Soldiers and Ghosts: a History of Battle in Classical Antiquity
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SOLDIERS AND GHOSTS SOLDIERS & GHOSTS A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity J. E. LENDON Yale University Press New Haven and London Published with assistance from the income of the Frederick John Kingsbury Memorial Fund and from the Louis Stern Memorial Fund. Copyright © 2005 by Yale University. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Designed by Sonia Shannon Set in ITC Galliard and Trajan type by Duke & Company, Devon, Pennsylvania Printed in the United States of America by Vail-Ballou Press, Binghamton, New York Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lendon, J. E. Soldiers and ghosts : a history of battle in classical antiquity / J. E. Lendon. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-300-10663-7 (alk. paper) 1. Military history, Ancient. 2. Military art and science— History. I. Title. U29.L46 2005 355′.00937—dc22 2004021273 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Elizabeth CONTENTS List of Maps ix List of Figures x Prologue 1 Introduction 5 THE GREEKS 15 I. Fighting in the Iliad 20 II. The Last Hoplite 39 III. Two Stubborn Spartans in the Persian War 58 IV. The Guile of Delium 78 V. The Arts of War in the Early Fourth Century bc 91 VI. Alexander the Great at the Battle of Issus 115 VII. Hellenistic Warfare (323–31 bc) 140 The Greeks, Conclusion 156 THE ROMANS 163 VIII. Early Roman Warfare 172 IX. The Wrath of Pydna 193 X. Caesar’s Centurions and the Legion of Cohorts 212 XI. Scenes from the Jewish War, ad 67–70 233 XII. Shield Wall and Mask 261 XIII. Julian in Persia, ad 363 290 The Romans, Conclusion 310 vii viii CONTENTS Author’s Note and Acknowledgments 317 Chronology of Greek and Roman Warfare 321 List of Abbreviations 331 Notes 335 Glossary 389 Bibliographical Notes 393 Index 441 MAPS Greece and the Aegean 16 Central Greece 59 Campaign of Alexander the Great (334–323 bc) 116–17 The Roman World 164–65 Northern Greece in the Third Macedonian War (171–167 bc) 195 Italy in the Second Punic War (218–201 bc) 201 Gaul and Spain in the Time of Julius Caesar (58–45 bc) 213 The Levant in the Jewish War (ad 66–70) 234 Jerusalem during the Roman Siege (ad 70) 239 Julian’s Campaign Against the Persians, ad 363 291 ix FIGURES Bronze catapult washer from the Sacred Spring at Bath. 6 Hoplites in battle, aryballos attributed to the Chigi/Macmillan painter, c. 650 bc. 42 Hoplite phalanx, Xanthos, Nereid Monument, c. 400 bc. 43 Hoplite in fighting posture, bronze figurine, Corinth, c. 500 bc. 54 Tegean hoplite in pilos helmet, late fifth century bc. 64 Thracian peltast with javelin and pelte, Attic Cup, late sixth century bc. 95 Thracian peltast with thrusting spear and pelte, skyphos. 97 Thessalian cavalry formations. 100–101 Marble relief commemorating a victory of the tribe Leontis in the Anthippasia, Athens, c. 400 bc. 103 Macedonian phalanx, reconstruction. 122 Macedonian phalanx, reconstruction, detail of files. 123 Battle between Alexander and Darius, usually identified as Issus, mosaic after a painting, Pompeii. 134–35 The manipular legion. 179 Soldiers of the manipular legion. 180 Legion of cohorts arrayed for battle. 225 Two legionaries and a Roman o‹cer. The so-called Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus, first century bc. 226–27 Auxiliaries fight and legionaries work, Trajan’s Column, ad 113. 244–45 Auxiliary carrying a severed head in his teeth, Trajan’s Column, ad 113. 246 xi Figures xii Centurion wearing his decorations. Grave relief of Marcus Caelius, who vanished in the Varian disaster of ad 9. 249 What the late Roman shield wall may have looked like. Bronze roundel, third century ad (?). 264 What the late Roman shield wall may have looked like, mid– third century ad (marching soldiers in the Exodus fresco, Dura-Europos Synagogue). 265 Cavalry sports helmet fragment, bronze alloy, second century ad. 269 Auxiliary cavalryman equipped for equestrian military display, reconstruction. 