The importance of the army has, therefore, to be related to the other constituents. Les statistiques sont sans appel. Londres , et D. Il ne fait pas de doute que chaque guerre de succession commence par des conciliabules entre les plus hauts personnages du royaume — conciliabules qui peuvent se muer en conjuration. Revenons aux coutumes successorales. HEP et Le message politique est clair: HEP , et mon livre sur Darius, chapitre 2. New Approaches and New Evidence London , Sur le tombeau de Lefkandi, voir M.

The Protogeometric Building at Toumba, 2 vol. A Prolegomenon to a History of Athens under the Peisistratids, c. Historia, Einzelschriften, 80 Stuttgart , ; L. On ne le saura jamais. Pierre Ducrey 58 en hommes politiques. Armies, of course, were everywhere, but in most states they were assembled from scratch whenever the need arose.

They did not have a permanent, organized existence beyond the campaign for which they were mobilized. An investigation of the extent of the ownership of weapons, the liability to serve in war, and the nature of military organisation shows that Greek armed forces were loosely organized and internally divided to such an extent that they were rarely capable of acting as a political force in their own right. This casts serious doubt on the common theory, derived from Aristotle, that certain kinds of armed forces were not only closely associated with certain social classes but actively supported regimes which would promote their class interests.

Political regimes in Archaic and Classical Greece were usually established, shored up, and overthrown by quite small but highly organized groups, and sometimes by broad popular movements: In exceptional circumstances, governments might have some military equipment made at public expense, or distribute some of the many captured weapons and pieces of armour placed in temples as dedications. I am indebted to Vincent Gabrielsen for his insightful and detailed response, which has inspired many corrections and clarifications in this paper.

Hans van Wees 62 arms and armour only. By implication, their sale was under normal circum-stances unregulated. Insofar as laws regulated the ownership of military equipment, they made it compulsory. The emphasis was thus on guaranteeing ownership of weapons by the elite, without denying it to the lower classes, for whom it was merely optional. If that was the normal attitude of oligarchies, more open regimes will have allowed ownership to all free men as well.

Even in a town under siege and at risk of civil war, the authorities would at most compile a register of all those owning more than one set of arms and armour. In Crete, these were almost on a par with the citizens, except that they were denied two things: In Sparta, elaborate precautions were taken to prevent weapons from falling into the hands of the serfs — the helots. The ringleaders of an attempted rebellion expected these serfs to join the uprising with no more than agricultural tools for weapons. For the private ownership and display of weapons, see further H.

They must have carried weapons at least for the duration of battle, as perhaps did slaves elsewhere when they followed their masters to war as attendants. Although it is usually assumed that being a hoplite also required a panoply of helmet, cuirass, and greaves, there is no reason to think so. The significance of the heavy shield as a defining characteristic of the hoplite was presumably responsible for the notion that the hoplite was actually named for his shield DIODORUS Tyrants, Oligarchs and Citizen Militias 63 and simple.

Each man aimed to get the best he could afford, not only to improve his prospects in war, but to show off his wealth. A preference for the precious over the practical can be traced all the way back to Homer, who gives some of his epic heroes expensive, but soft, heavy, and quite unsuitable shields of solid gold and greaves of tin Iliad 8. The poorest had no arms or armour at all, but even they could afford slings, or were at least capable of picking up stones to throw at the enemy.

Moreover, light shields made of wicker could be produced quickly and cheaply to upgrade javelin- throwers to peltasts. In wars and civil wars heavy-armed forces suffered famous defeats at the hands of both light-armed and peltasts. A javelin was sold at auction and thus presumably relatively cheap in W. Hans van Wees 64 would not have afforded better protection than the cheaper and less uncomfortable leather and linen alternatives.

It was ideal for display. The ultimate status symbol in ancient Greece was the horse, and, although specialist cavalry did not emerge in most parts of Greece until well into the Classical period, there was a long tradition of rich hoplites riding to war on horseback or even in chariots. The mere presence of a horse highlighted differences of social status even more sharply than the most elaborate arms and armour. Both mounted hoplites and the more elaborate forms of body-armour disappeared from Athenian art in the Classical period, and one reason may be that they were felt to be at odds with the more egalitarian ethos of this period.

The display of status in equipment may have been toned down in practice, too, but it did not stop. The rich still rode their horses — and the ostentatious rode in their chariots — through the city and country in fourth-century Athens, and whenever possible they will have travelled to war in the same way. The deliberate display of status in military equipment, even if toned down in the Classical period, advertised these distinctions. Other prices and maintenance costs: If hoplite equipment was not intrinsically superior to light arms, especially not in civil war, its introduction could not have affected the balance of power directly.

Tyrants, Oligarchs and Citizen Militias 65 1. A more careful reading reveals that this is merely what war looked like from an elite perspective and that in reality a much wider range of soldiers and social groups played an active role. Within the full range of military personnel, however, an important dividing line was drawn between those who were obliged to serve and accordingly enjoyed certain political privileges, and those whose services were voluntary and did not have full political rights.

It is usually assumed that this dividing line coincided with the distinction between hoplites and light-armed, but in fact it cut across the body of hoplites. Recent studies, however, all accept what some had pointed out long ago: Some of the greatest heroes acknowledge that victory is only possible if every man in the army gives his best in battle Iliad Why then does the Iliad give such disproportionate prominence to the exploits of a few?

