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Textbook The Classical Art of Command Eight Greek Generals Who Shaped The History of Warfare 1St Edition Joseph Roisman Ebook All Chapter PDF
Textbook The Classical Art of Command Eight Greek Generals Who Shaped The History of Warfare 1St Edition Joseph Roisman Ebook All Chapter PDF
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Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
v
CON TEN TS
viii C o n t e n t s
ix
Contents ix
x
Conclusion 341
The Art of Command: Planning, Management,
and Tactics 342
The Art of Command: Personality 345
Bibliography 349
A. The Main Ancient Sources 349
B. Modern Sources 353
Index 375
x C o n t e n t s
xi
Maps
1 Ancient Greece 2
2 The Peloponnese 27
3 Xerxes’ Invasion of Greece 29
4 Thermopylae 39
5 Artemisium 68
6 Salamis 80
7 Athens’ Long Walls 110
8 Attica 127
9 Central and Western Greece 131
10 Pylos 156
11 Ancient Boeotia 169
12 Ancient Syracuse 173
13 Aegean Greece 190
14 Ancient Sicily and Southern Italy 229
15 Ancient Gela 233
16 Motya 247
17 Leuctra Battle Plan 294
18 Cynoscephalae: The Battlefield 319
19 Mantinea Battle Plan 330
xii
Illustrations
1 Hoplites in combat 15
2 Hoplite group formation 16
3 Persian soldiers from Persepolis 21
4 The Athenian trireme 23
5 “Leonidas” bust 54
6 Themistocles’ bust 59
7 Themistocles’ potsherd 60
8 “Themistocles’ wall” 95
9 Pericles’ bust 102
10 A sketch of a siege ram with tortoise 117
11 The Athenian retreat from Syracuse 183
12 The Athlit ram 204
13 The Lacedaemonians’ tomb in
the Kerameikos 213
14 The Euryalus Gate, Syracuse 242
15 A modern reconstruction of
an early catapult 244
16 Leontidas’ assassination? 280
17 The Leuctra monument 291
18 The Arcadian Gate, Messene 303
19 “The death of Epaminondas” 336
PREFACE
Finally I owe a debt of gratitude to the editorial stuff of OUP and especially
to Stefan Vranka for his sensible advice, patience, and careful attention to the
project.
All dates in this book are bce unless noted otherwise, and all translations
are from the Loeb Classical Library unless noted otherwise, with some trans-
lations slightly modified. The index does not cover the footnotes.
—Joseph Roisman
xiv P r e f a c e
xv
Hdt. Herodotus
IG Inscriptiones Graecae
JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies
LCL Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts
ML Meiggs, R., and D. Lewis, eds. 1969. A Selection of Greek
Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century B.C. Oxford.
Plut. Plutarch
RhM Rheinisches Museum für Philologie
RSA Rivista Storica dell’Antichita
SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum
Thuc. Thucydides
Xen. Xenophon
xvi L I S T OF Abbreviations
xvii
Introduction
Greek Generals and Warfare in the Classical Age
T H R A CE
ym
Str
on Philippi
R .
Mt. Pangaeus
Pella Amphipolis Abdera
I A Derveni
Levkadia N Thasos
O Stageira
D Aegae
E
C IDIC E
A Pydna CHALC
M Olynthus
Tempe
Potidaea Mt. Athos
Dium
Mt. Olympus Torone
Mende
E
P
Mt
U
Larissa
.P
Dodona
S
ind
Cynoscephalae Pagasae
Corcyra Pharsalus
Ambracia Pherae
AEGEAN
Nicopolis C. Artemisium SEA
Actium Histiaea
ACARNANIA Eu Scyros
Thermopylae boe
Leucas a
Stratus Mt.
Thermum Parnassus Chalcis
CIS L. Copais
O LIA
Delphi
P HO Orchomenus Lefkandi
E T Eretria
ANaupactus BOEOTIA
Mt. Helicon Thebes
AEA Plataea
Cephallenia ACH Megara
Elis Sicyon Mt. Pentelicum Andros
DIA Isthmia Athens
Corinth
EL
C A Piraeus
AR Nemea Salamis
IS
Melos
Cythera
MEDITERRANEAN SEA
Cydonia Crete
Knossos
0 20 40 60 80 100 miles
0 40 80 120 160 km Phaistos
Introduction 3
4
Years’ War (1756–1763) used a strategy of attrition and avoiding direct con-
flict with superior military force that resembled Pericles’ strategy during the
Peloponnesian War and Fabius’ Maximus’ strategy against Hannibal in the
Second Punic War. The centrality of military surprise to the generalship of
Demosthenes of Athens (not the orator) made him a precursor of the strategy
of indirect approach recommended by the well-known British strategist
B. H. Liddell Hart. Dionysius I of Syracuse probably imitated Demosthenes’
and Lysander’s tactics in their respective campaigns, and was praised together
with a later Syracusan tyrant, Agathocles, by Scipio Africanus the Elder, the
conqueror of Hannibal, as the best in effective administration and in daring
tempered by intelligence (Polybius 15.35.6; cf. Nepos, Of Kings 2.2).
