CHAPTER 21

Government and Warfare

John Serrati

Warfare was the most prominent activity of Greek states in all periods prior to the Romanconquest. Armed conflict was the ultimate result of most state action, and one of thekey aspects of Greek statehood was the ability to make war independently. From modestbeginnings before the Persian Wars, where fighting was by and large the privilege of thewealthy and well-off who were strictly amateurs, hostile foreign action would not onlycome to embrace nearly every aspect of polis life, but would also force changes upongovernments and governmental structures by expanding civil control and bureaucracy.Service on the battlefield, particularly in the hoplite phalanx, came to be the hallmark ofcitizenship, and was the most prestigious and public endeavor in which a citizen couldengage. Furthermore, the interconnectedness of the citizen community through warfarewent beyond fighting, as governments often came to care for orphans and widows, whilestate funerals celebrated achievements of a military nature. Within a community, oneof the primary functions of memory – not just of the individual dead but also of pastcollective achievements – was to serve as an example of martial excellence to the livingcitizen body. As such, via monuments in addition to walls, warfare altered and definedthe polis itself as well as the physical spaces within it.

Military action in the Achaic Age was confined largely to border wars and was wagedon a very small scale in comparison to later periods. Hoplites had little if any training,armed themselves, and fought only in a short window during the summer months.Warfare was also not annual, and a soldier might expect to see battle only a few timesin his life. ‘‘Campaigns’’ involved next to no logistics. Later, the Delian League andthen the so-called Athenian empire changed the rules of the game. It has recently beenargued by Ian Morris (2009: 128–154) that the Athenian empire was not an empireat all in the sense of Macedon or Rome, but simply the polis writ large, a greatergovernmental and administrative entity; by Classical Greek standards, it was a superstate.

A Companion to Ancient Greek Government, First Edition. Edited by Hans Beck.© 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

318 John Serrati

The sheer size of the Athenian navy, the wealth of Athens, and the state’s ability tocombine these two in order to strike anywhere gradually made conflicts larger, engulfingmore poleis in the process. The reactions of other Greeks against this demanded a prioricooperation between cities for a sustained period on a level not seen before. However,when this proved inadequate, states were forced to hire masses of mercenaries who hadto be deployed wherever Athens held power.

The fifth century BCE saw the rapid introduction of new financial and logistical realitiesinto warfare that had to be tackled by the governments of the poleis both individuallyand in conjunction with one another. Athens, in turn, gradually increased the size of itsforces and the scope of its action. Thus warfare in the Classical period not only becamemore professionalized on the battlefield, but governments themselves had to becomemore professional about making war. As a result, the aristocratic warrior ethos from theArchaic world gradually waned, since the ruling elite, at least in organized poleis, not onlylacked the individual financial means to conduct private campaigns, but, perhaps moreimportantly, had themselves lost the ability to protect their cities against superstateslike the ones under the hegemony of Athens, Sparta, and then Thebes. War, from itsplanning to its financing, supplying, training, and campaigning, therefore increasinglybecame the prerogative of the state in the fifth and fourth centuries.

In order to deal with new realities on the battlefield, states hired professionals andincreased the training of their own forces, whose service was demanded far morefrequently and for greater periods from the mid-fifth century onwards. Athens attemptedto form a body of well-trained citizen cavalry (a substantial investment in terms of bothtime and money, rarely made by even wealthy states), while, perhaps most damaging tothe concept of aret̄e left over from the Archaic battlefield, we find the hoplomachos, aninstructor in hoplite tactics, from the late 400s. This, of course, is almost an oxymoron:Classical hoplite tactics worked so well because they did not require much training ordrill; besides, unless one had the misfortune of facing Sparta on the battlefield, soldiersrarely fought against anyone but other such amateurs. Eventually, however, the rise inprofessionalism gave birth to permanent, standing, elite units of hoplites, a process thatculminated in the Theban elite hoplite unit known as the Sacred Band.

To deal with the new financial realities of warfare, states formalized tax and tithestructures and, in doing so, created a layer of heretofore unknown governmentalbureaucracy. They furthermore took out loans, forced public–private partnerships ontheir citizens, and hired out their forces as mercenaries, garrisons, guards, and escorts.However, as the Peloponnesian War dragged on, even these sources proved inadequate.States therefore turned to plunder, thus increasing the ferocity of warfare significantly.Here, we should see the primary purpose of the Sicilian expedition not as enriching theAthenians, expanding their power, or cutting into their enemies’ grain markets (thoughall of these were important), but as merely giving the Athenian state another source ofincome to maintain what it already had, namely a colossal and expensive war fleet.

In the end, no Classical Greek polis was ever able to get a true handle on militaryfinancing, and thus all were forced eventually to go cap-in-hand to Persia. This goes along way towards explaining why no state – Sparta, Thebes, or Athens – was ever ableto bring Greece under the leadership of a single power and create a lasting confederatesystem, as the Romans did within Italy. Thus Greek warfare was trapped in a paradox:no polis could garner enough power and finances to establish a lasting superstate, and

Government and Warfare 319

so any attempt to do so had to involve Persia, who itself never would have allowed therise of any such power on its western border.

Greek Warfare in the Archaic Age

In the eighth and seventh centuries, warfare in Greece was largely conducted by privateindividuals, warriors who led bands of private retainers (therapontes) on missions ofplunder and conquest. Only in the sixth and early fifth centuries did states begin to takea monopoly on organized external violence, and even then this was never universal, asprivate warfare continued for at least another two hundred years. However, throughoutmuch of the Archaic Age, it was the norm. This conforms to what we know aboutother premodern states during their earliest stages of development, and is confirmedon two occasions by Thucydides (1.5.1–3, 15.2). The earliest communities in Greece,the nascent poleis, were in fact, formed by war as they were ruled over by a basileus,‘‘warlord’’ rather than ‘‘king,’’ or several basileis who imposed their rule upon othersvia their martial strength. This rule was accepted for the purposes of protection andcommunities formed because of the need for common defence. A basileus might armand equip his warriors, who expected him to lead them on plundering raids or, if theforce were powerful enough, the capture of a neighboring community. Thus it is difficultto speak of ‘‘wars’’ in this period, as most conflicts were small, quick, and resulted inlittle lasting change to the political landscape.

