Greek Chariot-Borne and Mounted Infantry

Author(s): J. K. Anderson
Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 79, No. 3 (Jul., 1975), pp. 175-187
Published by: Archaeological Institute of America
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/503478
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 Greek Chariot-Borne and
J.K. ANDERSON
Abstract Aeneas says that the men of Cyrene and Barca
This article attempts to answer criticism of the are said to make long-range rescue expeditions
writer's paper on "Homeric, British and Cyrenaic (against raiders, as the context shows) eIrrt rvv-
Chariots," published in AJA 69 (I965) 349-52. It
presentsat greaterlength the literary evidence for
historic parallels to "Homeric"chariotry-that is,
for the use of chariots as transportsfor heavily
armed soldiers who normallyfought on foot. The
theorythat Homer'schariotsare a heroicconvention,
superimposedupon stories that really assume the
existence of cavalryor of mounted infantry,is ex-
amined and opposed, with special referenceto the
problemsraised by the fortificationof the Achaean
camp and the episodeof the horsesof Rhesus.It is
argued that the Homeric evidence (including the
rare mentions of riding in the epic) is consistent
with the actualconditionsof Greek warfareduring
the Geometricperiod, but (chiefly on the evidence
of archaicvase-painting)the view that chariot-borne
heroes were replaced during the seventh century
B.C. by mounted hoplites is supported.The article
discusses the recent literatureof the various prob-
lems raised, and also examinesolder discussionsto
which the writer was unable to do justice in his
earlier paper.
Dr. P.A.L. Greenhalgh has recently pointed outl
-with justice-that I have been guilty of presenting
to readers of AJA an incomplete and misleading
summary of the description by Aeneas Tacticus
of fighting vehicles in Greek Cyrenaica.2The point
that I tried to establish I believe to hold good;
there was no single "correct"use of the war-chariot
in antiquity, any more than there was a single
"correct" use of cavalry, and among the tactical
uses of chariotry that survived into historical times
were some which resembled those described in the
Iliad sufficiently to indicate that "Homeric" war-
fare is not wholly imaginary. But I owe an ex-
planation.
1 P.A.L. Greenhalgh, Early Greek Warfare (Cambridge
1973) I6.
2 Aeneas Tacticus I6.14.
J.K. Anderson, "Homeric, British
and Cyrenaic Chariots," AIA 69 (1965) 349-52.
3 Cf. the valuable remarks on the chariots and horses of
Cyrenaica by F. Chamoux, Cyrene sous la monarchie des Bat-
tiades (Paris I953) 234-37.
4"Cars and chariots" in the rendering of L.W. Hunter,
AINEIOT IIOAIOPKHTIKA Aeneas on siegecraft (Oxford
1927) 35-written before the First World War, when Gal-
lieni's "taxicab army" might have given a new color to the
word "car" in such a context.
5 P1. Ap. 36D.
Mounted Infantry
topiS& Kat tEvyS)v-literally "upon pairs and
yokes." It has, I think, hitherto been usually ac-
cepted that by o-vvwopi8wvAeneas means "two-horse
chariots,"3but I was wrong to quote the one word
that suited my purpose, and so omit the fact that
Aeneas speaks of two different forms of trans-
port.4
I do not think that it is possible to take "pairs
and yokes" together, as in the English phrase "car-
riage and pair." Compare Socrates' list of eques-
trian victories honoured by the Athenians: "If any
of you has won an Olympic victory with one horse,
or with a pair, or with a yoke" (cTrrc rVcrvvcopt8LtL
OEvyEt)that is, apparently, with a ridden horse, a
two-horse chariot or a four-horsechariot.5It would
be natural to suppose that Aeneas also means "two
and four-horse chariots,"6 were it not for his sub-
sequent remarks. He describes how, when they
have reached the proper place and the vehicles
("yokes") have been drawn up in order (e'se rTv
jEvy4,v IrapacaXO'VTrov) the hoplites dismount,
and, being in rank, immediately advance fresh
upon the enemy. This accurate ordering of the
vehicles recalls the precision with which Anniceris
of Cyrene controlled his chariot-team at the gallop
-a performance which drew Plato's comment that
people who paid attention to that sort of thing
would never take a serious interest in important
matters.7But, as Greenhalgh demonstrates,Aeneas
has heavier vehicles in mind, for he continues8
by recommending that where plenty of vehicles
("yokes"--Evy&v) are available it would be ad-
vantageous to transport the infantry in them and
6"Chars a deux et a quatre chevaux," Anne-Marie Bon,
tne'e le tacticien: Poliorcetique (Paris 1967) 3I (cf. supplemen-
tary note on 126). More cautiously, "in four- and in two-horse
vehicles," in the Loeb translation by the Members of the Il-
linois Greek Club, Aeneas Tacticus: Asclepiodotus: Onasander
(Cambridge, Mass. and London 1948).
7 Ael. VH 2.27.
8 Aeneas Tacticus I6.I5; Greenhalgh (supra n. i). The further
argument-that the Cyrenean vehicles travelled along waggon
roads (Kara rats &lLaEl7XdrovsrT 65obs) seems less weighty,
unless we are to suppose ancient roads zoned for light and heavy
traffic.
176 J.K. ANDERSON
so bring the men fresh to action. Moreover the
waggons (at a.aatL) could serve as a defence for
the camp and be used in time of need to transport
the wounded. Here, certainly, he has passed from
the actual case of the Cyrenaeans and Barcaeans
to a hypothetical situation, and is perhaps con-
sidering the impressing of all available vehicles,
of whatever type, to meet an emergency, in states
which did not maintain a regular transport service.
But there seems no reason to suppose that the
"waggons" are not the same as the "vehicles"used
to carry the troops, but a separate baggage-train.9
Nor can we well claim that the same word (,Ev-
y$v) means "four-horse chariots" when Aeneas
is writing of Cyrenaica, and "waggons" in the
next paragraph,when he turns to the rest of Greece.
But there is not the same objection to under-
standing the synorides, or "pairs," as chariots,
since Aeneas only mentions them in connection
with Cyrenaica. The sporting associations of the
word synoris'0 suggest a light vehicle, and might
of themselves throw doubt on Greenhalgh's belief
that the "pairs" and "yokes" of Cyrenaica were
two- and four-horse carts, even if the Cyrenaean
war-chariots were not so well attested by other
evidence. But this other evidence is convincing.
Diodorus Siculus and Polyaenus testify to the
survival of war-chariotsin Cyrenaica into the fifth
and fourth centuries B.C.,"1 and Xenophon not
merely to their survival but to their use as troop-
carriers.
Xenophon's testimony can be challenged on two
points-first, that (like Aeneas) he is writing from
hearsay, and second, that his Cyropaedia, where
he mentions the chariots, is fiction. He is certainly
not to be believed when he says that Cyrus the
Great introduced the heavy two-poled chariot
(which Xenophon had seen and which he evi-
dently found impressive despite its failure at Cu-
naxa). This type of chariot was known in south-
west Asia long before the coming of the Medes
and Persians," and it is not true that up to the
9 Like that which accompanied the Spartan army: Xen.
Lac. Pol. 1 .2.
10 Cf. (besides
supra n. 5) Xen. Hell. r.2.I; Paus. 5.8.I0.
"1 Diod. Sic. I8.19.14; 20.41.I; Polyaenus, Strat. 7.28.1.
12 J.K. Anderson, Military Theory and Practicein the
Age of
Xenophon (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1970) 179 and 317 n. 49.
13 Xen. Cyr. 6.1.27.
14 Xen. Cyr. 6.1.27; 6.2.8.
L5Cf. Xen. An. 3.4.7. He did not know even the name of
Nineveh. For his "Larissa"and "Mespila,"R.D. Barnett, "Xeno-
phon and the Wall of Media," IHS 83 (I963) 25-26.
