite army); 49 (Kypselos as champion of the Corinthian hoplite class); 72–3 (the Rhetra as the enfranchisement of Spartan hoplites). Cf. Huxley, , BCH lxxxii (1958), 588–601 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Early Sparta 30—a similar conclusion but a very different chronology for Pheidon; ibid. 49 (the Rhetra): Wade-Gery, , CAH iii 551 Google Scholar on Kypselos.

29 See most recently Forrest, W. G., Phoenix xvii (1963), 157–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Huxley, G. L., Early Sparta 41–52 Google Scholar, who both arrive at a date around 675 B.C.

30 Dionys. i. 21: cf. Pliny, , Nat. Hist. iii 51.Google Scholar

31 On these see Akerström, A., Der geometrische Stil in Italien 102 f., 113 f., 119 f.Google Scholar: Kunze, E., Studies presented to D. M. Robinson i 736 f.Google Scholar

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33 E.g. Hagemann, , Griechische Panzerung 135–6, n. 3b, figs. 148, 150Google Scholar (two pairs): Micali, , Monumenti Inediti (1844), pl. 53.Google Scholar 4–5: Helbig, , Führer (Rom) i 364 Google Scholar, no. 612 (three pairs): Montelius, , Civilisation Primitive en Italie ii pl. 178.Google Scholar 2: Stud. Etr. vi (1932), pls. 25. I 2a and 29. III 2. Greek helmets are rarer: cf. Babelon & Blanchet, Catalogue des Bronzes, Bibliothèque Nationale no. 2013 (Vulci).

34 Rivista dell' Istituto nazionale di Archeologia e Storia dell' Arte viii (1959) 1–58.

34a Island Gems, 64, n. 2.

35 Stud. Etr. xx (1948–9), 241–5, pl. 13: Walters, , Catalogue of the Greek and Etruscan vases in the British Museum i. 2, pls. 23–4.Google Scholar

36 For similar ‘Catherine wheel’ patterns, compare AM xvii (1892), pl. 10: BSA xlii (1947), 76 ff., figs. 6, 8b, 13: Artemis Orthia pls. 183. 13–15; 191. 13–15.

37 Stud. Etr. iii (1929), 111–159, pls. 23–6.

38 MacIver, D. Randall, Villanovans and Early Etruscans 254, pl. 46. 6.Google Scholar

39 Riis, , Tyrrhenika 120 f.Google Scholar: cf. Lamb, , Greek and Roman Bronzes 80 Google Scholar, pl. 24a.

40 Kunze, E., Olympiabericht vi 125 f.Google Scholar (‘Frühform’).

41 AM xxi (1896), 1–10, pl. 1: Riis, , Tyrrhenika 114 A4.Google Scholar

42 AJA xii (1908), 297, fig. 2, pl. 12: Riis, , Tyrrhenika 127, 132.Google Scholar

43 The greave may have been a slightly late arrival, but not nearly so late as was thought by G. Karo (Daremberg-Saglio, s.v. ‘ocrea’, 147), and by McCartney, E. S., MAAR i (1917), 151–2Google Scholar, who misunderstood representations on terracottas.

44 Pallottino, M., The Etruscans 141 Google Scholar, fig. 4.

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47 E.g. Andren, , Architectural Terracottas from Etrusco-Italic Temples, pl. 24. 86, 88Google Scholar (Tuscania); pl. 25. 91 (Poggio Buco); pl. 36. 124 (Civita Castellana); pl. 141.492 (Satricum); pl. B. 2–3 (Caere). Commonest of all are the mounted hoplites (see above, p. 114, n. 17): ibid. pl. 5. 10–12, 8. 22 and 13. 45 (Caere); pl. 24. 87 (Tuscania); pl. 57. 188 (Vignanello).

48 E.g. Beazley, , Etruscan Vase-painting, pl. 3. 3–4.Google Scholar

49 E.g. Martha, L'Art Étrusque, figs. 316, 321.

50 E.g. von Vacano, op. cit. 61, fig. 22 (Caere).

51 Stud. Etr. iv (1930), 101–2, pl. 10.

52 Diodor. 23. 2; Ined. Vat. iii (Hermes xvii (1892), 121): cf. Athenaeus vi 106.

53 See Blakeway, , JRS xxv (1935), 129–49.Google Scholar

54 JRS liii (1963), 119–21.

55 See McCartney, E. S., MAAR i (1917), 121–67.Google Scholar

56 E.g. Andrén, op. cit. pl. 107. 382; pl. 105. 377, which is identical with examples from Velletri, ibid., pl. 127. 445–6. Cf. also pl. 120. 424 from Segni.

57 As Nilsson, , JRS xix (1929), 1–11.Google Scholar

58 See most recently Momigliano, , JRS liii (1963), 95–121 Google Scholar: Gjerstad, , ‘Legends and Facts’, Scripta Minora (Lund), 1960–1961, 2.Google Scholar

59 See Last, , JRS xxxv (1945), 30 f.Google Scholar, especially 34–5 and 42–4.

60 I am most grateful to colleagues in Edinburgh, particularly Drs T. J. Cadoux and P. G. Walsh, for discussion of these points.

61 Diodor, xii 64: cf. Livy iv 29.

62 Livy ii 48–50.

63 Dionys. vi 10. 2.

64 See especially fr. 15 Bergk (54 Diehl): Early Greek Armour 182–3.

65 Compare the conclusion of Hanell, K., Das altrömische eponyme Amt 197–8.Google Scholar

66 Pol. 1297b 16–24: cf. 28.

67 Pausanias viii 50. 1.

68 See Oman, , History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages 77–82.Google Scholar

69 A mansus apparently equalled 12 iugera, or just under 8 acres.

70 Kylon of Athens was evidently not such a leader, since he required Megarian help to seize the Acropolis in c. 632 (Thuc. i 126). See also pp. 115–116 above.

71 So Andrewes, , The Greek Tyrants 35–6, 87–91.Google Scholar We may disbelieve, along with the rest of Chapter iv of the Ath. Pol., the claim that Drakon extended rights

72 Prof. A. Andrewes and Mr John Boardman have given me much helpful advice on this subject, though they can in no way be held responsible for what I have written. The article is substantially in the form in which it was delivered to the Hellenic Society in November 1964.