Lasting state structures appear in the poleis mostly during the sixth century, yet evenhere, these featured mechanisms to accommodate the private warrior and his followers,who continued to exist but were now fighting on behalf of the state. The forces of theseprivate individuals sometimes made up the bulk, if not the entirety, of a state’s army, andno Archaic polis other than Sparta could do without them. These early armies appear tohave been organized by private individuals on the basis of tribe, phratry, or, more often,clan (Hdt. 5.70–71). Under the tyrants, things began to change; here, we can first seethe government beginning to take a serious role in warfare and to bring it under statecontrol. Even if an army might still be raised on the level of a clan, armed and paid forby an individual, tyrants could not allow warlords to threaten their position. Thus theseprivate forces, where they were allowed to exist, would have operated at the behest ofthe government. At the same time, the Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians tells us(15.4–5) that Peisistratos did have at his disposal a list of armed citizens. Whether hecompiled this is unknown, but it is not inconceivable that other tyrants possessed suchmuster rolls as a means of forming an army for the polis and limiting the role of theprivate individual in warfare. It therefore appears that these two types of forces coexisted,with units organized by individual clans serving alongside those brought together by theroster of male citizens within the polis. A third element in this mix would have been thepersonal troops of the tyrant, who were the ultimate guarantors of his power. These wereoften mercenaries, who, in addition to guarding the ruler and his position, could anddid undertake wars of conquest. They also very likely served with forces raised privatelyand publicly when the polis was attacked. If experienced and in service for a long time,these men could prove a valuable fighting force, as did the epikouroi of Peisistratos, whoappear to have been something of an elite mercenary unit.

320 John Serrati

Other than these mercenaries, the forces raised by the government, whether tyrannyor oligarchy, were mustered on the basis of need, paid for their own equipment, receivedno formal training, and had only a very basic command structure. The units, if theycan even be called that, in which they served were determined by wealth; those at thetop could afford the hoplite panoply (bronze breastplate, helmet, possibly grieves andthigh protectors, large round shield, sword, and spear) and would have served withinthe phalanx, the development of which will be discussed in the next section. Men whowere not as wealthy might serve as lightly armed or missile troops, while the poorest hadno protection at all and might do nothing else but simply throw stones. Although Greekaristocrats at this time certainly owned horses and might ride them to the battlefield,no Archaic polis possessed more than rudimentary cavalry, if they possessed any equineforce at all, as the plains of Greece were mostly too small to permit serious maneuveringby horsemen. Nonetheless, in order to be even the least bit effective, horsemanship forthe purposes of warfare usually takes several generations to develop, and as the Greekaristocracies never practiced for combat on horseback, a mounted warrior culture couldnever have taken root. Thus infantry ruled Greek battlefields for some time, and thesewere in every way citizen militias. Unless paid by a warlord or clan chief, the men servedgratis, and this went a long way towards the evolution of the idea of the polis as acommunity of citizens, as during the Archaic Age there developed an attitude that aperson’s share in collective enterprises, particularly those of a military nature, was notjust a duty but a distinguishing characteristic of citizenship.

Wars in the Archaic Age were on a small scale, with neighboring poleis fighting eachother mostly over arable lands. Armies could not strike far beyond their borders andstates possessed little, if any, coercive powers. Other than with Sparta, the formationof even tiny hegemonies is almost unheard of in this period. Nevertheless, states didfind themselves regularly at war, and the controlling of nearby natural resources as wellas securing plunder and profit, however small in scale for the time, were doubtlesslyimportant reasons that cities might have to engage in hostilities (Archilochos fr. 2W).Additionally, the breakdown of interstate arbitration and the role of interstate rivalryshould not be discounted: many cities did attempt to solve their disputes via negotiatedsettlements, and entered into armed conflict only once this process had failed. At othertimes, wars occurred because of an age-old hegemonic rivalry within their immediatearea, as was the case with Athens and Thebes in central Greece, or, like the resistance ofArgos to Sparta in the Peloponnese, a polis might fight in order to avoid being broughtunder the power of a local hegemon. As much as the Greeks fought over control of land,in their highly competitive culture, local rivalry was very likely just as important a reasonthat two armies might find themselves facing each other on an archaic battlefield (Fisher2000: 84–90; Garlan 1989: 28–30; Ma 2000: 350–353; I. Morris 2009: 135–136;Raaflaub 1999: 131; Sartre 1979; van Wees 1992: 131–135; van Wees 2004: 19–40;van Wees 2007: 285–289).

Although the armies of the Greek poleis from the eighth to the sixth centuries werecertainly based on heavy infantry, contrary to what the later Classical Greeks believed,Archaic warfare was not the exclusive preserve of hoplite phalanxes. While these did playa primary role, evidence points to missile and light-armed troops having very importantfunctions in combat, and these at times even appear to have been interspersed with theheavy infantry (Tyrtaios fr. 11W). Nevertheless, perception is always stronger than reality,

Government and Warfare 321

and Classical Greeks in part justified the extreme social prestige that went along withservice in the phalanx by superimposing their own form of hoplite-dominated warfareupon the Archaic world. As a result, these methods of combat became marginalizedand hoplite combat entered a phase where it would become ritualized and inert (Krentz2002: 32; van Wees 2000b: 149–156; van Wees 2004: 47–52, 64).

The Era of Hoplite Dominance

Although the Classical Age saw much continuity from the previous era, many changes inthe realm of warfare had already occurred by the late sixth century. Hoplites had begunto dominate Greek battlefields almost to the exclusion of other troops, and conflicthad entered a phase of ritualization, where conventions and protocols were set out fordeclarations of war, the establishment of peace, and the aftermath of battles – specifically,the burial of the dead (Thuc. 5.74.2, 145–146; cf. Connor 1988a; Garlan 1999: 25–51;Ober 1996; Burkert 1983: 47; Krentz 2002; Krentz 2007a: 147; Raaflaub 1999: 138).