Of course one would expect an epic poem to focus on a small number of great heroes, and this narrative convention is no doubt part of the explanation. But there is more to it than that. A famous speech by Sarpedon spells out an important principle: This choice will have pleased contemporary ruling-class audiences who no doubt sought to legitimate their own power along the same lines. Rendering the bulk of soldiers almost invisible in the background was thus not just a narrative convention but also a political strategy. The reality of early Greek warfare was that these heavy- and light-armed masses did participate: The historical accounts of the Classical period in a similar way and for similar reasons concentrate on hoplites at the expense of light-armed.

Numbers of hoplites, cavalry, allied troops and mercenaries are often carefully listed, but the numbers of light-armed citizens are rarely specified, and even their presence is rarely mentioned. Yet it is clear that the hoplites were outnumbered by the light-armed whenever armies 19 Iliad Compare the passages where Agamemnon is accused of enjoying his privileges yet leaving the fighting to subordinates 1.

Further discussion in H. When the Athenians invaded Boeotia in B. In these passages we are at least told of the presence of light-armed, but typically their part in the action is completely ignored in the battle narratives which follow. While three hundred Spartans sacrifice their lives in the noblest way imaginable, the only helot who puts in an appearance points his blinded master in the direction of battle, then runs away 7. Yet in the aftermath of battle passing reference is made to helot corpses lying on the battlefield 8.

This is another role taken for granted by the sources and only mentioned when there are unusual circumstances. The Athenian light- armed which appear out of the blue in attacks on Spartolus and Cythera, for example, can only be the rowers of the fleet, whose performance as light infantry Thucydides had previously not bothered to mention 2. Athenian commanders who wanted to give their rowers a more active role only needed to provide them with light shields: In his narrative of the battle between Athenians and Syracusans in B.

Provision of shields to rowers: The reference in Thucydides to light-armed at Spartolus is ambiguous and could indeed be interpreted as Gabrielsen suggests, but I believe that my reading of the passage is more literal; as for the light-armed on Cythera, if they are not rowers, it is a mystery where they suddenly sprang from. Moreover, our elite sources have an active dislike of light-infantry tactics and attitudes. Just like Homer, Classical authors sought to legitimate the power of the ruling classes by crediting them with a decisive role in war.

This made them disinclined to give much credit to, or even notice, the military contribution of the politically disenfranchised. Whatever early Greek aristocrats or Classical hoplites liked to think, they were never the only defenders of their cities. But there was an important distinction between those who were under an obligation to fight and those whose services were voluntary. Even in Homer there are already hints of something more than moral pressure weighing on potential soldiers. These passages may be the earliest evidence for the emergence of a state apparatus which began to regulate military service.

Tribes appear as military units in Sparta c. WEST , and Athens appears to have had a centralized organisation for mobilizing ships and horsemen and possibly also infantry troops — in 48 units called naukrariai — by c. Even so, they were excluded from office holding until at least B. More importantly, perhaps, the authors who provide our evidence felt that the lower classes ought to be disenfranchised. A harvest of that size, or its equivalent in other forms of income, would have made a family quite wealthy.

A calculation of their wealth shows that he was not exaggerating. And thirdly, in order to produce such large harvests, his farm would have to be on average at least nine hectares 22 acres in size, as compared to the four to five ha.

At Classical land-prices, a nine-hectare farm would be worth about 1 talent. I fully accept this, but would insist that there was a fundamental difference between the Athenian army and navy in this respect: Tyrants, Oligarchs and Citizen Militias 69 set twice as high as it need have been, and a large section of the lowest property class, although not obliged to serve, was capable of performing hoplite service. Even allowing for a good deal of non-agricultural income, the property classes liable to service can have contributed only between a third and two thirds of the hoplites between them: The ideal that political power should be justified by services in war was again at work here.

The result was that the Athenian hoplite army contained soldiers from all property classes, whose political positions, at least until the late fifth century, differed widely. The oligarchic regime imposed upon Athens in B. Hans van Wees 70 necessarily all hoplites. In the navy there were different but no less significant divisions. An early Greek captain relied on kinship, friendship, dependency, the exchange of favours, and the promise of rewards to man his ship; his crew might consist of anything from a group of upper-class friends to a bunch of labourers and slaves Odyssey 4.

Yet, despite all being of relatively low economic status, the members of a naval crew differed greatly in legal and political status. Only some were citizens; many others were resident aliens, foreigners, or slaves and were therefore subject to major legal disabilities, not to mention wholly excluded from any participation in politics.

And even among the citizen members of the crew distinctions were made: A rich citizen might serve as a marine, at a pinch, but he would never serve as a rower. Infantry and navy were thus divided by as many factors as united them. The only branch of the military to be largely homogeneous, in terms of social, economic, and political status, was the cavalry.

At least this was so where the cavalry was recruited amongst the citizens wealthy enough to keep their own horses, as at Athens and probably most other Classical city-states. Tyrants, Oligarchs and Citizen Militias 71 Perhaps even more important than the equality or otherwise of those who owned the weapons and performed military service in some capacity was the degree to which they were organized, or at least felt mutual solidarity.

