Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece (61 page)

It is notable that the heaviest panoplies, with bronze arm and thigh guards, disappear in the late sixth century, as do images in art of mounted hoplites, while the Corinthian helmet was abandoned in favor of more open-face types after 500 BC. Even more strikingly, as Peter Krentz has shown, two of the best-known “agonal” conventions for marking the end of hoplite battle, setting up a
tropaion
and concluding a truce for the retrieval of the dead, are first attested in the early fifth century BC. These changes suggest that the phalanx did indeed change in nature when the yeoman class emerged. Because personal followers were no longer on hand to assist their masters, the most restrictive armor was abandoned; and because a close formation replaced a fluid order, mounted hoplites vanished. Since close-order battles were decided at the moment either side broke and ran, without any prospect of rallying and resuming battle time and again in the Homeric manner, a
tropaion
marking the “turning point” now, for the first time, became a meaningful symbol, and immediate truces for the retrieval of the dead became viable and desirable.
⁸²

The rise of the classical phalanx and its conventions of battle may thus have begun only in the late sixth century, at the very same time that the scale of naval warfare increased exponentially with the introduction of the trireme, soon followed by notable developments in siege warfare and an increasing use of mercenaries. These developments undermined the military dominance of the leisure-class hoplite, but not of the hoplite as such or of pitched heavy-infantry battle: these continued to play as important a part as ever in the spectrum of military operations, and remained the most prestigious kind of soldier and form of combat throughout the classical period and beyond. The trend toward larger-scale warfare, however, meant that the numbers of citizen-hoplites were often too small to match a city’s ambitions, a problem aggravated by shrinking numbers of hoplites as a result of the trend toward a renewed concentration of property. In the Hellenistic period, the result was generally a return to smaller, leisure-class militias, supplemented by mercenary forces.
⁸³

Whether the rise of the hoplite phalanx, as reinterpreted above, could still have inspired a “hoplite revolution” or “hoplite reform,” as many have argued, is doubtful. With Hanson, I have argued that the fundamental changes were social and economic, and that changes in war and politics merely reflected these structural developments. This does not entirely rule out, however, the possibility that military changes in their own right did contribute to political change. After all, the most pervasive legitimation of political power in Greek thought was the idea that power was earned by playing a decisive role in war.
⁸⁴
One could therefore still argue, in principle, that the adoption of hoplite armor around 700 BC was a factor in consolidating the power of an elite class of leisured landowners established about fifty years earlier, and that it contributed to creating an ethos of elite egalitarianism in these early republics of gentlemen. But there is no good evidence that the constitutional reforms and tyrannical coups of the seventh and early sixth centuries, which have traditionally been linked to the rise of the phalanx, were designed to give hoplites a share of political power; instead, as I have
suggested, they seem concerned mainly to contain conflict within the hoplite elite and between this elite and its exploited labor force.
⁸⁵

If there ever was a hoplite revolution as conventionally envisaged, a military change that brought a share in power for up to half of adult male citizens, it would have taken place in the late sixth century. One might therefore look to tyrants like Polycrates and Peisistratus, or more promisingly to Cleisthenes and his reforms, as possible champions of the new class of yeomen hoplites—but again direct connections are hard to establish. If warfare did have an impact on politics, it would in any case have been the whole complex of late sixth-century military changes that did so, not just the further development of the hoplite phalanx. The rise of the yeoman hoplite went hand in hand with the rise of the trireme rower, and if they changed the face of Greek politics, they changed it together.

Notes

    
1
. In response to comments by one of the anonymous referees for the press, I should clarify the term “leisured”: perhaps somewhat provocatively, I use it to indicate landowners whose farms are cultivated by hired or coerced labor, i.e., those who can in principle afford to live in leisure. In practice, many members of this “leisure class” may well work quite hard in managing their farms, but they have at least the option of adopting a leisured lifestyle, unlike “working” yeoman farmers who rely largely on their own and their family’s labor. I am grateful to both referees for their helpful comments and suggestions.

    
2
. Hanson 1995, 5, 22, 193, 219, 359, 366, 368, 398. Ten to twenty acres is given as “‘normative’ ” on p. 188, but a note here (478 n. 6) gives 8–10 acres as “typical” and 10 acres as “average.”

    
3
. Hanson 1995, 68, 70; and generally on pervasive use of slave labor by yeoman farmers: 50, 63–70, 127; cf. on Hesiod, below.