Nonetheless, the Persian Wars, where Greeks came together to battle a foreign invader,signaled a shift to warfare on a larger scale; polis-versus-polis warfare, while never fullydisappearing, declined in frequency in favor of larger, multistate conflicts. The greatestby-product of this was that forces required greater numbers and greater organization, inturn necessitating that governments take on a larger role in armed conflict.

Even before the Persian Wars, however, warfare was becoming more organized.Although we find hoplites being regularly commanded and even paid by private citizensas late as the 440s, most states appear to have moved away from a system of armiesraised by these individuals to one involving set property qualifications, whereby thosecitizens owning a certain amount of land were obliged to serve the state when called.Athens, in particular, moved from a system in which hoplite armies were raised privatelyon the level of the clan or tribe (SEG 4.171; Thuc. 8.100.3), to a muster that wasorganized, under the democracy, by deme registers (Aristoph. Knights 1369–1371; IGI2 79; Frost 1984: 284; cf. Hamel 1998: 59–99; Whitehead 1986: 224–226). Thisappears to be atypical, however, as the evidence would show that most other poleiscontinued to organize troops by phratry, tribe, or clan (Plut. Nik. 14.5). Despite thesenew arrangements by governments, service within any given polis never seems to havebeen exclusive, as Aristotle (Pol. 1297a29–35, b2–13) tells us that citizens falling belowthe minimum property amount might come forward due to the societal prestige thataccompanied hoplite service (Christ 2001; van Wees 2004: 55–57, 103–104, 166–183,232–240; van Wees 2007b: 278–279, 291–292). Regardless of this, warfare in the latesixth and early fifth century went from being largely composed of private raiding to asystem of organized campaigning by public armies.

The adventures of two generations of the aristocratic Philaidai family of Athens are aperfect example of this process. Miltiades the Elder was active in the mid-sixth centuryand was clearly a warlord who funded and commanded a private army and navy ofsignificant size. Not answerable to any government, he conquered part of the ThracianChersonese around the Hellespont sometime after 546 BCE and ruled the area as a tyrant(Hdt. 6.34.1, 35–37.1; Paus. 6.19.6). Half a century later, things were very differentfor his nephew Miltiades the Younger. He too possessed a private force with which

322 John Serrati

he conquered Lemnos in 493 BCE. By this time, however, the government at Athenswas powerful enough to express displeasure over, though not to stop, such privateconquest, and he therefore surrendered the island to the Athenian state (Hdt. 6.41.1–2,136.2–3). Private expeditions still existed, but were now undertaken in the name ofone’s polis. After Marathon, the government appears to have only grown in strength.In 489, Miltiades again sought to conduct a private expedition, but on this occasion,he was forced to seek permission of the democratic assembly, who then augmentedhis force with significant public manpower, ships, and funds (Hdt. 6.132–133). Themessage was clear: private expeditions were a thing of the past. Hoplites might be paidand commanded by a private individual, with each soldier owning his own equipment,but by the fifth century the state was in firm control concerning when the citizen armywas called into service as well as where and against whom it was deployed (Figueira1991: 133–138, 253–262; Gabrielsen 2007b: 254–255).

Although some of this evolution had taken place before the Persian Wars, the periodafterwards witnessed profound changes in the nature and scale of warfare. Battlesthemselves became much larger affairs involving multiple poleis. There were severalreasons behind this, one of the most important being that states could usually marshalmore forces and more funds than individuals. All the same, the development of the DelianLeague, more than anything else, changed the nature of warfare in Greece as well as itsrelationship to the state. In the late sixth and early fifth centuries, population growth,economic development, and increased trade resulted in higher revenues for many Greekstates, meaning that they could afford to spend more freely. The construction of theAthenian fleet in 483 was a product of this. The outfitting of 200 vessels, a massivenumber by contemporary standards, altered the scale and scope of conflict as well as themethods by which it was fought. Henceforth, warfare became increasingly ubiquitousboth temporally and geographically, as the politics and wars of the Classical Greeks cameto revolve around large alliance systems and empires.

The expanded scope of warfare and the greater number of men involved significantlyincreased its ferocity (Thuc. 1.18.3, 21.2, 23.1–3; Xen. Ages. 2.14). Athens, with thehuge expense of its navy, was at least partially, if not wholly, responsible for thesechanges. As will be discussed in the next section, maintaining the Athenian navy was acolossal expense, but the Delian League’s tribute taxes along with plunder from Persiamet its costs. However, once the latter was removed in 449 by the Peace of Kallias, theplundering of other Greeks began to have a much greater significance in warfare andcame to be seen as a necessity rather than as a desire or bonus. Very quickly, the scale ofwarfare at Athens, and the scale of warfare required to fight the Athenians, ballooned.Plunder thus represented a way, albeit not always an easy way, of raising capital. Massenslavements and the total destruction of cities were still rare, but nevertheless happenedfar more frequently than in the preceding period.1

Troop transports now became a regular feature of warfare, particularly on the part ofthe Athenians, meaning that their hoplites could strike anywhere, again increasing thecost and scale of conflict (IG I3 60, II2 1627, with SEG 50.45). This new element inGreek warfare necessitated a change in strategy on the part of Athens’ opponents andgradually many of them came to mimic Athens, as all over Greece in the mid- to late-fifthcentury states took greater control over their armies, navies, logistics, and war finances.Despite this, however, none, not even the Peloponnesian League, achieved the level of

