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Religious Scruples in Ancient Warfare Author(S): M Religious Scruples in Ancient Warfare Author(s): M. D. Goodman and A. J. Holladay Source: The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 36, No. 1 (1986), pp. 151-171 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/638951 Accessed: 06/09/2010 13:12 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Cambridge University Press and The Classical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Classical Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org Classical Quarterly 36 (i) 151-171 (1986) Printed in Great Britain 151 RELIGIOUS SCRUPLES IN ANCIENT WARFARE M. I. Finley in his Politics in the Ancient World(Cambridge, 1983), 92-6 has recently cast doubt on the extent to which religious phenomena were taken seriously in ancient times. We believe that in stressing the reasons for scepticism he has overlooked much positive evidence for the impact of religious scruples on political behaviour and that in generalising he has undervalued the differences in this respect between ancient societies. The significance of some of this positive evidence is admittedly uncertain since in civilian life scruples might be easy to observe without great suffering.1The acid test is in time of war, so that is the concern of our present enquiry. That attitudes varied can be shown only by comparing societies. We have here limited our discussion to three for which the evidence is well preserved: the world of the Greek city before Alexander the Great, Rome before Constantine, and the Jews in the Hellenistic and Roman period.2 Elucidation of the reasons for their distinct attitudes would reveal much about each of these societies and its religious practices and conceptions, but there will be space here only to show that considerable variety did indeed exist. Most ancient peoples assumed that their gods approved of war; the pacifism of some pre-Constantinian Christians was exceptional. Nor did such rules in combat as were observed necessarily have a religious foundation. Ancient like modern scruples were often based on moral and humanitarian grounds, as in the treatment of corpses and civilians; the gods, as the guardians of general morality, might be involved in such matters, but only at a remove. Even more apparently blatant religious phenomena such as omens and auspices were probably seen not as reflexions of divine wishes but as part of the natural world, of which note should be taken, as with signs of the I In civilianlife, the seriousnesswith whichfeasts were observed varied. Some Romansand (thoughthis is not explicitlyattested) possibly some Greeks were appalled at the lazinessof Jews for havinga weeklyrest (cf. Seneca,De Superstitione,ap. August.De Civ.Dei 6.11; Tac. Hist. 5.4),but Macrobius(Sat. 1.16.9)none the less statesthat Romanreligious feasts too weremeant to be observedby rest. A fine had to be paid if any Romanwas seen by a priestdoing work on a rest day. Xenophonclaims that no Athenianwould dreamof doing anythingimportant on the IHAvvnjpta(Hell. 1.4.12).Perhaps the degreeof respectpaid to such occasionswas sometimesa ratherpersonal matter, as withChristian days likeGood Fridayin WesternEurope today.Xenophon was a notablypious man and had an axe to grindin stressingthe importance of the HAvvTr(pLa.Alcibiades and his friendsobviously thought that it would not do him any harmto returnon thatday and, as it turnedout, theywere right. The passions of theHermokopid affairwere not reawakenedon thisoccasion, any morethan in 412/11, althoughthe Eumolpidae and Kerykesraised objections at first(Thuc. 7.53.2). H. W. Parke,Festivals of the Athenians(London, 1977),190, estimates the normalAthenian attitude at a rather low level. Macrobiushints at a Roman means of avoiding private inconveniencewhen he notes that accordingto Scaevolawork was permittedwhenever it was necessaryto avoidloss (Sat. 1.16.11):public dies nefasti were by contrastcarefully observed by the cessationof officialpublic business. Although Jewish attitudes towards labour performed on the Sabbathwere altogetherstricter, they too variedconsiderably, as is easily seen from a comparisonof the rabbiniclaws preservedin the Mishnah(Shabbat 7.2, and passim)with the sectariancustoms of the Essenes(cf. Jos. B.J. 2.147). 