Army and military affairs in ancient Greece. Greek army What is a front in ancient Greece

Let the ancient Greeks be famous! The Greeks came to the world of submissive inhabitants of warm valleys, who were under the heavy hand of pharaohs or kings, who were at the same time high priests, from the mountains blown by cold winds and from the valleys of the north, stingy with harvests - from where life was a constant struggle and the winds of freedom blew from every mountain peak and from every peninsula jutting out far into the sea. Their mentality, their way of life was something previously unknown in the ancient world. Here there was no trace of cowardly submission to the power of a god-like king, without which it is impossible to imagine any of the previous civilizations that created the mold on which the life of the inhabitants of Asia was cast. Now there is a world of mind.

It was by no means a perfect world - and the ancient Greeks were the first to recognize this. By our standards, it was still “antiquity” with everything that this concept includes. Slavery flourished and was the basis of the economy everywhere. In Athens alone in the 5th century BC. e. There were about 100,000 slaves. Many of these unfortunates were once free citizens of independent city-states, and their lot was hardly easier than that of the sufferers of Egypt and Mesopotamia, accustomed from childhood to slavery, which had become part of their flesh and blood. An otherwise intelligent Greek was subject to pagan prejudices and, when starting some important business, he sacrificed a ram or an ox, or went on a journey to listen to the muttering (usually very inarticulate and ambiguous) of some prophetess stupefied by narcotic smoke. Citizens of the most enlightened city in the world forced the condemned Socrates to drink a cup of poison. And no one can deny that Greek democracy faced an inevitable decline in the end.

And yet, an inquisitive mind, a joyful perception of life, a free spirit, not burdened by the fear of dark gods or the all-powerful king of kings, lit a lamp that centuries of prejudice, intolerance and ignorance could not extinguish.

In the inevitable clash between East and West, all advantages, with the exception of manpower, were on the side of the West. The multilingual army of the Persian king, drawn from all corners of the expanding empire and lacking internal unity, initiative and discipline, was opposed by warriors who were not inferior to them in physical strength, but with more effective weapons and equipment and much higher morale. Western intelligence and initiative came into conflict with the blind diligence of the East. And although the balance of power was largely influenced by the numerical superiority of the eastern warriors, the scales were still tipped in favor of the Greeks, and with far-reaching consequences. Because the outcome of the confrontation between two diametrically opposed cultures and civilizations was to play a huge role in the fate of the entire Western Hemisphere. The scale of this event deserves at least a quick glance at the world of the ancient Greeks.

It is acceptable to assume that none of the peoples really knows the beginning of their history. But by comparing ancient languages ​​with each other, studying the legends and traditions of deep antiquity, peering at the found objects and remains of buildings that were once erected by the hands of distant ancestors and have survived to this day, one can judge, albeit not very reliably, the origins of this or that people, including the ancient Greeks.

The ancient Greeks were members of that great family of Indo-Europeans from which the Germanic peoples, the Hindus, the Celts, the Iranians and the Slavs descended. In ancient times, one branch of these Indo-Europeans began moving south from their ancestral home in the steppes of southern Russia and, after a long time, in several stages, finally settled in the region in the northern Balkans. From there, approximately in the period no later than 2000 BC. e., they began to push out their neighbors in the south and moved to the Greek peninsula. The first wave of tribes to invade from the north, the Achaeans, mixed with the original inhabitants of the area, the people of the Minoan and Aegean cultures, giving them their own language and, in turn, assimilating much of their ancient culture, which spread from its center on the island of Crete to the islands of the Aegean Sea, the coast of Asia Minor and continental Greece.

Greeks of the era of ancient heroes

From the mixture of these two races and cultures arose the Achaean civilization, which Homer sang in his poems. Her heroic era lasted from about 1500 BC. e. and until 1100 or 1000 AD. e. In the XII or XIII century BC. e. The Achaeans, together with other Greek tribes of the north, began migrating to the islands and coastal areas of the eastern coast of the Aegean Sea. As one can assume, it was during the period of this colonization that the struggle broke out between the Achaeans, their allies and the rulers of the lands around Troy, which inspired Homer to create his two magnificent poems - the Iliad and the Odyssey.

But the triumph of Homer's heroes was destined to have a short life. A new wave of newcomers from the north, consisting mainly of Dorians already using iron weapons, swept into Greece. These new newcomers had a lower culture than their related Achaeans. Strongholds such as Mycenae and Tiryns were destroyed, and many of their dispossessed inhabitants joined the flow of emigrants from the Greek peninsula to the east coast. There, as on many islands scattered across the sea, the ancient culture was able to remain intact, but on the Greek mainland the wave of the Dorian invasion gave rise to a troubled period, a time of significant changes in the way of life, when the surviving bearers of the old culture eventually became part of the civilization that we Now we know it as ancient Greek. These turbulent centuries, about which we know very little, are very similar to the dark ages of the Christian era, which erased from it almost all features of the culture of Ancient Rome. When the ancient Greeks entered the arena of world history (in the 8th century BC), they already possessed an advanced culture, an expressive language, and a rich heritage of epic literature and mythology.

In areas less accessible or more convenient for defense, where the wave of invasion did not penetrate, the ancient culture was able to exist longer. In others, who experienced all the destructive rage of the aliens, everything old was swept away by a new wave. But since the times of the tribal way of life, one thing has remained unchanged - a strong clan instinct, which formed the basis for the emergence of the system of city-states, which became the most important part of the way of life of the ancient Greeks. These city-states were for the most part quite small. Aristotle believed that for effective government a city should be small, so that all its inhabitants knew each other. It is highly doubtful whether any ancient Greek city, with the exception of Athens, could field an army of more than 20,000 men, consisting of men between the ages of sixteen and sixty. Most often, the city-state consisted of a walled settlement, surrounded by farms and villages located at such a distance from it that all their inhabitants could quickly take refuge behind its walls in case of danger. Many of these cities were located several hours' walk from each other, so that often the inhabitants of one of them, who was the mortal enemy of another, could see their rivals. It was the small size of these tiny enclaves that greatly contributed to the development of military art in Ancient Greece and gave it a special character. Unlike the lone heroes of Homer's times, the warriors of the city-states were citizen-soldiers, specially selected from among all the inhabitants, armed and led for their salvation. The chariots of the Trojan War disappeared, and the “queen of the fields” became heavily armed, armored spear-carrying infantry - hoplites.

Bronze dagger blade from Mycenae

These hoplites were formed from wealthy citizens - those who could afford to purchase weapons and protective equipment. Their equipment was almost standard throughout the ancient Greek world. It consisted primarily of a metal helmet made of iron or bronze, usually decorated with a horsehair plume (to make its wearer appear taller and more menacing), often made to protect not only the back of the head and neck, but also the cheeks, nose and chin. There were several types of helmets, but the head shape known as the “Corinthian” was the most common. An image of this type of helmet is most often found on sculptures and jewelry. The Corinthian helmet was a magnificent example of weaponry, designed so that the surface of the head was covered with the thickest layer of metal, while thinner metal in other parts of the helmet made it lighter. A metal cuirass and backrest, connected on one side with loops and held on the shoulders by thick leather straps (or a thick leather vest), protected the warrior’s body to the waist.

Historians disagree on how the hoplite's body was protected. Botel, in his book Arms and armor, mentions that the hoplite had a leather vest, and a metal cuirass was only included in the equipment of the horsemen. A line from Anabasis confirms this. When Xenophon, after the hoplite’s ridicule, dismounted and took his place in the ranks, “he was wearing his horseman’s cuirass, so he turned out to be clumsy.” Therefore, it can be assumed that it was not common for infantrymen to march in such clothing. True, in the paintings on vases there are images of similar armor, most of which looks as if it was tailored to the figure of a warrior, and, presumably, it was made of metal (although a sleeveless leather vest of boiled leather, tailored to the figure, would look about the same ).

The weight of a hoplite's protective equipment, including its shield, has been estimated by various researchers to be between 35 and 57 pounds. The maximum estimate is taken, without a doubt, from Plutarch's Life of Demetrius. During Demetrius's siege of Rhodes, “he was presented with two iron cuirasses, each weighing more than 40 pounds. He granted one of them... to the strongest of his commanders, who alone could wear armor weighing two talents, because the ordinary armor worn by others weighed one talent.” One Attic talent was about 57.75 pounds, and any armor weighing 114 pounds could only be used during a siege. The fact that these cuirasses were tested at the time by direct fire from a catapult (which did not penetrate the armor) seems to confirm this. Everything suggests that the armor weighing 57 pounds was intended only for siege use, since armor of such weight could hardly be used during a battle in the field.

Examining the remains of equipment that has come down to our times from the distance of those years, experts came to the conclusion that the helmet should have weighed about 5 pounds, the leggings - 3-4 pounds, and the cuirass - about 10 pounds. Taking the weight of the shield to be 16 pounds, we get the same 35 pounds in total. Made using technology that existed in Antiquity, at a real distance during battle, a cuirass made of such material is essentially impenetrable. Therefore, Xenophon’s testimony that “there died a good man, Leonymus, a Laconian, struck by an arrow that pierced his shield and cuirass and pierced his chest,” raises the question of whether such cuirasses were made of metal. “There” refers to the rearguard, and it is especially indicated that all the lightly armed soldiers were in the vanguard, so there is every reason to believe that the unfortunate Leonymus was a heavily armed infantryman. It should be noted that the bows were very powerful, with arrows “more than two cubits in length” and therefore quite heavy. Assuming that these arrows were equipped with dagger-type tips, similar to those used by English archers against armored knights, then an arrow from a very powerful bow could pierce two layers of bronze like the one described above.

However, we can be sure that such shooting was the exception rather than the rule, and that the hoplite, clad in a Corinthian helmet, with a shield covering him from neck to knees, and wearing greaves, represented a target that the average archer could hit not so easy.

Greek helmet with silver crest (reconstruction), circa 500 BC. e.

There is no doubt that individual lightly armed warriors wore protective clothing made of leather or sleeveless cuirasses made of several glued or quilted layers of fabric. The latter may have been borrowed from the Persians - protective clothing made of quilted fabric was always popular in Asian armies.

When discussing any question about the protective equipment of the warrior of Antiquity, it should be remembered that it was always made individually, so that each warrior had his own armor, which inevitably differed in various features. As for the total weight of protective equipment, it must be borne in mind that usually each hoplite was accompanied by at least one assistant. This man acted as a shield bearer, forager and orderly, and in battle he acted as a lightly armed warrior.

Greek hoplite from funeral urn

The hoplite's legs were protected by greaves, high enough to cover the knees, but designed so as not to restrict the movement of the foot and knee. The greaves appear to have been specially adjusted to the shape of the leg and fitted the calves so precisely that no ties or buckles were required to secure them. And in general, all protective equipment as a whole was made in such a way as to provide the warrior with maximum freedom of movement. The armor did not prevent its owner from running, bending, kneeling or turning, and bare hands gave complete freedom in handling the sword and shield. The shield was no longer a clumsy flat plate reaching to the knees, as it was in Homeric times, but became round, about three feet in diameter or a little more. Now it was convex outward and was held suspended by the warrior with his left hand, which he passed under the leather strap, and with it he held the leather handle on the inner surface of the shield. In general, the protective equipment of a heavily armed warrior perfectly matched the capabilities of the athletically built Greeks.

The main weapon of the infantry was a heavy spear, approximately ten feet in length, which was used as a piercing weapon rather than as a throwing weapon. Based on the mention in Anabasis that Asian spears “have only one point,” we can conclude that Greek spears had two points - one regular, in front, and the second at the other end of the shaft to rest on the ground. Compared to the spears used in the phalanxes of Thebes and later in Macedonia, the length of the spear increased significantly. In the time of Polybius (201 - 120 BC), the length of the spear, called a sarissa, was from 21 to 24 feet, so that the defending phalanx “bristled” with the tip of six rows of hairy spears. Such a sarissa, of course, was used in a completely different way than the short spear of old times, just as the phalanx itself used different tactics.

The sword was usually a double-edged weapon with a leaf-shaped blade, although in paintings we can sometimes see a short and heavy cutting sword, very reminiscent of the kukri of the Nepalese highlanders - a very remarkable weapon, possibly brought to India along with the army of Alexander the Great. Usually the hoplite also had a dagger with a wide blade, called a parazonium (“friend at the belt”).

Citizens who could not afford to purchase a full complement of weapons acted as auxiliary units in the heavy infantry - mainly as spearmen, archers and slingers. These lightly armed units could be equipped in a variety of ways, but the spearmen usually carried a round shield that was smaller and lighter than that of the hoplites; their helmet, unlike the heavy combat helmet of a heavily armed infantryman, was more like a modern helmet and covered only the head, and could be made of leather. These warriors probably may not have had cuirass or greaves.

The biggest change in the way the ancient Greeks waged war was not in weapons or equipment, but in the concept of using the hoplite phalanx, where a precise formation of armored spearmen acted on the battlefield on command, as one man. Previously, the battle consisted of many individual fights, the battle invariably began with an altercation, during which each of the combatants tried to force his opponent to leave his defensive position behind a large shield and make the first attack. The phalanx was not a place where every warrior could demonstrate his courage and combat prowess. For such competitions, the ancient Greeks started the Olympic Games. In battle, the safety of the formation depended on each person supported by his neighbor, and each warrior had to subordinate his personal desires and fears in the name of the unity and success of the entire formation. The fact that in a small and close-knit society of city-states a neighbor in the military could well be a neighbor in civilian life was also an important factor in promoting the observance of discipline.

But the ancient Greek, with the exception of the Spartans, was an exceptional individualist, possessing an impressionable soul, prone to rejoicing in case of victory, but also capable, even too hastily, of admitting defeat. His spirit - born under the hymns in honor of Apollo and war cries, strengthened in military unity with his fellow warriors - could throw him forward towards terrible danger; but as soon as the exaltation waned and the danger increased, his mind began to suggest that it would be nice to find a quieter place somewhere. One Englishman in 1915 remarked bitterly about some unit of the Allied forces, whose retreat endangered the position of his regiment: “They advanced like devils - in both directions.” They suspect that these words were spoken specifically about the Greeks.

The battle for the body of Achilles - from a painting on a vase. Note the double crest on the central figure's helmet

Although rivalries between cities were more than common, the average Greek was by no means particularly belligerent. He did not hesitate to follow the call to arms if it was the will of his city, but he was by no means eager to fight simply to swing a sword with all his heart, like the warriors of the north of later eras. As a good citizen, he had other things to do, and, no doubt, his reaction to such a call was exactly the same as that of a reservist of our day, who was torn away from his family and his activities. Moreover, his spirit was not at all inspired by some brilliant religious idea - such as eternal bliss in case of death on the battlefield. The afterlife for the ancient Greeks was a rather sad and restless affair - an eternal stay in the gloomy kingdom of Pluto, “where death reigns without edge and without feeling.” In a conversation with Odysseus, the shadow of the mighty Achilles says:

I would consider it happiness
To be a farm laborer for the last ragamuffin,
How to rule everyone here
Descended to Hades.

For the ancient Greeks, who were in love with life, the prospect of exchanging the company of their comrades and the entirety of earthly existence for eternal vegetation in the gloomy underworld did not look at all attractive.

Unlike the ancient Romans, whose style of fighting face to face with a short sword required great skill and constant training, the ancient Greek burgher apparently did not spend most of his free time in military training. He was able to maintain his place in the general formation of the phalanx and act with a spear and shield, but he can hardly be considered a disciplined fighting machine. In a battle with the same resident of another Greek city, the chances of both opponents were approximately equal. But in a battle with a man who devoted most of his life to war, such a citizen-soldier usually had little chance of standing - and therefore the long military training of the Spartans was fully manifested here. This was also the reason for the increase in the proportion of mercenary troops, professional soldiers whose only occupation was war and who usually compensated for the lack of patriotism with their experience and discipline.

For people of average ability as ordinary citizen-soldiers, the battle formation of a phalanx armed with spears was an ideal solution. It provided the warlord with a unit that was easy to control, requiring, at least in its original form, minimal training, while providing each member of the phalanx with maximum moral and physical support. There is an opinion that the development of heavily armed infantry contributed to the course towards democratization of society, while in states such as Thessaly, which relied mainly on heavy cavalry, that is, on rich people who could afford the purchase of war horses, weapons and defensive weapons, democracy was not popular.

Two techniques for lining up in a battle line

The formation of the phalanx varied depending on the circumstances. Usually it consisted of eight rows in depth. We don’t know exactly how it was formed. The Spartans divided the entire formation into togas of about five hundred people, which roughly corresponds to a modern battalion. Mora, in turn, was divided into lochoi, or companies, which consisted of even smaller units, pentecostes And enomorai, platoon and squad equivalents. The Athenian army and, presumably, the armed forces of all other ancient Greek states, as is commonly believed, were built on a similar model.

Combat training was carried out in squads, which formed into columns and learned to follow their commander. The width of the column determined the depth of the phalanx, and its front was a squad lined up in a line. There is also the possibility that the squad column was organized so that its length, rather than its width, determined the depth of the formation, entering the line sequentially and forming the vanguard. This formation placed the column commanders in the first rank, which, as we know, was always formed from the best fighters. Enomoty, lined up in columns of four, gives the usual formation depth of eight men.

But whatever the method of formation of the system, once formed, it was not particularly flexible. It can be assumed that the left or right flank could have been advanced, the phalanx could have been lined up with a right or left ledge, and turned back. The main function was to attack with the front straight ahead, and any complex maneuver was excluded. Carrying out the given order to attack, she practically could not, or could with great difficulty, stop or change the direction of her movement. The opposing phalanx, formed in a similar manner (both sides usually tried to find a level place for battle, since the rough terrain was not suitable for mass formation), hearing the sound of the trumpet, began to move forward, first slowly, and then, if it had to cover a significant distance, with loud screams she started running. Having come together closely, the front ranks began the battle, and from the deeper ones fresh fighters advanced to replace the fallen. Theoretically, when Greeks fought against Greeks, the two opposing phalanxes should have collided and continued fighting until the last man. In practice, one side soon gained the advantage, either through higher morale, greater force in the collision (perhaps gaining greater speed due to the favorable slope of the battlefield), or a denser formation, which gave more energy to the initial onslaught. The weaker enemy was then forced to retreat, while trying not to crush the rear ranks of the phalanx; then the formation broke and the warriors fled, and the victors began to pursue them, striking them in the back. The pursuit by the heavy, armored infantry, which had just been in the thick of the battle, could hardly last long, while the cavalry, whose function was the pursuit, was usually absent or small in number. The lightly armed units were small in number and were formed from the poorest segments of the population, who could not afford to purchase the required weapons and protective equipment; moreover, the lack of discipline and training did not allow them to be used for any organized persecution.

Speaking about the Spartans, Plutarch notes: “After they put the enemy to flight, they pursued him until they were finally convinced of their victory. Then they sounded the all-clear, considering it low and unworthy for the Greeks to destroy their fellow citizens who surrendered to the mercy of the winner and did not offer resistance. This manner of dealing with enemies showed not only magnanimity, but also political calculation; their enemies, knowing that the Spartans destroy only those who resist them and spare the rest, often preferred the more sensible thing not to fight, but to save their lives by flight.”

The weakness of the phalanx formation lay in the vulnerability of its flanks. In the event of a flank attack, the flanking units were forced to turn around to face the attacking enemy, thereby stopping all forward movement. Moreover, any attack on such a narrow target automatically brought the attacking side to the rear of the formation, bristling with spears - the weak point of any formation, with the exception of the square. This circumstance, in the absence (in most Greek states) of a sufficient number of cavalry to cover the flanks, forced the Greek commanders to constantly take measures to cover both flanks and ensure their safety by reducing the depth of the formation, and therefore lengthening the front line, or by choosing such a place of battle, on in which the security of the flanks would be ensured by the terrain. At the Battle of Marathon, Miltiades, warned of the possible maneuver of strong Persian cavalry against his flanks, made the phalanx formation thinner in the center (perhaps four ranks of warriors instead of eight), but left the formation of normal depth on the flanks. This made it possible to position a line of infantrymen in the space between two rivers, which bordered the sides of the plain on which the battle unfolded. The center of the Persian army pushed back the Greeks, but did not break through their formation, and at that time the fortified flanks of the Greek army surrounded the enemy center and defeated it.

