Hoplite Warfare

[Valmir238]

During the Peloponnesian war in the 5th century, Hoplite on Hoplite warfare was put to the test.Tactically I know it was very differant from most other kinds of melee warfare, but it was also very differant in terms of winning and losing. When i read about the battles, usually i noticed a huge differance in the number of casualties on the winning and losing sides. The losing side usually has an enormous casuality rate, while the winning side has a miniscule one (this was also true for the Persian wars, but we can see why). Why is this, it could be innaccurate estimates, or was Hoplite warfare actually very effective, if this was the case why did the Greeks abandon it at the end of the 5th century BC, was it because the Hoplites themselves were to expensive?

[Azog 150]

To be honest, I think that the big difference in casualties was true of any type of warfare from the time as it was the job of the victors to hunt down those people fleeing for their lives.

[Mig el Pig]

To be honest, I think that the big difference in casualties was true of any type of warfare from the time as it was the job of the victors to hunt down those people fleeing for their lives.

Although this is generally the case it isn't in Ancient Greek Hoplite vs Hoplite engagements. Greeks seldom persued other Greeks who fled the battlefield during the early periods.

[Valmir238]

To be honest, I think that the big difference in casualties was true of any type of warfare from the time as it was the job of the victors to hunt down those people fleeing for their lives.

Strangly enough the Spartans would never rout enemies, they believed that an enemy would fight on stronger if he knew that he would be put to death if captured, so as a result they would let enemies simply flee, it also resulted in less of their own men being killed.

[Raglan]

the main reason for massive casulties didn't change massively over many centuries. Generally the lossing side takes more casulties because the winners give chase once they are running. Its far easier to stab a man in the back than it is to fight them face on. The Greeks, the Romans, Eygpt, gauls, you name it would all give chase usually after a victory, the idea in most classical battles was to break the foes moral then kill as many as you could so that they wouldn't come back for more. The Romans had a system where they would always leave one flank open so the enermy would have somewhere to run to.

[Lysimachus]

he losing side usually has an enormous casuality rate, while the winning side has a miniscule one (this was also true for the Persian wars, but we can see why).

Hoplite warfare was simply a case of whose phalanx would break first. Killing men in dense formations with overlapping shields of course is hard work so it would come down to breaking down the enemy's morale and of course once their ranks gave way they could be pursued and killed/captured.

if this was the case why did the Greeks abandon it at the end of the 5th century BC, was it because the Hoplites themselves were to expensive?

It was too static. Although the city-states could use it against one another, it wasn't well adapted to the fighting styles of outside nations. One could describe Ancient Greece as a giant act, because (for example) practically the same battlefield would be used by opposing factions to face one another. I'm sure one of the more well-informed members of this forum can either debunk what I said or expand upon it much further than I can

[conon394]

It was too static. Although the city-states could use it against one another, it wasn't well adapted to the fighting styles of outside nations. One could describe Ancient Greece as a giant act, because (for example) practically the same battlefield would be used by opposing factions to face one another. I'm sure one of the more well-informed members of this forum can either debunk what I said or expand upon it much further than I can

I would differ with most of that - but detail will have to wait.

Big battles occurred in Greece in the same place because there is only so many places to deploy big armies - the Romans, Pontic armies, Macedonians, Byzantines all ended up fighting in more or less the the same places as well.

it wasn't well adapted to the fighting styles of outside nations

Better tell Athens since tell it hammered Persia with hoplites all over the Med as did Sparta and Thebes and Greek Mercenaries... and maybe remind Timoleon he I guess what should have lost to Carthage. Sure they often added support troops by the core of Greek armies were hoplites and they did rather well in general.

The mistake is considering only the idealized modern historian's myth of one day hoplite battle over minimal objectives for real hoplite war as practiced by Greek states with ambitions of hegemony. The idealized hoplite war with it limited objective(s) has achived a rather powerful grasp on the modern conception of classical Greek warfare but it gone rather too far in my opinion.

[Lysimachus]

Better tell Athens since tell it hammered Persia with hoplites all over the Med as did Sparta and Thebes and Greek Mercenaries... and maybe remind Timoleon he I guess what should have lost to Carthage. Sure they often added support troops by the core of Greek armies were hoplites and they did rather well in general.