[AJA 79
time of Cyrus "the dwellers in Media and in Syria
and in Arabia, and all the inhabitants of Asia,
used chariots just as the Cyreneans now do."13
But Xenophon had evidently heard that the Cyre-
neans still used chariots in his own time, and in
a manner different from that of the Persians. Nor
does the Cyropaedia leave doubt as to what that
manner was. Xenophon writes of "the Trojan
chariotry that formerly existed and the chariot-
driving of the Cyreneans that exists even now,"14
from which it may reasonably be inferred that
what he had been told about these chariots re-
minded him of Homer's Iliad.
To a fourth-century Athenian, the Trojans and
their allies were Asiatic, and the Trojan War was
a landmark in early Asiatic, no less than in Greek,
history. On other aspects of Asiatic history Xeno-
phon seems to have been remarkablyill-informed.l5
Hence his belief that the early chariotry of Asia
was all like that used at Troy. As a matter of fact,
the chariots that he envisages were not truly "Tro-
jan," if the Iliad is to set the standard, any more
than the ordered ranks of Cyrenean hoplites were
made up of Ajaxes and Agamemnons. Xenophon's
Cyrus criticises the waste of horse- and man-power
in using four horses and a picked charioteer to
bring one fighting-man into action.16But, in sub-
stituting a four-horse team for the usual Homeric
pair, Xenophon agrees with most Greek artists and
sculptors of the archaic and classical periods,17
and, like them, he probably imagined Trojans and
bronze-clad Achaeans as hoplites. Similarly Eu-
ripides describeshow the battle between the armies
of Theseus and Creon is opened by the four-horse
chariots, which approach the enemy to set down
their passengers (rapaLtfaras), and, while the
latter are stretching out their spears for the fight,
wheel round in order to assist them.1 This is of
course as stiffly conventional as the Gorgon paint-
er's duel (between hoplites dismounted from four-
horse chariots) of a hundred and fifty years ear-
lier, but it does serve as a reminder that, in the
16 Xen. Cyr. 6.1.28. This suggests that Xenophon and Aeneas
had heard about the Cyrenacan chariots independently.
17 E.g. the friezes of the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi and
the "heroon" at Trysa; Th. Homolle, Fouilles de Delphes IV
(Paris 1926) pls. 12, 23-24; 0. Bcnndorf, Das Heroon von
Gjolbaschi-Trysa (Vienna I889) pls. 9-io. I use the word
"hoplite" (as is customary) only of heavy infantry armed in
the Greek manner. Xenophon's own usage is less restricted
(Xen. An. 1.8.9).
18 Eur. Supp. 676-79. CompareSir John Beazley, Attic Black-
Figure Vase-Painters(Oxford x956) 8 no. i.
1975] GREEK CHARIOT-BORNEAND MOUNTED INFANTRY
eyes of fifth-century Athenians, the chariot-borne
hoplites of the Panathenaic procession and Parthe-
non Frieze, though by then as ornamental as the
Horse Guards of modern Whitehall, had, like those
Horse Guards, a genuine fighting ancestry.
Greenhalgh19is of course much better informed
than Xenophon and his contemporariesabout "the
Asiatic powers . . . we know that their chariot-
borne warriors used the bow." He also notes that
Xenophon's Cyrus criticises the "skirmishing" tac-
tics of the old-fashioned chariotry, which is to be
replaced by armoured, two-poled chariots, designed
to drive straight into the enemy ranks and burst
through by force of "horses, and iron impelled by
horses."20He therefore concludes that "the word
aKpo,8oXo-rat" (skirmishers) "suggests that the
Cyrenaic chariots relied on long-range mobile fire-
power, probably supplied by the bow as in Cyprus,
whose cities were the only other Greek chariot-
powers, and in Egypt, from where Cyrene probably
learned the use of the war-quadriga."
But there would have been no reason for Xeno-
phon to call such chariotry "Trojan,"21and in any
case he is quite explicit about the role of "Trojan
and Libyan chariotry" in action. Its part in the
Battle of Thymbrara between the armies of Cyrus
and Croesus was brief and inglorious, but per-
fectly clear. Abradatas, King of Susa, charged the
enemy centre with his division of Cyrus's new
model chariotry, "and the (enemy) chariots fled
them at once, some picking up their passengers
(rapaSa3raa) and some actually abandoning
them."22 It is evident that Xenophon supposed
the Cyrenean chariots to have been used in the
same manner as the "vehicles"described by Aeneas
-to transport to the battlefield infantrymen, and
then to hang about ("skirmishing" instead of
charging home) to pick up their "passengers"as
the occasion required.
That Xenophon should find resemblances be-
tween such chariots and those of the Trojan War,
as he knew it from the Iliad, is not surprising. But
it would be rash to claim (since Cyrene was not
founded until about 630 B.C. and Thera, its
19 Greenhalgh (supra n. i) I6-17.
20Xen. Cyr. 6.I.28; 6.4.18.
21
Greenhalgh himself (supra n. I) remarks that the bow
"was never used in either the Homeric chariots or those of the
Geometric vase-scenes."
22 Xen. Cyr. 7.I.29. Anterson (supra n. I2)
I87.
23Though one hopes that there are still "buds of Brutus'
land" prepared to stand up for the Trojan origin of London
177
mother-city, can hardly have been a major centre
of chariotry) an unbroken line of continuity going
back to the Homeric period. Still less would one
wish to claim a continuous line of descent from
the Trojan chariotry to the British war-chariots
encountered by Caesar.23Apart from difficulties
of time and place, there are the differences noted
in my previous article.24Still, Caesar did meet in
Britain warriors who threw javelins from chariots,
and jumped down from chariots to fight on foot.
Such chariotryhad once been used by the continen-
tal Celts, who had given it up for cavalry. But it
was even in the first century B.C. still a major
part of the British armies, as Caesar explicitly says
in the very passage cited by Greenhalgh to prove
the contrary-praemisso equitatu et essedariis, quo
plerumque genere in proeliis uti consuerunt.25
Moreover these chariot-soldiers did penetrate the
enemy's ranks before leaping down: cum se inter
equitum turmas insinuaverunt, ex essedis desiliunt
et pedibus proeliantur.26I have no doubt that these
equitum turmas representthe enemy (compare the
defeat of the Roman cavalry by Celtic chariots at
Sentinum in 295 B.C., though Livy gives no de-
tails).2 If the chariot-soldiers are among their
friends, whom are they supposed to be fighting?
But Greenhalgh supposes Caesar to mean "work-
ing their way into the troops of cavalry (their own
presumably)."28The sole reason for this presump-
tion seems to be his wish to establish that, as he
has just claimed for the Celtic chariotry described
by Diodorus,29 "their chariots have only brought
them to the front-line: they are not used for trans-
port in the melee itself, as Homer would have it.
And for a picture of what would happen to them
if they were allowed to get embroiled in the in-
fantry melee we have the testimony of Tacitus
Agricola 36.3." Certainly the British chariots did
fail against the Romans; so, at Magnesia, did the
charge of heavy chariots, but this does not prove
that both were imaginary.
Once again, to start by assuming that "it is in
the massed attack at speed that the chariot is most
effective as a weapon of war," and that the Iliad is
"Gladdith anon, thou lusty Troynovaunt,
Citie that some tyme cleped was New Troy."
24 Anderson (supra n. 2) 349-50.
25Caes. B Gall. 4.24.1. Greenhalgh (supra n. I) 14.
26 Caes. B Gall. 4.33.1.
27 Livy 10.28-30.
28Greenhalgh (supra n. i) I5.
