Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece (33 page)

It is true that in his exhortation to his comrades to fight all together by the ships Hector mentions dying for one’s
patrē
: for the soldier “it is not unseemly to die defending his fatherland (
patrē
); but his wife is safe and his children after him.”
⁶²
On the other hand, Hector also tells his wife Andromache, when she advises him to station his army where the city is most vulnerable to attack, that he must consider his own honor ahead of saving her freedom and that of his family.
⁶³
Achilles exemplifies the heroic ethic perfectly by allowing his fellow Achaeans to be slaughtered by the ships in order to defend his own
timē
.
⁶⁴
In addition, the Achaeans themselves recognize his right in this. In the embassy to Achilles in book 9 his friends agree that Achilles was right to withdraw from battle until his individual honor was restored. Phoenix tells
him: “if the son of Atreus were not to offer you gifts … I would not be the one to ask you to cast aside your wrath and assist the Argives, though their need is great.”
⁶⁵
Even Agamemnon does not fault Achilles’ lack of devotion to the community, but instead concedes his own madness in dishonoring the great warrior.
⁶⁶
This contrasts sharply with the hoplite ethos advanced by Tyrtaeus:
⁶⁷

“This is
aretē
; this is the best human prize and the fairest for a young man to win.” The man who fights without pause among the
promachoi
“is a common good (
xynon esthlon
) for the polis and all the people (
demos
).” … “If he falls among the
promachoi
and loses his dear life, he brings honor to his town (
asty
) and his people (
laoi
) and his father.”

Young and old alike lament him / and his entire polis mourns with painful regret. / His tomb and his children are notable among men, / and his children’s children, and his
genos
hereafter … / but if he escapes the doom of death … having prevailed [in battle], … / all men give place to him alike, the youth and the elders…. / Growing old he is distinguished among his citizens. Never does his name or his excellent glory (
kleos
) perish, but even though he is beneath the earth he is immortal.

The warrior in Tyrtaeus may receive individual honors and praise for his valor in battle, but that is only because he has placed the common good of the polis above all else. The heroic values of Achilles and Hector, which place individual honor and achievement of glory over the life and safety of both family and community, are unimaginable in this context. However, the words of Pericles in the Funeral Speech over two hundred years later are in much the same spirit.

You must behold daily the might of the polis and become lovers of her, and when her greatness has inspired you, consider that bold men, who knew their duty, and at times of stress were moved by a sense of honor, acquired this, and, whenever they faltered in an enterprise, thought that at least they should not deprive the polis of their excellence (
aretē
), but gave freely to her their fairest service; for they gave their lives (
somata
) for the common good and won for themselves the praise which is ageless
⁶⁸
and the most notable of tombs—not that in which they lie buried, but that in which their glory remains in everlasting remembrance on every occasion that gives rise to word or deed. For the entire world is the tomb of famous men…. The polis will maintain their children at the public expense until manhood, thus offering a useful prize for the dead and their survivors for such contests; for where the greatest prizes are offered for excellence (
aretē
), there also the best men are citizens.
⁶⁹

I agree that there is some development in the concept of the polis. But the words of Tyrtaeus are much closer in spirit to those of Pericles than to the speech of Hector. Yet Homer comes maybe a generation or two before Tyrtaeus, and might even be contemporary, depending on how one dates the
Iliad
. For Pericles, much like Tyrtaeus, the
aretē
of the individual is directed entirely to and derives meaning only from the polis. Indeed, citizens who do not participate in the affairs of the polis (
ta politika
) are
useless (
akhreion
).
⁷⁰
The difference from the values of Homer
⁷¹
originated with hoplite warfare, and the ethos of egalitarianism and the devotion to the polis it fostered.

The idea that there was a dramatic increase in the population of eighth-century Greece has had great influence on how scholars conceive the rise of the polis—the notion being that the population pressure on limited land led to the use of more intensive farming techniques, such as the cultivation of marginal lands and farmstead residence.
⁷²
As such farming expands, the pastoralism of dominant aristocrats gives way to the agrarian lifestyle and ethos of the middling farmer. The middling
georgoi
, who make up the bulk of the soldiers that fight in the phalanx, become a potent force, which transforms the culture of the early polis. The new egalitarian spirit leads to broader oligarchies and democracies as the middle class demands political power on par with its military importance.

Lin Foxhall has challenged this thesis based on archaeological survey.
⁷³
She argues that the evidence does not support the idea of overpopulation or of landscapes approaching their carrying capacity in the archaic period. There is little evidence of expansion into the countryside in the eighth and seventh centuries. In the southern Argolid, for example, “there is no evidence for dramatic changes in cultivation practices and most sites seem to be situated near the areas of the best agricultural land.”
⁷⁴
Small isolated rural “farmstead” sites do not show up in significant numbers until the Classical and Late Roman periods. The period of extensification into marginal lands “seems to start no earlier than the late sixth century, and is more generally a fifth- and fourth-century phenomenon across Greece.”
⁷⁵
According to Foxhall, the elite still dominated the polis until at least the late sixth century.
⁷⁶
Therefore, the middling farmers and, by extension, the hoplites had little to do with the overthrow of aristocratic regimes. Her analysis removes any significant link between hoplites and the Greek tyrants.