    
4
. Hanson 1995, 105, 114, 207, 213, 374, 479 n. 6 (nearly half); 208, 406 (one-third to half). The statement that “one third to one half” of the population fell
below
yeoman status (411) is presumably a slip and should read “two thirds to one half.”

    
5
. Hanson 1995, 5–6; farmstead residence also, e.g., 22, 50–51, 65, 127.

    
6
. Hanson 1995, 16 (economic changes from 750 onward); 202, 296, 328ff. (dominant 700–500 or 490); on p. 186, a line is drawn earlier, c. 550 BC, but it is also said that “widespread landed equality” continued until 400 BC.

    
7
. Hanson 1995, 16, 32–33, 44 (agriculture v. pastoralism); 36–41 (population growth and consequences); 40 (leasing); 50–87 (intensive cultivation; esp. 79–85: marginal land).

    
8
. Hanson 1995, 225–328.

    
9
. Hanson 1995, esp. 202–19 (broad timocracies); cf. 202, 239, 471–72 n. 21 (tyranny).

  
10
. Hanson 1995, 327–55, 369–75 (military developments); 359, 365–68, 375–79 (economic developments); 394–98 (rise of large estates, replacing family farms).

  
11
. Sparta and Crete as anomalies: Hanson 1995, 105 (atypical, different development), 242 (“strange,” “outside culture of polis”), 275, 293–94 (“special problems”), 333, 391–92 (“bizarre”), 484 n. 4; also 110 (Thessaly—lack of development from Dark Age).

  
12
. Hanson 1995, 195 with 481 n. 12; cf. Burford 1993, 67–72, 113–16; Gallant 1991, 86–87. The property qualification of 2,000 dr. in Athens implies a 10-acre farm: see below.

  
13
. 
Od
. 24.205–12, 220–34, 244–57, 336–44, 361–411; cf. 1.189–93; 11.187–96.

  
14
. 
Od
. 24.384–85, 408–11; for the distinction, see van Wees 1995a, 151–53.

  
15
. 
Od
. 1.189–93 (“no longer” comes into town, and suffers “miseries” [
pemata
] on farm);11.187–94 (wears “ ‘bad clothes,’ ” does not sleep in a bed, but on the ground, “grieving, and sorrow waxes great in his heart”); 24.227–33 (poor, patched-up clothes express his grief).

  
16
. Other marginal farm, hired labor:
Od
. 357–61 (owned by Eurymachus, the richest of Odysseus’ rivals: 15.16–18). Herds:
Od
. 14.1–28, 103–5.

  
17
. Adapted proverb: West 1978, 259–60. Aristotle cites only the “proverbial” verse (405) and omits the modification (406;
Pol
. 1252b11;
Oec
. 1343a21) because it suits his argument to treat the woman as the farmer’s wife, and this does not prove that line 406 was a late insertion; no later than the third century BC it was widely known as a line of Hesiod’s (Timaeus
FGrH
566 F 157). The argument that 406 may not be original because Hesiod elsewhere does not show an interest in livestock (West 1978, 260) is not valid: see below. Hanson 1995, 107, 130–31, and, e.g., Edwards 2004, 83 n. 4, are therefore not justified in ignoring 406 and assuming that the woman is a wife.

  
18
. Alternatively, the farmer had no real choice, and Hesiod described an ideal; cf. his recommendation of nine-year-old oxen for the plow (
W&D
436–40): ideal, or ownership of numerous oxen? The possibility that the plowman and sower are hired laborers (West 1978, 270; Edwards 2004, 84) is ruled out by 459 (and made unlikely by 469–71).

  
19
. 
W&D
600–608; for the meaning of the passage, see West 1978, 309–10. Alternatively, one could read “make a hired man homeless,” i.e., dismiss him from your employment: either way, hired labor is used. Hanson 1995, 107, acknowledges the female laborer only.

  
20
. See esp. Gallant 1991, 82–87; absolute minimum requirement is c. 2 acres per person.

  
21
. Isager and Skydsgaard 1992, 108–14; Gallant 1982, 113–17; Jameson 1978, 125–30.

  
22
. 
W&D
623–32, 689–91; there are auspicious days for a woodcutter to cut timber for houses and ships (807–8), to start building ships (809), to launch ships (817–18): these are the only nonagricultural activities (other than weaving) mentioned in the entire almanac.