In Sparta and Crete, where citizens faced the problem of retaining control over large native serf populations, such solidarity was created by the public messes to which all citizens belonged. These messes were apparently related to military organisation as well, although in Sparta, at any rate, they did not coincide with actual military units. Training for war was largely a matter of athletic exercise in the gymnasium and was intended to improve general physical strength, agility, and stamina.

There is some evidence for specific weapons training as well but none for formation drill, except in Sparta. In fifth-century and probably early fourth-century Athens, the state did not organize any training for its citizens. Rather, men appear to have taken exercise when, where, and with whom they liked. The two most significant exceptions — again, outside Sparta — were the training of Athenian ephebes and the small elite units maintained by a number of city-states. In late fourth-century Athens, up to eighteen-year-olds were divided into two groups, each stationed in one of the forts in Piraeus, and given a year of military training.

A similar system may well have existed earlier; certainly Athens maintained both border patrols and fortress garrisons already during the Peloponnesian War. During this period of training, then, groups of up to young citizens spent a great deal of time together and surely made many friends, and enemies, for life. Hans van Wees 72 some city-states. Units of heavy infantry appear to have been quite large and far from rigidly organized so that Greeks were astounded at the, by modern standards, modest degree of hierarchy and organisation in the Spartan army , while the light-armed were not organized at all.

What little evidence we have for how units operated suggests that soldiers mostly kept the company of their friends and neighbours both in camp and in the line of battle. If the shared experience of war brought anyone closer together, it may have been primarily those who were close already. The situation was similar for those who served in the navy.

Barry Strauss has eloquently argued that the experience of close co-operation on board a warship might have inspired a sense of solidarity among the crew,37 but again I would point to the limited scope for forming more permanent ties and a collective political agenda. Apart from their internal social and political divisions, trireme crews had a short life span.

They were hired ad hoc, and it would be the merest chance if the same group of rowers, or marines, ever served together twice. Training lasted maybe a week, once the crew was assembled, and expeditions as a rule were short, since the sailing season lasted only a few months. Freedom of association in eating and camping together: Before the formalisation of military organisation in the Archaic period, as far one can tell from Homer, military units were composed primarily of kinsmen, friends, and personal followers. Tyrants, Oligarchs and Citizen Militias 73 social, economic, political, and even legal statuses.

It was quite rare for military groups to share distinct political interests, or to remain together closely enough for long enough to develop such shared interests. This lack of cohesion within armies is vital to our understanding of their role in Greek politics. Modern scholars have accepted the essence of this idea, but have often modified it significantly in order to make it better fit the evidence. We should not tinker further with the original idea but abandon it as fundamentally untenable.

He goes on to argue that the number of enfranchised hoplites should be kept as small as possible, provided they still form a majority, and proceeds to point out that in some states, like that of the Malieis, aged ex-hoplites also enjoy political rights. Then he launches into a famous historical digression Politics b The context is important, since it shows that the passage did not outline a historical theory for its own sake, but was meant to explain that, like the unusual constitution of the Malieis, early Greek oligarchies were no more than a variation on the principle that political systems must consist only of warriors — a variation which had come about due to the relative weakness of hoplite forces and the middle class in the early days.

Although both had existed even then, the hoplites had been disorganized and militarily ineffective, so that the much more effective cavalrymen deserved to rule, and even when the hoplites were more organized, the middle class remained small, so that the rich horsemen were still able to rule. That this was not a fully developed or thoroughly researched historical interpretation soon becomes evident when one looks at the rest of the Politics and at the historical evidence for early Greek political change.

This is why in ancient times there were oligarchies in all cities whose power was based on their horses, for they used horses in their wars against neighbours, as did, for example, the Eretrians and Chalcidians and the Magnesians on the Maeander, and many of the others in Asia. The same association occurs again later Politics a When they mention hoplites, however, these are dissociated from the middle class and the middle form of constitution, with which our first passage associated them.

Aristotle here calls hoplites — by which he must mean those legally liable to hoplite service, rather than anyone who could afford a shield and spear — rich and oligarchical, if less so than the horsemen. The theory that the middle class had had a crucial role in ousting early Greek oligarchies is thus badly undermined by its own author. Secondly, external evidence reveals that cavalry-dominated oligarchies were likewise a rarity — if they existed at all.

In fact, the likes of the Hippeis of Eretria and the Hippobotai of Chalcis, to whom he alludes, were not cavalrymen but mounted hoplites, who rode to battle but dismounted to fight on foot, in a manner which remained predominant in Greece until the late sixth century. Archaic Greek cities did not depend on cavalry for their security, and whatever other merits the ruling classes may have had, horse ownership could not have explained or justified their power.

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As for cavalry forces in the Classical period, we have seen that they were the only branch of the military to be socially, economically, and politically homogeneous, and their upper-class status no doubt made them generally sympathetic to oligarchic regimes. The late fifth-century Athenian cavalry certainly, and probably deservedly, had an anti-democratic reputation. But although these cavalries played significant auxiliary roles in war, they were almost everywhere few in number and nowhere regarded as the chief defenders of their countries.

Clearly, in generalizing about the military basis of oligarchies in Greece at large Aristotle relied on poorly founded inferences. Modern scholars have often tried to save his theory by quietly dropping the idea that early oligarchies owed something to the dominance of cavalry, while retaining the notion of a period during which, in the absence of hoplites, a small elite enjoyed military dominance — because of their superior equipment, training and dedication.

As it happens, the Politics itself tells us how the regime of the Eretrian Hippeis came to an end: And we know from Herodotus that the Hippobotai of Chalcis ruled until overthrown by 39 P. Hans van Wees 76 outside intervention in Indeed, there were few places in which oligarchy was not succeeded by tyranny, the two most notable instances being Sparta and Athens. In positing a transition from oligarchy to politeia, Aristotle evidently relied again on a sweeping generalization from a single famous instance against the bulk of the evidence known to him. Very little is left of the original theory: The only element of the theory which still stands is the increasing organisation and effectiveness of the hoplites.

Although the hoplite phalanx no doubt did undergo significant developments,41 it seems safe to assume that Aristotle had no more evidence for how and when this happened, or what its political consequences were, than he had for the rest of his speculations. Given his belief that only hoplites should have political rights, he was simply forced to explain the prevalence of narrow oligarchies in early Greece by postulating that the hoplite phalanx had once been ineffective.

Instead, he argues Politics b Tyrants, Oligarchs and Citizen Militias 77 suffer no injustice at their hands. This is evident from past events, for almost the majority of tyrants have emerged from among the leaders of the people, one might say, having won their trust by stirring up hostility against the notables. And also, because at the time the cities were not large but the common people, without enjoying leisure, lived on the farmland where they worked, the champions of the people, whenever they were warlike men, aimed at tyranny.

They all did this when they were trusted by the common people, and the basis of this trust was their hostility to the rich. Blatant inconsistencies spoil this theory as well. Again, Aristotle is merely speculating. In answer to the first question he hypothesizes, in defiance of chronology, that the growth of cities changed the nature of tyranny, because popular leadership became viable only when there were sizeable crowds to lead.

Later, when he faces the second question, Aristotle overlooks the implications of his own earlier argument and makes the opposite assumption: What are we to make of the claim that tyrants were typically military leaders? This is probably not pure speculation, since tradition credits several tyrants with notable successes in war before they took power.

But what exactly is the significance of their military commands? Aristotle is certainly not saying that military leaders relied on the support of hoplite armies to make themselves tyrants. This line of argument, often adopted by modern scholars, would have gone directly against the spirit of the Politics, which regards tyranny as deeply undesirable and as the polar opposite of the hoplite- based constitutions which it favours.

What exactly Aristotle had in mind is not clear. Presumably he was thinking also of the general popularity that a successful commander would enjoy and that would make him attractive to the common people — not just to the hoplites — as a champion of their interests. For Aristotle, this coup illustrated the principle that any section of the population which grows in size or reputation will alter the political system to suit its own interests Politics a This result, as Thucydides tells the story, did not by itself inspire a coup but helped an already existing movement, insofar as it provided the oligarchs with an argument to convert the common people to their cause 5.

Still, no actual change took place until The Thousand teamed up with a thousand hoplites sent from Sparta, and overthrew the democracy by force 5. Within six months, the democratic leaders saw an opportunity to attack the oligarchs when their Spartan allies could not intervene, and the democracy was restored. The decisive role of the latter is obvious from the fact that the loss of this external backing meant an instant end to the oligarchy.

Tyrants, Oligarchs and Citizen Militias 79 Other accounts of oligarchic coups and democratic counter-coups show that these were the work of a few hundred men, a mere fraction of the armed citizen population. A report on a suspected conspiracy in suggests that these clubs were thought to have members each, and include some men in total.

In the resulting climate of fear, there was no opposition to the change of constitution which they formally proposed in assembly. This is all the more remarkable because, as Thucydides notes, Athens was at the time virtually under siege by the Spartan army at Decelea, and as a result the population was constantly under arms 8.

With the army in an exceptional state of readiness, one might have expected, as the oligarchs did 8. But there was none. In the fall of the oligarchy, hoplites did play their part, but only when there was open dissension within the junta itself, as the club-members met opposition from the unaffiliated oligarchs led by Theramenes. They were assisted by a second group of hoplites, temporarily stationed nearby to build additional fortifications in Piraeus.

We are not told their numbers, but they must have been rather small, since most hoplites would have been stationed under arms on the city walls and elsewhere. Yet it was this small but organized minority which, encouraged by Theramenes, marched on the city to open the negotiations which ultimately led to the fall of the regime. Yet his own narrative shows that it was not the mass of rowers which mounted the opposition, but rather a faction among the leadership — some of the generals, trierarchs, and the most prominent hoplites 8. Clearly, the citizens in the fleet were as divided as the citizens in Athens.

The slaves and foreigners who served alongside them in large numbers presumably cared little which way the conflict went. The exception, cited by Thucydides, proves the rule: This select and exceptionally unified crew was the only group of rowers steadily and actively committed to the democratic cause 8. Nonetheless, like its predecessor, it relied on small-but-organized groups of supporters and met with remarkably little resistance from the masses. Up to this point, there was apparently no opposition by the bulk of the hoplites or the lower classes, nor did the oligarchs make use of their own 3, hoplites and cavalry.

When resistance began, it came not from the masses but from a group of between 30 and 70 of the most prominent exiles, who managed to occupy the border fort at Phyle. In the course of a few months, their numbers grew to about , Xenophon tells us, but other sources reveal than only just over of these were Athenian citizens, while between and of them were mercenary troops paid for by a rich metic; the remaining to must have been exiled metics or slaves.

After the forces at Phyle defeated the troops of the Thirty, their numbers rose to 1, or 1,, which would 49 Detailed discussion of this coup in P. Tyrants, Oligarchs and Citizen Militias 81 still have included no more than a few hundred citizens.


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From this point onwards, the forces of the exiles kept gathering strength, no doubt drawing on disenfranchised citizens, but also on mercenaries and slaves. We should take it with a large pinch of salt. It must certainly be true also of the seizure of power by tyrants in Archaic Greece, and indeed the sources suggest that many tyrannical coups involved very small numbers. Peisistratus is said to have occupied the Acropolis with the help of 50 men armed with clubs, while Polycrates occupied the acropolis of Samos with a mere 15 hoplites.

With such a limited power base, it is not surprising that tyrants were generally soon ousted by rival factions. This is not to say that some tyrants did not enjoy popular support, as scholars have recently argued. On the contrary, the traditions about Cypselus, Theagenes, Pittacus, and Peisistratus, in particular, strongly suggest that these men did appeal to the interests of the people at large and received support in meetings of the popular assembly.

It has sometimes been said that the lack of popular involvement in these struggles stemmed from a conscious refusal by the people to fight against the tyrants and implied at least passive support. Yet this is probably already claiming too much, since we do hear of situations in which the authorities were able to organize a formal mobilization of the citizens against aspiring tyrants: The proportion of horsemen, hoplites, and light-armed within a city were of some significance insofar as they indicated the pattern of distribution of wealth in the community and thereby pointed to the likely balance of political sympathies in the extreme event of all-out civil war, but most regimes were neither created nor maintained by particular branches of the armed forces.

The light-armed, the hoplites, or indeed the cavalry, as such did not often play a part in these conflicts. Accordingly, tyrannies and oligarchies were both easily imposed and easily ousted, and political violence was endemic. In this light, one can see the point of a law, attributed to Solon, obliging every citizen to take up arms in case of civil strife: Tyrants, Oligarchs and Citizen Militias 83 against a Spartan attempt to instal an oligarchy led by Isagoras, can be seen more clearly as the exception it was: A Response to Hans van Wees Vincent Gabrielsen In recent years, there has been a noticeable resurgence of scholarly interest in a field which for a very long time dominated historical writing in its traditional form — ancient military history.

This revived interest, however, has been guided by theoretical preoccupations, historical perspectives and foci in subject matter that differ considerably from those characteristic of late 19th- and early 20th-century scholarship: The main aim of his paper is to assess the impact of the armed forces on the government and politics of the Greek city-states in the Archaic and Classical periods.

In particular, van Wees seeks to test the common theory, derived from Aristotle Politics , holding that certain kinds of armed forces were closely associated with certain social classes and supported regimes which could promote their class interests. This theory, he argues, is questionable. The connections made in Greek political thought and propaganda between military forces and political regimes were really tenuous in political practice.

Even though the proportions of horsemen, hoplites and light-armed soldiers within a city reflected the distribution of wealth in the community and thereby pointed to the likely balance of political sympathies in the event of civil war, most regimes autocratic or otherwise were usually brought to power and maintained by quite small but highly organized groups, and sometimes by broad popular movements. This conclusion is based on the arguments developed successively in each of the three parts into which the paper is organized. The first part pp. The second part pp. As earlier examples of ground-breaking studies especially in the fields of classical Greek and Hellenistic history, I shall note here two volumes by Y.

Vincent Gabrielsen 84 claim for the close connection between different constitutional forms and particular branches of the army. Finally, the third part pp. In what follows, I shall comment on each part of the paper, noting areas of both agreement and disagreement. The latter development, I would suggest, is worthy of notice on account of its broader implications. For it must signify a gradual departure from what was previously perceived as an ideal, i. To the evidence cited in this section one may add the following: One of the conclusions in this section p.

Oxford , revised edition , no. However, the first of these points seems to be contradicted by some of the arguments put forth in previous pages. As is correctly pointed out pp. The first is that our sources tend to create the impression that Homeric and early Greek warfare was dominated by a few aristocratic warriors, and that in Classical Greece the only soldiers who mattered were hoplites.

Moreover, our sources especially those from the Classical period present us with two distinct kinds of hoplite. The other kind is the real hoplite of the battlefield: These are themes to which van Wees himself has previously made several notable contributions,8 and his expert handling of the often daunting evidence brings out clearly and forcefully the disparity between what was accentuated or suppressed for ideological reasons and what was the reality about the numbers, socio-economic position and legal status of the men marshalled into the Greek battlefield.

