Hoplites at War: A Comprehensive Analysis of Heavy Infantry Combat in the Greek World, 750-100 BCE PDF
Preview Hoplites at War: A Comprehensive Analysis of Heavy Infantry Combat in the Greek World, 750-100 BCE
Hoplites at War This page intentionally left blank Hoplites at War A Comprehensive Analysis of Heavy Infantry Combat in the Greek World, – BCE PAUL M. BARDUNIAS and FRED EUGENE RAY, JR. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA Names: Bardunias, Paul M., author. | Ray, Fred Eugene, – author. Title: Hoplites at war : a comprehensive analysis of heavy infantry combat in the Greek world, – BCE / Paul M. Bardunias and Fred Eugene Ray, Jr. Description: Jefferson, North Carolina : McFarland & Company, Inc., | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN | ISBN (softcover : acid free paper) ♾ Subjects: LCSH: Military art and science—Greece—History— To . | Greece—History, Military—To B.C. Classification: LCC U .B | DDC /.—dc LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ BRITISHLIBRARYCATALOGUINGDATAAREAVAILABLE ISBN (print) ---- ISBN (ebook) ---- © Paul Michael Bardunias and Fred Eugene Ray, Jr. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Front cover image of a statue from Delphi, Greece © TPopova/iStock Printed in the United States of America McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box , Jefferson, North Carolina www.mcfarlandpub.com For my father, Peter P. M. Bardunias, who raised a boy on Spartan tales and George Greenberg, the first engineer to understand the dome in the shield This page intentionally left blank Table of Contents Preface 1 Introduction 3 I. The Tools 1. Weapons 5 2. Shields 24 3. Body Armor 36 4. Other Devices 48 II. The Men 5. Culture 61 6. Physicality 73 7. Psychology 87 III. The Phalanx 8. Hoplite Formations 105 9. The Phalanx in Action 122 10. Special Tactics 140 11. Phalanx Maneuvers 160 12. Use of Terrain 175 Conclusions 189 Chapter Notes 193 Bibliography 221 Index 229 vii This page intentionally left blank Preface This book presents a broad study of warfare in the ancient world, as fought by the heavily equipped Grecian spearmen known as hoplites—the arbiters of conflicts that framed the history of the western world. Though it has been some years since they dominated the battlefield, these iconic warriors continue to fascinate us today, sparking the imagination of a new generation through a wave of popular action films, graphic novels, documentaries and other mass media. This popularity has been accompanied by the m yth-m aking of a Hollywood version of history that fosters a distorted view of ancient realities, even among respected histo- rians. Those better versed in the military field have struggled to address this; these efforts have, however, fallen short due to a tendency toward narrow, specialized studies, generally confined to publications not accessed by n on-a cademic readers. In this book, we makeuse of traditional sources, but combine these with c utting- edge (apt for a book on warfare!) science to break through an impasse of thought that has held back the study of Greek military affairs for decades. This study draws upon geology and related aspects of known battlefields, the physics of weapons design, and a modern understanding of how order emerges from chaos in crowds of humans to recon- struct ancient Greek warfare, with a focus on fighting methodology and the combat gear. We hope the result provides a comprehensive source on hoplite warfare that will advance key debates for modern scholars, while entertaining the general reader. As practicing professionals in the physical sciences of behavioral biology and geol- ogy, we have both published books and articles based on our respective scientific disci- plines and our mutual l ife- long interest in ancient Greek warfare. Our style here draws upon that experience, but is also informed by those ancient treatises on warfare and his- tory known as Tactica. Writings by men like Aeneas Tacticus and Xenophon brought readers into the action through tales of combat and of the feats and foibles of famous generals. In the spirit of these works, each of the following chapters opens with a detailed account of a renowned battle told from the viewpoint of an ancient commander facing challenges related to the subject matter. A famed expert on ancient Greek military history once said that “only an unusually arrogant scholar could claim to know exactly what kind of thing went on in a hoplite battle.” His words are not to be taken lightly, and we make no claim that what we present here is undisputed truth; rather, it is an assessment of what we firmly believe to be most probable based on all the evidence at hand. And in light of the sparseness and
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