The battle of the phalanx - always a duel between two opposing masses of warriors - usually ended in victory for one of the sides. The winners raised on the field a sign of their victory, the so-called trophy (armor hanging on a wooden pole or on a frame of crossed spears), and the vanquished admitted their defeat by sending heralds with a request for permission to collect the dead bodies of their comrades (according to the beliefs of the ancient Greeks, the shadows of the unburied people were destined to wander endlessly in the underworld). Since it was extremely important that the phalanx be as strong as possible at the moment of striking the enemy, reserves were used quite rarely. For the same reason, very few soldiers remained in the city; its defense was usually entrusted to the elderly or very young. An undeniable victory in the field therefore often ended the war with one blow. A victorious army rarely continued the war by storming an enemy city. With the very limited amount of siege equipment available to the average small city-state, undertaking a full-scale siege of another city was no easy task. In addition, citizen-soldiers mobilized for war and leaving their jobs were by no means eager to continue operations that would entail their continued stay away from home. Therefore, in most cases, after a decisive battle, a truce was concluded and peace negotiations began.

From individual hints scattered here and there in the writings of ancient Greek historians, we can conclude that the state of discipline even in the best units of heavily armed infantry left much to be desired. On the eve of the Battle of Plataea, the Spartan commander Pausanias had a lot of trouble due to the stubbornness of one of his subordinates, who, having received an order to withdraw his troops back, out of vanity, did not want to do this. This act caused a delay in the start of the battle, since a council of war had to be convened - Pausanias did not have the power to insist on his order being carried out!

And again, this time during the reorganization of the troops on the eve of the Battle of Mantinea, when King Agis gave the order to attack the heavily fortified enemy positions, a certain old soldier “began to shout loudly to Agis,” hinting that a hasty attack was planned in order to hide the previous one. a retreat for which rumors blamed the king. “Either embarrassed by this cry,” wrote Thucydides, “or because a new idea occurred to him, the king ordered a retreat.” Some general who commanded volunteers during the civil war might still have expected such a remark from a private from the ranks, but a Roman legionary of the imperial army would hardly have allowed himself to forget himself so much. One incident sheds further light on the relationship between ancient Greek citizen soldiers and their chosen commanders. As the battle began, two Spartan commanders refused to move their units to other locations as ordered. For their disobedience, they were subsequently punished by expulsion from their hometown - the heaviest punishment for any ancient Greek.

The Athenians had the same problems with discipline and disobedience. For example, the Athenian commander Demosthenes wanted to strengthen Pylos, a strategic Greek point on the enemy coast. We read about this from Thucydides: “After discussing this issue with the commanders of the units and being unable to convince either the officers or the soldiers, he remained inactive until the soldiers themselves, fearing the approach of enemies, suddenly rushed of their own free will to strengthen their position.” .

As the proportion of hired units increased, discipline became somewhat stronger. Greek mercenaries fighting in the army of Cyrus once received orders to advance at a slow pace, but soon, increasing their pace, “the soldiers arbitrarily started running forward.” The same warriors could afford to throw stones at their commander as a sign of discontent. It is likely that when direct orders and threats did not work, commanders had to resort to flattery.

The Greek city-states, with the exception of Sparta, do not appear to have had experienced junior officers in their armies. The following quotation from Thucydides shows that the system in which commands were passed down a chain of officers to a unit commander of thirty-two men was a distinctive feature of the Spartan army.

“They immediately and hastily went into the ranks of the warriors, and Agis, their king, ruled everything in accordance with the law. Because when the king himself is on the battlefield, then all commands come only from him; he gives the command to the polemarchs, who pass them on to the pentecostis, the latter, in turn, to the enomotarchs, and these to the enomotis. In short, all commands are followed in this way and are very quickly conveyed to the warriors; and since the entire army of the Lacedaemonians, with the exception of a small part of it, consists of officers subordinate to other officers, the care of ensuring that everything is done as it should be falls entirely on them.”

Cavalry units, which were very small in most Greek states, were formed from wealthy citizens - those who could afford to purchase both armor (since horsemen usually wore at least a cuirass in battle) and a horse. Horsemen in all cases were placed on one or both flanks of the main body of troops, where they performed a dual task: they drove off lightly armed enemy warriors - slingers, archers and javelin throwers - and attacked the enemy cavalry placed in a similar way.

Since the ancient Greeks did not use saddles, but rode directly on the horse’s back, sometimes covering it only with a blanket, and did not know stirrups, the use of a spear, such as was used during the Middle Ages, was impractical, and the rider’s main weapon was the sword. Light javelins were used, however, and there are occasional references to horse archers in the texts. Whether they fired at the enemy with bows, shooting arrows while galloping, as the Persians did, or dismounted and shot while standing, we do not know.

Although the Greek states constantly increased the use of cavalry in battle, this type of military force never achieved the power and efficiency that it achieved among the Macedonians. One reason for this was that much of Greece was mountainous or rugged terrain unsuitable for cavalry. It can be seen that the use of cavalry increased from south to north. The Spartans had no cavalry at all until the Peloponnesian War, but even with its outbreak the cavalry was never numerous or effective. Xenophon reports that at the Battle of Luctra “the Lacedaemonian cavalry was completely ineffective, since the horses were kept by the richest citizens. When the news of the campaign arrived, these horses were transferred to other, specially appointed people, and they were also given weapons, which is why it turned out that the most inept and cowardly went on horseback into the battle.” Such a unique, to put it mildly, method of forming cavalry units can only explain the constant weakness of the Spartan cavalry in battle.

The Athenians paid much more attention to the cavalry, and it was something of a privileged military unit, in which young and wealthy citizens served. It at times numbered up to 1,200 people, but even with such a considerable number, it constituted only a very small part of the total number of armed forces. The Boeotians, who lived in the north of the country, used cavalry very intensively; their riders distinguished themselves in the battles of Luctra and during the second battle of Mantinea. The plains of Thessaly were much more suitable for cavalry operations than the coastal strips of land in Macedonia. Without a doubt, it was precisely these circumstances, and the existing social circumstances that determined the degree of dependence on the presence of cavalry units in various states, that created the conditions for the development of cavalry here.

The ancient Greeks had several different types of cavalry. There were three main types of it: heavily armed cavalry, the so-called “Greek” cavalry and the “Tarentine” cavalry. The heavily armed cavalry - the cataphracts - was, without a doubt, based on the heavy cavalry of the Persians. They were dressed in helmets, cuirasses, armed with small round shields, and their horses had protection in the form of head armor (chamfron) and chest plate. "Greek" cavalry - a widely used type of troops - had less significant protective equipment or no equipment at all; their horses were also not protected. The third type of cavalry - “Tarentine” - was collected from the pine forest, had diverse weapons, some of the riders used bows, and others used throwing darts. The Cretans, judging by historical chronicles, were famous as experienced horse archers.

The bow as a weapon was by no means a thing of the past in Ancient Greece, and during the Peloponnesian War, archers - local or from allied cities - found more and more use. However, the bow was never a national weapon, as it was in medieval England. Its use was at odds with the concept of the citizen soldier, as the archer required much more training than the hoplite. In Xenophon's army, Cretans served as archers, from which we can conclude that the island was famous for its archery. Rhodes was famous for its slingers; in many manuscripts of ancient authors there are references to the fact that units of slingers from Rhodes served in various armies.

The Peloponnesian War, which lasted for twenty-seven years, brought great changes to the tactics of training and using lightly armed warriors. As hostilities continued and the number of casualties among civilian soldiers increased, the increasingly intensive use of mercenary troops became inevitable. According to one historian, the Spartans, who were able to field an army of 8,000 men during the war with the Persians, could muster only a little more than 1,500 soldiers a hundred years later.

Even without taking into account the loss of personnel in battle and disease, the prolonged nature of modern operations began to require a change from the old system of universal service. The ordinary citizen could not afford to remain cut off from his means of subsistence, so the city saw fit not only to provide him with weapons and the necessary equipment, but also to provide for his family in his absence. If a citizen soldier began to receive payment for his service, then there was only one step left before hiring a professional to replace him, which satisfied all three parties. The burgher-spearman returned to his business, the state acquired a trained soldier, and the mercenary got a job.

Even before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, some ancient Greek city-states began to hire small groups of professional soldiers on a permanent basis, both in order to save their citizens from time-consuming military service, and for reasons of efficiency - in case of unforeseen situations, these groups became the core of the troops, convened during general mobilization.

A professional heavily armed spearman was undoubtedly a much better trained warrior than the average citizen soldier, perhaps even the equal of a Spartan hoplite. But the lightly armed warriors - peltasts, who got their name from the small shield they used for protection, stood out even more favorably. Fighting in loose formation required much more personal discipline and preparation than in close formation, and a professional light infantryman was a much more dangerous fighter than a "poor relative" of the auxiliary units in general military service. During the Peloponnesian War, the increase in the number and effectiveness of the units of lightly armed soldiers used led to an increase in their role in military operations.

Light infantry has always been the most numerous branch of the army in the poor and less developed states of the mountainous north of Greece. Undertaken by the Athenians in 429 BC. e. The campaign against the inhabitants of Chalkidiki involved 2,000 heavily armed infantry, 200 cavalry and an unspecified number of light infantry. They were defeated by comparable enemy forces (an event that probably prompted the Athenians to opt for lighter infantry). The Athenian hoplites defeated the heavy infantry that opposed them, but their cavalry and light infantry were in turn defeated by the enemy light infantry and cavalry, which then attacked the Athenian heavy infantry. The hoplites retreated fighting, but “as soon as the Athenians went on the offensive, the enemy let them through, and then showered them with arrows and stones from slings, after which they immediately retreated. The Chalkidian horsemen, in turn, pushing back the Athenians and showering them with arrows, caused panic in their ranks, put them to flight and pursued them for quite a long time.”

Ten years later, the Athenian Demosthenes allowed himself to be persuaded to give the order to attack the Aetolians, who “although they were a numerous and warlike people, lived in villages without walls, scattered far from each other, and had no other weapons except light ones...”. Inspired by the first successes, Demosthenes went deeper into enemy territory, without waiting for reinforcements in the form of lightly armed spearmen, of whom he did not have enough. The Aetolians, enraged by this invasion, gathered their forces and repulsed the Athenians and their allies, descending from the mountains on both sides of the roads and showering them with javelins. When the Athenians tried to defeat them with a phalanx formation, the Aetolians retreated and attacked again when the Athenians retreated. This war continued for quite a long time, consisting of alternating offensives and retreats, and in both of these operations the Athenians acted rather weakly.

While the Athenians still had arrows, they managed to keep the lightly armed Aetolians at a distance; but when the commander of the archers was killed and his men scattered, the Athenian soldiers, mortally tired from repeating the same maneuvers, showered with darts from the Aetolians, finally fled... “Many of them were defeated during the retreat by the fleet-footed and lightly armed Aetolians, and many fell under the blows of their darts..."

Thucydides mentions that the losses of the Athenian allies were very heavy, but they were especially saddened by the death of one hundred and twenty heavily armed Athenian infantry, “who were in the prime of life. It was the best of the best inhabitants of Athens who fell in this war.” This remark convincingly demonstrates how insignificant were the forces of even such a large city as Athens, and how sensitive the loss of even one hundred and twenty citizens was to the army.

Thus, the lightly armed peltasts took their own place in the war. Later Athenian campaigns included six hundred archers to one thousand hoplites, so in all likelihood the lesson taught by the Aetolians was well learned. Under Delium, the Boeotian army consisted of 10,000 light infantry, 1,000 horse, and 7,000 heavily armed hoplites—a large proportion of light infantry even for a state in northern Greece. In this battle, it turned out that the Athenian cavalry or part of it, having rounded the hill, unexpectedly found itself opposite its right flank, which by this time was pushing back the enemy. The cavalry was taken by the Athenians to reinforce the enemy; The Athenian army was seized by panic - proof that an excess of imagination for a soldier is just as dangerous as its deficiency.

In a later period, the Athenian Iphicrates made significant improvements in the training and equipment of the peltasts. He equipped them with light armor, larger shields, longer spears and swords. From irregular formations of dubious value, the peltasts developed into a well-organized branch of the military. Successes in the Corinthian War (c. 390 BC) once again showed that a lightly armed warrior, properly used in battle, poses a serious threat to heavy infantry. In one of the battles, a unit of six hundred Spartan hoplites was attacked by peltasts under the command of Iphicrates. The heavy infantry was defeated by several successive attacks of the light-armed unit, and many Spartans fell on the battlefield, “and it was all the more bitter to realize that a selected regiment of fully armed Lacedaemonians was defeated by only a handful of infantry.” This defeat contributed greatly to the fact that the military the prestige of Sparta faded, and the professional skills of the peltasts were highly appreciated.

Among the city-states of Ancient Greece, there was one that occupied a very special place and which to this day remains a symbol of the strictest discipline, a harsh way of life and unyielding courage. And it is far from accidental that it was Sparta that occupied an exceptional position in the relations of the ancient Greek states, which it held for a long time and for which it paid with the sweat and blood of its citizens. The entire life of the adult population of this country resembled the life of a military camp; their existence was devoted to one single purpose - preparation for war. And this preparation was so successful that the mere appearance of the Spartan army on the battlefield in many cases was enough to ensure victory. “...Their courage was considered invincible, and their reputation as warriors even before the start of the battle amazed their enemies, who considered it impossible for themselves to defeat the Spartans...” Their military reputation was so high that when out of 420 Spartan hoplites, 120 remained alive after a long siege and fierce battles with an enemy who outnumbered them many times, they surrendered, this surprised all of Greece as much as the reckless courage of the Athenian commander, who attacked them with an army loaded on seventy ships.

“Nothing during this war could surprise the Hellenes more than this outcome. It has always been believed that neither force nor hardship can force the Lacedaemonians to lay down their arms, that they will fight to the last man and die with weapons in their hands ... "

To understand the Spartan soldier, it is necessary to imagine the organization of Spartan society. The people of Sparta were a military caste, bound by an iron discipline that dominated every adult Spartan male from birth until death. The whole life of a citizen of Sparta was devoted to serving the state. Every action of every citizen was subordinated to a single goal: the creation of a community of invincible warriors. To achieve this, it was necessary that every citizen be freed from the worries of supporting himself and his family. The social structure of the Spartan state served precisely this purpose - training a first-class warrior from a Spartan was supposed to absorb all his time. This task could not be achieved by weekly Sunday training, during which clumsy teenagers and portly fathers of families would not so much be busy as they would rejoice at the opportunity to legally take time off from boring school or from sitting in a small shop. Like professional soldiers, the Spartans devoted all their time to military affairs. When the Spartans met mercenary soldiers on the battlefield, then, even with equality in physical strength and skill in using weapons, two decisive factors were triggered that clearly determined the outcome of the battle in favor of the Spartans. These factors were a more effective system of command and control and (which played a much larger role) enormous moral superiority, determined by a feeling of deep patriotism, combined with an almost mystical belief that everything Spartan was the best, and numerous losses strengthened self-confidence in each warrior.

The people of Antiquity, according to Plutarch, “imagined courage not as simple fearlessness, but as a cautious fear of shame and dishonor.” Unlike the poet, who could shamelessly write:

I threw my shield to the ground;
As for me, I ran away because I had to survive.
Now it is owned by a certain Thracian - and I have my life left.
And to hell with the shield, it served me well,
And now I can buy myself another one.

The proud Spartan mother would rather have her son carried home on a shield than without one. A Spartan who fled from the battlefield faced shame and dishonor, and not a single woman would want to marry him. Such fugitives could be beaten in the streets, and they had no right to resist; they had to wear patched clothes, unwashed and unkempt.

The harsh Spartan code of conduct did not even allow any manifestations of grief in the families of the victims. To quote Plutarch: “When news arrived of [the defeat at] Leuctra... a gymnopaedia was taking place and the boys were dancing in the theater when the messengers from Leuctra arrived. The ephors [stewards] considered that this news was very significant in order to deal a significant blow to the state power of Sparta, and then its primacy over other Greek states would disappear forever. Therefore, they ordered not to interrupt the dancing and continue all other events of the festival, but privately sent lists of the dead to all families, also informing them that they had given the command to continue all public events. The next morning, when all the families knew about everything, and the names of the fallen were known to all residents, as well as the names of the survivors, the fathers, relatives and friends of the dead gathered together in the market square and began to enthusiastically congratulate each other; the fathers of the survivors, on the contrary, did not leave the house, sitting there among the women.”

In this episode we see all the components of the position that Sparta occupied for a number of generations. In her pride, arrogance, confidence in her invincibility and denial of all changes, we find the seeds of impending military defeat. But, besides the inability to adapt to changing military tactics, there was another circumstance that, with fatal inevitability, led Sparta to collapse. The roots of this lay in the peculiar structure of the Spartan state, which doomed itself to destruction due to the depletion of human resources. The influx of new citizens was practically non-existent, and losses in countless wars constantly reduced the number of full citizens. This led to the gradual concentration of wealth in the hands of a few people (the real reason for the decline of most states), since the poor Spartans could not contribute their share to the common pot and therefore lost their rights as citizens. Aristotle wrote that Sparta fell due to a lack of husbands. In 243 BC. e. only seven hundred full-fledged citizens lived in it, of whom about a hundred people owned all the land.

When the wave of invading Dorians swept across Greece, its furthest surge brought the newcomers to the isthmus and into the depths of the Peloponnese. Here in Laconia, in the very heart of the ancient kingdoms, one of the tribes of the Dorians, the Lacedaemonians, as they called themselves, settled in several villages in the valley of Eurotas. Over time, one of these settlements, which became a city, Sparta, was able to subordinate to its influence all its neighbors living around it. The struggle with the inhabitants of this country, the heirs of the ancient Achaean-Minoan culture, continued for many years. Sparta, a stronghold of aliens, in its essence was more like an armed camp and, in a certain sense, always remained so. As more and more settlements bowed to the newcomers, they increasingly resembled a small island of invaders surrounded by a sea of ​​conquered ones. But a much greater threat to the Spartan state was not the likelihood of an attack from the outside, but the principles on which its social system was built. This became even more clear when, after many years of battles, the fertile region of Messenia became part of the Spartan territories. The Spartans were a harsh people, and they treated conquered peoples with their usual severity. Some of these peoples, who more or less peacefully submitted to the newcomers, began to be called periekami, or "living nearby". Others, less fortunate, became known as helots. They, the indigenous inhabitants of these places, whom the Spartans deprived of all property, were reduced to the status of slaves and cultivated the lands for their new masters. Having given a certain, strictly established amount of the harvest to their masters, they received the right to keep the surplus and own private property. But if the perieki could decide their local affairs themselves, with the exception of political ones, then the helots had no rights at all. Their living conditions were difficult, and they rebelled again and again. To keep them in line, there was something like a secret police, cryptea, which was formed from young Spartans, operated throughout the country and had the authority to kill any helot on suspicion alone. Since the members of the cryptea acted without fear of punishment, the institution arose as a counterbalance to them ephors, councils of officers elected for a year by citizens and declaring war on the helots.

Young helots were required to serve as squires for their Spartan masters and act as lightly armed warriors on the battlefield. Those who showed particular courage were sometimes given partial rights as citizens. During the Peloponnesian War, the Spartans were so desperate for warriors that some of the best helot units were armed and acted as hoplites. Yet the fear of a helot uprising was too deep in the hearts of the Spartans. Thucydides narrates: “Announcements posted throughout the country invited the helots to name those among their number who declared themselves the most successful warrior against their enemies, so that these people could gain freedom. Such people were subjected to tests, since it was believed that the first to desire freedom should be the bravest, and therefore the most dangerous, as a possible rebel. In this way, about two thousand people were selected, who crowned themselves with laurels and walked around the temples as a sign of gaining new freedom. The Spartans, however, soon left with them, and no one ever knew how these people died."

Truly the sweetest people were these Spartans!

