NOVEL VIEWPOINTS ON ANCIENT WARFARE

Abstract

Inspired by an idea conceived at a meeting of the Association of Ancient Historians, this interesting volume examines ancient warfare from an innovative and thought-provoking perspective. The field of ancient warfare studies shows an extraordinary vitality in recent years, thanks to a number of excellent publications that present a comprehensive geographical and chronological overview (e.g. H. Drévillon and G. Traina [edd.], Les mondes en guerre. De la préhistoire au Moyen Âge [2019]; J.T. Chlup and C. Whately [edd.], Greek and Roman Military Manuals. Genre and History [2020]). The fourteen chapters of the book are structured in two sections, on Greece and Rome respectively, and adopt an interdisciplinary approach in which, as the editor says in the preface, battle and warfare are studied in both their macroand their micro-dimensions, though not being ends in themselves. The contributors are specialists in ancient history, even if not all may be characterised as military historians. In the introductory chapter, ‘Ancient Warfare and Moving Beyond “New Military History”’, Brice surveys the different approaches to military history (operational history, focus on military personalities, study of various parts of warfare and military institutions, the so-called ‘New Military History’, technocentric analysis, interdisciplinary methodologies), thus offering a brief but useful sketch of the changes within this field. In summarising the following chapters, Brice points out that the debate among contributors allows readers to increase their understanding of ancient warfare, by combining traditional and innovative methodologies and by re-examining old questions in the light of recent discoveries. In other words, according to Brice, the choice between innovation and tradition is not compulsory; rather, it is from the fusion of the two approaches that truly lasting results can be achieved. Accordingly, one of the main purposes of the volume is to combine traditional studies on tactics and strategy with new approaches on the logistical and daily nature of war and on the micro-dimension of individual soldiers. An example of the possible results of such a fusion is Chapter 2, ‘Wealth and the Logistics of Greek Warfare: Food, Pay, and Plunder’ by M. Trundle. While analysing the logistics of warfare in arranging ephodia, trophê and epitêdeia, the wages paid to the soldiers and the practice of spoil distribution, Trundle re-examines old evidence in order to disclose new ways of understanding the role of wealth: he argues that the development of coinage facilitated a more efficient coordination of resources, deeply transforming warfare in the Classical period. Chapter 3, ‘Early Greek Siege Warfare’ by M.G. Seaman, argues against the traditional view that siege warfare was quite uncommon in the archaic period. According to Seaman, archaeological evidence suggests that Mycenaean citadels were already subject to sieges; so, if the increase in the number of sieges in the fifth century should be seen in part as a result of the bloom of historical writing, it should also be due to the extensive resources available to the Athenians at the time of the Peloponnesian War. In Chapter 4, ‘Daily Life in Classical Greek Armies, c. 500–330 BCE’, J.W.I. Lee takes ‘the history of warfare beyond the battlefield . . . into the realm of social, cultural, and economic history’ (p. 39). In examining topics such as social structures, non-combatants, sexuality, daily routines and garrison life in Greek and Achaemenid armies, Lee fruitfully employs textual and archaeological analysis to consider what life in armies was like. THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 454