29 Diod. 5.29.1-3.
178 J.K. ANDERSON
not "realistic"because "apart from a very few ex-
ceptions the Homeric poems reveal no conception
of the proper tactical role of massed chariotry"3?
is to neglect the many "tactical roles"-"proper"
and "improper"-that chariots of different types
were in fact called upon to play.
To revert to the question of possible continuity
between the late Geometric period (to which, I be-
lieve, Greenhalgh and I would both assign the
composition of the Iliad in something like its pres-
ent form) and fourth-century Cyrenaica, it should
not be necessary to say that "continuity" does not
exclude "development."The Theban Sacred Band,
of three hundred members, was divided into pairs
of sworn lovers, each pair including a "charioteer"
and a "passenger"(parabates).3'It is possible32that
this force, though first attested at the Battle of
Delium in 424 B.C.33and then and thereafter con-
sisting wholly of infantry, may derive from a time
when "charioteer" and parabates actually stood
side by side in the same chariot. If so, the parabates
may have changed from a "Homeric" warrior to
a hoplite before the chariot was actually discarded.
This would involve not merely a change in the
warrior's equipment, from something like that de-
picted on Attic Late Geometric vases34to that of
the "black-figure"hoplite, but a change in his tac-
tics, and even his moral values, as individual prow-
ess gave way to disciplined co-ordination. And of
course the chariot's role would change also; it
could no longer cooperate closely with its own
"passenger"without breaking up the formation of
which he was now a member, and must remain
behind the fighting-line. But this is speculative; if
30 Greenhalgh (supra n. I) 7. Cf. Anderson (supra n. 2)
349 n. i. Mrs. M.A. Littauer (whose helpful criticisms have
thrown light on many questions that were obscure to me)
draws my attention to Y. Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Bib-
lical Lands (London I963) 109, 250, for the possible use of
chariots as transports of mobile infantry in the Hittite and
Philistine armies. See also Mrs. Littauer'sown important article,
"The Military Use of the Chariot in the Aegean in the Late
Bronze Age," AJA 76 (1972) I45-58, especially 147-48, for
the probable use of javelins by the Hittite chariotry.
31Diod. 12.70.I.
32
J.A.O. Larsen, Greek Federal States: Their Institutions and
History (Oxford I968) io6; Anderson (supra n. 12) 158-60 and
311 n. 35.
33 )iod. (supra n. 31).
31 Gudrun Ahlberg, Fighting on Land and Sea in Greet Geo-
metric Art (Stockholm I971) has made a valuable collection of
material, but misjudges the nature and extent of oriental in-
fluence, especially with regard to chariot-scenes. As A. Snod-
grass, Early Greek Armour and Weapons (Edinburgh I964)
83-84, 89-90 has shown, the "Geometric"warrior's equipment
[AJA 79
the war-chariot survived in central Greece to the
end of the seventh century or later, changing its
role to meet the new conditions of warfare, the
chariots of Cyrene could have derived from this
tradition. But there is no evidence, and Mrs. M.A.
Littauer's examination of Attic black-figure chari-
ot-fighters suggests that chariot-warfare had be-
come unreal to the Athenian vase-painters long
before the end of the sixth century B.C.35
None the less, it is of interest that the words
used by Xenophon for the crews of his "Trojan
and Cyrenaic"chariots are those used for the part-
ners of the Sacred Band, and are both Homeric.
'HvloXoq, charioteer, is common, though, as E.
Delebecque demonstrates in his valuable "Lexique
du cheval chez Homere," it is used not only to
indicate the subordinate who controls the chariot
while his master fights, but also not infrequently to
indicate the master himself""-expectedly when he
is playing the part of charioteerto a second hero37
or driving himself alone in a race,3;but twice when
he is being driven to battle by someone else.3' Para-
bates is however only found once (in the form
7rapac/3tarTq,made necessaryby the metre).4?This
is in the description of the funeral of Patroclus.
After the pyre has been heaped up, Achilles bids
the Myrmidons arm themselves and harness their
horses to the chariots. "And they mounted their
chariots, paraibatai and charioteers (irapat/3araL
rvtioXot rE), horsemen (tr7r7r1E) going in front,
and after them followed a cloud of footmen, ten
thousand." Delebecque notes that this is the only
technical word used in the Iliad to indicate the
number of occupants of a chariot. But, as he shows,
could well have included some items, such as the plate cuirass,
or greaves, that later formed part of the hoplite's panoply. The
adoption of the large round "porpax"shield is the most signifi-
cant change, and, despite Snodgrass's arguments to the con-
trary, I hold (as does Grcenhalgh supra n. I 71) that this
shield is closely connected with the tactics of the phalanx.
Miss H.L. Lorimer, "The Hoplite Phalanx," BSA 42 (1947)
76-138, remains of great value, though Snodgrassdemonstrates
that many of her conclusions were far t(o) sweeping.
35M.A. Littauer, "A Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasty
Heroic Motif on Attic Black-figural Vases,"A/A 72 (1968)
15(-52.
36E. Ielebecque, Le Cheval dans l'lliade (Paris 1951) I62.
37 Aeneas as charioteer to Pandaros: Iliad 5.231.
38 Iliad 23.318, 460, 465.
39 lliad 8.89-Hector, driven (as 119 shows) by Eniopeus;
19.402-Achilles. I do not think that Iliad ii.16I and 18.225
(cited by I)clebecque) necessarily refer to masters rather than
to subordinates.
4 Iliad 23.132. Delebecque (supra n. 36) i66.
1975 GREEK CHARIOT-BORNEAND MOUNTED INFANTRY
the presence of both the charioteer and combatant
passenger is usually made perfectly clear by the
context, and the necessity for the parabates (under
whatever name) appears when, after the death of
Patroclus, Automedon, driving alone in his chariot,
swoops and swoops again upon the Trojans, but,
until Alcimedon joins him, can take no effective
part in the fighting, because it is by no means pos-
sible for him, "being alone in the chariot, both to
attack with the spear and to restrain the swift
horses."" Similarly Hector, when Diomedes kills
his charioteer, has to drive off and find a replace-
ment before he can resume the combat.42
I cannot therefore accept Greenhalgh's argu-
ment: "It cannot be too strongly emphasized that
this is the only occurrence of a word of technical
appearance informative of the number of pas-
sengers. Here then is a very strong indication that
whilst one-man racing-chariotswere familiar to the
Dark Age bards, who, like Hesiod, competed in
poetry contests at the funeral games of great noble-
men in whose honour they were both raced and no
doubt driven in procession as on the L G vase-
paintings (with their noble occupants sometimes
armed, often not, often alone but sometimes driven
by another man) the war-chariot with its two oc-
cupants has no place in the history of Geometric
Age warfare outside Cyprus, but it is to be at-
tributed to deliberate heroizing and archaizing on
the part of the epic singers."43
The rarity of this "word of technical appear-
ance" is better explained by the metrical impos-
sibility of fitting it, in its normal form, into a
dactylic hexameter, and the difficulty of fitting it
even in its poetic form. Moreover, whereas (as
Delebecque has pointed out)44 the charioteers are
often anonymous or considered collectively, each
warrior is a personage. Hector is not simply "the
parabates of Eniopeus."
But Greenhalgh has of course other reasons for
refusing to believe in Homeric war-chariots. Hav-
ing, as he supposes, discredited Caesar'sBritons, he
concludes that to throw javelins from chariots45is,
as Major Dalgetty might have put it, a thing most
disavowable and contrary to the articles of war.
41 Iliad
17.464-65.
42 Iliad 8.112-29.
43 Greenhalgh (supra n. I) 38-39, 6i.
44
I)elebecquc (supra n. 36) 162.
