While hoplites remained the mainstay of Greek armies throughout the Classical period, from the Peloponnesian War onward new types of soldiers made their presence increasingly felt on the battlefield. Most prominent among these were the peltasts. Like hoplites, peltasts take their name from their equipment. The pelte was a crescent-shaped single-grip shield of Thracian origin, made of wicker or of animal hide stretched over a wooden frame. The term peltast (peltastes) at first specifically denoted a Thracian warrior armed primarily with javelins and carrying the pelte. During the Archaic period, Thracian peltasts served as mercenaries for a variety of Greek states (Best 1969: 3-9). During the Classical period, several different types of shield were lumped together as peltai, and ‘‘peltast’’ became a generic designation for
Figure 23.3 Peltast: non-Greek warrior carrying a Thracian pelte and a javelin or spear. Interior of an Athenian red figure kylix, c. 470-460 bce. Courtesy of the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Bequest of David M. Robinson. Photo: Photographic Services.
Any javelin-armed, lightly protected infantry. Peltasts from Thrace remained in demand and could command high wages for their skills. Increasing numbers of Greek soldiers, however, were also equipped as peltasts.
Greek or non-Greek, a peltast needed training. Throwing the javelin (akon), for one thing, demanded constant practice. Javelins, their metal points smaller and better balanced than hoplite spearheads, varied in length from 1.25 to 2.25 m (Snodgrass 1964: 136-9). The maximum effective range for a running throw was probably no more than about 45 m, and many throws may have been at distances half that or less. For better range, a peltast could wrap one end of a leather thong (ankyle) around his javelin shaft, looping the other end around the first two fingers of his throwing hand. With the thong securely attached, a peltast would release his grip on the loop as his arm reached full extension, increasing the effective length ofhis arm and therefore the force of the throw (Harris 1963: 30).
Peltast units deployed in loose formations, harassing their opponents from afar while evading close combat. This style of fighting required extensive tactical training - learning to obey trumpet calls or other signals to advance and retreat, and perhaps practicing attack drills - as well as skill with the javelin. Peltast units could vary in size to suit tactical necessities. On level ground, groups as large as 600 men were stationed to protect the flanks of a phalanx. In difficult terrain, ad hoc companies of one or two hundred were more useful. Small peltast detachments also excelled as scouts and advance guards.
Peltasts were at their best facing unsupported hoplites in hilly or broken terrain. In summer 424, for instance, a mixed force of Athenian hoplites and light infantry, including several hundred peltasts, launched an amphibious assault on the rocky island of Sphakteria in the southwest Peloponnese. The 420 Spartan hoplites defending Sphakteria tried to brush aside the Athenian light troops and come to grips with their hoplite opposites. Instead, the Athenian hoplites hung back, while the peltasts and other skirmishers ran forward to launch a withering barrage of projectiles at the Spartan ranks. The Spartans in their heavy armor could not pursue the light troops across the rugged landscape of Sphakteria. Under constant attack, they fell back to one end of the island, where they were cornered and forced to surrender. Only 292 survived to be taken in chains to Athens (Thuc. 4.28-38).
Although unable to stand head-on against an unbroken phalanx, peltasts could fight effectively at close quarters against surprised or demoralized hoplites. At Amphipolis in 422, for example, the Spartan general Brasidas deployed a force including Myrkinian and Chalkidian peltasts to catch a larger Athenian hoplite army in the flank. The peltasts routed and pursued the hoplites, killing about six hundred Athenians along with their commander Kleon (Thuc. 5.7-11). On this occasion, peltasts functioned as a sort of medium infantry, nimble enough to escape attack if necessary, but also confident enough to enter melee combat under the right circumstances.
Properly trained peltasts, then, were mobile and versatile troops. So successful were they during the Peloponnesian War that by the early fourth century some terrified hoplites were refusing to fight peltast forces. Yet there were techniques to counter a peltast threat. Spartan phalanx commanders, for example, learned to dispatch their youngest, speediest hoplites to pursue and run down the attackers. The Spartan army had some success with this tactic during the Korinthian War, particularly in the fighting around Korinth in 390. Nonetheless, that same year the Athenian general Iphikrates, with a crack unit of peltasts, scored a resounding victory over a regiment of Spartan hoplites at Lechaion, just outside Korinth. The Spartans, some six hundred strong, were on their way home for a religious festival when Iphikrates and his men attacked using the characteristic combination of javelins and evasion. The Spartans repeatedly dispatched their fastest men in disorganized pursuit, but these soon fell back, unable to catch the peltasts. Under constant attack, and with Athenian hoplite reinforcements in sight, the Spartans broke and ran, some plunging into the sea to escape (Xenophon Hellenika 4.5.11-18). Of the 600 Spartans who set out that day, 250 perished. Ironically, had the Spartans not scored previous successes against peltasts, they might have better controlled their pursuit; as it was they were so overconfident that each man ran out at his own speed.
Other light troops, amongst them akontistai (javelineers) and gymnetai (‘‘unarmored’’), carried javelins but no shields. Later military manuals classified javelineers as true light troops (psiloi), in contrast to shield-carrying peltasts, who were considered intermediate between psiloi and hoplites (Onasandros Strategikos 17; Arrian Tactica 3.1-4). In practice, javelineers performed much the same functions as peltasts, using similar shoot-and-evade tactics, and Classical writers often used psiloi and peltastai interchangeably (Best 1969: 43-9). Akontistai were prominent in naval battles, especially in enclosed waters, where their missiles could inflict serious damage on enemy crews.
