Hoplites vs Pikes... [Archive]

RollingWave

03-09-2005, 08:10

Is it just me? or has anyone else also seem to notice that pikemans (the long spear 120 men type) usually have a lot more problems and tend to function less effectively then their supposed inferior counterparts?

Several problems I noticed and also read some others complaining about..
1.phalanx behaviour: may be due to greater number, pikeman's phalanx often seem easier to fuction oddly than hoplits.. they more often raise spears when they aren't suppose to for example...

2.defense: their supposed offensive plus seems hard to notice when they obviously die faster.... now historically weren't the phalanx formation itself suppose to provide a great deal of defense against anything that's not hitting them from the flanks or rear? but in this game they die fast to arrows.... while hoplites espically better onces like armored/spartan/sacred band/pharoh can usually take a lot more heat...

3. moral: in terms of equal tier their moral is almost always lower than their hoplite counter part... Spartans aside... Hoplites vs Levy pike is a very obvious example... I've seen silvershields rout when only down by 1/4 or so but i've never seen sacred band rout until they are down to around 1/8 ... now a routing unit is usless no matter what it is...... (well acturally routing peasents may acturally be more useful for you than ur better units routing but that's not the point XD)

So... am i missing something here?

Wishazu

03-09-2005, 08:46

my favourite units are the phalanx`s so i spend alot of time using those civs that rely on them. in all my time playing ive found that macedonian pikemen, good as they are just cant compete with the regular greek hoplites etc. Granted the greeks have better armour and moral but they have much shorter pikes. Im not sure if this needs to be addressed in a historic context, as aside from the spartans being pretty much indestructible the macedonians pikes were supposed to be terrifying. Maybe u need to use more combined arms tactics, using your cav to get rouns the flanks of other enemy pikemen. also there a bug ive noticed when using phalanx units. When moving through a city, if i tell my phalanx(especially macedonian pikes) tries to move round corners they allways drop their pikes, also if i give an attack order whilst in the city they more often than not drop their pikes and use their swords, even when they havr room to move, i.e the town square. Most Perturbatory...

RollingWave

03-09-2005, 13:59

From a more historical and realistic point of view, the pike was suppose to be an advance from the hoplit, but in this game it really don't seem that way.

Historically the extra lenght would not only means apporaching them frontally was near impossible, it would also mean that many more arrows/javlins would be blocked or redirected in a less harmful way. however in this game pikeman not only dies much easier to arrows, they are also easily approached, strong cav charge often go right thorugh, although if the pikemans are in sufficent number and moral they will be able to eventrually slug out a win, in historical truth it should be a one way massacer if someone was stupid enough to do such thing even if they were cataphracts as they will just fly off their horse on impact (and more importantly, the horse would not even follow ur order to do such a sucicidal manuver.)

Count Belisarius

03-09-2005, 16:48

I agree: the game does not do a very good job of accounting for the extra reach, weight, and killing power of the sarissa. The standard hoplite spear was 2-3 meters (depending on who you believe) long, whereas the sarissa was over 4 or even as much as 6 meters in length (again, depending on who you believe). You can imagine how much kinetic energy such a horrendous weapon would have, especially since the Macedonians were well-trained enough to CHARGE in the last few meters, using their sarissas like battering rams. This is another aspect of the game that could use improvement, but I digress. One (of many) of the reasons for the Macedonians' success vs. the Greeks was the inability of the Greeks to get into killing range without forcing themselves through the hedge of sarissa points. The tradeoff is a more cumbersome formation, which I think the game accurately reflects.

As to the pikemen's vulnerability to missile troops, I think the game has it more or less right from an historical perspective. Many of Macedon's standard line-of-battle troops wore only leather armor (breastplate or jerkin and a kilt), a helmet, greaves (sometimes), and a small buckler strapped to the left arm. This minimal body armor rendered the phalangite vulnerable to missile fire. The idea that a pike formation provided adequate protection from arrows, javelins, darts and sling bullets has been WILDLY overblown. Certainly, having your friends behind you holding their pikes over your head is better than nothing . . . but it that's not saying much. Arrows, being much smaller in diameter than 5 meter pikes, would slip through the gaps quite easily. Not to mention that the formation was totally unprotected in the front, rear, and sides, or that the "protection" afforded by the pike canopy would decrease to virtually nil near the rear of the formation. The Macedonian army protected its phalanx from missile fire with good skirmishers and superior cavalry, not with its pikes.

Red Harvest

03-09-2005, 18:09

Archery is overblown in RTW. Had archery been half this effective, Alexander wouldn't have made it very far versus the Eastern archer heavy armies. He would have run out of phlangites quite rapidly.

RollingWave

03-09-2005, 19:50

Spino

03-09-2005, 20:05

Well Redharvest, i'm under the impression that Alexander ususally won't let he's men stand under arrow fires for very long... if he did do such a thing it was only to buy a little time for the flanking manuver...

As for he's success, military tactic was definately a great part of it... but many other important parts seem to be completely overlooked espically in forums such as these. (let's just say for example... why the Persian empire collasped on itself after just one major battle in persia?)

It took more than one battle actually, the collapse of the Persian Empire was the culmination of successive battlefield losses and shrewd political decision making on the part of Alexander. The battles of Granicus & Issus and the subsequent loss of Asia Minor, Syria, Judea & especially Egypt all contributed to Persia's collapse. Furthermore Alexander enjoyed the reputation of being a liberator and tolerant ruler in many (certainly not all) of those territories since the Persians were known to be unusually heavy handed and intolerant of local religions and customs (this actually varied from ruler to ruler). Alexander not only made all the right moves but he had the wind in his back. Even if Alexander only managed a marginal victory at Gaugamela it was all over for Darius after that.

Akka

03-09-2005, 20:17

Red Harvest

03-09-2005, 20:38

Well Redharvest, i'm under the impression that Alexander ususally won't let he's men stand under arrow fires for very long... if he did do such a thing it was only to buy a little time for the flanking manuver...

As for he's success, military tactic was definately a great part of it... but many other important parts seem to be completely overlooked espically in forums such as these. (let's just say for example... why the Persian empire collasped on itself after just one major battle in persia?)

Considering the Persian forces vastly outnumbered Alexander's army it would have been quite easy to mow down first Alexander's short range skirmishers, then his infantry and/or cav if archery had been anywhere close to as effective as in RTW. But it wasn't, hence they didn't and couldn't.

And how long would the Spartans have lasted at Thermopylae vs. RTW archery? 5 minutes?

When archery was effective, it was *sustained* fire that did the work. Not single vollies killing 5 to 10% of a force as we have in RTW. Look at Carrhae, those horse archers were slowly killing the Romans. Yet, the Romans planned to weather the fire and wait, until they saw the archers periodically retiring to the camel caravans to resupply with arrows. The main terror of such weapons was that non-ranged units had to *endure* without being able to strike back. A series of harassing skirmishes would eventually set up conditions for defeat, because of the one sided nature of the losses.

From what I've read, even at Samarkand the ~800 phalangites were weathering the horse archers until they tried to move to cover and panicked while doing so.

Red Harvest

03-09-2005, 21:04

Well, I disagree with most posters, I find the pikemen to be really quite effective against phalanxes, precisely because of their longer spears.

I've had hoplites massacred by levy pikemen, and even armoured hoplites enduring severe losses and being pushed back with very little damages inflicted when fighting a head-on battle on the same levy pikemen.

Front-on-front, pikemen slaughter anything, up to the dreaded spartan hoplite.

But the thing is, even much more than the hoplites, pikemen are very vulnerable to anything that isn't at the front of their spears. They share the weaknesses of the phalanx, but it's magnified by them having lighter armor and smaller shields, which means that, while a hoplite can still gives a good account of himself in battle when the spear wall has been breached/avoided/overwhelmed (because of his good armor, fighting skill and shield), a pikemen is much weaker. So pikemen tends to fall quickly once you close in.

But as long as you don't, they can kill ANYTHING in front of them.

I totally disagree, 1.2 doesn't work like that. It worked more like this in 1.1, but it doesn't in 1.2. I just ran another set of tests and the levy pikes still lost handily despite having 50% more men than the standard greek hoplites. It wasn't only the 1vs.1 effect. I also did a 6v6. The greek hops were winning about 2:1.

