This chapter traces the debate from Grote in the 19 th century to the present day, and will prove valuable to anyone wishing to get up to speed on past and current developments in the study of hoplite warfare. Viggiano in Chapter 1 provide a very useful synopsis of the hoplite debate. It is perhaps an understatement that none seems to have been convinced by the arguments of the others.ДЇollowing a preface and introduction outlining the aims of the original conference and giving a brief overview of the bookвЂ™s chapters, Donald Kagan and Gregory F.

All of these scholars вЂ“ Hanson, Snodgrass, Krentz, van Wees, and several others holding various positions on the phalanx вЂ“ have contributed to this book.

He further argues that the вЂњmiddlingвЂќ yeoman farmer central to HansonвЂ™s thesis did not exist in any great numbers during the Archaic period, and thus could not have had the sort of socio- political impact that Hanson and others postulate. Van Wees offers the nebulous formations of Papua New Guinean warriors as a modern analogue to Homeric and Archaic warfare. Hans van Wees has argued that the warfare depicted in the Iliad, once thought to epitomize the sort of heroic and aristocratic fighting to which the hoplite phalanx represented a sudden and decisive break, was not in fact much different, if at all, from the Archaic phalanx. Peter Krentz has devoted much work to showing that the mass-shove and other canonical elements of massed warfare are implausible on their face, while also reevaluating hoplite equipment to suggest that the soldiers were in fact much less heavily armed than traditionally thought and therefore capable of operating outside of the densest formations. Beginning with Anthony Snodgrass in the 1960s, who systematically analyzed the hoplite equipment dedicated at sanctuaries such as Olympia, the supposedly sudden revolution in arms and tactics has increasingly given way to a more вЂњgradualistвЂќ approach. Drawing inspiration from John KeeganвЂ™s The Face of Battle (London: 1976), Hanson provides a rich account of the nuts and bolts of hoplite warfare, especially the experience of the hoplites themselves, and the most comprehensive theory concerning how the hoplite phalanx and the independent farmers of which it was constituted revolutionized the polis and laid the groundwork not only for political egalitarianism, but the very concept of Western citizenship. The fullest and most recent catechism of hoplite orthodoxy came in the form of Victor Davis HansonвЂ™s The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece (Berkeley: 1998) and The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization (New York: 1995). Lorimer published in the 1947 volume of BSA (though, to be sure, the orthodox view had existed in various forms well before Lorimer). This orthodox view stemmed ultimately from AristotleвЂ™s observation and gained widespread acceptance in the English-speaking world in the years following the hugely influential article by H. In the last several decades scholars have marshaled serious challenges against what was once agreed to be the вЂњorthodoxвЂќ position regarding Greek hoplite warfare: namely, that a sudden revolution in tactics brought about by the invention of the double-grip hoplite shield in the early Archaic period led to massive social and political changes throughout Greece. The present book, stemming from a 2008 conference held at Yale, gathers essays from several of the leading participants in the вЂњhoplite debateвЂќ and, rather than offering a solution to the many issues involved, presents each side clearly and concisely so that the reader gains an understanding of the debateвЂ™s terms, ramifications, and personalities.

In the case of ancient Greek, and especially hoplite, warfare, this debate concerns two further questions: when, how, and why hoplite equipment and tactics emerged and how exactly the hoplite phalanx operated on the battlefield. What is a matter for debate, however, is the extent to which politics, society, and culture play a role in military affairs, and vice versa. That military practices reflect far more than the realities of the battlefield вЂ“ indeed being intertwined with politics, society, and culture вЂ“ is beyond serious dispute. Specifically, in the earliest post-monarchical times, aristocrats and their horses dominated both the battlefield and the state, whereas once the hoplite phalanx, with its greater numbers of cohesive soldiers, gained preeminence, a greater number of people gained a share in the stateвЂ™s government ( Politics 4.1297b16-24). Aristotle famously linked military organization and tactics to political developments within the Greek polis.

Hoplite shield weight