Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome by Victor Davis Hanson

Author:Victor Davis Hanson [Hanson, Victor Davis]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf, mobi
Tags: Princeton University Press, 0691137900
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

agora. Located at the junction of major streets and often containing

major administrative buildings, the agora was the largest open area

within the city walls. Foreign attackers entering a city usually headed

straight for the agora, and defenders typically fell back toward it.31 If

the defenders could hold on to the agora and reform their troops, they

stood a chance of pushing the attackers out of the city. The Athenians

and Ionians at Sardis in 499 BC, for example, were forced to fall back af-

ter they encountered Persian troops massed in the agora.32 Conversely,

the loss of the agora could be the final blow that crushed defenders’

morale.33 Even so, overconfident or outnumbered forces, like the The-

bans at Plataea, might find that taking the agora alone was insufficient.

Many civil wars began with coups or massacres in the agora.34 Again,

winning the agora did not guarantee victory, as the oligarchic party dis-

covered at Elis in 397 BC. Having seized the agora, the oligarchs declared

victory, only to find that Thrasydaios, leader of the popular faction, was

not dead but just at home sleeping off his midday wine. Shaking off a

hangover, Thrasydaios led a counterattack that routed the oligarchs.35

In addition to being communication centers and rallying points,

marketplaces could contain vital arms supplies for urban combatants.36

The conspirators who allegedly sought to seize power at Sparta in 400–

399 BC, for example, had planned to use Sparta’s tool market, with its

abundance of axes, hatchets, and sickles, as their arsenal.37 At least one

other city was taken by insurgents employing weapons that had been

smuggled into the agora inside baskets of fruit and boxes of clothing.38

Forgetting the dangers of an urban armed mass, the Spartan officer

commanding the defense of Mytilene in 427 made the mistake of arm-

ing the city’s populace, which promptly rebelled against him.39

Beyond the agora, any spacious and defensible location where com-

batants could form up or find refuge was tactical y important. These

places included theaters, temples, gymnasia, and other large buildings.40

During the Athenian civil war of 404–403, oligarchic horsemen used the

Odeion of Pericles, a meeting hal just below the Acropolis, as their base,

while the democratic light infantry gathered at the theater in Piraeus.41

Like marketplaces, temples and public buildings could furnish arsenals

Urban Warfare 145

for urban combat. At Thebes in 379, the anti-Spartan forces equipped

themselves with weapons, probably religious dedications, taken from a

portico.42 Given enough time, defenders might dig trenches across open

areas, or sow them with obstacles to impede an enemy advance.43

Large buildings promised security but could become death traps.

During the final stages of the Corcyrean civil war, members of the oli-

garchic faction, knowing they were about to be executed, tried to hold

out in what may have been a warehouse. Their enemies climbed atop

the building, broke open the roof, and rained down tiles and arrows; the

defenders who survived the barrage kil ed themselves rather than sur-

render.44 Something similar happened at Tegea in 370–369, when mem-

bers of a defeated faction took refuge in the temple of Artemis. Their

opponents surrounded the temple, climbed up, dismantled its roof, and

hurled down tiles. The men inside gave up, only to be put to death.45

Urban war also meant street fighting.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.