Continuing the traditions of their culture, the Lacedaemonians, driven by fate into the far corner of the peninsula, resorted to the time-tested system of monarchy - long after almost all civilized Greeks had already accepted one form or another of an aristocratic republic. But even in this the Spartans showed their differences. They had two kings who had equal power - a kind of counterbalance to the sole royal rule, especially in the case when the two royal houses were constantly in conflict with each other. The kings, limited in their rights, nevertheless retained supreme control over the army and, in combat conditions, had power over the life and death of soldiers. The obvious shortcomings of this system of dual rule in the context of military operations led, around 500 BC. e., to changes as a result of which only one king - elected by the people's assembly - had power over the army.

Council called gerusia, consisted of twenty-eight elders - men aged sixty years and older, and two kings could make recommendations and had legal authority. But perhaps the real power in the country belonged to the five ephors, who were elected by the People's Assembly and performed their duties for a year. At first, the ephors were just assistants to the kings. Later, probably due to a serious conflict between the kings and the nobility, on the one hand, and ordinary citizens, on the other (a confrontation in which the ephors represented the interests of the people), they gained significant influence.

In accordance with their duties as guardians of popular rights and watchdogs of the state, the ephors could send a challenge even to kings with a demand to appear before the gerousia. Two of them constantly accompanied the Tsar-General during his military campaigns, and their presence was perceived in much the same way as the Red Army generals perceived the presence of the Bolshevik commissars assigned to them. Any full-fledged citizen could be elected as an ephor. The only limitation on the power of the ephors was that there were five of them, they were elected only for one year, and after this period they had to account for all their actions.

Full citizenship was given by birth, although some of the sons of Spartan fathers and mothers who had another citizenship could also become full citizens. In accordance with tradition, newly conquered lands were divided into sections. Each Spartan received one of these plots, which could not be sold or divided into parts, but could be passed on from father to son. These plots were cultivated by helots, who also could not be sold or vacated by their owners. Each year a certain share of the harvest was transferred to the owners of the plot, and the ilogs received the right to dispose of the remainder. This created a social system in which the Spartans could devote all their time to military training, which was the main occupation of their lives.

The atmosphere of the armed camp that permeated the entire Spartan society affected the Spartans literally from the cradle. Children whom the elders considered too weak or, due to their physical deformities, unfit to serve the state, were thrown from the slope of Tigidus Rock. Boys began preparing for military service at the age of seven under the guidance of government educators, whose main task was to teach children to endure the hardships of life and submit to strict discipline. External manifestations of the pain experienced were considered unworthy. To test the stamina of Spartan boys, they were flogged in front of the altar of Artemis; Plutarch testifies that he himself saw how many of them died during the flogging. All winter they wore light summer clothes, strengthening their bodies. Cunning and dexterity were encouraged, young men often had to get their own food, and if they were caught doing this, the punishment was very severe (2,500 years later, such “food” trips became part of the training of British commandos). Spartan youths received almost no what is called “book instruction.” The Spartans openly disdained the intellectual achievements of peoples like the Athenians; They preferred short and clear speech to verbose reasoning, which has come down to our times under the definition of “laconic.” The literary education of young Spartans was limited to the memorization of morale-boosting poems.

At the age of twenty, Spartan youths joined the ranks of the real army and were enrolled by vote in one or another group of fifteen people ( siscanoya), living in one large tent. They also all ate together, which was one of the customs generally characteristic of the Spartans. Each member of such a partnership contributed his strictly defined share of money and products every month. The main dish, as the chronicles relate, was pork, boiled in blood and seasoned with salt and vinegar.

From the age of twenty, young men were allowed to marry, but they could not stay at home. Their home for the next ten years became a “barracks”, and communication with their wives was brief and casual. At the age of thirty, a Spartan was already considered a man who had all the rights of citizenship, but he still spent all his free time in gymnastic exercises and military training. A true sybarite might say of the Spartans that “their willingness to die in battle is by no means worthy of praise, since thanks to it they were free from work for subsistence and freed from painful poverty.”

There are no uniform estimates of the size of the Spartan army. So. for example, about the Spartan army during the Battle of Mantinea, Thucydides writes: “There were seven moras (battalions) operating there... each of them had four pentecostis, and each of the pentecostis had four enomotis. The first line of Oenomotis consisted of four soldiers; As for the depth of its formation, although they were not all lined up in the same way, but in the way that each of their commanders decided, they were basically eight rows deep; the first line of the entire formation consisted of four hundred and forty-eight people.”

Thucydides does not mention sucker, but in sea there were 512 people in pentekostis- 128, and in enomotis - 32 warriors.

There was also a unit of the king’s personal guard of three hundred “knights” armed with spears and fighting on foot. Professor Might, in his Review of Greek Antiquities, points out that when cavalry was introduced into the Spartan army in 424, it consisted of six moras, each of which, consisting of a hundred horsemen, was under the command of hipparmostes and was divided into two squadrons.

The chronicles mention red tunics as the distinctive attire of the Spartans, but otherwise their equipment was normal for any ancient Greek hoplite. True to the end of their conservatism, the Spartans only adopted sarisu and shields, which were held on the arm with straps rather than by the handle, only during the time of King Cleomenes (235-221 BC).

The true difference between these warriors and the militia of other Greek city-states was military training, not equipment. Xenophon writes: "All the rest were amateurs, but the Spartans were professionals in warfare." The Spartan phalanx advanced, unlike its opponents, not “in haste and fury,” but “slowly, to the beat of the flutes, marching in step, maintaining alignment in the ranks, like a large army, until the moment of entry into battle.”

It should be noted here that the advance of spearmen is characterized by the displacement of each person towards his neighbor on the right, “since fear forces each person to try to shift the unprotected part of his body under the cover of the shield of his neighbor on the right.” Thus, the entire formation almost unconsciously begins to deviate to the right. “The person responsible for this is the right flanker, who is the first to try to turn the unprotected side of his body away from the enemy and thereby encourages others to do the same.”

This movement to the right often resulted in the gradual outflanking (and often defeat) of each army's left flank. The victorious right flanks then turned around and attacked one another. This feature of people armed with a sword or a spear and a shield (and not only the ancient Greeks) may have led to the fact that the position of the right-winger began to be considered honorable over time.

The Spartan hoplites were victorious in many difficult battles, but as is often the case, it was a relatively small battle involving only 300 Spartans that captured the imagination of the people of the day and has continued to do so for centuries, right up to the present day. When stories about brave warriors begin, the story of King Leonidas and his stalwart comrades who distinguished themselves at the Battle of Thermopylae is usually the first to come to mind for storytellers, even though the Spartans did not win that battle. Many other people devoted to their homeland, now completely forgotten, fell in other battles, fighting to the last man; but it is precisely this story that contains all the elements of what makes it a legendary tale of miracle warriors, the light of which illuminates the pages of many historical books. It contains the favor of nature - a narrow passage between rock and sea, held by a few warriors against countless hordes of enemies; it contains a long-standing confrontation between West and East; there is also an awareness by the brave men of the inevitability of their death; there is a cold-blooded determination to fulfill one’s duty to the end. But there is no humility in the face of circumstances, characteristic of the holy martyrs, but there is a fierce desire to fight to the end, like a cornered wolf, tearing with its fangs everyone it manages to reach.

Here we can clearly see how history, or more precisely, popular myths, often ignore many similar events in favor of glorifying one. Thus, we heard almost nothing about the 400 Thebans and 700 Thespians who defended the eastern end of the pass from the flanking of the "immortals" under the command of Hydarnes; nor about the remnants of a small 7,000-strong army that allegedly struck the Persians in the rear. In the battle of Thermopylae, as far as we know from the chronicles, 4,000 Greeks and many Persians fell, so it seems somewhat unfair that all the glory went to three hundred Spartans.

The unsuccessful attempt to hold the narrow passage between the mountains and the sea completely overshadowed the truly tremendous success of Sparta, which it achieved a year later in the battle with the Persians at Plataea. This battle, one of the decisive ones, involved 5,000 Spartan hoplites with their accompanying helots. Probably never before and certainly never since had such a large number of Spartan citizens appeared on the battlefield at the same time. Along with the full-fledged citizens, 5,000 perieks also came, each with one helot assistant. Having fielded such a large number of warriors, this state with a relatively small population strained all its strength. If, as we can rightly assume, many of the helots were armed (the number of people accompanying each Spartan reached seven people), then the Spartans were able to bring 25,000 armed soldiers onto the battlefield. The entire Greek force from twenty city-states of varying sizes amounted to about 75,000 people. All this was achieved at the cost of incredible efforts by the Allies.

The Persians had a force of 100,000 men, and their general Mardonius was a much more experienced military leader than the Spartan Pausanias, who commanded the allied armies. A series of maneuvers resulted in the Persian cavalry almost completely cutting off the Lacedaemonians and a small detachment of Tegians from their allies, while the Persian archers showered them with arrows from behind their wicker portable shields. There appears to have been momentary confusion among the Greek ranks; the heavenly signs were not favorable to them, but prayers offered to Hera, whose temple was nearby, were rewarded by mystical signs, and the heavy Greek infantry advanced at a measured pace. The line of Persian wicker shields was broken and disintegrated, and the Spartans and Tegians began to advance towards the temple of Demeter, which stood on the high ground in front of them. Here Mardonius managed to rally his fleeing warriors, but the Persians could not compete with the best spearmen in all of Greece. Mardonius himself fell in battle, and, as often happened in the armies of the East, his death became a signal for a retreat that turned into flight. The main battle was won by the Spartans and their allies before the main body of the army arrived. 8,000 Athenians marching to the aid of Pausanias were attacked by Greeks serving the Persians and forced to stop. The other part of the allied army, its left flank, was delayed near the city of Plataea and reached the battlefield too late to take an active part in it.

This became Sparta's finest hour. Before that, she had won a series of brilliant victories, but these were victories over the Greeks, in particular over the Athenians. In that long confrontation, the sympathies of the West, perhaps mistakenly, were on the side of the city, in which such a significant share of Greek culture was concentrated. And so, when Athens lay defeated, and its bitter enemies called for the complete destruction of the city and the enslavement of its inhabitants, it was the Spartans who rejected the barbarian demands of their allies and secured terms of peace much milder than the Athenians could have expected.

But, as happened with many other warlike peoples, the time came when the Spartan spirit was shaken. The harsh laws of the semi-mythical Lycurgus were no longer in effect. Rumor blamed this on the abundant influx of gold and silver into Sparta after successful military campaigns in Asia Minor. Spartan money was made of iron - deliberately inconvenient to make its use limited. But a more compelling reason for the fall of the Spartan state should be considered changes in the strict laws of inheritance, according to which each man had to leave his share of the land exclusively to his son. According to the new laws, all people could dispose of their land at their own discretion. This, according to Plutarch, “destroyed the best state of general welfare. New laws allowed rich people, without a shred of conscience, to take control of all real estate, excluding the legal heirs from the opportunity to receive their rightful share; and gradually all the wealth was concentrated in a few, while the bulk of the citizens remained in poverty and sadness. Private studies, for which there was no longer free time, were abandoned; in the state, all sorts of frauds, envy and hatred of the rich flourished. There were no more than seven hundred old Spartan families left in the country, of which, perhaps, about a hundred had land in their possession, the rest were deprived of both property and honor, became slow and indifferent to the affairs of defending the fatherland from external enemies, but only dreamed about taking advantage of every opportunity to change the order in your country.”

Now the Spartan could not answer, as he had once done to the Argive, who once mentioned the many Lacedaemonians buried in the fields of Argos: “But not one of you is buried in Sparta.”

One of the reforming kings was killed by angry land owners. “Now that Agis was killed, it has become dangerous to mention in conversations, even in hints, the preparation of youth; and words about ancient moderation, perseverance and equality were generally perceived as a crime against the state.”

The last of the kings, Cleomenes, dealt with the ephors, destroyed the institution of the ephors itself, forgave all debts, increased the number of citizens to 4,000 people, granting citizenship to the perieci, and redistributed land revenues. However, the revived state could not compete with Macedonia, and the victory of Antigonus over Cleomenes at Sellasia (221 BC) put an end to Sparta as a state.

For all the shortcomings of the Spartan character - narrow-mindedness, low culture, imperiousness and tyrannical behavior - which were clearly visible even when Sparta tried to try on the imperial mantle, which she took from Athens, she had many enthusiastic admirers among the ancient Greeks. For them, all these moments paled in comparison with the original simplicity of Spartan life - the Greeks saw something noble in this asceticism. As life became more complex in other city-states of Ancient Greece, the Greeks liked to point to Sparta as the true homeland of ancient values ​​- good old Greece as their ancestors knew it. Whatever we may think of Sparta and its social institutions, there is no doubt that the Spartan warrior can hardly be found equal.

We know nothing about the fighting qualities of the citizens of other ancient Greek city-states. Presumably they were all about equal. Minor differences in the combat capabilities of the army of one state from another were often temporary and changed as circumstances changed in those states themselves. As for the relative military value of the various city-states, they were fully characterized by the size and wealth of these states. Due to the miniature nature of many ancient Greek states, their alliances were frequent and in many cases absolutely necessary; a sharp increase in the power of one of them alarmed its neighbors and was balanced by a confederation of its weaker neighbors. This ever-changing system of alliances, leagues and confederations was often woven together from pride, fear, greed and envy.

In the century and a quarter that passed from the Battle of Marathon to Chaeronea, the Persian threat arose and was realized, the rise and fall of Athens occurred, and the hegemony of Thebes was briefly established. For much of this long period, Greece was rocked by wars, revolts, and bloody civil strife. Even the very independence and love of individual freedom that created the Greek city-states carried the seeds of their own destruction. Unable to live in peace - although bound together by the bonds of religion, language and culture - the Greek states drained their brains, blood and wealth, tearing apart their own civilization until, having squandered everything to the end, they fell prey to the Macedonians.

It was during this era of invasions, conquests and rebellions that Athens began its rise to the peak of its power. When it became the dominant state of its region, such as it is familiar to us from many pages of world history, its literature and fine arts readily responded to this sublime spirit of the new era, exalting Athenian culture (and with it the culture of all Ancient Greece) to an unattainable peak. Athens was a kind of antithesis to Sparta - shining with intelligence where Sparta was dull, sparkling with the joy of life where Sparta was gloomy and harsh, and exquisitely aristocratic where Sparta was provincial. Athens, realizing the formidable qualities of Sparta as an enemy on land, turned its expansion to the sea. And it was as a great maritime power that Athens became a powerful empire, gaining lasting glory. In 459 BC. e. During the Peloponnesian War, which ended with the fall of Athens, a stone was installed in the city that imprinted the names of the clans of one of the “tribes” that laid the foundations of Athenian citizenship. On it we read: “From the tribe of the Erechtids there were those who died in this war in Egypt, in Phenicia, in Hades, in Aegina, in Megara, in the same year...” These words truly breathe an imperial spirit - and they could be written only by a great sea power.

But if at Salamis and in the long war with the Spartan confederation they demonstrated the unsurpassed qualities of their naval forces, Athens still did not limit the battles to the decks of its warships. They used their teams to protect their soldiers and sailors wherever possible, while the rest of their armies, along with their allies, walked to their destination.

Athenian warriors and chariot - painted on a vase

Every able-bodied Athenian citizen was required to serve in the army during the war: members of the propertied classes as horsemen or heavily armed warriors, and the poor as lightly armed warriors. Athenian youths underwent military training for one year, then spent one year in garrison service in remote settlements or fortresses on the country's borders. Citizens between the ages of eighteen and sixty were considered fit for military service. Mobilization was carried out according to special lists compiled according to the model of citizen registers. Mobilization could be general or limited, when all or part of those who were on one sheet of lists were called up. At the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, Athens could field about 18,000 heavily armed warriors on the battlefield. The cavalry was divided into squadrons, or phyla, one hundred or more horsemen each under the command phylarch, or captain, but the entire cavalry was under the command of two cavalry generals, or Hipparchus.

The preservation of democratic institutions was the primary concern of Greek citizens, and as a result, the command system of the Athenian army (as well as the forces of other Greek states) was a very complex structure. At the head of the armed forces was polemarch(military leader), elected for a term of one year. They obeyed him strategists, who were originally the elected military leaders of the ten “tribes” and represented the bulk of the citizens. Later, the duties of the polemarch (he also had certain civil functions) were transferred to the strategists, who took turns, for one day each, fulfilling the post of commander-in-chief. Such a bizarre system that it was quite obvious that it could not work, and in the end, when a military campaign was planned, the people chose one strategist, but only for the time until the completion of the operation. Moreover, only those forces that took part in this operation were subordinate to him. The strategist, having become a general, was removed from command of his tribal forces, and was appointed to command them taxiarch. When Athens became a naval power, it became necessary to create a separate naval command with a group admirals or combining the land and sea commands into one. The latter point of view prevailed, and the selected strategists became admirals general. Since many military enterprises required close coordination between land and sea forces, this was probably the best solution.

Obviously, the periods during which military leaders were chosen to direct military operations were considered critical. The Theban generals Pelopidas and Epaminondas, in the midst of successful actions against Sparta, showed sufficient impudence to oppose these laws. “...New officers had to achieve success, and those who did not achieve success paid for their indecisiveness with their lives. Therefore, other law-abiding military leaders... began to retreat. But Pelopidas, allied with Epaminondas and encouraged by his countrymen, led them against Sparta...” For this, although they were eminent military leaders of the Thebans and carried out a successful and victorious campaign, they were tried for a crime for which they faced the death penalty. Fortunately, both were acquitted, but the incident highlights the strictness of the laws governing tenure.

Warships - painted on a vase

Greek trireme

A common type of naval vessel used in most naval battles of the ancient Greeks was the trireme - a rowing galley with a mast (sometimes two) carrying a single straight sail. This mast could be removed from the steppe and laid on the deck if required, which was usually done before the start of the battle. We know that the trireme, as its name suggests, had three rows, or tiers, of oars. This conclusion can be made on the basis of images on contemporary reliefs. But we have no idea how the rowing benches were constructed. It can be assumed that only one man worked each oar and that the uppermost, and therefore longest, oars were used when the trireme was going into battle or when it was necessary to achieve maximum speed. These long oars in this case were driven by three oarsmen, while the other two rows of oars were inactive. Indeed, it seems incredible that one person could make the same stroke with a long oar as a person in the lower row could do with a much shorter oar. For this reason, the idea was put forward that all three rows of oars were used only for the “ceremonial” stroke, when entering the harbor, at shows, etc. According to another assumption, the middle row of oars, driven by two rowers, was used only for more slow movement during maneuvers, while for the slowest speed, to hold the ship in place against the wind or for night passages, only the lower row of oars was used, with one rower per oar.

The crew of a trireme from the Peloponnesian War, as far as we know, consisted of about two hundred people. Eighteen of them were heavily armed marines, some were sailors who set the ship in motion, working with sails, rigging, and so on, while the rest, with the exception of the officers, were oarsmen. In general, the idea of ​​​​three rows of oars was intended to use the internal space of the vessel as efficiently as possible and to obtain the greatest possible return of energy from the rowers for every foot of its length. The longer the ship, the more durable it had to be built, and so ancient Greek ships were usually beached entirely when not in use. This indicates that these ships were not only very light, but at the same time very durable, if they could withstand such frequent stays on the shore without warping or sagging in the keel. This also suggests that the ships were relatively short compared to the number of people they carried, perhaps 75 or 80 feet in length. Short ships were also more maneuverable - the ship could describe a circulation (that is, make a complete turn) in a much smaller space, which represented a significant advantage when the main weapon of the ships was the ram. Although many reconstructions of these ancient ships show very long hulls with up to 85 oars on board, such ships were extremely difficult to build and were very slow to maneuver. In my opinion, the number of oars on one side did not exceed 39 - three rowers for each oar of the upper tier, two for the oars of the middle tier and one for each of the lowest and shortest oars. This gives us 156 oarsmen, which, together with 18 hoplites, half a dozen archers or spearmen with javelins, pilots (probably four), working with two large steering oars, strengthened on the sides at the stern, trierarch and his two deputies, as well as 15 sailors, total 200 people.