  
23
. Master:
W&D
582–96; slaves: 597–600 (cf. 805–7: a good day for threshing, “while keeping a very close eye,” i.e., supervising the threshing). The period during which the master sits in the shade starts “when the golden thistle flowers,” which is around the summer solstice, i.e., 21 June (West 1978, 304 ad 582); the threshing begins at the rising of Orion, i.e., 20 June (West, 309 ad 598), so that the master’s relaxation and the slaves’ labor are simultaneous, as indeed the structure of Hesiod’s account suggests. West 1978, 54 and 253, is therefore wrong to think that the master rests only after the threshing.

  
24
. See Xenophon,
Oeconomicus
11.12–18 (contra Hanson 1995, 65). Note the ambiguity about the role of the landowner’s sons, if he has several: “more people, more care (
melete
), greater surplus” (
W&D
380): more labor or more extensive supervision?

  
25
. For the meaning of
penia
, see Hemelrijk 1925, 11–54; cf. van Wees 2004, 34–36; Finley 1973, 40–41.
Penia
:
W&D
497, 638 (634–38: the “poor” man “is lacking a fine [
esthlos
] livelihood”), 717;
arkios bios
: 501, 577.

  
26
. Hunger and debt:
W&D
363–67, 394–404, 647; hunger: 298–302; debt: 477–78.

  
27
. Hanson 1995, 98–102. Wealth as the goal in Hesiod: see also
W&D
287–92, 312–13; expansion of herds is implied at
W&D
308; cf. 102.

  
28
. This analysis of
W&D
is developed further in van Wees 2009, 445–50.

  
29
. 
Theogony
79–97;
W&D
37–41, 202–11, 219–69.

  
30
. Hanson 1995, 111–12; also, e.g., Murray 1993, 194 (
zeugitai
have “12+ acres”).

  
31
. Foxhall 1997, 129–32; see further van Wees 2001 and 2006a.

  
32
. See Foxhall and Forbes 1982, 41–90.

  
33
. Xenophon,
Poroi
4.17 and 33, implies that 3 obols per day are a living wage for a family; see for prices and cost of living Markle 1985, 293–97; Loomis 1998, 220–31.

  
34
. The weight of the
medimnos
is now known from the Grain-Tax Law of 374/3 BC (Rhodes-Osborne no. 26; Stroud 1998): 1 talent (27.5 kg) for barley; 1.2 talent (33 kg) for wheat. Previously, weights of respectively 33.55 and 40.28 kg had been widely accepted (after Foxhall and Forbes 1982) and were accordingly adopted in my own earlier calculations (van Wees 2001 and 2006a). Volume of
metretes
: Foxhall and Forbes 1982.

  
35
. Maximum barley and wheat yields based on Gallant 1991, 77: statistics for average yields of Attica and Boeotia 1911–1950, inflated by chemical fertilizer from c. 1930 onward. See further van Wees 2001, 48–51; 2006a, 360–67.

  
36
. Maximum oil and wine yields based on Amouretti and Brun (eds.), 1993, 554, 557–61.

  
37
. Olive export: Plut.
Solon
24.1; see further below, n. 48.

  
38
. Minimum land prices: e.g., Lambert 1997, 229–33, 257–65; a higher price is also attested: Lysias 19.29, 42 (83 dr. per
plethron
).

  
39
. On the 2,000 dr. census, see n. 40, and Hanson 1995, 296, 479, noted above. On liturgical and leisure-class censuses: Davies 1984, 28–29; Ober 1989, 128–29.

  
40
. Diod. 18.18.4–5: 9,000 citizens owned 2,000 dr. or more; the vexed question of the total size of the citizen population implied by Diodorus, by Plutarch, Phocion 28.4, and by the census figures of Demetrius of Phaleron (Athenaeus 272c) is discussed in detail in van Wees 2011a, which ends up endorsing the common view that it was c. 30,000 in 322 BC. If only about 5,000 men belonged to the three highest property classes, one can see why after an earlier oligarchic coup in 411 BC citizen rights were restricted to the wealthiest 5,000 men, who at the time constituted rather less than half of those who served as hoplites in the Athenian army: see van Wees 2001, 56–59.

  
41
. The only way to avoid this conclusion is to declare the Solonian property censuses a fiction (Ste. Croix 2004, 28–56; Valdéz Guía 2008, 70 n. 349), or to argue that they were originally much lower (Raaflaub 2006, 405–23; 2007, 128–32). In van Wees 2001, 54–56; 2006a, 362–67, I have tried to show that neither view is tenable.