Roel Konijnendijk | Session 6 of the Battle of Plataea Conference

[0:04] So I'm really delighted to be part of this panel, not only because, you know, really delighted to be invited, and thanks Natasha for that, but also because I'm in a panel with two people that I actually collaborated with very productively, um, with Fernando and I'm, uh, an article that isn't out yet, but with Paul on an article that is specifically about this, and he's just presented essentially his part of that argument. What I would like to do is to present my half. All right. Um, so I imagine that a lot of you are going to have fairly strong opinions on this.

[0:36] So I want to be clear from the outset, what exactly, um, I'm trying to argue, that is this; I believe that Herodotus gives us enough reason to suppose that the Spartans at the battle of Plataea were not fighting yet. In what we understand to be a regular homogenous classical Hoplite phalanx. What I do not mean to argue is that we have enough evidence to reconstruct exactly what their fighting style was. I don't think that we can necessarily pose a detailed reconstruction of exactly what happened.

[1:08] Although Paul has given me some very, very nice pointers as to what we may suppose happened on the basis of the evidence that we have, as well as probabilities and comparative material. But what I do want to argue, and I think this is why this matters is that Herodotus as a source, becomes much more important for our understanding of Greek warfare. If we do indeed acknowledge that what he's describing at Plataea is not the classical Hoplite phalanx, because if so, he may be almost inadvertently one of the only sources that actually preserves an intermediate stage, a transitional mode of infantry fighting in Greece, um, between the fluid more sort of, uh, cloud like fighting of earlier periods, um, and the very regularly organized, uh, and homogenous Hoplite phalanx that we know very well from the writings of Thucydides and Xenophon.

[2:03] So that's fundamentally what I'm trying to argue. And again, um, I guess if I have convinced you that at the end of this, that the battle of Plataea did not involve a Spartan phalanx then I'm already, I've already succeeded at and you don't need to necessarily accept my suggestions as to what we may be seeing instead, or Paul's suggestions as to how that may fit into a more general narrative of the development of Greek infantry. So my starting point for this, and I just need to make sure I'm in the right screen. My starting point for this is fundamentally that there is a standard account of what's Hoplite fighting in the Persian wars, and specifically the decisive clash between Spartans and Persian immortals.

[2:43] If we can call them that, um, what that looked like. And that account obviously is based on Herodotus, who gives us a number of pointers that we can work with. He gives us a description of the actual fighting, um, in which he says among other things that the Persians lost because they were unequipped. Uh, this is an argument, obviously that we've already covered in some detail. What does that mean? Um, they were unskilled (ανεπιστημονες). Um, and finally that the battle was decided when it came to othismos. Um, those are three things that can obviously be variously interpreted as we've seen.

[3:17] Uh, we don't know exactly what they mean or what Herodotus meant by them. Um, but it is on the basis of these kinds of hints. These kinds of causalities that modern scholars have generally assumed that they understood what was going on, which is that Herodotus was describing an encounter of, you know, this by this Persian force of a Greek Hoplite phalanx of the kind that we know from descriptions that we find in Thucydides and Xenophon. You know, on account of the idea that the Persians were less well equipped and less skilled, we can make assumptions about what this Spartan line was like instead, and obviously Thucydides and Xenophon in their descriptions of this very regularly organized hoplite phalanx, which responds very well to orders in which performed right in a very disciplined way in battles like Mantinea um, you know, we can see what that would have meant.

[4:06] You know, we can see what Herodotus was probably referring to. And when he says that this battle was decided by othismos similarly we can see- okay, well, this is something that we encounter in later descriptions, uh, Delium on or at the battle of Coronea. And then we can use that to fill in the gaps, fill in the blanks. So the scholarly conclusion on the basis of these bits in Herodotus is that Plataea was a, essentially a typical Hoplite battle that is to say, it followed the rules of classical encounters and the Persians simply weren't able to cope with that, which leads us to the second point, which is the other conclusion that scholars almost universally have drawn, which is that the encounter of Spartan and immortal was essentially a forgone conclusion.

[4:50] Because the Spartans were so much more like more heavily equipped, better organized, more disciplined because they fought in that particular way that we learn about from the Thucydides with all their discipline and all their unity of command and unity of movement. There was essentially nothing that these relatively lightly equipped Persians with their antiquated tactics that we've seen, uh, you know, derived from Assyrian models, um, what they could have done about it. So this battle was essentially over before it began. And there's a huge range of scholarly quotes that I could deploy here.

[5:21] The one that I've chosen here, admittedly, it's quite old from How and Wells. Um, uh, I hope you won't sort of take this as a hint that I'm sorta cherry picking. Um, this is actually something that can be endlessly duplicated in dozens of, uh, of pieces of scholarship. Um, they wrote that to the natural results. Uh, the outcome of the battle was the natural results of better arms, better discipline, better tactics. Now I selected this quote precisely because of that word, natural. Um, this very much expresses how scholars look at this engagement.

[5:51] They perceive this as something that is inherent in the elements. Um, so because the Spartans functioned like a hoplite phalanx of the type that we know from later sources, therefore the Persians were essentially fated to lose. Um, there was nothing they could do about it. My way of problematizing this, which I've worked out with with Paul Bardunias is to point out that there is a lot in that assumption that you know, that there is a classical hoplite battle going on.

[6:26] That is actually not explicit in Herodotus, that we are essentially imposing on the account that we have. Um, obviously, I mean, Peter Krentz and others have pointed out that there are various sort of ritual aspects or protocols of Hoplite battle that are simply missing. They don't do things like, uh, Sapaens set up pro fees. There is no, uh, there are no, um, uh, truces to collect the dead in Herodotus, so these kinds of elements are, are all absent, but more relevant to our discussion is the fact that also both the vocabulary and to a large degree, the practice of the encounter phalanxes is absent from this description.