Such a vessel, the hull of which, not counting the outriggers on which the two upper rows of oars worked, should not exceed 17 feet along the beam at its widest part. The vessel was probably capable of a full speed of about seven knots and had an average speed of about half that value. At cruising speed, with the oarsmen working in shifts, the trireme could cover 50 to 60 miles a day in calm seas. With a fair wind, a sail could be used - either as an auxiliary propulsion device in addition to the oars, or as the main one. The oarsmen were not slaves chained to banks, like the unfortunates who propelled the galleys in late Roman times, but were recruited from the poorest citizens or freedmen. They could, placing their oars along the sides, take part in boarding or fight on land. On ships of earlier models, such as those that took part in the Battle of Salamis, the oarsmen were not protected, but only covered with shields hanging along the gunwale, like on Viking longships. Only later did the deck, the so-called catastrophe, which provided partial cover for the oarsmen and, more importantly, served as a battlefield for the marines.

Mediterranean ships were not what is called a "high seas fleet." When sailing conditions allowed, sailors sailed their ships along the coast during the day and pulled them ashore at night - which made it an inevitable rule that all operations would end for the winter months. Lightly built ships could not withstand winter storms, and losses from shipwrecks or winter winds that blew ships out to sea often exceeded losses in battles. In addition, their narrow hulls and shallow holds, and therefore the lack of storage space with a relatively large crew, made frequent stops necessary to replenish water and food supplies.

If we have devoted perhaps too much space here to discussions about the possible methods of construction and operation of these ships, it is only because they were the main weapon of naval battles of this era and were used, although perhaps with slight variations, by the ancient Greeks and Persians , Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and later the ancient Romans.

Athens' success on the water depended far more on the experience of its captains and the discipline of its oarsmen than on any innate virtues of its heavily armed naval forces. In many cases, skillful maneuvering by captains brought victory with the mere use of a ram, even without proceeding to a subsequent boarding.

The ram was a structural part of the ship's hull - in fact, a protruding extension of the keel - and consisted of it and several powerful beams that converged at one point. It was equipped with a bronze beak and was capable of piercing the thin wooden hull of lightly built galleys of the period. A blow delivered by such a device below the waterline would often prove fatal to an enemy vessel, although there was always the danger of being damaged by one's own ram.

There were two standard maneuvers; one was called diekplous, or “breaking through” a line of enemy ships, breaking oars and showering the enemy with a hail of arrows and darts; And periplous, or flank attack. The latter involved quick maneuvering; For its implementation, the most important role was played by the experience and quick assessment of the situation by the trierarch, as well as the preparedness and coordinated actions of the rowers. If you missed a good moment, you could expose a vulnerable part of your ship to the enemy, and then the attacked one became the attacker. When the oarsmen of one side worked with all their oars forward, and the other - back, even a galley of considerable size could turn around almost on the spot with amazing speed. An example of such successful maneuvering is given by Thucydides. The small Athenian fleet, consisting of twenty ships, was attacked by a much larger Peloponnesian force. Several Athenian ships closing the line were sunk, but eleven ships were able to escape, pursued by twenty enemy ships. One of the Peloponnesian ships had significantly overtaken the others and was approaching the trailing Athenian ship, which had already almost reached the roadstead of the port of Naupactus. There was a merchant ship at anchor in the roadstead, and an Athenian warship passed very close to it. Then, sharply turning around the “merchant” standing at anchor, he sharply went across the course of the approaching enemy, struck the lead Peloponnesian ship on the side with a ram and sank it. Such an unexpected and successful maneuver confused the enemy and at the same time inspired the Athenians, who went on the attack, sank six Peloponnesian ships and recaptured several of their own captured by them in the initial battle.

An example of the close combat tactics of those days was the battle between twenty Athenian ships under the command of Phormion and forty-seven ships of the Corinthians and their allies. The Corinthians were not at all eager to engage in battle with such a strong enemy, but, being caught in the open sea, they lined up their ships in a circle, with their stern to its center, like a hedgehog bristling in all directions, and prepared to attack. Phormion, waiting for the end of the calm and hoping that the rising wind would disturb the close formation of the enemy, lined up his ships in a wake column, which, working with oars, began to circle around the Corinthian ships huddled in a ring.

This is how Thucydides describes everything that happened next: “He hoped that he would be able to choose the most suitable moment for an attack, when the strength and direction of the wind would be most beneficial for him. As the wind picked up, the enemy ships crowded into a tight space. A gust of wind threw one small Athenian ship onto this mass of ships, and the formation immediately broke down, the Corinthian ships began to collide, the oars got mixed up, they, screaming, began to try to disengage. Behind these screams, prayers and curses, the commands of the captains and boatswains were not heard; the enemy ships became completely uncontrollable. At this moment, Phormion gave the signal to the Athenian ships to attack. The flagship ship with the admiral on board was the first to be sunk, after which no one thought about resistance, but only about escape..."

No story about ancient Greek soldiers would be complete without mentioning the famous “march of the ten thousand” that Xenophon immortalized in his Anabasis. Nothing better characterizes the intelligence, initiative and self-discipline of the ancient Greek warriors than this thrilling account of the march of an entire army of Greek mercenaries through the wilds of Asia Minor and their subsequent retreat in the depths of winter through the mountainous regions of Armenia.

Briefly, this story tells about the following. After the death of the Persian monarch Darius, his eldest son Artaxerxes ascended the throne. His younger brother Cyrus, the satrap of Asia Minor, decided to try to dethrone his brother and, to this end, assembled a large army in the vicinity of his capital Sardis, located about fifty miles east of the modern Turkish city of Izmir (ancient Smyrna). The vast majority of the warriors - about 100,000 people - were of Eastern origin, but Cyrus paid tribute to the superiority of the Greek soldiers, the core of his army was about 13,000 Greeks, of whom 10,600 were hoplites. About 700 of them were Lacedaemonians sent to Cyrus by the government of Sparta, which owed much to the Persian king for past support. The rest came from many other city-states, since Greece in 401 BC. e. there were a large number of brave people ready to embark on the enterprise proposed by Cyrus. Only three years have passed since the defeated Athenians and their Spartan conquerors marched shoulder to shoulder along the long valley connecting Piraeus with Athens to the sound of flutes. The end of a protracted military conflict and the outbreak of violent unrest that shook many Greek cities threw into the military market many mercenaries and citizen soldiers who were no longer attracted by the delights of a quiet civilian life.

These free soldiers were recruited by Clearchus; the true purpose of the whole enterprise was at first kept a closely guarded secret from them for obvious reasons: it was one thing to take part in a campaign under the leadership of Cyrus, a generous young satrap, against the mountaineers of Pisidia (which was the official purpose of the campaign reported to the army), and quite another to enter into the heart of the Middle East under the command of Cyrus, a contender for the throne, with the goal of overthrowing the Great King himself. But by the time the expeditionary force crossed the passage to the Cilician Gate through the rugged Taurus Mountains and began the descent to Tarsus, even the most stupid spearmen became clear that the declared purpose of the campaign was nothing more than a fiction, and many even began to guess about its true purpose.

The mercenaries refused to go further. Clearchus, a strict disciplinarian, resorted to threats - but the rebellion had already gone too far. Then he decided to try a trick. Sobbing, he told the Greeks gathered around him that their actions presented him with a cruel dilemma: he must either break his word to Cyrus or abandon his troops. To the latter, he said, he would never agree, but if they no longer received payment from Cyrus, then what would they want to do?

A deputation, some of whose members were Clearchus's trusted men, went to Cyrus to find out his true intentions. Cyrus informed them that his plans included giving battle to his old enemy, currently located on the Euphrates, and promised to pay the soldiers increased salaries. Continuing to experience certain doubts in their souls, the Greeks agreed to continue the march.

The same thing was repeated when the army approached the Euphrates, and Cyrus was finally forced to admit that his goal was Babylon and the overthrow of the Great King. An even higher payment was promised, the murmur that arose was hushed, and the army set off on its long march down the Euphrates. At the village of Kunaxa (sic!), about sixty miles from their destination, they were stopped by the army of the Great King. In the ensuing battle, the Greeks fought on the right flank - although Cyrus (who was himself beginning to become a great leader and would prove a serious threat to the Greek world if he became one) insisted that Clearchus move them closer to the left flank, where he the blows would hit the enemy center. It was in the center that Artaxerxes occupied positions, and his defeat or flight could decide the outcome of the entire battle. Unfortunately, Clearchus did not dare to deviate from the Greek military maxim that the right flank should never allow itself to be outflanked.

The battle began to boil, and the Greeks began to bypass the enemy, leaving him to their left. Cyrus, who was in the center, attempted to break through with his cavalry and capture his brother. But, having rushed far ahead, without lagging cover, he was killed, and his army immediately fled. The victorious Greeks, returning from the pursuit of the enemy, found that the remainder of the army had fled, their camp plundered, and the prince from whom they had expected so much, dead. Shocked, but by no means defeated, they rejected Artaxerxes' demand for surrender. In order to get rid of such unpleasant (and even invincible) visitors, the Persian monarch agreed to supply them with food. His general Tissaphernes undertook to lead them home by a route on which they could find food for the return journey (the entire territory along the 1,500-mile road from Sardis had been plundered by the army on the way here). Returning from Babylon to Media along the left bank of the Tigris, the Greeks crossed the Great Zab River slightly below the ancient ruins of the city of Nineveh. Here the disagreement between the Greeks and their Persian escort reached its climax, and Tissaphernes invited the Greek leaders to a conference. Suspecting nothing, Clearchus, with four of his generals, twenty officers and several bodyguards, arrived at the camp of Artaxerxes, where they were all killed, and only one seriously wounded warrior managed to make his way back to the Greeks.

The Persian satrap had no desire to launch an attack on the main forces of the Greeks. He assumed that, finding themselves in a strange and unfamiliar country for them, having lost their commanders, they would feel the full horror of the situation and immediately surrender. An army consisting of Asians would undoubtedly have done so, but the Greeks acted differently. Their natural intelligence and sense of discipline told them that if they wanted to see a country inhabited again by their kindred, they must remain an organized army, and not a crowd of refugees. They did not fully imagine all the dangers and difficulties that lay before them, but their experience as soldiers suggested that breaking through many miles of an unfamiliar and hostile country would be a most difficult undertaking. Nevertheless, without any panic, which Tissaphernes had so counted on, they calmly elected new leaders who were to command them on the return journey.

Fortunately for them and their offspring, an Athenian horseman named Xenophon was among them. For political reasons, the equestrian class was not very popular in Athens in 401 BC. BC, and Xenophon - a brilliant young man (who was then about 30 years old), soldier and philosopher, who called Socrates his friend, gladly took the chance to accompany the expedition as a volunteer, without having any formal rank. His natural intelligence and common sense made him popular, and under the circumstances he was elected general. Very quickly his powers of persuasion and gift for leadership made him a commander.

The unprecedented campaign of the Greek warriors and their return to their native world of Greece became the subject of epic tales of high military experience and endurance. Crossing nameless rivers, crossing high mountain ranges, endless struggles with cold, hunger and wild local tribes - in all these trials the Greek army retained its unity and discipline, supported not by violence, but by common sense. Never had a handful of men made such a march, crossing one of the wildest countries of Asia Minor, without guides or experienced officers, in the dead of winter.

Since the army did not have guides, it was decided to fight its way north, to the Black Sea coast, on the shores of which the Greek colonies were located. In the first stages of the campaign, the army was harassed by separate attacks from Tissaphernes' troops, who during the day kept a considerable distance from the Greeks, and at night set up camp no closer than sixty stades (about seven miles) from them. Part of Tissaphernes' forces were horsemen, who, in the event of an attack, had to untangle the hobbled horses, quickly bridle them, and also put on their own protective equipment. One can imagine the confusion that would arise if all this had to be done in a few minutes in the event of an attack. Xenophon's remark that "the Persian army is poorly controlled at night" can safely be considered an understatement.

The Cretan archers were inferior to the Persians in firing range, and the Greek spear throwers could not hit the Persian slingers with their darts. The Greeks, deprived of cavalry, could not drive the Persians to a safe distance. The number of wounded in frequent skirmishes grew, and the Greeks were deprived of the opportunity to adequately respond to their pursuers. In the end, Xenophon selected the best riders from among the rank-and-file infantry, mounted them on the best of the baggage horses, and gave command over them to the few surviving cavalry officers. Having thus created a cavalry force of fifty men, he instructed them to keep the enemy slingers and archers at a safe distance. Knowing also that there were many Rhodians among the infantrymen, Xenophon summoned the most experienced of them in handling slings - the Rhodians were famous as excellent slingers. Two hundred volunteers were armed with improvised slings. Now the advantage in this type of weapon passed to the side of the Greeks, because the Rhodians, in accordance with their customs, used lead bullets when shooting, which they sent at a distance twice as great as the heavy stones used by the Persians.

So, improvising as best they could and as necessary, the Greeks continued to move north - leaving Media and delving into the wild, hilly terrain of Kardukha. Its inhabitants in those days were no more accommodating than their descendants today, and when the Greeks made their way along the mountain paths with great difficulty, the wild mountaineers brought down trees on their heads, rolled down huge stones, showered them with darts and arrows, causing considerable damage. When this gloomy highland was left behind and the Greeks reached the river that was the border of Armenia, they discovered that the satrap of this province with his troops was waiting for them on the far bank, and the angry mountaineers were still looming behind them. With a skillful maneuver, they nevertheless crossed the river and were able to negotiate with the satrap about unhindered passage through his territory in exchange for a promise not to rob the population. (In this case, the spoils would consist exclusively of food. Soldiers marching through enemy territory are usually easy to plunder, but we can hardly imagine veterans burdening themselves with useless jewelry and trinkets when the snow caps of the mountains rise in front of them on the way.)

Crossing such terrain in the dead of winter was a severe test of endurance for the Greeks. Their route of passage roughly led from modern Mosul along the western shore of Lake Van, located at an altitude of about 6,000 feet, and then passed between the 10,000-foot peaks in the vicinity of Erzurum. Here they again found themselves in a hostile environment; the local tribes were excellent archers, armed with powerful bows, approximately three cubits in length. (The ancient cubit, used as a measure of length in ancient Greece, varied from 18.25 to 20.25 inches, so these bows could have been up to four and a half feet long. The fact that such bows attracted the attention of Xenophon shows how short were the usual bows used by the Greeks.)

But the end of the long journey was already near. Having made their way through the lands of the warlike inhabitants of the mountains and hills, the Greeks finally reached the city of Gumnias, where they found a friendly reception and learned that they were near the city of Trapezus (modern Trabzon in Turkey). They immediately received a guide and “on the fifth day they approached Mount Fehes, and when the vanguard reached the pass, a loud cry arose. When Xenophon, who was moving in the rearguard, and other soldiers heard these cries, they thought that they were being attacked by enemies. However, when the shouts began to intensify as new groups of warriors approached the pass, Xenophon thought that something more serious was happening, and, together with several horsemen, galloped forward. When he galloped closer, he heard a loud cry from his warriors: “Sea! Sea!"

About 8,600 people returned from the legendary “March of Ten Thousands,” fully combat-ready and in good health, having courageously overcome all the hardships of the campaign. The amazing transition was completed, and military history added another glorious page.

The March of the Ten Thousand was over, and soon the bulk of the legendary Greeks were recruited by Sparta to wage war with Persia. Their leader Xenophon, who now also served Sparta, followed them. In this campaign he captured a Persian nobleman and his family. The ransom received for them gave him the opportunity to settle in Sparta, where he spent the days allotted to him by the gods in peace and quiet, interspersed with hunting and written memories of past campaigns.

Despite the fact that Xenophon was essentially an amateur in military affairs, or perhaps because of it, he had the ability to improvise and, in special circumstances, used tactics not described in the military textbooks of the Greeks. So, in one case it was necessary to clear the ridge of a mountain stubbornly held by the enemy from the enemy. The approaches to it led through rough terrain, on which the phalanx could not operate. Xenophon formed several groups of his warriors, lining them up in columns of several hundred people each. The columns moved along the most convenient routes, trying to maintain formation as accurately as possible. The intervals between the columns were such that each group covered one of the enemy formations. The flanks of the columns were covered by detachments of lightly armed warriors, groups of archers and slingers moved ahead as skirmishers - in general, the entire course of the attack was much more similar to the tactics of the 20th century than to 400 AD. e. On another occasion, Xenophon placed a reserve of three detachments, each of two hundred men-at-arms, at a distance of fifty yards behind each of the flanks and center of the main formation. This decision was also a deviation from the canons: usually the Greeks brought down the full weight of their army on the enemy.

The significance of the experience of this campaign was not forgotten by the Greeks. The almost accidental defeat at the Battle of Kunaxa did not play any role. Much more important was the fact that the Greek forces advanced almost 1,500 miles towards the Persian capital and defeated the army of the Great King there. Eighty years earlier, the Persians stormed and sacked Athens. Now a wave of vengeance fell on the offenders and the Greek warriors already dreamed of plundering the richest cities and palaces of Asia. The stage was cleared, and events were taking place in northern Greece that were about to bring the protagonist onto it.

The rise of Thebes is interesting because much of its success was due to its superior soldiers and the changes they brought to the time-honored military tactics of their time. Moreover, the application of these tactics to their style of battle put the Macedonians at the head of the Greek states for a time and made them conquerors of the mighty Persian empire.

Sparta fought with Thebes. The army of the Lacedaemonians and their allies was advancing towards Thebes, when the Theban army under the command of Epaminondas stood in its way, near the village of Luctra. The Thebans outnumbered the enemy, but nevertheless could hardly hope to defeat the formidable Spartans. However, Epaminondas, realizing that if he succeeded in defeating the Lacedaemonians it would cause confusion in the ranks of their allies, he formed the Thebans into a phalanx fifty men deep, instead of the much more usual long and relatively shallow line. He placed this entire mass of warriors on the usually weaker left flank, opposite the Spartans, who, as always, took their place of honor on the right flank. Once the battle had begun, and the small force of Spartan cavalry had been driven from the battlefield, the Spartan right flank began to rapidly descend the hillside in its usual irresistible rush of attack. The Thebans also began to descend from their hill into a narrow valley located between the two armies, but they moved in a ledge, with a strong left flank in front and a weaker right flank somewhat behind. The Spartans, whose phalanx in this case was twelve rows deep, were unable to withstand the blow and powerful pressure of the dense Theban phalanx. Their king Cleomurotus died in battle, and the Spartan right flank was forced to retreat up the hill towards the camp. Their allies, seeing the defeat and retreat of the invincible hoplites of the right flank, also hastened to retreat. About a thousand Lacedaemonians fell on the battlefield, including four hundred Spartans, which was an unheard-of defeat that shocked all of Sparta and amazed the entire Greek world. By modern standards, four hundred Spartans may not seem like a particularly significant loss, but it must be remembered that Sparta was declining from a constant decline in the male population, so that this list of the dead included about one-fourth of its citizens capable of bearing arms.

For nine years after Luctra, Thebes played a leading role on the stage of Greek politics. Then, at Mantinea, Epaminondas met with an allied army of Lacedaemonians, Athenians, Mantinaeans and others. Using the tactics worked out at Luctra, he again concentrated the Thebans on the left flank, and they again broke through the thinner Spartan formation. As at Luctra, the outcome of the battle was decided by this attack, but Epaminondas fell. leading his victorious troops. The news of the death of their great commander caused panic in the ranks of the Thebans and their subsequent retreat to their camp. His death signaled the end of Theban supremacy, and the center of power soon shifted further to the north.

The Spartans appear to have never learned any lessons from their previous defeat, and their tactics, as well as those of their allies, underwent no change when faced with the new Theban disposition. As noted above, long years of military superiority on land or at sea lead to the ossification of military thought, its transformation into a frozen scheme, unable to withstand innovations.

