Review of War and Violence
in Ancient Greece, edited by Hans van Wees
Bryn Mawr Classical Review 16.12.2001
Review by John Lewis, Department of History and Political Science,
Ashland University
This selection of papers was drawn from a seminar series War
and Violence in Greek Society, delivered at the Institute for
Classical Studies, London, in spring of 1998. The volume has
three stated aims: first, to connect war to wider issues of
conflict on psychological and sociological terms; second, to
address current controversies in studies of archaic and classical
warfare; and, third, to challenge the idea that there was a
radical break in warfare after the rise of Macedonia and the
Hellenistic kingdoms. Individual papers are generally focused
tightly on these topics, and their organization is clear in
the Introduction and the Table of Contents. This volume is required
reading for everyone interested in Greek battle, warfare, and
violence, and indeed in the experience of battle across human
history.
The two essays of Part I "Causes of War" focus on
psychological aspects of war and violence. Lendon uses Homeric
vengeance to interpret classical warfare, placing revenge, manifested
predominantly as anger and resulting acts of violence, at the
heart of Greek war. Although practices of blood revenge had
declined since ca. 650 BC, the ethos of vengeance continued,
and it is possible to distinguish violence based on revenge
from that based on other, less personal, motives. As Homeric
vengeance killings are characterized by mutilation of the enemy,
so the utter destruction of an enemy polis in the classical
period is an act of vengeance. It is a root premise of this
article that there are psychological elements common to the
Homeric and classical experiences, but the author does not explicitly
justify this abstraction of a psychological cause from these
very different contexts. This is a problem within Greek history
itself, since the question remains as to why the classical Greeks
were able to subordinate, or at least transfer, their desire
for revenge within the city to a deliberative forum, while interstate
relations remained so often a matter of physical confrontation.
A deeper justification is needed for using Homer, the epic story
of a war against non-Greeks, to interpret historical evidence
for violence between Greek poleis.
In an essay that links our present to the Homeric past, Shay
returns to the themes of his book Achilles in Vietnam: Combat
Trauma and the Undoing of Character in his essay "Killing
rage: Physis or nomos -- or both?" He begins with the questions
"Are war and violence 'human nature', biologically constructed
like breathing? Or are they human social practices, historically
and culturally constructed protocols" without biological
inevitability? Shay's answer is that thumos, like language,
is a human universal that is no less biological than breathing,
but that the content of thumos, like vocabulary and syntax,
is "culturally constructed through historical social practice."
"Attachments, ambitions and ideals" are the "features
of the normal adult world which control thumotic emotions and
moods." Thumos itself, according to Shay a synonym for
character, exists largely in relation to social power and the
society's moral order. It is "evolved out of violence and
war in our ancestral evolutionary past and still explosive when
hit." Social construction "determines what constitutes
a hit." "High stakes threats of destruction to thumos
-- to attachments, ideals, ambitions -- trigger killing rage
against the human source of this threat. It is our species,
nature."
It is the nature / nurture alternative that makes this approach
unsatisfying, and undercuts Shay's strong conclusion that "we
can end" war. If each of us is determined by natural and
cultural factors, both experienced now and inherited from the
past, then how are we to change the content of our thumos? Within
this structure of determinism it follows logically that the
solution to the problem of war can only be found in social engineering,
the conscious creation of new cultural conditions by which our
children are not influenced by inappropriate social forces.
But social engineering, in practice, means the application of
government power to enforce certain ideals. How can we use such
power, given our vulnerability to cultural and historical conditions?
If our own characters are molded by evolutionary and social
forces, how are we to step out of character and teach our children?
In these terms the answer appears as elusive for us as it did
for Plato.
Shay's essay suggests a better answer, albeit implicitly. He
observes that the human brain evolved in a very short period
of time, approx. 250,000 to 50,000 years ago, as shown by the
presence of flaked flint, bone and antler tools. These tools
accompanied the first art and are therefore evidence for culture.
Shay pursues the social implications of this ("it is our
animal nature to be social") but lets drop his observation
that "these tool kits varied dramatically from place to
place, often within only 50 miles, and they became unfrozen
in time." The reason for this, I maintain, is that individual
people producing the tools thought, and exercised free will,
in producing their innovations. They were not culturally determined
in any primary sense; they created culture, and broke with the
past in doing so. We should consider that the answer to war
and violence is to be found in rational thought, and that thinking,
not nature or nurture, is the answer to war. It may be that
only with this perspective can we understand the full meaning
of Shay's important and moving observation that the traumatized
soldiers in Vietnam are not the obstacles to the elimination
of war. It was not the hits on their honor that caused the conflict
but the decisions of men in offices thousands of miles away.
Part II, "Forms of Violence within the Polis," turns
to the sociological aspects of this volume's first aim. Hornblower
explores "Sticks, stones, and Spartans: the sociology of
Spartan violence." Thucydides 8.84 tells us that Syracusan
and Thurian sailors rushed the Spartan commander Astyochus with
the intent of stoning him when he threatened one of their number
with his bacterie. Why? This fascinating paper begins with a
detailed examination of what a bacterie and a skeptron are,
widening to consider the master / slave relationship, and then
the relationship between the Spartans and the other Greek forces.
The skeptron and the bacterie have fundamental connections
to issues of force, power and violence. The commander who wields
a stick is holding an instrument that is relatively powerless
in and of itself, but that conveys commanding power to the one
holding it. Analogously, in the game of chess the king is the
least powerful piece on the board, but his fate determines the
outcome of the game. Similarly slave-owners and those who treat
others as slaves rely on the symbols of power rather than the
actual application of violence. The passage that brings this
to life is Hdt 4.3, when the Scythians regain the upper hand
against their slaves only after they put down their spears and
bows and show the slaves their whips. This leads the insurgents
to lose heart, and to remember their place as slaves. In the
Thucydides passage the Greek sailors rose against the Spartan
commander because the Spartan had a habit of treating free men
as if they were helots. This is a powerful explanation for the
course of events that followed the Spartan defeat of Athens.
Hybris and revenge for the slighting of honor are the subjects
of Fisher's contribution. Highly organized, violent conflicts,
and the collective hatreds they reflect, may be based on personal
hatreds engendered by personal slights, quarrels and feuds.
It is an error to fail to consider these personal factors when
considering institutionalized warfare. Placing political thought
and action within ideas of honor and revenge, Fisher turns to
Solon's poetry, the Theognidea, drama and the historians, and
finds "specific outrages as individual sparking points
for violent retaliation" to be a constant through the sources.
If Fisher is right, then the Greeks dampened violence inside
the polis by transferring the contest over honor to the arenas
of discourse and law. Although there is little that is ground-breaking
in this essay, it is a worthwhile reminder of the importance
of honor and revenge in matters of institutionalized conflict
in the Greek past, and it rounds out this volume's examination
of the psychological factors that contribute to the outbreak
of violence.
Part III, "Beyond the Classical Phalanx," is comprised
of five papers dealing directly with the nuts and bolts of war.
These papers, more than the others, show the depths of disagreements
that remain over the basic nature of Greek warfare and battle.
First, van Wees uses iconography to question the conclusion
that the hoplite phalanx was adopted in the early archaic period;
in his view, it emerged over two centuries, and its development
may not have been complete before the Persian Wars. Archaic
iconography suggests the use of two spears by hoplites; archaic
poetry speaks of archers and missile attack; lead figure dedications
in the late seventh century are of squatting archers; and the
Greek armies at Marathon and Thermopylae were far more maneuverable
than the forces in the Peloponnesian War. To Van Wees the evidence
does not support an outright claim that the phalanx was not
in use before the Persian Wars, but the possibility must not
be dismissed out of hand. This essay should trigger a re-examination
of the premises underlying our modern conclusions about the
historical development of the phalanx.
Krentz questions a different truth by focusing on deception
in Greek warfare. Numerous examples indicate a willingness to
outsmart an enemy through ruse and misinformation. Rather than
adhering to an ideal by slugging it out on a level battlefield,
the use of deception also connects the classical Greeks with
Homeric warriors; for each, shrewd thinking and outwitting the
enemy are important values. Although an ideal of "fair
fighting" may have arisen with the archaic phalanx, this
ethos may not have taken strong root in actual practice. The
Peloponnesian War may have been a turning point, a conflict
so deadly that any means to defeat the enemy was fair. Krentz
provides a valuable appendix with over 140 examples of deception,
including surprise attacks as well as outright deception. Clearly
scholars who consider the ideal of hoplite battle to be the
dominant practice must account for the deceit found in the evidence.
But further work should be done to distinguish passive deceptions
(based on a lack of information by the enemy, and including
sneak attacks) from active deception (in which wrong information
is intentionally conveyed).
