The Greeks at War: From Athens to Alexander

284 Pages·2004·13.28 MB·English

by  Philip Souza

THE GREEKS
AT WAR
FROM ATHENS TO ALEXANDER
Philip de Souza,
Waldemar Heckel
& Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
Foreword by Victor Davis Hanson
First published in Great Britain in 2004 by Osprey Publishing, For a catalogue of all books published by Osprey Publishing
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Peloponnesian War 431-404 BC and Essential Histories 26: The
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Wars of Alexander the Great
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ISBN 1 84176 856 1
Editor: Anita Hitchings
Design; Ken Vail Graphic Design. Cambridge, UK
Cartography by The Map Studio
Index by Glyn Sutdliffe
Originated by Grasmere Digital Imaging, Leeds, UK
Printed and bound in China by L Rex Pnnting Company Ltd.
04 05 06 07 08 I0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
Contents
Foreword by Victor Davis Hanson 7
Chronology 9
Part l: The Greek and Persian Wars 449-386 BC
Introduction 14
Background to war - The coming of the Persians 17
Warring sides - Persia. Sparta and Athens 27
Outbreak - Dareios sends an expedition to Greece 38
The fighting - Xerxes' invasion of Greece 48
Portrait of a soldier - Aristodemos the Spartan 83
The world around war - Persian Architecture 88
Portraits of civilians - Demokedes and Demaratos 91
How the wars ended - The Greeks attack the Persian Empire 96
Part ll: The Peloponnesian War 431-404 BC
Introduction 101
Background to war - The rise of Athens 103
Warring sides - Athens and Sparta 111
Outbreak - Fear and suspicion lead to war 120
The fighting - The first twenty years 125
Portrait of a soldier - A ship's captain at war 155
The world around war - Politics and culture 165
Portrait of a civilian - Hipparete, an Athenian citizen woman 171
How the war ended - The fall of Athens 177
Conclusion and consequences - The triumph of Sparta? 183
Part IlI: The Wars of Alexander the Great 336-323 BC
Background to war - The decline of the city-states and the rise of Macedon 190
Warring sides - The Persians, the Macedonians and allied troops 198
Outbreak - Alexander's rise to power 204
The fighting - Alexander conquers an empire 211
Portrait of a soldier - Two generals and a satrap 248
The world around war - Rome, Carthage and India 252
Portrait of a civilian - A historian, athletes and courtesans 257
How the war ended - The death of Alexander 260
The Wars of the Successors (323-301 BC) 262
Conclusion and consequences 267
Glossary 269
Further Reading 271
Appendix -The Greeks at war on screen by Lloyd Llewellyn-jones 273
Index 278
Foreword
by Victor Davis Hanson
What we know about the Greek city-states The results of the subsequent three-decade-
at war mostly begins with their desperate long war of attrition were the great plague
struggle to hold off the Persians between at Athens that killed off over a quarter of
490 BC and 479 BC - the dramatic Hellenic the population, the Athenian catastrophe
victories al Marathon, Salamis and Plataea, at Syracuse where 40,000 of Athens' imperial
the historic but failed defence of Thermo troops never returned home from Sicily,
pylae, and the final pursuit of the Persians and a terrible last decade of naval warfare
across the Aegean at Mycale. From our in which over 400 Spartan and Athenian
exciting ancient accounts of these battles, triremes were lost in the eastern Aegean.
there emerges a peculiar - and especially The defeat of Athens in 404 did not lead
lethal - way of fighting embraced by these to a permanent Spartan empire, but instead
small Greek communities. War making based to near constant fighting in the subsequent
on shock tactics, group discipline, superior fourth century. Thebes, Sparta and Athens
technology, and an audit of military all learned the military lessons of the
operations by civilian governments trumps Pelopunnesian War and increasingly
numbers and, in fact, presages the Western broadened their armed forces to include
way of war as it evolved centuries hence. mercenaries, light-armed and missile troops,
Phalanxes of heavily-armed infantrymen and integrated cavalry forces. To the north
(hoplites) proved unbeatable on level ground King Philip II of Macedon was watching
against the far more numerous but lighter- these developments eagerly, as he radically
armed and less-disciplined Persians. At sea, modified the old Greek phalanx of citizen
victorious Greek triremes reflected not merely soldiers into pike-yielding phalangites -
the excellence of Greek naval technology, hired professionals who, along with a crack
but the empowerment of the lower classes heavy cavalry of landed aristocrats, formed
who, from their brilliant seamanship at the core of a new national Macedonian
Salamis, won full participation in radical army. Along with such a novel and potent
Athenian democracy. military, Philip and his young son Alexander
also promoted a new propaganda: only
However, the miracle of the Greek victory
Greek unification under Macedonian
over Xerxes' Persians also soon led to an
leadership could avenge Persia's invasion
uneasy partnership between the land power
of Greece nearly 150 years earlier.
