How continuous was combat?

[Patrick Waterson]

We should perhaps also remember that 'professional' soldiers from Romans to Knights of St John trained extensively to build up their endurance; Greeks popularised exercise as a form of recreation which also doubled as fitness training.  Such troops could keep it up for much longer than those who did not practise to build up endurance.

I don't think anybody whose opinion matters believes that fights were long, vigorous and with high lethality.

Try Suetonius Paullinus' victory over the Iceni in AD 61.

"Thereupon the armies approached each other, the barbarians with much shouting mingled with menacing battle-songs, but the Romans silently and in order until they came within a javelin's throw of the enemy. 2 Then, while their foes were still advancing against them at a walk, the Romans rushed forward at a signal and charged them at full speed, and when the clash came, easily broke through the opposing ranks; but, as they were surrounded by the great numbers of the enemy, they had to be fighting everywhere at once. 3 Their struggle took many forms. Light-armed troops exchanged missiles with light-armed, heavy-armed were opposed to heavy-armed, cavalry clashed with cavalry, and against the chariots of the barbarians the Roman archers contended. The barbarians would assail the Romans with a rush of their chariots, knocking them helter-skelter, but, since they fought with breastplates, would themselves be repulsed by the arrows. Horseman would overthrow foot-soldiers and foot-soldiers strike down horseman; 4 a group of Romans, forming in close order, would advance to meet the chariots, and others would be scattered by them; a band of Britons would come to close quarters with the archers and rout them, while others were content to dodge their shafts at a distance; and all this was going on not at one spot only, but in all three divisions at once. 5 They contended for a long time, both parties being animated by the same zeal and daring. But finally, late in the day, the Romans prevailed; and they slew many in battle beside the wagons and the forest, and captured many alike." - Cassius Dio LXII.12.1-5

Dio is presenting as apparently simultaneous a number of things which would most probably have happened in sequence, but what stands out is that this was a long fight carried on with great keenness on both sides.  The disparity in training, equipment and techniques is reflected in the final casualties, which Tacitus gives as 400 dead and 400 wounded on the Roman side, and 80,000 dead for the Iceni.  One should point out that Tacitus' account of the action (Annals XIV.37) gives the impression the Britons broke early, with most of the time being dedicated to unremitting slaughter of the vanquished; either way, those 10,000 Romans, or rather the file leaders, seem to have been in protracted if one-sided action without a break for hours.

My money is on the second option (short fights) if anyone cares. This fits with the sources, the psychology, the human endurance and the lethality. It has problems with the battlefield clock, but then maybe the battlefield clock needs adjusting. But it's a big complicated subject and like all big complicated subjects is not susceptible to short simple answers.

How does it fit with the sources?  The latter are quite emphatic that some fights were long and involved.  There were, indeed, many fights which were decided quite quickly, but this was by no means all of them.  The 'short fight' option is a short, simple answer for a big, complicated subject.

We might use a wargames analogue here.  When rules were based on strict time and ground scales, one could total the length of the game in minutes.  If take a real battle and consider how long it would last if everyone went at it full speed and with full lethality, it would be over much quicker than the recorded lengths.  The obvious conclusion is that battles were fought in a more measured way (or could be - there do seem to be some very quick battles).

WRG rules showed this par excellence.  There were a number of reasons:
1) Wargamers tend not to form battlelines; armies do.  When you form a coherent battleline you do not get individual units picked off as so often happens on the tabletop.  Putting everyone shoulder-to-shoulder drops the casualty rate and the casualty total.
2) Wargamers tend to treat light infantry as a force to extend their frontage: real armies used them for a half-hour or so of warm-up skirmishing.  Once the real fighting began, the light infantry removed itself to the rear ranks or the rear of the army rather than waiting to be run down by something heavier.
3) Wargamers tend to deploy right across the tabletop, exposing the whole army to attrition.  Real armies deployed deeper and on a narrower frontage, restricting the 'killing interface'.
4) Wargamers tend to move at maximum speed whenever they can.  Real-life troops tended to move at half speed and only when they had to, except when in a real hurry or charging.
5) WRG casualty rates (treating troops rendered hors de combat as kills) are four times those of their historical counterparts.

