Hoplite

This book takes a considered look at the armies of well-known but sometimes poorly understood soldiers – the hoplites, who drew up on the battlefields of Classical Greece and her near neighbours, especially Persia, for 150 years, at a time when Greece became the cradle of European civilisation. In the early days few were professionals and the city-states for which they fought – Athens, Sparta, Argos, Thebes – were, to modern eyes, simply belligerent bad neighbours. Their effrontery led to generations of war across the Greek world, and battlefields from Sicily to Baghdad, and from Egypt to the shores of the Black Sea.

Most hoplites were ordinary, free citizens – some cultured, deep-thinking individuals, many religious, others perhaps not, many superstitious, many simple farmers – who espoused a wide range of military and political views and were culturally aware. Some were called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice in an existential struggle, while others were left to perpetrate, in modern eyes, unspeakable war crimes. All considered themselves to be free Greeks who cherished that freedom and their inalienable right to it. Most were deeply committed; few could be described as lukewarm – their lives were on the line. From the Ionian Revolt to the Granicus, this is their story – a whole lot of trouble.