Ambush Read online

  MAP 7 Sicily

  MAP 8 The Aegean and Asia Minor

  MAP 9 The Hellespont

  MAP 10 Athens and Piraeus

  MAP 11 Boeotia, Thebes

  CHAPTER 1

  Ambush in the Iliad

  WAR IN THE WORLD of Homer is fought differently than in Classical Greece or the modern world.1 War in the Iliad is conducted essentially in one spot, the plains of Troy, and the fighting is done by pairs of individual warriors.2 It has been written that Homeric warriors had their own unique code of military behaviour, and their goal was to perform courageous deeds publicly in order to win glory that survived long after their death. According to this belief, the attainment of fame and glory (kleos) had to be achieved by a public action in the daytime that could be seen by all.3 At first glance this would make the Iliad a strange place to start searching for information on ambushes, night attacks or any activity that was secretive or devious rather than in public. Some scholars still think we cannot find examples of intelligence activities, including ambush, in this quintessential war poem. Some have actually asserted that, with the exception of Book 10, no one in the Iliad does anything secret, devious or not able to be foreseen, and no forms of attack involve intelligence gathering, planning or very much skill.4 This is patently false. If we accept the Trojan War as historical (and this is not universally accepted), then we might expect to find all the activities that occur in real wars. The fact is Homeric warriors happily deceived their enemies all the time and give praise to those who successfully staged ambushes.5

  Traces of all the standard activities of military intelligence such as reconnaissance, signalling, espionage and counterintelligence can be found in the poem.6 The fact that Homer includes them has led some scholars to suggest that these sophisticated techniques were added later to the poem and are indications of new forms of military strategy which gradually developed in the Dark and Archaic Ages.7 The question of the historicity of Homeric society as described in the poem is, of course, still a thorny issue. There are still arguments over what age the poem represents – is it the Bronze Age of Mycenaean Greece or Homer’s eighth century?8 Whatever age is being described, what we can say definitively is that as soon as the Greeks started writing about their own military activities, ambush and deception were a part of them.

  Scholars continue to cling to the notion that there was no place for the sneaky, the deceptive or the treacherous in Homeric military action since these activities did not befit the heroic, courageous Greek warrior.9 This is a subjective attitude, not based on the evidence. Ambush appears in the Iliad very clearly along with other examples of intelligence activities, and the Greeks show a very realistic attitude towards the strength and bravery needed to mount such operations. Ambush was certainly not the premier way of fighting or gaining glory, but the Greeks knew the appropriate time to use an ambush with the dangers it entailed. Although some scholars characterise an ambush as ‘nothing more than an unexpected, tricky attack’, we suggest the skills involved were honed by some of the greatest Greek warriors.10

  The most frequently mentioned ambushes in the Iliad are not military operations at all, but attacks of wild beasts on domestic animals ‘in the dead of night’. There is no clear division between lions and warriors – both are imagined as going ‘through the night, slaughter, corpses, war-gear, black blood’.11 Heroic warriors do not disdain such raids and ambushes; even the great Achilles himself takes part in such activities.12

  Another context for ambush is the border raids that are frequently mentioned.13 Paris began the Trojan–Achaean hostilities with a domestic raid.14 While not quite as complicated as an ambush on humans, these raids acquire an attitude of ambush toward enemies. Once a war had begun, warriors could not merely live the life of heroic confrontations. Armies needed supplies to sustain themselves. We hear of Achilles’ exploits and of cattle raids by Nestor and Achilles who saw these forays as an opportunity to win glory.15 A recent study has shown the thematic connections between spying missions, cattle raids, horse rustling and ambush.16

  There is no denigration of those who take part in an ambush in Homer where the motifs of hardship, victory and the single hero are so important. And although one scholar claims that ambush is on the lower end of Homer’s ‘ethical priorities’, I suggest that in real warfare this is merely a distinction between fighting techniques. There may be more prestige in fighting like Achilles, but Greek armies knew when to use the wiles of an Odysseus when the situation required it. Certainly there were value judgements made against those who ambushed. The victim always accuses the successful ambusher of being sneaky and cowardly. The winner, however, take the victory as a sign of skill.

  In Homeric warfare, the ambush was regarded as even demanding special courage and it was done by the best warriors. In the Iliad Achilles accuses Agamemnon of being a coward:

  You drunkard, with a dog’s eyes and a deer’s heart,

  Whenever it comes to arming yourself for war with the rest of the warriors

  Or going on an ambush with the champions of the Achaeans,

  You don’t have the heart to endure it. That looks like death to you.17

  There is no opposition formulated here between combat on the open battlefield by massed infantry formations and ambush.18 It takes courage to do both. In the Iliad, the ambush is usually composed entirely of nobles.19 It is done with a small ambushing party, and it calls for the highest daring and endurance. Homer does not distinguish between large battles or ambushes as far as courage is concerned. In fact, he implies ambushing takes far more courage. Ambush is simply a stratagem ‘employing a small number of picked men and relying upon planning and dissimulation rather than speed or force’.20 It also required advance intelligence. All the planning and dissimulation will do you no good if you do not locate the enemy first – before they locate you.

  There are eight different ambushes described in the Iliad. Of these eight, five are indirect references which discuss the theme in a general way without recounting any particular ambush. The three remaining ambushes, which the Iliad presents directly, give the poem’s particular view of such activities. There is no one single ambush that incorporates all of the motifs associated with that theme in the poem, and the examples of ambush can require complicated and lengthy episodes to describe them. The ambush is most explicitly described in 13.275–86, where it is stated that the ambush is where ‘true valour’ (arête) is most clearly displayed. Idomeneus, leader of the Cretans and one of the chief heroes, provides the most explicit description of ambush warfare in Homeric epic:

  I know what manner of men you are in valour; what need have you to tell the tale of it? For if now all the best of us were being chosen beside the ships for an ambush, in which the valour of men is best discerned [italics mine] – there the coward comes to light and the man of valour, for the colour of the coward changes ever to another hue, nor is the spirit in his breast checked so that he sits still, but he shifts from knee to knee and rests on either foot, and his heart beats loudly in his breast and he imagines death, and his teeth chatter; but the colour of the brave man changes not, nor does he fear excessively when once he takes his place in the ambush of warriors, but he prays to mix immediately in woeful war – not even then, I say, would any man make light of your courage or the strength of your hands. For if you were stricken by an arrow in the toil of battle, or struck with a thrust, not from behind in neck or back would the missile fall; but your chest would it hit or your belly, as you were pressing on into the dalliance of the foremost fighters.21

  Notice that Idomeneus believes it takes courage to fight face to face, and that it is in an ambush where ‘a fighter’s mettle is shown’.22 He goes on to specify the process by which the bravest are selected. There are several examples of the best men going on ambush in Homeric epic.23 Since it is necessary for an ambusher to assume a crouching position and wait patiently for the enemy, the ambush reveals what a man is made of. While the coward succumbs to fear, the brav
e man calmly awaits the desired moment of attack. The coward’s loss of self-control is caused by the psychological hardship of remaining motionless in an enclosed space until the enemy is within striking distance. The attack must be held until the right moment.24 Such concealment involves both physical and psychological hardship while holding back the attack until the right moment. The ambushers could be aided by scouts (skopoi) who would warn them of the enemy’s approach. The victim was taken by surprise. The final stage of the ambush was the attack and vicious hand-to-hand combat that ensured.25 We can see why advanced planning was needed to stage an ambush like the one related in Iliad 7.142. Nestor tells the story of Lycurgus and Areithous where Lycurgus confronts Areithous in narrow quarters so he will not be able to swing his mace. Such advanced planning to manipulate the scene of battle is not a form of trickery, but rather just good strategy.26

