Greek Warriors: Hoplites and Heroes

by Carolyn Willekes

A concise, enlightening portrait of the men who fought in the ancient battles we still study today.   Thermopylae. Marathon. Though fought 2,500 years ago in ancient Greece, the names of these battles are more familiar to many than battles fought in the last half-century. But our concept of the men who fought in these battles may be more a product of Hollywood than Greece.   Shaped by the landscape in which they fought, the warriors of ancient Greece were mainly heavy infantry. While Bronze Age Greeks fought as individuals, for personal glory, the soldiers of the classical city-states fought as hoplites, armed with long spears and large shields, in an organized formation called the phalanx.   As well as fighting among themselves, as in the notable thirty-year Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta immortalized by Thucydides, the city-states came together to fight outside threats. The Persian Wars lasted nearly half a century and saw the Greek armies come together to fend off several massive Persian forces, both on land and at sea.   This book sketches the change from heroic to hoplite warfare, and discusses the equipment and training of both the citizen soldiers of most Greek cities and the professional soldiers of Sparta.

Genres: History

185 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 19, 2017

Reviews

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was not what I expected at all. The book's title promises a strong interest in hoplite warfare, but the end result of the book is more a narrative history of three eras of Greek history that talks a bit about hoplites but not nearly to the extent one would want. And the book is so short that its discussion of military warfare is far more superficial than one would hope for. Still, the reason why this book is superficial is because it is short, and it is not such a bad thing for a book not to overstay its welcome even if one would want more than one gets from this author. There are at least two ways that the book could have given the reader a lot more. One of those would have been to focus a lot more attention on the arms and armor that were involved in hoplite warfare along with a discussion of the changes in the equipment of Greek fighting over the course of centuries and even some discussion of the tactics of Greek warfare and how this changed with more detail and more visuals than is the case here. The other way would have been to provide more textual detail about the history of Greek hoplite warfare. Either of those choices would have made the book longer, but also more complete.

This book is a bit more than 150 fairly small pages long, and it is divided into three chapters. The book begins with an introduction and a timeline that sets the scope of the work in its discussion of Greek history. After that the book's three chapters each cover three ages within the classical Greek period, not surprisingly in which there was a notable amount of warfare. The first chapter covers the Persian Wars, and discusses the warfare that occurred, mostly in the Persian invasions of Greece during the reigns of Darius and Xerxes. After that, the second chapter is focused on the conflict between Athens and Sparta, giving a fair summary of the long war between the two, even if it skips over quite a lot because it is of course a short account. The third chapter then looks at the rise of Macedonia and the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great, after which the book ends with sources, acknowledgements, and an index.

Still, if you are looking for a basic work that give you a basic look at how it is that hoplite warriors fought, and some nature of the high amount of warfare that went on in the period between the Persian Wars and the conquest of Persia by Alexander. Considering that this book is as small as it is, this is not going to be the book that the reader will expect or demand much from. Modest expectations are definitely what would be appropriate here, though. At its best, this is the sort of book that you read and that encourages you to read more serious references that are more complete if you find material in Greek history that you happen to find of interest. It would appear that this book was written for that very purpose, and it's hard to fault a book for meeting its goal of being an introductory book to a subject of interest about which much is written. Perhaps the book lacks the sort of ambition that an reader would prefer, but it aims at a modest target and it succeeds at it.

[John Franke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I purchased this book at the British Museum when I was there for a vacation. Interesting, but brief, read about the history of ancient Greek warfare. However, it did not go into as much detail about the actual warriors as I was led to believe by the title and the description. Also, I found many typos throughout the book, which was strange. 4.5/10

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good, succinct history if Greece after the Trojan War to the end of Alexander the Great.

[Peter Welch · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good overview of the period but let down by the sheer amount of typos present in the text. The proof reader must have been having a bad day!

[John Galluzzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know I probably shouldn't compare titles in this series, and perhaps if I hadn't read the one on the Gladiators first, I wouldn't have noticed the difference. That title focused heavily on the soldier himself, as in the abstract idea of what a Gladiator was. This one does not rely so much on the weaponry, armor and fighting styles. Instead, it focuses on the roles of the military in greater timelines.

But, as I said, that is just me thinking aloud.

As for this book and its own merits, I'd say "mission accomplished." It's arranged in three chapters: The Persian Wars, The Peloponnesian War and The Rise of Macedonia. A fine Introduction, lasting nearly 30 pages, covers the basics: who were the hoplites? what did they carry? how did they fight, on land and sea? Thereafter, it's the stories of the battles and the named warriors, of Sparta and Athens, of Xerxes and the Persian invasion.

Like all books in the Casemate Short History series, this one is well-illustrated, sports a timeline for reference and provides sidebars on important topics. And, like the others, it challenges you to dive deeply int the topic in a short format, to truly immerse yourself in the world of ancient Greece.