Sparta and the maritime Athenians. True,
their respective preeminent armies and After the final defeat of the free Greek
navies kept Persia on its side of the Aegean states at Chaeronea, and despite the murder
for the next half-century, but the growing of Philip himself, in 334 the 23-year-old
rivalry between them also turned fifth- Alexander led a small army of 40,000 into
century Greece into a bipolar world of Asia Minor in a grand effort to 'liberate'
Athenian democratic imperialism set against the Greek city-states of Ionia and dismantle
Sparta's coalition of rural oligarchic states. the Persian Empire. After three great battles
Civil war broke out in 431 and then at Granicus, Issus and Gaugamela, by 331
raged tor the next 27 years. Sparta proved the empire of Dareios III was in Alexander's
to be as incapable of drawing the Athenians hands. But the 20-something prince kept
into a hoplite battle as the Athenian fleet pressing eastward, defeating an Indian royal
was in conquering the Laconian homeland. army at the Hydaspes river, before meeting
8 The Greeks at War
near mutiny on the borders of India and Coloured maps, plentiful photographs,
then subsequently almost ruining his army and drawings augment time-lines, glossaries,
in a disastrous trek back to Babylon through mini-biographies, and excerpts from ancient
the unforgiving Gedrosian desert. Exhausted, historians. Of particular interest is the
sick and increasingly paranoid, Alexander occasional focus on individual Greeks -
died in 333, leaving his vast newly acquired, Aristodemos and Demaratos, Hipparete,
but hardly pacified empire to be fought over or Callisthenes - whose own private stories
and divided by his surviving Macedonian help us understand the radical events of
marshals. the times. These biographical sketches remind
The small amateur armies that had once us that history is made by real people.
stopped Xerxes at Thermopylae had now More importantly, the Osprey history
come full circle, as Greek-speaking soldiers is not the usual bland retelling of events
found themselves 3,500 miles to the east so often found in surveys of ancient mifitary
on the borders of India. If an empire of practice. Philip de Souza, for example, notes
a million square miles and over 50 million the irony that Sparta's victory over Athens
subjects once threatened to make a tiny and did not liberate the Greeks, but instead
squabbling Greece its westernmost satrapy. substituted an arrogant and poorly run
a century-and-a-half later it lay in ruins hegemony in place of a coercive but perhaps
thanks to the rampage of Alexander and enlightened empire, leading to a peace
his lethal Macedonians. imposed by Persia - the original common
These Persian and Peloponnesian Wars, enemy that had earlier brought the two
and the conquest of Alexander the Great, Greek powers together in the first place.
are the themes of a new Osprey ottering And Waldemar Heckel ends his account of
in its welcomed Essential Histories Specials Alexander's startling conquest by emphasising
series. The work of Philip de Souza and the young conqueror's lack of foresight in
Waldemar Heckel offers far more than establishing a clear succession, a lapse that
a narrative history but rather analyses how meant his successor Generals would kill more
the Greeks fought on land and sea, in of each other's armies than were lost to the
making sense of the seemingly impossible Persians during Alexander's initial conquest.
Greek achievement. Yet because it is often The Osprey survey of classical military
difficult to learn of Greek military practice history is accessible, reliable, and a joy to
from ancient historians alone, the authors read. These wars are really not so ancient
also offer a variety of critical aids to enhance after all, and will remind us that besides
their scholarly analysis, itself based on an culture and politics, military dynamism
array of archaeological, epigraphical, and is also part of our Hellenic heritage from
artistic evidence. those most remarkable ancient Greeks.
Chronology
559 Kyros the Great becomes king 492 Persians remove tyrants from
of Anshan in Persia Ionian Greek states
550 Kyros takes control of the 491 Dareios demands that all Greek
Median Empire states submit to Persian rule
S47 Kyros conquers Lydia and 490 Aigina defeats Athens in sea
captures Kroisos battle; Persians capture Naxos;
539 Kyros conquers Babylon Persians defeated in the battle
530 Death of Kyros and accession of Marathon
of Kambyses 486 Death of Dareios; Xerxes
527 Death of Peisistratos; Hippias becomes king of Persia
becomes ruling tyrant of 484 Birth of Herodotus
Athens 483/82 Ostracism of Aristeides;
525 Kambyses invades Egypt Athenians begin building fleet
522 Death of Kambyses; of 200 triremes
assassination of Bardiya; 481 Xerxes gathers forces at Sardis;
Dareios becomes king of Persian envoys sent to Greece;
Persia; death of Polykrates, Hellenic League formed at
tyrant of Samos Sparta; Athens and Aigina
520/19 Dareios campaigns against make peace
the Skythians 480 Xerxes invades Greece; battles
519-18 Dareios extends Persian of Artemision and
control over Ionians Thermopylae Xerxes captures
510 Hippias expelled from Athens Athens; battle of Salamis;
508/07 Reforms of Kleisthenes; popular Xerxes returns to Asia Minor
democracy established in 479 Battles of Plataia and Mykale;
Athens some Ionians join Hellenic
499 Persians attack island of Naxos; League
Aristagoras visits Athens and 478 Greek expeditions to Cyprus
Sparta and Byzantion; recall of
498 Ionians, Eretrians and Pausanias to Sparta
Athenians attack and burn 478/77 Formation of the Delian League
Sardis 465-64 Earthquake at Sparta;
497 Unsuccessful attempt by (Messenian) Helots revolt
Ionians to aid Greeks of Cyprus 462 Spartans appeal for Athenian
against Persians help against Messenians;
497-96 Persian counter-offensive Kimon's forces sent away by
against Greeks in Asia Minor; Spartans; reforms of Ephialtes;
death of Aristagoras Athenians form alliance with
494 Persians defeat Ionians in the Megara, Argos and Thessaly
battle of Lade 461 Ostracism of Kimon
493 Persian rule restored in Ionia 459-54 Athenian expedition to
and eastern Aegean; Cyprus and Egypt
Themistokles elected archon 459 Athenians begin building their
at Athens Long Walls
10 The Greeks at War
457 Battles of Tanagra and 429 Death of Perikles
Oinophyta 42H-27 Revolt of Mytilene; eisphora
456 Defeat of Messenians at Mt tax levied in Athens
Ithome; Tolmides' expedition 427-24 First Athenian expedition to
around the Pelopooaese Sicily
c. 455 Thucydides the historian born 425 Athenians fortify Pylos;
454 Delian League Treasury Spartans captured on island
transferred to Athens of Sphakteria; Spartan peace
(Tribute Lists begin) offer refused by Athenians
451 Perikles' law on Athenian 424 Athenians lake Kythera and
citizenship; five-year truce launch raids on lakonian coast;
between Athens and Sparta; Boiotians defeat Athenians at
50 year peace treaty between the battle of Delion; Brasidas
Sparta and Argos captures Amphipolis;
c. 450 Alkibiades born Thucydides the historian exiled
449 Peace of Kallias between 423 One year armistice between
Athens and Persia Athens and Sparta; revolts of
447 Building of the Parthenon Skione and Mende; Dareios II
begun (Ochos) becomes king of Persia
446 Athenians defeated at battle 422 Kleon and Brasidas killed at
of Koroneia and driven out Amphipolis
of Boiotia; Thirty Years' Peace 421 Peace of Nikias; 50-year
agreed between Athens and alliance concluded between
Sparta Athens and Sparta
c. 443 Athenians make treaties with 4IK Battle of Mantinea
Sicilian cities of Leontini and 416 Athenians invade and capture
Rhegion Melos
441-440 Revolt of Samos 415 Egesta appeals to Athens for
c. 440 Hipparete born help against Selinous; Second
439 Surrender of Samos Athenian expedition to Sicily;
438 Dedication of the Parthenon Alkibiades recalled
437/436 Foundation of Amphipolis 414 Siege of Syracuse; death of
435 Conflict between Corinth and Lamachos; Spartans send
Corcyra over Epidamnos begins Gylippos to Syracuse
433 Alliance of Athens and Corcyra; 413 Athenians send reinforcements
sea battle of Sybota; Athens to Sicily; Spartans capture
renews treaties of alliance with and fortify Dekeleia; defeat
Leontini and Rhegion and surrender of Athenians
432 Revolt of Poteidaia; Megarian in Sicily
decrees 412-11 Spartans and Persian king
431-404 Peloponnesian War negotiate treaty; revolts of
431 Thebans attack Plataia; Athenian allies
Peloponnesians invade Attika 411 Oligarchic revolution installs
430 Plague reaches Athens; Perikles' government of 400 in Athens;
expedition to Peloponnese; army and fleet at Samos
Perikles is deposed as general remain loyal to democracy;
and lined; Poteidaia surrenders Alkibiades takes command
to Athenians; Phormio's 410 Spartans defeated at Kyzikos;
expedition to Naupaktos restoration of full democracy
429-27 Siege of Plataia in Athens
Chronology 11
409 Messenians driven out of river; major coastal cities of
Pylos; Spartans take control Asia Minor fall to Alexander
of Chios 333 Alexander cuts the Gordian
408-407 Kyros the Younger sent to take knot; defeats Dareios III at Issus
control of Persia's western 332 Capture of Phoenician coastal
satrapies cities; siege of Tyre and Gaza
407 Lysander takes control of 332/331 Alexander in Egypt; founding
Spartan fleet of Alexandria at the mouth
406 Athenians defeated at Notion; of the Nile
Alkibiades goes into exile; 331 Dareios III defeated for the
Spartans defeated at battle of second time at Gaugamela
Arginousai; trial of Athenian in northern Mesopotamia
generals 331/330 Capture of Babylon, Susa,
405 Athenians defeated at battle Persepolis and Ekbatana
of Aigospotamoi 330 Death of Dareios and end
405-104 Siege of Athens; Death of of the official 'Panhellenic'
Dareios II; Artaxerxes II War; Alexander moves into
becomes king of Persia Afghanistan; execution of
404 Peace between Athens and Philotas and Parmenion
Sparta; Athenian Long Walls 329-327 War in Central Asia between
partially destroyed the Amu-darya and Syr-darya
404-103 Rule of Thirty Tyrants in (the Oxus and Iaxartes rivers)
Athens 328 Death of Kleitus; Alexander's
401 Revolt of Kyros the Younger; political marriage to Roxane
Battle of Cunaxa; March of 327 Failed attempt to introduce
the ten Thousand proskynesis at the court;
396-394 Agesilaus in Asia Minor conspiracy of the pages;
394-387/386 The Corinthian War Alexander invades India
387/6 The King's Peace 326 Battle of the Hydaspes (Jhelum)
371 Battle of Leuctra river; the Macedonian army
360/359 Perdiccas killed in battle with refuses to cross the Hyphasis
(Beas) river
Illyrians; accession of Philip II
359-336 Reign of Philip II of Macedon 325 Alexander at the mouth of
356 Birth of Alexander the Great the Indus
353 Philip II's victory over the 324 Alexander returns to Susa
Phocians in the 'Crocus Field' and punishes those guilty
346 Peace of Philocrates; Philip of maladministration in
becomes master of northern his absence
Greece 323 Death of Alexander in Babylon
338 Battle of Chaeronea; Philip Distribution of power and
becomes undisputed military satrapies at Babylon; Philip III
leader (hegemon) of Greece and Alexander IV recognized
337 Formation of the League of as 'Kings'
Corinth 323-320 First War of the Successors;
336 Death of Philip; accession Perdiccas' bid for supreme
of Alexander the Great power
335 Alexander campaigns in 320 Deaths of Craterus and
Illyria; destruction of Thebes Perdiccas; Settlement of
334 Beginning of the Asiatic Triparadeisus; Antipater
expedition; battle of Granicus becomes guardian of the 'Kings'
12 The Greeks at War
319 Death of Antipater follow suit tLysimachus,
319-317/6 Antigonus the One-Eyed Ptolemy, Cassander and
at war with Eumenes in Asia; Seleucus)
Cassander opposes Polyperchon 301 Battle of Ipsus; Death of
and Olympias (the mother Antigonus
of Alexander) 297 Cassander dies of illness
317 Battle of Gabiene; Death of 283 Death of Demetrius the
Eumenes; Murder of Philip III Besieger
in Europe. 281 Battle of Corupedium.
316 Capture of Pydna; Death of Lysimachus dies on the
Olympias battlefield; Shortly afterward,
315 Cassander refounds the city Seleucus is murdered by
of Thebes, which Alexander Ptolemy Ceraunus
had destroyed 20 years earlier; 280-30 The era of the Hellenistic
312 Demetrius the Besieger's first Kingdoms, concluding with
battle; He is defeated by the death of Cleopatra Vll
Ptolemy's general at Gaza in 30 BC
310 Murder of Alexander IV
and his mother Rhoxane at
Amphipolis NOTE. ON DATES: All dates are BC. The official Athenian
307-301 Demetrius controls Athens year, which was often used by Greek historians its a dating
306 Demetrius wins the battle device, began and ended in midsummer. As a result some
of Salamis; Demetrius and of the dates in this book are given in the form 478/77,
Antigonus are declared 'kings' which indicates the Athenian year that began in the
by their men; Other successors summer of 478 and ended in the summer of 477.