Greek Armies

[dwkay57]

Did the Greeks ever really curl up in a ball behind their shields?

I know one or two movies demonstrate such a manoeuvre but I realise that is not evidence it actually happened.

Many years ago a Greek opponent spent 15 minutes at the start of a battle telling me how the Greeks used to do this to reduce casualties from missile fire. I agreed that if his hoplites were stationary, not in melee and declared in "curled up mode", any missile attacks against their front would be reduced by a factor of 1. He was pleased with this. He was less pleased when I deployed my Trajanic Romans without a single archer.

If they did really "curl up", I assume they had to remain stationary and that the protection was only really to their front. Is this right and what sort of damage reduction would we anticipate from such a formation? I'm considering adding something into my rules to cover this, a Roman testudo and possibly a shieldwalled warband.

[Duncan Head]

The closest I can think of is the crouched position you see in artworks like http://www.coinarchives.com/34f5ca2c584b1935f2a6fd2783854bc1/img/cng/092/image00122.jpg

[dwkay57]

What is the current thinking on how well trained Greek hoplites were?

In my early days of wargaming they were always regarded as solid regulars on a par with Alexander's phalangites and Roman auxiliaries, but other analysis (e.g. Duncan's Armies of the Macedonian & Punic Wars, the DBM army lists of 1993 vintage and the Osprey Plataea book) suggest this may not have been the case. Consequently I've tended to rate my own hoplites generally at a "militia" level which may have made them too much of a Dads' Army than a credible fighting force.

Any thoughts on this?

[Patrick Waterson]

They were a) part-time but b) generally good.  Most classifications regard the two as mutually incompatible and assume that part-time soldiers have to be less than fully effective.  It might be worth remembering that the Republican Roman army was for most of its life composed of part-time soldiers.

[Justin Taylor]

Like all things, down to how the city wanted to defend itself. Constant warfare would provide the need to keep the citizens sharp and up to scratch. Take that away and the standards could easily fall. I think that was said of the Persians, that they messed with the wrong people, the Greeks had been fighting amongst themselves for generations.

I have just done two Greek lists for TDIC. The early one was really what I expected with lots of armoured hoplites, some light infantry and a bit of cavalry. The later Greek list really got interesting with more better quality hoplites and the interesting thing is that both the Spartan royal guard and Theban Sacred Band were 300 strong, so the same unit can be used for either (although the Sacred Band can be split up and used as the front ranks of other Theban hoplites).

[Patrick Waterson]

Funnily enough, the same basic question has emerged on Ancmed.

A few pointers that might help to evaluate how good Greek hoplites were:

1) They trained: Greeks had their gymnasia, where their young men could (and did) improve their fitness.  This would give them an edge in strength, stamina and general staying-power over most of their opponents.

2) They were free men: they were (usually) in the field because they wanted to be there, not because they had been dragged away from the plough to extend the domains of some ruler they had barely heard of.  This manifested in high elan in combat.

3) Everyone wanted them: the Greek hoplite was the mercenary of choice for Persians, Egyptians and even Assyrians and Chaldeans.  Even under the Macedonian supremacy, mercenary Greeks were still in constant demand (admittedly mainly for garrisons).

My own impression of city-state hoplites is that they tended to be of fairly uniform quality, all varying shades of good.  Dorians were considered superior to Ionians and Spartans superior to other Dorians.  There was the occasional hieros lochos, or 'Sacred Band', of which the Theban was the most famous, but otherwise quality seems to have been fairly uniform.  During the Peloponnesian War, some cities (notably Argos) began to train contingents of epilektoi, picked troops, as a means of matching high-quality Spartans*.  Following the Peloponnesian War, epilektoi were usually first in line for hiring out to Persian and Egyptian paymasters in what rapidly became a new industry - the provision of large contingents to provide a cutting edge for even larger native armies.  Persian attempts at reconquering Egypt in the 4th century BC were invariably spearheaded by a strong contingent of Greeks - generally around the 20,000 mark.  When Alexander started to do what Agesilaus boasted of attempting, the Persian response was to hire ever-increasing numbers of Greek mercenaries.

[*Paradoxically, as the best troops in the army they tended to be deployed on the right and so never met Spartans, only Peloponnesian allies.]

Which brings us to rating Greeks in wargame terms: my own recommendation would be to think Territorial Army (for a British player) or the best of the National Guard (for a US player).  In essence, treat them as effective regulars despite their part-time nature.