45 Greenhalgh (supra n. I) 9 allows "a capacious javelin-
container" to the Mesopotamian "war-waggon" that preceded
the invention of the chariot. But he is right to distinguish be-
179
But javelin-throwing from horseback is of course
perfectly respectable, and attested by the best au-
thorities. Accordingly, Homeric warfare, in which
heroes do sometimes throw javelins from chariots,
can be made respectable by supposing that "the
Dark Age bards were familiar with mounted
knights accompanied by mounted squires but put
them into war-chariots to heroize and archaize
their picture."46
It has already been suggested by Delebecque47
that many of the contradictionsand inconsistencies
in the Iliad can be resolved by taking the horses out
of their chariots and mounting the heroes upon
their backs. I do not think that this solution does
in fact remove all the difficulties to which Dele-
becque applies it. In fact it creates fresh problems
in passages that are intelligible as they stand-
notably those in which a hero is temporarily put
out of action by the death of his chariot-com-
panion.48If Hector is not being driven by Enio-
peus, but riding by his side, why should his com-
panion's death hinder him from making directly
for Diomedes in search of revenge? If Automedon
is not driving alone in the chariot, but mounted
on Xanthos, with the riderless Balios running
loose by his side, what hinders him from using
his spear? But Delebecque has certainly shown
that at several places in the Iliad the chariots seem
very much in the way. I cannot remove the diffi-
culties that he raises, and so limited my previous
paper to the historic parallels for Homeric chari-
otry.
The chief obstacle, in every sense, is the fortifi-
cation that the Greeks throw round their camp in
the last year of the siege, by advice of Nestor, after
the withdrawal of Achilles has led to their defeat
in the open field. Delebecque notes49 that while
the wall itself is to have in it well-fitting gates, so
that through them there may be a way for driving
horses,5"no provision is made for causeways or
bridges over the deep ditch that is to be dug close
outside it. This is perhaps not too serious: the poet
and his audience took the causeways for granted.
But Delebecque also complains51of inconsistency
tween these two types of vehicles.
46Greenhalgh (supra n. I) 6i.
47 Delebecque (supra n. 36) 7I-109.
48 Supra n. 41, 42.
49 Delebecque (supra n. 36) 103.
50 Iliad 7.339-40.
51 Delebecque (supra n. 36) 103-I05.
180 J.K. ANDERSON
in the treatment of the ditch during the fighting
of Books 8 and 11-13,when the battle
"Like a mighty sea,
Forc'd by the tide to combat with the wind,"
sways back and forth, and the ditch is sometimes
passed and repassed without effort, as when the
Greeks are first driven behind it and sally out
again,52 and sometimes appears a formidable ob-
stacle. Hector boasts that the ramparts will not re-
strain the might of the Trojans, and that their
horses will easily overleap the ditch.53 But, when
the Greeks have been driven within their de-
fences, he does not make good his boast, but
wheels his horses up and down outside.
"With eyes like Gorgon or manslaying Mars."54
But, though the poet does not expressly say that
the ditch delays the Greek flight or describe disas-
ters like those that befall the Trojans when later
they try to pass it in escaping from the camp,55
there is perhaps more hint of delay than Dele-
becque allows. Hector wounds Teucer; Zeus in-
spires the Trojans, and they drive the Achaeans
straight towards the deep ditch. Hector leads the
pursuit, like a hound tearing at the flanks of a
wild boar or a lion, ever slaying the hindmost, and
only desists when the Greeks are within the pali-
sade and ditch. May we not imagine the crowding
of the fugitives around the entrance ways, en-
abling the pursuit to fall upon their rear? Is it alto-
gether just to say that "le fosse semble ainsi sup-
prime ou retabli selon les besoins du moment"?56
To some extent, certainly, it seems that the poet's
prejudices make him dwell on the Trojans' diffi-
culties rather than those of the Greeks, just as he
enters more minutely into the details of Trojan
casualties. But the fortifications were in fact more
formidable to the Trojans because they had re-
sistance to reckon with.
Nevertheless there is a real difficulty, but surely
the cause of it is not the chariots but the ditch it-
self? Its formidable nature is stressedin the twelfth
52 Iliad 8.212-I5. But when Priam and his mule-waggon are
helped by Hermes to enter the Greek camp (Iliad 24.440-47)
but leave unassisted, the reason is not, as Delebecque (supra n.
36) 107, suggests, that the poet forgets the defences on the
way out, but that Priam leaves under safe-conduct and there
is no need for the god to cast the guards into a sleep.
53 lliad 8.178-79.
54 lliad 8.335-49.
55Iliad i6.364-76.
56 Delebecque (supra n. 36) 103-104.
[AJA 79
book, where Hector-still in his chariot-urges the
Trojans to cross. "Nor did his swift-hooved horses
dare, but they whinnied loudly, standing on the
very brink. For the ditch frightened them, wide as
it was, and not easy either to overleap or to pass
through. For its banks stood sheer about the whole
of it, on both sides, and beyond it was furnished
with sharp stakes, which the sons of the Achaeans
had planted, thick-set and great, a defence against
foes. Not easily could a horse pulling a fair-
wheeled chariot enter into it, and footmen would
hesitate to accomplish the passage."57In fact, the
Trojans do dismount, by advice of Polydamas
(with the exception of Asius who wheels off to the
left in search of a gate, and presumably finds one,
and a causeway leading to it, as he later appearson
foot but with his horses close behind him). The
other Trojans carry the Achaean defences on foot.
That "horses"are later mentioned during the fight-
ing by the ships, and that Hector even leaps down
from the chariot that he is supposed to have left
behind in order to call the best of the Trojans about
him, are inconsistencies, which, like others of the
same nature, are perhaps best ascribed to the poet's
"lapse of memory."58But in any case it does not
help to imagine the Trojans riding instead of
driving. If Hector has (supposedly) dismounted
and left his charger on the far side of the ditch, he
should not appear on horseback without further
explanation.
But here it will be argued that if he were on
horseback there would be no need for him to dis-
mount. "Not easily could a horse pulling a fair-
wheeled chariot enter into" the ditch, and in the end
the Trojan chariotry only passes after Apollo has
flattened a stretch of the defences. But if Hector
had been on horseback could he not have jumped
it?59 A wide ditch with steep banks on both sides,
and a palisade of large, thick-set, sharp stakes on
the far side? "If it is, it's a bit of as nasty ridin'
ground as ever mortal man got into-yawnin'
ditches with himpracticable fences."60Delebecque
writes as a horseman as well as a scholar, and
57 Iliad I2.50-59.
58Iliad 13.684, 749. Similarly G.S. Kirk, The
Songs of Homer
(Cambridge 1962) 213 notes in different places (Iliad 4.366 and
419; 16.411 and 427) "uncertainly whether a hero is in his
chariot or out of it." On p. 257 he merely notes the unim-
portance of insisting on consistency over small details-but
one cannot simply dismiss these instances as negligible.
59Greenhalgh (supra n. I) 54.
6?R.S. Surtees, Handley Cross (London I854) 282.
