Perioikoi

[pegg9876]

Hi
I am aware that the real answer is "nobody knows" but I am building a Spartan Army for the Peloponnesian war and I'm not sure what to do about perioikoi.

Do most people incorporate them in the Spartan morai or field them separate units? If separate, what shield designs might be used?

I have read the academic articles on this topic and know the complexities of the historical arguments but just wondered what most gamers with Spartan armies do.

Gordon

[Andreas Johansson]

Given that the Lambda shield blazon stands for Laconia or Lacedaemon, rather than for Sparta, it would seem reasonable for perioikoi to sport it too.

Whether I'd do it if I were making a Spartan army would probably depend on whether the rules required me to distinguish them from the Spartans proper.

[Mark G]

I would go the other way, and have non lamda for the perio oiks to make them more clearly defined.

id also give them armour and have none for the spartiates for the same reason, and because we all know who the too cool for armour dudes were.

[dwkay57]

All my 6mm Spartans have the lamda on their shields principally because it was easy to paint.

As Andreas says it depends on the rules you are planning to use. If they allow for quality differentiation then put them in a separate unit with appropriate characteristics. That is what I have done with mine.

[pegg9876]

I will almost certaInly be using Hail Caesar although I have dabbled with Men of Bronze. Either way differentiation is possible.

[Jim Webster]

It is a difficult question.
When it came to quality they probably weren't a lot different to the citizen hoplites of other Greek cities. Their morale might be a bit better because they were more often on the winning side
With regard to equipment, we don't know if they tended to 'ape' Spartan equipment or not. Given how much military dress follows fashion I suspect that they would tend to use Pilos helmets and similar in the period the Spartans did, but I also suspect fear of Spartan mockery would mean that they didn't try to look 'too' Spartan 

[Patrick Waterson]

As Spartan citizen numbers declined, perioikoi would on occasion be granted Spartiate status.  One wonders if this meant the issue of different kit (and what happened to the old stuff?) or whether similarlty of appearance made for a seamless transition.  I would be inclined to think the latter.

Thucydides describing First Mantinea (V.66 ff.) does not distinguish between Spartiates and Lacedaemonians; he treats them as an integrated whole.  He does distinguish and differentiate the Sciritae, though this is by role: they held the extreme left of the line.

At Sphacteria (IV.8 and 38) 420 Lacedaemonians 'drafted by lot from all the lochon' (suggesting each lochos, Sciritae included, gave about 10% of its strength) were attacked by the Athenians and 292 captured, of whom 120 turned out - following capture - to be Spartiates.  While this was a composite force, there was no apparent distinction in equipment or anything else between the Spartiates and other Laconians.

The impression I get, at least for the Peloponnesian War period, is that to opponents they all looked the same and acted the same on the battlefield.  By the time of Agesilaus the lochos had become the mora and the enomotia had risen from 32 to 36 men, but again there seems to be no way in which the Spartiates themselves particularly stood out other than by accumulating the lion's share of casualties at Leuctra in 371 BC.  So like Jim I would not be too inclined to look for differentiation except in very minor ways which would probably not have been apparent to opponents once everyone was armoured up and ready to fight.

[Jim Webster]

As Spartan citizen numbers declined, perioikoi would on occasion be granted Spartiate status.  One wonders if this meant the issue of different kit (and what happened to the old stuff?) or whether similarlty of appearance made for a seamless transition.  I would be inclined to think the latter.

Thucydides describing First Mantinea (V.66 ff.) does not distinguish between Spartiates and Lacedaemonians; he treats them as an integrated whole.  He does distinguish and differentiate the Sciritae, though this is by role: they held the extreme left of the line.

At Sphacteria (IV.8 and 38) 420 Lacedaemonians 'drafted by lot from all the lochon' (suggesting each lochos, Sciritae included, gave about 10% of its strength) were attacked by the Athenians and 292 captured, of whom 120 turned out - following capture - to be Spartiates.  While this was a composite force, there was no apparent distinction in equipment or anything else between the Spartiates and other Laconians.

The impression I get, at least for the Peloponnesian War period, is that to opponents they all looked the same and acted the same on the battlefield.  By the time of Agesilaus the lochos had become the mora and the enomotia had risen from 32 to 36 men, but again there seems to be no way in which the Spartiates themselves particularly stood out other than by accumulating the lion's share of casualties at Leuctra in 371 BC.  So like Jim I would not be too inclined to look for differentiation except in very minor ways which would probably not have been apparent to opponents once everyone was armoured up and ready to fight.

Somewhere I've read a paper that suggests that Sphacteria and the proportion of Spartiates to Lacedaemonians indicates that they formed up in the same formation, perhaps with Spartiates as file closers, front ranks etc. I wasn't convinced but mention it here for completeness

[pegg9876]

Somewhere I've read a paper that suggests that Sphacteria and the proportion of Spartiates to Lacedaemonians indicates that they formed up in the same formation, perhaps with Spartiates as file closers, front ranks etc. I wasn't convinced but mention it here for completeness

Yes, I have read arguments which would suggest that perioikoi fought in the same units as the Spartiates, hence this query asking what t most gamers do.
I had come to the conclusion that fielding them as separate units was probably the way to go based on the weight of the evidence. I have already decided, despite the very flimsy historical evidence, that my Spartiates would have the lambda design on their shields, partly for ease of painting, partly for the look of the thing.
So, bearing that in mind,should I go for lambda for perioikoi too?

[pegg9876]

Sorry, I've never got the hang of quoting....

[Jim Webster]

no worries 

What decided me was the idea that Spartan messes were probably the right mix of age groups to provide a file in a phalanx, perhaps two files. depending on how many were in the mess and how many were called up
Going to the trouble of having your men live together and probably train together, just to mix a bunch of strangers into their ranks when the fighting started, strikes me as counterproductive

I'd go for the lambda for all of them but I'd make the perioikoi less uniform

[Erpingham]

Sorry, I've never got the hang of quoting....

The trick is always to have a matched set of instructions.  Without a backslash, it's an opener, with backslash, a closer.

[Justin Swanton]

Sorry, I've never got the hang of quoting....

Fixed. 

[pegg9876]

The trick is always to have a matched set of instructions.  Without a backslash, it's an opener, with backslash, a closer.

Just testing...

Thanks for all the help on perioikoi and quotations.
Separate units with lambda it is.

[RobertGargan]

I have decided not to place lambdas on perioikoi shields as I doubt they would have had the training to carry out the parade ground manoeuvres of the Spartan hoplites and would, therefore have to form a separate phalanx.  Although there was a decline in the number of full citizen, Spartiates, I favour Lazenby's (The Spartan Army) argument that inferior or poorer Spartans (hypomeiones), still received some form of training and had an ever increasing share of the phalanx.  The Spartan army, therefore, of five or six thousand hoplites still retained enough well motivated and fearsome lambda bearing hoplites.
Most of my wargame hoplites, Perioikoi and Spartan, wear the linen or composite corslet, to reduce wounds to the abdomen: it is just simply more professional, and good soldiery to avoid unnecessary injury in the phalanx.  I suspect the perioikoi being artisans and tradesmen would have individualised armour and varied shield blazons.
I am not sure if the above is much help – no one really knows – they may all have been light hoplites, wearing red and bronze pilos helmets and plain bronze shields depicted in a recent Osprey book.
Robert Gargan