11-27-2008, 01:46 AM
In the ‘Porpax’ thread, Giannis wrote:-
First let me apologise to Giannis for using his quotation out of context to illustrate another point.
The picture Giannis’ quotation conjures up, of Hoplites as wealthy men with plenty of leisure time to attend the gymnasium is just not true, as I hope to demonstrate.
The generalisation that in Classical Greek times, Hoplites came from the ‘middle classes’ is commonly made, but far from true.
First, was there such a thing in a Greek poleis/city state as ‘middle classes’?
What do we mean by ‘middle classes’ in a Classical Greek context?
At bottom we have the ‘lower’ classes – peasants who eke a living from a smallholding, labourers etc. These were called ‘Thetes’ in Athens. Above these we may cite as ‘middle classes’, the artisans –potters, metal workers tradesmen etc, skilled workers such as armourers, sailors, carpenters, masons etc
The ‘economy’ of a Greek poleis was not how we tend to think of city economies. It was largely a simple agricultural one, and most poleis/cities began life as Market Towns where outlying farmers gathered to barter and trade produce, and rallied to in time of War. In fact, even in Athens, a money economy did not begin until the mid sixth Century (c.550 B.C.), and did not properly get under way until just before the Persian Wars, with the exploitation of the Laurion silver mines that produced Athens famous ‘owls’ coinage, used to build the fleet on the eve of the War. (c.510 B.C. onward). Thus what we would call ‘middle classes’, who could not thrive except in a money economy, were never very numerous and in Athens were largely made up of metics/ foreigners without political rights, and as non-citizens, no obligation to serve anyway.
So who did provide the Hoplites, if not this urban middle class?
A 'hoplite' without aspis and helmet was, by definition, not a hoplite at all...and whilst greaves might not be considered necessary, I would venture to suggest that to take one's place in the phalanx one had to have 'Hopla'/panoply of Aspis/shield, Dory/spear and kranos/helmet as 'de minimis'.
To set a yardstick, when talking in terms of agricultural 'wealth', around 6-8 medimnoi would feed a man for a year, and 25 medimnoi / 800-1,000 kg of wheat ( which might come from as little as a 3-5 acre farm) is roughly the amount of crops/wages a typical village craftsman or peasant farmer might have which would be enough to feed a family of 2 adults and 3 children for a year, and have a good surplus to trade for lentils, beans, fish, the odd goat and buy wool for the wife to spin into clothes and still have something left over for the luxuries of life such as wine ! Of course, the Greek peasant farmers, then as now grew other crops in between the Wheat or more commonly Barley – grapes, olives vegetables etc, and often kept goats for milk and meat.
The top three social classes, Pentakosoimedimnoi, Hippeis and zeugitoi were all liable to compulsory Hoplite service and their names were ‘on the list’ (katalogos) Only the lowest ( and of course most numerous) class, the Thetes were immune. This meant that in theory only the 'wealthy' with full citizen rights were supposedly liable. To become a zeugite, a man had to have property producing 200 medimnoi’(8000 kg of wheat or 6,500 kg of barley), worth roughly 600 drachma in monetary terms ( roughly two years wages for an artisan or soldier) or 200 liquid measures (metretes/amphorae; 800 litres/175 gallons) of wine or olive oil. A zeugite could afford a brace of oxen to plough his land ( and needed them, 20 acres or so is a lot to plough). Property over 300 medimnoi qualified for the Cavalry Class and with it the obligation to keep a horse. ( Horses were the ultimate status symbol in Classical Greece, like an expensive car – a single horse ate as much as 6 men, and cost 300 drachmas to buy, hence the ultimate status symbol of taking part in your City’s religious festivals fully armed as a Hoplite and mounted on your horse, so often depicted on pottery).
The pentakosoimedimnoi ( ‘500 medimnoi’ men) were the very wealthy in classical Attic terms, and needed 70-75 acres to support this. Confirmation of this comes from a known property of this size belonging to Alcibiades, though as one of Athens wealthiest citizens he owned other property.
In Athens, if you were really wealthy, you could be asked to finance the maintenance of one of the City's Triremes, about 5,000 drachma or 66 tonnes of wheat per annum. If the vessel was lost, you could be asked to pay for a new one, again about 5,000 drachma to build and outfit with sails, oars etc. ( digression: we are told elsewhere in detail the fabulous sums that a patriotic citizen could end up spending on a trireme.)
To produce a harvest that size (the zeugite's 200 medimnoi) in turn required a farm of 9 Hectares (22 acres) or more - twice the size of a typical family farm of the time. In Classical times, a 9 Hectare farm would cost roughly a Talent/25.86 kg of silver, if one could be bought, and lift the owner into the ranks of ‘the rich’, as Aristotle tells us (Politics 1274).