19751 GREEK CHARIOT-BORNEAND MOUNTED INFANTRY
warns us that such a jump-manifestly impossible
for a chariot-would not be possible for ridden
horses either unless they were great jumpers.61
Indeed would it be possible at all? How wide is a
wide ditch? How large is a large stake? Whatever
the precise dimensions, one can imagine even the
most irresponsible of Technical Delegates insist-
ing on drastic modifications were such an obstacle
introduced at Burleigh or Fontainebleau. And
where, in any case, are the great jumpers of an-
tiquity? Even in the later epic, when the heroes
do ride, they do not jump; we do not find Vir-
gil's Aeneas clearing five-barredgates, and for very
good reasons. The ancients were without stirrups,
and indeed commonly without saddles; their horses
were inferior to those of the present (may one
deplore, in passing the misuse of the word "thor-
oughbred" by modern antiquaries?); jumping, in
the modern sense, simply was not imagined in an-
tiquity. No ancient equestrian sport included jump-
ing for jumping's sake. Xenophon certainly holds
that a good horseman should not avoid obstacles
when riding across country,62but the instructions
that he gives for training horse and rider, em-
phasizing collection, and giving the advice (often
unfairly criticised) to hang on by the mane,63
certainly do not suggest that he would have
dreamed of putting his horse at the Achaean ditch.
I do not recollect, anywhere in ancient literature,
a feat like that of the "English squire, a native of
the Bishopric of Lincoln, an excellent man," who,
when the Earl of Buckingham's army was halted
outside Troyes, "spurredhis horse, and riding full
gallop down the causeway, made him leap over
the barriers,by which means he came to the gate
where the Duke (of Burgundy) was surrounded
by his nobles, who were all struck with amazement
at this daring act."64Nor can I recall any famous
61 Delebecque (supra n. 36) 77. Patroclus and his horses do
jump the ditch (outwards): Iliad I6.380. Delebecque (supra
n. 36) 77-78 and o06-107 notes the difficulty.
62 Xen. Oec. II.17.
3 Xen. Eq. 8.I-8.
64 Sir John Froissart, The Chronicles of England, France
and Spain: H.P. Dunster's condensation of the Thomas Johnes
translation (New York I96I) i8i.
65 Elizabeth
Longford, Wellington: the Years of the Sword
(London I969) 428.
66Polyb. II.I8; Plut. Phil. Io. But Mrs. M.A. Littauer draws
my attention to the feat of Arsib, the horse of Menua of Urartu,
which "jumped twenty-two cubits under Menua" (Guitty
Az2rpay, Urartian Art and Artifacts [Berkeley and Los An-
geles I968] Io, with further references).
67 Iliad
Io.526-65. Delebecque (supra n. 36) justly writes
181
Greek or Roman matching the Duke of Welling-
ton's feat at Quatre Bras, "skimming a bank and
ditch lined with Picton's Gordon Highlanders.
'Ninety-second, lie down!' he shouted as he sailed
over the retracted chevaux de frise of bayonets."65
Very different was the fate of Machanidas, who,
when his retreat was cut off by a broad and deep
ditch, with his enemy Philopoemen on the far
side, rode up and down, and at last spurred his
horse to take the ditch-not clearing it at a leap,
but as the sequel shows, jumping down into it, and
scrambling out again, in which act Philopoemen
caught him.66 We need not then be surprised that,
upon the one occasion when the Iliad does bring
two heroes up to the Achaean ditch on horseback,
they do not put their horses to the jump, but first
dismount (Kat p' ol Epv KarE/f7(cav Eri XO6va),
then, after a brief conversation, one of them drives
the horses over ("f ElITTC)radbpoo 8c7Xac-'E/tc(-
vvxa,s tr7rov)).67 This presents no difficulty, as
there is no Trojan pursuit at their heels, but the
check at the ditch might have been disastrous to
horsemen close-pressed by the enemy. Compare
the fate of the Persian horsemen, taken alive in the
ravine that intercepted their flight from Xenophon
and his men.68
To sum up, the ditch and wall create difficulties,
of some of which the poet, who arranges for these
unblest fortifications to be subsequently expunged
by the gods,69 seems aware. But these difficulties
are not removed by supposing that when the poet
spoke of chariots he and his audience understood
mounted men.
A similar argument seeks to prove that the
Homeric i7TrrTE, were not, as the poet describes
them, charioteer and paraibates in their chariots,
but "horsemen riding upon horses." Homeric
chariotry, it is suggested,70could never have en-
of "les chevaux de Rhesos, tenus en main par Ulysse." Green-
halgh (supra n. I) 54, has read the passage carelessly: "Now
the horses of Rhesus find no difficulty in jumping it; but they
are being ridden by Odysseus and Diomedes, not pulling a
chariot."
68Xen. An. 3.4.35.
69 liad
I2.I-37. Compare H.L. Lorimer, Homer and the
Monuments (London 1950) 477-79. D.L. Page, History and
the Homeric Iliad (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1959) 315-24
raises points that do not bear directly on those raised here,
but might help to solve the problem of how fortificationslike
those the poet describes could be completed by tired and des-
perate men in a single night.
70 As T.G.E. Powell, "Some Implicationsof Chariotry,"Cul-
ture and Environment: Essays in Honour of Sir Cyril Fox
(London 1963) i66, rightly points out, the danger would be
182 J.K. ANDERSON [AJA 79

gaged in battle, because the horses would have horses (but the whip has been left behind: so with
become uncontrollable if they were frightened or the bow of Ulysses)78-that really belong to chari-
wounded. But the same argument proves the im- oteering. He gives no description of bridling or
possibility of chariotry or cavalry in any form. saddling, though perhaps Delebecque overempha-
The horse of Masistius, wounded in the flank by sises the care with which the details of harnessing
an arrow, reared and threw him;71 the horses of chariot-horsesare given elsewhere.79
the French knights at Poitiers "smarting under the But are we to conclude that the poet is embar-
pain of the wounds made by the bearded arrows rassed by the incident, because epic convention re-
would not advance, but turned about, and by their quires him to suppress the mention of mounted
unruliness threw their riders and caused the great- horses and in this one case he has to break his
est confusion";72 rule?80 If such a convention really existed, the
poet could have followed it, and made the heroes
"Down, down in headlong overthrow out the chariot, dragging it by the pole or
Horseman and horse, the foremost go .. ."73 bring
lifting it high in the air, harness the horses, and
Do these passages prove that the Persian cavalry drive off. If he had done so, how many critics
were fictitious and that no mediaeval knight ever would have pointed out the danger of such a pro-
rode into battle except in the imagination of shave- ceeding, at night and in a hostile camp? Not as
ling chroniclers or nineteenth-century romantics? many, perhaps, as have been puzzled by the men-
Why then should we suppose that Nestor's plight, tion of riding. But the poet is perfectly aware of
when the other Greeks flee and he alone remains, these dangers, and therefore emphasizes (as he
last of the Achaeans, not willingly, but because need not have done) that the chariot, and the shin-
Paris has wounded one of his horses,74proves the ing whip are left behind. If he has no special for-
impossibility of Homeric chariotry? (Not that the mulae for mounting and riding, surely it is not
episode is without its difficulties.) because he is trying to suppress these "unheroic"
The affair of the horses of Rhesus has already acts, but because, as I once put it, "men rarely
been touched upon, and requires further discussion. performed on horsebackdeeds worth commemorat-
Ulysses and Diomedes penetrate by night into the ing by artists or poets."81The poet therefore had
Trojan camp, kill the newly-arrivedKing of Thrace no ready-made set of formulae to describe riding
and his attendants, lead out his horses, and after when the need arose.
debating whether to bring out the chariot also, Ulysses and Diomedes reach the spot where the
decide that the risk is too great, mount, and ride weary Thracians are sleeping,82 each man with
back to the Greek entrenchments. As is well his pair of horses by him. Rhesus himself is lying
known, this is the one episode, in either the Iliad in the midst of them. By him his swift horses are
or the Odyssey, in which ridden horses are found tied with thongs to the chariot-rail (?).83 They
in the narrative, though riding is mentioned else- must, as Delebecque says,84be unbridled, and we
where in similes.75 Delebecque76 points out that should suppose them to be wearing halters, so that
the poet does not seem altogether confident in his they can be securely tied by the head, but unim-
handling of the affair. More than once he employs peded by bits as they champ the white barley and
formulae-for mounting,77 or for whipping the spelt while waiting for the fair-throned Dawn.85
greater in the case of "massed chariots charging an enemy and Priam's waggon (Iliad 24.265-80) are exceptional.
formation." But this does not prove that ancient soldiers were 80
Delebecque (supra n. 36) 86; Greenhalgh (supra n. I)
never willing to incur the danger. 56-58.