Roman orator Cicero and American general George Patton believed that
Epaminondas of Thebes was the greatest of all the Greeks. Apparently there
is much to learn from the eight generals of this book.
The following chapters will evaluate the nature of these generals’ military
leadership and their impact on Greek history. The present chapter aims to
provide background information on what Greek generals did and were
expected to do, and the military contexts in which they operated. The following
two examples of generals in combat will serve as an introduction to these
subjects.
4 I n t r o d u c t i o n
5
of twenty ships prevented the enemy from bringing aid by sea, or escaping
to it. Yet the Peloponnesian-Ambraciot army enjoyed numerical superiority
in heavy infantry.
In typical large land battles, the troops were massed facing each other,
and the burden of the fighting rested on the hoplites.1 The strength of the
army usually lay in its right wing, which fought the enemy’s weaker left
wing. It was also common for a larger army to use its numerical superiority
to outflank the opposition’s left wing in order to attack its vulnerable flank or
rear. At Olpae, both sides deviated from these practices, though to different
degrees. Spartan general Eurylochus intended to use his larger numbers
to outflank Demosthenes’ stronger right wing. For that purpose, he placed
himself on the far left of his own left wing in order to lead the attack and the
flanking maneuver against the Demosthenes and his hoplites. Demosthenes
commanded the customary right wing, but, being short on heavy infantry, he
was forced to use mostly light infantry in his left wing against the enemy’s
better-protected and deadlier heavy infantry. Yet he anticipated the enemy’s
tactics and countered them with a stratagem, hiding 400 local hoplites and
lightly armed troops in a sunken road with overgrown vegetation and ordering
them to attack the enemy rear when it tried to outflank him. Eurylochus and
his men were thus crushed between Demosthenes’ anvil and the ambuscaders’
hammer. The Spartan general, his second in command, and the troops around
them were all killed. The rest of the army fled the battlefield, some in more
orderly fashion than others.2
Demosthenes displayed a number of qualities of good generalship in this
battle. Although the troops under his command came from different places
and had different military skills, he successfully established his authority
over them and effectively combined their proficiencies. He designed a battle
plan that worked by correctly predicting the enemy’s movements. He used
the topography to his advantage and coordinated and timed an attack of
two different forces that resulted in a deadly surprise. He thus won a victory
against an army with superior strength in hoplites.
Next we take a chronological leap to another general discussed in this
book, Dionysius I (Ch. 6). He ruled Syracuse in Sicily from 408 to 367, and
throughout much of his reign, he aimed to extend his dominion over Sicily
and southern Italy. In 394, he marched against Tauromenium, a local Sicel
city a few kilometers north of Naxos, in an effort to secure his hold over
Introduction 5
6
eastern Sicily (Map 14, p. 229). It was not an easy undertaking, because
Tauromenium and its citadel were situated on a hill, surrounded by tall
walls, and its defenders were highly motivated to fight for their freedom.
Dionysius camped south of the town and carried on a siege that the locals’
successful opposition extended into the winter. Disappointed with the siege,
he now set his hopes on a surprise attack, for which he picked what looked
like optimal conditions. At the winter solstice (around December 21), he
and his troops, probably hoplites, stole toward the town’s citadel under the
cover of a moonless, stormy night. The bitter cold and the defenders’ confi-
dence in their fortifications made them negligent in their duties. Dionysius
approached the fortifications where they were tallest and hence thought least
vulnerable. His force struggled against the rough terrain and the deep snow,
and he himself suffered from severe frostbite and poor vision. Nevertheless,
he mastered a peak from which he entered the settlement. His success was
short-lived: the defenders quickly recovered, launched a counterattack, and
ejected him and his companions. It appears that Dionysius was now joined
by units from his camp down the hill, who could not help much because the
locals used their advantage of elevation to descend on them and probably to
shower them with missiles. Dionysius lost 600 men and all his arms except
for his body armor, and was almost captured alive. His defeat also encouraged
the cities of Messina and Acragas to drive out his supporters.
Unlike Demosthenes’ at Olpae, Dionysius’ surprise attack failed and
produced harmful repercussions. Nevertheless, he showed traits of good
generalship in this operation. He displayed personal courage and endurance
that reflected his physical fitness (he was then in his mid-thirties). The night
operation was based on good intelligence about the terrain, the fortifica-
tions, and the enemy’s guarding routine. He chose the right time for the
attack and even established good communications with the forces that were
left behind and joined him later. He may also have tried to apply lessons
learned from his past experience. If the assault and the fighting occurred
at dawn, as was often the case with Greek night attacks, it is possible that
Dionysius’ success in an earlier operation, where he surprised Carthaginian
forces near Syracuse at dawn in 395, encouraged him to extend that tactic to
this mission. The difficulties of urban combat and the enemy’s topographical
advantage explain his failure. In 392, Dionysius retuned to Tauromenium
and captured it (we are not told how), replacing its Sicel population with
mercenaries loyal to him.3
3. Diod. 14.88.1–5; 96.4; my p. 260. Dawn attack at Syracuse: pp. 256–257 below.
6 I n t r o d u c t i o n
7
4. For additional expectations and the nature of Greek generalship, see Anderson 1970,
67–83; Wheeler 1991 (contra: Pritchett 1994, 111– 144); Boëldieu- Trévet 2007;
Wheeler 2007; Moore 2013.