[7:04] Now, Fernando Echeverria has a really a great article just to explain that the word phalanx was not in use in these early fifth century sources. And in fact does not occur in a practical sense that we understand it until Xenophon. So in that sense, we don't really need to worry about that too much because Thucydides also, doesn't use the word phalanx to describe Greek Battle formations. And yet there is no doubt that what he describes at the battle of Mantinea is a hoplite phalanx. So we don't maybe need that word. But it's very clear from Herodotus that his understanding of these battle formations is much less strict and regulated than even that of Thucydides, he doesn't have specialist vocabulary.

[7:43] He doesn't have the specifics of, uh, of, of the scale the size or the maneuvers of individual blocks fare in great detail. And in particular, he is unable to describe the formation depth of any of these Greek battle lines. Now, this often gets shoved aside with people saying, you know, Heroduts just wasn't interested in those details. Um, but I would argue that he actually, he was very clearly interested in those details, um, for one thing, because at the battle of Marathon, he describes how they were varied depths in the Athenian line, which affected the course of the battle.

[8:15] The Persians were able to win in the center because the lines were thin. Um, but also in Platea because he seeks to explain the fact that there was a huge discrepancy in numbers, according to his accounts, by arguing that the Persians were deployed in much deeper formation. So he clearly had an understanding of how these formations worked and that depth was relevant to their practical operation, but he was unable to give us any kind of solid numbers for any Greek formation, anywhere he was at work. Um, and particularly at Plataea, I think this is an important thing to recognize because of the way that we hear about formation depths in later sources.

[8:53] So when Thucydides and Xenophon report formation depths, it is usually in the sense that some officer decreed that depth to be adopted. Which means everybody who is there should have remembered this. If they ever received such an order, it is very odd that that kind of detail is absent from Herodotus account if he had access to any eyewitness account, this battle. So this is one thing that I think is really important to bear in mind that these elements, these basic building blocks of a hoplite battle description are missing.

[9:26] And this is, can be further developed in particular, in the Spartan case, because all of the things that we expect of Spartans, the kind of things that Spartans do that make them interesting to authors like Thucydides and Xenophon in particular, the kind of things that they described with a sort of palpable awe as like, look at the Spartan army performing these things. I mean, you may not have heard about this before. Let me describe it to you in excruciating detail, these kinds of things, which they stress, you know, and single out these are unique Spartan skills. Um, these things don't occur in Herodotus's account of Plataea.

[9:59] So what a lot of authors have tended to assume that the Spartan army that was in action here, was the same Spartan army that was in action in the battle of Mantinea in 418 for instance, and had the same level of officer hierarchy, the ability to march in step to the sound of flutes, the ability to maneuver based on commands given in the field. Herodotus simply doesn't give us any indication or even a hint that this is the case. In fact, I think this is obviously a minor detail, but I think it's relevant. Um, when he says that the Spartans advanced into battle, what he actually describes is no different from how he describes others advancing into battle.

[10:38] There's no indication of this, Thucydidean idea of marching and step being very deliberate and slow where everybody else charged. In fact, the Tegeans advanced first, the word he uses aekoroun, they went forward and then the Spartans afterwards, also aekoroun also went forward. He used exactly the same verb, no offers, no glosses on it whatsoever. So these are all arguments from silence obviously, this is just saying what Herodotus does not say. And people have not been convinced by this and instead have tended to kind of fill in the blanks themselves with what they thought prerogatives ought to have said.

[11:13] And so what happens a lot of scholarship is essentially that the details that he doesn't mention are simply assumed to have been there anyway, because this is what we're assuming, right? That the formation that we're seeing in action at Plataea is the same formation that we see in action at Mantinea or Leuctra or Coronea or anywhere. And so this is where we get the quote that Sean Manning alluded to yesterday briefly when he mentioned this idea of ordered squares, careful armorment and deliberate drill. Hanson described the hoplite phalanx in these terms, but he was specifically referring to the Spartans at Plataea.

[11:45] So this is his understanding of what this must have looked like despite the fact that Herodotus gives us no hint of anything like this. And many descriptions of the battle similarly hinge were scholarly descriptions hinge on the idea that the hoplite phalanx inaction in this bottle operated in the same way as hoplite phalanxes due in later, battles described by Thucydides and Xenophon. So, this is just a sample quote, but again, I could offer you dozens of similar examples in which the Spartan and action is specifically described in the same terms and specifically described to be successful because it was a hoplite phalanx operating as a hoplite phalanx does.

[12:25] So eventually the sheer weight of the hoplite phalanx using those terms, which Herodotus obviously doesn't um, began to tell. And so the Persians, you know, helpless before this onslaught where were driven away. And this kind of assumption extends to the way that the source itself is often translated. One of my favorite examples of that is the old example by Godley of this particular part, which we've discussed, of course in great detail yesterday, um, of the retreat, the final retreat of Amompharetos, when he finally does.

[12:56] On the day of the battle, rejoin the Spartan line with his unit. Um, there is a line here, uh, in Herodortus which I've translated here as literally as possible. This is a very clunky translation, but I just want to express just how loose and just how vague the terminology is that Herodotus actually use it. What you're seeing here is literally the unit picking up it's weapons, Amompharetos led them slowly to the rest of the crowd (στιφος). This is a mob you know, a mass of people.

