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14-06-2015, 02:56

Weapons

War in ancient Greece was based on the spears and shields of the phalanx on land and the trireme at sea.

Date: c. 800-31 b. c.e.

Category: Wars and battles; science and technology

Greece The beginning of Greek history is generally considered to have begun with Homer’s Iliad (c. 750 b. c.e.; English translation, 1611), the legendary story of the fall of Troy. The favorite epic of the Greeks, it served as a kind of handbook on how an individual could gain glory in war by fighting with courage and skill. The Greek people, an amalgam of various migrant groups, turned to seafaring and colonizing in an effort to make up for poor farming conditions, both of which gave them a cosmopolitan background and an understanding of other people that stood them in good stead militarily.

One of the several city-states into which Greece developed, Sparta developed a society based on the inevitability of war, with the army and the state being essentially one. At the age of seven, boys of all classes were taken from their homes and put into barracks for highly disciplined military training that was both harsh and exhaustive. The result was a professional army that with its red coats, oiled hair, and polished weapons was a most frightening sight to any enemy. By 600 b. c.e., Sparta was the strongest city-state in Greece. Although the Spartans fought with the Athenians against the Persians, the growing rivalry between the two eventually resulted in the Peloponnesian War (431-404 b. c.e.), in which Sparta defeated Athens.

Instead of the expensive chariots and cavalry that could not function well on much ofGreek terrain, the phalanx became the dominant fighting force. This well-trained and disciplined infantry militia, made up primarily from the middle and upper classes, was armed with spears in the right hand and shields in the left and fought as a tightly massed formation with practically no maneuverability. Battles between phalanxes required at least a

The gostrophetes, or belly bow, was developed by the Greeks around 400 B. C.E. The operator would lean forward with his abdomen, pinning the weapon against the ground to force a slide backward. (Kimberly L. Dowson Kurnizki)

Semblance of level ground and were really great shoving matches in which one major effort usually forced one side to give way and leave the field in defeat. The fact that the shield was carried in the left hand caused the whole phalanx to move to the right, as soldiers sought protection from their comrades’ shields. The strongest individuals were put on the right flank to counter this shifting.

Over the centuries, the use of ships for war as well as for commerce was common among those living along the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas. The Greeks, however, particularly the Athenians, developed naval warfare to a high degree with the use of the trireme—a long, narrow craft using three levels of oarsmen as well as some sails. Although boarding an enemy vessel in battle was practiced occasionally, the basic Athenian tactic was to ram the opponent with the trireme’s deadly metal beak. The Athenians also used amphibious-landing tactics in their attack against Sicily in 415 b. c.e. When Athens and Sparta clashed in the Peloponnesian War, however, it was Athens’ naval and military disaster at Syracuse that provided victory for Sparta. The Athenian trireme, nevertheless, was copied widely during this and later periods by various groups vying for military advantage on the sea.

Macedonia The Macedonians from northern Greece were generally thought of by the rest of Greece as an inferior people. Under Philip II, however, they became an innovative and dominant military power. With Philip’s assassination in 336 b. c.e., his son Alexander the Great, destined to become one of the world’s great military leaders, assumed power at the age of twenty and soon had control over all Greece.

Because numerous Greeks in various places still lived under Persian rule, many in Greece wanted to go to war once again against Persia. Alexander, with great confidence in his capabilities and those ofhis army, led an allied Greek force into Asia Minor and defeated the Persians at Granicus (334 b. c.e.) and at Issus the next year. A year later, he was in Egypt, where he founded the city of Alexandria. From there, he moved to Mesopotamia to overthrow the Persian Empire of Darius III (331 b. c.e.). His thirst for power and conquest led him through Asia to northern India (326 b. c.e.), but the weather, the terrain, and particularly the Gedrosian Desert proved too much for an army that was more interested in going home than in any further conquests. War was in Alexander’s blood, and without it, he was lost in depression and alcohol. He died from a fever, poisoning, or excessive drinking in 323 b. c.e. Whatever his end, his accomplishments speak for themselves.

Alexander’s generalship was based on flexibility in both leadership and organization. Featuring the formidable and highly mobile base of a phalanx that could charge on the run and the speed and shock of cavalry, Alexander’s army on numerous occasions was able to seize opportunities and surprise the enemy. His oblique order of attack in which his troops would fall back in one place in order to hit the enemy with superior forces in another and then to roll them up in a flanking movement became a hallmark in military theory. He followed a strict logistical system of movement and attack in which nothing was overlooked. Organized for speed, his army marched an average of 10 to 15 miles (16 to 24 kilometers) per day, with each soldier carrying 80 pounds (36 kilograms) of weight. Like his father, Alexander was a pioneer in siege warfare, using new lighter versions of catapults and ballistae that could be carried by pack trains and expeditiously set up as needed.

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