Ranks of Ancient Greek/Hellenic Armies?

[Sean Manning]

For the city-states of ancient Greece that had adopted democracy, an officer corps and military excercises were typical symptoms of such undemocratic states as Sparta and Persia, so the only official officer was the commander of the militia, elected for the duration of the conflict. However, the men in the first and in the last ranks were explicitly chosen for their bravery and experience.

That is closer to my understanding as well. In the Anabasis, as far as I can tell the only hoplite ranks were general (strategos στρατηγός), captain (lochagos λοχαγός), and soldier (stratiotes στρατιώτης). The smallest unit was therefore the company of about a hundred combatants and several dozen hangers-on. The organization of the light-armed seems to have been similar, although Xenophon is vague about it. As John Lee has argued, Greek armies other than the Spartan one relied on the informal self-organization of small groups of messmates (syskenoi) to solve problems which most of us would expect to be handled by a formal bureaucracy.