After Thermopylae by Cartledge Paul;

After Thermopylae by Cartledge Paul;

Author:Cartledge, Paul;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2013-09-14T16:00:00+00:00


Figure 5.2. The “Immortals,” as the Greeks knew a Persian King’s elite guard on campaign, depicted on glazed bricks from the Palace of Susa, Iran. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

After some initial skirmishes, which the loyalist Greeks won on points—thanks largely to the killing of a statuesque Persian cavalry commander (see below for details)—a stalemate soon ensued. Insofar as the allies may be said to have been deployed in a regular line, the Spartans and the Tegeans (the most important of their allies in Arcadia) occupied a ridge on the far right—which was considered the position of honor in any Greek heavy-infantry phalanx. The Athenians were granted the next most honorific station, the far left-hand position, on a hillock, though in order to secure it they allegedly had first to win an ideological dispute against the Spartans’ Peloponnesian ally Tegea in which both sides bandied rival claims to glorious achievement often in their dim and distant, largely or wholly mythical past. But the Athenians did have one exceptionally salient and very recent achievement to boast of and appeal to: their stunning victory at Marathon, a mere eleven years earlier. Herodotus reports that the decision between the two was made by “the whole force of the Spartans” by means of shouting—an authentic touch, since that was indeed the way that they made their political and electoral decisions in their assemblies back home in Sparta (Thucydides 1.87), much to the surprise of other Greeks who voted either by raising their right hands (kheirotonia) or by casting a ballot—usually a pebble (psêphos), whence our technical term “psephology.”

Between the Spartans and the Athenians were stationed, going from right to left, the Corinthians, other Peloponnesians, and so on up until the 600 Plataeans stationed next to the Athenians. I have spoken of a “Greek heavy-infantry phalanx,” but it should in fairness be made clear that scholars are in considerable disagreement as to just how heavy it would have been in 479, that is, just what weight of arms and armor a typical Greek hoplite of this period would have borne. For example, would his corselet (breastplate) still have been of bronze, as had regularly been the case since from as early as 700 BCE (and as I’d imagine that of at least the full Spartan citizen hoplites still was), or rather of the lighter—and cheaper—stiffened linen material that became widely prevalent in the fifth century? How heavy would his basically wooden shield have been, given that it would have been (out of necessity) a meter or so wide? (See Figs. 5.3 and 5.4.)

Older estimates usually reckon the total weight of all that equipment at something on the order of 50 to 70 pounds (20–30 kilograms), but revisionist estimates would now diminish that by a third, perhaps even a half. In the broiling summer sun of what always seems to be peculiarly hot central Greece, the lighter the better, from one point of view. On the other hand, the sturdier the armor, the better the protection against a hail of Persian arrows, or the charge of a Median steed.



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.