Forgive me if the same principles of hoplites after Alexander's conquest of Greece don't apply, but the moment the greeks faced an opponent (Rome) who had troops who both had armour and mobility (the Persian armies consisted primarily of the latter) then the hoplites would face a problem since they were lacking in it. Of course, once they were forced in to battle over more uneven ground then they were unable to maintain their formation as effectively as they usually could and their opponent could use this to their advantage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_cynoscephalae

[Mangalore]

Forgive me if the same principles of hoplites after Alexander's conquest of Greece don't apply, but the moment the greeks faced an opponent (Rome) who had troops who both had armour and mobility (the Persian armies consisted primarily of the latter) then the hoplites would face a problem since they were lacking in it. Of course, once they were forced in to battle over more uneven ground then they were unable to maintain their formation as effectively as they usually could and their opponent could use this to their advantage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_cynoscephalae

Oh this has been argued to death but the most glaring problem: That battle was between Macedonians (Phalangites) vs Rome + Greeks(=Hoplites) so in that scenario you'd have Greek hoplites fighting alongside Roman legionaires. There is much debate but those late Greek hoplites could have been pretty indistinguishable from Roman legionaires also wearing chainmail, oval shields and possibly javelins instead of a long spear or more like Macedonian phalangites with longer two hand pike, smaller shield and sword.

For my part I'm always rather surprised about what the Greeks seem to have considered catastrophic losses in battle. usually just a couple of hundred out of some 10 000 was already considered devastating. Of course that stacks if you are at war continuously and thus can't afford to lose a big bunch of citizens of a medium sized settlement.

[Timoleon of Korinthos]

During the Peloponnesian war in the 5th century, Hoplite on Hoplite warfare was put to the test.Tactically I know it was very differant from most other kinds of melee warfare, but it was also very differant in terms of winning and losing. When i read about the battles, usually i noticed a huge differance in the number of casualties on the winning and losing sides. The losing side usually has an enormous casuality rate, while the winning side has a miniscule one (this was also true for the Persian wars, but we can see why).

This is generally not true. The casualties were rather minimal for both sides. Victor Davis Hanson estimates that in a hoplite-to-hoplite battle the death toll did not exceed 10-20% of the total number of troops from both sides. Peter Krentz has calculated than on average the victorious side would lose 5% and the losing side 14% of their numbers. Georgios Steinhauer estimates the casualties at 2-7% for the victors and 14% at most for the defeated party.

There have been many more major battles in hoplite to hoplite history and countless of minor engagements, but to my knowledge the following are those, on which clear statistics have been preserved. Let's take a look:

Delium 424BC: Boetians (less than 500 dead ) - Athenians (1000 dead) [Thucidides]
Mantineia 418BC: Lacedaemonians and allies (rumored 300 dead) - anti-laconian coalition (1100 dead) [Thucidides]
Nemeran River 394BC: Lacedaemnonians (8 dead!) and allies (1100 dead) - anti-laconian coalition (2800 dead) [Xenophon]
Coroneia 394BC: Lacedaemonians and allies (350 dead) - anti-laconian coalition (600 dead, 80 captured) [Xenophon]
Leuctra 371BC: Lacedaemonians (1000 dead out of whom 400 Spartan peers) and allies (3000 dead) - Boetians (300 dead *actually Pausanias delivers an unbelievable figure of just 47 dead) [Diodorus]
Cynos Cephalae 364BC: Thebans and Thessalian League (casualties unknown) - Pherae (at least 3000 dead) [Plutarch]