I'm only vaguely familiar with the battle field clock concept, but some of the discontinuity must be down to the "phasing" of fights.  As I've said, this is easily seen in many medieval battles.  But it is clearly there in some of the Roman examples (even more so if you are in the camp that doesn't accept line relief happened in contact with the enemy).  Gaps between phases may have been short but they will have provided some of the required recuperation time.

Command structure also builds in a 'phasing' element when each 'battle' or contingent is committed in turn.  Where all the commands are lined up together to begin with, as at Towton or Barnet, such 'phasing' is by no means obvious.  Barnet is considered to have lasted 2-3 hours; Towton 3-10 hours.

That said, I can't think of any competitive sports which involved continuous close contact for extended periods. 

Well, there is Greco-Roman wrestling.  Although timing is now two three-minute periods, do check how long bouts lasted for in the early 20th century.

[Erpingham]

Command structure also builds in a 'phasing' element when each 'battle' or contingent is committed in turn.  Where all the commands are lined up together to begin with, as at Towton or Barnet, such 'phasing' is by no means obvious.  Barnet is considered to have lasted 2-3 hours; Towton 3-10 hours.

It is certainly easier to see if divisions/forces and clearly committed one after another.  Barnet is a problem, because of the fog, but clearly the two sides don't just engage and go head-to-head until one exhausts itself.  An entire wing breaks through and conducts a pursuit, rallies, return and ends up in a battle with archers of its own side (who can't therefore, have been in contact at this point).  At Towton, what are we counting as the battle?  Leaving aside that you wouldn't get ten hours of daylight on a snowy day in February in Yorkshire, the Yorkists didn't start on the field so had to deploy.  At some point the archers of all or part of the two armies shot at each other, seemingly for a short time and seemingly in advance of their main bodies (because the Yorkists can retreat out of sight and range).  After the two armies contact they seem to fight for some time before Yorkist reinforcements march up and enter the battle.  There then follows a long and bloody rout and pursuit.  So, several phases.  But we know virtually nothing about combat tactics of the WOTR.  We only know about the archer battle because someone thought the ruse was clever.  We do know that the weaponry of the close combat infantry would need a lot of effort to use effectively.  Could men really use pollaxes and bills to smash through armour continuously for hours?  Or did they spend times poking at each other with the pointy bit like re-enactors?  Or even draw back from time to time before falling on again?

[RichT]

Deep breath... one last try.

Patrick, channelling Cassius Dio:

"They contended for a long time"

The whole point is that 'a long time' is an entirely subjective and relative term. Ten minutes can be 'a long time' for some activities. It may be that ten minutes was 'a long time' for hand to hand combat, or that three hours was. The sources alone do not tell us. I'll repeat that. The sources alone do not tell us.

The passage from Dio seems to me a quintessential description of discontinuous combat: "a group of Romans, forming in close order, would advance to meet the chariots, and others would be scattered by them; a band of Britons would come to close quarters with the archers and rout them, while others were content to dodge their shafts at a distance" etc etc. If you'd posted that to support the argument for discontinuous combat I might be convinced (but it anyway seems largely irrelevant to what we were talking about, which is close quarters hand to hand combat between formed heavy infantry).

Greco-Roman wrestling, like boxing, is largely beside the point, because they weren't trying to kill each other (at least, not trying seriously). And it's one on one, not in massed formation. And it might well have been discontinuous for all I know. In terms purely of stamina and endurance, it might have been possible to 'fight' for eight hours but we'd need more data on how these exceptional wrestling bouts were conducted to be sure of that. But I don't see how two formations of armed men can stand face to face fighting with attempted lethality with weapons for eight (or any number of) hours, whether Greco Roman wrestlers or any other sports people did or not, for the reasons given (i.e. lethality, hits per minute, casualties).

'Short fights' is not a short simple answer - you just haven't understood the question. As Anthony describes very well there are all sorts of timing issues in battles besides how long the opposing forces actually stood in contact bashing each other. For big, complicated, potentially long lasting battles to have had only short periods of actual combat seems counterintuitive - and yet we know with absolute certainty that this is how battles worked in more recent periods. Take Waterloo - 'starts' 11 am, 'finishes' 8 pm - given only a two hundred word description of Waterloo (equivalent to most ancient battle descriptions we have), how would we determine how long combat between infantry and infantry, or cavalry and infantry etc, actually took? Anyone who said "easy, 9 hours" would clearly be in error. Yet that is pretty much what you are doing with ancient battles.

