Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
All are involved ceaselessly in a lifelong war against all states. (Plato, Laws, 625e)
For they who were the chosen bravest Awaited the Trojans and noble Hektor, fencing spear with Spear, and shield with serried shield; shield pressed on Shield, helmet on helmet, and man on man; and the horseHair crests on the bright helmet ridges touched each other As the men moved their heads, in such close array stood They by one another, and spears in bold hands overlapped Each other as they were brandished, and their minds Swerved not, but they were eager to fight.
Hoplon (tool, weapon, shield) Hoplite soldiers equipment: helmet, shield (bronze), spear (nine feet long), short iron sword, shin-guards or greaves (bronze), breastplate (cuirass), weighing about sixty pounds Citizens of poleis possessing enough wealth to equip themselves with full personal armor (in Athens, the zeugitae of Solons property classes) Phalanx: Formation of hoplites (at least four men deep), marches to paean, flutes, drums providing cadence, breaks into run and attempts to hold formation before collision. Position of Honor and Phenomenon of Right-Drift
Hoplite Panoply
Imagining the Experience: Terror and Religious Awe in the Hoplite Encounter
Ritual Preparations: Taking the Omens (Hepatoscopy); Delays Rhythmic Marching (trance-like state of march, drums, flutes, shield clashing, battle song) War Cry (see, for example, Xenophon, Anabasis, 4.2.12) Sacrifices during Battle (see, for example, Herodotus, Histories, 9.61-62) Mitigating the Terror: Alcohol (see, for example, Xenophon, Hellenica, 6.4.8-9) Charge and Defecation (see, for example, Plutarch, Life of Aratus, 29.5) Altered States of Consciousness: Supernatural Interventions (see, for example, Herodotus, Histories, 6.117)
To a much greater extent than modern warfare, every phalanx battle was the decisive actiona sudden one-shot do-or-die experience that each man in the ranks had to confront without psychic preparation.
Victor Davis Hanson, The Western Way of War
In Sparta they immolate puppies to the bloodiest of the gods, [Ares] Enyalius. (Plutarch, Moralia, 290-d)
Before the fighting [the Spartans] sacrifice in the Phoebaeum [Place of Fear], which is outside the city, not far distant from Therapn. Here each company of youths sacrifices a puppy to [Ares] Enyalius, holding that the most valiant of the tame animals is an acceptable victim to the most valiant of the gods. (Pausanias, 1.14.9)
Hoplites as Homoioi of the Polis: Fosters notions of political egalitarianism (of adult male citizens of the requisite property class) Wars suspended in religious truces (Olympic Games) Warfare accommodates agricultural calendar Warfare restricted to circumscribed, if horrifically brutal, encounters of short duration Symbolic, not total, victory (tropaion)
A Hoplites Departure