To sum up, both in relative and absolute numbers the amount of casualties can hardly be considered enormous, especially if you compare them with the tens of thousands of dead in the battles of Hellenistic era (20,000 dead at Ipsus in 301BC, 30,000 in Heraclea in 280BC and 15,000 dead at Raphia in 217BC).
The explanation is quite simple, in the archaic and for the greater part of the classical era there was no relentless pursuit, because most factions did not field cavalry in the first place; and if they did, a phalanx retreating in good order or even an isolated blocks of hoplites in close array was not vulnerable to horsemen (this is how the Athenians withdrew at Delium). Only if the defeated formation completely dissolved, because the men would throw away their shields and turn hastily to flight, would it turn into a catastrophe (this is how they withdrew at Chaeroneia and look how it turned out: 1000 dead, 2000 captured).
It is also noteworthy, Hanson has an obsession with the idea that the exponentially increasing number of casualties, which reached its climax in the Hellenistic era, is to be attributed to changes in the nature of equipment of the individual solders, which, admittedly, the earlier you go back, the heavier, more complete and more protective it becomes; but one has also to take into consideration the course of events in each battle, because in some cases tactics clearly outweighed the mechanics of killing (examples: Nemean River, Chaeroneia in 338BC and Cynos Cephalae in 197BC )

Why is this, it could be innaccurate estimates, or was Hoplite warfare actually very effective,

It was very effective for what it had been designed in the archaic era. But this did not necessarily comply with the practical intention to exterminate the enemy. The purpose a hoplite battle had beenengineered to serve was triple:
On the individual level, the phalanx provided a fighting framework that sought to transit the critical factors of combat from skill and technique in arms, which the nobles and hereditary warriors of older eras gained through daily practice and warlike lifestyle, but the agrarian part-time soldiers had nor the time neither the intention to learn, to the engulfment of ideals such as discipline, cohesion, passive courage and solidarity, which were already culminated by the nature of civic life in the polis, in other words values that a hoplite would have been taught to live by in his whole life.
On the interstate level, the hoplite to hoplite battle had been devised as means of condensing the substance of war into a few hours of amplified terror during a summer morning, which would be bring a cost efficient, decisive and undisputed outcome. There would be no need for prolonged campaigns, for sustaining large and specialised armies, for fighting in multiple theaters and in multiple seasons: one army could issue a challenge to the other by invading their fertile plains and force them to battle by threatening to destroy their crops. Traditionally established scholarly view (Jean Pierre Vernant, Y. Garlan, Pritchet, Steinhauer) holds that the damage inflicted to agriculture was indeed very acute and with long lasting events. Hanson, however, has challenged this notion proposing that it was actually the idea of their ancestral land being violated that spurred the farmer-soldiers to go out in the field and meet the enemy rather than any dreaded prospect of famine by not doing so. Anyway, after the end of the battle then the victor would be left in command of the battlefield and thus he would be in a position to impose his terms or else starve them to submission (or at any rate bring them to a very difficult position), which was made easier by the fact that a defeated polis would be highly demoralised, because the front ranks of a phalanx, the ones to be decimated, were manned by the most prominent figures in the community: the ablest warriors, the generals, the various officers, since social, political and military elite were inextricably interwoven.
Finally, according to John Lendon's stunningly original perception on the cultural level the hoplite battle stood at the end of a long process of evolution under pressure of Homeric model and the inherent, fierce competitiveness of the Greeks. The extent of influence of the epics in Greek mindset was overwhelming, they were part of the educational curriculum and for a large period the only educational curriculum, even the most superficial look at the pictorial and literary evidence suffices to show that. Two notes have to be kept one Iliad. First, there are two ways in which in the Iliad heroes compete for glory in fighting, the slayer's performance and the slain's value, which can, however, produce different estimates for the slayer's glory. This is the conflict that drives the dispute over the killing of Patroclus: Hector strikes the killing blow and can glory in the value of Patroclus, which is high given the recent rout of the Trojans, but the actual deed is trifling, delivering the coup de grace to a hero already stripped of his gear, stunned by Apollo and wounded by Euphrobos' javelin, who also lays a claim to the kill. Second, the depiction of battle in Iliad stems from an epic drive to represent, in the freedom of an unreal world, the heroes excelling in a full set of virtues, some of the physical (Ajax' strength, Achilles' fleetness of foot, Pandarus' and Teucer's archery) some of them moral (Diomedes' commitment to holding his ground) and some intellectual (Menestheus' and Nestor's arraying, Oddyseus' cunning), which ultimately results in a confusion of fighting styles and ideals. Lendon argues that through the formation of phalanx the real Greeks made the decisions the epics were not required to make: they chose to emphasize the standard of the slayer’s performance and they fashioned a clear rank of competitive martial excellences, at the top of which they placed the passive bravery, because by doing so they centered their competition in virtue around a subject that would be as less prone to the role of accident and luck as possible in the real world. Whether the courageous lives or dies is, of course, in the hands of fortune, but a warrior can triumph in the courage of holding his place regardless of whether he lives or dies: whether the wounds are in the back of front will tell the tale. And on a magnified level, the phalanx constituted a symmetrical competition not only between individuals but between contending cities as well. In Greek mindset a polis was conceived as a mythic, collective person, who had character, emotions, was proud of its lineage and whose conduct was ruled by competitive ethics. So the hoplite battle tested simultaneously the passive bravery of soldier and city.