Now I'm still largely agnostic on this, though my hunch is short fights as I said; but to be convinced either by dynamic stand off or multi-hour melees I need to see some answers to the difficult questions, and those haven't been forthcoming. Just quoting an ancient battle account and emboldening the words 'a long time' doesn't cut it.

[aligern]

 had a look at bare knuckle fighting. The longest bout supposedly went on for more than six hours, but we do not know how much resting and breaking  off occurred. Looking at Irish traveller bare knuckle fights on Youtube  tyey seem quite shirt. On a cursry goance one dies seem to go on for 15 minutes of continuous movement, thgh actual hard hits are nt that frequent and at the end both men are dropping their guard through tiredness. That rather reinforces the view that fights are short because endurance is short and that long battles are created when there are several mutual retirements and reengagements. Such a process with one side taking the ground each tome, explains, for me, the retirement of the Gauls and Spaniards at Cannae. Clearly they do nit stand soludly in line and fight, so there has to be a push back mechanism. One that has them withdrawing whist fightin face a face with the Romans is not terribly satisfactory. A mechanism where they withdraw a few yards when tired and then the Romans advance from their own withdrawn position  is a satisfactory explanation. An explanation whereby there is only a short fight and during it the Gauls and Spaniards pull back from convex to concave and in the same short period the cavalry battles are fought,the Carthaginians surrounded and the Africans swing in on the flanks just does not seem credible.
Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

Barnet is a problem, because of the fog, but clearly the two sides don't just engage and go head-to-head until one exhausts itself.  An entire wing breaks through and conducts a pursuit, rallies, return and ends up in a battle with archers of its own side (who can't therefore, have been in contact at this point).

The remainder of both armies would still have been hard at it.

At Towton, what are we counting as the battle?

Probably the three hours or so of modern estimates rather than Polydore Vergil's ten, which presumably encompassed the whole gamut from deployment to end of pursuit.

We do know that the weaponry of the close combat infantry would need a lot of effort to use effectively.  Could men really use poleaxes and bills to smash through armour continuously for hours?  Or did they spend times poking at each other with the pointy bit like re-enactors?  Or even draw back from time to time before falling on again?

Probably something of each: when facing other pole-armed troops, they might just settle for poking and foyning if their hearts were not in it; how motivated were the Wars of the Roses rank-and-file?  English billmen did not hold back at Flodden, and presumably did not do so without a good reason.  That said, if up against a similarly-armed formation, did they face off and curse or charge and close?  If the latter, we could expect a short and dedicated period of weapon use just prior to contact, followed by a much longer period of face-to-face embarrassment with polearms sticking in the air unable to be used and both sides resorting to falchions and shoving to decide the issue.

When chopping helpless Lancastrians into the River Cock, our Yorkist billman could take his time and pick his blows, so like an experienced woodsman (which many probably were) he could last all afternoon.

Now I'm still largely agnostic on this, though my hunch is short fights as I said; but to be convinced either by dynamic stand off or multi-hour melees I need to see some answers to the difficult questions, and those haven't been forthcoming. Just quoting an ancient battle account and emboldening the words 'a long time' doesn't cut it.

Seeing the multi-hour melees described as such would be enough for the unprejudiced observer, but it might be worth clarifying a few points.

1) What are the difficult questions?  (They may appear difficult to some but not others, but we might as well have them listed.)
2) How 'short' is short time-wise?  What sort of time period is envisaged for a) the whole action from deployment to conclusion of pursuit (if any), and how much of this is close-in fighting?  (Not trying to grind an axe here, just get a picture.)

'Short fights' is not a short simple answer - you just haven't understood the question.

Or perhaps my respected interlocutor has answered the wrong question ...

Take Waterloo - 'starts' 11 am, 'finishes' 8 pm - given only a two hundred word description of Waterloo (equivalent to most ancient battle descriptions we have), how would we determine how long combat between infantry and infantry, or cavalry and infantry etc, actually took? Anyone who said "easy, 9 hours" would clearly be in error. Yet that is pretty much what you are doing with ancient battles.