270 Back of cavalry sports helmet fragment, bronze alloy, second century ad. 271 Fragment of a cavalry sports helmet, bronze, Weissenburg, second century ad. 272 Cavalry sports helmet, bronze, Strass-Moos bei Neuburg a. d. Donau, second century ad. 273 Cavalry sports helmet, bronze, Straubing, third century ad. 274 Battle of Greeks and Amazons wearing Phrygian caps, volute krater, Apulian, fourth century bc. 275 Pseudo-Attic Roman cavalry helmet, Theilenhofen, late second century ad. 276 Greek soldier in Attic helmet, Attic stamnos, Achilles Painter, c. 440 bc. 277 Roman soldier, possibly a Praetorian, in a pseudo-Attic helmet, second century ad. 278 PROLOGUE QUANG TRI PROVINCE, VIETNAM, 1967 ordy, Lordy, it’s July the Fourth. Here we go again. Hot dog. Hot time in the old town tonight. Bet we make big contact. I’m sure we’re going to have an exciting day of fireworks.” “Fuck you, Hatfield, we don’t need that.” At dawn on the Fourth of July, two battalions of U.S. Marines began to advance cautiously into the elephant grass south of the DMZ. The regulars of the North Vietnamese army Lwere waiting for them. The Vietnamese were dug in, well concealed, and supported by heavy artillery from North Vietnam, only a few miles to the north. And so it was, that as the Americans pushed forward into the rising heat, Marines began to die. First to fall was Lieutenant Anderson of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines, shot in the head leading his troops forward as they opened the battle by walking into an ambush. Anderson had never been much for taking cover: “It’s okay. God’s going to protect me.” By 1115, when it pulled back two hundred meters and artil- lery was called in to sweep the front, Kilo Company had su¤ered twelve killed and seventeen wounded. They had not seen a single enemy soldier. As Captain Giles prepared to withdraw, a marine lying in front of his hedge, thought to be dead, sat up slowly and lit a cigarette. “Are you okay?” “No, sir, I’m just having a cigarette before I die.” “What I want you to do is roll over on your face and crawl back to- ward us.” 1 2 PROLOGUE “No, sir, just leave me alone. Don’t come and get me. Leave me alone. I’m dyin’, and I just want to have my last cigarette.” After more futile coaxing and agonizing as to whether to send soldiers out to get the Marine—covered by an enemy sniper, he could not be res- cued without exposing other Marines to fire—Captain Giles and his men left their wounded comrade to his fate.Q Captain Giles’s decision to abandon the dying Marine seems peculiar in light of the purpose of Kilo Company’s advance. For the objective of the Marine attack was not military in the strictest sense: it was to recover the dead bodies of thirty-one Marines abandoned on the field after an engagement two days before. But in pulling back hastily to allow a bom- bardment by artillery and airstrikes (during that four-hour interlude some of the bombs fell short, wounding and killing Marines), Kilo Company had abandoned its twelve new KIAs in front of its lines: now its first task was to recover them. In the process, the company took fire, and the com- pany on its flank took casualties: two dead, four wounded. “We’re taking too many casualties. We’re going to pull back.” “Bullshit. I’m giving you a direct order under combat conditions to continue to move.” Once the fresh corpses had been secured and manhandled back, the Marines withdrew for the night to the line they had held during the American bombardment. During the morning of July 5, six Marines were wounded by enemy mortar fire, and American artillery and airstrikes pounded the area in front of their lines; now the Marines began to creep forward once again, toward the original bodies. But, as so often in Viet- nam, this was to be a battle without a climax. The NVA had withdrawn during the night, and the battered bodies of the Marines killed three days earlier were recovered without further incident. They were bagged by Marines wearing gas masks against the stench, piled high on tanks, and dispatched, by stages, upon their dolorous journey back to the United States.W “We don’t leave our people,” Lieutenant Howell told the New York Times about the operation. “I’m sure they’d do the same thing for me.” Insistence on the recovery of their dead has long been part of the code of the U.S. Marines, and this creed has spread through the American armed forces to become a characteristic feature of the American way of Prologue 3 war. It is not unusual for the recovery of dead bodies to generate more dead bodies, as it did in Quang Tri Province. Enemies quickly learn that Americans return for their dead: as the Combat After Action Report on this battle observed, “NVA forces seem to be fully aware of the Marine tradition to remove all wounded and dead from the battle field.