Less Civilized Factions

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

that's quite an interesting viewpoint...

This clash between tribal "individual heroism" and the modern "disciplined mass army" model is very evident in Homer's Iliad ...
We have from one side the epitome of the hero warrior Achiles whose life evolves around notions of personal fame, glory and loot ... he's unwieldy, selfish and defies and disrespects the power of his king and army leader ... the cause of final victory is not central but merely peripheral in his lifeview...
On the other side we have the character of Hector... Hector is in fact the "Modern Man" , a product of duty, law, state and family values... he's essentialy a paradigm of the citizen-soldier ideal a soldier if need be but also a statesman, a husband , a father and a son... in short the "civil man" whose life is centered on common good (=Freudian superego) ...
The Homeric allegory is very revealing...

Coming forth from the epic era dominated by raw and primal instincts, Greeks achieved to develop a prevailing second nature, one that was characterized by their sense of rigid self discipline, measure and constraint over their all consuming and potentially destructive passions ...(of course in practice the results of this civil harnessing were not always that succesful)...
The sociopolitical roots of this self-overcoming can be genealogically outlined in a complex, copious and lengthy transformation of the Greek political model: From tribal kingdoms governed by relentless and vigorous hero-warrior-rulers (which were in fact the Mycenean societies) , to decentralized city states dominated by a dignified and dynamic middle-class citizenship. Retrospectively the content of the prevailing ideal has accordingly shifted: The qualities of classic civility, participation and modesty replaced the all domineering, warlike, assertive, traits of epic exploits and violence...

That's an interesting take-on on the subject, even if too slightly Classicist. In my view, primeval societies always had that "heroic" emphasis; compare Medieval Europe with the Celts for example. Both had a fierce warrior ethos which had almost constant emphasis on the individual feats of glory and all the like.

Yet this seems to convene the idea that both periods had an essentially undisciplined mob passing for an army. Both the Celts and later Medieval armies (as well as the early Homeric Greeks) had a developed notion of collective warfare and even collective glory, it was just seen as "honourable" and fit to let strong warriors take the initiative sometimes. This all changes in a "later" period: the Hoplite (which was a soldier forfeiting all personal glory for formation work) replaces old Homeric warfare, while in Europe the old knightly ethos crumbled in favour of mass mercenary armies, although it did survive for much longer in one or other aspect (the systematic practice and organization of duels being one of them). Celtic society might have benefited from a similar shift if they hadn't been erased from the map all too early - most of the old elites were almost dead, and so on.