Other scholars have criticized Hanson’s model. For instance, Forsdyke suggests, “Hanson’s focus on isolated farm residence is motivated by his desire to define a class of small independent farmers whose ethos of hard work and whose skepticism of the values associated with the luxurious and urban city was the backbone of ancient Greek culture.”
⁷⁷
In addition, she questions Hanson’s association of the lifestyle and values of the small independent farmer with the rise and culture of the polis. On the other hand, her discussion points to some of the limitations of the current survey evidence in denying the existence of a middling farmer class. Forsdyke states that “current historical interpretations of archaic agriculture place too much emphasis on permanent residence on the land as an indicator of intensive land use.”
⁷⁸
The essential element in increasing agricultural productivity is the availability of labor, not farm residence. Therefore, farmers could apply intensive techniques to the most fertile lands closest to settlements first.
⁷⁹
When cultivating previously uncultivated lands farmers might employ traditional, less intensive methods.
⁸⁰
This would “neither require residence near the land, nor techniques such as manuring which might leave traces in the archaeological record.”
⁸¹
Forsdyke warns of the complex relation between land use and the material record. This comes into play when attempting to “make claims for one region based on the evidence of one or more other regions.”
⁸²
The survey evidence
bears directly on the hoplite question, but at present it is far from being conclusive enough
⁸³
to make general claims for the whole of Greece in the eighth and seventh centuries.
⁸⁴
In any case, there is no need to conclude that all the growth in population and agriculture in the eighth century was wholly manipulated by elites with no recognizable “middle class” playing a part.
⁸⁵
For one thing, this would imply a level of centralized state control and bureaucracy similar to that of the Mycenaean palaces, which we know could not have existed at the time.
⁸⁶

Despite the challenges to the thesis about explosive growth in the population of eighth-century Greece,
⁸⁷
strong conclusions are still possible for the rise of the polis. The recent demographic study by Scheidel
⁸⁸
estimates steady population growth of about 0.25 percent per annum throughout Greece from the tenth through the fourth centuries. The growth from the late eighth through the fifth centuries was particularly strong at up to 1 percent per annum, and was possibly higher at certain times in certain regions. “It remains true, however, that even after every reasonable adjustment has been made … present evidence still suggests that there were more people, living in a larger number of settlements, of a larger average size, and spread over a wider geographical area, in the later eighth century than at any time in the preceding four centuries.”
⁸⁹
The accumulated growth of the previous two centuries in addition to the unusually high growth rate of the eighth century could well have helped bring about the significant changes that marked the emergence of both hoplite warfare and the polis. The increase in population certainly led to farmers employing some type of intensive agriculture, which may or may not have left traces in the archaeological record. Relative land hunger (e.g., farmers not wanting to cultivate marginal lands, or to farm lands more than a certain distance from their poleis, or perhaps dissatisfied with the amount and/or quality of the land available to them) could have inspired colonization, without the need for the entire landscape to be filled to its capacity. More importantly for the hoplite question, relative land hunger would have increased competition for and conflict over the most fertile borderlands. The changes in population and the effects this had on agriculture no doubt varied from region to region and polis to polis, and affected different areas in different ways at different times. The point is that in certain major poleis, such as Argos, Corinth, and Sparta, there were simply more farmers who were well-to-do nonaristocrats and more able to afford arms now than in any prior generation. It is irrelevant that most small poleis could not possibly field a full hoplite army. The situation was no different in the fifth century as well.

If an agrarian and military revolution transformed Greek society in the seventh century, what did it look like? The picture conforms closely to the orthodox view, which has enjoyed widespread acceptance in the past. One has to admit that it is impossible to form anything close to a complete narrative owing to the nature of the surviving evidence, which is both sparse, often of a late date,
⁹⁰
and controversial. Still, it is possible to sketch a plausible and instructive account of what might have taken place without omitting or contradicting any of the extant archaeological or literary material.

A change in the model of settlement occurred in the eighth century, which demonstrates a regular layout and clear planning by a central authority that was concerned with the whole community.
⁹¹
The colonizing movement reinforced this trend. The
first major change in the formation of the polis, following the various synoecisms, would have been the division of the paramount
basileus
’ power among elected magistrates serving in offices with limited tenure and powers. The struggle between the newly established aristocracies and the emerging middle class of citizen-soldier-farmers who at first took part only in the assemblies came to define the history of the polis in the archaic period. The transition from the mass armies of the eighth century to the massed ranks of the phalanx of the seventh century created revolutionary social and political changes.

The idea for the
hoplon
developed after infantry had been fighting in mass formation since at least the first half of the eighth century. During the second half of the eighth century, the time of the so-called Greek “Renaissance,” the great colonization movement toward the west began. Chalkis and Corinth, which founded Naxos and Syracuse in about 734, sent out the first foundations proper. The period of colonization coincided with the growth in population and the competition for resources, arable soil in particular. With polis formation and relative land hunger, border conflicts broke out between neighboring city-states. It was at this time that Chalkis and Eretria fought over the fertile Lelantine Plain. During these border wars of increasing intensity warriors must have come to see the advantages of fighting in a scrum for protection. Before the end of the eighth century, someone imagined the possibilities of having a larger shield for greater coverage when fighting in mass formation. The creation of a double-grip shield was not inevitable. However, the invention was surprising and made sense. The next stage involved the decision of the more innovative leaders to organize the new fighting style into a phalanx to make it more formal and more effective. The process likely started by organizing one’s family and neighbors and eventually included all those who could fight and provide their own panoply. Certain pieces of armor became desirable, such as the breastplate in case an enemy should drive his spear through the shield. Through experience, warriors came to see what worked best in practice, and the tendency toward uniformity increased. The hoplite revolution took place at different times in different places of the Greek world.