That is because ancient battles differ considerably in style and substance from Waterloo: opponents do not 'come on in the same old style' and get 'beaten off in the same old style': they close and they stick.  Having swords and spears as primary armament rather than muskets has a lot to do with this - effective reach is 2-3 feet not 50+ yards.  Think about Paullinus' fight against the Iceni: how much room did either side have to 'stand off' when one was backed up against the end of a valley and the other against its own oncoming masses?

But I don't see how two formations of armed men can stand face to face fighting with attempted lethality with weapons for eight (or any number of) hours, whether Greco Roman wrestlers or any other sports people did or not, for the reasons given (i.e. lethality, hits per minute, casualties).

Given the number of accounts we have with Romans dropping from blood loss as a result of wounds and then picking themselves up to fight again, plus the small number of dead-to-wounded where such numbers are mentioned for a non-losing side, I would suggest that lethality estimates are somewhat overrated.  As to why this may be there are reasons which can be offered, but the essence seems to be that lethality is not a constant and perhaps needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis rather than a steamroller application.

The whole point is that 'a long time' is an entirely subjective and relative term.

Not when backed by diurnal phenomena (hour of day judged by position of sun in sky, approach of dusk etc.).  And while perception of time in combat is to a considerable degree subjective in an era without portable timepieces, 'a long time' is qualitatively different to 'a short time', and I would be interested to see any cases where such perceptions overlap.

Had a look at bare knuckle fighting. The longest bout supposedly went on for more than six hours, but we do not know how much resting and breaking  off occurred. Looking at Irish traveller bare knuckle fights on Youtube  they seem quite shirt. On a cursory glance one does seem to go on for 15 minutes of continuous movement, though actual hard hits are not that frequent and at the end both men are dropping their guard through tiredness. That rather reinforces the view that fights are short because endurance is short and that long battles are created when there are several mutual retirements and reengagements.

If armies consisted of boxers (apart from the Boxer Rising, naturlich) this would be a point.

Such a process with one side taking the ground each time, explains, for me, the retirement of the Gauls and Spaniards at Cannae. Clearly they do not stand solidly in line and fight, so there has to be a push back mechanism.

Please explain why.

A mechanism where they withdraw a few yards when tired and then the Romans advance from their own withdrawn position  is a satisfactory explanation.

Not really, because they are now a few yards back, still with Romans pressing them and still tired.  Romans are not sportsmen who will obligingly let their opponents take a breather and pass round the half-time oranges.

An explanation whereby there is only a short fight and during it the Gauls and Spaniards pull back from convex to concave and in the same short period the cavalry battles are fought,the Carthaginians surrounded and the Africans swing in on the flanks just does not seem credible.

True, particularly as our sources maintain that the Gallo-Spanish line cracked under pressure and ran.

The answer would seem to lie in Hannnibal's second line of Gauls, 16,000 strong and fresh; there were intended to halt the enthusiastic but disorganised Roman pursuers - and did.  At this juncture, the Africans closed in and crunched the wings while the Roman centre was trying to sort itself out but instead collected Hasdrubal's cavalry in its rear.

[Erpingham]

Re : length of battles.  I don't think the issue is the ancient and medieval people couldn't judge time, even in a stressful situation.  The problem is that participants in battles don't simply think a battle consists of hand-to-hand combat - if somebody is shooting at you intermittently you're in battle.  You may think you're in battle if your front line is engaged and you are awaiting the call to relieve them.  So, when the history of the battle is written, the accounts collected will suggest "a long time" quite truthfully, but won't necessarily mean intense, hand-to-hand combat was going on throughout.

Re : sports.  The only real advantage of this is to give us some parameters for endurance in a competitive environment (which, one might suggest, the battlefield is the ultimate expression of).  Different endurances for different things but high energy effort exhausts quickest, it seems.  Pace patrick, this does fit with a model of barbarians using high energy assaults and Romans having a more measured approach.  Contact sports add taking injuries in the course of the action into the mix.

Not really, because they are now a few yards back, still with Romans pressing them and still tired.  Romans are not sportsmen who will obligingly let their opponents take a breather and pass round the half-time oranges.

Disregarding humourous asides, this is the crux of the dispute.  The discontinuous proponents do not believe that forces in combat, given room to operate, would physically be fighting all the time.  Continous combat advocate that once forces locked horns, there was no escape until one fled or died where it stood.  The closest the two sides seem to come is to suggest combat varied in intensity over time.  Presumably both sides are agreed that the most intensive fighting was on initial contact, in an effort by one side or both to break the opponent quickly.  Thereafter, we have an ebb and flow of either low intensity contact and/or short separation and calls by leaders (commanders sometimes, possibly low-level leaders more often) to renew high energy combat to try to break the enemy.  Is this the closest we can get to consensus?

[Patrick Waterson]

It might help if we were to clarify a few points and quantify others.  The classical period was the apogee of the melee weapon battle: in most Greek and Republican Roman battles archers are very much an optional extra, and not present in quantity.  During the mediaeval period we can see more of a 'combined arms' approach rather than a 'supported predominant arm' approach.  There is also a tendency for the decisive action in earlier mediaeval battles to consist of either knights vs knights or knights vs spear/polearm footmen; the one will tend to be relatively quick in action and decision, the other intermittent.  The arm of decision in classical battles was usually the not-so-humble heavy infantryman, and his modus operandi is to fight in place for however long it takes because he does not really have a choice.

When we talk of a 'short' or 'long' battle, what do we mean in hours or minutes?
Regarding 'low intensity' fighting, does this mean tentative and reluctant weapon play or that troops have settled into an energy-efficient rhythm as opposed to the all-out impetus of the more enthusiastic and less clothed barbarian persuasion?
Similarly, what do we mean by 'intense hand-to-hand combat'?  More than one of us might be talking at cross-purposes over this ...

My impression is that the combat component of most classical period battles where one side had a clear advantage in leadership, technique or both were over in less than a couple of hours of actual fighting: Alexander's battles epitomised this, and we see the same when Lucullus meets Tigranes' Armenians and catches them wrong-footed.  The rest of the day is spent in pursuit or dealing with surrounded Greek mercenaries.  Pharsalus is an interesting case, because Caesar states that "the battle had lasted till noon," while from the fact that Caesar was breaking camp when he saw Pompey's army offering battle and had to deploy and advance to engage we can surmise that the battle started perhaps two hours before noon, three at the outside.

Pharsalus was a close and unremitting contest: during these two putative hours, two of Caesar's lines and all three of Pompey's became exhausted, or so Caesar tells us, noting that the Pompeians collapsed when he committed his fresh third line.  This gives us a very rough rule of thumb that a veteran Roman line will last about an hour and a variegated or undistinguished one perhaps two thirds of that. Unlike Greek hoplites, who apparently revert to shoving when weapon play ceases to satisfy, Roman combat technique seems to rely on weapon use throughout.

These I would consider 'short' battles; they appear to involve continuous combat without intermission or remission.  Would others consider them 'long'?

Disregarding humourous asides, this is the crux of the dispute.  The discontinuous proponents do not believe that forces in combat, given room to operate, would physically be fighting all the time.  Continuous combat advocates that once forces locked horns, there was no escape until one fled or died where it stood.  The closest the two sides seem to come is to suggest combat varied in intensity over time.  Presumably both sides are agreed that the most intensive fighting was on initial contact, in an effort by one side or both to break the opponent quickly.

This would be a logical assumption or conclusion: the more tentative one is at initial contact, the more certain one is to lose.

Thereafter, we have an ebb and flow of either low intensity contact and/or short separation and calls by leaders (commanders sometimes, possibly low-level leaders more often) to renew high energy combat to try to break the enemy.  Is this the closest we can get to consensus?

Are we aiming at consensus, or are we trying to determine how certain nationalities and troop types fought?

[Erpingham]

Are we aiming at consensus, or are we trying to determine how certain nationalities and troop types fought?

The optimist in me likes to think we could do both but the realist says we'll do neither. 

[Dangun]

I don't mean to distract from the main topic, but I think the question is somewhat related.
We are all familiar with the rout potentially producing more casualties than the battle itself.

But what is the earliest example of this we have from our classical period sources?

It just strikes me that knowing you have a high chance of being killed ingloriously in a rout, will change your incentives during a battle.
Some warfare might have a ritual component or at least is less existential.

[Erpingham]

We are all familiar with the rout potentially producing more casualties than the battle itself.