The kingdom of Macedonia was located in the north of the Greek archipelago. The Macedonians who inhabited it were Greek in language and traditions, but because of their distance from the main centers of Greek culture, they were considered a rude and uncouth people. These were warlike people who, waging constant battles with their half-barbarian neighbors - the Thracians and Illyrians - were always ready to cross their weapons with any enemy. The kings of Macedonia occupied a dual position as rulers, serving as absolute overlords for the coastal Macedonians and heads of feudal clans for the turbulent and unruly tribes living in the mountains, many of whom were of Illyrian origin.

During the reign of the able and energetic Philip II, the country was completely unified. As a teenager, Philip spent several years as a hostage in Thebes, and his mentor at that time was the recognized military genius Epaminondas, from whom the hostage learned a lot. Later, Philip improved the density of the Theban formation - he reduced the depth of the phalanx to sixteen rows and increased the intervals between them, which made the phalanx more maneuverable. The length of the spears was also increased in such a way that, when lowered, the tips of the spears of the fifth row protruded in front of the front of the first row. The extra length of five feet allowed the spearman to hold his weapon at the ready and contributed to better balance.

Since the elongated spear had to be held with both hands, as a result the size of the shield was reduced, which was now attached with straps to the left hand so that the spear could be supported with its hand. In all other respects, the defensive weapons and equipment were no different from the usual Greek hoplite.

The main difference in the tactics of Philip and other Greek states was that he began to widely use cavalry. The social structure of the largest agrarian kingdom was such that it ensured the existence of a significant number of village “squires” - small-scale aristocrats, accustomed to riding from childhood, those who, in essence, bore on their shoulders all the battles of previous reigns. This constant presence of practically trained cavalry, who were in constant shortage in the armies of other Greek states, had a great influence on the development of tactics, thanks to which Macedonia reached the level of a large military state. Despite the constant improvement of infantry formations, cavalry remained one of the most significant, if not the most significant part of the battle line in battle. The usual ratio of cavalry to infantry ranged from one to twelve to one to sixteen. In the army of Alexander the Great on the eve of his invasion of Persia, the cavalry ratio was one to six, and 7,000 horsemen and 40,000 infantry took part in the Battle of Arbela.

Macedonia was a relatively poor state; it was inhabited by people more accustomed to cultivating the land rather than trading. The discovery of rich mines in the Pangean mountain range on the eastern border of the country ensured that Philip received more than 1,000 talents a year - a huge sum that made Macedonia one of the richest Greek states. Thus equipped with a well-organized army and a full treasury, Philip began a program of expansion that inevitably brought him into conflict with the Greek cities of the south of the peninsula. Angered by the sharp speeches of the orator-politician Demosthenes, the Athenians eventually agreed to an alliance with their old enemies, the Thebans. The battle that was to decide the fate of Greece took place near Chaeronea in 338 BC. e.

We know little about the battle itself, which ended in Allied defeat. If it developed according to the usual tactics of the Macedonians, then Philip opposed the Theban phalanx with his Macedonian infantry and at the same time pulled back his weaker flank somewhat. His cavalry, commanded by his young son Alexander, was placed on the flank of his phalanx to strike the Thebans when their ranks became mixed up fighting the Macedonian spearmen. Presumably, it was as a result of this combination that the Thebans were defeated, after which the victorious flank of the Macedonians turned around and, supported by cavalry, crushed the Athenians.

This battle gave Philip control of all of Greece, although it did not unite the city-states into a single Hellenistic power. The Greek communities were by no means eager to see Greece under the rule of Macedonia, a state they considered half barbarian. Philip’s grandiose plans for invading Persia did not arouse any strong enthusiasm among them. But even before he began to carry out these plans, unrest in his empire led to his assassination (in 336 BC), most likely carried out at the instigation of his ex-wife, Alexander's mother. To his son, who was destined to become one of the most famous military leaders and conquerors, Philip left a legacy of a magnificent army, a united and prosperous country and unfulfilled ambitions. He created all this at the cost of eternal hardship, struggle and intrigue. Demosthenes wrote about him: “To create an empire and strengthen power, he sacrificed his eye, his collarbone was broken, his left arm and left leg were crippled. He sacrificed to fate any part of his body that it wanted to take, so that she would compensate him for their loss with glory.”

Under the command of Alexander, the combat effectiveness of the Greek-Macedonian army reached its highest level. The heavy infantry, armed with saris, was organized into special units, or brigades. These brigades were later divided into even smaller units. This division made the phalanx much more mobile. Now it began to resemble a wall, but not monolithic, but made up of separate blocks, not stupidly strong, but partially movable, but retaining all its strength. The phalanx was no longer the decisive factor on the battlefield. Now it looked more like a fortress, bristling with spears, because of the movable base of which cavalry could operate. The opinion that still exists regarding the true purpose of the Macedonian phalanx is largely erroneous - the people and spears collected in one place were by no means a single formation, with its own mass alone, in an irresistible movement, sweeping away all its enemies. The cavalry, in particular the heavy cavalry of the right flank, now became the real striking force. These cavalry units were consolidated into eight squadrons, one of which was the royal guard. Other units of heavy cavalry - the Thessalians, second only to the Macedonians in courage and efficiency - were stationed on the left flank. Both flanks, right and left, were also reinforced with light cavalry and lightly armed infantry.

BATTLE OF GAUGAMELA (ARBELA) - 331 BC. e.

1. Location of the opposing armies. From this position, Alexander moved his troops diagonally against the Persian left flank.

2. Darius's cavalry on the left flank tried to repel this attack. She was met by Alexander's light cavalry and light infantry. While this skirmish continued, the Persian chariots attempted to attack, but were stopped by archers and light infantry who provided cover for the heavy cavalry.

3. Instead of attacking the Persian left flank, Alexander deployed his cavalry and four phalanx units and attacked the center of the Persian army with them. Darius fled, followed by the Persian cavalry of the left flank.

4. Meanwhile, due to the rapid advance of Alexander, a gap opened in the ranks of his forces. The remaining Persian cavalry wedged through it, cutting off Alexander's left flank, commanded by Parmenius, and tried to capture the camp.

5. Seeing the position of Parmenius, Alexander interrupted the pursuit of the defeated left flank of the Persians and threw his heavy cavalry to the aid of Parmenius. After a stubborn battle, the Persian cavalry fled, and the pursuit of Darius' army resumed.

Another innovation was the creation of a new class of infantrymen. These superbly prepared andpaspists They were a cross between the heavily armed spearmen of the regular phalanx and the lightly armed peltasts. They formed a transitional link between the phalanx and heavy cavalry, wore protective armor and were armed with a shorter spear, much more convenient for offensive actions than the clumsy spear of the phalanx. In part they resembled the well-organized peltasts of Iphicrates, or perhaps the Greek spearmen of the old wars with the Persians. Demonstrating the importance of these new units, selected units of the Ipaspists became the royal foot guard, ageme, in addition to the royal horse guard. In the battle, the mobile units of the Ipaspists, located between the cavalry and the phalanxes, covered the left flank of one and the right flank of the other unit. If the heavy cavalry successfully broke through the enemy front, then the Ipaspist units, numbering 6,000 people, were ready to take advantage of their success and expand the breakthrough.

At its core, Macedonian tactics were based on attacking phalanx units echeloned in depth, with the right-flank unit striking the enemy first. Having thus pinned down the enemy front with a phalanx and heavy cavalry on the right, cavalry units under the command of Alexander himself struck at the enemy’s left flank, supported by the Ipaspists. Meanwhile, any attempt on the part of the enemy to attack the Macedonian phalanx from the flank would have been thwarted by the Thessalian heavy cavalry and a flank covering of light cavalry and lightly armed infantry. A similar screen covered the right flank of the phalanx units and was ready to move forward, bypassing the enemy’s left flank, if the attack of the heavy cavalry was successful. This entire tactical system involved mutual support and a combination of a relatively immobile phalanx and a highly mobile mass of heavy cavalry, as well as their infantry cover.

It would be a mistake to assume that all of Alexander’s battles unfolded according to the same pattern. His military genius was manifested rather in the skillful combinations and maneuvers of the units of his superbly trained troops. An excellent proof of this is his crossing of the Hydaspes during his Indian campaign and the subsequent battle with King Porus, who had about a hundred elephants in his army. This freedom to combine the actions of small units became one of the most significant innovations introduced into the art of war by Alexander and his successors. The young commander also possessed the highest degree of gift for inspiring in his companions the strongest inspiration and enthusiasm, which prompted them to follow their leader through the wild spaces of Central Asia right up to the western spurs of the mighty Hindu Kush.

Having traced his route on the map and taking into account at least only the difficulties of moving over rough terrain, we can only marvel at the discipline, fearlessness and devotion of the soldiers who followed their young commander from the shores of the Aegean Sea to conquer completely unknown countries at that time. Rarely have soldiers done more, and if the name of Alexander the Great has become immortal, then considerable credit for this belongs to the unbending Macedonians and the soldiers of other Greek states that made up his army. However, his friends, officers and generals, had much greater difficulty in serving their brilliant leader without fear and doubt than ordinary soldiers. Alexander's conviction of the divinity of his origin, his express desire that the Greeks, along with the Persians, give him divine honors, became one of the main reasons for many disappointments. The quick execution of one of the veterans, commander Parmenius, the hero of many of the largest military operations in Macedonia, who fought shoulder to shoulder with his father, alienated many soldiers loyal to Alexander. For his officers, veterans of memorable battles, many of whom were well over forty, even communication with the young military leader, who at the age of twenty-five defeated the world's largest empire, was not easy. And this communication is doubly difficult if the person who has the supreme military power considers himself a god. However, as happens with the greatest conquerors, the stench of countless rotting corpses was drowned out by the sweet smell of success, and Alexander always had a zealous following.

After the death of the young ruler at the age of thirty-three from malaria, these same zealous followers began to tear his empire apart. Naturally, for this it was necessary to resort to force of arms, and the history of the next 150 years, until the arrival of the Romans, is a string of endless battles between the states that arose from the ruins of Alexander’s empire. Of military interest is the expansion of the use of mercenaries, who in the East were paid for their service in gold, and the degeneration of the armies of some Macedonian monarchs of Asia Minor into mass armies of the old type. The armed forces of Ptolemy II (309-246 BC), as the chronicles note, numbered 200,000 infantry, 40,000 horsemen, had numerous chariots and elephants, as well as a fleet of 1,500 warships. Most figures given in ancient chronicles should be taken with caution, but in this case there is no doubt that the monarch in question possessed an army whose characteristics, and therefore its tactical capabilities, were more Asian than Greek.

The changes in phalanx formation that Alexander is said to have ordered shortly before his death most likely actually date from a somewhat earlier period. In the course of these changes the first three ranks of the phalanx and the last rank were formed of Macedonians armed with spears, while the intermediate twelve ranks were composed of Persians armed with bows and javelins. This rather strange combination was introduced, apparently, in an attempt to combine the power of the impact of projectiles and the onslaught of infantry, but, most likely, remained purely theoretical. If indeed it was introduced into practice as an experiment, then such a combination of different weapons and nationalities must have presented considerable difficulties, and the chronicles are silent about its successful use on the battlefield. If, on the other hand, such a formation was in fact created by Alexander, then this indicates both his desire to introduce something new into the practice of war, and the difficulties of obtaining new Macedonian recruits from their distant homeland.

Plutarch's account of the life of Eumenes, a soldier, courtier and friend of Philip and Alexander, his general during the campaign in India, gives us an idea of ​​the turbulent times that followed Alexander's death. Eumenes was from Chersonese of Thracia, from the peninsula west of the Hellespont. This meant that for the Macedonians he was a foreigner and a stranger, and the fact that he became Alexander's friend and confidant only added jealousy to this hostility. It is not possible in this work to attempt to reconstruct all the intrigues of this "successor" of the great general, but from Plutarch's description we can understand how powerful were the bands of Macedonian mercenaries, especially those who had once served in the armies of Alexander. Eumenes, who in his capacity as satrap of Cappadocia and Paphlagonia had to maintain an army, found the Macedonian heel "arrogant and arrogant." To strengthen his power, he created and trained a cavalry of 6,300 horsemen, with whom he defeated his colleagues (all the warring commanders were once brothers in arms, and many were also close friends). The invading phalanx of his enemies was attacked, "broken and routed", and then sworn to serve under the conqueror - a common custom in veteran mercenary units (and therefore highly valuable as warriors).

We further learn that when Craterus, Alexander's famous general and a popular military leader among the Macedonians, found himself in Eumenes' territory with his colleague Neoptolemus, Eumenes was allegedly misled into mistaking his own troops for the enemy. The battle was fierce, “spears broke like splinters, and then the soldiers entered hand-to-hand combat, drawing their swords.” Craterus was mortally wounded, and Eumenes killed Neoptolemus during hand-to-hand combat. The death of Craterus, beloved by the soldiers, prompted the leaders of the Macedonian world to sentence Eumenes to death, but his own Macedonians, well paid by him, stood up for their benefactor.

As an example of the treachery of Eumenes and the frequent “agreements” between warring commanders, we will cite the situation that arose during the retreat of Eumenes, when he had the opportunity to capture the rich baggage train of his main enemy. But “he was afraid that his warriors, having captured such rich trophies, would be loaded beyond measure and would not be able to retreat quickly.” Realizing that he could not keep them from plunder, and not daring to give the order not to touch such valuable trophies, he secretly sent a messenger from himself to the commander of the convoy, advising him to hide the convoy as soon as possible in a safe place among the hills. After waiting a little, he gave the order to attack, but immediately canceled it as soon as it became clear that the enemy had taken up too strong a position. Thus he found a friend in the commander of the convoy and at the same time freed himself from the need to oppose himself to his own soldiers.

His successes and reputation eventually earned him the enmity of some of his officers, and in particular his commanders argyroaspids. These "silver shields" were a veteran unit consisting of 3,000 ipaspists, who remained separate as a separate unit even after Alexander's death. They were considered invincible. During the last battle of Eumenes against Antigonus, the rank and file of the Argyroaspides remained loyal to him. Plutarch wrote: “...he finally lined up his warriors in battle order and thereby encouraged both the Greeks and the barbarians, since they were phalanxes of Argyroaspides, and the enemy would never be able to resist them. They were the oldest of the veteran soldiers of Philip and Alexander, the most experienced warriors who had never known defeat; most of them were under seventy, and certainly not less than sixty years old. And when they went to attack the army of Antigonus, shouting: “You are fighting against your fathers, scoundrels!” - then they furiously attacked their opponents, putting the entire phalanx to flight, because no one could resist them, and most of the dead fell at their hands.” But Eumenes' cavalry was scattered, and he lost his baggage train, treacherously surrendered to the enemy. Then, learning of the loss of all their trophies, the "silver shields", who had now become mercenaries in the worst sense of the word, dishonorably betrayed their general in exchange for their booty; such shameful behavior forced Antigonus to later execute their commander and disband this unit.

This story is typical of the time, and if it devotes quite a lot of space to describing a rather modest commander, it is because it does not pretend to convey the “spirit” of the time. Much more interesting is the mention of the age of the Macedonian veterans. A warrior who fought at the Battle of Chaeronea at the age of forty would have been about sixty-two years old in the year of Eumenes' betrayal. Cleanliness, good sanitary facilities, discipline and the instilled ability to care for one's body can perhaps explain the difference between the longevity of the Greeks and the rather short life of the ordinary medieval soldier. It is highly doubtful whether many similar units of three thousand men could have been found in the Middle Ages, capable of maneuvering in similar protective equipment or making similar transitions, even being half their age.

In a later period, the Arcadian commander Philopoemen (253-184 BC), nicknamed “the last Hellene,” became an example of a talented tactician and an excellent soldier. In his early youth, he distinguished himself in the battle between the Macedonians and the Spartans, attacking the enemy (without a command) at a critical moment in the battle. This offensive decided the outcome of the battle and earned him the gratitude of the Macedonian general. Years later, having acquired a strong reputation among the troops, he received the position of commander of the Achaean cavalry. He apparently found this branch of the army in a deplorable state, since, according to Plutarch, “these horsemen at that time were not distinguished by either experience or courage; It became their custom to take any horse, the cheapest one that could be purchased, and ride on it. Quite often they did not go on campaigns themselves, but hired other people wherever they could for money, and they themselves stayed at home. Their commanders of that time turned a blind eye to this, since among the Achaeans it was considered an honor to serve in the cavalry, and these people were a great force in society, so they could exalt or crush anyone they wanted.”

Philopoemen managed to restore order by appealing to the honor and ambition of these people, but also by “inflicting punishment when necessary,” and thus transforming this unruly crowd into a first-class military unit. Not limited to this, he also reorganized the infantry, “abolishing what he considered outdated and unnecessary in their weapons and battle tactics. Now they began to use light and thin round shields, too small to hide the entire body behind them, and darts much shorter than the previous spears. As a result of all these innovations, they became very dangerous in long-range combat, but largely vulnerable in close combat. Therefore they could never fight in regular formation; and their formation always remained uncovered by a dense forest of lowered spears or large shields, like the Macedonian phalanx. In contrast, where the warriors stood tightly and covered each other with shields, their formation was easy to break and scatter. Philopoemen changed the situation by insisting that the soldiers use large shields and long spears instead of narrow shields and short javelins; he also introduced protective weapons for the head, torso, stomach and legs, so that now the infantrymen could not only fire at the enemy from afar, but also fight them in close combat. After he had clothed them in full armor and thereby instilled in them the conviction of his own invincibility, he converted what had previously been lavished as excess wealth and wasted on luxuries into a very honorable acquisition.”

Having instilled pride in the Achaeans for their new weapons and equipment, it was now necessary to find worthy opponents for them. Having old rivals - the Lacedaemonians - literally at their gates, it was not so difficult to do this. The Third Battle of Mantinea (207 BC) shows us a striking difference from other melee battles of the Peloponnesian War, which the chronicler considered it necessary to record. According to the chronicle, Philopoemen positioned his troops in front of a dry hollow, his heavily armed infantry was brought together into two small phalanxes and placed in two lines, with units of the second line covering the gaps between the units of the first - this clearly indicates familiarity with Roman tactics. His heavy cavalry was concentrated on the right flank, and units of the allied states and mercenaries, both foot and horse, on the left. Oddly enough, the Spartan commander also showed considerable originality in the alignment of his forces. His heavily armed infantry, stationed in the center, opposed the Achaean right flank, but were only within bow range of them (approximately 100-150 yards). Formed in a column, it turned to the right, stretched out to its full length, and then again turned to face the enemy. It consisted of carts with small catapults that moved uncamouflaged. They were placed at approximately equal intervals and aimed at the enemy - the first recorded tactical use of field artillery. True, they did not bring much harm to the opponent, but at least they inspired Philopoemen’s soldiers and encouraged them to go on the offensive. After this, the battle developed according to a more familiar pattern. The Spartan commander, Machanidas, outflanked the Achaeans on the left, but (as had happened many times in history) followed his cavalry too far. Meanwhile, Philopoemen quickly advanced his phalanx to the left flank (a thing unthinkable in the old days), surrounded and defeated the right flank of the Spartans. This decided the outcome of the battle, and the Spartan commander, returning too late with his victorious cavalry, was killed, and his horsemen, tired after the chase, were scattered. A few years later, it was Philopoemen who destroyed the walls of Sparta to the ground - an event that was included in the legends of the warriors of Ancient Greece.

Historians have noted that the ancient Greeks, during wars between cities, rarely inflated the conflict to the point of besieging a well-fortified enemy city and taking it by storm, but if circumstances required, the Greeks still resorted to lengthy siege operations, and in this case they showed natural intelligence and initiative as the besiegers and the besieged.

The use of siege weapons, with the exception of rams, seems to have remained unknown to the ancient Greeks until the 5th century BC. e. The invention of catapults is attributed to Syracusan engineers during the time of the tyrant Dionysius, around 400 BC. e. During the Peloponnesian War, the main means of capturing a walled city were undermining, ramming, building a ramp near the city wall, along which the attackers could take the city by storm, and starving the townspeople. The last resort was usually carried out by erecting another wall or rampart around the city, which deprived the besieged population of all contact with the outside world. Such a rampart also gave the advantage that the siege could be carried out with a minimum number of soldiers.

