Some More Equal Than Others

Despite the various disagreements, there is still a lingering belief in much of the secondary literature that the obligation to defend the polis cannot be dissociated from the right to participate in its governance and that the “teamwork” that fighting in the phalanx required both reflected and corroborated a spirit of egalitarianism within the polis, marking the rise of a “middle class” of farmer-citizens. The underlying assumption, spoken or not, is that all members of the phalanx were equipped similarly because each might be expected to “step up” in order to take the place of those who fell in the front ranks. This assumption finds very little support, however, in the literary and material record - even in the Classical period.

Perhaps the idea derives in part from Polybius’ prescription (18.29-30) that the first five ranks of the ideal phalanx will be equipped with sarissai, or lances. But his point is not that those in the second, third, or fourth ranks will take the place of fallen comrades in front of them but that the sarissa of even the fifth rank, given its length of approximately 6.5 meters, will project beyond the front rank of the phalanx. In any case, this testimony relates to tactics after the military reforms of Philip II of Macedon, who is believed to have replaced the regular spear with the sarissa for his elite infantry corps of Pezhetairoi. When we turn to the period before Philip, however, a different picture emerges. Xenophon has a young man tell Socrates that a general should put his best troops (aristoi) in the front and rear ranks and his worst (kheiristoi) in the middle, so that they may be led by the van and pushed forward by the rear (Mem. 3.1.8). A similar idea seems to underlie the observation of the second century CE writer Arrian (Tactics 12.2) that the phalanx is like a knife, where the front rank forms a cutting-edge and the rest, though weaker, add weight to the blade. Plutarch’s comment (Pel. 19) that the stationing of the “Sacred Band” - Thebes’ elite infantry unit - in the front rank of the phalanx dissipated its strength because it was mixed with weaker troops only serves to reinforce the notion that those who fought in the front rank were generally better trained and better equipped than those behind them.

Interesting in this respect is Herodotus’ description of the battle muster at Plataea in 479. Speaking of the Lacedaemonian contingent, he notes that there were 10,000 of them: “of these, five thousand were Spartiates and they were attended [or defended] by 35,000 light-armed helots, seven drawn up on each [Spartiate]” (9.28.2). It is often assumed that these helots, who were the enslaved populations of Laconia and Messenia (see below), served as attendants but seven attendants per Spartan seems a little excessive and the fact that they are equipped as light-armed infantrymen suggests that they played some role in combat. Now it is quite clear that the figure of 35,000 is a calculation, based on a ratio of seven helots for every one Spartiate and, since the Spartans typically fought in a phalanx eight ranks deep, the obvious inference would be that the lightly armed helots provided the pushing-power for a front rank of fully-equipped and fully-enfranchised Spartan hoplites. Indeed, a treatise from about a century later maintains that the Spartans rehearsed complicated drilling maneuvers precisely so that the strongest men are always facing the enemy lines (Xenophon, CL 11.8). In short, there is no evidence that men in the middle or rear ranks would take the place of those who fell in front of them. The function of those who fought in most ranks of the phalanx was to push the more heavily armed combatants standing in the front rank and when casualties and injuries caused the front rank to break, the chances of recuperation were minimal. At that point, lighter arms and equipment would facilitate retreat while still offering some protection.