Such a bountiful harvest would feed at least a dozen to twenty people, hence the owner could afford several slaves and still have a surplus to sell !!
Clearly this ‘Class threshold’ is far higher than necessary to simply purchase ‘Hopla’ – a basic shield and spear could be had for perhaps 25-40 drachma, .( roughly a months wage for a skilled labourer or artisan at a drachma a day) and a full panoply for 75-100 drachma. (roughly 3 months wages for an artisan, or the cost of an agricultural labourer slave).
In modern terms, that equates to about a quarter of a year’s salary or the cost of a small car. A hundred years earlier, a Late 6C Athenian decree required settlers on Salamis to equip themselves with a panoply worth 30 drachmas. ( doubtless inflation pushed this up to 75-100 drachma a century later). An idea of the cost for second-hand items in classical times can be gained from the prices recorded at Athens in 415 B.C.: a javelin, 2 drachmai; a spear without a butt, 1 drachma 4 obols. Unfortunately, I haven't come across a figure for the exact cost of a shield or helmet (obviously the two most expensive items). By comparison, the rate of hoplite pay about that time was a drachma a day plus an allowance for food, rations enough to support the Hoplite and a servant/shieldbearer.
Also, the matter of who fought in the phalanx is more complex than first appears.
Let us look at Athens as an example ( sorry, Athens and Sparta are the states we have most information about !! )
Athens could field over 16,000 Hoplites in classical times, (Thuc II.13) but fewer than 10,000 zeugitae would have used up more than all the arable land in Attica !(let alone the higher classes!) In fact, perhaps less than half of Athens Hoplites came from zeugitae or higher classes, the rest from among the Metics/’foreigners’ and volunteer Thetes/ lower classes – of whom a famous example was Socrates, whose ‘worth’, at rather less than 500 drachma, made him a thete, yet he fought as a Hoplite at Delium and Potidaea. Hoplite ‘volunteer’ thetes also often provided the Marines for Athens fleet. (e.g. the Sicilian expedition).
Who paid for their equipment? Apparently it was Socrates friends who likely outfitted him, and in other cases, as with the Triremes, public benefactors paid - we hear of one individual donating a thousand aspides in a single gift! The state too could supply arms, certainly after about 335 B.C., when Athens presented each conscripted ephebe/young man, on completion of his training, with a spear and a shield. Moreover, if the father had died in battle, other items were supplied as well.
A similar situation must have existed in Sparta too. Sparta found it cheaper than hiring mercenaries to free Helots/serfs and equip them as Hoplites, first as an experiment under Brasidas, then more generally as Neodamodeis/'new citizens' and these can only have been equipped by the state or public benefactors.
The real difference was political – only those of official ‘Hoplite’ status/on the ‘List’ could hold political office – witness Athens Oligarchs, on taking power in 411 BC reducing ‘the list’ from 9,000 to 5,000.
Significantly, a similar situation prevailed in Sparta – as the Homioi (Equals/Peers) class shrank, the ranks of the Lakedaemonian Phalanx came to be filled more and more with Hypomeiones (Inferiors, without political rights) and Perioikoi ( neighbours of Sparta), and eventually the Neodamodeis referred to above, especially for foreign expeditions/long campaigns,so that Political/Social rights were no longer associated with mere service in the Phalanx........
In summary then, and taking Classical Athens as our example:
1. Fewer than half of her Hoplites came from 'citizens', who were not in any event urban 'middle classes', but rather the better off rural farmers/peasants, who were 'wealthy' enough to own twenty acres or so and a brace of Oxen.
2. The balance were the poorer class - thetes - who volunteered and were equipped by public benefaction ( which also built the Temples etc), augmented by some 'middle class' volunteer artisans/skilled workers.
3. As campaigns grew longer, or involved expeditions,during the 5th century, the proportion of 'volunteer poorer classes'/thetes increased, and the proportion of farmer/peasant citizens ( zeugitae and above) decreased and came to be augmented by 'Allies' and, increasingly, mercenaries
4. A similar situation prevailed in Sparta, with the proportion of the official 'Hoplite class'/Homioi (lit: peers or equals), holding land (cleruchs) also declining, and the ranks becoming increasingly filled with Hypomeiones/ 'inferiors' without citizenship rights,perioikoi/'neighbours' and eventually freed Helots called Neodamodeis/'new citizens' and eventually Allies and mercenaries too.
All of which means a 'typical' Hoplite is more likely to have been a gritty peasant with a plain helmet, simple shield device, and probably not body armour or greaves, rather than the richer types, the dandies with colourful horeshair crests , elaborate shields, body armour, greaves etc who provided the models for the Heroes we see painted on 'pots'.