71 Hdt. 9.22. 81 J.K. Anderson, Ancient Greek
Horsemanship (Berkeley
72Froissart (supra n. 64) 58. and Los Angeles I96I) II.
73 Sir Walter Scott, Bannockburn. 82 liad
I0.470.
74 Iliad 8.78-86. 83 The
precise meaning of e7riLtptas (Iliad IO.475) is, as
75 Iliad I5.679-not properly "riding"; but a sort of circus Delebecque (supra n. 36) 177, observes, hard to determine.
act; Odyssey 5.371. 84 Delebecque (supra n. 36) 77. J. Wiesner, "Fahren und
76 Delebecquc (supra n. 36) 78-80. Reiten," Archaeologia Homerica Band I Kapitel F (G6ttingen
77 Iliad o0.513, 529. 1968) 112 supposes the horses actually to be harnessed, so that
78 Iliad I0.530; cf. 500-501, 513-14. Ulysses has to undo the collar and breast-band,but this would
79 Lorimer (supra n. 69) 327 remarks that several essential imply very poor horsemastershipon the part of the Thracians.
items of harness are rarely or never mentioned. The detailed 85 CompareIliad 8.564-65.
descriptionsof the harnessing of Hera's chariot (Iliad 5.720-32)
 1975] GREEK CHARIOT-BORNEAND MOUNTED INFANTRY
The massacre of the sleepers follows, and as Dio-
medes kills each man Ulysses pulls the corpse out
of the way, so that the horses will not take fright
as they are led out.86 Then, while Diomedes kills
his thirteenth victim, the king himself, Ulysses
looses the whole-hooved horses, fastens them to-
gether with thongs, and drives them out with his
bow since he has not thought to take the whip
from the chariot.87So far so good; naturally in
loosing the horses Ulysses would not remove their
headstalls, but would untie the thongs from the
chariot-rail. The purpose of tying the horses to-
gether (by the thongs attached to their headstalls)
would be to prevent them from running off sepa-
rately in the dark. Ulysses' action suggests that
horses were used to going quietly together in dou-
ble harness. It might have seemed better to lead
them out, rather than driving them, but he does
drive them, without mishap, and on the whole we
may agree with Delebecque that so far all is nor-
mal and probable. But now Diomedes, while medi-
tating fresh exploits, is warned by Athena to think
of his return, and swiftly jumps upon the horses;
Ulysses strikes them with his bow; and away they
go to the swift ships of the Achaeans.88
Here are three difficulties:Diomedes jumps upon
"the horses"rather than "his horse,"because, as has
been noted already, the poet uses a formula proper
to mounting a chariot. Nothing has been said
about separating the horses, and Ulysses seems still
to be managing them both, now and later at the
passage of the ditch. I suppose the thing is just
possible; after all, the horses were, as has been
noted, presumably used to working together, and
we might also rememberthe ninth-centuryAssyrian
cavalry represented on the bronze gates of Bala-
wat, each warrior accompanied by a mounted
friend who seems to control both horses.89But it is
certainly more natural to suppose that Ulysses has
untied the halter-ropes while waiting for Diome-
des, and that the horses are now separate. The
poet omits the untying-a small action easily
taken for granted.
86 Iliad
10.489-93.
87 Iliad 10.498-500.
88 Iliad
10.512-14.
89 E.g. L.W.
King, Bronze Reliefs from the Gates of Shal-
maneser, King of Assyria (London I915) pl. 72.
90 Points well brought out by
Delebecque (supra n. 84).
91 For the simile (Iliad I5.679-84) cf. Wiesner (supra n.
85) IIo, 114. For Troilus, Anderson (supra n. 8i) Io-II. But
I do not recollect any picture of Troilus riding his horses
(always two in archaic Greece, presumably because they were
183
The third difficulty has been treated as most
important. Nothing whatever has been said about
bits and bridles, and the heroes are now riding
strange horses, in the dark,90 in enemy-occupied
territory. Have they really no better means of con-
trol than halter and lead-rope?
But after all there is nothing extraordinary or
remarkable in riding a horse bareback in a halter
-if by "riding" one means no more than "using
the horse as a conveyance." And might it not be
suggested that the errands on which one does
normally ride in this way-such as bringing horses
up from pasture, like the skilled rider with whom
Ajax is compared, or, like Troilus, taking them to
water9'-are just those for which no charioteer
would harness his horses, and on which no horse-
man would willingly walk?
But even if it is allowed that auditors who nor-
mally drove chariots when engaged in serious
business might have been quite accustomed to
riding bareback on horses wearing halters, would
they have allowed that Ulysses and Diomedes could
have done so in the circumstances?I do not know;
but I do not believe myself that they would have
found it impossible. Ammianus Marcellinus es-
caped from Amida by night, amid scenes well
calculated to alarm any animal, riding bareback
on a horse that was wearing only a halter-a horse,
too, that had been thoroughly frightened, and had
just thrown his previous rider and dragged him
to death.92The escape of the Earl of Flanders from
Bruges, upon "an old mare belonging to a poor
man . . . without saddle or bridle,"93 is not a
proper parallel, as the poor creature was obviously
not of the same class as the horses of Rhesus.
Whatever the difficulties presented by the poet's
account of ridden horses, it is somewhat perverse
to argue that these obscurities prove that he did
not understand chariots properly. And it should
not be supposed that men who could ride in the
manner just suggested would necessarily be able
to form a corps of cavalry, or that halters would
be adequate to control their horses if they did. The
a chariot-teamin the epics) in halters. Horses ridden in halters
are shown on some Protocorinthianvases (e.g. Wiesner [supra
n. 85] 123 fig. 246). In war or the hunting-field one would
normally look for some more effective means of control, but a
Caeretan hydria of ca. 530 B.C. (CVA France XIV P1. 609.3)
shows (unrealistically?) a haltered horse ridden in a stag-
hunt.
92 Ammianus 19.8.7.
93 Froissart (supra n.
64) 242.
184 J.K. ANDERSON
sweeping assertion that men never rode at all in
the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, because the
horses were not up to the weight of a rider, has
long been disproved by abundant pictorial evi-
dence.94 But it is not always realized how badly
almost all the horsemen pictured in the art of
south-west Asia and Egypt before the eighth cen-
tury B.C., and in Greek art before the seventh, ride.
Something must be allowed for the inadequacy
of many of the artists; when we cannot determine
whether the artist intended to show the rider seated
sidesaddle or astride95we can hardly say whether
the original rode well or not. But the cramped,
uncomfortable seats, back on their horses' loins, of
those riders who are well enough portrayed for us
to judge indicate the primitive state of equitation,96
and have in fact suggested to a recent authority
"the adaptation to horse-riding of the seat which
is most comfortable on a donkey."97
It is recognized that the use of chariotry, as con-
trasted with cavalry, involves a waste of man and
horse-power,98and that mounted men have the
advantage over vehicles both in crossing country
and in manoeuvring. Yet in Egypt, south-west
Asia, and Greece, men everywhere used war-chari-
ots long before effective cavalry came into exist-
ence. Why? The question is sometimes ignored,
but it is fundamental,99 and the evidence that
proves that riding was not unknown to nations
(like the Egyptians and Hittites)100 who con-
tinued to rely on chariotry merely emphasizes the
point that the mere ability to ride, in the sense of
being carried from place to place on horseback, is
not enough. As J. Wiesner has pointed out, if the
Greeks had been able to use the ridden horse ef-
fectively in war when first they entered Greece,
94 For the Greek world, M.S.F. Hood. "A Mycenean Cavalry-
man," BSA 48 (1953) 84-93 is fundamental; see also the
material collected by Wiesner (supra n. 85) 114-29.