But what is the earliest example of this we have from our classical period sources?

Mass death in battle in the Med and Europe predates the classical era.  Egyptians delighted in piling up body parts of defeated enemies and counting them, as I believe did the Assyrians.  In Europe you have sites of Bronze Age fights like Tollense where there are hundreds of bodies.  Now, of course, dynamics may have been different and all these people died fighting toe-to-toe but I doubt it.  Certainly, they weren't fighting your classic New Guinea inter-tribal ritual warfare.

[Patrick Waterson]

It just strikes me that knowing you have a high chance of being killed ingloriously in a rout, will change your incentives during a battle.

Judging by the number of times commanders of armies in do-or-die situations make speeches reminding their troops about this, it was not a particularly active thought process for the ordinary fighting man.  (What, rout, us?  No, we're going to get stuck in and enjoy ourselves for once instead of all that marching.)

As far as I can see, the major inhibitors to rout were 1) pride/esprit de corps and 2) orientation.  Routs happen when things inexplicably go wrong (if they explicably go wrong, one can pass it off with a comment about those good-for-nothing allies/mercenaries/subject troops and just carry on).  They also happen when your chaps start thinking of themselves as vulnerable individuals rather than part of an army that is either the best or is currently doing well against those who think they are.

Are we aiming at consensus, or are we trying to determine how certain nationalities and troop types fought?

The optimist in me likes to think we could do both but the realist says we'll do neither. 

Can we at least try for how they fought; if we succeed or at least make progress there, then consensus should look after itself.  In any event, seeing accounts and analysis of troops in action is generally more interesting for the average reader.

Briefly returning to Towton and Barnet, what was English tactical procedure at the time?  My impression (from Towton) is that the action was opened by a continuous line of archers, who presumably then fell back behind a continuous line of billmen and left close action to the latter while the cavalry got on with their own thing.  If so, then when Oxford unknowingly approached Montagu's right rear, the latter's billmen would be fighting but his archers would be unengaged and hence able to deploy and shoot against the new arrivals.

[Erpingham]

Are we aiming at consensus, or are we trying to determine how certain nationalities and troop types fought?

The optimist in me likes to think we could do both but the realist says we'll do neither. 

Can we at least try for how they fought; if we succeed or at least make progress there, then consensus should look after itself.  In any event, seeing accounts and analysis of troops in action is generally more interesting for the average reader.

Though constantly going over the same old ground, re-iterating adversarial theories may, perhaps , turn off the average reader and make him/her reluctant to engage with the topic?

Briefly returning to Towton and Barnet, what was English tactical procedure at the time?  My impression (from Towton) is that the action was opened by a continuous line of archers, who presumably then fell back behind a continuous line of billmen and left close action to the latter while the cavalry got on with their own thing.  If so, then when Oxford unknowingly approached Montagu's right rear, the latter's billmen would be fighting but his archers would be unengaged and hence able to deploy and shoot against the new arrivals.

Actually, I think I'd largely agree.  It does appear that an initial archery exchange followed by melee was the norm but evidence is slight.  What archers did after that is unknown.  Filing back through or round their comrades and standing behind (or maybe sometimes on the flanks) makes sense.  Whether anybody attempted an archery exchange in thick fog is doubtful and the archers may have begun the battle behind the close combat troops in that case.  Oxford's returning troops may have bumped archers deployed to cover the flank of Montagu's battle when their comrades disappeared into the mist, leaving it rather exposed.

[Patrick Waterson]

Can we at least try for how they fought; if we succeed or at least make progress there, then consensus should look after itself.  In any event, seeing accounts and analysis of troops in action is generally more interesting for the average reader.

Though constantly going over the same old ground, re-iterating adversarial theories may, perhaps , turn off the average reader and make him/her reluctant to engage with the topic?

Perhaps if we dispensed with the theory?  Looking at the accounts and asking what is going on there should take us some distance, at least.  After that we can offer surmises and see if they look tenable.

It does appear that an initial archery exchange followed by melee was the norm but evidence is slight.  What archers did after that is unknown.  Filing back through or round their comrades and standing behind (or maybe sometimes on the flanks) makes sense.  Whether anybody attempted an archery exchange in thick fog is doubtful and the archers may have begun the battle behind the close combat troops in that case.  Oxford's returning troops may have bumped archers deployed to cover the flank of Montagu's battle when their comrades disappeared into the mist, leaving it rather exposed.