We are indebted to the ancient Greek historian Thucydides for a detailed description of the overall method of taking the city and the means of siege used to suppress the resistance of the besieged. There is no point in spoiling Thucydides’s excellent description by tearing out individual lines from it, so we present his entire narrative concerning the construction of the rampart and the use of rams.

The Peloponnesians stormed Plataea and surrounded the city with a palisade. “...The next day they began to build an embankment near the city wall. To build the embankment, they cut down the forest on Kiferon and knocked down cages from it, which they laid on the sides of the embankment to protect the earth from crumbling, and delivered wood, stones, earth, and everything else that was needed for its construction to the place of its construction. . They continued the work on its construction for seventy days and nights without a break, only dividing into two parties - when one worked, the other rested or slept. The Lacedaemonian officer in charge of the work looked after them. But the Plataeans, seeing how quickly the embankment rose, made a wall of wood and secured it against that part of the city wall where the embankment rose, and strengthened this wooden wall with stones, which they took from the nearby houses. The wooden pieces held the whole structure together and gave it rigidity as it grew in height; it was also covered with wet skins and skins, which prevented the wooden parts from catching fire from incendiary arrows and allowed the builders to work in safety. Thus, the wall rose in height, and the embankment opposite it grew no less quickly. The Plataeans came up with another trick; They destroyed part of the city wall, to which the embankment approached, and carried away the earth from the embankment into the city.

Discovering that the Peloponnesians were making blocks of woven reeds coated with clay and throwing them into a hole in the embankment to stabilize it and prevent it from collapsing, the Plataeans changed their tactics. They made a tunnel from the city, calculating it so that it would go under the embankment, and again began to carry out the embankment material through it, as before. This went on for quite a long time, and the enemy did not discover anything from the outside, until it occurred to him that, no matter how much material was brought to the top of the embankment, it did not grow in height at all, since the besieged continued to carry the material through the tunnel, and all the work of the besiegers was wasted in vain. The besieged stopped erecting a large building opposite the embankment and began to build a new one on each side of it within the old city wall in the shape of a crescent facing the city, with the goal that if the enemy, having erected his embankment, was able to get over the old wall, he would have to overcome another one, and in doing so he will come under fire. As the embankment was being built, the Peloponnesians also began to bombard the city with siege devices, one of which they dragged onto the embankment and fired at a large structure, throwing a significant part of it to the ground, to the considerable consternation of the Plataeans. Other devices were installed against various parts of the city wall, but the Plataeans were able to damage them by using long beams suspended on long metal chains; they protruded beyond the city wall, and with these beams they were able to damage the working ram.”

All this time, both the besieged and the besiegers, of course, showered each other with arrows, stones from slings and darts. We do not know whether the shooters used protective devices such as portable shields, but since they were always widely used during battles in Asia Minor, we can assume that they were most likely also in use. There was also an unsuccessful attempt to start a fire in the city. At first, the space between the wall and the embankment was filled with bundles of brushwood, and the same bundles were thrown into the city through the wall. The resulting fire did not cause much damage to the besieged. Eventually another wall was built around the city and a ditch was dug, after which the main Peloponnesian forces dispersed.

Towards the end of this siege, about two hundred Plataeans made a successful attempt to escape by means of folding ladders; for this they chose a stormy winter night, when all the sentries on the wall hid in the towers. The city's defenders held out for some time, but eventually weakened from exhaustion and were all killed.

Later in the war, during the siege of Delium, a contraption - a precursor to the flamethrower - was used to capture an Athenian-held fort. In all likelihood, part of the wall of this fort had wooden elements, a kind of wicker fence coated with clay, possibly on a stone base. (If the entire wall were made of wood, such a clever device would not be necessary.)

“They sawed a large log lengthwise and hewed out the inside of each half and then joined them together again, making a kind of pipe. At one end of it, a boiler was suspended on chains, to which an iron pipe leading from a hollow log led, and a significant part of the log was also covered with iron. This structure was suspended by carts over one part of the city wall, made of wood and held together with dry vines. When the log approached the wall, huge bellows were inserted into the other end of it and began to pump air. This air swept over a cauldron hanging from the end of a log, which was filled with burning coals, sulfur and resin, so that this burning mass fell on the wall and set it on fire. Soon the heat became so great that the defenders could not bear it and left the wall, which burned and fell, opening the way to the city, which was thus taken.”

The earliest catapults appear to have been nothing more than huge bows that threw heavy arrows or spears. These bows were mounted on wooden frames and were tensioned or cocked by mechanical devices, usually a gate that had a ratcheting wheel with a pawl. It was later discovered that catapults using the principle of twisting fibers have greater power than those using bending energy. In systems using the twisting principle, two arms were passed through a bundle of two powerful strands mounted on a short frame on either side of the tray in which the projectile rested. The string was pulled back by “twisting” the strands. Then, being released, she walked forward, throwing the projectile with great force. In some varieties of catapults, something like a pocket was fixed in the middle of the bowstring, into which a stone was inserted instead of an arrow. Some of these stones, according to ancient authors, reached a significant weight of 180 pounds. Of course, the distance over which these monsters sent their projectiles was very small, but they threw their spears much further. Similar catapults, built in the 19th century based on ancient models, sent spears almost 500 yards. There is evidence that hand crossbows were also used, but due to the low quality of the materials used and the undeveloped design, they were not widely used in military operations.

In the 4th century BC. e. Siege towers were used to fire at the besieged on the walls. Some of these towers were also equipped with catwalks that allowed attackers to storm the walls. One of these towers, the largest of those noted in the chronicles, was built for the Macedonian king Demetrius, whose military exploits earned him the well-deserved nickname Poliorcetes - “besieger of cities.” Chroniclers indicate various sizes of this tower; Plutarch writes that its base was square with a side of 24 cubits (about 36 feet), and its height was more than 50 feet (others say the height is from 100 to 150 feet, and the side of the square base is estimated from 50 to 75 feet). It had several levels with embrasures for catapults and archers; the embrasures could be closed with doors. At each level there were also, according to chroniclers, large containers of water and fire buckets. The tower was mounted on wheels and moved in battle by the efforts of hundreds of people, some of whom were inside the tower, and some behind and on the sides. Some sources call the number of wheels - eight, and the number of people who moved the tower - 3400 people, but these evidence should be treated very critically. On the one hand, 3,400 people, even standing in a dense crowd, occupy at least half an acre of land, so the interesting question immediately arises as to what, exactly, they were pushing. Towing by ropes is excluded, since the tower had to be pushed close to the city wall, and the number of people who can push and move with levers an object with a base side of even 75 feet is very limited.

The student of ancient history must bear in mind that chroniclers were prone to exaggeration when they attempted to describe mechanical devices that captured their imagination. It may well be that military devices in ancient Greece of the 4th century BC. e. were very ingenious mechanisms, and this only confirms that even in those distant times, some of the most inventive minds, as in every era, were committed to the art of destruction.

The stellar era of Ancient Greece ended with several uncoordinated attempts to overthrow Roman rule. With the final defeat of the Achaean League and the destruction of the great city of Corinth in 146 BC. e. The history of Ancient Greece as an independent state ended. For 250 years, the ancient Greek warrior asserted his dominance in the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean. He destroyed a great empire and erected an even greater empire, carrying his banners to the most remote regions of the earth. And when his country was crushed by the legions of Ancient Rome, his shadow could rest in the knowledge that when Rome, in turn, fell under the onslaught of the barbarians, the Greek-speaking and Greek-minded Byzantine Empire became the stronghold of civilization.

Notes:

Wavell Archibald Percival - British field marshal, Earl. Participated in the First World War. At the beginning of the Second World War, Wavell's troops achieved victories over Italian troops in Cyrenaica (December 1940 - February 1941) and East Africa (January - May 1941). From June 1943 to February 1947, Viceroy of India. (Hereinafter, except where otherwise noted, note.)

Ju-ju - in some African tribes and beliefs - a shaman, a spellcaster, a professional miracle worker.

This refers to the English pound, equal to 453 grams, that is, the weight ranged from 16 to 26 kilograms.

Polybius (c. 201, Megalopolis, Arcadia - c. 120 BC, ibid.), ancient Greek historian.

Kukri is the national weapon of the people of Nepal in the form of a knife of slight curvature with a reverse sharpening of the blade (that is, the cutting blade is the concave side). Can be used both as a combat knife and as a machete.

Cyrus the Younger is the son of the Persian king Darius II. It was his mercenaries who carried out the famous “retreat of ten thousand.” In character, energy and military talents, Cyrus resembled his great ancestor.

Tarentum, Tarentum is an ancient Greek colony in Italy on the shores of the Gulf of Tarentum.

Iphicrates was an Athenian commander of mercenary troops who skillfully used the peltast medium infantry.

The Corinthian War is a war between a coalition of Greek city states (Thebes, Argos, Corinth, Athens, Elis, Acarnania, Megara, etc.) and the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta.

Gymnopedia is a holiday in Sparta, celebrated in July for 6-10 days and consisting of military dance, musical and gymnastic exercises.

Argos is a city in Greece on the Peloponnese peninsula.

Chaeronea is an ancient city in Boeotia (Ancient Greece), near which on August 2 or September 1, 338 BC. e. The 30,000-strong Macedonian army of King Philip II defeated the allied forces of Athens and Boeotia (about 30,000 people).

Salamis is an island in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Attica (Greece), near which September 28 (or 27), 480 BC. e. a naval battle took place during the Greco-Persian Wars.

Steps - a square block made of wood or steel, attached to the keelson of a ship, into which the base of the mast is secured.

The Cilician Gate is a mountain pass through the Taurus in southern Turkey, formed by a narrow through canyon of the Chakyt River.

In the ensuing battle, Alexander attacked the enemy's flanks with cavalry and defeated Porus' troops, who lost 23,000 people killed.

The Achaean League is a federation of ancient Greek cities in the Peloponnese.

Topic No. 1. The origin and development of the army from Ancient Rus' to the Russian centralized state.

Lecture No. 1. Armies and wars of the Ancient World.

Study questions:

2. Wars of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The origin of the principles of military art. The military art of Miltiades, A. Macedonian, J. Caesar.

Introduction

The social basis of the Ancient One was the division of societies into two main antagonistic classes: slaves and slave owners, between whom an irreconcilable struggle was constantly waged.

To keep slaves in obedience, as well as to seize new lands and slaves, along with other government bodies, an army was created - an armed organization of people.

A slave society could develop only with a continuous influx of slaves from outside. Therefore, the era of the slave system is a history of bloody wars, the devastation of many countries, mass captivity and extermination of entire peoples. Due to frequent wars, the map of the regions of the world, especially Western and Central Asia, changed several times.

Along with aggressive wars, just ones were also fought in order to protect against the aggressor or liberate from his domination. Slaves came out to openly fight slave owners. Often uprisings developed into wars. Civil wars frequently occurred between various factions of the ruling classes for power and wealth.

During these wars, military organization and military art received great development.

1. The origin of armies, their recruitment, composition and weapons.

The economy of slave owners could exist only under the condition of a continuous influx of cheap labor - slaves. They were brought about mainly by the war. Therefore, in order to keep the huge masses of slaves in obedience, to continuously replenish and increase their numbers, as well as to enslave their own and other peoples, slave owners needed strong armies.

The slave states of ancient times (Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, China, Greece, Carthage, Rome, etc.) throughout their existence waged numerous, almost continuous wars, which, as a rule, were of an unjust, aggressive nature. They continued the policies of slave owners using violent methods. A natural side of this process was the emergence of other types of wars - just wars, wars of liberation.

Based on the above, it follows that the art of war in the ancient world received significant development.

Recruiting armies.

The armies of slave states had a clearly defined class character. Not only the command staff, but also the rank and file were made up of representatives of the ruling class. Slaves were allowed into the army in very limited numbers and were used to perform various types of auxiliary work (porters, servants, construction workers, etc.). And, although over the long period of slavery, the methods of recruiting and the organizational structure of armies changed repeatedly, their weapons and military art were improved, but the class essence of the armies remained unchanged.

In a slave society, the following basic systems for recruiting armies were used:

A combination of standing units and militia. This recruitment system took place during the formation of slave states. Its core consisted of permanent detachments created by representatives of the emerging tribal nobility. During the war, this army was strengthened by a militia of communal peasants.

Caste system. It received especially great development in the armies of the countries of the Ancient East (Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, India). Under her, the army consisted of professional warriors who served for life and passed on their profession by inheritance (the so-called warrior caste).

Police system. It took place in most states of the Ancient World during the heyday of the slave system. Its essence was that every citizen of a given state, receiving military training in his youth, was considered liable for military service until old age (in Greece from 18 to 60 years, in Rome - from 17 to 45-50). If necessary, he could be drafted into the army at any time. According to Engels' definition, it was a typical slave-owning militia.

Mercenary system. This system of recruiting armies with professional warriors developed in the states of Ancient Greece in the 4th century. BC e., and in Ancient Rome - in the 2nd century. BC e. The transition to it was due to the stratification of ancient society and the relatively rapid reduction in the number of free citizens, who, under the militia system, provided the bulk of the soldiers. The growth of production caused the further development of slave relations. Large-scale production based on cheap slave labor arose. As a result of competition with large-scale production, small producers went bankrupt under the burden of unbearable hardships. As they were ruined, the former basis of the military power of the state disappeared. The crisis of the slave-owning society determined new sources and methods of recruiting armies - the transition from the slave-owning militia (militia) to the mercenary army.

Frequent and lengthy wars also greatly contributed to the acquisition of a professional character by armies.

The essence of the mercenary system was that the state, for a certain fee, hired soldiers who considered military service as their main profession. Mercenary armies were recruited from the poorest strata of the population, declassed elements, freedmen and even foreign (barbarian) tribes. At the stage of decomposition and decline of the slave-owning system, when the slave-owning class began to increasingly buy off the “blood tax,” mercenaryism became the main system of recruiting troops.

Armament.

The development of social production in the Ancient world also led to the improvement of weapons. The production of a slave society was characterized not only by the fact that man conquered metal from nature and created metal weapons, but also by the fact that these weapons were continuously improved. The achieved level of production made it possible to produce the simplest weapons from metal - spears, swords. Arrowheads, protective metal armor. The level of development of production already made it possible to accumulate some stocks of weapons. Material possibilities were created for the construction of fortresses, simple combat vehicles, as well as large naval fleets consisting of rowing ships.

First of all, hand weapons developed and improved. The Greek spear (2 m) and the Macedonian sarissa (4-6 m) were impact weapons. Swords, battle axes, and daggers were also used for hand-to-hand combat. Bows and arrows, darts and slings were used for short-range combat. The maximum range of archery was 200 m, and the best aimed shooting was carried out at a distance of up to 100 m. The rate of fire when archery was 4-6 rounds per minute. The darts were thrown at a distance of up to 60 m.

Fortress and siege technology developed, reaching its highest perfection among the Romans. During the siege of fortresses, they widely used rams and throwing mechanisms (catapults, ballistas, onagers, etc.). Catapults threw stones weighing up to 0.5 tons at a distance of up to 450 m. The ballista threw stones and large arrows (from 30 to 160 kg) at a distance of 600-900 m.

In general, the improvement of weapons occurred mainly due to the quantity and improvement of the quality of metals used to make weapons (copper, bronze and, finally, iron). In addition to weapons, warriors of the ancient world also had protective equipment - shields, helmets, armor, which were made of wood. Leather and metal.

Thus, the armament of the armies of the ancient world consisted of various types of edged weapons, which had a decisive influence on the organization and methods of combat operations of the troops of that time.

Organization of troops.

Under the slave system, the foundations of the organizational structure of the armed forces were formed for the first time. They were divided into a land army and a navy. The army, in turn, was divided into two types of troops - infantry and cavalry. At the same time, the beginnings of engineering troops and logistics services first appeared. Initial forms of tactical organization of troops also emerged. They achieved their greatest perfection in the armies of Ancient Greece and Rome.

The forms of organization of slave armies were directly dependent on the methods of warfare and war in general. As the methods of warfare changed, they changed.

Thus, the peasants of the states of the Ancient East, as well as Greece and Rome during their formation, united by common ties, fought in large masses, where each warrior felt the immediate support of his neighbor. The armies of the ancient Greek states distinguished themselves by the most perfect form of such an organization.

The main organizational unit of the ancient Greek armies was the phalanx, which acted as a single monolithic mass without being divided tactically. It included heavy infantry (“hoplites”), armed with a long, heavy spear and sword, as well as full metal protective equipment (shield, armor, helmet, legguards, leggings). The numerical strength of the phalanx reached 8-16 thousand people, and sometimes more. Light infantry, armed mainly with throwing weapons and having lightweight protective equipment made of leather or quilted fabric, and cavalry had a squad organization and performed mainly auxiliary tasks during combat operations.

The further development of methods of conducting combat operations, and the increased importance of maneuver in connection with this, forced the commanders of antiquity to look for new forms of army organization. This new form was the legion - the main organizational unit of the Roman army. The legion consisted of 4.5 thousand soldiers (3 thousand heavily armed infantrymen - “legionnaires”, 1.2 thousand lightly armed infantrymen - “velites” and 300 horsemen.

Initially, the legion did not differ organizationally from the phalanx. In the 4th century BC. its organizational structure was improved. The legion was divided into 30 maniples, each with 60-120 people. The legion's cavalry consisted of 10 turmas. Each tour had 30 riders. Subsequently (1st century BC) the organization of the legion was again improved. The legion began to be divided into 10 cohorts (500-600 people in each). Each cohort consisted of 3 maniples. The cohort also included cavalry and throwing mechanisms.

Maneuverable actions led to an increase in the role of cavalry. This is especially clearly seen in the example of the wars waged by Alexander the Great. Skillfully combining the actions of cavalry with infantry, he, as a rule, achieved success. Many outstanding commanders of the ancient world achieved success in wars because they promptly adapted the organization of their armies to the changed methods of warfare. This explains the fact that commanders usually acted as army reformers (Iphicrates, Alexander the Great, Marius, Caesar, Tigranes and others).

The military art of Ancient Greece was created and developed on the basis of the slave-owning mode of production, which reached a powerful peak in this country. The military art of Ancient Greece is the result of the development of a slave society and the social relations that arose in the process. The totality of production relations that formed the basis of slave society was the decisive force that determined the nature of the Greek armies, their methods of warfare and combat.

In the 7th - 6th centuries. BC e. Primitive communal relations in Greece gave way to the slave system. Ancient tribal associations, in the course of a fierce class struggle, were replaced by slave-owning city-states (policies), each of which had its own military organization. The state was named after the city, which was the center of the adjacent territory, which was insignificant in size. The most significant of these states were Athens, Sparta, and Thebes.

The majority of Greek slave states were republics, representing political organizations of slave owners. Depending on the correlation and alignment of class forces, they had a democratic or oligarchic form of government, which determined the internal and external policies of the polis and was reflected in the composition and structure of its armed forces.

In order to keep slaves in obedience and ensure an increase in their number, a good military organization was necessary. Such a military organization was the slave-owning militia. This militia had a single class face - it consisted of slave owners and ensured the interests of this class. The period of the slave militia lasted until the end of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC).

The military responsibilities of various categories of citizens were determined depending on their property status. Persons who held the highest public positions did not serve in the army. The richest citizens were supposed to supply equipped ships to the state. Wealthy citizens served in the cavalry. Small landowners manned the heavy infantry, and the poor served in the light infantry or as sailors in the navy. All weapons were purchased at our own expense.

The military organization of Sparta and Athens reached the highest level.

Sparta was a slave-owning military state, the entire education system of which was aimed at developing a warrior out of every Spartan. The Spartans paid main attention to the development of physical strength, endurance and courage. All these qualities were highly valued in Sparta. The warrior was required to obey his superiors unconditionally. Elements of military discipline were instilled in the future warrior from school. The Spartan was ready to die rather than leave his combat post. Public opinion played a major role in strengthening military discipline...at the same time, corporal punishment was also used. In their songs, the Spartans glorified brave warriors and condemned cowardice:

“It’s nice to lose your life, among the valiant warriors who fell,

To a brave husband in battle for the sake of his fatherland...