[13:28] But Godley translates this. He, accordingly bade his battalion to take up its arms and let it marching in step after the rest of the column, there are at least four occasions where I would quibble with the sheer professionalism, the sheer organization, the sheer, um, discipline that is implied by this particular translation. And that is how modern scholars have described the Battle of Plataea, but there are things that Herodotus say, or that Herodotus does that are not just reliant on us, understanding what he's leaving out, but actually work on what he does say.

[14:05] And one of those, which is obviously the most famous one when you're describing the Battle of Plataea is the problem of the Spartan light arm troops. Um, these Helots light armed, which are mentioned repeatedly, but which specifically, according to Herodotus, and this is critical to this understanding that this may be not, this maybe isn't a hoplite phalanx- what he says is when he described the numbers of the light armed, um, of the Spartiate taxis, there were 35,000 men. Now, this is a possessive, right? This is in that formation, in that Spartan taxis, there were 35,000 light armed troops.

[14:39] He does not use the same kind of phrasing for other formations, but this is something he specifically says about the Spartiate taxis. So this is Spartiate is also the noun that he uses there. And I'd like to stress the fact that like, of all the things that Herodotus says about this battle, this is the only thing he says about the Spartan formation. He is unable to give us any other detail about the nature, the makeup, the size, the depth, or anything else about this formation. He has no details. The only thing he says is that 35,000 light armed troops were in it, were part of it.

[15:14] And obviously many people have tried to deal with these helots in various ways, but I really do appreciate Peter Krentz article. Although I don't agree with this conclusion, just systematically dismissing all the different reasons that people have offered in any of these were just, you know, protecting the baggage train. They were just body servants. They were just whatever and saying, no, the only way we can make sense of this is to accept Herodotus at his word and accept that these troops were there and were part of the fighting formation that the Spartans deployed, even if we don't quite understand how that works, what that would have looked like.

[15:47] We're dealing with something here that isn't a hoplite phalanx. We're dealing with something that mixes us things together in a way that Herodotus was very insistent, was not like a hoplite phalanx. You know, this is not like the formations that he would have seen around him in the days when he was living in Athens or anywhere else. Um, this is something that he wanted to stress was different. Similarly, when it moves into action, we see something very strange that a lot of people have sort of mentioned or described as something that goes to the detriment of the way that the Persians were approaching this battle.

[16:20] But that actually tells you a lot about the way the Spartans were fighting it as well. Herodotus says that one of the things that Persians did wrong was that they kept coming ahead in very small groups, you know, they would come at the Spartans in one group in singles or in two man groups or 10 men groups charging into the line. And obviously the Spartan formation were very easily able to dispatch those small units because of its cohesion. This is used to say that this, this is used to explain the fact that the Persians are described as ἀνεπιστήμων, as unskilled, but as Phil Sabin pointed out, it also must mean that the Spartans are not doing something that we expect that we would expect them to do if they were classical hoplite phalanx, which is to keep the pressure on continuously the hoplite phalanx encounters, the enemy in battle and keeps on moving forward if it can, until resistance is offered or the enemy runs away.

[17:12] This pressure is continuous or this forward momentum is continuous because that is how a phalanx works. It goes forward until it encounters something that can stop it or until the battle is over, essentially. Um, but this, these kinds of one man or 10 minute texts can only happen if there is room for people to fall away from the Persian formation in order to cross the gap and encounter the Persians or the Spartans in hand to hand combat. If that is the case, there must be a gap between these lines. And if that is the case, we must assume that the Spartans were not keeping the pressure on, were not retaining momentum or pushing forward continuously, but rather after throwing down the Persian shield wall had actually stopped in place and allow the Persians to choose their favorite response.

[17:58] Essentially try and deal with the fact that the Spartans were now standing, where they had previously stood. This is not about maintaining that momentum in order to drive the Persians off the field. This is about stopping in your tracks and leaving them room to react to you by trying to pick at you in these small groups and trying to retain, um, you know, to open up gaps in the lines. And in fact, it's not just the Persians doing this. And this is kind of the interesting thing where I come together with obviously what Hans M. argued about the nature of later archaic warfare.

[18:31] You still get examples of also Greek warriors, similarly, moving away from their own formation in order to engage the enemy singly or in groups, you still see accounts in Herodotus battle narrative of single, uh, Greek warriors going out ahead of the line, either challenging enemies to single combat or trying to throw themselves at the enemy formation in order to make a hole in it or achieve some personal deeds. Note Aristodemus, obviously on the Spartan side is the famous example, but there are several others in the accounts of Platea.

[19:06] And in fact, when, Sophanes the Athenian does this to the Theban army, the implication must be that he is expecting Thebans to do the same in response to him. And Hans M. has argued already that they'd be, should not be sort of too tempted to dismiss this and say, well, this is just archaizing, and this is just heroic nonsense. Um, but that this may well reflect an actual way of fighting, that they were still able to move ahead of their own formation to challenge the enemy and to disrupt the enemy, even if it was already understood as the Spartans would later say that this is actually a bad thing because you're leaving your place in the line.

[19:42] And this is where we can bring in this evidence. Um, this, this very difficult to understand passage from Herodotus's account with Thermopylae where the, uh, the Spartan, supposedly feigned flight, and then turned around and overthrew this, the Persians who were chasing them, thinking they were running away. This is something that, you know, different scholars have dealt with in different ways. One of the things that I find most theories that I find most plausible is that these were indeed similar forward groups. They would run ahead, try to challenge the enemy, then run back to their main line.

