Hoplites vs Pikes...

[Titus Livius]

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.

[Watchman]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

...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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

Right, the Macedonians were the first to implement the brutal efficiency of war in the West. It was a rude awakening for the Greek poleis.

[Titus Livius]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.