Young men, fight, standing in rows, do not be an example

Shameful flight or pitiful cowardice of others..."

From 7 to 20 years old, a Spartan underwent training, after which he became a full citizen. The upbringing of a Spartan was aimed at developing in him contempt for luxury, obedience, endurance, physical strength and dexterity. Teenagers were raised in harsh conditions: they were often forced to starve, endure hardships and were often punished for the slightest offense. Most of the time was devoted to physical exercise (running, wrestling, javelin and discus throwing) and war games. Singing, music and dancing were also aimed at developing the qualities necessary for warriors. For example, warlike music was supposed to arouse courage.

Much attention was paid to the development of a military language. The Spartans were famous for their ability to speak concisely and clearly. From Laconia came the expressions “laconism”, “laconic”. “With him or on him,” the mother said to her son, handing the shield (with him - the winner, on him - the dead). When the Persian king at Thermopylae demanded that the Greeks hand over their weapons and shields, they answered him: “Come and take it.”

For the Spartans, training prevailed over learning. They had elements of drill training, which were further developed in the Roman army. Military reviews were periodically organized to check combat readiness. Anyone who appeared at the inspection as having gained weight beyond the norm established for a warrior was subject to punishment. Military shows ended with competitions.

All Spartans were considered liable for military service from 20 to 60 years of age. Their armament was heavy. They had a spear, a short sword and protective armor: a round shield, a helmet, a shell and leggings (total weight - up to 30 kg). Such a heavily armed warrior was called a hoplite. Each hoplite had a servant - a helot, who carried his protective equipment on the campaign. The Spartan army also included light infantry, armed with light spears, darts (thrown at 20-60m) or bows and arrows.

The core of the Spartan army were hoplites (2-6 thousand people). There were significantly more light infantry. In some wars it numbered several tens of thousands of people. The Spartans had a fairly clear organizational structure. But in battle these units did not act independently. All hoplites were part of one phalanx (monolith), which was a tightly closed linear formation of heavily armed warriors several ranks deep. The phalanx arose from the close formation of clan and tribal detachments and was the military expression of the finally formed Greek slave state.

The technical prerequisite for its emergence was the development of the production of uniform weapons.

The Spartan phalanx was usually 8 ranks deep. In this case, its length along the front was 1 km. Before the battle of Leuctra, the Spartan phalanx was considered invincible.

The army's battle formation was not limited to the phalanx. Lightly armed archers and slingers covered the phalanx from the front, started a battle, and when the phalanx began to attack, they retreated to its flanks and to the rear to provide them.

There were two kings in Sparta. One of them went to war, and the other remained to lead the state, train reserves and solve other problems.

In battle, the king was in the first rank on the right flank. The strongest warriors were on the flanks.

The weak point of the Spartans was the lack of technical means of combat and a weak fleet (only 10-15 warships).

The heyday of Spartan military art occurred in the 8th - 7th centuries. BC.

Military organization of Athens.

In connection with the destruction of the remnants of tribal relations, the citizens of the state are gradually divided into 4 groups:

1 gr - supplies to the state of means for waging war

2 gr - equipped riders

3 gr - equipped hoplites

4th gr - light infantry and fleet.

Each young man, upon reaching 18 years of age, underwent military training for a year. Then, at the review, he received military weapons and took the oath. In the 2nd year of service, he enlisted in the border detachments, where he underwent field training. After this service, until the age of 60, the Athenian was considered liable for military service. It was a police system. However, as a result of numerous wars and a peacetime training system, the Athenian gradually turned into a professional warrior.

The command of the army and navy of Athens belonged to a college of 10 strategists, who took turns in command during the war.

The main military force of Athens was the navy. With his help, Athens victoriously repelled the Persian invasion and challenged Sparta in the struggle for hegemony in Greece. The naval power of Athens reached its highest development in the 5th century. BC e. Its foundations were laid by Themistocles (480 BC). By the time of the Persian invasion, Athens had more than 200 ships in service, and by the beginning of the Peloponnesian War (431 BC) - over 300 ships. The main type of ship was a three-deck trireme (170 rowers in 3 rows - a row on each deck). The bow of the ship was lined with copper. In addition to the oarsmen on the trireme, there were also sailors operating the sails and landing soldiers. There were about 200 of them. The Athenians' naval tactics boiled down to the following: enter from the side and ram the enemy ship. Often the Athenians rushed to board, having previously knocked down the oars and rudder of the enemy ship.

The second component of the Athenian armed forces was the army. Its basis was also made up of hoplites. The Athenian hoplite's armament consisted of a 2 m long spear and defensive weapons, which were lighter than those of the Spartans. There were light infantry and cavalry. The Athenian cavalry was small in number (since horse breeding was not developed in Greece) and performed mainly auxiliary tasks. She fought on bareback horses, using throwing weapons.

The battle formation of the Athenians, like the Spartans, was a phalanx. It was first mentioned in the description of the Salamis War of 592 BC. e. In structure and tactical principles, the Athenian phalanx was similar to the Spartan one, but differed from the latter in its furious onslaught (F. Engels). Starting from the 1st half of the 5th century. BC e., the Athenians began to use siege and throwing weapons.

When educating and training Athenian warriors, unlike the Spartans, much attention was paid to both physical and mental development. The training and education of the Athenians had several stages and lasted from 7 to 20 years. As a result of such training, the Athenians were strong, agile and agile warriors. Beauty, a tall figure, an outward expression of strength and dexterity were supposed to favorably distinguish a slave owner from a slave. Along with this, the Athenians paid great attention to training their thinking.

The Olympic Games, which were held regularly every 4 years, were of great importance in the physical education of the Greeks. The first Olympiad known to us dates back to 776 BC. e. The Olympic Games turned into great holidays, during which all internal Greek wars ceased. The games were held in the form of competitions, to which masses of people flocked, but only noble citizens took part in them. The popularity of games among the Greeks was very great. The winners of the competition enjoyed fame and honor. The program of the Olympic Games gradually developed and became more complex. At first they only included running 192 m and wrestling. Then the program included long-distance running, pentathlon, fist fighting, fist fighting with wrestling, running in armor, and horse racing.

The Athenians' military discipline was supported by a sense of civic duty. Unlike the Spartans, Athenian military leaders enjoyed limited rights. Corporal punishment was not used. Upon returning from a campaign, the military commander could file a complaint against the offender to the national assembly, which determined the punishment.

Thus, although the Greek armies had the form of a militia, they can nevertheless justifiably be considered regular. They had a unified recruitment system, a clear organizational structure, uniform weapons, a training and education system, a clear order of battle and firm discipline.

Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below

Students, graduate students, young scientists who use the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.

Posted on http://www.allbest.ru/

Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Federal State Educational Institution

Higher Professional Education

Samara State Social and Pedagogical University

Course work

Military art of ancient Greece in the classical period

Samara, 2016

Introduction

The relevance of the research topic lies in the fact that the Greek army in the classical period of Greek history played an important role in the life of the policies. It allowed them to maintain their independence and protect themselves from external threats. In some policies, military affairs was an integral and one of the most important parts of life. The work covers the most important period of Greek history; the period when the polis state known to us with its army, democracy and culture took shape. This period is also interesting because there was no single state as such, which means there was no single army (each policy raised its own army in the event of hostilities, later military alliances were formed), command; in case of external danger, the policies tried to cooperate in order to protect each other.

The object of study is the Greek army.

The subject of the study is the Greek army in the classical period.

The purpose of the study is to study the military art of Ancient Greece during the classical period. army police tactics weapons

Research objectives:

1. study the types of weapons and armor of Greek warriors.

2. study the types of military formations of Ancient Greece.

3. consider the military tactics of Athens and Sparta

The chronological framework of the study is the period of classical Greece and the heyday of polis democracy in the 5th - 4th centuries. BC.

Sources:

· Plutarch “Comparative Lives” - biographical descriptions written by the Greek Plutarch. The original version has not survived; the earliest copies date back to the 10th-11th centuries. n. e. Plutarch was not an original writer. Basically, he collected and processed what other, more original writers and thinkers had written before him. Average preservation: most preserved except for some fragments. Throughout history, this story has been translated 5 times.

· Thucydides “History of the Peloponnesian War.” The work was written in the 5th century. BC e. We can talk about high safety. “History...” consists of 8 books. It is interesting that Thucydides was a contemporary of the events described, and here the problem arises: did the author approach the events described as truthfully as possible? As for the political views of Thucydides, he was not inclined towards extreme democracy; more than once he speaks contemptuously about the variability and fickleness of the crowd; he feels antipathy towards demagogues

· Xenophon “Greek History or Hellenica.” The work was written in the 4th century. BC. “Greek History” covers the period from 411 to 362, the era of the last stage of the Peloponnesian War, the establishment of the hegemony of Sparta and the gradual decline of its power. The work is written in a pronounced prospartan spirit.

· Herodotus "History". A work written in the 5th century. BC, is considered one of the first historical works. The work is interesting because it has been completely preserved; it describes not only historical events, such as the Greco-Persian Wars, but also contains geographical and ethnographic data.

· Aristotle "The Athenian Polity". The state of preservation of this work is not very good: the beginning has been lost. Also, the authorship of this work has been questioned by some researchers.

Historiography.

A great contribution to the study of this topic was made by Hans Delbrück, a German historian and a major researcher of military art. His most ambitious work, “The History of Military Art within the Framework of Political History,” is fundamental in the study of this topic.

The next author whose works were used in writing this work is Peter Connolly, a British scientist. His works, such as the Encyclopedia of Military History, made a significant contribution to the study of weapons and armor of warriors of ancient Greece and Rome.

When studying such a topic, one cannot help but touch upon the works of the famous Soviet scientist Evgeniy Andreevich Razin. His works well describe both the actions of various troops during battles, as well as weapons, armor and tactics.

The Soviet historian Solomon Yakovlevich Lurie describes in his works not only the art of war, but also the entire history of Hellas as a whole.

Chapter 1. Spartan army

1.1 Armament, troop composition

The state of Sparta was located in the southern Peloponnese. The Spartans conquered Laconia and its neighboring provinces, subjugating their inhabitants. The dependent population of this area began to be called helots - unfree inhabitants attached to the land who worked on plots of land and gave part of the harvest to the Spartiates.

The Spartiates were full citizens of Sparta and made up a minority of the state's population. Due to the constant threat of an uprising by the subordinate helots, the Spartiates were forced to turn their communities into military camps and devote their lives to the art of war.

The main combat unit is the hoplite. The hoplite was a heavily armed warrior: he had a xiston - a spear 2 to 3 m long, a short double-edged sword 60 cm long or kopis - a sword sharpened on one side, a hoplon - a large round shield, a Corinthian type helmet, later Phrygian, protective armor on the chest and greaves on the legs. The total weight was about 30 kg. A distinctive feature of Spartan hoplites were red cloaks.

All Spartiates were liable for military service from 20 to 60 years of age. In the event of hostilities, they had to report to the army with their weapons and food.

Each hoplite had with him an unarmed helot servant. It was difficult for the Greek warrior to carry weapons to the owl. In addition, some warriors were no longer young, so the servants acted as squires, cooks, and healers in case of injury.

Sometimes squires took part in battles. In battle, they could throw spears, sling stones, finish off wounded enemies, but still performed secondary combat functions.

The Spartan army also included lightly armed fighters, who in battle covered the flanks of the phalanx and threw darts or used a bow.

1.2 System of education of Spartan youths

The main goal was to raise a warrior from the boy. This system of civic education was called agoge. Even mothers performed physical exercises to ensure that their children were born healthy. Weak and disabled children were simply killed. At the age of seven, boys were taken from home and he was trained until he was twenty, after which he became a full citizen.

The main emphasis in training was not on academic sciences, but on physical sciences.

Each boy had his own mentor during the training process, who had to ensure that his ward was trained properly.

At the age of seven, children were taken from their mothers and put into groups. The boys learned the basics of literacy and physical education. The training lasted from seven to twenty years. From the age of twelve, learning became more complicated: physical activity increased.

The tasks of school education included physical training, development of endurance, and obedience. Most of the training time was spent on physical exercises in running, wrestling, javelin and discus throwing. The main principle in agoge from day one is to prepare boys for the harsh life that lies ahead. The Spartan training system was supposed to identify weaknesses and eliminate them.

Upon reaching the age of twenty, a person was considered an adult and fit for military service. They were given a cloak, which became their only clothing.

The Spartans also had elements of drill training: they were taught to walk in step, carry out simple formation changes, etc.

The Spartan youth learned the art of survival. The food they received was so meager that the boys were forced to steal. This was done in order to teach the future warrior to always feed himself. It also developed stealth and agility - qualities necessary for a warrior behind enemy lines. The Spartans believed that young men who received such an upbringing would be better prepared for war, since they would be able to live for a long time almost without food, do without any seasonings and eat whatever came to hand.

1.3 Tactics

A phalanx is a tightly closed, linear formation of spearmen in several ranks. The first ranks directly take part in the battle. Subsequent ranks had to promptly replace those killed in the first ranks. The most reliable warriors stood at the beginning and end of the phalanx to prevent the army from escaping. Also, these ranks exerted moral and physical pressure on the fighters from the first ranks. The phalanx was built eight ranks deep.

The depth of the phalanx ranged from 8 to 25 people.

The main advantage of the phalanx was its power when confronting the enemy closely. However, due to the large length of the phalanx (1 km with a troop strength of 8 thousand), pursuit of the enemy was impossible. The weakness of the phalanx is in its flanks: if the enemy managed to penetrate at least one flank, then it would die, since it would have absolutely no way to hold back the onslaught or repel an attack from the side. Cavalry was a particular danger to the phalanx.

The phalanx also made it practically impossible to use riflemen in battles. During combat, it is impossible to place skirmishers in front of the phalanx, as they will not have the opportunity to retreat when the enemy approaches. It is also irrational to place shooters behind the phalanx, since arrows will not reach without aiming, and when armies clash, they can harm their own army. Therefore, archers and slingers could be placed on the flanks of the phalanx, or on some hills. In such a situation they could cause significant harm to enemy troops, but nowhere in Greek battles are there any traces of such tactics. Arrows, however, were only an auxiliary weapon.

On campaigns, camps were usually located in the hills. If it was nevertheless placed on a plain, then it was surrounded by a ditch and a rampart. The Spartiates were located inside the camp, the helots were located outside the camp.

The command of the Spartan army was carried out by one of the kings. He also had his squad of 300 people with him.

The weakness of the military system of Sparta was the lack of technical means of combat. The Spartans did not have siege weapons, nor did they know how to build defensive structures. The Spartan fleet was practically undeveloped: by 480 BC. Sparta could field 10-15 ships.

The military traditions of Sparta were formed in the wars they fought in the Peloponnese. Having subjugated almost the entire peninsula, the Spartans formed the Peloponnesian League.

The Spartans were trained in the simplest formations, they had elements of drill training.

In order to get acquainted with the tactics of the Spartan army, it is worth turning to the Battle of Thermopylae. The main goal of the Spartans was to stop and prevent the army of Xerxes from entering Greece. To do this, it was necessary to block possible passages to Greece.

You need to objectively understand that it was physically impossible to block all the paths, gorges and passages, because the enemy will always find a place where he can break through. In addition, the numerical advantage was on the side of the Persians. Based on this, Esphialtes' betrayal was of little consequence.

The defense of this passage was, first of all, not the final detention of the enemy, but forcing him to waste time, involving him in bloody battles.

Thermopylae was defended by only a small detachment because in the strategic plan of the Greek defense they played a small, secondary role. The gorge had to be held until the Athenian fleet arrived. For the same reason, the Athenians did not send any part of their army to help the Spartans. The defense of Thermopylae had no chance of success; it was only a heroic attempt by the Spartiates.

Realizing that defeat was inevitable, Leonidas ordered most of the army to retreat. Only he and his squad closed the gorge. They accept a heroic death, while achieving the main tasks: preserving most of the army and delaying the Persian army.

The Spartan army had a clear organizational structure, uniform equipment, education systems, and the basics of discipline. Spartan warriors trained constantly, whether it was peace or war. All this helped Sparta to be called one of the strongest armies of Ancient Greece, but one cannot close one’s eyes to the almost complete absence of siege weapons, cavalry, riflemen and navy in Sparta.

Chapter 2. The Athenian army

2.1 Armament, troop composition

Athens is the largest city in Attica. The relief of Attica consists of three small valleys suitable for agriculture, mountains with minerals, suitable for the development of cattle breeding. In the first half of the V-IV centuries. BC. Athens is becoming one of the leading states in Greece. The Athenian army relied more on its naval forces than its land forces. In the 5th century Athens became a maritime hegemon, forming the First Athenian Naval League (Delian League).

The armament of the Athenian hoplite is not very different from the Spartan one. As weapons, the Ionians also use a spear 2-2.5 meters long, a short double-edged sword 60 cm long. They are also armed with an Argive shield, or hoplon, the diameter of which reaches 1 meter. Muscular or composite armor, leggings, and a helmet were used as protection.

An important element of a hoplite's equipment was the shield. The hoplon was sheathed with a thin copper layer. The basis of the shield was wood. In the 5th century, shields began to be covered with bronze, and symbols were depicted on them that distinguished hoplites of different policies. The Athenian shield depicted the letter “A”, or an owl.

There were also many different types of helmets. The archaic, Corinthian helmet began to be replaced by the Chalcidian helmet. His nosepiece is much smaller or absent altogether (Attic helmet), which improves the warrior’s visibility. The cheekpieces have now become cheekpieces rather than an extension of the helmet.

The armament of the Athenian hoplites was somewhat lighter.

According to Solon's reform, Athenian citizens were divided into 4 groups according to property qualifications: the Pentacosiomedimni, Hippaeans, Zeugites and Thetas. During the war, Pentacosiomedimni carried out supplies for the army; they could also hold senior positions, including military ones - strategists, polemarchs, etc. This qualifying group could also form cavalry. The Hippaeus, the second qualifying group, formed the main cavalry of the Athenian army. The Zeugites were the largest group and made up the heavy infantry (hoplites). Fetas were the lowest qualifying group and in the army they made up the lightly armed infantry, and also served in the navy. They played a small role in the life of the army, but under Pericles and Themistocles, with the increase in the fleet, their role increased sharply.

The cavalry, formed from the Hippaeus, reached its greatest prosperity during the rule of Athens by Pericles: it numbered about a thousand. The cavalry was divided into two types: heavy and light. The heavy, or cataphract, cavalry was armed with a spear, a sword and wore full armor: a helmet, breastplate, greaves, handguards and small, light round shields. Horses also wore armor. The light cavalry, or acrobolists, were armed differently: either with a bow, or with a light spear, or with javelins, or with a sword and a light shield.

Still, there is no need to talk about the formation of a full-fledged cavalry army. It is difficult to explain why cavalry was not formed as a large unit in the Greek army. The Greeks who fought on the side of the Persians were, among other things, horsemen. There may be several explanations for this: 1) the Greeks believed in the strength of their heavily armed infantry; and 2) due to the peculiarities of the territory, the Greeks did not develop their cavalry, so by the beginning of the Greco-Persian wars it was not numerous. In this case, it is stupid to field a small cavalry against a strong Persian cavalry.

Lightly armed warriors in Athens included archers: archers, slingers, peltasts. Training an archer was a long process, but his equipment, in comparison with the equipment of a hoplite, was much cheaper. The archer was required to have such qualities as mobility, independence, vigilance, and resourcefulness.

Slingers also played an important role. The sling itself is a formidable and dangerous throwing weapon. In addition to this, minimal funds were spent on equipment for the slinger. The most famous and skilled slingers lived on the island of Rhodes.

A special type of lightly armed infantry were spearmen or peltasts. They got their name from the light leather shield - pelta. Their weapons and protection also included a helmet, several darts, a sword and a leather shell. Of all the auxiliary troops, the peltasts had an advantage, if only because they could engage in hand-to-hand combat with hoplites, while archers and slingers were not capable of this. In addition, with a numerical advantage, the peltasts posed a serious threat to the hoplites, especially if the peltasts advanced on the flank of the phalanx.