Government and Warfare 323

organization of which the Athenian superstate was capable. Sparta, notoriously, did notreform its state structures at all, and as a result, never really came to grips with how tofight, let alone defeat, the Athenian superstate. Thus the Spartans cannot be given muchcredit for the victory of 404, which in reality was self-inflicted, militarily and financially,by the Athenians outside the walls of Syracuse from 415–413, and then won largely andprivately by Lysander with the massive funding he personally secured from Persia. YetLysander, even with all of his accumulated power and wealth, was unable to reform theSpartan state to face the era’s new realities of warfare and economics. Yet Lysander wasperhaps the first non-Athenian Greek to comprehend what was necessary for large-scalecampaigning. As conflicts expanded in size, scope, and distance, the Greek poleis had todeal with problems of logistics and supply for the first time. In the fifth century we beginto hear of servants, slaves, pack animals, and baggage trains carrying not just provisions,but also tools, tents, and medical supplies (Hdt. 6.60; Thuc. 6.22; Xen. Anab. 1.10.18;Kyr. 6.2.32; Lak. Pol. 11.2; 13.4; cf. Hammond 1983; Krentz 2007a: 151–152; Lee2006: 494–495; Pritchett 1971–1991: I.30–41). The Spartans, at least according toXenophon (Lak. Pol. 13.7), brought doctors on campaign.

Despite these profound changes, hoplites and phalanxes continued to be the mainforces fielded by poleis during this period. Hoplite battle, in both the Archaic and Classicalages, was, literally, a straightforward affair. Although they were encouraged to exerciseand hunt (Xen. Mem. 3.12.1–4), and perhaps had some experience passed on from anolder male, soldiers were purely amateurs who received no formal training whatsoever(Arist. Pol. 1338b25–39; Thuc. 2.39.1; Xen. Hell. 6.1.5; Lak. Pol. 13.5; Mem. 3.5.15,3.5. 21, 3.12.5). That Xenophon (Poroi 1.1, 4.33, 6.1) encouraged the Athenians toinaugurate formal training indicates that such a program did not currently exist. Thephalanx formation derived its strength from its cohesion and negated the role of the(often highly inexperienced) individual in favor of the collective. As a result, historianshave often used the phalanx as a metaphor for the polis. However, the formation andits origins had little to do with civic organization. On the contrary, it would appear tohave developed in the Archaic Age as a tactic specifically for use by untrained amateurs.Huddled together for safety, the hoplites relied almost completely on numbers andcollective strength rather than on any individual skill or prowess. A hoplite’s onlyfunctions were to march in a forward direction, cover his neighbor with the left sideof his shield, stab with his spear, and, above all, not break ranks, acts that requiredmore bravery than training. Moreover, warfare in general was so infrequent before themid-fifth century that formal training was most probably felt to be unnecessary.

A lack of drill as well as any sort of formal organization or real chain of command([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 3.1, 22.5, 61.1–6; Hdt. 6.109–110) is evident in the fact thatphalanxes were unable to execute complex, at times even simple, maneuvers on thebattlefield, and usually could march in only one direction: forward. Once the phalanxwas broken, hoplites almost universally retreated, again illustrating a lack of leadershiphierarchy and that they possessed little if any ability to fight on their own. This was alsomade clear when hoplites faced the one Greek state which did formally train its men aswell as possess a clearly defined command structure: Sparta (Thuc. 5.66.3, 68.3; Xen.Lak. Pol. 11.4–5, 13.1, 7). As warfare for the Spartans, against the Messenians, Argives,and other Peloponnesians, was frequent, essential to their way of life, and often veryviolent, their polis was a militarized state that trained its hoplites from a very young

324 John Serrati

age. Thus sources attest that Lakedaimonian hoplites were able to execute maneuvers ofwhich other phalanxes were simply incapable. We are furthermore told that other Greeksdisliked being directly commanded by Spartans because of their demands concerningdiscipline and their well-earned reputation for meting out corporal punishment whennecessary (Plut. Arist . 23.2; Thuc. 2.87.9, 8.84.2; Xen. Hell. 3.1.9, 6.2.18–19). Clearly,therefore, such discipline was in very short supply in the common Greek phalanx.2

Going even further, evidence points to this lack of training being worn as a badge ofhonor by certain Greeks, particularly members of the aristocracy, who believed stronglyin their own aret̄e, the Homeric ideal of inborn excellence, as well as their perceivednatural abilities and native courage. Taking their status as amateur soldiers quite seriously,they held that real training (weapons and formation drilling) was unnecessary for thoseof their station, since aristocratic, hereditary aret̄e would prevail on the field of war (cf.Hom. Il. 15.642, 20.411; Hdt. 1.176.1, 8.92.1, 9.40). Out of this notion arose theideology of hoplite dominance; by the fifth century, the Greeks saw hoplite warfareas the ultimate form of martial prowess, coming to hold other methods of fighting indisparagingly low regard. Proper men, it was believed, served and fought as hoplites andit was phalanxes alone that decided the day on Greek battlefields. Despite all of Athens’naval might, the defeats suffered by the city’s hoplites at Koroneia in 447 and Mantineiain 418 cut very deep. Athens might have ruled the waves and the navy might have beenthe greatest guarantor of Athenian power, but the polis was still judged, and judgeditself, by what its hoplites accomplished against rival phalanxes on land.

Though the practical reality was probably far different, Greek aristocrats, according toHerodotus (8.26.3), at least liked to think that they were fighting primarily to displaytheir aret̄e, while things like land and profit were decidedly secondary. Furthermore, notonly did these Greeks incorrectly superimpose this ideal upon the age which came beforethe Classical (many troops not armed as hoplites played decisive roles on Archaic Greekbattlefields) but this also led those making military decisions – themselves hoplites whobelieved that they deserved their positions of political power because of their exploitsas heavy infantry – to marginalize and minimize any non-hoplite form of combatant.Simply put, it was during the Late Archaic and Early Classical periods that the idea ofa ‘‘hoplite class’’ developed. Being part of this group brought a large degree of socialprestige and the possibility of political power; as a result, membership was exclusive andexpensive, and intentionally kept that way (Arist. Pol. 1297b1–2; Lys. 13; cf. P. Hunt2007: 125–127, 133–134; Pritchard 1998a, 1998b; Roisman 2003). Doubtless thePersian Wars contributed significantly to this attitude, as the conflicts saw citizen-hoplitemilitia decisively defeat an enemy that relied almost exclusively on the types of soldiersthe men of the phalanx came to deride: cavalry, light infantry, and missile troops. Thus,while never quite disappearing from Classical armies, in the fifth century these types ofsoldiers ceased to play an important part on battlefields, so subordinated were they tothe hoplites. This, however, would come to change once the manpower requirements ofthe Peloponnesian War forced the Greeks to (re)consider the use of non-hoplite troops.

