Cutting trees

[Jona Lendering]

Everybody knows that there cutting trees was a common practice during war. The Spartans ravaged Attica during the Peloponnesian War, et cetera. Are there sources that mention it? I can not remember a single one of them. No doubt that within a day, you have given me so many references from well-known sources that I will feel deeply ashamed for not being a more careful reader. :oops:

[D B Campbell]

I've certainly read Victor Davis Hanson emphasizing this aspect, but I don't know what his sources are.

[M.H. White]

I would suggest looking at Donald Kagan's Archidamian War, which, I believe, is the first part of his work on the Peloponnesian War, and seeing where he got his info.

[hoplite14gr]

Xenophon describing Epameinondas raid in Lakonia

"OI HIPPEIS TON VOIOTON TA PANTA DIARPAKASI KAI TA DENDRA EKKEKOFASI"

Kind regards

[D B Campbell]

I do not own (nor, mea culpa, have I read) Victor Davis Hanson's Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece, but I vaguely remembered a review in Athenaeum (vol. 74, 1986, pp. 205-218), which (after much rooting around in my xerox collection) I have now found!

Apparently, Hanson has studied the terminology of the Greek sources, and notes the use of dendrotomein ("destruction of an orchard by axe") by Thucydides (e.g., 1.108.2).

He (apparently) goes on to show that there is a fine line between plundering/looting and ravaging/destroying (with temnein in particular indicating the destruction of field crops; cf. Thuc. 1.43.4-5; Xen., Ath. pol. 2.4, 2.14, 2.16). (Don't know if this is relevant, Jona.)

His practical experience as a viner/viniculturist in California has given him a unique insight into this subject -- indeed, I believe that's why he selected it for PhD research in the 1980s. In particular, he notes that olive and vine trees are very difficult to damage; lopping and burning seems to encourage future growth.

Athenaeum[/i] reviewer)":1866926m]"the farmers in Aristophanes' Acharnians often (lines 183, 232-33, 512, 985-87) fear for their vineyards, but what they feared was the cutting, trampling, and consequent destruction of the current crop. Permanent damage was less easy: to uproot the mature vine is extremely difficult (and the sources say little of this activity); the canes are practically impossible to burn (see p. 57 nt. 60 for Hanson's unsuccessful attempt to do this; wooden vine-supports, however, could be -- and were -- destroyed by fire: see Acharn. 986 on Charakes; cf. Vespae 1202 & 1291; Hanson, p. 122 nt. 34). Considerable manpower would be necessary to ravage, much less destroy, a closely planted ancient vineyard." (p. 209)

[TraderTrey9785]

Check out Thucydides' Books I-IV -- that has the most information on the invasions of Attica and the so called "ravaging." When I first read the descriptions I was under the assumption that all of Attica was burned, cut, or destroyed enough that it affected the daily life of the city. However, I read Hanson's Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece and his conclusions convinced me otherwise. Apparently it would take 6 men 48 hours to destroy an olive tree in such a way that it would never grow again. So cutting and burning were not all that effective on tree and vine farms. Even the barley and wheat that was targeted was hard to destroy because the different eleveations in Attica ensured that during the growing season different farms would ripen at different times so the chance of catching all of the fields on one expedition when they are ready for harvest and can be set ablaze easily, is very rare. I'd have a look at it if you are really interested. It puts the ravaging and devestation into perspective.

[M. Demetrius]

Well, I don't have any historical sources here, but I work for a tree service these days, doing trimming and pruning.

It's true that harder woods, like olive, would resist bronze axes fairly well. They resist gasoline powered chain saws pretty well, for a little while. But if a tree is "girdled", which involves simply taking an axe or adze and cutting a circular ring around the trunk that severs the underbark, the living part of the tree, that tree will die above the cut. It isn't necessary to totally cut down the tree to destroy it, and the damage can not be repaired.

It might be true that a healthy tree could send up root shoots, and survive eventually, but a fruit-producing olive tree does not come from a single year's growth.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Good insight M. Demetrius!

[Felix]

Hanson addresses the various methods of damaging a tree, including burning and girdling, from his own experience and that of others. It seems girdling does not kill olive trees, and with older gnarled olive trees is isn't all that easy to do well. Olive trees don't spring back to normal in a year, that is perfectly true; but they do seem to come back faster from stumps than from seeds.

[hoplite14gr]

I was fire security detail in summer 1991. We were tasked to aid the fire brigate in the big forest fires south of the Ancient Olympia. The wind changed course and fire spread through the olive groves.
A town called Zacharo lost 65% of its olive trees in three days.
I assure you that if fire spreads in territory yet uncleared from brashwood and dried grass fire spreads very speedily and olive trees burn like being soacked with gasoline.
If this happend because of an accidntal fire imgaine what 3000 psiloi could have done underv the cover of heavy infantry 3000 hoplites.
All they need to do is to check the way the wind blows.
Athenians could supply themselves from the sea but most mainland city states would risk a hoplite battle or yield.
Kind regards