if this was the case why did the Greeks abandon it at the end of the 5th century BC, was it because the Hoplites themselves were to expensive?

The hoplites were not abandoned, they were supplemented by other types of troops, as the hoplite-to hoplite battle was supplemented by other types of warfare. This happened because in the course of the 5th century the Persian invasions signaled a rude awakening for Greece and especially the Peloponnesian war marked the end of the age innocence. Greeks realized that the old agricultural poker was not the only way to conduct war and border differences or political influence were not the only means to direct the military efforts to. They began to formulate a total war approach, as opposed to the semi-ritualised and self-constraining wars of old. They realized that control of the seas was essential for their survival and could also serve as a pillar of crafting hegemony. That bringing an opponent to its knees could require season long campaigns in a multitude of theaters to destroy his economic and political base, fleets to blockade him, light infantry to ravage their lands, mercenaries instead of citizen-soldiers, who would not be distracted by agricultural needs and civic responsibilities. That safety of the chora (areas surrounding the city)could be secured by guarding the mountain passes with peltats and creating a network of fortifications around the polis with less risk than a massive pitched battle. That chora and asty (urban center) may not be as organically dependable on each other as previously thought. That military efficacy goes beyond the aspirations of the hoplite conservatism to amassing and arming the poorer citizens as well. That tactically victory comes at an easier pace, if other arms save heavy infantry were to be elevated. That bravery was a learnable trait after all, that skill and training made a difference, that professionalism worked. And that victory in a prolonged conflict was more a matter of financing and planning than it was of bravery. And they remembered than in Homer the heroes also used to compete in cunning leadership, tactics and stratagems ( metis); they saw that imported from Thrace fighting style of peltasts resembled heroic fighting much more than massive arrays of men as the phalanx, which only had a couple of verses to legitimize it; they remembered that heroes proudly brought their horses to the battlefield, even though they fought from chariots rather than on horseback.

In short, the ideological background of the hoplite ethos started to crumble as the needs of large-scale wars dictated the transformation of political and social structures to meeting the excessive demands on resources, manpower and military efficiency; a trend, which could still be reconciled which the fervent competitiveness of Greek psyche and the towering of the Homeric models over collective consciousness. This may have, indeed, issued a direct challenge to the old hoplite-to-hoplite ideal as a contest in man’s valor, with the social and political connotation described earlier, but the actual usefulness of hoplite as a type of troop and his power on the battlefield were not questioned. It would take Philip’s new model of phalanx in Chaeroneia to propel Greece to that stage, but even then the transition would be slow and grudging; and despite the fact that the patterns of phezhaiteros and after the Gallic invasion in 278BC of thyreophoros would dominate the Hellenistic era, the hoplites would continue to exist up to the treaty of Apameia in 188BC, when Rome put a strict end to their recruitment.

[Valmir238]

The Hoplite's were somewhat abandoned in the 4th century after the Iphicrates reforms. They adopted the almost Macedonian style of fighting. They replaced their Hoplite's with professional soldiers, who wore lighter armor, smaller shields and of course pikes instead of spears. So when i said abandoned i was referring to the simple fact that Greeks no longer used the Hoplite as the core of their army. Hoplites continued to existed, as you said, until much later, but they were no longer what the army relied upon, and Hoplite warfare, as seen in the Peloponnesian war, was most certainly abandoned by the 4th century.

[Timoleon of Korinthos]

The Hoplite's were somewhat abandoned in the 4th century after the Iphicrates reforms. They adopted the almost Macedonian style of fighting. They replaced their Hoplite's with professional soldiers, who wore lighter armor, smaller shields and of course pikes instead of spears.