Other considerations point in a similar direction. Outside of Sparta (Xenophon, CL 11.2-3), hoplites were expected to provide their own equipment. In the Classical period, a basic shield and spear is likely to have cost between twenty-five and thirty drachmas, while a bronze breastplate probably went for between seventy-five and one hundred drachmas. Given that a standard daily working wage was between one and one and a half drachmas, these are not insignificant costs. But there is also reason to believe that equipment could be far more costly: although one has to make some allowances for comic license, Aristophanes’ portrayal (Peace 1224-5, 1250-2) of an armorer selling breastplates for 1,000 drachmas and helmets for 100 drachmas may at least suggest that troops were differentially equipped. We lack much evidence for prices in the Archaic period, but an Athenian inscription that plausibly dates to the late sixth century sets out regulations for Athenian settlers on the offshore island of Salamis (ML 14 = Fornara 44B). Among the provisions is the requirement that the settlers provide their own military equipment to a value no less than thirty drachmas - a price that could conceivably buy a spear and shield and perhaps also a helmet but is unlikely to have included greaves or a bronze breastplate. Indeed, the description, in a Delphic oracular response (Document I.3), of the “linen-corseleted Argives, goads of war” makes it clear that bronze breastplates were not universally worn. Dedicatory practices may indicate similar trends. From the seventh century it was customary to dedicate arms and weapons at sanctuaries: Alcaeus (fr. 140) describes how he saw white-plumed helmets, bronze greaves, linen corselets, “hollow” shields, and “Chalcidian” swords adorning the walls of a “great hall” that is probably to be identified as the treasure-room of a temple. At Olympia, the fact that 350 helmets, 280 shields, and 225 greaves but only thirty-three breastplates have been found could possibly lead us to the entirely reasonable conclusion that not everybody was equipped with the full hoplite panoply, though we cannot, of course, rule out the possibility that some items of military equipment were more favored as dedications than others, nor can we necessarily assume uniform rates of archaeological retrieval.

Related to this issue is the question of the size of the hoplite “class.” According to the Aristotelian Athenian Constitution (7.4), Solon instituted four property classes to regulate qualifications for certain offices. The highest, named the Pentakosiomedimnoi, included those who produced more than 500 medimnoi of dry or liquid measures each year (around 20,000 kilograms of wheat or 17,000 kilograms of barley meal). Below these were, respectively, the Hippeis, who had to produce more than 300 medimnoi per annum, and the Zeugitai, who needed to produce more than 200 medimnoi. Those whose property rated lower were named Thetes. The term Zeugitai probably derives from the Greek word zugon, meaning “yoke”: it might refer to those who could afford a pair of oxen but it is often taken as denoting those who “yoked” themselves together in the phalanx - i. e. the hoplite class. Yet the property qualification figure - if it is credible and not an extrapolation, on the part of Classical writers, from the surely genuine figure given for the Pentakosiomedimnoi - is unexpectedly high. Two hundred medimnoi would equate to about 8,000 kilograms of wheat or 6,500 kilograms of barley; a measure of this size could feed ten to fifteen people per year and would require plots of land of at least nine hectares. Given that the average landholding in the Classical period was around five hectares, it is clear that a polis that restricted hoplite service to those who possessed this level of wealth would not have had much of an army to field. A more reasonable expectation is that military service as a hoplite was open to all those who could afford the basic equipment. Those, however, who qualified as Zeugitai would certainly have been wealthy enough to afford arms and armor that were better and heavier than the bare minimum and it is fair to assume that it was these men who would be stationed in the front ranks, with the less well-equipped behind them.

Sure enough, when we turn to contemporary documentation from the Archaic period, it is the heavily-armed front rank (termed the promakhoi) that receives by far the most emphasis. It is often stated that the Chigi Vase (Figure 7.2) depicts the first and second ranks of two hoplite armies. The idea, however, that the hoplite frieze represents a single, “frozen” snapshot is contradicted by the hoplite to the far left, who is arming himself, as well as by the piper who intervenes between the two rows of soldiers who advance from the left. Furthermore, while the two opposed ranks in the center of the frieze stand, spears poised, about to engage with one another, the supposed second ranks are running with upright spears. The fact that some of the “second rank” hoplites on the right carry identical shield blazons to those of the first rank might suggest that the same troops are being depicted and that the frieze portrays successive moments leading up to the final confrontation represented in the center - a pictorial narrative mode that is not uncommon on figured Late Geometric vases of the eighth century. It is, of course, highly likely that the representation of the front rank is supposed to stand in for an army massed in multiple ranks, but that does not detract from the fact that it is the front rank that is given most emphasis. This focus on those who risked most for their polis is particularly apparent in the preserved fragments of the poetry of Tyrtaeus (Documents 7.2 and 7.3).

In many respects, Tyrtaeus’ portrayal of warfare is not so dissimilar from the picture that is offered by Classical writers. It should, however, be noted that Tyrtaeus’ poems were still recited at Sparta in the Classical period in order to instill martial values in the young (Lycurgus, Against Leocrates 106; Athenaeus 14.630f). This means that the fragments of his poetry that have been preserved