Manpower requirements during the Peloponnesian War increased exponentially. Moststates now fielded armies on a scale never seen before (Thuc. 2.13.6, 31.1–2, 4.66.1).Governments were therefore forced to seek out soldiers in new places: property qualifica-tions for service were lowered, metics were enrolled or had their enrollments increased,while at Sparta many Lakonian helots were promised freedom in exchange for service. As

Government and Warfare 325

a result of the less-well-off serving within the phalanx, hoplite armor becomes noticeablylighter from the late fifth century onwards, as many of the new recruits could only affordleather cuirasses rather than metal breastplates (Hanson 2000: 55–65; P. Hunt 2007:115–116; van Wees 2001). These men were often eager to serve in the phalanx as it gavethem access to the social prestige that went with being a hoplite. As a result of the newlevel and violence of warfare, the Classical concept of inborn aret̄e began, albeit slowly,to be undone. Mercenaries, who were from all walks of life, regularly bested citizenhoplites and their supposed natural excellence; moreover, the hoplomachos (‘‘hopliteteacher’’) appears on the scene for the first time at the height of the PeloponnesianWar (Plat. Euth. 271d; Theophr. 5.10) – a tacit admission that martial prowess could betaught to anyone.3

The demands of the Peloponnesian War necessitated a return of non-hoplite soldiersonto the battlefield as light troops. They were most often archers, slingers, and peltasts, aswell as some light cavalry, though sometimes, according to Xenophon (Anab. 5.2.12, 14;Hell. 2.4.33), they were armed with nothing but throwing stones. Many of these wouldhave been mercenaries from various parts of Greece who entered service out of necessity,while others hailed from the fringes of the Greek world and were merely fighting in theirnative styles. Such lightly armed troops were present on Greek battlefields during all timeperiods, but the late fifth century saw them reach a level of prominence not seen sincethe Archaic Age. The amount of raiding done throughout the Peloponnesian War clearlyshows that light troops were becoming more common, as hoplites were wholly unsuitedto such quick attacks. They furthermore proved their worth as they quickly illustratedjust how vulnerable bands of isolated hoplites could be when confronted with swift,missile-wielding soldiers. Thus the face of warfare changed as states had to adapt tacticsto combat these new troop types (Thuc. 3.94.3–98.2; 4.32.2–35.1; cf. Bugh 1998:83–89; Hunt 2007: 119–124; Gaebel 2002: 90–109; Lee 2006: 490–491; Pritchett1971–1991: l1.130–133; 2.117–125, 188–189; 5.3–67; Spence 1993: 57–60).

Many poleis utilized their own citizens as light troops alongside mercenaries; however,these were confined to forces operating on foot. Only the Athenians were atypical in thisregard as in the mid-fifth century they formed their own cavalry. It was exceedingly rarefor a government to attempt to form its own cavalry from scratch due to the expenseand training involved for each individual trooper. Most contented themselves with eithernot using cavalry at all or hiring mercenaries from horse cultures (in the Greek context,specifically Macedon and Thessaly). Usually, it took generations to breed the excellenthorses and train the riders for an elite cavalry. The effort and expense on the part of Athens(which even went so far as to train some as horse archers, a very rare skill) should thereforenot be underestimated (IG I3 83, with Tod 1.72, 375, with SEG 30.22; M&L 84).4 Eventhe fantastically wealthy Hellenistic kingdoms of the subsequent era did not investmentin trying to build up a core of elite horsemen. All the same, while the effort was laudableand illustrates the resourcefulness of the Athenian state at war, these horsemen played nogreater role than the mercenary cavalry employed by other poleis. The quality, diversity,and abundance of light troops, both cavalry and infantry, made hiring them impossibleto resist for the endlessly warring Greek cities from the late fifth century onwards.

As with light troops, mercenaries had played a role in Greek warfare since Archaictimes, but the late fifth century saw a dramatic increase in their usage. This was done toincrease and make up numbers and because mercenaries often made better fighters than

326 John Serrati

amateur citizens. Moreover, the employment of full-time soldiers allowed male citizensto stay at home in order raise crops and tend to businesses – in essence, to contributeto the economy of polis. Such efforts were necessary to cover the higher costs of war inthe late fifth century. While the hiring of infantry and cavalry mercenaries represented adifficult yet manageable expense for most states, the same could not be said for otherforms of combat. After naval forces, which will be examined in the next section, thesiege represented the greatest wartime expenditure. Siege warfare was in its infancy inthe fifth century, and often the only real way to take a city was to blockade it untilthe inhabitants surrendered from starvation. At Plataia (429–427 BCE; Thuc. 2.71–78,3.51–68), the Spartans, with superior numbers and better fighters, and despite effortswith fire, battering rams, and a siege mound, were unable to break into the city overthe entire summer of 429, and eventually had to settle for a blockade that lasted nearlytwo more years. This is a typical example of a siege from the Classical period, and, asa result of the length of time needed to reduce an enemy city, such operations werehighly expensive: Thucydides speaks of how the sieges of Poteidaia in 430 (2.70.2) andMytilene in 428–427 (3.19.1) strained the finances of even a state as wealthy as Athens.Moreover, defenders also incurred high costs: walls were perhaps the ultimate symbolof a polis’ independence, yet they were expensive to build and maintain (Camp 2000).By the late fifth century, cities also required more elaborate systems of forts and borderdefenses in order to safeguard territory from attack and to provide citizens with pointswhere they could take refuge (cf. Lee 2006: 496–499).