Quote:At last,hoplites were the middle and highest class of citizens,those who could go to the gymnasium,learn boxing,pankration,go to the Olympics.
First let me apologise to Giannis for using his quotation out of context to illustrate another point.
The picture Giannis’ quotation conjures up, of Hoplites as wealthy men with plenty of leisure time to attend the gymnasium is just not true, as I hope to demonstrate.
The generalisation that in Classical Greek times, Hoplites came from the ‘middle classes’ is commonly made, but far from true.
First, was there such a thing in a Greek poleis/city state as ‘middle classes’?
What do we mean by ‘middle classes’ in a Classical Greek context?
At bottom we have the ‘lower’ classes – peasants who eke a living from a smallholding, labourers etc. These were called ‘Thetes’ in Athens. Above these we may cite as ‘middle classes’, the artisans –potters, metal workers tradesmen etc, skilled workers such as armourers, sailors, carpenters, masons etc
The ‘economy’ of a Greek poleis was not how we tend to think of city economies. It was largely a simple agricultural one, and most poleis/cities began life as Market Towns where outlying farmers gathered to barter and trade produce, and rallied to in time of War. In fact, even in Athens, a money economy did not begin until the mid sixth Century (c.550 B.C.), and did not properly get under way until just before the Persian Wars, with the exploitation of the Laurion silver mines that produced Athens famous ‘owls’ coinage, used to build the fleet on the eve of the War. (c.510 B.C. onward). Thus what we would call ‘middle classes’, who could not thrive except in a money economy, were never very numerous and in Athens were largely made up of metics/ foreigners without political rights, and as non-citizens, no obligation to serve anyway.
So who did provide the Hoplites, if not this urban middle class?
A 'hoplite' without aspis and helmet was, by definition, not a hoplite at all...and whilst greaves might not be considered necessary, I would venture to suggest that to take one's place in the phalanx one had to have 'Hopla'/panoply of Aspis/shield, Dory/spear and kranos/helmet as 'de minimis'.
To set a yardstick, when talking in terms of agricultural 'wealth', around 6-8 medimnoi would feed a man for a year, and 25 medimnoi / 800-1,000 kg of wheat ( which might come from as little as a 3-5 acre farm) is roughly the amount of crops/wages a typical village craftsman or peasant farmer might have which would be enough to feed a family of 2 adults and 3 children for a year, and have a good surplus to trade for lentils, beans, fish, the odd goat and buy wool for the wife to spin into clothes and still have something left over for the luxuries of life such as wine ! Of course, the Greek peasant farmers, then as now grew other crops in between the Wheat or more commonly Barley – grapes, olives vegetables etc, and often kept goats for milk and meat.
The top three social classes, Pentakosoimedimnoi, Hippeis and zeugitoi were all liable to compulsory Hoplite service and their names were ‘on the list’ (katalogos) Only the lowest ( and of course most numerous) class, the Thetes were immune. This meant that in theory only the 'wealthy' with full citizen rights were supposedly liable. To become a zeugite, a man had to have property producing 200 medimnoi’(8000 kg of wheat or 6,500 kg of barley), worth roughly 600 drachma in monetary terms ( roughly two years wages for an artisan or soldier) or 200 liquid measures (metretes/amphorae; 800 litres/175 gallons) of wine or olive oil. A zeugite could afford a brace of oxen to plough his land ( and needed them, 20 acres or so is a lot to plough). Property over 300 medimnoi qualified for the Cavalry Class and with it the obligation to keep a horse. ( Horses were the ultimate status symbol in Classical Greece, like an expensive car – a single horse ate as much as 6 men, and cost 300 drachmas to buy, hence the ultimate status symbol of taking part in your City’s religious festivals fully armed as a Hoplite and mounted on your horse, so often depicted on pottery).
The pentakosoimedimnoi ( ‘500 medimnoi’ men) were the very wealthy in classical Attic terms, and needed 70-75 acres to support this. Confirmation of this comes from a known property of this size belonging to Alcibiades, though as one of Athens wealthiest citizens he owned other property.
In Athens, if you were really wealthy, you could be asked to finance the maintenance of one of the City's Triremes, about 5,000 drachma or 66 tonnes of wheat per annum. If the vessel was lost, you could be asked to pay for a new one, again about 5,000 drachma to build and outfit with sails, oars etc. ( digression: we are told elsewhere in detail the fabulous sums that a patriotic citizen could end up spending on a trireme.)
To produce a harvest that size (the zeugite's 200 medimnoi) in turn required a farm of 9 Hectares (22 acres) or more - twice the size of a typical family farm of the time. In Classical times, a 9 Hectare farm would cost roughly a Talent/25.86 kg of silver, if one could be bought, and lift the owner into the ranks of ‘the rich’, as Aristotle tells us (Politics 1274).