In Athens, the position of military commander, or strategist, was elective: 10 people were elected. The army was commanded by 3 strategists. They could choose either a commander-in-chief, command in turns, or share control among themselves.

From the 5th century BC. The Athenians began to use siege and throwing weapons. However, for the most part they were primitive. Not only the Athenians, but all the Greeks took cities by starvation, and not by storm.

2.2 Education system

Education and training in Athens began at the age of seven. Starting to go to school, the child learned reading and writing, as well as gymnastics. From 12 to 16 years old, the boy attended a palaestra (gymnastics school), where he studied pentathlon: running, jumping, discus and javelin throwing, wrestling and swimming. From 16 to 20 years old, the young man attended the gymnasium, where he continued his physical training with an emphasis on military affairs.

Girls studied under the supervision of their mother, but their education, unlike boys, was of a more domestic nature: they learned spinning, weaving, and needlework.

The Olympic Games also played a major role in the physical development of all Greeks. It is believed that the first games took place in 776 BC. Soon the Olympic Games became a pan-Greek holiday. These competitions were both sporting and religious in nature, and the games also played the role of uniting the Greeks. During the games, all wars stopped.

The program of the Olympic Games became more complex over time: at first it included only running and wrestling, later it began to include long-distance running, long jump, javelin and discus throwing, fist fighting, pankration (fist fighting with wrestling), running in armor and chariot racing .

The Athenians' discipline was maintained, first of all, by a sense of civic duty. The main ethnic value was the love of freedom and one’s homeland. A feat in the name of your people.

2.3 Athens fleet

The fleet in Ancient Greece has played a big role since time immemorial. Even during the Trojan War, such heavy vessels as pentecontors and triacontors were used. Later, in the 8th century. BC. biremes will appear. However, by the period of the Greco-Persian wars they had already fallen out of use.

Athens, being a maritime power, could not exist without a strong navy. The development of the fleet was associated with the emergence of a new category of Athenian citizens - feta. In terms of their property status, they were not very rich people, so their maintenance as rowers and sailors was inexpensive for Athens.

The most common ship of the Classical period is the trireme. It gets its name from the three levels of the boat used for rowing. The length of the oars on each level was 4.5 m. At first glance, it may seem that this is impossible, since the topmost tier would not reach the water. But everything is explained by the fact that the rowers are located along the curve formed by the side of the ship. Thus, the blades of each tier reached the water.

The trireme had about 60 oarsmen, 30 warriors, 12 sailors on each side (i.e. about 200 people). The ship was controlled by a trierarch, who performed this work for free, since this position was liturgical. The ship was quite narrow, since its width along the deck was only 4-6 meters. The most important weapon of the trireme was the ram.

The Athenians' naval tactics involved going overboard an enemy ship and hitting it with a ram. Boarding combat was also an auxiliary means. By improving the tactics of naval combat, the Athenians often won victories over superior enemy forces.

Naval base of the Athenian fleet in the V-IV centuries. BC. served as the harbor of Piraeus, connected to Athens by “long walls”.

About 370 ships took part in the Battle of Salamis, more than half of which were Athenian. The Greeks, taking advantage of the narrow strait, were able to defeat the larger Persian fleet.

By the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, Athens already had 300 ships in its maintenance.

The Athenian military organization emphasized not only heavy military infantry, but also auxiliaries and the navy. Tactics played a huge role; moreover, Athens was the first to raise this art to the level of science.

Conclusion

In this course work, I examined the military art of the Athenian and Spartan policies in the Classical period. These policies existed on the same territory, but still differed greatly from each other in many things. One of their differences is their military organization.

The Spartan army relied more on heavy military infantry and practically did not develop other types of troops. The Athenian army was based not only on strong military infantry, but also on a powerful fleet.

The education system of these two policies is somewhat different. Like Athens, physical education in Sparta was placed higher than mental development, but it was given more attention than in Attica.

I also studied the weapons and types of armor of the policies of Sparta and Athens, and examined different types of troops.

Bibliography

1. Averintsev S.S. Plutarch and ancient biography. -- M. 1973

2. Aleksinsky D.P. A few remarks about the correctness of the review. 2011

3. Bondar L. D. Athenian trihierarchy V-IV centuries. BC e. // Para bellum - St. Petersburg. -- 2002. -- No. 15.

4. Buzeskul V.P. Aristotle’s Athenian polity as a source for the history of the political system of Athens until the end of the 5th century. Kharkov: 1895.

5. Golitsyn N.S. General military history of ancient times (in 4 parts) - St. Petersburg, 1872

6. Zorich A. Greek fleet. Design and types of ships // Military-historical portal X Legio, 1999.

7. Lurie S. Ya. History of Greece - St. Petersburg, 1993

8. Nefedkin A.K., Athenian cavalry of the late IV - early I century. BC// Military history magazine “Warrior” No. 3, 2006

9. Razin E.A. History of military art of the XXI century. BC e. - VI century n. e., St. Petersburg, 1999

10. Shilovsky. B. Freelancer reviews: Evgeniy Andreevich Razin. 1998

11. Delbrück G. General history of military art within the framework of political history. -- St. Petersburg, 2001.

12. Denison D. T. History of cavalry. Weapons, tactics. Major battles. Centerpolygraph, 2014

13. Mering F. Essays on the history of wars and military art. -- M. 1941

14. Connolly P. Greece and Rome. Encyclopedia of Military History. -- M., 2000

Posted on Allbest.ru

Similar documents

The reasons for the start of the Greco-Persian wars and their consequences. Armament and tactics of the Athenian army. The political system of Sparta, its features, characteristics of the military system. Census division of Athenian citizens according to new laws. Spartan education system.

course work, added 06/10/2015


The origin of the main centers of civilization. Creto-Mycenaean, Homeric, Archaic and Classical periods of the economic history of Ancient Greece. Periods in the development of Ancient Rome. Economic structure of the Italian village. Domestic trade throughout Italy.

abstract, added 02/22/2016


Ancient Greece and its culture occupy a special place in world history. History of Ancient Greece. Olbia: city of the Hellenistic era. Cultural history of Ancient Greece and Rome. Art of the Ancient World. Law of Ancient Greece.

abstract, added 12/03/2002


Military art of the Russian troops of Ivan III in the Novgorod campaign of 1471 and on the Vedrosha River. Tactics of the Russian army in the third campaign of Ivan IV the Terrible to Kazan. Livonian War 1558–1583 Approval of the linear battle order of Russian troops in the 17th century.

abstract, added 05/01/2010


Prerequisites for the formation of the physical education system of Ancient Greece. Features of the physical education system. Physical programs during training in the palestras. Kinds of sports. More sports competitions as part of the physical education system.

abstract, added 02/17/2009


Construction and structure of internal troops after the war. Increasing the combat and mobilization combat readiness of internal troops in the late 60s. Measures to improve command and control of troops. Directions and content of the activities of internal troops in the 50–80s.

lecture, added 04/25/2010


Urban planning system of Ancient Greece, urban improvement. A monument to the urban planning art of ancient Greece - the city of Miletus. Residential quarter of Hellenistic times. The house is middle class and poorer people. Features of the culture of Ancient Greece.

abstract, added 04/10/2014


Social life of Ancient Greece. Theory of oratory. Interest in public speaking in Ancient Greece. Forms of oratory, laws of logic, the art of argument, the ability to influence an audience. Greek orators Lysias, Aristotle and Demosthenes.

presentation, added 12/05/2016


The main features of the city-states of Ancient Greece, the formation of a slave society in the middle of the first millennium BC. Studying the history of Ancient Athens in the 5th century BC, features of political and cultural life, crisis of religious consciousness.

abstract, added 11/28/2010


Organization and structure of the ancient Russian army. Division of troops into regiments in the 11th-12th centuries. Edged weapons of Ancient Rus': saber, sword, axe, mace, bow and spear; features of their use in combat. Armor of the Galician-Volyn army. Bogatyrs in Russian squads.

Hoplite, early 5th century. BC.
On the hoplite's shield is the emblem of Apollo - a tripod and a cauldron. This emblem is designed to attract the protection of a given deity.
A hoplite shield was discovered in an Etruscan burial, thanks to which we now know how this shield was constructed. More or less preserved examples from Olympia and other areas of Greece have a similar design.
1. The core of the shield consisted of wooden boards 20-30 cm wide, glued together into one block. This block was carefully processed on a lathe until it took on the shape of a thicket. In this case, the bowl is 82 cm in diameter and 10 cm deep. The edging of the shield is approximately 4.5 cm wide.
2. The inner surface of the board is reinforced with wooden overlays laid perpendicular to the direction of the core fibers. Poplar or willow was used for the inner lining.
Pliny notes that wood had to grow in water, poplar and willow being the most flexible. Such wood, being pierced, “itself healed the wounds.”
3. The inside of the shield was covered with thin leather.
4. The outer surface of the shield was covered with a copper sheet about 0.5 mm thick.
The sheet extended beyond the edges of the shield by about 4 cm, but the inevitable wrinkles were not visible. Technologists still cannot explain how such an effect was achieved.
The handle was attached to the shield last. The main handle (rograkh), behind which the forearm was wound, was located in the center of the shield. Typically the main handle consisted of three main parts.
5. From the inner side of the edge of the shield, two outer parts ran along the radius, often ending with a decoration in the form of a rosette.
6. Two internal parts could sometimes form a single whole with external parts.
7. Finally, the forearm grip itself.
Almost all the samples that have survived to this day come from the treasuries of various temples and date back to the archaic period. These shields are richly decorated. It is possible that shields became simpler and less decorated during the classical period.
8. Two pairs of brackets were attached to the inside of the shield closer to its edge.
9. Four rings were attached above and below the brackets, often on a rosette-shaped base.
10. A cord was passed through the rings and brackets to form a ring. This cord formed a handle, which the warrior grabbed with his left hand fantilabe).
The handles were positioned so that the fibers of the shield's wood ran parallel to the forearm.
11. The cord was often decorated with tassels.
The most common type of helmet in the Archaic period was the Corinthian helmet. This helmet was widely used throughout the 5th century. BC. It should be remembered that the classification of Greek helmets was developed in our days. However, Herodotus mentions Corinthian helmets. It would be obvious. associate the term "Corinthian helmet" with the helmet image most often found on Corinthian pottery.
12. In the 5th century. BC. The Corinthian helmet reached its final development. The temporal and nasal plates almost closed, covering the face almost completely. The helmet was surrounded by a ring rib. A horsehair comb was attached to the top of the helmet. A special holder was used to attach the comb.
Not a single such holder has survived to this day; it can be assumed that they were bronze.
Three bronze rings are soldered to the cup of a Corinthian helmet exhibited in Berlin. Perhaps the helmet holder was attached to these rings.
The Corinthian helmet had no lining and was therefore extremely uncomfortable. Before the fight it was worn with it pulled up.
13. Sometimes the hoplites lifted the balaclava. Shown here is the balaclava of Patroclus, depicted on a vase from the workshop of Sosius.
The picture shows that the balaclava is clearly woven, not felt. Despite its external elegance, in the classical period the Corinthian helmet fell out of use due to the fact that it severely limited the warrior’s field of vision and impeded hearing.
14. The shell usually consisted of four rectangular plates: a chest plate, a dorsal plate and two side plates.
The chest plate tapered upward so as not to impede the movements of the arms. The side plates were narrower and shorter than the chest and back plates, again with the goal of giving more room for arm movements.
The plates were connected to each other using “piano hinges” - tubular parts connected by a longitudinal wire pin.
This reconstruction is based on a shell from the tomb of Philip the Great. Each shoulder plate consists of two curved parts, movably connected to each other and firmly attached to the back plate.
Structurally, the plate was a thin metal sheet covered on both sides with a layer of leather or canvas. The edge was trimmed with braid, sometimes of a decorative type.
However, such mantles appeared only in the 4th century. BC. Earlier versions were a single flexible plate.
A small occipital plate was attached between the shoulders, covering the back of the neck.
15. Around 500 BC the leggings began to imitate the relief of the muscles of the legs. On some of the discovered greaves one can see a number of through holes, indicating the presence of a lining. The greaves were kept on the leg due to the springy properties of bronze, enveloping the shin almost completely.
16. In many paintings on ceramics, garters are clearly visible on the lower edge of the leggings, which prevented the bronze from rubbing the ankle. These garters were especially useful if the leggings had no padding.
17. The spear is equipped with a handle on the shaft, probably made of leather. An image of a handle is found on Greek pottery. A jagged line along the handle probably represents a seam joining the edges.

Artist Xristos Gianopoulos

Depending on the required number of soldiers, citizens of different ages were drafted. Starting at the age of 18, young Athenians - ephebes - underwent a two-year “young fighter course”. Older people performed garrison service. At Plataea, Herodotus, 9.21 mentions 300 selected Athenians and Athenian archers who killed the Persian commander Masistius and entered into battle for his body: “Since the rest of the Hellenes did not want, the Athenians agreed, namely a selected detachment of 300 people led by Olympiodorus, son of Lampon. These warriors took upon themselves [the defense of the dangerous place] and lined up in front of the rest of the Hellenic army gathered at Erythra, taking for themselves [for cover] archers.”

Selected detachments existed in various policies. At Plataea, 300 selected Thebans bravely fought on the side of the Persians. Herodotus, 9.67: “After all, the followers of the Persians among the Thebans showed themselves far from being cowards, but, on the contrary, brave warriors, so that 300 of the most noble and valiant citizens fell at the hands of the Athenians.” Diodorus, 12.41, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War: “Thus, when the Boeotians sent 300 selected soldiers at night, the traitors let them inside the walls and became masters of the city.” 12.69 B: “On the Boeotian side, the Thebans occupied the left flank, the Orchomenians the right, and the center of the line consisted of other Boeotians. The first line of the army consisted of the so-called chosen “charioteers and their servants,” numbering three hundred.” True, Plutarch in the chapter “Pelopidas” believes that the Theban “sacred detachment” arose only during the Boeotian War a century later: “The sacred detachment, as they say, was first created by Gorgida: it included three hundred selected men who received from the city everything necessary for their training and maintenance and camped in Cadmeus. Gorgid distributed the fighters of the sacred detachment throughout the hoplite formation, placing them in the first ranks; Thus the valor of these men was not particularly conspicuous, and their strength was not directed to the execution of a specific task, since they were separated and for the most part mixed with worse and weaker warriors. Only Pelopidas, after they had so brilliantly distinguished themselves at Tegiri, fighting before his eyes, no longer separated or dismembered them, but used them as a single whole, sending them forward in the most dangerous and decisive moments of the battle.” A thousand selected Argives were present at. Xenophon, in Greek History, 7.4.13: “The Elean “band of three hundred” and four hundred more marched against them.”

Artist Mark Churms

In one of the textbooks written for history students, I saw a statement that the hoplite phalanx was built 12 ranks deep. This is wrong. At the Battle of Mantinea, the Spartans stood in 8 ranks, in 12 ranks. The Thebans at the Battle of Delium stood in 25 ranks, and the embalon (column) at Leuctra stood in 50 ranks. Thucydides, 6.67, Syracusans against the Athenians in Sicily: “The Syracusans lined up their hoplites in rows of 16 people deep.” 2.4.35: “Seeing this, Thrasybulus and the other hoplites rushed to help and immediately lined up eight in a row in front of the lightly armed.” 4.2.15: “While they were arguing about hegemony and agreeing on how deep the army should be so that, due to the phalanx being too deep, the enemy would not be able to outflank the army, the Lacedaemonians, having annexed the Tegeans and Mantineans, We were already approaching the Isthmus.” Diodorus, 13.72: “The Athenian strategists, in the morning, saw the enemy army, built four men deep and 8 stades in length, and at first they were frightened, seeing that approximately two-thirds of the length of the wall was surrounded by enemies.” The depth of the phalanx depended on the circumstances. A deeper formation can break through the enemy due to moral and physical pressure, a longer formation can surround the enemy.

The phalanx of Spartans attack the enemy with a clear step, to the sound of flutes and the singing of the paean, keeping the alignment of the formation. At Marathon, Miltiades attacked at an accelerated pace, turning into a run. This increased the impact force of the hoplites and helped them quickly pass through the area covered by Persian arrows. But there was a danger of upsetting the phalanx. Thucydides, 8.25: “The Argives, disdainful of the Ionians who stood against them as unable to withstand their onslaught, rushed forward too quickly with their wing, already during the attack they lost their battle formation and were defeated by the Milesians (leaving 300 fallen on the battlefield).”

Artist Angus McBride

Interesting discussions about dividing the phalanx into its component parts. At the Battle of Mantinea, Thucydides describes the names in the units of the Spartan phalanx and the number of hoplites in them. Xenophon in his “Polity of the Lacedaemonians” gives other names and numbers of fighters. But we will consider Xenophon’s information dating back to the time of Agesilaus in another article. gives the names and numbers of units for the Hellenistic phalanx, different from the previous ones. A. Nefedkin, in commentary 106 to Chapter 3 of Polyaena, gives his version of the division of the Athenian phalanx: “Since the time of Cleisthenes (508-500 BC), the division of citizens into 10 phyla, which he introduced, was applied to the army, according to which the infantry (and cavalry) was divided into 10 detachments (taxis or phyla), headed by taxiarchs. Each detachment was divided into suckers (with suckers at the head); those, in turn, were divided into thousands (led by a thousand-man, or chiliarch), five-hundred detachments (led by a pentacosiarch), hundreds (led by hekatontarchs, centurions), tens and fives.” Let's try to count. Each taxis is divided into at least two suckers, each sucker into at least two chiliarchies of 1000 people each. This means, according to A. Nefedkin, there are at least 4,000 people in the taxi. That with 10 taxis in the army there are 40,000 hoplites liable for military service. Some units are clearly superfluous. The Spartan suckers at Mantinea are about 500 people, not 2000 each.

The size of the Athenian army can be learned from the speech of Pericles at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides, 2.13: “As for the fighting forces, Pericles counted 13,000 hoplites (except for the soldiers in the garrisons of the fortresses and 16,000 people guarding the city walls). Such a number of Athenian warriors from among older and younger citizens and metics, who served as hoplites, guarded the walls at the beginning of the war, when the enemy began to carry out his raids on Attica... The Athenian cavalry, as Pericles indicated, numbered 1200 horsemen (together with horse archers ); There were 1800 foot archers. Of the warships afloat, there were 300 triremes. Such, at least, was the fighting force of the Athenians, consisting of various arms at the beginning of the war before the first invasion of the Peloponnesians.” Delbrück considers the 16,000 young and old hoplites guarding the walls to be a clearly inflated number. From here you still need to take away the metaks. So 40,000 hoplites are not possible.

As we see, by the time of Pericles, cavalry and archers already appeared in the Athenian army in numbers worthy of mention. Thessaly has always been famous for its cavalry. However, Herodotus, 7.196 has an interesting remark about the comparison of the cavalry of the Thessalians and the Persians: “In Thessaly, the king (Xerxes) organized horse competitions between his and Thessalian horses (he heard that the Thessalian cavalry is the best in Hellas). Here the Hellenic horses, of course, were left far behind.” The Phocians demonstrated an interesting way of fighting the Thessalian cavalry. Herodotus, 8.28: “The cavalry (Thessalians) that invaded their land, they (the Phocians) completely destroyed. In a mountain pass near Hyampolis, they dug a wide ditch and placed empty amphorae there. Then they filled up the ditch again, razed it to the ground and began to wait for the Thessalians to attack. The Thessalian cavalry quickly rushed to the attack to destroy the enemy, but the horses fell into amphoras (these were huge clay vessels for storing grain) and broke their legs.”

In Boeotia, cavalry was also acceptable by Greek standards. Herodotus, 9.69 at Plataea: “When the Megarians and Phliuntians approached the enemy, the Theban horsemen rushed at them, seeing from afar the enemies hurrying in disorder.” The Macedonians also had their own cavalry. Thucydides, 1.61: “The Athenian army consisted of 3,000 Athenian hoplites, many allies and 600 Macedonian horsemen...”, 2.100: “No one could withstand the attacks of the Macedonians, since they were skilled horsemen protected by armor.”

Continuation of the article: