chapter 6 ‘No Shortage of People to Kill’: The Rout and Its Aftermath

Fight or Flight

Despite the efforts of Greek generals to rely as little as possible on the perfor- mance of the hoplite militia, most major battles still ultimately hinged on a single clash between rival lines of heavy infantry. The previous chapters have revealed the structural reasons for this. Firstly, to protect the phalanx, restric- tive terrain was often chosen for battle; secondly, for the same reason, horse- men and light troops were usually deployed primarily to cancel out their coun- terparts in the opposing army. Both tendencies set the phalanxes of each army on a collision course. Thirdly, while hoplites were the only troops with the stay- ing power to face down a charge and rout the enemy in hand-to-hand combat, the hoplite body lacked the discipline and manoeuvrability to carry out any battle plan more sophisticated than a head-on assault. As a result, even though the Greeks were fully aware of the amateurism and unreliability of the hoplite levy, they were nonetheless forced to retain the frontal clash of phalanxes as a central feature of battle. With this tactical reality in mind, it seems strange that many modern accounts of Greek warfare treat the moment of truth, the clash and rout, as a mere instant in the course of a typical battle. They rarely describe this critical event in much detail, and practically never consider its potential as an aspect of military thought.1 This treatment surely means that our picture of tactical thinking as a response to battlefield realities is incomplete. The encounter of the hoplites, after all, presented commanders with a serious tactical problem. If the outcome of battle was to depend on the sheer perseverance of the hoplites, the willingness of these men to stand together and ‘look spears in the face’ (Xen. Sym. 2.14) became far more important than it had been in the fluid battles of the Archaic period. The pressure to find ways to increase the reliability of hoplites must have been significant. The untimely crumbling of the line was a mortal threat to any

1 See for example Rüstow/Köchly 1852, 144; Connor 1988, 14; Lazenby 1991, 91; Van Wees 2004, 191; Rawlings 2007, 97; Wheeler 2007c, 211–212.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004355576_008 ‘no shortage of people to kill’: the rout and its aftermath 179 battle plan; our sources suggest that, once the rout had begun, it was almost impossible to reverse. Given the hoplites’ lack of military discipline and the absence of a hierarchy of officers to rally the men, a phalanx that was ‘turned’ was typically beyond repair. There are only two known exceptions. At Solygeia, both the Athenians and Corinthians managed to regain control over one wing of their phalanx.2 At the battle of Kynoskephalai in 364, Pelopidas’ forces were repulsed three or four times before finally putting their enemies to flight (Plut. Pel. 32.2–7). In the former case, however, the double recovery was due to the nature of the terrain: the retreating Corinthians rallied when they reached the safety of a wall on a nearby hill, while the fleeing Athenians were driven straight into the surf and had no choice to but to stand and fight. In the latter case, according to Plutarch, Pelopidas’ inspiring leadership and the troops’ hatred of their enemy kept the army in the fight—though it is not clear from his account how this actually played out, given the general’s limited control over the whole of his army. In all other battles of which we hear, the flight of the phalanx was final.3 Routed armies did not stop running until they reached their camp or a friendly city wall. Generals who wished to retain some control over the battle had to give serious thought to the ways in which a rout might be prevented. To make matters worse, the hoplite phalanx was a fickle thing. The impor- tance of group psychology in holding the hoplite body together meant that a sudden panic in the ranks could spread like wildfire, causing the whole forma- tion to collapse.4 On a number of occasions, significant parts of a hoplite line broke and fled before the two sides even met.5 The Greeks appear to have blamed such sudden collapses of the battle line on the gods,6 but in practice it seems to have been more commonly caused by the Spartans. Admittedly, part of the Spartan Derkylidas’ army in Asia Minor once chose to flee rather than fight the Persians (Xen. Hell. 3.2.17), and the Spartans’ own allies—with the exception of the men of Pellene—appear to have broken almost without a fight at the Nemea (Xen. Hell. 4.2.20). But in all other examples, the ones running away before coming to blows were opposed by Spartans or Spartan-led troops. At Amphipolis, half of Brasidas’ Athenian

2 Thuc. 4.43.2–4 (as noted in Van Wees 2004, 191 n. 35). 3 There is one further example of fleeing troops rallying and returning to the fight: at Tamynai in 349/8, a certain Kleophanes managed to persuade the fleeing Euboian cavalry to turn back and support the Athenian hoplites (Plut. Phok. 13.3). 4 Kromayer/Veith 1903, 318–319, 328–333; Christ 2006, 100–102. 5 Kromayer/Veith 1903, 330, 332; Hanson 1989, 102–103; Lazenby 1991, 91; Sabin 2000, 13; Christ 2006, 100; Rawlings 2007, 94; Echeverría 2011, 61. 6 Eur. Bakkhai 303–304; Paus. 10.23.7; Hanson 1989, 103.