Masters of the Country: Aspects of Archaic Greek Land Warfare

Archaic and classical Greek infantries fought in a close-order tactical formation known as the hoplite phalanx. As an instrument of military power, the phalanx provided the poleis (city-states) of the classical period (479-323 BCE) with forces that would prove all but invincible against "barbarian" armies and, in the version adopted by Alexander, would fundamentally alter the political face of a large part of the Eurasian landmass. However, the origins of the phalanx in the archaic period (c. 700-490 BCE) are obscure. In this study, I challenge a widely held belief that the earliest hoplite phalanxes were composed of citizen soldiers. Traditionally, scholars have assumed that the first phalanx armies were composed of citizens and that the invention of the phalanx in part impelled the creation of the polis. But if the first phalanxes were composed not of citizens but retainers of warlords, this changes the way the origins of the polis should be viewed. This reevaluation would in turn cause us to reconsider the genesis of a paradigmatic form of political community. I propose that the poleis did not adopt citizen armies on a widespread basis until c. 575-550 BCE, 125 years after the first phalanxes appeared. I argue that the earliest phalanxes were made up of mercenaries or soldiers serving as the retainers of aristocratic warlords and that the tactical changes that gave rise to the phalanx took place on the periphery of the great empires of the Near East and Egypt.