No, they weren’t, and no, they didn't. What kind of infantry did Agisilaus and Teleutias use to campaign in Chalcidice, Acarnarnia, Peloponnese, Boetia? Hoplites. What kind of troops did Jason of Pherae use as core of his mercenary army? Hoplites. What type of troops did Dionysius the Elder raise in masss? Hoplites. What type of troops did Thebes utilise to ascend to hegemony? Hoplites. What type of troops did Pammenes lend to the Persians in the 350s? Hoplites. What type of troops did the Phocians hire in the 3rd Sacred war? Hoplites. What kind of troops did Timoleon have at his disposal when he defeated the Carthies? Hoplites. What kind of troops did Athens, Thebes and Corinth field against Philip in Chaeroneia? Hoplites. What kind of Greek mercenaries did Alex face in Persian service? Hoplites. What kind of troops did Archidamus III hire to campaign southern Italy? Hoplites. What kind of troops did Agis IV muster in his revolt against Macedon? Hoplites.
Good, old fashioned hoplites, with traditional argive shields and thrusting spears, with the reemergence of cuirass after a brief interval of absence around the twist of the 5th century, with greaves and helmets and longer swords (in the latter you can trace perhaps the influence of Iphicrates). There is absolutely no evidence, literary, pictorial or archaeological, to suggest the use of pikes and smaller shields.
Hoplite and professionalism are not mutually exclusive terms. The fact that the hoplites had largely become professionals (and that is during the course of the Peloponnesian war, long before Iphecrates' reforms) may signify the final break up with the bonds to the old agrarian protocol, out of which they had sprung in an earlier age, but it does not denote a change of nature as a type of soldier. Fighting for pay was almost as old as the hoplite himself: Tyrtaeus' brother reached Babylon in foreign service during the 7th century, the Arcadians and the Ionians had served as mercenaries already from the 6th century, in the 5th century Argos created the first non Spartan professional standing force in the Greek world and so on. The difference is that professionalism and hired service had never been witnessed to the extent they reached in the 4rth century BC.
Last but not least a few thoughts on the Iphicrateans. What precisely they were and what consequences they brought about is not clear and there is no academic consensus on the subject, different theories being fueled by the scarcity of evidence. One thing we can be assured of, however, is that there is absolutely no reference of Iphicrates' forces in the sources fighting in something remotely resembling line infantry or heavy infantry. And it is really questionable as to why other generals should have mimicked the developments of Iphicrates, when he was not of the same caliber of the great generals of his day, such as Epameinondas and Agisilaos. The only reason he receives the fame he has attracted is a passage of not exactly grounded praise in Diodorus, who, you know, is not exactly the most reliable of authors. What the Iphekrateans probably did was to replace, to redefine the kit of the peltasts. And at any rate there is always the very acute possibility that whatever the Iphecrateans had been, they died out with the demise of Iphecrates.

So when i said abandoned i was referring to the simple fact that Greeks no longer used the Hoplite as the core of their army. Hoplites continued to existed, as you said, until much later, but they were no longer what the army relied upon, and Hoplite warfare, as seen in the Peloponnesian war, was most certainly abandoned by the 4th century.

On the contrary, it most certainly was not. Take a look at following list of major battles, which featured hoplite dominated armies on behalf of at least of one of the contenting parties:

Nemean River 394BC, Coroneia 394BC, Leuctra 371BC, Tearless Battle 368BC, Cynos Cephalae 364BC, Mantineia 362BC, Crocian Field 353BC, Crimissus River 340BC, Chaeroneia 338BC, Crannon 323BC, Megalopolis 331BC, Himera River 311BC.

How many major engagements does the Pleoponnesian war bear witness to?

Delium 424BC and Mantineia 418BC.

And in Delium cavalry played a pivotal role in the Boetian victory. Nemean River, Coroneia, Leuctra, Tearless battle and Crimisus River on the other hand were much purer heavy-infantry matchups, if this is what you have in mind, whereas other battles were lost precicely due to the absence or impotence of any other arms than hoplites: Crocian Field, Megalopolis, Chaeroneia.