[20:13] When they arrived at that main line, the rest would not follow them, but rather absorb them and offer united front. These are attempts to try and disrupt the shield wall that is otherwise too big of an obstacle, that simply cannot be encountered en masse. So these kinds of attempts to needle the enemy and to bring them out of their organized formation, bring them out of their steady shield wall, is something that we're seeing both sides doing. And in fact, this is something that received some confirmation, although dubious, I'll be happy to know if you, if you find validity in this or not, but is seemingly confirmed by this very much later account by Plato in which he has Socrates recall that they say, obviously, um, that at Plataea, that the Spartans came up with the men with wicker shields and they were not willing to stand and fight, but they fled.

[21:03] But when the Persian formation was broken, presumably in pursuit of these fleeing men, the Spartans kept turning around and fighting light cavalries, moving back and forth into the fight, trying to pick off stragglers, picking off people who are out of formation and so won that battle. And I've included here deliberately the response that immediately follows this from the experienced general Laches, who does not refute this and say, come on, this is nonsense. They were a phalanx. They fought like we do. Um, Laches actually confirms this story, even if that doesn't necessarily mean we should believe it.

[21:34] At least in the narrative, it is meant to be convincing. And so this is something that leads me to, I think, a composite picture that is quite different from what we understand a classical Hoplite battle to look like. And this is where I want to repeat this solitary quote from Peter Hans article on the role of the Helots at Platea, where he points out that by eliminating the parts of Herodotus that most surprise us, because they don't fit a preconception of hoplite battle. We have lost the very details, most likely to tell us something new.

[22:06] If we try to accept the things of parts of Herodotus that most surprise us. If we tried to see if there's any value in those statements, we may be able to re uh, reconceptualize what the fighting in this critical engagement actually looked like. And this obviously is speculative, and this is where we tie into, you know, what Paul has laid out for you before. Um, but fundamentally I think what we're looking at is something more like this. Both sides deployed mixed formations of, of missile troops, and heavy infantry behind more or less static shield walls.

[22:39] The Spartans are prompted to respond to the shield wall by a charge of heavy infantry because the Tegeans can't bear the arrow barrage. And they know that they're helpless before this. So they have to close the distance. The Spartans are kind of essentially prompted to follow suit. They don't do this in any sort of particularly Spartan way. They simply follow along with the Tegeans who are doing uh, were performing a kind of infantry attack to try and close the gap. But as soon as they have succeeded in their initial charge at overthrowing the Persian shield wall, the wall of Wicker shields, there seems to be a resumption of a similar sort of formation of static lines.

[23:17] The Persians have space to come ahead at this new line in single singularly or in groups, uh, in order to try and pick it apart. They are obviously now on the back foot and at a disadvantage because their big Wicker shields are gone. So they have to try and pick apart the Spartan line in order to try and even the odds or possibly regain ground so that they may pick up their shields again. These are probing attacks and there's room for that. Neither side is pushing. It is only at the very end that we see a rush of into close combat, which may be what Herodotus means when he used says that it was all in the balance until it came to othismos.

[23:53] We don't know what prompts this, but this is what finally decides the issue. Um, and this may well support, uh, Paul Bardunias argument that fundamentally the Greeks had to realize in the course of this conflict, as the Athenians may have done already at marathon, that it was the hoplites function as a close combat specialist that actually gave the greatest advantage to the Greek side. Thank you very much. And your brought forward a very fresh perspective. I think on the battle, that should, I feel stimulate some discussion for sure.

[24:26] And the in, in, in, in putting out questions to, to, to your talk, we can then perhaps segue into the, the more general discussion, um, as well as indeed, uh, intended, um, Paul please. In terms of the out runners, essentially. I mean, we can compare this to the later at Dromoi or running out from the ranks. I think particularly at that, that I can't remember the name, but it happens after. Um, where, where the Spartans die and they're buried at Kerameikos.

[25:00] There's that whole, it plays out beautifully where out runners run out and then they encounter a larger force and then hoplites are drawn into it. And, you know, later on, we were told that light troops fought before the hoplites engaged. Right. But early on, light troops and the hoplites are not as obviously different. So I don't think it's really a stretch at all. Even given what we know from the classical tactics that you had in this early age, you had men who would have been identified as hoplites, but essentially still could act as skirmishers.

[25:34] Yeah, I think, I mean, obviously we have so little evidence that it's hard to form a sort of coherence model of transition, we don't know what the stages are. And it's only at these moments like this, this account, or that we actually get an account. We can get, say something. I do want to say though, that out runners in later battles, firstly, they're mostly a Spartan thing. Very few others are able to organize this. And secondly, in later times in the classical period, there really is, you know, nominal punishment for leaving your place in the line, which at the time Plataea, isn't true yet.

[26:08] Like Aristodemus, we assume that he's making a mistake because he's leaving his place in the line, but he's not censured for that. Um, this is how Herodotus describes it. He left his place in the line. This is obviously bad, but the Spartans censured him, because he had a death wish. Um, leaving his place in the line is apparently fine. It makes me wonder if maybe there's a time to leave the line that at time to not leave the line. Right. So that could be, that could play into it. The need to be aware of that. If they're throwing missiles at each other, missile range for a spear without, uh, anchale is only about 15, 20 meters, right?

[26:43] So you're talking about being pretty close. I've often wondered if the hoplite walking charge is actually archaism, because they would've had to walk up to 20 meters, wouldn't charge the 20 meters and stop and throw. Right. So it's possible. They all walked back in the day. Yep. Very good. Thank you. Yeah. Um, this is, Giannis I think? Yes. Thank you. Um, I would like to make a remark that will link Paul's presentation and Herodotus, and our understanding of what might have happened with Plataea, but also our understanding of the whole classical and archaic hoplite fighting.

[27:31] So having participated in some of Paul's experiments, I think what we came out of these experiments with was, uh, the understanding that othismos is not something that we do. It's not something that you plan or that you want to do. The othismos is something that happens to you. And actually the verb used in all the sources is not active.