  Another lengthy description of an ambush is given in Iliad 18.516ff., where it is portrayed on the shield of Achilles. Two armies of warriors are encamped around the city trying to decide between whether to lay waste to the town or to let themselves be bought off by a ransom of half the possessions of the townsfolk. The besieged, meanwhile, reject the idea of a ransom, and arm themselves with a plan to ambush the foe. The walls were left under the guard of the women, children and old men of the city. The able-bodied men went out, led by Ares and Pallas Athena. They came to a place, a riverbed, which seemed to them a good place to set up the ambush. It was a good watering place for cattle and sheep, and so they waited there for the enemy to arrive with their flocks and herds. As they settled in, concealed, they sent out two scouts to watch for the approaching sheep and cattle. Within a short time, two herdsmen came by with their flocks, with no foreknowledge of the trap. They were speedily killed, but when the besiegers heard the noise made by the animals, they rushed to their defence and a battle ensued.27

  The one ambush chosen most frequently by scholars to show the Greek disdain for ambushers is Paris’ ambush of Diomedes in Book 11.369–95. Diomedes had just wounded Hector in a mighty display of his valour (aristeia), when Paris, concealed behind a grave stone, wounds Diomedes with an arrow. Paris leaps from behind cover28 and takes advantage of the opportunity to make an appropriate boast. Diomedes, who has been fighting as the Achaean’s foremost man or frontline fighter (promos aner), shouts back that Paris’ bow attack is ‘cowardly and womanish’. If Paris would only meet him openly in a spearfight, it would go much differently.29 Part of this has to do with the character of Paris whom the audience knows is a lover, not a fighter. ‘Arrow-fighter’ may be a term of abuse to some, but archers in the Iliad are not ashamed of their craft. Paris taunts Diomedes: ‘You are hit, and my arrow flew not in vain.’

  Although there are associations drawn by some between archery and ambush, Paris has not waited for a group of soldiers to march past him and then fought them hand to hand. He is just shooting arrows at someone from behind cover, which is the standard way an archer fights.30 This is shown well in the description of how Teucer shoots his arrows while he is protected by the shield of his brother Ajax in Iliad 8.266–272.31 This pose can be seen in many sculptures and vase paintings, most notably the west pediment of the Temple of Aphaia at Aegina. There are no feminine connotations connected with using this weapon when Odysseus, at the end of the Odyssey, needs great strength to string his own mighty bow.32 Because Paris is never really in danger, however, he comes in for the usual criticism levelled by front-line fighters against those who use long-distance weapons. Both archery and ambush have been understood and interpreted negatively in modern scholarship, but as Steven Farron argues there is no evidence in the Iliad that military archery was ineffectual or lower class.33 He points out that insults to archers come not from the narrator but from the words of men such as Diomedes who have just been wounded, demonstrating that these are indeed effective weapons.34 The value judgements made by modern commentators usually reflect their own attitudes or they exploit ambiguities in the epic.35 Different outlooks, however, can simply motivate different passages in the text. There is no hint of cowardice when Teucer – ‘the best of the Achaeans in archery’ – shoots down many Trojans and brings glory to his absent father Telamon. Archery is, after all, one of the events at Patroclus’ funeral games. The poem needs to present fighters with bows, fighters with swords and fighters with spears. All can be shown in an heroic light.36

  Ambushes set for heroes are obviously going to be portrayed as sneaky and underhanded. The ambush set for Tydeus mentioned in Book 4.376–400 is an example. When the army of Polyneices reached Thebes, Tydeus was sent to the city as an ambassador. He challenged the Cadmeians to an athletic competition, and defeated them all, whereupon they decided to get even by ambushing him on his way home. Tydeus, however, slew all of his foes save one, whom he allowed to flee home. The attack on the Thebans is presented as treacherous and cowardly, while Tydeus’ victory is portrayed as a mark of divine protection.37 This fits the usual pattern. Ambush by the enemy is sneaky, but ambush by your own men is clever and brave.

  Similarly in Book 6.155–95 Glaucus tells how his grandfather, Bellerophon, was falsely accused by Anteia who told her husband, King Proteus of Ephyre, that he was attempting to seduce her. Proteus laid a trap for Bellerophon by sending him to his father-in-law in Lycia with ‘fatal tokens’ (seimata lugra) commanding the bearer’s death. After Bellerophon had successfully performed the third of the tasks set to test him him, the Lycian king decided in desperation to ambush him. The hero foiled the ambush, and revealed that he was the offspring of a god.38 The king bestowed his daughter and a share of the kingdom upon him. The ambush in this narrative is associated with the deceit of the queen, while Bellerophon’s triumph is linked to his divine race.39

  The accusation of cowardice is made by anyone caught in a surprise that his own intelligence gathering did not anticipate. If these same men were participating in an ambush and killing the enemy, they would make no such value judgement against themselves or their men.40 Rather they would judge themselves brave and clever.

  The Narrative Pattern

  The Homeric ambush, as a narrative pattern in the Iliad, was identified by A. T. Edwards as having the following stages.41

  Planning

  Before the ambush is set there must be a planning stage. The ambushers must collect intelligence on the enemy, and choose a proper place to set the ambush. These men are described as the aristoi (the best men). There are usually two leaders.

  Concealment

  The men must hide themselves in such a way that they can see the approaching enemy, but the enemy cannot see them and be forewarned of the ambush. The place is selected because the enemy is expected to march by. Very often it is the victim’s route home. Concealment usually requires a crouching position. Often there is a density of the crowd of men hiding together in a cramped space. Remaining in this pose involves physical and psychological hardship. There is also the necessity of not falling asleep.42 Enduring this hardship distinguishes the cowardly from the brave. The attack must be withheld until the right moment. The ambushers may be aided by scouts (skopoi).43

  The Attack

  If the hero is staging the ambush, it is usually successful. If the villain of the story is staging the ambush, then the ambushers are taken by surprise, join battle in hand-to-hand combat and are defeated by a single hero. The victim then denounces the ambush as cowardly.

  This schematic is repeated throughout the poem and represents in broad outline how an ambush is set. There can be, of course, many variations on the theme in any military situation, but this basic pattern certainly captures the essence of the idea, as do many activities in the Iliad.

  Another frequent accusation levelled against ambush is that it is of less strategic importance than the standing battle. This is simply restating the obvious; no one would argue otherwise. Characterising ambush as ‘mere harassment of the enemy’ or ‘the assassination of a particular foe’, however, is to minimise both its diffi
culty and its importance. Certainly, ambush in the Iliad is meant to be a contrast to the tactics characteristic of infantry combat. Obviously, the hardship of the ambush is not the same kind of trial as the spearfight, but it does require enduring intense psychological pressure and physical discomfort while waiting under difficult conditions and then fighting, possibly to the death, in close quarters. The charge of cowardice which the victim of an ambush is liable to direct at his assailants is not the same as that insult hurled in infantry combat where flight, not attack, earns one the charge of cowardice. The ambush requires planning and preparation in order to control space, time and the element of surprise in order to maximise the advantage of the ambushers. Ambushes are used when large battles are not possible. They are meant to gain small advantages, capture intelligence or demoralise a small force (see chapter 10).

  Combat Versus Ambush

  The salient characteristics of infantry combat in Homer are:44

  the spatial context of the battlefield where the ground itself grants an advantage to neither side, but is neutral;45

  the open nature of the spearfight in which a hero is free to withdraw before the advance of a stronger opponent, and where speeches and taunts are exchanged prior to joining battle;

  the pre-eminence of a single hero who is able to put the enemy formations to flight;

  the decisive role of force.

  In contrast, the characteristics of the ambush are quite the reverse:

  since the aim of the ambush is to set up to control the scene of the fighting in advance, the locale is extremely important to the ambusher;

  the victim is given no opportunity to retreat and his enemies, of course, do not identify themselves beforehand;

  the ambush comprises a select group of the best men rather than a single hero;