Ambush Read online

  Dolon flanked by Odysseus and Diomedes. Red-figured calyx-krater, The Dolon Painter. British Museum B8168

  Ambush: Surprise Attack in Ancient Greek Warfare

  This edition published in 2012 by Frontline Books,

  an imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd,

  47 Church Street, Barnsley, S. Yorkshire, S70 2AS

  www.frontline-books.com

  Copyright © Rose Mary Sheldon, 2012

  Frontispiece image © The Trustees of the British Museum

  The right of Rose Mary Sheldon to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  ISBN: 978-1-84832-592-0

  eISBN: 978-1-78303-648-6

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

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  Typeset in 11/14 point Garamond in Edinburgh by Wordsense Ltd

  In Memoriam

  Inge Hynes

  Incomparable mother and friend

  4 November 1922, Gleiwitz, Silesia

  – 28 July 2003, Arlington, Virginia

  Contents

  List of Maps

  Abbreviations

  Acknowledgements

  Preface

  Introduction: The Odysseus Syndrome

  Maps

  1 Ambush in the Iliad

  2 The Ill-fated Trojan Spy

  3 Ambush in the Odyssey

  4 The Archaic Age and the Problem of the Phalanx

  5 Surprise Attacks – Fifth Century

  6 Night Attack

  7 Surprise Landings, and Assault by Sea

  8 The Age of Light-Armed

  9 The Successor States and into the Hellenistic Age

  10 Why the Greeks Used Ambush

  Conclusion: The Complexity of Greek Warfare

  Notes

  Bibliography

  List of Maps

  1 Ancient Greece

  2 Sphacteria

  3 Central Greece and the Chalcidice

  4 Northern Greece

  5 The Athenian attack on Syracuse

  6 Central Greece

  7 Sicily

  8 The Aegean and Asia Minor

  9 The Hellespont

  10 Athens and Piraeus

  11 Boeotia, Thebes

  Abbreviations

  ABSA Annual of the British School at Athens. London, Institute of Classical Studies

  AC Antiquité Classique. Louvain-la-Neuve, Institut d’Archéologie, Collège Erasme

  AE L’année Épigraphique. Paris, Presses Universitaires

  AFLS Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia. Perugia, Università degli Studi

  AHB Ancient History Bulletin. Calgary, Alberta, Department of Classics

  AHR American Historical Review. Washington, DC, American Historical Association

  AJA American Journal of Archaeology. Boston, Archaeological Institute of America

  AJAH American Journal of Ancient History. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University

  AJPh American Journal of Philology. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press

  AncW Ancient World. Chicago, Ares Publishers

  AntCl L’Antiquité Classique. Louvain-la-Neuve

  ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt. Geschichte und Kultur Roms in Spiegel der neueren Forschung, Berlin, de Gruyter

  Athenaeum Athenaeum Studi Periodici de Letteratura e Storia dell’Antichità. Università di Pavia

  ATINER Athens Institute for Education and Research

  AW Antike Welt. Zürich

  BCE Before the Common Era

  BCH Bulletin de Correspondence Hellénique. Paris, de Boccard

  BG Caesar, De Bello Gallico. Julius Caesar, The Gallic War

  BJ Bonner Jahrbücher des Rheinischen Landesmuseums in Bonn und des Vereins von Altertumsfreunden im Rheinlande, Köln, Böhlau

  Boreas Boreas. Münstersche Beiträge zur Archaeologie, Münster, Archaeologischen Seminar der Universität

  BSA The Annual of the British School at Athens. London

  BSAF Bulletin de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires de France. Paris, Klincksieck

  ByzZeit Byzantinische Zeitschrift. Munich, Beck

  CAH Cambridge Ancient History. Lewis, I. E. S. et al. (eds), London: Cambridge University Press, 1970

  CAH2 Cambridge Ancient History. J. B. Bury, S. A. Cook, F. E. Adcock et al. (eds), New York: Macmillan, 1924–1966

  CB The Classical Bulletin. St Louis, Missouri, Department of Classical Languages at Saint Louis University

  Chiron Chiron Mitteilungen der Kommission für Alte Geschichte und Epigraphik des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts. Munich, Beck

  CHGRW Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare. Sabin, P., Wees, H. van and Whitby, M. (eds)

  CJ The Classical Journal. Athens, Georgia, University of Georgia

  CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum

  ClAnt Classical Antiquity. Berkeley, University of California Press

  C&M Classica et Mediaevalia. Révue danoise d’Histoire et de Philologie, Copenhagen, Gyldendal

  CP Classical Philology. Chicago, University of Chicago Press

  CQ Classical Quarterly. Oxford University Press

  CR Classical Review. Oxford University Press

  CRAI Comptes Rendus de l’Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. Paris: de Boccard

  CW The Classical World. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Duquesne University

  DHA Dialogues d’Histoire Ancienne. Paris

  DOP Dumbarton Oaks Papers. New York

  Eranos Eranos. Acta Philologica Suecana, Uppsala, Eranos Förlag

  FM US Army Field Manual

  Germania Germania. Anzeiger der Röm-Germ, Kommission des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, Mainz, von Zabern

  G & R Greece & Rome. Oxford, The Clarendon Press

  Gnomon Gnomon Kritische Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Klassische Altertumswissenschaft. Munich, Beck

  GRBS Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies. Durham, North Carolina, Duke University

  HCT A Historical Commentary on Thucydides. A. W. Gomme

  Hellénica Recueil d’Eprigraphie de Numismatique et d’Antiquités Grecques. Paris’ Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient Adrien-Maisonneuve

  Hermes Zeitschrift für klassische Philologie. Wiesbaden, Steiner

  HSCPh Harvard Studies in Classical Philology. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press

  Historia Historia. Révue d’Histoire Ancienne, Wiesbaden, Steiner

  IJIC International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence

  ILS Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae. Hermann Dessau (ed.)

  JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies. London

  JRS Journal of Roman Studies. London

  Klio Klio. Beiträge zur alten Geschichte. Berlin, Akademie Verlag

  Latomus Latomus Révue d’Études Latines. Brussels

  LCM Liverpool Classical Monthly. University of Liverpool

  MAAR Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. Rome, American Academy

  MEFR Mélanges d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de l’École Française de Rome. Paris, de Boccard

  NYRB N
ew York Review of Books

  PBA Proceedings of the British Academy. Oxford University Press

  PEQ Palestine Exploration Quarterly

  Phoenix The Phoenix. The Journal of the Classical Association of Canada, Toronto, University of Toronto Press

  PP La Parola del Passato. Rivista di Studi antichi, Napoli, Macchiaroli

  P&P Past and Present. A Journal of Historical Studies. Kendal, Wilson

  RA Revue Archéologique. Paris: Presses Universitaires

  R-E Real-Encyclopädie der Klassischen Altertumswissenschaft. Pauly–Wissowa (eds)

  REG Revue des Études Grecques. Paris, Les Belles Lettres

  REL Révue des Études Latines. Paris, Les Belles Lettres

  RhM Rheinisches Museum. Frankfurt, Saverländer

  RömMitt Mitteilungen des deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung

  RSA Rivista Storica dell’Antichità. Bologna, Patron

  SHA Scriptores Historiae Augustae

  TAPA Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association

  Thuc. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War

  YCS Yale Classical Studies. New Haven, Yale University Press

  ZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik. Bonn, Habelt

  Acknowledgements

  EVERY PROJECT FINDS ME in debt to friends and colleagues. This one is no exception. My research depends on the friendly and knowledgeable help of librarians like Janet Holly, Megan Newman and Tom Panko of the Virginia Military Institute who help search down materials and get them sent here to our little corner of Virginia. Elizabeth Teaff at Washington and Lee was particularly helpful with those last few works that just seem to disappear just when you needed them. The staff at the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia was as professional as always. The maps were done by Michele Angel with help from Michael Brickler and Cathy Wells of the VMI Media Services.

  I thank my readers especially John Karras, Jeff Aubert, M. Brian Phillips and the late John MacIssac, who each in their own way saved me from errors of fact or interpretation. I am indebted to the anonymous reader who politely took me to task over several entries. The errors that remain are mine and mine alone.