[28:03] It's passive, we're being pushed, being pushed by whom? Well being pushed by everyone around them. Um, so this means that you cannot push if you are not being pushed back. And what, what happens is that when the front ranker is fighting with his spear actively and there is a second ranker trying to reach, uh, the enemy with his spear, but being one rung behind and even the third man, trying to continue that.

[28:41] There is um, a closing of the ranks. And when this happens from the enemy, then you have this, um, resistance to the pushing. Like even when somebody, someone doesn't want to kill you. But anyway, he's not being friendly to you. If he's going to push you, what are you going to do? You're going to resist that. And this resistance in great um, um, level creates huge pressure at the front in the front ranks.

[29:21] So the evolution of Greek are more actually bears the signs that the hoplite the archaic hoplite did not want to push and couldn't push, but obviously it happened to them often enough, as it happened in later armies and quite possibly in earlier armies that were fought pitched battles, hand to hand battles. So this is why we have references later.

[29:55] Uh, people getting squeezed and, uh, the, the, uh, soldiers that were killed would stay standing and send those falling down because there wasn't room around them to fall. Uh, what the Greeks seem to have done in how they wore their armor shows that they found a way to survive. When it happened, because it could not have happened in all battles because it is not believable that in, uh, in any battle with the frontage of one kilometer or two kilometers, it is going to happen simultaneously that, uh, at all spots, there will be this resistance, at all times.

[30:47] The resistance comes and then you cannot stand it and you pull back on it. And then there's no othismos, um, at the Plataea it seems that Herodotus does not describe an othismos. If the Persians are coming to the Spartans one on one, or in groups of 10 or less, this means that the Spartans were not pushing them and the Persians were not pushing them. It might have happened in uh you know, at some point, if the Persians resisted, when the shield wall of the Persians fell.

[31:27] Uh, if the, uh, Persians resisted at all. Yes. And it kind of othismos might have happened, but we're not specifically told so. Well, this does occur in the, in the description of the battle, he says it was like an uneven fight, but it dragged on for a long time until it came to othismos. Right. Uh, but the word othismos he's uh, not using it. It's not used so often in the sources. What I wanted to show you, why the archaic armor, is not made for pushing.

[32:00] So I have been wearing this cuirass in one of Pauls othismos experiments. This is an exact replica, both in material, thickness, and shape and the way that it feels. Often archaic bell cuirass. And you see these, this prominent breams on the cuirass, it is a very effective protection from blows coming from above. Um, but it does not allow the man behind you to push you from behind.

[32:34] So what I experienced, was that when I was being pushed, so from behind, the shield of the man behind me wanted to squeeze down the rim of the bell cuirass. What did I do? I ran back into the camp, and I wore my leather cuirass, which was flexible. And supposedly it wouldn't protect me from the pushing as well as a metal one.

[33:08] But in fact, the shape of the shield is enough to actually (loss of audio). We see that the Greeks didn't want, originally to fight in an othismos, but obviously they found ways to survive it. If, and when it happened. Yeah, I think that's a very helpful point to what Paul is saying. That with experimentation, you can actually sort of at least rule out some options and create some implausibilities. Uh, so thank you for that. I put myself on the list here.

[33:40] I think. Thank you for your certainly refreshing perspective. And I think an ingenious recasting of, of the battles abroad, but I, I, I wonder, it may have been lopsided as you say with aoploi and ανεπιστημονες and all that, but, but is it really, is it really perceived or described as a classical, typical hoplite battle? I don't think so. I mean, given the simple fact that that one side are not hoplites, that aren't even Greek. Quite different.

[34:11] Um, that's one thing. And another, is that when you say that, that, uh, no depth indication is given, which is otherwise an important component and that's, that's true. Um, um, Up to a part at least. Um, because you, you cited Thucydides description of Mantinea in 418 yourself, I just ran through it. And, and he, uh, he doesn't indicate depth for, for the coalition side there either. Uh, so it's, it's not a it's not, I mean, not that we go to, to have, uh, to have shield depth, uh, indicated, although I grant you it is common, but it does not prove that that, there was no coordinated depth, because it's not mentioned, even Thucydides is guilty of that sometimes.

[34:59] And then another thing, um, you, you said Amompharetus uh, retreated to the stiphos, um, it does say that, but the stiphos is according to little Scott Jones at least means a body of men in close array. And it is used as such in both in Thucydides and Xenophon. So it's hardly a pack or a, uh, a throng or what have you, but just as, I mean, I mean, um, it may be that events were made to set it as too much of a typical hoplite battle, but, but, um, you can maybe also go overboard in the other direction.

[35:37] No fair enough. Um, so those are, those are some good comments. And the first point, I mean, this is where, like, I would obviously love to describe to you all the different things that I've gathered in the article itself. Um, but this, the description of this battle as a classical hoplite battle is very much explicit in a lot of scholarship and they will use phrases. Like they put Persians under the same kind of pressure that they would have brought to bear on a hoplite phalanx is very much the idea that they would have fought in a particular way, which is the way that we know from Thucydides and Xenophon. And that this is something they inflicted on the Persians who were helpless before.

[36:10] This is very much how traditional scholarship describes this battle. Um, and it's very explicitly not in any way different from the way that they would describe another battle, except in the fact that the opponents being Persian, didn't know how to cope with it. Weren't able to handle it. No, I see your point. Um, if I may butt, it is up to a point, I think natural that, that the Greek warriors would fight in the manner they knew in so far as it is, was applicable and, and gave results. And then they had to adapt to possibly in, uh, faced with, with the different kind of enemy.