Introduction 7
8
is full of practical advice about how to train and run an army. It includes,
among other things, instructions in drilling and selecting troops for battle,
choosing a site for and building a camp, and adapting the army’s march to
the terrain and local opposition. It also discusses caring for the soldiers, keep-
ing them fit, making them obedient and motivated, dealing with allies, and
the like. Xenophon’s and other Greeks’ emphasis on the practical responsibil-
ities of generalship persisted into later periods and can been seen in Polybius.
This Hellenistic Greek historian argued that success depended largely on
preplanning and selecting men to execute the plan. A general was expected
to know the conditions— geographical, seasonal, etc.— under which he
operated, and to have good military intelligence about the enemy and an
effective communication system. He was also encouraged to be knowledge-
able in ancillary arts that could help his planning, such as military history,
astronomy, and geometry.5
Scholars see these and similar expectations as a reflection of the grow-
ing professionalism of Greek generalship that took place no later than the
Peloponnesian War (below, pp. 9–11). It is noteworthy, however, that our
ancient sources on Greek generals, including the ones discussed in this book,
tend to ignore these aspects of generalship. Historians and biographers, who
constitute the vast majority of the sources, deal mostly with the generals’
plans and actions rather than with the practical preparations for them or
with the finer details of their execution. The reason seems to go beyond the
conventions of the literary genre, which deemed the latter sort of information
uninteresting and generally undeserving of attention. The Greeks, it appears,
believed that there was more to military command than craftsmanship and
practical knowledge. To the ancients, personality and character were at least
as important, if not more so.
Xenophon’s characterization of good generalship in his memoirs of
Socrates well illustrates this emphasis. Xenophon’s Memorabilia is a tribute
to his teacher, the philosopher Socrates, in the form of recollections of
Socrates’ conversations with various Greeks. One of them was an aspirant to
the office of general in Athens. He studied with an instructor who claimed
to teach generalship but in fact taught what the Greeks called “tactics”; that
5. Military instructors and manuals: e.g., Xen, On the Cavalry Commander; Aeneas Tacticus,
How to Survive Under Siege; Wheeler 1983; Campbell 1987; Whitehead 2001, 34–42.
Good generalship: Xen. Cyropaedia 1.6.9–46; Polybius 9.12–21; cf. Plato Laches 181c–
184c; Xen. Memorabilia 3.1.7, 2.1–4, 4.1–12, 5.22–23; Wood 1964; Hutchinson
2000. Isocrates’ definition of good generalship is tailored to fit the career of his favorite
pupil, Timotheus: 15.104–127.
8 I n t r o d u c t i o n
9
is, the training and ordering of troops. Socrates claimed that generalship was
much more:
For a general must also be capable of furnishing military equipment
and providing supplies for the men; he must be resourceful, active,
careful, hardy and quick-witted; he must be both gentle and brutal,
at once straightforward and designing, capable of both caution and
surprise, lavish and rapacious, generous and mean, skillful in defense
and attack; and there are many other qualifications, some natural,
some acquired, that are necessary to one who would succeed as a
general.6
Socrates’ ideal general possesses a range of mental capacities and char-
acteristics that enable him to deal effectively with ever-changing military
situations. Most of these qualities belong to the category of personal traits.
As we shall see, the ideal of the general who could oscillate readily between
opposing methods and attitudes was never attained, because certain per-
sonality traits tend to be dominant over others. For example, the Athenian
Demosthenes and the Theban Pelopidas were more daring than the cautious
Pericles. In any case, personality mattered, and this book deals with this
often neglected feature of Greek generalship, in addition to its other aspects.
For generalship was shaped, not just by military, political, and other envi-
ronments, but also by the leader’s character, which influenced his reaction to
them. Any discussion of the Greek art of command will be deficient if it fails
to deal with the individual styles of its practitioners. This book accordingly
consists of chapters on individual commanders instead of a general investi-
gation of the nature or models of Greek generalship. Nevertheless, a brief
survey of the history of Greek military leadership, its prerequisites, and its
offices will be helpful in understanding their careers.
Introduction 9
10
8. E.g., Lengauer 1974; Wheeler 1991; Sage 1996, 65–66; Boëldieu-Trévet 2007.
9. See pp. 6, 164–165; pp. 320–321, 334–335. Homeric leadership and martial value:
e.g., van Wees 1992.
10 I n t r o d u c t i o n
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