That's not to say things can't go wrong. But in 1.2 the primary factor is not length of the weapon. Sorry, it just isn't. The primary factor is the sum of attack and defense, followed closely by push back (mass) and of course morale/stamina.

hrvojej

03-09-2005, 21:18

Could it be due to the supposed penalties vs infantry that spears and long spears have? They are supposed to have a bonus vs cavalry, and I assume that the bonus is greater for long spears. Maybe then long spears also have a larger malus vs infantry, even though it doesn't really make sense to have one?

player1

03-09-2005, 21:54

I totally disagree, 1.2 doesn't work like that. It worked more like this in 1.1, but it doesn't in 1.2. I just ran another set of tests and the levy pikes still lost handily despite having 50% more men than the standard greek hoplites. It wasn't only the 1vs.1 effect. I also did a 6v6. The greek hops were winning about 2:1.

That's not to say things can't go wrong. But in 1.2 the primary factor is not length of the weapon. Sorry, it just isn't. The primary factor is the sum of attack and defense, followed closely by push back (mass) and of course morale/stamina.

Well, Leavy Pikemen is still much cheaper then Hoplite after all. ~D

And I just did few tests (1:1 leavy vs hoplite), and leavies obliterated hoplites with minimum losses.

But, trick is removing guard mode.
That way pikes retreat slowly, so Hoplites won't come closer.

EDIT:
Disregard my test. It was done at Macedonian ruins map, which benefited my side (higher ground).

Later tests gave usually narrow defeats for Leavys, but hey, thay are cheaper, and thus should be weaker unit then Hoplites, after all.

EDIT2:
Chaning default 8row fomation to 5row, increased Pikemen lethalitly a lot.
And all those previous defeat became victories.

So, guard off and 5row Pikemen for maximum effeiciency.

professorspatula

03-10-2005, 01:14

If you want to use the advantage of the long pike over the short hoplite spear, DON'T ATTACK.

If you make the Pikemen attack, the front rows will begin to attack immediately giving you a brief range benefit, but then the second and third ranks will try to get involved, and the two opposing formations will close together, allowing the hoplites to fight back. This defeats the point of the long pikes. Turning off guard mode makes this worse, although I've found the pikemen are slightly better at killing in this mode as they're more aggressive - but then their formation suffers for it (plus the Hoplites start to flank you and destroy the pikemen's flanks in sword combat).

If you don't force your Pikemen to attack, the front row of the phalanx will relentlessly batter the opposing enemy unit and the rest of your formation stays tight and pretty lifeless until called into action. The Hoplites are forced back out of spear range. Some will manage to break forward in retaliation, and this usually means some of the men in the second and third ranks of the pikemen can get involved too. But the phalanx holds. The Hoplites will attempt to flank you and this posses a significant risk, although the levies should be able to cope with it. If you use a wider formation (5 deep instead of default 7) the hoplites won't attempt to flank unless they have killed enough of your men to narrow the width of the pikemen formation. Therefore it's worthwhile having a wider formation against hoplites.

Anyway some stats:
-------------------
Levy Pikemen vs. Hoplites - Pikemen ordered to attack. Hoplites win with a 1.5:1 kill to death ratio.

I also tried turning guard mode off, changing the amount of ranks etc and the hoplites always won easily.

Levy Pikemen vs. Hoplites - Pikemen in guard mode, no orders. Pikemen comfortably with 1.6:1 kills/death ratio.

Conclusion:
----------
Ordering to attack makes your phalanx formation very vulnerable and less solid. The men will close in on the enemy, the lines will thin in places, men get out their swords unnecessarily, enemy will attempt to flank you etc. Thus do nothing when possible unless you are flanking the enemy or you want to kill faster.

Red Harvest

03-10-2005, 01:22

When I tried fighting with pikes in guard mode they lost more heavily than without. No surprise, guard mode is a mistake with every unit I've tried it on.

professorspatula

03-10-2005, 01:53

Guard mode can occasionally have its uses though. When I was testing various phalanx units fighting, on one occasion my phalanx pikemen were being rapidly pushed backwards by some armoured hoplites. I turned guard mode back on and the pikemen pushed forward to get back in formation, reversing the pushing process. I was impressed.

And in my test, keeping guard mode on and doing nothing is the only way to ensure the Pikemen kill the hoplites easily. Taking guard mode off is an instant invitation for the enemy to close in and start puncturing the poor pikemen.

The only other reason to use guard mode seems to be when you have other units ready to flank and the defending unit does its best to hold formation and keep the enemy pinned.

--

By the way - does anyone else find the officers in spear units annoying when you're carrying out one on one tests? The standard bearer and captains tend to destroy one flank, and with two identical units fighting, the effectiveness of those officers can determine which of the two sides wins the battle.

Someone Stupid

03-10-2005, 02:37

Yes, I found the officer and standard bearer annoying in testing as well. It contributed to a lopsided line (of the enemy), and generally when that line got lopsided by a solid rank of soldiers, the attacking phalanx started acting funny. From some stopping their attack, to backing up a step or two, to a complete halt of the attack in the worst case scenario.

I also found that having those two there though did allow for one side to take much less in losses if I paid close enough attention. Shows how even the smallest amount of protection on a phalanx flank can go a long way.

Red Harvest

03-10-2005, 02:50

I agree about the officers adversely effecting play testing. Too bad we can't do the test combat sans officers.

professorspatula

03-10-2005, 03:00

I suppose removing officers isn't too tricky (remove them from the unit.txt file) but the captain still causes havoc.

And I just tested Spartans versus Silver Shield Pikemen. I tested them earlier and found the silver shields lost whether in guard mode or not, and whether in many ranks or few. But then I reverted to the 'Do nothing whatsoever' tactic and it was a different story. After a not massively successful first effort, I made the Silvershield's have 6 ranks and then sat back and watched. Silvershields slaughtered the Spartans, the second time killing more than 4 for everyone they lost. So size does matter, although it's how you use it that counts.

AntiochusIII

03-10-2005, 03:01

You could delete them temporarily for a while, isn't it? In the descr_units.txt?

{EDIT} oh, professor answered the question already.

Simetrical

03-10-2005, 03:19

By the way - does anyone else find the officers in spear units annoying when you're carrying out one on one tests?Yeah, we removed them from phalanx units some time ago in RTR.

-Simetrical

AquaLurker

03-10-2005, 04:51

Hi people,

This is what I had learnt after playing with phalanx mode for sometime.

Guard mode allows phalanx to hold the line much better than with 'guard mode switched off', your troops will suffer less casualties aganist non-phalanx units and will not pursue the enemy when they route, this way the formation will remain intact.
Downside, it don't kill alot of enemies this way.

With guard mode turned on, the phalanx fight much better and do more kills in a frontal engagement but they will also lose slightly more men this way, they also tend to break formation to pursue routing enemies.

Usually I will switch on guard mode for my phalanx units in the middle for holding the main line and those at the flanks with guard mode off for attacking the enemy flanks.

I have tried this tactics quite a couple of times using germania in multiplayer games and it has proven to be very effective even against rome's urban cohort charges.

Red Harvest

03-10-2005, 06:13

Yes, I know how to remove the junior officers, but for 1v1 testing the captain will still be assigned.

Wishazu

03-10-2005, 08:48

Shadar

03-10-2005, 10:46

Spartans ARE a bit hard to killl.. but the comparison isn't entirely accurate.

However, what kind of crazy commander would order his own archers to fire into his OWN men that had surrounded the Spartans+allies on that hill of theirs? Now, since the Spartans were on high ground.. and its completely unfeasable to have archers near the forefront of the battle so they can have a clear shot at the enemy... they would've had to be standing a little distance away.

Now, due to the mess on the top of the hill, you're obviously not going to let your archers shoot into the melee. No matter how good archers they are, they're going to shoot your troops. This means, since the greeks have the high ground and can't be shot at directly, the archers would have to curve their shots up... which is even more stupid. It would eventually end up with massive casualties on your side since you're shooting at your troops in the back, while the Spartans actually have decent metal armour and have good shields, not the cheap armour your levies have.

Plus, Unlike RTW - your men are NOT going to be unquestionably accepting this attrition from friendly-fire... They're probably going to be thinking along the lines of...

"why are we getting shot at...? why is my BACK getting shot at??? WHY DOES THE GENERAL WANT TO KILL US?????????" *routs and runs away*

Think of those ancient levies as pretty much the town watch/militia etc in RTW.. not exactly great troops. especially not compared to some the toughest and most well trained hoplites in all the Greek city states... i.e. Spartan Hoplites.

Kraxis

03-10-2005, 13:36

Shadar that was in fact how the last Spartans ended their lives. The little hillock is filled with arrowpoints.

But that was the very last part of the battle, what Red meant was the entire battle and not just the last stand. If the Persian archers had been anywhere near the effectiveness of the archers in RTW then Xerxes would never have sent in melee troops, just sat back and let the archers kill the greeks.
Now that did work did it, despite he had so 'many archers that their arrows could block out the sky'. He had to send in melee troops.
100,000 archers out of about 250,000 or 200,000 troops is not too extreme (if you think he Persians had fewer troops then just lower both figures), and given the greeks had at best 3000 troops at the fronlines (the others resting or guarding the pass), I would say that archery was nothing that was really that dangerous. 33 archers to every hoplite they were likely to face is a lot. Try to have that kind of difference in RTW and I will asure you that even 2HP Armoured Hoplites (ifyou mod them) will fall rather rapidly.

Malachus

03-10-2005, 15:27

Well, what would you guys say is an advisable missile attack for archers in RTW if you want them to be more realistic?

Red Harvest

03-10-2005, 16:20

And how long would the Spartans have lasted at Thermopylae vs. RTW archery? 5 minutes?

ive played countless battles online and sp using spartans and can safely say, anybody who spends time shooting at these guys is wasting arrows, esp from the front, they just dont die :D

Actually, the best way to kill them is with archery. They have low armour and essentially only their shield for protection. The best way to burn off that extra hit point is with archery. Even "highly nerfed" archery will chew them up. When I face Spartans I focus arrow fire on them, because missile fire is their achilles. The other hoplites have higher armour stats and lower melee...better to face them in melee than the Spartans.

I just ran a quick example using 1 Spartan vs. 8 base level Scythian foot archer units with my nerfed missile stat of 4 (vs. 7 in the game) and 100 range vs. 120 normal. I also have given the Spartans 4 armour vs. 3 original. By the time they reached my line they were about 50% depleted. They routed a few seconds later. So even with a 43% archery nerf, combined with a 20% range nerf, a reduction in archery velocity from 48 m/sec to 40 m/sec, and a 33% Spartan armour boost (although with shield only a 12.5% missile defense boost) the Spartans still became pincushions.

player1

03-10-2005, 16:48

I have some interesting results.

Using tactics mentioned in some posts above (guard, but don't attack), I was able to take out Spartans with stack of Silver Shields (on flat terrain).

On the other hand Armored Hoplites proved to be more difficult to take out, so I lost in battles against them.

It seems that those extra several defense points can be someitimes more worth then 2hp.

player1

03-10-2005, 16:50

Also, are difficuly sliders in Custom Battles buggy?

Very Hard game very fast battles, while easy gave very slow battles, Very Hard gave quick routing (both for you and AI), Easy gave very difficult routing.

Fast-Slow aspect can be easily tested if you just put simple 1:1 hoplite pikemen combat.

Kraxis

03-10-2005, 17:34

Well, what would you guys say is an advisable missile attack for archers in RTW if you want them to be more realistic?
I lowered the base attack to 5, and it still seems to be rather powerful. I still pack up on archers, and they do make a serious impact rather fast. And when I face archers I normally single them out first.
Those rebels in the middle east are normally heavy in archery and I really fear them in the early game as the Seleucids have litte in terms of cavalry and missile.

I begin to wonder about modding them down to 3, and weakening te elite archers even more. Slingers should follow them down to 3 and the elites would also get a nerf. But I'm certain that we will never get them to a point we actually like.

RollingWave

03-11-2005, 04:31

I had thought the main problem for archery use in warfare was the problem that most army don't carry enough arrows for extensive campaigns... while things like pila are far more effective in terms of the same number. arrows are problematic to produce in huge sustaining numbers. that and the problem that Roman's (and greeks too really) bow building technology wasn't that advanced espically relative to the East... while also training someone to shoot a bow effectively is more difficult than throwing a pila (relatively anyway... to the level of acceptable military standards)

I think the main problem in game wise for arrow is that

a. archers are too cheap to produce and too cheap to maintain, their arrow consumption should mean that they are more expensive to upkeep than other infantries.

b. the shield bonus against arrow is not sufficient. if the units are moving around etc with their shields down or exposed in general it makes sense that they are taking loses but if they are standing their with every intention focused on stopping the arrows they should not take nearly as much loses (for shielded units of course... for calvary and or say peasents it's another matter.)

c. archers are way too accurate... espically at longer arc ranges.. now good archers could obviously find good marks when they shooting close up in direct line... but when shooting in a arc they just fire at general directions...

The examples i am reading on Chinese crossbow uses suggest that in direct close range it was insanely accurate and would create huge looses on the receiving end if taken full, the particular example the crossbowmen hide their already armed crossbows and walked behind a line of infantry holding big shields and spears. the other army not noticing the crossbows charged the formation directly(since they were quiet few in number... only 1000 crossbows with 800 infantry in front while the other army had around 10 thousand calvary so they thought it would be a easy rout) the formation stood still and everyone cruched behind the shields (from horse archer fire probably) then when they cavs come within 10 paces they drop the shield and all opened fire, instantly killing every horse or men they hit, causing the calvary formation to fall into chaos and rout.

But obviously if they took such a dangerous risk of going up so close before firing suggest that it would be far less effective if they had fired from thier maximum range on prepared infantries.

Watchman

03-11-2005, 11:16

Military archery was normally "volley fire" anyway, at least among the infantry. The archers poured arrows into the area they estimeted the enemy troop formation to be in by the time the arrows came down. No need to engage in Robin Hood-esque feats of mastery, such as trying to hit a given man a hundred meters out, when there's a thousand men there in fairly close formation. Send an arrow there, and chances are it'll hit someone.

By what I've read Persian archery was a major concern for the Greeks. At Thermopylae they had the advantage of fortifications - there was an old wall there, and the Greeks had spent their loose time in some hurried military engineering - but in field battles they were in trouble. The hoplite shieldwall was such a slow mover that by the time it got into contact with the Persian line it had been badly shredded by arrows.

Hence the adoption of the "100-meter dash in full gear" Olympic event. Not coincidentially, about hundred meters was the practical effective range for Persian archery at least against armoured foes. The Greeks solved the problem by simply getting into grips with the archers as fast as possible. Of course that mad dash would tire the soldiers badly and completely ruin their formation, but as the vast majority of Persian troops were very lightly equipped archers the heavily armed hoplites still had a major advantage in close combat.

conon394

03-11-2005, 16:02

Watchman

You’re mixing up Thermopylae and Marathon.

At Marathon, the Athenians were clearly concerned about archery, but I don't think events suggest It could have won the battle for Persia even if the Athenians walked. After all if archery could be so effective, why did the Persians fail to advance and pelt the Greeks in camp or on the other days when they deployed and did not charge? Mad dash is a bit excessive, for a description of the Athenian advance.

At Thermopylae there is no suggestion at all the Greeks were impacted much at all by archery.

“but in field battles they were in trouble” Name one

The armor race was added during the 65 festival (520 B.C.) 30 years before the Battle of Marathon, also it was longer than
100 m, more like 380 m.

RollingWave

"The examples i am reading on Chinese crossbow uses suggest that in direct close range it was insanely accurate and would create huge looses on the receiving end if taken full, the particular example the crossbowmen hide their already armed crossbows and walked behind a line of infantry holding big shields and spears. the other army not noticing the crossbows charged the formation directly(since they were quiet few in number... only 1000 crossbows with 800 infantry in front while the other army had around 10 thousand calvary so they thought it would be a easy rout) the formation stood still and everyone cruched behind the shields (from horse archer fire probably) then when they cavs come within 10 paces they drop the shield and all opened fire, instantly killing every horse or men they hit, causing the calvary formation to fall into chaos and rout."

Can you provide a date or a source; I just don't see that as very realistic.

BeeSting

03-11-2005, 19:02

What I'm wondering is about the accuracy of abandonment of armor for hoplite warfare, from Peloponnesian war up to the battle of Chaeronea. There are discrepancies between scholars about the amount of armor worn between the Macedonian phalangites and Greek hoplites. If the Greeks only adopted wearing armor again after the battle, then what is this I’m reading about phalangites with less armor than the hoplites?

BeeSting

03-11-2005, 19:35

RollingWave

03-11-2005, 19:46

Conon394, I can provide my sources, however it's in Chinese, quote directly off the formal history text of Ho Han Shu, or the book (hisotry) of late Han wrtten just shortly after this battle took place (since it happend near the crossing point of the late han and 3 kingdoms era) so the reliability.

if you could read Chinese....

《後漢書袁紹傳》:
....瓚兵三萬，列為方陳，分突騎萬匹，翼軍左右，其鋒甚銳。紹先令麴義
領精兵八百，強弩千張，以為前登。瓚輕其兵少，縱騎騰之，義兵伏楯下，一
時同發，瓚軍大敗，斬其所置冀州刺史嚴綱，獲甲首千餘級。
rough translation would be.... (matching paragraphs as best as i could)

"The biography of Yuan Shao, Book of Late Han"
Zan (Gon Sun Zan, one of the parties in this battle) men (infantry) 30 thousand, lined up in square formation, seperate calvary 10 thousand, winged on left and right, it's moral edge is sharp. Shao (Yuan Shao, the other party in the battle)orders Qu Yi (one of he's officers), leads elite men (infantry) of 800, opens up crossbow 1000, foward as advance. Zan took the small force lightly, sets loose he's calavry to rout them, Yi's men crouch behind shields. all loose at same time Zan's army badly defeated. he's installed governor of Yi province Yian Gong was killed, acquired heads and armor over 1000 (or it could mean armored heads.)

There is a pretty much matching description in San Gou Zi (since Yuan Shao would be important player in shaping this age) on this battle too though with some more details.

Red Harvest

03-11-2005, 19:54

The hoplites started getting a bit lighter at least somewhere in the early 4th century BC. There had been some noted successes of light troops such as peltasts vs. heavy hoplites. Iphicrates created some hybrid units. Heavy peltasts and lighter hoplites. This would give lighter hoplites the chance to engage normal light troops on one hand, and heavy peltasts some ability to survive if caught by hoplites--so they could be more aggressive in harassing them.

conon394

03-11-2005, 19:58

BeeSting:

There really very little evidence to suggest any kind of general abandonment of armor by hoplites in the 4th century, at least that I can see.

Typically the ‘Reforms Iphicrates’ (some time in the first quarter of the 4th century B.C.) are used to suggest hoplites increased their spear length and discarded heavy armor. I have some real doubts about this so called reform. First the sources themselves are late, and the best of the lot in terms of quality (Nepos and Diodorus. The sources themselves do not suggest Iphicrates did anything but alter the gear of some Athenian soldier under his command. The reformed hoplite as far as I know never seems to appear in the pictorial record. Other Literary sources (Plutarch, for example) suggest that the Iphicratian gear was not copied by other states.

Edit: I think the evidence better supports Iphicrates as pioneering a better armed peltast, and the adoption of light infantry training by Athens.

A second source is modern, back in the 70’s J.K. Anderson (In the book Military Theory and Practice in the Age of Xenophon) made the case for Spartan (or perhaps all) hoplites abandoning armor. I have not been able to find a copy of the book, but I’m under the impression he build his argument primarily of the basis of period artistic evidence. The Osprey Books seem to follow Anderson’s interpretations and also go with the unarmored and barely clothed hoplite.

While I don’t see any trend for Hoplites to abandoned armor, I can see the growing use of mercenaries providing a source of hoplites who often only had the most minimal of gear (after all If they could afford a full kit of hoplite gear, they would probably not be serving as mercenaries). Like Hannibal’s mercenaries of a later age, I suspect these soldiers had every intention of improving their armor and weapons as soon as chance allowed. For Sparta in particular, I would note she often turned to arming helots in the 4th century. I rather suspect Sparta did not provide their former slaves with much more than the most basic of arms and weapons need to serve as hoplites. From the Spartan perspective, it would probably be little loss if the incurred casualties anyway.

BeeSting

03-11-2005, 20:40

Thanks, conon....

The sources for hoplite throwing off armor seems unanimous, they are nevertheless too few to suggest general application for the entire peninsula.

What's interesting is the adoption of phrygian helmet.

jerby

03-11-2005, 21:33

well, in my experience ( not a lot). phalangites are at max in 5/6 rows deep, only one trow with sarrissa's up, on equal ground, no rocks, and flank covered, anything you can all figure out.
if you kjeep a thight non flanked, line vs hoplites, you win heroic, as long as you out-reach them. 1vs1 mostly doesn't work well for phalangites if both party's aren't strait on each other.
so for phalangites vs hoplites: keep a solid line and out reach.
for hoplites vs phalangites, break up the line, rush a unit in.

just wondering, what do you do to break lines?
i mostly use echelon, sending one unit in as a sacrifice, then AI breaks phalangites line to do 3vs1 and there is your battering spot.

Thessalos

03-11-2005, 21:48

BeeSting

03-11-2005, 22:47

BeeSting

03-11-2005, 23:24

Didn't the Greek hoplites wear the phrygian helmets in the hellenic period?

player1

03-12-2005, 00:28

I just wander...
If the inflexible falanx formation managed to defeat the highly mobile Persian units,how did the same formation was prooved inapropriate to deal with legeonaries???
====================================================================================================
:rtwno: PAS MI HELLIN VARVAROS :rtwno:

Many say that archery in that pretiod wasn't enough effective how it was reflected in RtW.

On the other hand pilum is effective weapon. Short range, but can distrupt formation. And I guess that curved shields republican legions have helped too.

P.S.
Also, Alexander did have good cavalry too, not just pikes.

conon394

03-12-2005, 04:19

BeeSting

I was under the impression that the Phrygian/Thracian (as well as the Boeotian, and Pylos) all start appearing about the mid 5th century. Kind of interesting really the way the Greeks seemed to have liked helmets based on hat shapes...

Kraxis

03-12-2005, 13:25

I believe the Phrygian and Thracian styles were a bit later than the Boiotian and Pylos (now I want that name settled, is it Pylos or Pilos?). There was also the Attic style, which the Hoplites and Merc Hoplites use in RTW.

And of course there was hundreds of variations of each helmet, so at times it is hard to determine what kind of helmet it is really.

conon394

03-12-2005, 17:27

Tempiic

03-12-2005, 23:38

I am a major phalanx player online (as in taking armies with phalangists at leat 75% of the time, ie pontus and seleucia mainly, not that I am a major player) and I must say I never noticed much difficulties against hoplite armies...

BeeSting

03-14-2005, 20:59

Kraxis

Pilos is really probably correct, I was being sloppy.

Thucydides (4.34.3) the Spartans are wearing "piloi". They seem to just be wearing the actual felt cap, not a helmet. Since the helmet version is clearly modeled and named after the cap I would assume the name was the same.

Right.... I read there was no distinction between felt cap and the bronze helmet, as they were both called "piloi".

The reason I brought up the the Phrygian/Thracian helmet--aside from many historical inaccuracies in the game--is the omitting in RTW for its use and popularity even with the Greeks, which I'm sure has stretched from the late Classical to Hellenistic period.

Are there any Greek skin mods out there with Phrygian/Thacian helmets with muscle cuirass?

Watchman

03-14-2005, 21:47

Odd detail - "phrygian cap" helmets also appear in Medieval religious paintings and the like, normally worn by the "bad guys" (pagans, saracens, whatever).

The Greeks and others probably just used them because they thought they looked neat. Plus it was apparently a demanding feat of metalworking to get a single-piece bronze helmet into that shape, so there'd have been the expense-prestige thing involved too.
And naturally there were then cheaper versions built up from several smaller parts for those who couldn't afford the real thing...
Military peackockiness at work again, methinks.

Everything detailed I've read has told me the hoplites by and large abandoned all armour save the helmet at one point, trading protection for maneuverability and speed. This was a temporary thing, and later on "heavy metal" was again in, but it was there.

The phalangites aparently never went for heavy armour. Their pikes and formation provided most of the protection they needed, and a properly formed phalanx moved at a snail's pace already... And of course anything heavier than a hard leather or bronze-scale cuirass was expensive.

And conon ? You're forgetting something - before landing at Marathon the Persians had casually rolled up the armies of several city-states along the way. By what I've read said armies didn't use the new "get close fast" doctrine either, but you're welcome to explain to me how an invading army consisting mostly of infantry archers mopped the floor with armoured hoplites if archery didn't work on said hoplites like you say...
Why they spent a week sitting in their camp and playing the glaring game with the Greeks was due to strategic concerns, not because they (or, rather, their commanders) were particularly afraid of fighting - when the time came they formed up readily enough instead of boarding their ships, after all.

Kraxis

03-14-2005, 22:00

I have two words for you: Persian cavalry.

For some odd reason they were out of play at Marathon, people have claimed they were foraging, other that they were not properly deployed others that they were raiding, others yet that they were in fact seeking to outflank the Greeks (and quite obviously failing in finding an opening).
At Plataea they were in fact were effective, the most effective troops the Persians had, but in a frontal role against hoplites it gets un-fun really fast to be a cavalryman. But they had little choice to fight head on as the battle seemingly started by a half-accident and a half-chase of the Spartan rearguard. Then there was the point that the area the Greeks retreated to was confined, little option for flanking.
The Persian army was never a great infantry army, but the cavalry was their strongarm.

Xenophon (in his writing about the Ten Thousand on the campaign to and from the battle of Cunaxa) wasn't afraid of the Persian archers very much (though he was concerned with the impossibility of the hoplites in chasing the missilecavalry), but he was afraid of the cavalry, and the hoplites formed up in an unflankable formation when in the open.

When the Persians faced Alexander they faced cavalry that was superior and then there wasn't much the army could do but suffer defeat, though it came dangerously close at Gaugamela.

Titus Livius

03-14-2005, 23:02

Here is what has driven me so insane about the Macedonians that I've pretty much given up and went back to the old Greeks, though I have some problems with hoplites as well:

The taking of cities: Pikemen, especially Levies, are worse than worthless on city walls. Royal pikes don't fair too much better, especially against legionaries. Where are Alexander's famed Agema Hypaspists, the heavy swordsmen of his army? Such men would be perfect for assaulting walls.

Attacking in the field: I've noticed (and this has already been mentioned briefly in this thread) that both hoplites and pikemen alike, when given an order to attack or move, will always RAISE THEIR PIKES after the order is given, often with disastrous results as this is the moment the legionaries usually charge. It has happened more than once that my pikemen bring down their pikes on the enemies heads after they have already began their charge, neutralizing what little advantage pikes have. Alexander's phalangites, and indeed Greek hoplites of the ancient world, were more maneuverable than portrayed in the game, able to wheel and turn into the flank of the enemy with spears LEVEL. Lastly, the all-important charge has been mentioned by every serious military historian who has written about the armies of Greece and Macedon, and yet it is completely absent from the game. I have read that, in the last 50 feet or so before closing with the enemy, pikemen and hoplites went from a walk to a trot, to a steady jog, and finally to a dead sprint as they hit the enemey like a human battering ram. This extremely important aspect was what initially routed innumerable enemies of the Greeks and Macedonians.

Watchman

03-14-2005, 23:08

Swiss pikemen could charge at full run. But they were the créme de créme of their time, their drill was just about the best in the world, and they had a marked emphasis on speed and shock in general.

To my knowledge the Macedonian phalanxes were by far more static and downright lumbering. Their primary job was to tie down and chew up the enemy, either on their own or so that the cavalry could deliver the killing blow.

Titus Livius

03-14-2005, 23:12

BeeSting

03-15-2005, 00:18

Of course I forgot to mention the laughable performance of pikes vs. cavalry.

I always can't help but to laugh as some fool on a horse JUMPS, as if by a miracle, past 120 arrayed pikes into the fray of the pikemen. So far, this is the closest RTW has come to absolute madness.

Macedonian pikes proved themselves vastly superior to cavalry in nearly every engagement, and ALWAYS when facing the horses head-on. In RTW the only way pikes can get the better of cavalry, it seems, is if the cavalry stands still and waits for the pikes to attack them! The game has made it to where legionaries are nearly as effective at withstanding cavalry as are the Macedonian phalangites, an aspect which has no basis in history.

I don't know how they could steer so far away from history and give the impression that it is a historically based game. What gets me most of all are the fantasy skins.... of course they are modifiable, but c’mon…. And what in hell are Spartan hoplites doing in Hellenic period?

As for the Thracian and Phrygian helmets, I think CA must have omitted them so to give the Greeks the distinctive look apart from the Macedonians, to a look that people associate with the Greeks, in their Corinthian helmets, which was out of fashion in RTW times. No doubt the CA historians lost their bid for historical accuracy against whomever that thought the classical period helmets looked cooler. :furious3:

Kraxis

03-15-2005, 00:22

Hey... The Militia Hoplites, Hoplites and Mercenary Hoplites are all wearing Attic helmets, which are quite fitting.

BeeSting

03-15-2005, 00:26

Hey... The Militia Hoplites, Hoplites and Mercenary Hoplites are all wearing Attic helmets, which are quite fitting.

Oh.... right.... i was referring to the armored hoplites.

BeeSting

03-15-2005, 00:38

The phrygian helmets were dominant, I'm sure.... and the game's version of attic helmets are montefortino helmets with greek plumes.

Count Belisarius

03-15-2005, 02:32

Lastly, the all-important charge has been mentioned by every serious military historian who has written about the armies of Greece and Macedon, and yet it is completely absent from the game. I have read that, in the last 50 feet or so before closing with the enemy, pikemen and hoplites went from a walk to a trot, to a steady jog, and finally to a dead sprint as they hit the enemey like a human battering ram. This extremely important aspect was what initially routed innumerable enemies of the Greeks and Macedonians.

Exactly. The game totally leaves out the phalanx's historical ability to lumber into a charge in the last moments before contact with the enemy. One of the phalanx's major advantages over barbarians who necessarily fought in a more open order was the ability to deliver the massive shock of a phalanx advancing at the run. The momentum of the charge would carry the phalanx deep into the enemy lines, splitting the formation and sending enemy warriors reeling backwards. Hoplites would then be free to trample the enemy and to finish them with the spears' butt-spikes.

The great elasticity and tensile strength of the Roman formation - coupled with the Roman soldier's discipline and valor - allowed Roman lines to absorb this tremendous impact. Using a much longer frontage, the Roman lines could bend backwards without breaking and ensnare the phalanx. The best analogy I have been able to come up with is shooting a bullet at a bullet-proof vest. Sometimes the impact is just too much, and the vest breaks = Greek phalanx victory over Roman legion/maniple. Most of the time, however, the vest stops the bullet and wins the day = among others, the Romans destroying Pontus's multitudes.

The Macedonian pike phalanx also could deliver a charge, though their acceleration was necessarily more ponderous. In my non-professional opinion, your average Macedonian pikeman wore limited body armor out of a need to preserve the ability to charge while wielding the cumbrous sarissa. This whole idea about a phalangite 'not needing' armor to be safe from missile fire is just silly.

As you might imagine, a compact formation of men, each of whom carrying a 2-3 meter spear (much less a 5-6 meter pike!) with a point on both ends, sprinting over often broken ground (have you ever BEEN to Greece?) is a dangerous undertaking. If one man slips, or trips up his neighbor with the butt of his spear, the formation will dissolve instantly into mass chaos.

One of the the reason for the Spartans' superiority was their ability to coordinate this complex and dangerous sprinting charge, to deliver an appalling amount of momentum, all the while maintaining their intervals and holding their spears motionless and level. Spartan phalanxes could accelerate, charge, stop, wheel, and change the depth and length of their formation with a speed and smoothness that other hoplites could not match. This was all a result of their prodigious training, rather than any philosophical or technical edge over other Greeks.

Suggested modification: phalanxes - even pike phalanxes - should be able to charge over short distances. The more elite the phalanx (Armored and obviously Spartan), the quicker the acceleration, and the longer the charge distance. Maybe the Militia Hoplites shouldn't be able to charge at all, this being a function of their lack of practice time. Perhaps as a penalty to offset this advantage, the charging unit would automatically be taken out of phalanx formation for a period of time if its charge does not make contact with the enemy within the charge distance. This would be more accurate from an historical standpoint, and help balance out the Roman legionaries' overall superiority from a gaming standpoint.

player1

03-15-2005, 08:53

As you might imagine, a compact formation of men, each of whom carrying a 2-3 meter spear (much less a 5-6 meter pike!) with a point on both ends, sprinting over often broken ground (have you ever BEEN to Greece?) is a dangerous undertaking. If one man slips, or trips up his neighbor with the butt of his spear, the formation will dissolve instantly into mass chaos.

Broken ground...
One of the things that Romans knew how to exploit aginst the Greek/Macedon.

Titus Livius

03-15-2005, 09:14

Watchman

03-15-2005, 10:16

It sort of helped that Greek armies were basically 100% hoplites in body armour, while in Persian armies such armoured spearmen made up something like 10% of the head count tops.

As you might imagine the unarmoured archers and similar light infantry (many of them little more than drafted peasants) tended to die in droves against such heavy troops.

Now, I know the Greek hoplites charged at full run or at least something fairly close to it (it wouldn't do to mess up the formation too bad, after all), but this is the first time ever I've seen it claimed Macedonian phalanx drill was good enough to allow a real charge at any speed. Doesn't quite fit in what I know of the general slow pace of the formation, the problems of maintaining cohesion, and its tactical role. Such a "storm of spears" as they created was perfectly capable of obliterating most opposition anyway, without risking serious formation distruption by trying to get those thousands and again thousands of men to start jogging in an even theoretically coordinated fashion with the extremely limited command-and-control measures of the time.

Kraxis

03-15-2005, 12:24

The phrygian helmets were dominant, I'm sure.... and the game's version of attic helmets are montefortino helmets with greek plumes.
In the timeframe we are apeaking about there weren't much in terms of hoplites anymore, Sparta herself change to pikes around 220BC, but she was a late comer. This was the period of Attic helmets on the rise (Romans would adopt it as their ceremonial helmet).

And while the Montefortino and Attic helmets are based on the same template in the game there are quite visible differences. The Attic helmets have a reinforced brow as well as a nice little brim, the Montefortino has neither. That is fitting as that was what was the most obvious differences. Yes the Montefortino helmets were usually not as well crafted but that is hard to represent in the game. So I will excuse the use of the same template.

Interesting that the Spartans should be mentioned in the running charge as they are exclusively noted as the only ones that did not charge in, but kept a steady pace (cohesion over all else was their governing doctrine). They were also the only ones to never chase a defeated foe.

Shadar

03-15-2005, 12:37

those spartans must've learnt something then. The Greeks were defeated multiple times when their head-strong hoplites charged after retreating/routing enemy forces with no cohesion or organisation. One example which i can remember off-hand is the battle between Phillip (father of Alexander the Great) and the Greeks - the deciding battle which made ruler of Macedon Hegemon over the Greek city states. Can't remember more details than that..

Count Belisarius

03-15-2005, 17:32

Well said, Count.

However, most of the battles of ancient Greece took place in the plains of Boetia northwest of Athens, which I've read is very flat land. While Greece is indeed very rocky and broken outside of Boetia, when the Greeks would fight each other why not take advantage of those many narrow defiles and mountain passes? Why focus on a style of fighting that required flat land?

Battles between Greeks generally occured because of a dispute over a portion of farmland claimed by this town or another. The objective was certainly not to kill each other (hoplite battles before the Peloponnesian War usually induced casualties of less than 5% for each side), but to prove who were the better soldiers. By the experience of these constant battles (the Spartans were really the only ones who did real military training) Greeks were able to rack up kill ratios over Eastern armies of sometimes 30-1.

You're right, Titus. Most of the phalanx v. phalanx battles of necessity did occur on flat, open ground. The phalanx was utterly unsuited to deploying on broken ground for anything other than a static defense. The point I was trying to make was that even "open" ground is not devoid of obstacles: rocks, fallen logs, dilapadated fence lines, drainage ditches, depressions, and gopher holes, etc., thus making the phalanx a difficult formation to maintain at the run.

Right again: prior to the Peloponnesian Wars, casualties among hoplites were relatively light. The Greeks at that point had not embraced the concept of "total" war, hoplite combat being highly ritualized and stylized. I suppose that only through such savagely internecine combat did the Greek learn the lesson that a dead or maimed enemy cannot return to ravage the homeland.

Exactly WHY the Greek people would develop an inflexible (though tremendously strong) formation like the phalanx, especially in the context of the largely rocky and broken character of Greek terrain, has been the subject of debate among historians for a long time. I do not pretend to have the answer. But some historians have suggested that the phalanx was an ideological outgrowth of the basic Greek political unit: the polis. Each citizen was fanatically loyal to his polis and would sacrifice his own personal glory and achievements for the greater good of his polis. Hence, the development of such an intensely cooperative form of warfare as the phalanx.

I don't know the answer to this question. I do know that the underlying premise - Greek disunity - was a fact. Athenians, Thebans, Corinthians, Spartans, etc. thought of themselves in the context of their polis first, and as Greeks, a distant second. Why did the Greeks not conquer the world long before Alexander? They were the finest soldiers of the day. Simply put, they had no sense of the larger purpose: they could not, or would not, cooperate polis-with-polis. Greek disunity was the reason the Persians could so easily play off one polis against another: Athenians would always look to enrich their own polis at the expense of, say, Sparta before dreaming of cooperating against a common enemy. This is why cooperative efforts like Marathon and Platea and Thermopylae were so extraordinary: in the absence of dire circumstances, Spartan hoplites would never lock shields with men from Athens or Corinth or Pylos or anywhere else, and vice versa.

conon394

03-15-2005, 18:13

Count Belisarius and Titus Livius

“The objective was certainly not to kill each other (hoplite battles before the Peloponnesian War usually induced casualties of less than 5% for each side), but to prove who were the better soldiers”

“Right again: prior to the Peloponnesian Wars, casualties among hoplites were relatively light. The Greeks at that point had not embraced the concept of "total" war, hoplite combat being highly ritualized and stylized. I suppose that only through such savagely internecine combat did the Greek learn the lesson that a dead or maimed enemy cannot return to ravage the homeland.”

I think the citizens of Messene might be surprised to find out that they in fact were not on the receiving end of ‘total war’ when their polis was destroyed and their entire population reduced to slaves, some 250 years before the Peloponnesian War. How about Spartan attack on Tegea in 580 BC, the Spartans marched with fetters intended for the population of Tegea. The Athenians in the First Peloponnesian war (460s) were certainly making a bid for Hegemony in Greece. Warfare amongst the Greeks of Sicily and southern Italy saw very little ritual and lot of cites destroyed, populations forcibly transferred, killed or banished. The town of Mycenae perhaps should have reminded the Argives that they were just proving each other manhood; the Argives were under the mistaken ideal they were there to wipe the town (about 40 years before the Peloponnesian war).

Casualties were often light, because of the lack of effective means of pursuit (cavalry and light infantry). That lack did tend to stem from social reasons, but mainly the desire of the Hoplite class to minimize the political power of the aristocracy and the hoi-polloi by limiting their contributions to the defense of their state. The goals of Greek warfare were often very total, well before the Peloponnesian war.

Watchman

03-15-2005, 20:34

...but the means available were insufficient to realize the ambitions. There was also a purely practical financial aspect - whatever their economy may otherwise have been, the Greek city-states had zilch in terms of taxation and other such measures that would have been necessary for the political entity itself to accumulate funds and resources. Hoplite warfare took comparatively little training and the soldiers were required to bring their own gear; they were essentially free for the city-state itself.

The Spartans were obviously an exception, but then their system was based on brutally oppressing and exploiting the helots...

In the conditions of the Greek peninsula, which did not ecologically or geographically produce any of them, raising and training effective troops of light infantry, archers or cavalry would have required considerable active investement. And the city-states didn't have anything to invest with, so if they needed any of the previous specialists for something they more or less had to recruit foreign mercenaries.

BeeSting

03-15-2005, 21:00

My undestanding is that until Philip II, the Greeks were just satisfied with forcing the enemy army to withdraw from battle; they were not intent on completely destroying the enemy army. From what I can figure based on my readings are:

1) fights were largely over land disputes (farmlands);
2) most hoplites had day jobs and wanted to make the fights short as possible; and
3) it seems there was a mutual understanding between the two parties that a route was enough to decide the winner of a disputed item.

The Geeks were not as blood thirsty as Romans nor did they have the attitude of ends justify the means as the Macedonians (semi-Greeks).

BeeSting

03-15-2005, 21:14

Count Belisarius and Titus Livius
Casualties were often light, because of the lack of effective means of pursuit (cavalry and light infantry). That lack did tend to stem from social reasons, but mainly the desire of the Hoplite class to minimize the political power of the aristocracy and the hoi-polloi by limiting their contributions to the defense of their state. The goals of Greek warfare were often very total, well before the Peloponnesian war.

I see.... so their limited/indecisive warfare was mainly determined by technical and financial shortfalls. This makes more sense.

Watchman

03-15-2005, 21:22

Save for the crazy Spartans the Greek hoplites were, rather literally, "weekend warriors". When the disagreements between the city-states boiled over they would muster with arms, march to the appointed field of battle (normally withing a few day's march), fight it out - the actual melee normally lasting only a very brief if quite terrifying while, assuming one side didn't break and run even before contact - and go home, either in triumph or defeat. Even training for combat was more or less up to the individual himself, and his means of aquiring it.

By contrast the Macedonian phalangites were full-time professionals, and the Macedonian attitude to war much more pragmatically brutal.

Watchman

03-15-2005, 21:33

The major factor in the general lack of "hard results" in hoplite warfare, however, was a simple structure surrounding every city worth the name (save for the famous exception of Sparta) - the city wall.

Greek city-states had a virtually total shortage of siege equipement and the know-how and resources needed to succesfully carry out a siege. Not only did they lack the technology, there was also the fact that the soldiers had a "day job" and could only leave their fields unattended for so long.

The normal practice was to try drawing the defenders out by destrying the countryside, but even if they complied they could still normally flee behind the safety of their fortifications and make rude gestures. The great hydraulic empires of Asia and Mesopotamia, and later Rome, had the resources and manpower to, if necessary, throw up a "siege mound" - a huge earthern ramp allowing the soldiers to climb to the top of the walls - and generally had an easier time aquiring and maintaining proper siege trains.

The Greek city-states, lacking concentrated resource-gathering and distribution systems, naturally could not much emulate this and duly were time and again thoroughly frustrated in their petty squabbles with one another.

To gain an idea of just how important fortifications really are if the offensive siege techniques of the time cannot easily breach them, consider the Thirty Years' War and for that matter the even more extreme case of the Dutch War of Independence with Spain at the same period. Time and again armies who had only just swept all before them on the fields of glory got stuck besieging fortified positions (that had to be taken if one was to gain control of a region), exhausted themselves and were in turn driven back into the safety of their own fortresses by their now regrouped enemy.

Count Belisarius

03-15-2005, 21:37

I think the citizens of Messene might be surprised to find out that they in fact were not on the receiving end of ‘total war’ when their polis was destroyed and their entire population reduced to slaves, some 250 years before the Peloponnesian War. How about Spartan attack on Tegea in 580 BC, the Spartans marched with fetters intended for the population of Tegea. The Athenians in the First Peloponnesian war (460s) were certainly making a bid for Hegemony in Greece. Warfare amongst the Greeks of Sicily and southern Italy saw very little ritual and lot of cites destroyed, populations forcibly transferred, killed or banished. The town of Mycenae perhaps should have reminded the Argives that they were just proving each other manhood; the Argives were under the mistaken ideal they were there to wipe the town (about 40 years before the Peloponnesian war).

Casualties were often light, because of the lack of effective means of pursuit (cavalry and light infantry). That lack did tend to stem from social reasons, but mainly the desire of the Hoplite class to minimize the political power of the aristocracy and the hoi-polloi by limiting their contributions to the defense of their state. The goals of Greek warfare were often very total, well before the Peloponnesian war.

There were a number of Messenian uprisings, but the destruction of the Messenian polis occurred after the uprising of 648 B.C., approximately 200 years before the First Peloponnesian War. The Messenians already had been beaten and subjugated - but not scattered or enslaved - circa 720 B.C. The 648 war against Sparta was bitterly contested, lasting seventeen years, including an eleven-year siege at Eira. The Spartans apparently took that sort of thing a bit personally because they did destroy the Messenians and reduce Messenian citizens to helotry. I'm not apologizing, mind you, but these things have to be viewed in context.

Likewise, the Spartan treatment of Tegea in the mid-sixth century B.C. was not an isolated event. The Tegeans were conquered only after a long, difficult conflict, and they made problematic subjects (revolting in 473 and again in 370). Regardless of what the Spartans were carrying with them, Tegeans retained their (nominal) independence and Arcadian heritage even after becoming a subject people circa 560. How many Tegeans were ACTUALLY carried off into slavery, I don't know. Again, no apologies for Spartan brutality, but I'm sure they felt they were due.

As for poor Mycenae in 468 B.C., again, we are talking about the revolt of a subject people: Mycenae at that time was a dependency of Argos. Apparently, the classical Greeks didn't take kindly to revolts among the subjected multitudes.

At any rate, enough quibbling about historical minutae. I think perhaps we are talking about apples and oranges. You make very valid points about the Greeks being perfectly conversant with "total" warfare in the strategic sense of eliminating the enemy's sinews of war (population, economy, fortifications, etc.). Perhaps I should have been more clear by what I meant by "total" war. On the one hand, I was making a (poor) wordplay on the title of the Rome: Total War game that is the subject of these discussions. On the other, I was referring to the actual phalanx v. phalanx battles themselves. I was not talking about sieges, sacking of cities, or selling civilians into slavery. Perhaps instead of "total war" I should have used the phrase "total tactics", referring to the Napoleonic concept of hunting down a fleeing enemy and destroying his army as a fighting force.

Seldom (though sometimes) prior to the Pelopponesian Wars do you see battlefield casualty figures like those of First Mantinea (Athenian/Allies lose over 25% of their field force) or Sphacteria (148 of 440 Spartans killed) or Amphipolis (600 Athenian dead of 2000) or Leuctra (1000 irreplaceable Spartan/Allied dead) or Charonea (3000 Athenians and 'thousands' of Boetians dead and the Devoted Brothers of Thebes virtually annihilated), or Raphia (10000 Seleucid foot soldiers alone dead).

BeeSting

03-15-2005, 21:40

Titus Livius

03-15-2005, 21:44

I think the citizens of Messene might be surprised to find out that they in fact were not on the receiving end of ‘total war’ when their polis was destroyed and their entire population reduced to slaves, some 250 years before the Peloponnesian War. How about Spartan attack on Tegea in 580 BC, the Spartans marched with fetters intended for the population of Tegea.

I'm glad you mentioned this. Whom do you think of when you think of ancient Greece? Likely it is not the likes of Thebes, Corinth, Thespiae, or Megalopolis. Most people immediately think of Sparta and Athens, for good reason, because these two cities proved themselves to be extraordinary. Sparta was unlike any city in Greece in that, as mentioned before, their economy was based on slavery. I've read estimates that there may have been as many as 250,000 helots in Sparta, with only around 40,000 citizens (as opposed to Athens, with 100,000 helots and 150,000 citizens). Naturally, slaves don't grow on trees, and must be rounded up. It is for this reason that a good many of her so-called Peloponnesian "allies" had a deep hatred of Sparta.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not contending that other cities didn't practice "total war" out of a sense of altruism (though if you think that rounding up slaves is "total war" then you should become more familiar with Alexander and his methods). The fact is that hoplites in cities other than Sparta were predominately farmers, and had lands to attend to, and so rather than waste precious time defending mountain passes they preferred decisive battle by heavy infantry. That helots did all the farming in Sparta is the only reason the Peers were able to become such formidable soldiers, and why every city at one point or another feared the Spartan phalanx.

The Athenians in the First Peloponnesian war (460s) were certainly making a bid for Hegemony in Greece. Warfare amongst the Greeks of Sicily and southern Italy saw very little ritual and lot of cites destroyed, populations forcibly transferred, killed or banished. The town of Mycenae perhaps should have reminded the Argives that they were just proving each other manhood; the Argives were under the mistaken ideal they were there to wipe the town (about 40 years before the Peloponnesian war).

Athens was also unlike any other city in Greece, because of its navy. The Athenian navy was comprised almost entirely of the poorest elements of society. This usurped the importance of the hoplite class, as these dregs of society were often as responsible (if not more, as at Salamis) for victory over foreign enemies as the heavily-armored citizen soldiers were. After the defeat of Xerxes, Athens was free to attempt an empire, which was voted upon by the citizens of Athens. Unfortunately for them, the annihilation of their forces at Syracuse permanently checked this ambition, whereas Sparta never achieved empire due to constant worrying about the state of unrest among the helots, of which they had far more than any other cities.

The "Greeks" of Sicily and Italy are not what is being discussed here. The subject is mainland Greece, not the pseudo-Greeks that were flung all across the Mediterannean world.

Mycenae was a powerful city around the time of the Battle of Troy, when warfare in Greece was still chariot-based. We're talking about hoplite warfare. Give me some dates on the battle between Argos and Mycenae and I will look into it further.

By the way, you can drop the dripping sarcasm. Make your point and succor your emotions elsewhere.

Kraxis

03-15-2005, 21:57

There is no one reason as to why the Greeks formed the phalanx as they did. But they certainly learned it well from some middle eastern mercenaries Pheidon of Argos supposedly hired for a short while.
Since the heavy gear has been found to be older than the first real hoplite battle (on Euboa in 700 BC) it seems that the hoplite was more concerned with surving than anything else. That makes sense since they were farmers. If you lose your land you can normally settle somewhere else, if you die you can't really use the land all that well.
Now as a farmer you know your neigbours well and you often help each other during harvest, it not surprising that they would help each other in battle and two guys standing close together can be hard to push off you you attack them loosely.

Another reason is that while Greece is rocky and not very suited for phalanx warfare the hoplites had little reason to defend the hills and mountains, it was the plains they lived on. While you can raid from the hills you can't capture the land from the hills, and a farmer hasn't got the time to sit on a hill for months carrying out raids. Let the goatherders defend the hills if they want.

And there was of course the importance of the growing middle class (farmers and craftsmen) who began to replace the nobles that had fought the mounted duel style with their gangs of lightly equipped men supporting them, essentially only carrying out raids on livestock (there is a fitting poem where a young man present a nice plunder for his lord from this period).
So as herders were replaced with farmers the peopl got a more close relationship with the land, a greater will to defend it, and greater resources to do it.
And you can't expect political influence if you do not fight for the institution you want influence in, but we should not overestimate the importance of this as there were preciously few democracies. Most citystates were oligarchies (citizens having fairly limited imfluence) and tyranies (citizens having little influence).

And there are more reasons, none are the one true path that will bring us to a whole new understanding as to why the phalanx entered the scene as it did and where it did.

BeeSting

03-15-2005, 22:05

The major factor in the general lack of "hard results" in hoplite warfare, however, was a simple structure surrounding every city worth the name (save for the famous exception of Sparta) - the city wall.

Yes, the dominance of city walls over siege engines also may have limited wars. This obstacle too was never efficiently overcome until the engineers of Phillip II. And Athenian’s lack of know how in siege warfare in their attempt to capture Syracuse, cost them the entire war--but not their destruction, for Spartans too were short of insight in seige craft.

Kraxis

03-15-2005, 22:09

The problem with the walls are that the Athenian walls were only erected just prior to the Poloponnesian Wars and walls elsewhere weren't that much older if at all. Hoplite warfare was much older...

BeeSting

03-15-2005, 22:17

The problem with the walls are that the Athenian walls were only erected just prior to the Poloponnesian Wars and walls elsewhere weren't that much older if at all. Hoplite warfare was much older...

You are right, the reason why the city was so easily sacked by the Persians. Were walls then a major factor only during the Peloponnesian War?

Kraxis

03-15-2005, 23:05

It doesn't seem that cities themselves were subjected to sieges often prior to the Poloponnesian Wars. Of course the Second Messinian War had a longlasting siege of a mountain stronghold, so sieges were not entirely unheard of. But again this was an uprising against a percieved master, thus the actions would be that much harsher and significantly more determined.

But in general there doesn't seem to have been much reason for sieges. No polis was strong enough to really subjugate an equal or near equal enemy even after a massive victory (such as the Spartan killing of most of the Argive male population in a sacred grove), and there wasn't any incentive to keep forces in the subjugated areas (farmers again). And driving the defeated enemy off entirely was not possible either as it is only possible for one man to farm that much land. So the victor would be satisfied with taking a small bite, more would just give more problems.

conon394

03-16-2005, 06:53

Kraxis
"The problem with the walls are that the Athenian walls were only erected just prior to the Poloponnesian Wars and walls elsewhere weren't that much older if at all. Hoplite warfare was much older..."

Athens rebuilt the walls around the city in the immediate aftermath of Xerxes invasions. Archeology and Literary sources like Herodotus put walls around the Ionian cities and Erythrae as early as the Ionian revolt and the Persian wars.

Kraxis

03-16-2005, 14:27

Yes, but this was at the time when the warfare was benning to change from purely farmers going out settle a dispute over a patch of land to more serious warfare. We are talking about a period from around 700 to 300BC, half the time there weren't any walls.
The Ionian cities had a great incentive to build walls with the Persian army basically sitting on their doorstep and themselves not strong enough to oppose it.
The cities on the greek mainland had no such incentive and thus few walls were built if at all.

The Athenian walls were built in succession from 461 to 445BC ending with the South Wall. I wouldn't say that is very close to the invasion of Xerxes, but ok it isn't closer to the Poloponnesian Wars, so lets say it was in between.

conon394

03-16-2005, 17:14

Kraxis

I'm not really sure about the ideal that walls were rare.
I can see if you were suggesting only the archaic classical period say 800 - 600/550 BC. But after about 500 B.C I cannot think of a single example of a polis without a wall, except in the specific context a major power ordering the walls of a dependency or defeated enemy torn down.

Walls certainly exited at Megara and Corinth and before 500 B.C., and at Eretria.

I agree the long walls were completed comparatively late, but the Athenians becoming building or rebuilding their city walls as soon after Plataea, and if I'm not mistaken the Peraeus was designed as a fortified port from it's inception.

Titus Livius

By the way, you can drop the dripping sarcasm. Make your point and succor your emotions elsewhere.

Sorry to have offended you.

The "Greeks" of Sicily and Italy are not what is being discussed here. The subject is mainland Greece, not the pseudo-Greeks that were flung all across the Mediterannean world.

"pseudo-greeks" I don't understand why you dismiss them as such or exclude them from a discussion of Greek warfare in the classical age. Rather, it seems to me attempt to characterize a normal or standard way of Greek warfare that requires waving away potentially the majority of Greek cities is not truly valid.

468B.C. is the date the destruction of Mycenae by Argos (see Diodorus). I did not mean to suggest it was a major city, just independent, and that Argos a mid-sized city eliminated it in a calculating way.

Count

As for poor Mycenae in 468 B.C., again, we are talking about the revolt of a subject people: Mycenae at that time was a dependency of Argos. Apparently, the classical Greeks didn't take kindly to revolts among the subjected multitudes.

I don't think you can say Mycenae was a dependant to Argos, or that the Greeks would see her as such. Diodurus is clear is saying Mycenae accepted no claims of Archive suzerainty. Mycenae joined the Hellenic league against the Mede. In 468 she was an independent polis, and still a member of the Hellenic League. The Argives are clearly taking advantage of the earthquake and the helot revolt at Sparta to crush and wipeout Mycenae. The Argives acted quickly to seize a golden opportunity to remove Mycenae, enrich themselves and intimidate the other towns in the Argolid. Although it is conjecture on my part, I would say the Argives were clearly as ruthless as Alexander, or Philp. Mycenae was never reoccupied, which suggests to me the male population was probably put to the sword, thus no substantial body of exiles remained to return to the site at a later time. Say after the conclusion of the first Peloponnesian war or the second when Sparta was ascendant, and could and would certainly have reestablished a hostile polis (hostile to Argos, that is) in the Argolid.

Although it is conjecture on my part, I waould say the Argives were clearly as ruthleess as Alexander, or Philp. Mycenae was never reocupied, which suggestes to me the meale population ws probably put to the sword, thus no subsatioal body of exiles reamianed to reinhabit the site at a later time when say sparata was accendant, and could and would certainly have restablish hostlie polis (hostile to argos, that is)in the Argolid.

Count Belisarius

03-16-2005, 20:51

I don't think you can say Mycenae was a dependant to Argos, or that the Greeks would see her as such. Diodurus is clear is saying Mycenae accepted no claims of Archive suzerainty. Mycenae joined the Hellenic league against the Mede. In 468 she was an independent polis, and still a member of the Hellenic League. The Argives are clearly taking advantage of the earthquake and the helot revolt at Sparta to crush and wipeout Mycenae. The Argives acted quickly to seize a golden opportunity to remove Mycenae, enrich themselves and intimidate the other towns in the Argolid. Although it is conjecture on my part, I would say the Argives were clearly as ruthless as Alexander, or Philp. Mycenae was never reoccupied, which suggests to me the male population was probably put to the sword, thus no substantial body of exiles remained to return to the site at a later time. Say after the conclusion of the first Peloponnesian war or the second when Sparta was ascendant, and could and would certainly have reestablished a hostile polis (hostile to Argos, that is) in the Argolid.

Although it is conjecture on my part, I waould say the Argives were clearly as ruthleess as Alexander, or Philp. Mycenae was never reocupied, which suggestes to me the meale population ws probably put to the sword, thus no subsatioal body of exiles reamianed to reinhabit the site at a later time when say sparata was accendant, and could and would certainly have restablish hostlie polis (hostile to argos, that is)in the Argolid.

I have reviewed the pertinent sections of Diodorus's work: 11th book, Sections 65.1-65.5. You are correct in your statement that Mycenae disputed Argive claims to leadership of the Argolid, and that this probably was the cause of the conflict between the two. Pausanias attributes the cause of the conflict to a loss of Argive face over Mycenae sharing in the glory of Thermopylae while Argos remained neutral, and this jealousy may have contributed, but I personally believe the Argives had more pragmatic goals in mind. Therefore, my earlier claim of "dependency" was in error, and I retract all statements to that effect. And indeed, the Argives certainly did take ruthless advantage of Sparta's distraction with the earthquake and the helot revolts.

However, I will reiterate my previous position: I was referring to the actual phalanx v. phlanx. BATTLES themselves, not sieges, not sacking of cities, not revolts, etc., were relatively bloodless and stylized prior to the First Peloponnesian War.