  I am grateful to Michael Leventhal at Frontline Books for believing in the project and to my editors Deborah Hercun and Stephen Chumbley for seeing the manuscript through the publication process. The editorial staff, especially Joanna Chisholm, has helped put together a beautiful and accurate volume, and it is for that reason and their professionalism that I keep coming back to them with my book projects.

  During the time it takes to produce a book, one must work through the material by giving public lectures before various audiences who can provide useful feedback. Chapter 8 of this book was presented as a paper* at the 2007 Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER) in Athens, Greece. The editor for that article was particularly helpful. I also presented papers to the Virginia Social Science Association and Roman Army School of the Hadrianic Society in Durham. I thank the students in my Greek military history class whose military training gave me a great sounding board for my thesis.

  I was exceedingly fortunate in getting an advanced copy of Casey Dué and Mary Ebbott’s ground-breaking book Iliad 10 and the Poetics of Ambush from the authors. It helped me clarify many points in chapter 2. I thank the authors for their help, and I cannot recommend their book highly enough for those interested in the poetics of the Doloneia.

  The 1,000 or so endnotes will prove my indebtedness to the scholars who have come before me. I hope that I have cited them correctly and have been gracious in my disagreements.

  Finally, and on a more personal note, I thank Katherline Vergolias whose hard work buys me the time to sit and think and write, and Jeffrey Aubert who not only graciously tolerated my insanity throughout the struggles of book production, but also had the generosity and good taste to take me to Venice when it was all over.

  *The paper was published in ‘The Odysseus syndrome: Ambush and surprise in ancient Greek warfare’, in Gregory T. Papanikos and Nicholas C. J. Pappas (eds), European History: Lessons for the Twenty-First Century, essays from the Third International Conference on European History (Athens: ATINER, 2007), ch. 8.

  Preface

  BOOKS ON WARFARE IN ancient Greece are plentiful these days but they continue to leave out discussions of intelligence, ambush and irregular warfare even though solid research has been done on this subject. One only has to look at the recent Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare (CHGRW) to see that neither volume has a special section on any of these topics, nor does the introduction by Victor Davis Hanson even mention intelligence among the topics needing more research.1 Previous works on intelligence gathering in ancient Greece have either not discussed military intelligence or, if they included it, did not discuss its use in ambushing. Chester Starr’s Political Intelligence in Classical Greece,2 as the title would suggest, was limited to political intelligence. Frank Santi Russell’s Information Gathering in Classical Greece3 had no section on ambushing, and much of the remaining literature on ancient intelligence gathering concerns the Roman period.4

  When W. K. Pritchett first collected a list of Greek ambushes in 1974, he found no secondary literature on the subject and he called out for more studies on the concept of apaté in Greek society.5 Neither did he find any mention of ambush in the standard works on Greek warfare of ambushes or surprise attacks. There have been precious few since then.6 Everett Wheeler’s study of the vocabulary of military trickery did not specifically discuss lochos, enedra or their Latin equivalent insidia.7 Not even a heading (lemma) on the subject of ambush appeared in the major Classical encyclopedias.8 Since the 1970s, several smaller studies have appeared including Joseph Roisman’s The General Demosthenes and His Use of Military Surprise, Edmund Heza’s ‘Ruse de guerre – trait caracteristique d’une tactique nouvelle dans l’oeuvre de Thucydide’,9 and a chapter in Hans van Wees’ Greek Warfare.10

  Since ambush depends on the gathering of advanced intelligence the discussion of the two must go hand in hand. Ambush is also accomplished best by the use of light-armed troops. The standard work on light-armed troops is still O. Lippelt’s Die Griechischen Leichtbewaffneten bis auf Alexander den Grossen,11 and although it lists all the ancient sources it is hardly available to monolingual readers with no access to a large research library.

  The biggest problem one encounters in doing research on ambush is the paucity of sources. As Everett Wheeler points out in the CHGRW, no detailed account of a Greek battle exists before Herodotus’ description of Marathon,12 a clash between Greeks and barbarians which is steeped in Athenian propaganda. No detailed account of a Greek vs. Greek battle appears in a contemporary source until Thucydides writes on Delium,13 a contest during the Peloponnesian war. Only in the first Athenian battle at Syracuse14 does Thucydides15 present the pre-battle etiquette: a skirmish with missile weapons, sacrifice and infantry charge. Ambushes, unlike major battles or sieges of cities, do not leave archaeological evidence so we have to rely entirely on literary sources. The accuracy of these is always questionable, especially when using writers such as Polyaenus and Diodorus for example.16 By the time we get to the fourth century and beyond, there is the added risk of seeing Archaic and Classical events through the lenses of fourth-century, pan-Hellenic propaganda and Hellenistic military practices.17

  This brings up the subject of the bias of both the ancient sources and modern commentaries. Generalisations abound in the traditional view of Greek combat. The open-pitched battle, devoid of trickery or manoeuvre and decided by the head-on clash of rival phalanxes, is interpreted by historians as not only an idealistic norm but also a portrayal of Greek military reality. They do not seem to notice the rules being broken before the Peloponnesian war. Yet it remains a fact that not all areas of Greece practised phalanx combat and the Peloponnesian war did not initiate the concept of stratagem in Greek warfare. A view slanted towards hoplite battle is caused by the fact
that much of what is written about Greek warfare, especially in the Archaic and Classical periods, comes from a point of view that privileges the practices of the major mainland powers as reported in ethnocentric literary sources.18 We must remember, however, that the Greek world as a whole did not experience uniform, simultaneous military development. The heavy-infantry phalanx, around which the traditional view of Greek tactics revolves, did not develop in Thessaly and Thrace where they were famous for fighting with cavalry and light infantry respectively. Nor did Macedonia develop a phalanx before the early fourth century BCE. We do not have much information to tell us how the Greeks of Asia Minor or the Aegean islands fought. They may have been users of hoplite equipment, but whether they employed the phalanx is unknown. In rugged northwest Greece the Aetolians and Acarnanians had little use for the heavy-infantry phalanx. On the other hand Arcadia exported mercenaries of heavy infantry. As scholars have pointed out, a phalanx may denote the existence of a polis, but the converse may not be true.19

  When looking for the diversity of military development one only need look as far as Sicily. This island was often on the ‘cutting edge’ of Greek intellectual as well as military affairs. Long before Dionysius I (405–367) developed a true war machine, Gelon of Syracuse (c.480) boasted of the first major Greek army using combined arms, a possible precursor to Philip II’s army. Against the Persians he offered the mainland Greeks 20,000 heavy infantry, 2,000 cavalry, 2,000 archers, 2,000 slingers and 2,000 hamippoi – light infantry in close co-ordination with cavalry. But the tradition never took root and only seventy-five years later a democratic Syracuse would hardly know how to fight in a phalanx, although its cavalry was still to be feared.20

  The chronological coverage of this book is from the Homeric Age (eighth century BCE) to the Hellenistic East before the coming of Rome. (I have eliminated BCE since all dates in this book fall Before the Common Era.) Because of space limitations, my intent is merely to show relevant examples of ambush and put them into the military context of their age. The historicity of some of these examples may be questioned, but the fact that military writers thought them important enough to mention, and then collected them in handbooks, is important. Not every topic in Greek military history could be treated in detail, but there are serious studies on these other topics and I have guided readers to them in my footnotes. For a full treatment on peltasts, for example, one can still refer to the work of J. G. P. Best,21 for light-armed infantry one can reference Lippelt22 and for mercenaries there are the works of Griffth, Baker, Bettalli, Parke and Trundle listed in the bibliography. Generals such as Demosthenes and Brasidas have had separate studies.23 My discussion of the Hellenistic is perhaps the most abbreviated because a full treatment of Hellenistic warfare would have required another book-length manuscript, and Chaniotis has written extensively on the subject. It was an age when most scholars agree ambush was a regular part of warfare and yet that is exactly when our sources fail us. I have concentrated most of my attention on earlier periods when scholars suggest ambush did not exist. Furthermore, it is an age of propaganda. Both the Greeks and Romans of the Hellenistic Age looked back to a simpler time when they claimed treachery, ambush and surprise attack did not occur because their ancestors were too honest. What I hope to show with this book is that this sentiment, while comforting to many modern authors, is a myth. The age that made them nostalgic was perhaps simpler, but not less likely to stage an ambush.