Good point about the mist at Barnet: unless both sides' archers had a good idea of the enemy's initial positions, it would have made sense not to waste time and arrows shooting at random and the archers may well have stayed out until Montagu's men reacted to Oxford's unexpected arrival.

[Dangun]

In Europe you have sites of Bronze Age fights like Tollense where there are hundreds of bodies.  Now, of course, dynamics may have been different and all these people died fighting toe-to-toe but I doubt it.  Certainly, they weren't fighting your classic New Guinea inter-tribal ritual warfare.

I'm not sure this is the complete picture, at least not for in-group battles...
If we go back to Krentz's "casualties in Hoplite Battles" its striking how low the caualties are - averaging 5% for the winners, and 14% for the losers. And the spread is really narrow - 2-10% for the winners and 3-20% for the losers. A clear winner (ratio of 3:1 casualties) but there doesn't appear to be any massacres that follow a rout. In fact, there doesn't seem to be any massacres at all.

And the narrative can be misleading, Xenophon describes the Battle of Coronea as an orgy of killing, "shield pressed upon shield they struggled, killed and were killed in turn," but yet Diodorus says only 350 Spartans died (2%) and 600 Boetians (3%).

Which finally brings my long-winded self back to the topic - the casualty data makes it look likes these weren't existential struggles. So for how long can they have really been fighting?

Again consider the Battle of Coronea, the casualty rates suggest that for frontage of 100 hoplites facing 100 hoplites produced only 5 casualties. 5/200? Doesn't that imply that it took very little time to achieve, or that something other than fighting is going on. Some tribal chest-thumping perhaps?

Please excuse me if Kerantz is out of date, this is not my period.

[Patrick Waterson]

Glad to have you in the discussion, Nicholas.

Pursuit (the phase which traditionally inflicts most battle casualties) does not seem to have been a particular feature of hoplite battles, particularly where Spartans were involved (their attitude being 'let the cowards live - and breed - to make out work easier in future').  Cavalry was also an under-represented arm in hoplite warfare.  It is this tendency not to press a pursuit that makes me conclude that the unusually heavy Spartan casualties at Leuctra occurred mainly because the Spartans did not rout but were tumbled back, resisting, over a long distance.

There was one occasion when one hoplite army virtually annihilated another hoplite army: the final getaway attempt of the Athenians from Syracuse (Thucydides VII.79-85).  The Syracusans managed to catch the 10,000 or so Athenians moving in two separate bodies and surround both contingents, one of about 6,000 and one about 4,000.  The 6,000-strong contingent surrendered, but the 4,000-strong contingent tried to conduct a fighting retreat.  To cut a long story short, "a large portion were killed outright, the carnage being very great, and not exceeded by any in this Sicilian war" - Thucydides VII.85.4.  The rest were taken prisoner apart from a few who escaped individually.

Again consider the Battle of Coronea, the casualty rates suggest that for frontage of 100 hoplites facing 100 hoplites produced only 5 casualties. 5/200? Doesn't that imply that it took very little time to achieve, or that something other than fighting is going on. Some tribal chest-thumping perhaps?

Xenophon, our principal source, gives no casualty figures, so we are left with Diodorus XIV.84.2, which states "There fell of the Boeotians and their allies more than six hundred, but of the Lacedaemonians and their associates three hundred and fifty."  As usual, only the dead are listed, and the wounded - who could be many times the dead - are not noted.  Hence in looking at Krentz's listings (which should still be in date as his sources have not changed; his problem is that he does not look at actions in enough detail) we should remember that anything up to 90% of casualties (as opposed to lethalities) are not mentioned.

It is important to note that at Coronea the left wing of each army ran at or just before contact, so as far as that part went the action was of very brief duration, the main fight (and producer of casualties) being the subsequent contretemps (dare one say othismos?) between the Thebans and Spartans as Agesilaus sought to prove a point about who was superior rather than take the sensible course of using his troops' better discipline to win cheaply with a flank attack.  It is this portion of the action, by a minority of each army, which provided the majority of casualties on each side and percentages and loss rates should be adjusted with this in mind.