Customer Reviews

Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience

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In ancient Greece, men dressed themselves in armor, armed themselves with pikes, stood shoulder to shoulder eight ranks deep facing another group of similarly armed and arrayed soldiers, and then charged into each other with homicidal intent. The resulting carnage was horrific. There was no maneuver, no strategy, and little room for skill at arms. Only strength, stamina, and courage mattered.

As bloody and unpleasant as the hoplite battle was, it was really a system designed to limit non-combatant casualties. Only the soldiers on the chosen field of battle exposed themselves to injury while the city-states themselves suffered little behind their stout walls. Hoplite warfare was sort of like settling international disputes by means of a very bloody football game.

The essays in this volume explore all aspects of the very bloody sport that was classical Greek combat. Arms, armament, drill, ritual, and all other appurtenances of Greek warfare are examined exhaustively. There is even a whole chapter devoted to the "salpinx," the Greeks' version of the bugle.

The writing is somewhat uneven (some of the contributors seek to display their extensive vocabulary rather than enlighten the reader) and the work suffers greatly from a dearth of illustrations. Several chapters refer extensively to paintings on pottery, but the pottery isn't depicted in the book. Despite these shortcomings, I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in ancient military history.

If you'd like an overview that doesn't delve quite as deeply into the details of hoplite battle, you might prefer two other works: F.E. Adcock's "The Greek and Macedonian Art of War," and Victor Hansen's "The Western Way of War," both available from Amazon.com.

I think Hanson has more than made the point in his other works that it was the Greek free land owning farmer and not the city dweller who dominated the rise of greek warfare and culture which culminated in the 5th and 6th centuries BCE. Before the Persian invasion but after the "Heroic Age" a unique form of warfare evolved in Greece. The central figure of which was the free farmer of the Greek countryside who donned nearly 80 pounds of armour in the hot summer, lined up with his fellows and charged a muderous row of brass tipped spears to settle border disputes in a single climactic clash.
This book explores not the tactics, the generals, nor the historical perspective of hoplite warfare, but instead focuses on the actual experience of battle. What was it like to wear the brass armour and carry a shield, what was the importance of sacrifice before giving battle? Why would someone willingly enter such a zone of death?
Many reviewers I feel fail to notice that this book does not claim to glorify hoplite battle as an artful waging of war, nor does it attempt to be a complete study of the political dynamics that affected Greek warfare, when clearly Hanson's goal as editor is more to turn our attention to the experience itself in the eyes of the people who stood in the 8 deep ranks of men. Most of the articles focus on our evidence of vases and early histories. From the book we are given an image of battle that will shape how western armies wage war and form the importance of decisive battle. It is to the common Greek hoplite farmer that we owe this legacy, and we owe it to them to understand what this form of battle was like.

This works delves into Ancient Greek battle and experience of battle, rather than ancient Greek wafare as a whole. Instead of glorifying this kind of war, the authors point out several times the cold bloodedness, fear, and bloodiness of this kind of battle.

The main focus of the work (and I agree with the earlier reviewer that some of the essays are a tad big-winded) is to point out the actions, intensity, purpose, and cultural aspects of hoplite battle, not strategy. All authors use extensive references to actual historical events. I think the books succeeds, and I disagree with the same reviewer I mentioned above that tactics did not matter. The Thebans in particular are noted for the tactics of Epimeinondas, and the Athenians and Syracusans are mentioned as well. Tactics at later stages of hoplite battle are more difficult, but an essay points out that early and middle stage fighting had ample room for both small unit and larger unit tactics.

And I also take issue with another review that quotes Kipling in an effort to relegate hoplites to simple farmers who fight on occasion. The Greek hoplite were excellent soldiers (even if they also farmed), and even professional, as evidenced by their extensive history of mercenary service. They took care of their weapons, followed orders, and in many cases, were bloody hard to punch out of a postion, such as Thermopylae. Again, the book mentions their professionalism at several points, including the patient endurance of Spartans under Persina arrows at Platea 479 B. C.

I do not think the 19th century heathen warriros in the poem could have pulled off the above, or the Anabasis, or conquered everything from Macedonia to India, with the exception of a Zulu army, which, I might add, defeated a rather modern British force at Islandlwana.

If you have a basic understanding of ancient Greek battle, I suggest this book as a next step. It will greatly deepen both understanding and appreciation of the topic.

This book is a collection of nine scholarly essays specifically about the Hoplite soldier: describing their weapons and offensive arms, identification and retrieval of casualties, phalanx battle style (from within), sacrifices and battle rituals, etc. While academic in nature, it was a good read and differed from other books on the subject in that it didn't paradigmatically examine Greek battle in terms of strategy, tactics, politics, or similar macro-issues. Instead, this truly observed the Hoplite soldier from the perspective of a Hoplite soldier as we now understand them. The book wasn't INCREDIBLE, but I feel satisfied that I got my money's worth.

If you loved John Keegan's Face of Battle with his realistic portrayal of the common soldier's experience in bloody battle from Agincourt to W.W.I, then then you will love the collection of superb articles by acknowledged experts in ancient Greek Hoplite warfare asembled by V.D. Hanson. Instead of dry and boring descriptions of military strategy and tactics written by ancient and modern historians who spotlight kings and generals, each expert in Hanson's volume describes almost every aspect of ancient archaic and classical Greek hoplite battle from contemporary technology, the action in the killing zone of battle with its horrific wounds and injuries suffered by warriors,to the ritual sacrifices before battle, and the aftermath...victory and defeat; most of all, the contributors wrote from the viewpoint of the hoplite within the phalanx or phalange and the battle leader's place within it. Furthermore,the evolution of the role of the "general" is traced from ancient to modern military history. This is a must read for martial artists of all styles and systems and for enthusiasts of ancient world history of all periods and places. I'm thrilled that I have my copy of Hanson's valuable book.

Mr. Hanson seems to feel there's some particular moral virtue in a style of war where the height of strategy is to put your head down and run at the enemy like a bull at a gate. And that nothing is necessary but righteous enthusiasm.

As the son, grandson and great-grandson of professional soldiers -- mostly in the service of the British Empire -- words cannot express my disdain. My ancestors spent their professional lives butchering just such patriotic agrarian amateurs like sheep.

As the poet put it:

"The 'eathen in 'is blindness Bows down to wood and stone; 'E won't obey no orders Unless they is 'is own -- 'E keeps 'is side-arms sloppy 'E leaves 'em all about. Then up comes the Regiment; An' we punch the 'eathen out!"