These findings, however, raise a question that bears on a recent and seemingly widely- accepted view, according to which the greatest majority of hoplites in the Archaic polis were identical with the members of a fairly homogenous and sizeable socio-economic 6 ARISTOTLE, Politics a Vincent Gabrielsen 86 class: Firstly, in several instances e. And, emphatically, as is acknowledged on p. Secondly, van Wees maintains p. The second point made in this section is that within military personnel and also primarily within an Athenian context an important dividing line was drawn between i those who were obliged to serve and who accordingly possessed certain political 9 V.

Alcibiades advised the Spartans to send immediately aid to Sicily in the form of ships rowed by hoplitai auteretai because ships so manned were likely to arrive there faster than heavier troop-carriers stratiotides ; iv XENOPHON, Hellenica 1. The Impact of Armed Forces on Government and Politics in Archaic and Classical Poleis 87 privileges and ii those who volunteered for service and did not have full political rights. Contrary to the current belief, this dividing line did not coincide with the distinction between hoplites and light-armed, but cut across the body of hoplites.

But there are reasons to take issue with two of the arguments adduced in support of two things: I shall comment on each of these in the order mentioned. Several sources from the fifth and fourth centuries B. Furthermore, some of these sources also contrast those drafted ek katalogou to volunteers ethelontai.

Thus we can conclude that service ek katalogou was compulsory. A more detailed exposition of my arguments and the sources supporting them is offered in Appendix 1. Secondly, we know that certainly in Athens and probably in other states as well, whereas voluntarism was at a premium, non-voluntarism the object of public disdain. Consequently, if the situation really was the one claimed in the paper, then one is prompted to ask why the upper classes should 13 The statement p.

Vincent Gabrielsen 88 have willingly surrendered to the lower classes the precious option of performing in such a praiseworthy manner. Again, if the result was that stated on p. Finally, if the supposed property classes of the katalogos, who are also said to be the politically privileged classes, excluded the economically and politically underprivileged, is it correct to conclude p.

But at the same time he argues pp. In that case, however, there is a very important question which needs to be reconsidered: The answer, in my opinion, is none. Consequently, acceptance of his view should in fact entail the abandonment of the theory postulating a nearly virtual identity between Archaic Athenian hoplites and zeugitai, unless one is prepared either to defend the untenable proposition that the Archaic Athenian hoplite force was quite small, or to populate Archaic Athens with an incredibly large number of well-off citizens.

Secondly, the estimate of the approximate level of wealth possessed by the members of the zeugitai class is based on our principal source on the economic significance on the four Solonian classes pp. However, in my view, the text of that treatise contains evidence to the effect that neither its author nor the fourth-century Athenians at large knew anything at all about what the Solonian tele actually signified in economic terms, either in the time of Solon or in their own time. Furthermore, in Classical times the Solonian tele were as far as we know never used for determining liability to the financial obligations imposed on citizens.

Therefore, while there were almost certainly Athenians who owned farms measuring c. My arguments for this point are laid out in Appendix 2. If, as is argued on pp. I agree that in practice men serving as hoplites were politically and economically divided, but I disagree with the way in which this paper claims them to have been divided.


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His incisive and perceptive analysis of the relevant passages in the Politics shows — in my view, conclusively — that the Aristotelian theory is seriously discredited partly by several self- contradictory statements made by its own author, partly by external evidence relating to military and constitutional developments in early and Classical Greece. Now, in light of these statements, I do not think it is correct to conclude pp. Indeed, whether in ancient or in modern times, coups are, and can only be, the work of a relatively small often very small part of the armed forces.

An important difference is that modern coup-makers, being as a rule high-ranking members of a military establishment, are able to exercise authority over — and thus involve in the execution of their plans — a substantial segment of the army, an authority which ancient coup-makers lacked: In fact, the real and intriguing question that lurks behind the argument developed in this part of the paper is a different one, which requires an investigation of its own: In the present context, the question relates to the violent establishment or overthrow of a particular regime.

Yet the same tendency is observable in the tranquil i. I honestly do not know, but this seems to me to be a problem worthy of an investigation. Structure, Principles and Ideology Oxford , Vincent Gabrielsen 92 Granted, in the course of the fourth century B. Yet throughout the paper a close connection is made between the cavalry, oligarchy and the upper classes. These latter, it is said p. If these distinctions are maintained, then we must accept that each of these social and military constellations backed its own political regime — unless, of course one chooses to deny any connection between socio-economic groups and forms of constitution.

I conclude by pointing briefly and by way of example at some important challenges that need to be met in two areas. One challenge consists of identifying the field or fields in which ideology, instead of simply standing in opposition to political practice and thus seen as just a historically distorting factor that needs to be rectified through confrontation with reality , was in fact an integral part of that practice.

An extremely interesting issue which van Wees mentions only in passing p. In my view, what matters mostly in this process is the way in which military organization increasingly but not simultaneously, nor at the same pace everywhere becomes an intrinsic part of a single, overarching political authority that has monopoly over the use of organized violence, irrespective of whether that monopoly is exercised by an oligarchic or a democratic government.

In all cases, the bone of contention among these rival groups is the power of the state. To be sure, especially citizens — whether hoplites or non-hoplites — were allowed to own weapons. But there is a specific weapon, the ownership of which was subject to severe restrictions or directly prohibited in some but definitely not all states: But with the creation of an entirely public fleet i.