Among these essays Hanson's piece embraces most closely the
generally accepted view, that the phalanx was the most common,
and preferred, method of fighting. He offers what may be the
most important statement in this section: "The term hoplite
warfare is in some sense an abstraction." Openly admitting
that the flux of military events spanning four centuries includes
many instances of non-hoplite warfare, Hanson abstracts the
ideal from these events, maintaining that hoplite fighting was
closest to the methods needed to quickly resolve disputes over
land, and that it remained the ideal method of fighting in general.
Hanson clearly considers traditional hoplite fighting to be
more important than the deceptions listed by Krentz and the
extraneous activities listed by Rawlings in the following article.
Although he may be right to consider hoplite battle to be the
most common form of institutionalized violence and a recognized
ideal, it is clear that not every general thought so in every
case. This is not surprising, given an attempt to minimize the
slaughter that was central to it. The ideal can be approached
in many ways, and the Greek could break with it if lives were
at stake.
Krentz's list of deceptions has affinities with Rawlings' 'Alternative
Agonies: Hoplite martial and combat experiences beyond the phalanx.'
Although the hoplite is best known for forming a line and bearing
the shock of armored attack, "many hoplites were military
all-rounders, able to perform in a variety of combat contexts.
Their training and equipment allowed them a military flexibility
greater than modern theorists often allow." A significant
factor in the longevity of the hoplite was precisely his ability
to row, build walls, conduct fast raids and reprisals, and man
garrisons and warning posts. Rawlings takes this examination
into the Athenian ephebeia, arguing (contra Vidal-Naquet) that
this was not a ritualistic antithesis of hoplite activities,
but rather the essential training requiring for hoplite duties.1
Rawlings counters the objection that the hoplite was only truly
effective in a phalanx with evidence for running in full panoply
(including modern tests), and with the use of dance as training
for soldiers. The same conclusion follows for this article as
for the others in this section: the actual time of the hoplite
clash was brief, and we must not assume that the clash was the
only thing of importance. Much else is required to prepare for
the intensity of battle: to solidify a strategic position, to
row, and to remain in top physical condition.
Strauss intends less to solve the question of the lack of commemoration
of classical-period seamen than to elucidate issues underlying
the problem. Why is there such a lack of memorials to Athenian
sailors, both literary and monumental, in classical Athens?
Despite considerable pressures on commanders to find lost seamen,
natural conditions may account to some extent for their inability
to bring the bodies home. It is unlikely that a body would be
recovered if not found within a few hours, as Strauss' detailed
explanation of what happens to a body at sea makes clear. But
there are also ideological reasons. Although he was an expert
on sea power, "Thucydides seems to have been tone deaf
to the sound of oars," his silence betraying his contempt
for rowers. Similar views would have prevented the recording
of sailors' names on private funerary monuments. Yet there remains
no obstacle to the recording of seamen's names on the annual
lists of war dead displayed in the Ceramicus, and Strauss concludes
that democratic control of political decisions makes it likely
that the rowers had their place in those records. However, without
new evidence it remains unlikely that Strauss' suggestion can
be validated.
Part IV, "War and Religion," follows as its title
promises. Deacy takes issue with the dichotomy between Ares
and Athena, arguing that to see the figures as respectively
brutal strength versus clarity and rationality fails to capture
the nuances of their complex natures. Rather than accepting
such a dichotomy, Deacy sees the figures as embodying the contradictions
found in civilized societies that go to war. Structuralism reveals
many similarities between the figures; for example, the war
cry, a terrifying gaze, and a delight in battle. The main point
of difference is in Athena's ability to "dissociate herself
from her warlike power in ways that Ares cannot." Her removable
armour, a contrast with the blood that covers Ares, shows the
"fundamentally detachable" nature of her warrior power.
In structuralist terms, this may be read as an opposition between
armour and natural forces. But this reader is uneasy; it may
be that, to the Greeks, the essence of clarity / rationality
was not the consistent rejection of war, but rather the ability
to fight when it was appropriate and to take off the armor when
it was not.
The ritualistic sacrifice that takes place before every battle,
and indeed at various stages of military operations, is Parker's
subject in "Sacrifice and Battle." In delimiting a
period in which Greek fighters used sacrifice of the Xenophonic
type, Parker sees indications that it is post-Homeric, rising
in the archaic period and phasing out at the start of the Hellenistic
period. The post-classical decline of these rituals relates
to the nature of political organization and to military command.
In the classical period sacrifice may have served to offer reassurance
to otherwise peaceful men, and to provide a means of control
on the "civic general." Both of these functions were
inescapable, but they decline in importance during the Hellenistic
monarchies. Consequently the commonly accepted view that, after
Gaugamela, Alexander's person substituted for omens as a guarantee
of military success, may be correct. Nevertheless, generals
needed seers, and often used them with flexibility to support
their tactics. The seer becomes simply a tool of control over
the army. The repetition of rituals so that the seer can bring
in the prognosis that the general needs underscores the pragmatic
use that generals made of seers. No self-confident general would
be willing to elevate the ideal represented by the seer over
his own immediate judgment. This highlights problems that the
essay does not address: what is the nature of the "reassurance"
that the seer offers, how does the authority of the seer change
as ideologies change after Alexander, and how does this relate
to the form of legitimacy conferred on military commanders?
Part V of this book is concerned with showing that there was
no radical break in the practices of warfare corresponding with
the rise of the Macedonian phalanx and the Hellenistic kingdoms.
Beston's focus on Hellenistic military leadership points to
moral qualities as central to the explanations offered by ancient
historians for military successes and failures; apart from our
views today, to the ancient historians these were the real explanations.
The generals developed virtue through total mental and physical
immersion in their task, a form of self-denial. There is a tension
between the general's need to excel through personal prowess
on the battlefield while avoiding actions that put him needlessly
at risk. However, other than noting the failure of Hellenistic
accounts to resolve questions about the commander's role while
providing increased details of the general's personal prowess,
this essay does not always live up to the "continuities"
theme promised in the section title.
In particular, although the essay stresses the similarities
between classical and post-classical practices by using a classical
source to establish the problem, the differences between these
periods are often not clearly stated. The essay also tends to
bounce between classical and post-classical sources without
making clear the implications of the chronology. For instance,
a sub-section "masculinity" is based primarily on
Plutarch and Polybius, citing Xenophon as a precedent. The next
sub-section "Training" focuses on Xenophon, with scant
mention of later sources and no explanation for why the fourth
century writer should be used this way. This method leaves various
problems unresolved, not the least of which is the matter of
reciprocity and its continuity into the post-classical world.
Reciprocity is, according to the author's statement in his last
paragraph, the system within which "the representation
of duty as benefaction" is situated. But what is the nature
of that "duty" in the classical and post-classical
contexts, and how do enhanced accounts in the Hellenistic historians
of the personal prowess of generals relate to the continued
relevance of reciprocity in that period?
The Hellenistic king's legitimacy as well as his treasury were
dependent on warfare that raged on a wider scale than the inter-polis
fighting of the classical period. Yet, Ma reminds us, wars between
poleis continued into the Hellenistic period, and polis ideals,
customs and institutions could be important factors in wars
between empires. After presenting the contemporary conclusion
that he wishes to contest, namely that the Hellenistic poleis
were "powerless and militarily defenseless," Ma turns
almost exclusively to post-classical sources in order to show
how the polis factored into Hellenistic military affairs. In
addition to matters such as physical fortifications, the conscripting
of personnel, and institutional deliberations and decisions,
the polis also figured centrally in matters causal to war, such
as territorial disputes, self-defense and the desire for increased
territory. Even issues in which there is a clear break with
the fourth century, such as military institutions and the tactics
of fighting, show signs of continuity. Ultimately the nature
of the polis as an autarkic, self-governing body underwent a
process of slow transformation, and its capacity for violence
and aggression against other poleis could break out whenever
the specter of a threatening empire was removed. To get to the
bottom of this claim will require more precise identification
of the relationships between factors within the polis and events
external to it, including research into particular poleis rather
than a sample across the board. But the essay supports its central
point clearly.
This is an important volume. Art historians, sociologists,
psychologists, military theorists and students of ancient religion
will all find food for thought. The volume's organization makes
selective identification of narrow topics easy. Krentz's list
of deceptions is in particular a valuable resource. The differences
of opinion held by the contributors, and the numerous challenges
they offer to the accepted conclusions of today, should help
put to bed the idea that there was any single way in which a
Greek could wage war, or that the loss of Greek political independence
resulted in the immediate overthrow of traditional forms of
institutionalized violence--or that we can understand such violence
apart from the moral and psychological factors emphasized by
the sources.
Notes:
1. Vidal-Naquet, P., The Black Hunter: Forms of
thought and forms of society in the Greek world, Baltimore,
1986. p. 120.
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