Such a bountiful harvest would feed at least a dozen to twenty people, hence the owner could afford several slaves and still have a surplus to sell !!
Clearly this ‘Class threshold’ is far higher than necessary to simply purchase ‘Hopla’ – a basic shield and spear could be had for perhaps 25-40 drachma, .( roughly a months wage for a skilled labourer or artisan at a drachma a day) and a full panoply for 75-100 drachma. (roughly 3 months wages for an artisan, or the cost of an agricultural labourer slave).
In modern terms, that equates to about a quarter of a year’s salary or the cost of a small car. A hundred years earlier, a Late 6C Athenian decree required settlers on Salamis to equip themselves with a panoply worth 30 drachmas. ( doubtless inflation pushed this up to 75-100 drachma a century later). An idea of the cost for second-hand items in classical times can be gained from the prices recorded at Athens in 415 B.C.: a javelin, 2 drachmai; a spear without a butt, 1 drachma 4 obols. Unfortunately, I haven't come across a figure for the exact cost of a shield or helmet (obviously the two most expensive items). By comparison, the rate of hoplite pay about that time was a drachma a day plus an allowance for food, rations enough to support the Hoplite and a servant/shieldbearer.
Also, the matter of who fought in the phalanx is more complex than first appears.
Let us look at Athens as an example ( sorry, Athens and Sparta are the states we have most information about !! )
Athens could field over 16,000 Hoplites in classical times, (Thuc II.13) but fewer than 10,000 zeugitae would have used up more than all the arable land in Attica !(let alone the higher classes!) In fact, perhaps less than half of Athens Hoplites came from zeugitae or higher classes, the rest from among the Metics/’foreigners’ and volunteer Thetes/ lower classes – of whom a famous example was Socrates, whose ‘worth’, at rather less than 500 drachma, made him a thete, yet he fought as a Hoplite at Delium and Potidaea. Hoplite ‘volunteer’ thetes also often provided the Marines for Athens fleet. (e.g. the Sicilian expedition).
Who paid for their equipment? Apparently it was Socrates friends who likely outfitted him, and in other cases, as with the Triremes, public benefactors paid - we hear of one individual donating a thousand aspides in a single gift! The state too could supply arms, certainly after about 335 B.C., when Athens presented each conscripted ephebe/young man, on completion of his training, with a spear and a shield. Moreover, if the father had died in battle, other items were supplied as well.
A similar situation must have existed in Sparta too. Sparta found it cheaper than hiring mercenaries to free Helots/serfs and equip them as Hoplites, first as an experiment under Brasidas, then more generally as Neodamodeis/'new citizens' and these can only have been equipped by the state or public benefactors.
The real difference was political – only those of official ‘Hoplite’ status/on the ‘List’ could hold political office – witness Athens Oligarchs, on taking power in 411 BC reducing ‘the list’ from 9,000 to 5,000.
Significantly, a similar situation prevailed in Sparta – as the Homioi (Equals/Peers) class shrank, the ranks of the Lakedaemonian Phalanx came to be filled more and more with Hypomeiones (Inferiors, without political rights) and Perioikoi ( neighbours of Sparta), and eventually the Neodamodeis referred to above, especially for foreign expeditions/long campaigns,so that Political/Social rights were no longer associated with mere service in the Phalanx........
In summary then, and taking Classical Athens as our example:
1. Fewer than half of her Hoplites came from 'citizens', who were not in any event urban 'middle classes', but rather the better off rural farmers/peasants, who were 'wealthy' enough to own twenty acres or so and a brace of Oxen.
2. The balance were the poorer class - thetes - who volunteered and were equipped by public benefaction ( which also built the Temples etc), augmented by some 'middle class' volunteer artisans/skilled workers.
3. As campaigns grew longer, or involved expeditions,during the 5th century, the proportion of 'volunteer poorer classes'/thetes increased, and the proportion of farmer/peasant citizens ( zeugitae and above) decreased and came to be augmented by 'Allies' and, increasingly, mercenaries
4. A similar situation prevailed in Sparta, with the proportion of the official 'Hoplite class'/Homioi (lit: peers or equals), holding land (cleruchs) also declining, and the ranks becoming increasingly filled with Hypomeiones/ 'inferiors' without citizenship rights,perioikoi/'neighbours' and eventually freed Helots called Neodamodeis/'new citizens' and eventually Allies and mercenaries too.
All of which means a 'typical' Hoplite is more likely to have been a gritty peasant with a plain helmet, simple shield device, and probably not body armour or greaves, rather than the richer types, the dandies with colourful horeshair crests , elaborate shields, body armour, greaves etc who provided the models for the Heroes we see painted on 'pots'.
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)
"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)
"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
