Athenian military

The Athenian military was the military force of Athens, one of the major city-states (poleis) of Ancient Greece. It was largely similar to other armies of the region – see Ancient Greek warfare.

This article is about the warfare aspects of ancient Athens. For the military history of ancient Athens, see Classical Athens.
The Athenian Empire around 450 BC

Army

In the manner of neighboring city-states the backbone of the Athenian military on land was the hoplite.[1] Accompanying every hoplite was a lightly armed attendant, either a poor citizen who could not afford a regular suit of armor (panoplia), or possibly a trusted slave. These attendants carried the hoplite's shield (aspis) until the battle and most of the baggage. While generally armed with javelins, they sometimes had spears, slings or bows. The attendants acted as skirmishers before the pitched battle and were assigned to guard the camp during the actual fight. When the battle was over, they would attempt either to cover the retreat of the main body or slaughter the fleeing enemy forces if their own hoplites were victorious.[2]

During and after the Peloponnesian Wars, the use and importance of light troops increased with the introduction of the peltasts: lightly armoured, if at all, and armed with javelins and a shield, the pelte.[2] Their effectiveness in battle, even against the best-trained heavy hoplites, was demonstrated by the Athenian general Iphicrates, who annihilated an entire Spartan mora with his peltasts.[3]

Main article: Trireme

During the Persian wars Athens developed a large, powerful navy in the eastern Mediterranean that destroyed the even larger Persian navy at the Battle of Salamis. The Athenian Navy consisted of 80,000 men crewing 400 ships. The backbone of the navy's manpower was a core of professional rowers drawn from the lower classes of Athenian society. This gave the Athenian fleets an advantage in training over the less professional fleets of its rivals. The main warships of the fleet were the triremes. With its fleet, Athens obtained hegemony over the rest of the Greek city-states forming the first Athenian Empire. Its fleet was destroyed and empire lost during the Peloponnesian War. Athens regained some of its naval power after the Second Athenian Empire was rebuilt; however, it never fully recovered as its rivals were much stronger than before. The fleet included two sacred ships, the Paralus and the Salaminia used for diplomatic and ceremonial duties.[2]

gollark: Okay, wrong phrasing, proverbs mean things, but actually making decisions on the basis that someone said something catchy a while ago and people repeated (and probably edited) it is silly.
gollark: It would... probably be better to just say that you have other stuff to do, and ignore random proverbs.
gollark: You can't really "counter" common proverbs, they're not particularly meaningful.
gollark: The other GNU/Linuxy phone around is the PinePhone by Pine64, which is significantly cheaper, but less modular and whatnot.
gollark: It mostly works, but there are some rough edges.

See also

References
  1. Neer, Richard T (2012). Greek art and archaeology: a new history, c. 2500-c. 150 BCE. New York. p. 95. ISBN 9780500288771. OCLC 745332893.
  2. Davis, William (1910). A Day In Old Athens. ISBN 9781419100796.
  3. Phillips, David (2004). Athenian Political Oratory: Sixteen Key Speeches. Routledge. p. 230. ISBN 9780415966092.

Sources

Texts on Wikisource:

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.