Although warfare in the late fifth century bore many resemblances to its predecessor inthe Late Archaic and Early Classical periods, the scale and costs were now incommensu-rable with what had come before. This, more than democracy or the centralizing powersof oligarchic boulai, was what truly removed war from the hands of private citizens, as allof these numbers, sieges, fleets, logistics, and mercenaries, were now beyond the meansof individual aristocrats and, as a result, had to be paid for out of public monies (Thuc.4.129.2, 5.6.2, 7.27.1 and 29.1; Ps.-Xen. Ath. Pol. 27.2). Athens, unsurprisingly, wasat the forefront in this regard, but costs spiraled even out of its control, and morethan once during the Peloponnesian War the ekkl̄esia debated approaching Persia forfinancial support (Thuc. 2.7.1, 4.50.3, 6.8). The city’s largest cost was the fleet; theguardian of Athens’ wealth and freedom, the navy was a huge expenditure, and provedeven too much for the Athenian empire. However, before the collapse of its Aegeanhegemony, the city of Athens formed heretofore unseen levels of public administrationand bureaucracy, catapulting warfare and its relationship to the state to new heights inthe Greek world.

The Athenian ‘‘Empire’’

Of all armed forces in the Classical era, fleets represented the largest cost by far.Sparta and Korinth took out loans from Delphi in order to afford their fleets in thePeloponnesian War, but this was not enough, and they eventually had to approachPersia. It is therefore a testament to Athens that the city was able to possess, operate, andmaintain an enormous navy for three-quarters of the fifth century. The influence of thisnavy on the history of that century, and on Greece in general, cannot be underestimated.

Government and Warfare 327

Not only did it eventually force Athens’ antagonists to increase the size and quality oftheir forces both at sea and on land, it also required the creation of a greater Athenianstate, the so-called Athenian ‘‘empire,’’ to maintain it.

The Athenian superstate changed the nature and scale of Greek warfare and interstaterelations, and its evolution broke firmly with the Archaic past. Not only did it prioritizecoinage over all other forms of wealth, but the main source of its power, the navy,was entirely Athenian property. As Athens became the first polis to take a monopolyon external violence, from the 470s onwards, the city saw no more private armies,expeditions, or wars. The fleet had forced war and finance permanently into the publicsector (Gabrielsen 1994: 173–207; Kallet-Marx 1993: 37–69; 1994; I. Morris 2009:101, 128–154; Raaflaub 1999: 141–144).

By the mid-fifth century, the number of combat-ready triremes in the Athenian fleetwas about 200; however, the total number of the warships controlled by the Athenianstate at any one time might have been as high as 300. The active Athenian navy atsea, therefore, would have been operated by some 40,000 men at the very least. Thiswas nothing less than a floating economy, with triremes – which featured no sleepingarrangements and minimal room for supplies – stopping every night and generatingmuch work and profit for friendly ports (cf. Aristoph. Ach. 546–555 for the commotionthat the Athenian fleet could cause at a port). Nonetheless, despite the obvious benefitsthe fleet brought to Athens and its subjects, it remained a massive expense and financingwas often a difficult struggle.

The construction of ships was the most immediate expense, and the procurementof naval supplies and shipbuilding material, especially wood, required large amountsof coinage as well as diplomatic networks and trade contacts. These ships had to bemaintained, as did the port and ship sheds at Piraeus. Pay for the crews, all rowersbeing skilled men, also had to be good, particularly when competition for rowerswas introduced during the Peloponnesian War. Furthermore, the most highly talentedhelmsmen were very prized and these men could command hefty wages. All-in-all,thousands of Athenians as well as foreigners were now on the public payroll as crewmembers and maintenance personnel. Similarly, the state also required hundreds ofadministrators and bureaucrats, the hellenotamiai amongst others, to hire these crews,pay and supply them, and to collect the tribute and taxes from around the Aegean thatwent, primarily, to the fleet’s maintenance.5 In short, the Athenian fleet was alwaysvery difficult to maintain financially, and these problems were exacerbated after 431,again after 411, and again after 404. Each time, the Athenians had to come up withmore inventive methods of funding. Initially, the fleet was maintained via a combinationof tribute from Athenian subjects, taxation, and the public–private partnership knownas the trierarchy (see chapter 19 in this volume). Eventually, however, the raising ofsufficient capital came to include loans, protection, extortion, plundering, and outrightpiracy. Others, specifically Sparta, turned to a third party in order to finance a fleet.These methods came with pitfalls: taxes and tithes could become irregular as states wentthrough financial difficulties during long conflicts; allies could revolt; loans had to berepaid; the aid of third parties was never unconditional (sensing weakness in the Spartanposition, Persia exacted a heavy price for its financing of the Spartan fleet); plunderand piracy were dangerous, could meet with resistance, and might cost one allies; whilehiring one’s forces out as mercenaries and escorts might get them all killed.

328 John Serrati

The majority of tribute collected from Athenian subjects went to the navy. Theimposition of a single currency upon Athenian controlled poleis greatly facilitated this(Gabrielsen 1994: 173–207; Kallet-Marx 1993: 37–69; Kallet-Marx 1994; I. Morris2009: 101, 128–154; Raaflaub 1999: 141–144), but it proved inadequate with theadvent of the Peloponnesian War, and Athens was forced to increase the tribute by morethan two and a half times in the conflict’s first ten years (IG I3 71, ll. 16–17, with M&L69; SEG 32.9; Plut. Arist . 24). This undoubtedly put a serious strain on many subjects,and Athens would have had to expend more bureaucratic effort and administration oncatching delinquents and enforcing payment (Thuc. 2.69.1, 3.19, 4.75.1). The decreesof the 420s make it clear that tribute structure was breaking down and that some statescould no longer afford to pay. Later in the war, Athenians also had trouble collectingand transporting tribute as the Aegean was no longer exclusively in their hands (IG I3

34, with M&L 46; SEG 26.7, IGI3 60, 68, with SEG 45.231; IG I3 71, with M&L 69,SEG 32.9). In an attempt to make up for these shortfalls, the city borrowed from sacredtreasuries (IG I3 369, with M&L 72, SEG 28.18), instituted a 10 percent tax throughHellespont (SEG 25.21, with Tod 51), and, from 428 onwards, charged its wealthiestcitizens the eisphora, a war tax (see chapter 22 in this volume).