95 E.g. Wiesner (supra n. 85) 115, figs. 2oa, 2ob.
96Anderson (supra n. 8I) o1-I2.
97 Charles
Chenevix-Trench, A History of Horsemanship
(London 1970) i6.
98Xen. Cyr. 6.1.28.
99 Sir William Ridgeway, The Origin and
Development of the
Thoroughbred Horse (Cambridge 1905) arrived at the wrong
answers; but his investigations are still of basic importance.
100Hood (supra n. 94) 87-89.
101Wiesner (supra n. 85) 129; Anderson
(supra n. 81) 7.
102 N.
Yalouris, "Athena als Herrin der Pferde" MH 7
(1950) I9-IOI.
103
Greenhalgh (supra n. i) 40-62.
104
Greenhalgh (supra n. I) 58, fig. 36 and 85, fig. 45. I am
not certain about his fig. 37, which would, as he says, take "the
same motif" "nearly a century earlier,"as the mounted "squire"
[AJA 79
they would never have developed war-chariots;10
and, to determine the lower limit of the war-chari-
ot's use in Greece we must be able to point not
merely to riding but to effective equitation. This is
what the Geometric vase-paintings do not show,
and whether the Greeks obtained better horses
from the East or (as N. Yalouris suggested)102
more effective bits, it is not before the Orientaliz-
ing period that we find pictures of horsemen who
really look at home on their horses. Nor, though
mounted warriors appear on Geometric vases, are
they ever shown accompanied by "squires"riding
on second horses. In short, Geometric art confirms
that the Greeks of the eighth century B.C. did prac-
tice riding, to the rather limited extent already in-
ferred from the Iliad, but provides no evidence
whatever for Greenhalgh's hypothesis'03 that the
chariots of the Iliad are an archaizing convention
in an age familiar with mounted "knights" ac-
companied by mounted "squires."
Such pairs of "knight" and "squire" do appear
on Corinthian vases before the end of the seventh
century B.C.,04 and in the sixth are relatively com-
mon, on Attic and Chalcidian as well as Corinthian
black-figured vases.105As W. Helbig demonstrated
early in the present century,'06the function of the
hoplite "knight" is to dismount and fight on foot,
while his "squire" holds both horses close behind,
in readiness for flight or pursuit as the occasion
may require. Helbig went too far in denying the
existence of true cavalry, as contrasted to mounted
infantry, in Archaic Greece,'07and the whole con-
cept of "knights and squires" has recently been
opposed by the great authority of A. Alfoldi.108
But it would be easier to dismiss the vase-paintings
as an unreliable mixture of epic tradition and con-
is not actually shown leading a second horse. But the second
horse may well be understood, as he sometimes is in contem-
porary Attic chariot-scenes.I agree with Greenhalgh that this
is not a hunting-scene; the men are not connected with the
animals on the other side of the vase.
105Greenhalgh (supra n. i) 84-145 and 190-95 has made a
most useful collection of material, and his lists of vase-paintings
are invaluable.
106 W. Helbig, Les 'Ir,reis Atheniens (Paris 1904) followed
by Henri Metzger and Denis van Berchem, "Hippeis," Gestalt
und Geschichte: Festschrift Karl Schefold (Antike Kunst: Bei-
heft IV, Berne 1967) 155-58.
107 Anderson (supra n. 81) 145-47: Greenhalgh (supra n.
105).
108A. Alf6ldi, "II dominio della cavalleria
dopo la caduta
dei rei in Grecia ed a Roma," Bull Nap 40 (1965) 21-34; "Die
Herrschaft der Reiterei in Griechenland und Rom nach dem
Sturz der K6nige," Gestalt und Geschichte: Festschrift Karl
Schefold (Antike Kunst Beiheft IV, Berne 1967) I3-47.
 1975] GREEK CHARIOT-BORNEAND MOUNTED INFANTRY
temporarypractiseif there were not so many of
them, spread over three generationsand three
majorcentresof production,or if there were any-
thing in the survivingepics that might have given
the artistsa hint of horsesbeing used in this man-
ner, or if the artistshad given definiteindication,
in more than a very few instances,1'9that their
subjects were intended to be "heroic."Nor do
eitherthe vase-paintingsor the very scantyliterary
evidencegive any supportfor the view that what
reallyexisted at this time was a force of light in-
fantry, used in collaborationwith cavalry, like
the aj,imrrotof Classical Greece or the velites of
Rome."0 The vases do not show us horsemen ac-
tively engaged in battle, with infantry (whether
lightly or heavily armed) acting in support. They
do show heavy infantry engaged in battle, with
horses waiting, outside the fighting, to serve as
transport. Greenhalgh's arguments on this point,
and the evidence that he brings to support them,
are decisive.1l But they do not prove that the
combination of mounted "knight" and "squire"
already existed in the Late Geometric period, to
which the evidence does not extend. It is to be
supposed that the pairs of "knight" and "squire"
represent a development from the older pairs of
charioteer and parabates by men who could now
control ridden horses well enough to venture into
battle on them, and felt that the advantages of
riding outweighed the one obvious disadvantage-
that it is easier to step into a chariot than to mount
a horse bareback,especially when wearing armour.
If (as I believe) Greenhalgh is right in supposing
the Dipylon shield to have been a piece of equip-
ment in actual use in the Late Geometric period
and not an artist's convention based on memories
of the Bronze Age figure-of-eight shield,l2 we
have a further reason why the parabates should
have been carried in a chariot. The shield, intended
for dismounted action, would normally be slung
by the telamon"l during the ride to the battle-
109Notably the Corinthian cup on which the combatantsare
named "Ajax" and "Aeneas":H.G. Payne, Necrocorinthia (Ox-
ford 1931) Catalogue no. 996; Greenhalgh (supra n. I) 98
and g90 no. CII; and the Attic Iliupersis by the C Painter,
Beazley (supra n. i8) 58 no. II9; Anderson (supra n. 81)
pl. 29; Greenhalgh (supra n. i) i9I no. A7.
11Thuc. 5.57; Xen. Hell. 7.5.23; Xen. Hipparch. 5.13.
111
Greenhalgh (supra n. i) 75-78; 96-98; 103-o06.
112Greenhalgh (supra n. I) 63-83;
per contra T.B.L. Web-
ster, "Homer and Attic Geometric Vases," BSA 50 (I955)
38-50 (especially 4ff); Snodgrass (supra n. 34) 58.
113 Snodgrass (supra n. 34) 63-65; Anderson (supra n. 12) 17.
185
field. That is all very well in a chariot, but how
does one ride on horseback with a shield which
extends from neck to knees slung from one's back?
The hoplite shield, normally just under a metre in
diameter, was also slung on the back by infantry
on the march,14 and was not too large to be car-
ried in this position by horsemen. Demophon and
Akamas, on Exekias' vase,15 walk beside their
horses with their shields slung in this way, and
files of Amazons, on later black-figured vases, are
shown mounted, with their shields on their
backs.116 But the great majority of mounted hop-
lites carry their shields on the left arm.