In this case, I believe, one can speak of a close connection between a particular branch of the military establishment — the navy — and a political regime — the Athenian democracy.

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Hansen has discussed the sources which mention a katalogos in connection with military service in fifth- and fourth-century Athens. Hansen argues that, contrary to the accepted view,20 there was not such a thing as a central list of hoplites: That procedure was in the s abandoned in favour of a call-up by year-classes. Hansen, however, agrees with the traditional view that at least down to B.

In the following I wish to reexamine the relevant evidence. Here the number of Athenian hoplites on the Attic ships sent to Sicily in B. There is ample evidence to show that those serving ek katalogou stand in contrast to those presenting themselves for service voluntarily.

Hansen and others, however, assume that the procedure applied for manning the fleet to Sicily in B. That this assumption is highly questionable is demonstrated by the following sources. Studies in Honour of M. McGregor New York , Vincent Gabrielsen 94 i IG I3 60 of c. Two of its provisions are plausibly restored to order the manning of each ship with five volunteer ethelontai epibatai of citizen status. If this document is correctly restored, the procedure it lays down makes no mention of the Solonian classes, but only specifies that these men be selected according to tribe.

On this occasion, a katalogos seems to have also been used for manning the fleet nautiken , certainly with epibatai and probably with oarsmen as well. Finally, there are two passages that do mention the Solonian classes in connection with the manning of the fleet, but not any katalogos. However, it cannot be decided whether hippeis here refers to those serving in the cavalry23 or to the Solonian class.

In fact, it is difficult to say what the rule really was. The second source is believed to be saying basically the same thing: In addition, we have a few sources from the fourth century B. In subsequent sections, these oarsmen are described as hoi nautai hoi katalegentes hypo ton demoton 7 and as hoi ek katalogou elthontes sc. In the fifth century, use of some of these classes was made, on a few known occasions, in connection with the manning of the fleet. In addition, when the Athenians sent out colonists to Brea in c.

Finally, there are two private dedications both from after B. The division of the citizens into the four Solonian classes was maintained in the fourth century. A decree of c. Probably the word telos here carries the same meaning as in a law which prescribed that the guardian of an epikleros belonging to the thetic class thetikon telousin shall provide her with a dowry: Last, but not least, still in the fourth century certain offices were legally open to only certain Solonian classes, while the thetes were formally excluded from all offices.

There are four main implications to be drawn from all this evidence. Firstly, even though they tended to disregard its application in some areas, the Athenians continued to operate with this fourfold division of their citizen body. Secondly, the four labels of the tele were thought of as referring to recognizable socio-economic groups whose individual members could somehow be identified.

Thirdly, a citizen was supposed to 29 For the date, see R. Vincent Gabrielsen 98 know the telos to which he belonged. Fourthly, in terms of wealth these tele were perceived as standing in a hierarchical relation to each other, with the pentakosiomedimnoi as the richest, and the thetes as the poorest. The wealth possessed by each of these classes is a subject treated in practically every single book-length study on Greek and particularly Athenian history, in addition to a substantial number of specialized articles.

Since the 19th century33 scholars have attempted to estimate that wealth primarily in terms of the size of the landed property owned by members of each class, the volume and kind of its annual agricultural yield, the number of people it was capable of feeding per year, and finally its monetary value. The results arrived at by different scholars do vary according to the premises from which each of these estimates proceeds. Yet, in spite of such disagreements, virtually all attempts to quantify and describe the wealth determining membership of these classes are based on our principal source, [ARISTOTLE], Athenaion Politeia 7.

These should be contrasted with the technical use of thetikon when Aristotle refers to the Solonian classes in Athens a New York-Oxford , ; K. Also, the numbers associated with the three bottom classes may have been inventions of Classical times, extrapolated from the number embedded in the top class, In light of all this, and because it does matter greatly whether we accept that a zeugites, for instance, was a fairly well off man owning a farm of no less than c.

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Here I offer a few remarks in the hope that I will be able to treat this issue more comprehensively in a forthcoming article. On this, Athenaion Politeia reports two opinions, which is a clear indication that the matter was the subject of an ongoing controversy, obviously one which could not be easily settled. The author of Athenaion Politeia himself plausibly in agreement with other Athenians as well maintains that hippeis refers to landholders producing measures. The author of 38 J. That zeugitai referred to hoplites: Katharinen , , restates some of the traditional views.

Vincent Gabrielsen Athenaion Politeia dismisses this rival opinion, not by adducing any counter-proof, but simply by giving his personal opinion: If, as is believed, Athenaion Politeia had a credible, contemporary source for his explanation of the pentakosiomedimnoi as opposed to the bare name of the telos , that same source would have helped him and others to settle once and for all the current dispute about the correct meaning of hippeis. Furthermore, neither the Athenaion Politeia nor the opposing view attempts, as a last resort, to back its own opinion by pointing to what the Solonian classes signified in their own day.

Were the thetes poor and the pentakosiomedimnoi rich in the fourth century? The author of Athenaion Politeia 7. What is claimed here could result either from the fact that a candidate not belonging to the pentakosio-medimnoi had pretended to be of that telos just like thetes are said to have held office by pretending to be of one of the three top tele , or from the fact that by that time some of those assigned as pentakosiomedimnoi were actually poor,45 or, again and more probably , from a combination of both of th.