[36:45] But, but, um, it would be surprising if they, if they could just- I mean change at will to a completely new form of fighting. So I mean, the argument that Paul and I tried to make is that this is not a new form of fighting. This is the traditional form of fighting, which is still moving towards the classical form. So exactly for that reason that that people who are drafted for a war that, you know, they didn't know it was happening until three minutes ago, aren't going to be able to prepare a whole new strategy, but rather must adopt the kind of ways of fighting they're already familiar with, which is always the limiting factor on militia fighting.

[37:20] As to your other points. Um, I mean, I take the point about, uh, the meaning of the words stiphos, I mean, that can be differently interpreted. The point there that I was trying to make is that there is no more technical use of any kind of terminology related to the Spartan units in particular. In fact, whenever they use something like taxis except in that one passage that I showed you, they're always referring to their position in the line rather than their formation. So the Spartans in Herodotus's account at Plataea don't have a formation except in the fact that the Helots are parts of it.

[37:52] That that's the only thing we learned about it. Then even in the middle of the battle, like they are described as just the Spartians, there is no sense of a battle line or a formation. And that obviously can be taken in multiple ways. I mean, I take your point that the depth of the line is not always mentioned even in Thucydides, but I do think that it is significant that it starts- it first appears obviously, as you know, well, in battle Delium, in later battles, it is sometimes mentioned and sometimes not. Um, but there is clearly a chronological progression where it becomes easier for people to include it.

[38:26] And if you go further back in time, it seems impossible for them to do so. Even when it is critical, even when at the battle of Marathon, for instance, it is hugely important that some parts of the line are dense and others are thin. There is no indication that Herodotus knows, how deep these lines are, or whether he even had a sense that this could be quantified. Um, in this early period. So just, I'm obviously aware that arguments from silence like this don't prove anything. And I completely concede that. Um, but I do think that they together can form a different picture.

[38:58] That is just as coherent as the one we already have, but maybe more sensitive to the things that we can't immediately make sense of. If you, if you see what I mean. I do see what you mean. It's, uh, I don't quite agree, but it's uh, I follow you. See, it's very interesting. Thank you. Can I jump in real quick. Would that be okay? But I just want to address something. Uh, one of the things with this whole concept of self-organization and the use of, uh, hoplites like this is that there's really very little difference between an ordered phalanx and a bunch of men standing together.

[39:36] The distance between those two has been greatly exaggerated. If you have men standing together in just a primitive wall of men, and you were watching it from across the field. Would it really matter if there were random filed, you know, depths between 10 and 12? I mean, does that really matter? Or eight and six? I mean, at some point, functionally, it's doing exactly the same thing. And then in terms of coming up with a new strategy, one of the important things is that all of these shield walls, that fight as essentially barricades with missiles going over the head.

[40:13] The battle ends with them fighting in what looks like a normal phalanx clash. At the end, if you're in a Roman, fulcon, you throw your last spear and you undo your tier of shields and you charge and fight with swords. So I don't think it's a question of then learning something new. I think it's really, and this is what I want, I want to get across with that triangle showing shield wall function. It's really, what's the emphasis and what's it being changed. Obviously. Persians could fight with spears in the shield walls as well, but their primary function was to defend the archers behind them, but that doesn't mean that they couldn't fight with their, with their Spears.

[40:49] So I just wanted to put that out there. Thank you both. Um, next up is John Hyland. Thank you. And thank you, Paul and Roel for those really fascinating papers. And again, together with the chapter that you wrote for the, the recently released Plataea volume, uh, you've given us a lot to think about, I think you've, in some ways you've moved our, our understanding or our questions about the dynamics of Greek versus Persian fighting, uh, forward.

[41:21] Um, Obviously, I still have some questions. And from my point of view, the big problem with trying to reconstruct Plataea, um, it goes beyond the problems identified by Watley, talking about Marathon, uh, about reconstructing, any ancient battle. Uh, I think here the great problem is that we're trying to reconstruct a battle in which we only have detailed descriptive accounts of one of the two armies involved in and one of the two tactical systems. Um, and I think, uh, again, we're, we're aware- And it's the Persian one.

[41:56] Has been given to the Persian side. Um, you know, I think. Sorry. I just tried to butt in before I've got, this is something that I actually wanted to stress anyway, in the paper but obviously sort of ran out of time, but it is a very interesting fact of this, that many scholars have been very happy to overwrite Herodotus's details of what the Greek army looked like, with material from later periods. So they just ignore a lot of things that he doesn't say or fill in the gaps a lot of things that we're very optimistically fill in the gaps with everything that we learned from generations later.

[42:33] But for the Persians side, we are kind of beholden to Herodotus's account because we don't have any other accounts of the functioning of Sparabara or Persian infantry or in any way really. Um, and so it's kind of interesting that like, whether or not we want to doubt and question Herodotus depends entirely on the availability of, um, of any kind of other evidence. Um, to his detriment, right. This is something that we, you know, the more evidence you have, the more people start to say, well, Herodotus clearly doesn't know what he's talking about. And I really worried that that means that when we rely on him to reconstruct how the Persians fought that we are on very very thin ice indeed.

[43:11] And that we have to wonder, you know, wouldn't it actually help us to try and think of him as being more honest and he's widely been considered. And that he's describing also the Greek way of fighting in a way that's actually reliable so that we can then also feel more confident in what he tells us about Persian fighting. I would love to have your opinion that. Sure. I think, I mean, I think that we are gaining more evidence on how Persians fought. Um, but we're not going to find those, uh, literary descriptions.