Was the shield ever intended for mounted ac-
tion? Helbig thought not, though allowing for the
possibility that a hoplite might occasionally use
his shield if attacked before he could dismount."7
There is now much more evidence available, and,
taken as a whole, it supports Helbig, Greenhalgh
offers "a rare illustration of a hoplite fighting from
horseback"on an Early Corinthian aryballos from
Perachora,"8but expresses doubt whether the man
may not be dismounting, as both his legs are visible
on the near side of the horse. His shield is also
most curious; not merely inside-out, as Greenhalgh
points out, but transparent; the rider's thighs and
body are visible through it. I have no doubt my-
self that he is dismounting; like the hoplite of
Greenhalgh's fig. 62, he has swung his right leg
over the horse's neck and is sliding down, with
his back protected by his horse during this critical
moment.19 His shield is perhaps the afterthought
of a clumsy artist. A horseman uses a shield, of
hoplite type, but small, in action on an Attic band-
cup in the Louvre,120but this vase has been badly
broken and heavily restored; details are quite un-
certain, which is a pity, because it shows, in its pres-
ent condition, other curiosities, including a Greek
mounted archer, and one would like to be able to
believe its evidence.121
There remains a group of late sixth century Attic
114 Anderson (supra n. 12) i6 and pl. 3.
115 Greenhalgh (supra n. i) 194 no. AIoo.
116 D. von
Bothmer, Amazons in Greek Art (Oxford 1957)
pi. 63.I, figs. 7a, 7b.
117 Helbig (supra n. io6)
103 and fig. 37.
118
Greenhalgh (supra n. i) 87 and 190 no. C8.
119
Greenhalgh (supra n. I) I92 no. A48; Anderson
(supra no. 8i) 84-85.
120
Greenhalgh (supra n. I) I93 no. A52.
121Anderson (supra n. 8i) 2I7 n. 33. The vase is not listed
by Beazley (supra n. i8).
186 J.K. ANDERSON [AJA 79
vases, on which two armed riders, on half-rearing vases, and the fact that so often the subject is leg-
horses, are "heraldically"opposed over the fallen endary, make these pictures very uncertain evidence
body of a third combatant (usually armed as a for actual Greek practise in the Archaic period.
hoplite). One of the riders may be attacking the In short, the mounted hoplite with shield, is to
fallen figure, while the other comes to the rescue; be regarded as a mounted infantryman, and the
or both may be attacking him; the composition second horse, and the "squire"who is to hold both,
often includes one or more Amazons, in various are necessary parts of this "weapons-system."Even
combinations,122or one of the riders may be indi- when, in stiff Middle Corinthian "cavalcades,"127
cated by his headgear as "barbarian,"123or all the the "knight" is shown with two horses, and no
figures may be "Greek." "Greek" horsemen may "squire,"we are not to suppose that he intends to
wear helmet and cuirass,124and in a very few in- leap from one to another in the heat of action, as
stances125the left-hand horseman carries a hoplite each alternately becomes tired or covered with
shield. After careful re-consideration, I maintain sweat. Rather, in view of the stiffly processional
my former opinion126that the artist intends these character of these scenes, we may imagine some
shields to be slung on the back, in the manner formal occasion-as, for example, a review at
already noted, but, since the rider'sright shoulder is which the knight presents himself, his arms, and
drawn back to deliver a blow and his body is con- both his horses for inspection and approval. Or we
sequently turned partly sideways, the drawing may, with Greenhalgh, infer the "squire's"presence
presented more problems than did the representa- from that of the second horse.128
tion of riders with shields and bodies both in pro- This brings us back full cycle to Aeneas Tacticus
file on the line of march. The shields of the com- and his Cyrenean synorides. Could these also have
batant riders are turned so that the inside is visible, been "pairs without a chariot," as in the Archaic
but the left hand is certainly not holding the hand- period, or like the crvvwopia Xcopi; 845 pov that the
leader of each of the sixty thousand districts of
grip, but managing the reins; nor does its position Plato's Atlantis was
required to supply, along with
prove that the forearm is passed through the one sixth of a chariot and two horses and riders?129
shield-band. Compare the hands of the shieldless But Plato's mounted
infantry are not hoplites-
boy on Greenhalgh's fig. 6i. In any case, most of "a pair without a chariot, having a man to dis-
the shield is clearly behind the rider, and he is re- mount with a small shield, and the man who holds
ceiving no protection from it. And, even if this the reins of both horses after the rider"is the closest
point is doubtful, the comparatively late date (late I can get to a literal translation.30 After changing
sixth century) and formalized composition of these my mind more than once in the course of the past
122Von Bothmer (supra n. I16) 80-82. man to be both KaTraPacilv (when he dismounts) and &rr3dirr7v
123 "Scythian"-Greenhalgh (supra n. i) I49-is I think too (when he is thought of as riding). But the passage has caused
precise, in the absence of anaxyrides and other essential articles difficultyto better scholarsthan myself; "a pair of chariot-horses
of Scythian costume; and I doubt whether the petasos alone without a seat, accompanied by a horseman who could fight
suffices to define the other horseman of Greenhalgh's fig. 78 on foot carrying a small shield, and having a charioteer who
as "Thessalian" rather than more generally "Greek." I believe stood behind the man-at-arms to guide the two horses" is
that in this instance the Greek's spear is directed at the bar- Jowett's rendering (B. Jowett, The Dialogues of Plato trans-
barian's horse, rather than at the fallen figure, and would inter- lated into English [3rd edition: Oxford 1892] III 541). Greek
pret the picture as Greek horseman defending fallen hoplite chariots, unlike country carts and the racing sulkies derived
against barbarian-dare one guess "Trojan" in view of the from them, never had seats. (H.L. Lorimer, "The Country
Amazons on so many vases of this group? Cart of Ancient Greece,"JHS 23 [1903] 132-51, and, for racing
124
Greenhalgh (supra n. I) 129, fig. 70. sulkies, CVA Great Britain I pl. 25; C.M. Kraay and Max
125 Anderson
(supra n. 81) 217 n. 34; add Greenhalgh Hirmer, Greek Coins [London I966] pl. 281. I retract my sug-
(supra n. I) 194 no. A95. gestion, Anderson [supra n. 81] 67, that such carts were the
126Anderson (supra n. 8I) 147; per contra Greenhalgh synorides added to the Olympic games in 408 B.C.; Xen. Hell.
(supra n. I) Io8. 1.2.1; Paus. 5.8.10.) Jowett's "charioteerwho stood behind the
127 E.g. Greenhalgh (supra n. i) 104, fig. 54. man-at-arms"is also an impossibility;but uter' ie7radrrv, "after
128Greenhalgh (supra n. i) I03-o06 argues convincingly the rider" is perhaps the crux of the difficulty;it is impossible
against the view of Alfoldi (supra n. io8) that these horsemen to take ACer' adverbially, though "and the rider of both there-
leaped from horse to horse like Roman desultores. after holding the reins of the two horses" would give the mean-
129Plato, Critias II9 B. ing required. Can Plato have written /fere7rt,n/dr)v, a "change-
130 &r 8 oavvwpisa xwpts 6i'ppov Kara3dirVtv re tjuKpoaa7rta rider" of both horses to manage both while the "dismounter"
KaL rbv &tfikolv Ler' 7tira'LrTvrosl lrrrotv fiov eov aXovaav. fights? The word is nowhere attested, but Hesychius gives
I am not happy about my translation which requires the same ueTrapaTrS, with the sense of the Latin desultor.
1975] GREEK CHARIOT-BORNEAND MOUNTED INFANTRY 187
few years, I return (finally I hope) to the view that gle "proper"system of chariot-tacticsin antiquity.
the synorides of Aeneas are two-horse chariots- Homer's evidence is not to be discredited because
and even if Aeneas meant "carts"there is enough it contradicts modern preconceived theories.
evidence elsewhere to show that there was no sin- UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY