The Greek State at War, Part I

By W. Kendrick Pritchett

The volumes of The Greek State at War are an essential reference for the classical scholar. Professor Pritchett has systematically canvassed ancient texts and secondary literature for references to specific topics; each volume explores a unique aspect of Greek military practice.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1975.
The volumes of The Greek State at War are an essential reference for the classical scholar. Professor Pritchett has systematically canvassed ancient texts and secondary literature for references to specific topics; each volume explores a unique aspect of

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Release date: Jul 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9780520340961

W. Kendrick Pritchett

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THE GREEK STATE AT WAR

The

Greek State

at War

Part I

By

W. KENDRICK PRITCHETT, F.B.A.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

BERKELEY · Los ANGELES · LONDON

University of California Press

Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

University of California Press, Ltd.

London, England

Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 71-633960

ISBN: 0-520-02758-2

© 1971 by the Regents of the University of California

Originally published as Volume 7, University of CaliforniaPublications:

Classical Studies Ancient Greek Military Practices, Part I

Reissued, 1974

Printed in the United States of America

23456789

CONTENTS 1

CONTENTS 1

ABBREVIATIONS

INTRODUCTION

MILITARY PAY

CHAPTER II PROVISIONING

CHAPTER III BOOTY

CHAPTER IV LEGAL OWNERSHIP OF BOOTY

CHAPTER V THE DEKATE FROM BOOTY

CHAPTER VI THE ATHENIAN TREASURY AFTER THE PERSIAN WARS

CHAPTER VII THE MARCHING PAIAN

CHAPTER VIII SACRIFICE BEFORE BATTLE

CHAPTER IX PHASES OF THE MOON AND FESTIVALS

CHAPTER X SCOUTS

CHAPTER XI DEPTH OF PHALANX

CHAPTER XII WIDTH OF THE FILE IN PHALANX ARRAY

INDEX OF ANCIENT AUTHORS CITED

INDEX OF INSCRIPTIONS CITED

INDEX OF IMPORTANT GREEK WORDS

ABBREVIATIONS

INTRODUCTION

No COMPLETE study of ancient Greek warfare is possible at the present time because of the diversity of the archaeological evidence and the fragmentary nature of the literary information. One could draw a parallel to the field of Greek religion, of which M. P. Nilsson said, after a lifetime of research in the field, that we still can form no clear picture of what the average Greek of those times thought and felt concerning religious matters.1 He charted the only prudent course as one of continuing with minute and patient research and of avoiding loose speculations. Nilsson’s remarks apply with equal cogency to the study of Greek warfare. It is impossible to avoid all the pitfalls lying in the path of one who tries to recapture the nature of military life of a past age, reflected only in incomplete comments of those who lived in it.

Moreover, a truly definitive history of Greek warfare would require a knowledge of many aspects of Greek life. The would-be investigator would have to be familiar with terrain in the case of any given battle, have an acquaintance with the archaeological artifacts of various types, close familiarity with the written sources, and, most important, an understanding of the general economic picture. He would also need some insight into ancient religion and acquaintance with military and naval procedures and strategy. Finally, since the polis in its demands and its tasks was the center of the life of the individual citizen, a thorough understanding of constitutional procedures is necessary.

In the course of my topographical researches on ancient battlefields and routes, I have frequently come across isolated problems which have not up to now been sufficiently investigated. I decided to make a beginning, hoping that this volume might be a precursor to others. This book, which deals with the more mundane matters of the needs of an army in the field, is in a sense complementary to the recent study on tactics by my colleague Professor J. K. Anderson, Military Theory and Practice in the Age of Xenophon (Berkeley 1970).

The first six chapters, relating to pay and sustenance, have a common economic theme; the other chapters are more discursive. My method is emphasis on the collecting of factual material: to assist other scholars in the discovery of passages which may have escaped my notice, I have often presented tables of testimonia. It would be presumptuous of me to believe that I am myself conversant with all of the ancient evidence. I hope thisapproach will lead other scholars to proceed further with the study.

In many chapters, the method has been philological—that is, I have started with a study of vocabulary. Here incompleteness is axiomatic, because there are no adequate lexicons for several of the most voluminous Greek writers, including Diodoros, Pausanias, Xenophon, and Plutarch, as well as the tacticians, with the exception of Aineias.

The spelling of Greek names presents a perpetual problem. The practice of transliterating personal and place names is becoming increasingly common in Greek historical studies, a practice which was observed, for example, by Gildersleeve in the early numbers of the American Journal of Philology, and is now followed in the RE and other works intended for an international audience. I prefer Makedonia, Arkadia, and Kerkyra, for example, to the anglicized forms; but this spelling admittedly results in such hybrid forms as Makedonians, Arkadians, and Kerkyraeans. On the other hand, Makedonioi, Arkades, and Kerkyraioi look strange. Some familiar names I anglicize.

I wish to acknowledge the assistance at various times of Messrs. J. Breslin, P. Harding (in chapter X), G. Weber (in chapter XI), and W. Jones, graduate students in my seminars at Berkeley. Mrs. T. Carp has checked the references in most of the chapters; Mr. U. Sanchez those in the remainder. The manuscript was carefully typed by Miss Marcia Toy. Some parts have been read by Professors R. Sealey, R. Stroud, and G. Greenewalt, and I have appreciated their criticisms. Professor Joseph Fontenrose has saved me from several infelicities of phrasing and word choice, and a reading of his review in AJP 91 (1970) has spared me others. Some financial assistance has come from the Committee on Research and the Work Studies Program of the University of California. My wife, as always, has rendered aid of various kinds.

The manuscript was completed in July, 1970.

CHAPTER I

1 Geschichte der griechischen Religion I² (Munich 1955) 844.

MILITARY PAY

THE SUBJECT of military pay has never received full-scale treatment except for the Hellenistic period. The two following passages, quoted from standard works on Greek economy, give the opinio communis:

H. Michell, Economics of Ancient Greece (Cambridge 1940) 361: With regard to military expenses, it is to be noted that, certainly down to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war, the armed forces of the state were composed of citizens who provided their own equipment and maintained themselves while on active service. … It was quite possible for the state to bear little or no expense.

A. M. Andreades, History of Greek Public Finance 1 (Cambridge, Mass. 1933) 217: At this time [before Perikles] military service gave no claim to pay, even in time of war; in addition to this, as Hans Delbrck observes, it constituted not only a personal obligation but was also a form of taxation, for the citizen was obliged to pay for his own equipment. This was, in part at any rate, responsible for the division of the citizens by Solon into the well-known different classes.

On the other hand, some scholars believe they can be more precise about a terminus post quern for the introduction of military pay. For example, one recent writer states: That was just the time (i.e., peace in 445 B.C.) to start regular paid training. The exact date, however, does not matter—the system was certainly in operation by 445/4 B.C.1

VOCABULARY FOR PAYMENTS

The conventional view is that payment was made under two different terms:2 μισθός, or wages for service, which, with the exception of expenses for weapons and clothing, the soldier could lay up; and σιτηρόσιον which refers to rations or to their equivalent in money.3

Valuable articles on the two words were published by Schulthess in RE s.v. Misthos (1932) and s.v. Siteresion (1927). Much epigraphical evidence was collected by A. Wilhelm in his Attische Urkunden I.⁴ The ablest studies of the subject are B. A. Van Groningen, Aristotle, Le second livre de Peconomique (Leyden 1933) 152-153; G. T. Griffith, The Mercenaries of the Hellenistic World (Cambridge 1935) 264-316; and M. Launey, Recherches sur les armees hellenistiques 2 (Paris 1950) 725-780.

The two words came to denote two entirely different things and will accordingly be studied in separate chapters.

The vocabulary drawing a sharp distinction between pay and money for rations does not seem to have been developed until the rise of large mercenary armies in the fourth century. At least, this distinction was not observed by Thucydides, who is our most important source for information about the military economy of the fifth century. One important example of Thucydidean usage is found in a neglected passage in Book 8, where the words misthos and trophe are used synonymously. When the Peloponnesian fleet was assembled at Miletos, Tissaphernes (8.29) paid to them the wages of the crews at the rate of one Attic drachme per head per diem, as he had promised through his envoy at Sparta. The promise of money is narrated in 8.5.5, and the word used is trophe’. ύπισχνεϊτο τροφήν παρίξειν. In turn, when the payment is reported in 8.29.1, the word used is again trophe (kl μηνός μζν τροφήν, ώσπ€ρ ύπέστη ev ττ)

breastplate was disproportionately high. One text of IG I² , 1 as restored (B. D. Meritt, Hesperia 10 [1941] 307; cf. R. Meiggs and D. Lewis, SGHI no. 14) contains the provision that eligible Athenians on Salamis should arm themselves and that the archon was to pass judgment on the arms which they provided. Each Athenian was to furnish his own arms to the value of 30 drachmai. For more recent attempts to restore IG I² , 1, see SEG 23 (1968) 1. For literature on the subject of katastasis, see Schulthess, RE s.v. Katastasis 1 (1919) 2486-2487; G. Busolt, Gr. Staatskunde 2 (Munich 1926) 1186; and M. Detienne in CetS 11 (1968) 137. Near the end of the third century b.c., one general was praised because he had provided money for clothing for his men (IG II4 , 1304, lines 34—35: tv πάσι τοΐς ercaiv αντοΐς προδιδούς άργύριον ίίς ίσθητα). With regard to mercenaries, in at least one case it may be inferred that the Spartan state paid for armor: see Gomme, HCT 3, 548. Μ. I. Finley (in CetS 11 [1968] 149) believes that what he calls the public supply system obtained at Sparta for the citizen hoplite. This view is supported by a passage in Nepos 17 Agesilaus 3.2, where we are told that the Spartan king at Ephesos in 395 took the responsibility for the manufacture of arms for repair and replacement. At Athens (Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 42.4) each ephebe in the fourth century was provided with a shield and spear. Pasion the banker furnished a thousand shields from his own workshop: Demosthenes 45 Against Stephanos 85. According to the decree contained in Demosthenes 18 On the Crown 116, Ghairedemos and Diotimos bestowed gratuitously* eight hundred shields for the neaniskoi. K. J. Dover (Thucydides VII [Oxford 1965] 12) states that Athenian thetes, when they served as hoplites, were armed at the state’s expense. At Athens in 403, the men of the Peiraieus made their own shields of wood or wickerwork and painted them: Xenophon Hell. 2.4.25. For the equipment of the mercenaries of Kyros, see J. Roy, Historia 16 (1967) 310. For that of the Makedonians, see G. T. Griffith, PCPhS 184 (1956-57) 9. The greatest mass production of armor took place at Syrakuse. We are told by Diodoros (14.43) that the shields fabricated by Dionysius were no fewer than one hundred and forty thousand in number, and the breastplates fourteen thousand. Helmets, spears, and daggers were produced in corresponding amounts.

5 Sitz. Akad. Wien 165 (1910-1911), Abh. 6.

Λακ&αίμονι… διβδωκε). At the same time, Tissaphernes gave notice for the future that he could not continue so high a rate of pay unless he should receive express instructions from Susa; and that, until such instructions came, he should give only half a drachme per day. The Syrakusan Hermokrates remonstrated so strongly against the reduction that he obtained from Tissaphernes the assurance of a slight increase above the half drachme, though he could not succeed in getting the entire drachme continued. Thucydides informs us that the seamen were in good spirits not merely from having received the high pay, but from the plentiful bounty acquired at lasos (8.36). In this passage, the word used in referring to the money for trophe is misthos: μισθός έδιόοτο αρκούντως.

Moreover, in the account in 8.29, we learn that the Spartan Therimenes, being only commander for the interim until the junction with Astyochos, was indifferent to the rate at which the men were paid. Here the word is misthos; and misthos, according to commentators, is the supplied subject of έόίόοτο at the end of the paragraph. Finally, at the conclusion of the account of the incident, the two words are used in the same sentence with the same significance (8.45.6): τον re Τισσαφέρνη άπέφαιν€ νΰν μέν, τοΐς ιόίοις χρημασι πολ€μοΰντα> εικότως φ€ΐόόμ€νον, ην όέ ποτ€ τροφή καταβη παρά βασιλέως, εντελή αύτοΐς άποόώσειν τον μισθόν. Indeed, the argument used by Alkibiades in this chapter (45) was that the king should allow only three obols since even Athens,which had had so long an experience in naval matters, likewise gave only three obols, not because of poverty, but in order that the seamen might not have a superfluity of money to spend on things which would enervate their bodies.⁶

Again, in Thucydides 6.8, the Segestaian envoys produced sixty talents of uncoined silver as one month’s pay for the men in sixty triremes. Since the crew of a trireme numbered about two hundred, the rate of pay envisaged was one drachme per sailor per day. The word used in this passage is misthos. In 6.47, when Nikias falls back to recommending the limited objective of the earlier Athenian decision given in 6.8.2, the word used is trophe: ταΐς εξήκοντα ναυσίν, όσαπερ ήτήσαντο, άξιοΰν όιόόναι αυτούς τροφήν. In 6.93.4, when the Athenian generals in Sicily requested χρήματα και ιππέας, the demos voted to send την τε τροφήν … και τούς ιππέας. In 7.48.5, the discussion of trophe is in terms of money. Likewise, the treaty between Darios and the Spartans in 8.58 had to do with trophe in terms of χρήματα (8.58.6).

As W. Kolbe stated with regard to Thucydides: Verbum μισθός contra semper ita adhibebat, ut totum stipendium complecteretur. Similem in modum voce τροφή utebatur. …"7 A soldier’s entire monetary allowance, then, was called by Thucydides misthos. There is no evidence from the fifth century to support the later distinction between pay and rations.

Just as the word misthos is used in Thucydides for the total stipend, and in turn called trophe, so sitos is found in the sense of payment for food. The quadruple alliance in 420 B.C. (5.47.6) contains the following sentence: ή πόλις ή μεταπεμψαμενη διδότω σίτον, τω μεν οπλίτη και ψιλω και τοξότη τρεις οβολούς Αιγιναίονς της ημέρας εκάστης, τω δ’ ίππεΐ δραχμήν Αιγιναίαν. The word sitos here clearly means money.8

Thus, we have the texts of two formal treaties preserved in Thucydides, those of 420 and 412 B.C., in which trophe and sitos refer to payments in money, these being the only monetary payments negotiated by the parties concerned. It seems reasonable to conclude that this usage reflects common fifth-century practice. Just as dikastic pay was for maintenance,9 so the stratiotic pay made to citizens in the fifth century was for purchase of rations.

G. T. Griffith believes that the distinction between pay and rations is observed by Xenophon, who uses the word siteresion in Anab. 6.2.4.10 But in 7.1.7, Xenophon uses misthos where the reference is to provisions. At Byzantion Anaxibios refuses to give the soldiers misthos; he orders them to leave the city and they do so reluctantly since they have no money to buy food: και μισθόν μεν ούκ εδίδου ό Άναξίβιος … ενταύθα οι στρατιώται ήχθοντο, ότι ούκ εΐχον άργύριον έπισιτίζεσθαι εις την πορείαν. Similarly, in his commentary on Hell. 6.2.19, C. E. Bennett (Xenophon’s Hellenica V-VII [Boston 1892]) observes that epitedeia is used in the sense of misthos. Nonetheless, Kyros’ only actual payment to the Ten Thousand was made in Kilikia, where he gave four months’ misthos, of which more than three months’ was already due.11 Since the army had subsisted in the meantime, and Kyros is reported to have been short of money at the beginning of the march,12 the men must have been issued either rations in kind or ration money. In a period when adaeratio was in its infancy, a new word describing it was not in common use.

By the time of the events described in [Aristotle’s] Economics, some of which are dated in the second quarter of the fourth century, the distinction in terms had clearly been made, a distinction found also in Demosthenes.13 Similarly, in the book of Aineias the Tactican, written before 346 B.C., the difference between misthos and trophe is sharply drawn (13.2).

INTRODUCTION OF PAY AT ATHENS

G. Busolt believed that pay for soldiers who were citizens was first instituted at Athens in the Pentekontaetia,14 but he cited no evidence.15 In fact, there are at least eight passages which may be related to the introduction of pay at Athens.

1. Ulpian (on [Demosthenes] 13 On Organization 11) wrote: πρώτος γάρ εκείνος (Περικλής> έταξε μισθοφοράν, και έδωκε τώ δημω στρατευομένω.16 Α. Boeckh regarded this statement as valid.17

3. Again, in chapter 24, Aristotle says that Aristeides after the Persian Wars "advised the Athenians to aim at hegemony, and to come down from their farms and live in the city, for there would be trophe for all, he said, those serving in the army, and others as frontier-guards, and others conducting the business of the state [συνεβούλευεν άντιλαμβάνεσθαι της ηγεμονίας και καταβάντας εκ των αγρών οικεΐν εν τώ άστει- τροφήν γάρ εσεσθαι πάσι, τοΐς μεν στρατευομένοις τοΐς δε φρονροΰσι τοΐς δε τα κοινά πράττουσι]. "

All students have noted anachronisms in chapter 24 (see, for example, U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Aristoteles und Athen 2 [Berlin 1893] 201, who believes that Aristotle here used an oligarchic treatise, which was far removed from historical truth; K. von Fritz and E. Kapp, Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens [New York 1950] 169; J. Day and M. Chambers, Aristotle’s History of Athenian Democracy [Los Angeles 1962] 124 [with bibliography]; Keaney, AJP 90 [1969] 412-414); but the association of military trophe with Aristeides is clear. This may have been the first step in a development which reached its completion many years later. Since the distinction between trophe and misthos was sharply drawn by Aristotle’s time, the two passages from the Ath. Pol. might lead us to infer that Aristeides introduced the principle of providing military rations (24.1: τροφή), but that composite pay while serving (27.2: μισθοφορεΐν) came later, after dikastic pay. Alternatively, as with the statement about the dikasts, the entire list in 24.1 may be taken to apply, not to the times of Aristeides, but to the result of a policy which Aristeides initiated. As Day and Chambers warn, there are massive anachronisms in chapter 24.

5. Plutarch in the life of Kimon (11.2) uses the word misthos in tracing the development of the Athenian Confederacy. He states that Kimon encouraged the allied cities to contribute money rather than ships and adds that the misthos of Athenian seamen» who manned the ships of cities which formerly served came from cash furnished by these allies:18 των δ’ Αθηναίων άνά μέρος πολλούς εμβιβάζων και διαπονών ταΐς στρατείαις, εν ολίγω χρονω τοΐς παρά των συμμάχων μισθοΐς και χρημασι δέσποτας αυτών των δϊδόντων εποίησε. Almost without exception, historians are agreed that Kimon 11.1-3 is a free and inexact version of Thucydides 1.99. Variations from Thucydides are due to Plutarch’s effort to glorify Kimon by attributing to him what was really collective action by the state. The source and value of the accretions to the story, of which the reference to misthos is one, are indeterminable.19 It would seem plausible that as shipcontributing cities changed to payment of cash, part of the payment would go for the misthos of the substituted Athenian crews. In the chapter (1.99) in which Thucydides tells of the change to tribute payment, it is clear that he is looking back on a series of actual experiences in campaigns. West has suggested that the major impulse for the change to payment in money was provided by the preparations for the expedition to Cyprus in 451/0 B.C.20 In any case, to judge from the various restorations of the small fragment published as IG I², 293,21 the tamiai of Athena seem to have paid moneys direct to the generals for the siege of Samos in 440.22 The larger part of the sums mentioned on the stone in IG I², 293, must have gone for supplies for the hoplites and seamen throughout the lengthy campaign,²³ including the siege of nine months.²⁴

6. Another passage in Plutarch’s Kimon (9.6 = Jacoby FGrH III.B.no. 392 [Ion of Chios] fr. 13) is sometimes cited (cf. W. K. Lacey, The Family in Classical Greece [Ithaca 1968] 268, n. 143) as evidence for pay as early as 478 to sailors of the fleet. Ion is quoted as telling at a dinner party at Laomedon’s house the strategem of how Kimon outwitted his Ionian allies in the distribution of booty after the capture of Sestos and Byzantion. The result was that Kimon had four months’ trophe for the Athenian fleet and much gold from the ransom was left over for the city [ώστβ τώ Κίμωνι τεσσάρων μηνών τροφάς εις τάς ναΰς ύπάρζαι και προσέτι τη πόλει χρνσίον ούκ ολίγον εκ τών λύτρων περιγενέσθαι]. Nothing is said about military pay as such, the distribution of Kimon was not made to the allied fleet as a whole since the lonians had received their portion of the ransom, and the historicity of the passage has been questioned (cf. infra p. 83). Moreover, the context shows that Kimon told the story as an example of his σοφία—the wisdom of a general in feeding his own troops by outwitting his allies; cf. F. Jacoby, Abhandlungen zur griechischen Geschichtschreibung (ed. H. Bloch [Leiden 1956]) 146. If pay had been provided by the Delian League, there would have been no reason to make the distribution. On the other hand, what this story tells us, if it is historically accurate, is that the general in the field had the responsibility of obtaining rations for the soldiers of his command.

7. Chapter 10 of Plutarch’s Themistokles has been cited by E. Cavaignac as evidence for military pay to the thetes in 480: "Ces hommes [les thtes] 6taient de pauvres diables, vivant de la main a la bouche, qu’on ne pouvait faire servir sans solde. Le minimum d’entretien d’un homme etait alors estime ά. 2 obols (ce fut le chiffre accorde en 480 par les Trézeniens aux Atheniens rfugis chez eux: Plut., Themist., 10 [bonne source])" (Etudes sur I’histoire financiere d’Athenes au ve siecle [Paris 1908] 14). Extracts from chapter 10 read as follows (Perrin’s translation with one exception): At last his opinion prevailed, and so he introduced a bill providing that the city be entrusted for safe keeping ‘ to Athena the patroness of Athens,’ but that all the men of military age embark on the triremes, after finding for their children, wives and servants such safety as each best could. … They actually voted to support them at the public cost, allowing two obols daily to each family. … Since the Athenians had no public moneys on hand, according to Aristotle it was the senate of Areiopagus which provided each of the men who embarked with eight drachmas. … Themistocles discovered an abundance of money hidden away in the baggage, which had only to be confiscated, and the crews of the ships were well provided with ephodion. Ephodion in a military sense, as Mauersberger says in his Polybios-Lexikon, means Marschverpflegung. The argument which is developed by Cavaignac in his first two chapters is that thetes would not have been able to procure their own