After the Sicilian expedition, it is clear that the finances of Athens were strained as neverbefore; tribute was becoming more difficult to exact and collect, and trierarchies werebeing avoided. Athens first attempted to reform its main stream of income by abandoningthe traditional tribute and instead charged its subjects a 5 percent tax on all revenuespassing through their harbors (Thuc. 7.28.4; cf. I. Morris 2009: 146–147). This, how-ever, proved both unpopular and impractical and was repealed in 411, with the exactionof tribute returning the following year. More telling of the city’s precarious financial statewas the fact that incidents of piracy by the Athenian navy (Diod. 13.47.6–7, 64.4; Thuc.3.19.1), the extortion of money from allies, and the attacking of enemy as well as neutralcities to gain nothing but plunder, increased exponentially after 413. Finally, in order toraise capital Athens took to leasing out its forces as mercenaries, escorts, and garrisonsaround the Eastern Mediterranean.6 All of these activities were undertaken simply tomaintain the war fleet. Again, it is a credit to Athens that the city was able to operateits colossal navy for as long as it did, and the level of organization and administration itimplemented in order to do so was unprecedented. But in end this all proved to be toomuch, and the defeat in the Peloponnesian War was financial as much as it was military.

The Fourth Century

The late fifth century had forever altered warfare in Greece, as long gone were the dayswhen a few thousand citizen hoplites could decide a conflict in a single day with relativelylight casualties. The scale of the Second Peloponnesian War represented a significant shiftin Greek warfare and history. Individual poleis could no longer afford to be so jealousof their singularity and freedom, for alliances had to be formed and resources had to bepooled in order to compete with the larger players who now fielded armies with highercomponents of mercenaries and with combined arms to augment their troops. Evenhoplites themselves were changing as the fourth century saw them shed more of theirbody armor as they sought the swiftness necessary to deal with mobile missile troops.

Government and Warfare 329

The fourth century, in many ways, continued where the fifth had left off, and thereforethe period 404–395, between the end of the Peloponnesian War and the beginningof the Korinthian War, should not be seen as some sort of firm break, far from it.Rather, the period 431–362, arguably even 431–338, should be viewed as one long warpunctuated by very short ceasefires. The scale was large, the conflicts intensely violent,the troops professional, and the main players, at least until 357, remained the same. Theonly real change throughout this period, other than allegiances, is that war continued togrow in expense, forcing all major states eventually to turn to Persia for funding.

At the same time, armed forces had not reached the size and level of professionalismin Greece that they would during the Hellenistic world, when both individual poleis andalliance networks had to compete or defend themselves against enormous kingdoms.Amateur citizen-soldiers fought well into the fourth century and beyond, and on occasionthese might still be paid by private citizens (Dem. 19.84; Lys. 16.14). Their presenceon Greek battlefields, however, was becoming proportionally smaller as mercenariesplayed increasingly important roles (Dem. 4.21; Isok. 7.9). This brought with it manystrengths, most notably a higher level of professionalism and experience in the averagesoldier. Moreover, the professional light and missile troops now in regular use couldbe transformed, by innovative generals like Iphikrates, into tactical assets. Soon, noarmy could afford to be without them. Similarly, cavalry units became equally necessaryand most states formed such units or hired specialized horsemen. Some even employedhamippoi, trained light infantry who fought intermingled within a cavalry unit. In short,warfare in the fourth century continued to change; though not fully realized until PhilipII, Greek armies were gradually moving towards combined arms.7

All of the above, of course, meant much higher expenditures for every state involved.Eventually, most sought an advantage beyond their financial means and turned to Persia,who was only too willing to watch the Greeks fight amongst themselves. But even thiswas not enough; Athens in the fourth century rented out its own forces as mercenaries,escorts, and garrisons on an even greater scale than before,8 and also demanded that itswealthy citizens pay for more frequent and increased trierarchies. Eisphorai also greatlyincreased and eventually became annual in 347. To shoulder the burden, the state beganto permit payment in groups for both obligations. Additionally, the entire collectionsystem became more heavily organized, with greater punishments for evasion (IG II2

244, ll. 12–13, with SEG 56.136; IG II2 505, ll. 14–17, with SEG 38.114; Dem.42.25, 50.8–9; Dein. 1.69; Lys. 21.3). While these measures certainly contributed to amore effective marshalling of Athenian financial power for the purposes of war, that suchrules and punitive measures were necessary in all likelihood illustrates how the systemwas breaking down and that larger numbers of citizens were avoiding payment.

In order to negate some of this expense and continue to utilize men from withinthe polis – who undoubtedly still sought the social prestige that accompanied hopliteservice – many states formed trained, standing forces from the ranks of their own citizens.The ephebeia at Athens is the most obvious example of this. While the institution gaveAthens a well-trained force upon whom the state could call, the young men nonethelessreturned to civilian life after the completion of their training (cf. chapter 20 in thisvolume). Others, such as Argos and the Arkadians, took things one step further andkept their trained citizens enrolled in standing units. It was Thebes, however, whotook the process to a higher level still with their full-time, highly trained, elite unit:

330 John Serrati

the Sacred Band. Formed in 379 BCE and numbering 300, these men would dominateGreek battlefields for three decades. This, as well as some being blessed with some giftedgenerals, explains the brief period of Theban hegemony in the fourth century.