Less widely utilized than peltasts were archers, many from marginal regions like Crete, or from ‘‘barbarian’’ areas like Scythia. Classical archers employed both the simple one-piece bow and the composite bow, built up from layers of wood and horn. Greek bows were for the most part weak, as archers used a simple two-fingered pull and drew to the breast only. The Scythians, employed as policemen and auxiliaries at Athens, utilized a more complex grip and drew to the shoulder, but this technique was far more difficult to master (Snodgrass 1999: 83-4). The Cretans, too, developed better techniques, along with larger, stronger bows and long (up to 10 cm), tanged arrowheads (Snodgrass 1999: 40). The maximum effective range of ancient bows was probably around 150-200 m, though few men could manage more than five arrows a minute for any length of time (Gabriel & Metz 1991: 68). Weak bows also meant low penetrating power. Hoplite armor and shields were normally impervious to arrows except at very close range, so an archer’s best chance was to hit unprotected flesh.
These technological limitations kept archery from becoming a major factor in Classical warfare. There were also cultural prejudices: after the Persian Wars, some rejected archery - a Persian specialty - as unmanly and unfair. As a Spartan captured at Sphakteria caustically remarked, an arrow ‘‘would be worth a great deal if it could pick out good and noble men from the rest’’ (Thuc. 4.40). Nonetheless, well-trained archers made excellent skirmishers and scouts, as even the Spartans understood: within a year of defeat at Sphakteria, Sparta had raised its first force of bowmen. Archery was also effective in sieges and urban fighting. During the final stages of the civil strife at Kerkyra in 425, for instance, the men of one faction climbed atop an enemy-occupied building, broke holes in the roof, and in a barrage of arrows shot down their opponents within (Thuc. 4.48). Navies too employed archers to great advantage. Athenian triremes regularly carried four apiece on deck; in battle these men targeted opposing officers, steersmen, and rowers. The importance of missile troops in naval warfare probably underlies the 1,600-strong corps of archers, not including Scythian policemen, which the Athenians had in service at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. The Athenians also deployed several hundred mounted archers, probably to help protect the farmland of Attika from invading ravagers.
Slingers often fought alongside peltasts and archers on the Classical battlefield. The best slingers hailed from the fringes of the polis world, places like Akarnania, Malis, and Elis. Rhodians also gained fame for their slinging skills. The deceptively simplelooking sling was in the right hands deadlier than the bow. It consisted of no more than two lengths of twisted gut or sinew, even wool strips in a pinch, joined by a central pocket, with the end of one length secured around the slinger’s wrist or middle finger. To throw, the slinger grasped both lengths firmly in one hand, placed a missile in the pocket, whirled the sling vertically or horizontally, and released his hand when it pointed at his target. This is far more difficult than it sounds, and slinging, even more than archery or javelin-throwing, demanded intensive training and practice. Expert slingers employed a variety of different casting techniques in addition to the stereotypical overhead whirl. At short range, they could operate even in confined spaces, using a single underhand whip of the wrist to fling heavy (30 g) projectiles with killing force (Lee 2001: 16).
Sling ammunition included round stones, clay pellets, and almond-shaped cast lead bullets. Bullets became increasingly common during the fifth and fourth centuries.
Figure 23.4 Lead sling bullet with a winged thunderbolt on one side, and on the other the inscription ‘‘Take that.’’ Fourth century bce, found in Athens. © The Trustees of The British Museum, London.
Some states produced them in bulk, although given a suitable mold slingers could quickly make new bullets from scrap lead even in field conditions (Xenophon Anabasis 3.4.17). Numerous excavated fourth-century examples from Olynthos in northern Greece show state manufacturers’ inscriptions (‘‘of the Olynthians’’), as well as witty tag-lines like aischron doron - ‘‘an unpleasant gift.’’ Lead bullets greatly enhanced effective range: Rhodian slingers using them were able to shoot perhaps 200 m, outdistancing even Persian archers (Xenophon Anabasis 3.3.17; 3.4.16). Slingers fought both on land and at sea. They were considered especially useful in siege operations, and slingers trained to use the underhanded whip throw could be extraordinarily effective in urban combat.
Peltasts, archers, slingers, and other light infantry represented powerful new forces in classical warfare. Their equipment and formations enabled them to operate on ground wholly unsuited to the hoplite phalanx, while their ability to strike from a distance and rapidly withdraw confounded hoplites reliant on melee weapons. Sphak-teria and Lechaion represented the salient examples of what light troops could do to unaccompanied hoplites, and similar scenes occurred with distressing results, for the hoplites at least, throughout the late fifth century. Nonetheless, missile-firers could never entirely displace hoplites from the battlefield. As Xenophon noted, ‘‘not even all the slingers in the world could stand at close quarters against a few men with hand-to-hand weapons’’ (Xenophon Kyroupaideia 7.4.15).
Hoplites could resort to short-range missile tactics themselves, notably at Solygeia in 424, where Korinthians rained down a hail of stones on an attacking Athenian phalanx (Thuc. 4.43). Yet the best solution to the threat of missile troops was to form integrated armies of hoplites, light infantry, and eventually, cavalry. The rudiments of such cooperation were in place as early as 458, when Athenian hoplites and psiloi massacred part of a retreating Korinthian army near Megara (Thuc. 1.106). The Peloponnesian War made it abundantly clear that unaccompanied hoplites ran great risks. Armies consequently fielded more light troops, and commanders learned to use them. By the early fourth century, the Spartan king Agesilaos was maneuvering his army as an articulated whole. In an attack, peltasts and other skirmishers could screen advancing hoplites, protecting them against missile fire until they were able to close in on an enemy force. Light troops could also cover changes in formation, flank marches, and withdrawals (Xenophon Anabasis 3.4.15). In urban fighting, like that between Athenian democrats and oligarchs during 404-403, slingers and archers could clear streets or pin down defenders, preparing the way for an assault with spears and swords (Xenophon Hellenika 2.4.12-19).
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