The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 2 of 2

by Karl Otfried Müller

Chapter XII.

§ 1. Study of the military profession at Sparta. Period of service. § 2. Arrangement of the army. Numbers of the military divisions. § 3. Arrangement of the enomoty and military evolutions. § 4. Arrangement of the Mora. § 5. Organization of the Spartan army. Its officers. § 6. Cavalry in the other Doric states. The Sciritæ in the Lacedæmonian army. Light-armed soldiers. § 7. Arms of the heavy infantry of Sparta. § 8. Spartan tactics. § 9. Steady courage of the Spartans. § 10. War considered as an art by the Spartans. Life of the Spartans in camp.

1. The military system of the Dorians, which we are now about to consider, was evidently brought to the greatest perfection in Sparta. In this state the military profession, as was hardly the case in any other part of Greece, was followed as an art, as the study of a life;[1090] so that when Agesilaus (as is related) separated the shoemakers, carpenters, potters, &c., from the assembled allied army, the Spartans alone remained, as being the warriors by profession (as τεχνῖται τῶν πολεμικῶν[1091]). But the principles of their military tactics were evidently common to the whole race; and, according to a conjecture advanced in a former part of this work,[1092] it was chiefly the method of attack, in closed lines, with extended lances, by which the Dorians conquered the Achæans of Peloponnesus, and which was adopted from them by many other states of Greece.

Every Spartan was, if he had sufficient strength, [pg 243] bound to defend his country in expeditions without the boundaries during the years that were designated by the name ἡλικία.[1093] This period lasted to the fortieth year from manhood (ἀφ᾽ ἥβης), that is to say, to the sixtieth year from birth:[1094] until that time a man was called ἔμφρουρος (from φρουρὰ), and could not go out of the country without permission from the authorities.[1095] Of these, the younger men were sometimes sent abroad; but those of fifty-five and upwards, not till the state was in difficulty.[1096] The ephors stated in the name of the public assembly the years, until which the obligation to service in an individual case extended.[1097] Upon the whole, the armies of Sparta must have contained many aged triarii: while in Athens the liability to foreign service generally terminated with the twenty-third year of manhood; which was computed from the eighteenth year.[1098] But Sparta reckoned upon a healthy and strong old age; the time for deliberative sagacity does not begin till the age for fighting has ended. The allied army of the Argives, Arcadians, and Athenians was, in 418 B.C., met by an army composed of all the Spartans[1099] (that is, all the ἔμφρουροι[1100]); but they dismissed from the boundaries a sixth part of the [pg 244] army, consisting of the younger and the older, in order to protect the capital.[1101]

2. In marching and in battle the Spartans endeavoured to conceal their strength from the enemy; for this reason the levies were hastily made by the ephors, and the army sometimes marched during the night;[1102] the depth of the ranks in the army was also very various, and the enemy could not be certain of its strength. In the battle of Mantinea there were seven lochi, each containing four pentecostyes, the pentecostys four enomoties, and the front row of the enomoty containing four men: the pentecostys had therefore 16 in front, the lochus 64, the whole army 448. According to Thucydides the Spartans generally stood eight men deep; therefore the whole number of the hoplitæ was 3584. To these however were added the 300 picked men about the king, about 400 cavalry in both wings,[1103] and also the old men, posted as a body of reserve with the baggage, together with the Lacedæmonians, appointed to cover the right wing of the allies, in number perhaps about 500.[1104] The whole number of men was 4784. A sixth part of the army had been sent back; which gives for the entire army 5740 men. This was at that time the number of heavy-armed soldiers, which, after severe losses in the field, the city of Sparta was able of itself to furnish:[1105] nor indeed is it so considerable as the report of its strength would lead one to suppose; but it increased, in the manner of [pg 245] an avalanche, into a numerous and powerful army,[1106] when there was time to collect troops from the allies.

Although we have given the account of this battle in the first instance, we cannot derive from it any information with regard to the original regulation of the army, since Agis had increased the lochi to four times their usual strength, as we shall presently see, in order to deceive the enemy by false accounts. For, if we compare the statements of the well informed Xenophon,[1107] we obtain the following explanation of the names: two enomoties compose a pentecostys, two pentecostyes a lochus,[1108] four lochi a mora; now if an enomoty, as must have been originally the case, contained twenty-four,[1109] or, with the enomotarch, twenty-five men,[1110] the mora would have contained 400; and, including the superior officers, pentecosters, and lochagi, 412. In the time of Xenophon, however, the enomoty consisted of thirty-six men[1111]; and accordingly, the mora of 600, as was the case on an occasion mentioned by the same historian[1112]; the other numbers, which vary between 500[1113] and 900,[1114] must also have resulted from the greater or less increase in the strength of the enomoty.

3. Now the enomoty, the most simple body of this military arrangement, was, as the word shows, a file of [pg 246] men closely united, and bound by a common oath,[1115] which stood in the deep phalanx each one behind the other,[1116] the enomotarch being in front (πρωτοστάτης) of the whole file. Thus also the Thebans stood in files twenty-five men deep,[1117] which they sometimes strengthened to double that number[1118]; in the Lacedæmonian army, however, the file was generally broken, and the enomoty, according to the order given before the battle, stood three and sometimes six men broad[1119]; in the former case, if its number was not increased, eight; in the latter, four deep: the Lacedæmonians are also reported to have once beaten the Arcadians with a line only one shield deep.[1120] If, however, the whole enomoty stood in one file, it was called λόχος ὄρθιος; and in this disposition they attacked high places, when the files were placed at some distance from each other.[1121] The deployments (παραγωγαὶ), by which the phalanx was made more or less deep, were ordered by the enomotarch. This person was [pg 247] the strongest man or the best soldier of the whole enomoty; hence it was his continual care that on whatever point the attack was made he should always stand at the head of his file: the uragi, however, the last men of the file, were experienced soldiers, especially when the army was expected to be threatened in the rear. If then the lochi moved one behind the other (ἐπὶ κέρως), the enomotarchs advanced before the long files. If the enemy approached in front, the files, either whole or broken, moved forward, each placing itself on the left side of the preceding file (παρ᾽ ἀσπίδα[1122]). If the enomoty was broken, the enomotarch then occupied in the square formed by his enomoty the front angle to the right hand, and the first enomotarch of the army was always the last man of the right wing; this movement was called παραγωγὴ εἰς μέτωπον, or ἐπὶ φάλαγγος.[1123] But if the enemy came on in the rear, each file wheeled round, so that the leaders again came in front.[1124] If the enemy appeared on the right, the whole number of lochi, moving one behind the other, turned, like triremes, towards the enemy, and the man who was last upon the march was last in the line of battle to the right (παρὰ δόρυ). And, lastly, if they advanced from the left, the same movement took place, only the last lochus then occupied the left wing (παρ᾽ ἀσπίδα[1125]).

4. Lochi also occur among the Argives and Thebans, and in the Asiatic armies; under the command of Sparta there were lochi of mercenaries and bowmen,[1126] &c.; whereas the mora was a division peculiar to the Spartans. The formation of this body was as [pg 248] follows. The whole number of citizens (τὸ πολιτικὸν) was divided into six moras[1127]; so that every person of military age (ἔμφρουρος), even while he lived at Sparta, belonged to one of them. The strength of the mora in the field depended on the maximum fixed by the ephors for the age of those employed; thus, for example, they were able to send out a mora composed of persons less than thirty-five years from manhood (ἀφ᾽ ἥβης) and keep back those of greater age,[1128] &c. So that in this sense the numbers of the division depended upon circumstances. To each mora of heavy-armed infantry there belonged, without being in close connexion with it, a body of cavalry bearing the same name,[1129] consisting at the most of 100 men, and commanded by the hipparmost.[1130] In the mora of the infantry, however, the men of different ages must have been in some manner separated, so that, for example, those between thirty and thirty-five years of age could be easily detached for pursuit.[1131] In this division no respect was had to kindred; soldiers of one mora had brothers, sons, fathers, in another,[1132] although in early times it appears to have been an object of the greatest care to bring relations and friends together. According to Herodotus[1133] Lycurgus instituted the enomoties, triacades, and syssitia for war; evidently as military [pg 249] divisions; and the Lacedæmonians ate and fought in the same company; from which we may explain why the polemarchs had also a superintendence over the public tables.[1134] By these the larger divisions, and not the single banqueting companies, are intended; when Sparta, in the reign of king Agis, again contained 4500 families, there were fifteen of these divisions[1135]; and in earlier times, when the number of families was 9000, there were probably thirty; it is therefore doubtless another name for oba, which rarely occurs; and the army was arranged according to tribes, phratrias, and houses. In early times also the single hamlets of Sparta furnished lochi of their own; as were the Pitanatæ[1136] in the Persian war, and the Mesoatæ.[1137]