Secondly, we have numerous sources, especially from the fourth century, that detail the financial obligations payment of eisphora and performance of liturgies imposed on wealthy citizens, but in no instance is liability to these obligations determined with reference to the Solonian classes. In conclusion, even though fourth-century Athenians entertained a notion about the Solonian tele as divisions of the citizen body that were 43 RHODES, op.

The Impact of Armed Forces on Government and Politics in Archaic and Classical Poleis distinguished from one another by the level of wealth owned by their members, in practice there must have been citizens classed as thetes who were well off or wealthy men, just as there must have been citizens of pentakosiomedimnoi status who were relatively poor men. Every major power held garrisons in dependent settlements of various legal statuses, usually in dependent poleis or dependent communities. The documentary evidence, — the treaties in particular, — shows that the issue of the garrisons, the duration of their presence, and their removal was a major topic in 1 M.

Angelos Chaniotis negotiations between poleis and kings or military leaders. Equally scanty is the evidence for the everyday life of the soldiers. The bulk of the evidence comes from the Ptolemaic garrisons, in particular those of Cyprus and Thera. Naturally, I will not consider the evidence for native soldiers serving in garrisons in the territory of their polis,8 unless these garrisons were established in areas inhabited by a non-citizen population or in newly acquired lands. Foreign mercenaries hired by a civic community to man its own forts are also irrelevant for the issues discussed here, although they may be instructive for the integration of foreign soldiers; it should be added that many inscriptions which concern foreign troops do not allow us to recognize whether we are dealing with hired mercenaries or a garrison imposed by a foreign power.

When considering foreign garrisons in the Hellenistic world, one should bear in mind several common features. In the Hellenistic period the garrison established by a king in a dependent polis would usually be manned with mercenaries of many different origins. Unlike the garrisons of Athenian soldiers established by the Athenians in their subject cities, the Ptolemaic, Antigonid, Seleucid, and Attalid garrisons brought together men from the most distant regions of the Hellenistic world.

Mysia , Sicily, and Massalia. The best documented case is that of Miletos, which had to man numerous forts in Hybandis on the former territory of Myous and on the islands Patmos, Leros and Lepsia. Priene 4, 19, 21, 22, 37, , ; I. Constructing and Crossing Boundaries in Hellenistic Cities with Garrisons than 1, Cretan mercenaries, who settled with their families c. The form of the interaction between native population and foreign troops could easily be influenced by this distinction, as indeed it was iii by the exact conditions under which a garrison was established capitulation, negotiations, defeat in a war, or invitation by the entire community or by a particular group.

A man who served for 42 years in a garrison in a relatively peaceful area an anonymous commander at Philai 12 has little in common with a soldier sent by a Macedonian king to his garrison in Athens and facing an Athenian revolt a few months after his transfer. The words autonomos and aphrouretos appear next to one another in several treaties which aimed at guaranteeing the independence of a polis. Fleet in Piraeus during the Greek military dictatorship. The violent or peaceful removal of a foreign garrison was one of the most common occasions for the establishment of a commemorative anniversary dedicated to the celebration of freedom 11 Milet I.

Teil 1 Berlin , Iasos 2; Sardis VII. Angelos Chaniotis and autonomy. Foreign troops were then as they are now an instrument of subordination; they implemented a more or less direct control over the political institutions of a civic community; and they occupied its military facilities e. To some extent they controlled or exploited its economic resources, e.

Constructing and Crossing Boundaries in Hellenistic Cities with Garrisons Ptolemaic garrisons in particular were also an economic factor inasmuch as they contributed to the creation of a Ptolemaic monetary zone. We thus have numerous narratives of how a garrison was established — especially after the capitulation of a city or after the conclusion of an unfavorable peace treaty;24 we also have reports on the efforts of citizens often with foreign aid to expel a foreign garrison violently from the citadel or another important fortress e.

But what happened between the violent beginning and the bloody end? That a foreign garrison had a deterrent effect on the population can easily be assumed and is sometimes explicitly stated, particularly in connection with a political regime imposed by exogenous factors. There are some notable exceptions, such as the honorific inscriptions for the commanders of garrisons phrourarchoi decreed by the communities, in which the garrisons served.

Angelos Chaniotis commanders often did behave in a way that provoked negative reactions. Of course it lies in the nature of the honorific decrees that we only hear of commanders who have been righteous and disciplined;30 but even these sources with their trivial phraseology reveal that some commanders were better than others; otherwise it would be difficult to understand why the Aiginetans repeatedly sent envoys to the Attalid kings asking them to maintain Kleon of Pergamon as the commander of their island — obviously with some success, since he remained in this office for 16 years.

However, the fact that the formulaic language of Hellenistic decrees displays many individual variants32 makes it probable that Pandaros — and other phrourarchoi — did in fact interact with individual citizens. This is directly attested in the case of Hieron of Syracuse, commander of the Ptolemaic troops in Arsinoe Koresia on Keos. After some vague and formulaic phrases LL. Such allusions to the possibility of complaints in this and in other decrees remind us that foreign soldiers are a burden on a community. The treaty between the city of Iasos, Ptolemy I, and the commanders of his?

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