Even more successful than Thebes, however, was Syracuse. Conditions in Sicily dif-fered in that there were fewer significant Greek powers, but one very large foreign power,Carthage, which kept Syracuse perennially under threat. Attempts to reform the state, itsmilitary, and its military finances, after the ousting of Athens in 413 had led to infightingand eventual failure. An intensification of the threat by Carthage, however, catapultedDionysios I (405–367) to supreme power. He, like his contemporary Lysander, under-stood what was necessary in order to fight a large, well-funded state, be it Athens orCarthage. He formed a standing citizen hoplite force, second only to Sparta amongstthe Greeks, armed totally at state expense, turned Syracuse into a fortress, and thencapped this all off by attracting engineers who would build for him the Greek world’sfirst siege-train complete with artillery (Diod. 14.41.2–4). This new model army wasthen used to conquer nearly all of Sicily and extend his power significantly up the Italianpeninsula. He even managed to emerge as a major player in Greece for a short time. Infourth-century Syracuse, the relationship between warfare and the state is more symbioticthan in any other Greek polis. In Sparta, while the state made war, warfare did not alterthe state, relatively speaking. In Syracuse, however, the wars in which the city engagedradically transformed the state and brought many aspects of the military and the economyunder government control. Syracuse in the fourth century was a state made by war.

Beyond the hegemonies of Thebes in Greece and Syracuse in the west, all poleis inthe fourth century and into the Hellenistic period continued to field citizen-soldiers asa part of their armed forces. Hoplite battle, although changing, still ruled the day onGreek battlefields. It is clear, moreover, that the ever-increasing frequency, economicnecessity, and violence of warfare for nearly all Greeks caused them to move closer tothe Spartan model of the professional, state-maintained soldier, be he a mercenary orcitizen. Greek armed forces reflected their society, in particular, that of the polis; equally,however, warfare influenced Greek political and social development and organization.The particular brand of Greek warfare, specifically the hoplite phalanx, provided a levelof cohesion in the polis that, in part, was responsible for victory in the Persian Wars.However, afterwards, the fact that these were so often used against each other, andthat Athens never succeeded in unifying Greece in the way Rome did Italy, perhapsdoomed the treasured political independence of the Greek states. In the end, althoughthe increased scale of warfare forced states to enlarge their state infrastructure, andalthough this new infrastructure at times became a beast of its own that required warsto feed it, the Greeks of the fifth and fourth centuries never came to grips with the newrealities of warfare between empires and superstates. As a result, they fell victim to thefirst western government which did strike a balance between war and finance: Macedon.

NOTES

1 On attitudes to and the importance of plunder: Arist. Pol. 1256b23–26; Diod. 14.111.4;Xen. Kyr. 7.5.73; Lak. Pol. 13.11. Cf. Garlan (1999: 45–51); Krentz (2007a: 180–183);I. Morris (2009): 119, 136, 145, 154–155; Pritchett (1971–1991): 5.68–203, 363–456;Raaflaub (1999: 132, 138, 141–143); van Wees (2007b: 280–284).

Government and Warfare 331

2 On command structure, phalanx training, and discipline in general: cf. Garlan (1999: 93–96,199–203); Hanson (2000: 19–26, 121–125); Hunt (2007: 109–113, 128–130, 144); Lee(2006: 483–484); Pritchett (1971–1991: 2.208–231); Raaflaub (1997c), Raaflaub (1999:133–134); Rawlings (2000); van Wees (2004: 89–95, 166–197); van Wees (2007b: 273,278–280).

3 Anaxandrides, a writer of comedy, entitled one of his plays Hoplomachos, possibly composedin the 370s, of which only two fragments survive; cf. Hunt (2007: 133); Wheeler (1983).

4 See also Andok. 3.5; [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 49.1; Lys. F 6, 16.6–7; Thuc. 2.13.8; 5.47.6; Xen.Hipparch. 1.13, 18–19; 3.2–14; cf. Bugh (1988: 39–78, 221–223); Gaebel (2002: 85–89,93–99, 108–109); Lee (2006: 491–493); Spence (1993: 9–10, 15–16, 180–190).

5 Foreign rowers: Thuc. 1.121.3. Hellenotamiai: IG I2 191 (with SEG 5.1); Andok. 3.38;Antiphon. 5.69; Thuc. 1.96.2. Other titles: IG I3 14 (with SEG 53.1.47); 21, lines 77–80(with SEG 45.2); 34.6–7 (with M&L 46; SEG 26.7); 156 (with SEG 28.12); 1453 (withM&L 45; SEG 48.58). Cf. Gabrielsen (1994: 105–169); Gabrielsen (2007: 256–263);Kallet-Marx (1993: 1–20); Pritchett (1971–1991: 1.13–14; 5.456–472); Raaflaub (1999:141–144).

6 See IG II2 408; 1623, ll. 276–280 (with SEG 50.45); 1628, ll. 37–42 (with SEG 37.102,146); Dem. 4.24; 8.24–25; 21.167; 50.17–21; Diod. 16.22.1–2; Lys. 19.50; Philoch.FGrH 328 F 162; Theopomp. FGrH 115 F 292; Xen. Hell. 1.1.22, 36. Cf. Gabrielsen(1994: 157–206; 2007: 259–272); Kallet-Marx (1993: 134–138, 160–164, 200–201);Pritchett (1971–1991: 5.312–363, 381–387).

7 In general cf. Bugh (1988: 39–78, 135–158); Lee (2006: 490–493); Pritchett (1971–1991:1.127–33, 2.117–125, 5.53–67); Spence (1993: 57–60, 202–210).

8 See IG II2 408; IG II2 1623, ll. 276–280 (with SEG 50.45), IG II2 1628, ll.37–42 (with SEG 37.102, 146); Dem. 4.24, 8.24–25, 21.167, 50.17–21; Diod.16.22.1–2; Lys. 19.50; Philochor. FGrH 328 F 162; Theopomp. FGrH 115 F 292; Xen.Hell. 1.1.22, 36.