King Agis once shifted units in his formation during an advance. Once enveloped, the encircled wing would break and run, causing the enemy phalanx to collapse.īesides exploiting the common phenomenon of rightward drift, Spartans also used more unique schemes on the battlefield. They would combine the movement with well-practiced wheeling by elite troops on their far right to curl around a foe’s left flank. The Spartans exploited this by deliberately exaggerating their own rightward movements. This tendency caused phalanxes to fade toward the right as they advanced and often resulted in a mutual overlap of formation flanks on opposite ends of the field. They did this to gain better cover from the shield held on his left arm. Spartan hoplites followed a natural urge when marching into battle to edge closer to the man on their right. So unnerving was this approach that many foes broke and ran before first contact. Their own deliberate and disciplined pace was meant to set a tone of both overwhelming confidence and deadly menace. Moreover, the Spartans saw their opponents’ noisy rush as amateurish, signaling false bravado to suppress fear. This allowed them to keep excellent order all the way into engagement. In contrast, Spartans moved forward slowly in measured steps to the sound of pipes and the rhythmic chanting of battle poetry. They would then rush the last few yards into close action. Most Greek armies advanced with men shouting encouragement and issuing distinctive battle cries. A fully armored Spartan hoplite wears a Corinthian helmet and sports greaves, spear, sword, and shield in this watercolor by Peter Connolly.

This ability to maneuver when short-handed yielded success several times, most famously against a much larger Arcadian army at Dipaea in 464 bc. Those in the first three ranks struck overhand with their spears at the enemy front, and the fourth rank joined rows two and three in pressing shields into the backs of their fellows in a concerted effort to shove through the opposition, a tactic called othismos. Spartans, however, could advance and maneuver effectively in files as slim as four men. Thus, most Greeks tried to form a file at least eight men deep to accept battle. But there was a limit to how thin a formation could be without falling into disorder. This allowed them to present a broad front that was hard to overlap or outflank. These hoplites were protected from their ankles up by greaves, cuirass, shield, and helmet as they stood close alongside each other in ranks that could be many hundreds of men wide. Advantages in the Spartan Hoplite Approach to WarfareĬlassical Greeks fought in a dense linear formation or phalanx as armored spearmen known as hoplites. Spartan King Agis II (427-400 bc) once claimed that “Spartans do not ask how many the enemy are, only where they are,” but on at least four occasions he personally refused engagement with the enemy. And even on the brink of combat, they might still choose to avoid action. It was not unusual for Spartan commanders to turn back before crossing a hostile border if the omens were bad. They were adept at assessing battle odds and, should these not be to their liking, heading home without a fight.ĭespite its fierce image, Sparta had a more extensive record of dodging armed confrontations than any other Greek city-state. Superior tactics played key roles as well-discretion was often the better part of valor for Spartans. But the Spartan way of war was not simply a matter of outstanding individual toughness, strength, or even weaponry skills.

Military historians have tended to focus on the severe boyhood training regimen in Sparta (the agoge) and the potent combination of hardy physique and iron-willed martial philosophy it promoted. In fact, the distinctive approaches that a Spartan hoplite and Athenian soldier took to combat embraced a wide range of tactics, only a few of which were tied to their traditional divide at the shoreline. Yet the Spartan and Athenian soldier followed ways of war that differed in far more than a simple preference for fighting on land rather than sea. The wars fought by Sparta and Athens in the fifth century bc pitted one city-state with ancient Greece’s greatest army against one boasting her most powerful fleet.

Ancient greece hoplite shield