2 Comparablescruples undoubtedly manifested themselves in otherreligions and societies. For example,the HittiteKing MursilusII returnedto his capitalin the middleof a war to celebrate thepurulliyas festival (0. R. Gurney,The Hittites (Harmondsworth, 1953) 152). But the Greeks, Romansand Jewsprovide by far the richestmaterial. The sectionon Greeceis primarilythe workof A.J.H.,that on Romeand the Jewsof M.D.G. 152 A. J. HOLLADAY AND M. D. GOODMAN weather: but prayers to the gods to send better omens showed a belief that gods could alter nature within the limits of Fate, although in the meantime it was foolish rather than impious to ignore the signs. In contrast, portents are often ascribed to intervention by a particular deity and were probably obeyed for more specifically religious reasons. The desire to have the gods on your side in warfare was doubtless always in some sense a military tactic. Victory was more likely if the favour of a particular deity could be ensured either as a result of past connexions, cult and history or through sacrifices and prayers, the avoidance of hubristic activities and the observance of taboos. Some exceptionally pious people may have performed their religious duties in war as in peace from pure motives of love and respect for the deities involved, but the average human being probably did so for fear of the consequences if he did not. It is however significant that ancient writers themselves thought they could distinguish between religious and secular reasons for doing things, since otherwise the use of ~LKatoo6v'q and EdX/ELta as separate terms would have been meaningless. Plato's Euthyphro shows that the concept of piety was not entirely clear, but Euthyphro's last definition, that holiness is the part of the right which has to do with pleasing the divinity (12e: - TErrEplr-q'v 1rV OECv BOEpaTEdav),was reckonedby Plato not inaccurate(if insufficient),and we shall adopt it here. Of course in many cases it is impossible to tell whether the religious reasons given in the sources for particular actions were invented to explain decisions already taken on other grounds. We have tried to isolate those occasions when the action or inaction which actually occurred is said to have been dictated by the will of the gods, as revealed by omens, portents or oracles, even though the participants must have been well aware at the time that military disaster was a probable result of such piety. We have checked in each case that no other, non-religious reason can be plausibly surmised for the behaviour attested. We have paid most attention to the stories of divine interference which were least likely to have been fabricated after the event, making use of the fact that all three societies here examined believed that the gods desired a cessation of military activity on fixed holy and prescribed days. Observance of such taboo days even when this was tactically detrimental would seem to be a sure sign that religious scruples were taken seriously. I. SPARTA AND THE GREEKS The holy days and festivals of the Greeks might be celebrated by individual cities, by ethnic groups (e.g. Dorians or lonians), or by all Greeks. Some truces were merely designed to avert war in order that the Games or festivals could be celebrated, whereas other feasts prohibited all kinds of activity as an essential part of the feast itself (as with the Jewish Sabbath). The situation of the Greeks however differed greatly from that of the Jews, whose holy days recurred weekly and could not usually be breached without very severe social and religious consequences. For the Greeks the festival only occurred annually, biennially or quadrennially, and for a breach of the peace there was often a prescribed monetary penalty, payment of which, combined with suitable professions of penitence, could settle the matter (cf. Thuc. 5.49). There was also no need to observe the festivals wherever you were. The aim was to be there on the spot and if this was impossible they were ignored.3 The celebration was a public not a private affair. 3 W. K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War (California, 1979), iii. 185, notes that he can only find two instances of any attempt to organise celebration in the field - and of these one is unclear RELIGIOUS SCRUPLES IN ANCIENT WARFARE 153 On the other hand there were many Greek festivals and the period entailed by some of them (LEpovqtLaL)was quite lengthy. For example, although the contests in the Olympic Games only lasted five days, a considerably longer period of time was needed to enable competitors and spectators to travel safely to and from Olympia.4 The heavy ecclesiastical calendar in the summer months might seem to provide a serious obstacle to military activity for any pious state, but in fact it was not a very serious problem in early times, when the nature of Greek warfare was restricted and almost gentlemanly.
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