5. Of the two principles upon which the regulation of the Lacedæmonian army was founded, one (as has been already pointed out) belonged more peculiarly to early times, and at a late period nearly disappeared: I mean the complete union and amalgamation of the army in all its parts. This is expressed by the name enomoty; and we are led to the same [pg 250] result by many other remarkable vestiges, such as the proximity of the lovers to the loved (which in certain situations must have produced a strong effect upon the feelings), and the sacrifices to Love, which, according both to the Spartan and Cretan usage, the most beautiful men performed before the battle. The second principle was of longer duration; the duty of implicit obedience to every person in authority (πειθαρχία). Now in the artificial organization of the army almost all Spartans were in a certain respect commanders[1138]; for not only the front men of the files, even when the enomoties were broken (πρωτοστάται), but the first men of every line (ζευγῖται) were officers[1139]; nay, every two persons throughout the whole enomoty were connected with each other as fore-man and rear-man (πρωτοστάτης and ἐπιστάτης.[1140]) The commands (παραγγέλσεις) passed rapidly through the polemarchs, lochagi, &c, to the enomotarchs, who gave them out, like heralds, in a loud voice[1141]; but that the command alone of the immediate superior held good, is proved by the circumstance that the disobedience of a polemarch or lochagus entailed the disobedience of the whole lochus.[1142] The polemarchs, lochagi, pentecosters, and also the xenagi (leaders of mercenaries[1143]), took part in the council of war, which was preceded by solemn sacrifices[1144]; the first mentioned officers commanded independently [pg 251] single moras and whole armies,[1145] or composed the immediate council of the kings; they were supported or represented, as it appears, by the συμφορεῖς.[1146] The king, in an instance mentioned by Herodotus, himself appointed an inferior general,[1147] which seems to be a consequence of his extensive power in military affairs. The escort of the king was called by the name of damosia,[1148] and consisted of his tent comrades, to which the polemarchs,[1149] the Pythians,[1150] and three Equals also belonged[1151]; of the diviners, surgeons, flute-players, and volunteers in the army,[1152] to which must be added the two ephors, who attended the kings on expeditions[1153]; the laphyropolæ, who together with the ephors, took possession of the booty; the hellanodicæ, who decided disputes in the army (in this case, as well as at Olympia, the Peloponnesians were called Hellenes by pre-eminence[1154]); the symbuli, sent out, after the time of Agis, as assistants to the king[1155]; the pyrphorus, a priest of Ares, who took fire from the sacrifice, which the king performed at home to Zeus Agetor,[1156] and on the boundary to Zeus and Athene, [pg 252] and preserved it during the whole campaign (in battle the unarmed were protected by a religious awe[1157]); and, lastly, those who had conquered in crowned contests were in the king's train[1158]; a train indeed of sufficient importance, and fit in so simple a state of society to surround the descendant of Hercules with an appearance of dignity. The Thirty about the king's person are not identical with the damosia; for these were always Spartans, which we cannot say of flute-players, &c.; they were assigned to the king, even when the rest of the army (as was frequently the case in expeditions in Asia) consisted exclusively of neodamodes,[1159] and were probably at the same time the body-guard and council of the king. They may therefore be considered as the 300 contracted into a small body, which accompanied the king only on expeditions to a small distance from home. These 300 were the picked regiment of Sparta, the flower of the youth, as the gerontes were of the old men, and also chosen on aristocratic principles. For the ephors appointed three hippagretæ, each of whom chose one hundred young men, with a statement of the grounds of his selection; from the number of those discharged from this body the five agathoergi were taken, who for the space of a year served the state in missions.[1160]