[43:43] Uh, but on the other hand, what, what hadn't really been studied until very recently, um, is, uh, the iconography that, that Christopher has worked on, that, that, uh, Margaret has, has worked on, um, together with the material, uh, evidence, um, for Persian arms and armaments. And again, Sean Manning has some on this, in his book, but there's, there's a lot more work to do. Um, we have spearheads from, uh, Iranian infantry spears, um, in fairly large numbers, uh, distributed from, from several different archeological finds between museums in Iran and, and, uh, Europe and the United States.

[44:21] Um, but, these, the armor scales, and other equipment haven't been subjected to the scientific inquiry, brought to bear on material from Olympia, from other sites with Greek weapons. Uh, until very recently, people are starting to starting to do this. So my, my big concern is, you alluded to this, and Paul brought it up. The idea that you're, that the model can only be as good as the assumptions that we bring to it. Um, and we have a lot of assumptions that are built onto the static shield wall as barrier, uh, the Spara as a giant barrier in front of the Persian line and mass archery behind it.

[45:00] Um, and again, that takes a few details from Plataea, but also some heavy assumptions from things like Xenophon's Cyropadia. Um, and from modern reconstructive assumptions that then are applied to all Persian tactical situations, no matter what's actually happening. Um, so my one concern is there is, I do like the idea of the small group rushes. I like the comparisons with Saban's model for, uh, Roman legionary combat. Uh, I think that may have, uh, something to offer us as a way forward.

[45:36] Um, I'd be a little concerned about taking the Persian shield barrier as automatically, uh, static, um, as, as a wall, if, if the Greek formation or phalanx doesn't have to be a wall, I'm not sure that the Spara do either from the limited artistic ovens. The one other point quickly is the importance of tactical context. Uh, and again, we tend to talk of this in struggled between weapons systems, once the lines are formed.

[46:08] Um, but the tactical context of Plataea is a pursuit, um, which turns into an unexpected encounter, at least from the Persian side. Um, the way Herodotus describes it. I think one of the strengths is the idea of an advance over a substantial amount of terrain in, in haste. And again, here, he brings up the lack of kosmos. Um, but you know, they're, they're covering. They're covering at least five kilometers from where most ideas placed the Persian camp, um, over rolling terrain with part of the advanced not being really able to see the enemy.

[46:45] Um, I think of a comparison with Xenophon on The Battle of Haliartus, uh, in 395, uh, where Lysander is killed and the Spartans route they flee to a terrain feature across the, the other side of the plane, uh, and the Thebans pursue, and then the Spartans turn and inflict casualties on them. Um, and there you know, we, we certainly should think about exhaustion and these effects, um, not just to tactical systems and hoplites and Persians fight differently and that's that.

[47:18] But also it matters if they've been running for a long time, are the troops tired? Um, uh, you know, what assumptions are they bringing into the fight? Okay, I'll stop talking. I said plenty, but I'd love to hear more of your thoughts and Paul's. Yeah. Thank you very much for that. This is a really good comment. I've always thought it would be much easier to understand the outcome of Plataea if we went straight from that rush from Mardonius saying let's go guys and the rush to the individual attacks on the Greek line.

[47:50] If that were the case, then we could very easily understand why are the Persians so disorganized and scattered and like lacking kosmos as you say, and why did they lose? Because obviously you're going up uphill against the formed formation of Spartians, and you're just not in formation and you're not doing your best, you know, to, to try and not performing at your tactical best. But the problem is that in between there is a scene where they set up their shield wall and start firing arrows. And either we sort of say, okay, well that's a generic description of a Persian army, but that didn't actually happen at Plataea, which is an option.

[48:24] You know, we could say that, um, or we could say that did happen in which case the effect of the exhaustion and disorder must be diminished. Maybe they had time apparently to recover and to regain order. So I'm not sure exactly how we could resolve that. I, you know, it's and odd thing to bring in because it's a much later source. But when I read Xenophon's battle of Binbara, I often think of this because the whole, the most important thing about his battle Binbara and he writing that obviously as a means to overcome the deep Theban tactics, but in a sense, the most important thing there is that that shield wall's not meant to hold for long.

[49:03] It's just meant to hold for long enough for the cavalry to come around the back and destroy the enemy and that doesn't happen. Marathon, obviously, or Plataea. And I think we know we're thinking about exhaustion and things like this. The worst thing to happen to an army is something unexpected. And if they were holding out expecting that Calvary to come and then it never did. I mean, that alone is enough to explain why the Persians lost up there. From my point of view. I just wanted to add one more thing that I meant to and forgot.

[49:35] But I, I should mention there, uh, by way of preview, uh, there's a really good chapter that, uh, Jeffrey Rop has written, uh, on trying to reconstruct a model of Persian infantry combat. Um, it's not out yet, but it's forthcoming in a volume I'm co-editing on, it's going to be a real companion volume on a war in ancient Iran. Um, so we've, we've had various delays, uh, during the COVID period in that, um, volume coming together. But we are moving towards the point of having a manuscript to turn in.

[50:05] Um, and so Jeffrey's work is also really good and, uh, you know, I hope we're going to see more, uh, when that comes out. We will surely do some testing this summer on this, by the way, just so you know, we'll get some Inspira. Right. Thank you. Next next question. Remark is Christopher Tuplin. Thank you. Oh, all sorts of things float around in the mind. Um, first, um, uh, it seems to me, John is quite right to, to refer to terrain.

[50:39] Um, I've always, I mean, one of the reasons why I really warn Thoreaux's fixture of this is that I've always felt having wandered around the terrain of Plataea that wherever exactly it is that kind of the final, crucial battles meant to happen. Um, it is somewhere kind of wholly unsuited to the classical image in one's mind of a phalanx battle. I mean, it, on the, on the contrary it's terrain that seems to call for um, for, for fluid formation, if you like to put it in the kind way or disordered formation to put it in the unkind way.

[51:19] So, I mean, I actually think, um, I mean, this is a point at which a sense of, of, of real typography is, is crucial. Um, second thing that cavalry um, that I think Paul just mentioned. I mean, the thing in the Herodotean account, the cavalry are very visible, but only as a precursor to the final, you know, stand up battle after which they disapear from sight until they reappear later, um, playing a role during the retreat of the Persian forces.

[51:59] Um, apart from the fact of course, that Mardonius is on a horse. And the thousand logades might be calvary. Um, and that's an imponderable, um, next to, well, two other more specific, well, specific things. Um, how long would it take, take some to knock down the Persian shield wall and, um, coming to the othismos.

[52:32] What Herodotus says, and just let me get the text in front of me precisely. I mean, the way he puts it, when, when the wall had fallen over then they were into a really, um, fierce battle over a long time until it, until they came to the othismos, because the barbarians were grabbing hold of their Spears and breaking them. Now, I mean, I don't know how he's used to just break a spirit, but I mean, Paul Bardunias, can I'm sure, I'm sure tell us.

[53:06] Um, but I mean, that's a very specific explanation of why, what he calls an othismos happened. The way Herodotus constructs his account is curious, of course, because he gets to that point in the narrative. It's the saying that, and then he steps back for a moment and reels off a number of observations about the battle, and this is where we get the stuff about, about hoplites against an opla and so on. And, and he works for, I think, four points until he comes back to referring to, to the lack of, of, of, of, of armament.

[53:41] And then we're into almost a description of the aftermath of the battle. This is when Mardonius' death started paying back and blah, blah, blah. Um, so you know, the, the, the, the things about. Um, specifics about the battle of clearly meant to belong in that space between the fall of the wall and coming to the othismos because the spears have been broken. And once you've got to that point, the implication, the narrative is it is pretty much over. Um, once it's reached that point, there isn't much more to happen until oh Mardonius is dead and the Greeks have won.

[54:16] Um, but what is, what is this this spear breaking thing? Why is that highlighted as, as the thing that flips us into a- into the final stage of the battle and at one, in which perhaps, um, in some sense it becomes less, less fluid. I mean, we stop having people running out, which from whichever side and you're absolutely right. Aristodemus is just the flip side of the Persians doing this. I'm sure that's right.

[54:47] But something brings us to an othismos. Actually, I mean, the point was made earlier about othismos being done being to do with, with pushing into a narrow space. I mean, you can find ways of putting this on the ground in Platea, in which that would actually be a pertinent, uh, pertinent analogy. Um, I don't know if you think of that space at the end of where, of where, you know, the, the, the gap comes through the, Asopos Hills and ends up in that- what I think of as the tilling ground, just behind that.

[55:20] Well, um, work it the other way. Um, an othismos, could be the, the, the gathering, everyone who is fighting, pushing back into that space. The point being precise, that the terrain again, where I started the lack of space. May be crucial, but, but that's reading into Herodotus, and what Herodotus actually talks about is broken spears. And that I really liked to know about that. Can I, can I field this one, because it's funny that you key in on that, because I often describe othismos as essentially the, what happens when they go to the sword.

[55:58] So when you're fighting with the spear, especially in the later um, classical era, the spears are enormously long, about eight feet long. So you're standing about five feet away from the people you're stabbing. The swords are not very long. So you can't actually sword fight standing next to a guy who's spear fighting. Because you can't reach the enemy at their way. So what I've applied is that there's there's, as it goes back almost a Cockwell except he made the mistake of separating the men out, you know, at far distant facings. But the, um, the concept is that there's a spear fighting phase that then breaks down into sword fighting and men who are sword fighting have no room to fight with spears and men who are spear fighting have no- they're too far away from it to fight with swords.

[56:41] So othismos really is an outgrowth of sword fighting with relatively short swords. And it makes sense to me that what I'm seeing happening here. And that's the, it's interesting as you comment on the ground like that, because as Giannis said earlier, you, you can't force somebody into othismos cause they can just step back and run. You have to get them trapped somehow. And this is exactly how it happens. Often if you're trapped, not by anything, you know, like a wall you're sometimes just trapped by the people behind who aren't giving ground.

[57:13] Right. So I think that's how this battle ended. I think. They came up to the, the the fence of gara. I don't think that they othismos'd through that. I think we're not specifically not told that they did, they didn't push the gara down as often as said, I think they fought through the gara. I think it was actually a huge obstacle for them. I think it took them a while to get through it, but once they got through it, then they regrouped again and started to fight in their normal fashion. Only to have the resistance, lead them into this sword fighting phase and then othismos.

[57:45] And I think the thing that the Persians are not trained in that they don't have the training is fighting in that really close sword, fighting distance like that in a crowd. I think that's the one thing that the hoplites probably have been doing for generations. Is ending their battles, sword, to sword smashed together in this crowd. And you can still fight really quite well in a scrap with a sword. We've tested this. Um, and if you can't, so if you don't have a shield and if you don't have any kind of, you know, tradition of fighting in this really tight formation, uh, I think that's really the technique that they're lacking.

[58:23] Right? That's what they're really not able to match with as far as the Spartans. Okay, just coming on the other point about like how long do things take? I mean, I hope I'm paraphrasing Adam properly because he's really the one who's studied these time words in Greek battles in most detail. But this is like, we just don't know very often they will say that fighting went on for a long time and we just don't kind of quantify that. Except in the solitary exception of pursuits, lasting until nightfall. Um, so generally we, we, we just have no way of knowing, um, how long, any phase of this to occur as far as I, as far as I know.