Aineias the Tactician: How to Survive Under Siege [2 ed.] 1853996270, 9781853996276

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AINEIAS THE TACTICIAN:

A COMMENTARY

Current and forthcoming titles in this series:

Catullus to Ovid: Reading Latin Love Elegy,J. Booth & G. Lee Euripides: Medea and Electra,J. Ferguson Homer: Odyssey, P. Jones

Sophocles: Antigone & Oedipus the King, J. Wilkins & M. Macleod Suetonius: The Flavian Emperors, B. Jones & R. Milns Tacitus: Annals XIV, N. Miller

Virgil: Aeneid, R.D. Williams

AINEIAS THE LACTICIAN HOW TO SURVIVE UNDER SIEGE A Historical Commentary, with Translation and Introduction

David Whitehead

Second Edition

Published by Bristol Classical Press General Editor: John H. Betts

For Anastacia Kersey

Cover illustration: North range of ruins at Eleutherai (photograph courtesy of Graham Shipley, School of Archaeology & Ancient History, University of Leicester) First published in 1990 by Oxford University Press Second edition published,

with permission of Oxford University Press, in 2001 by Bristol Classical Press an imprint of Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd 61 Frith Street London WI1D 3JL e-mail: [email protected] Website: www.ducknet.co.uk © 1990, 2001 by David Whitehead All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 1-85399-627-0 Offset from the Oxford University Press edition of Aineias the Tactician

by David Whitehead Printed in Great Britain by Booksprint

CONTENTS

Preface to Second Edition

vi

Preface

vil

Bibliography and Abbreviations

xi

Introduction

1. The passive perspective 2. 3. 4. 5.

The work and its author Form and content Invasion and siege Treachery, unanimity, and the survival of the polis

6. Genre and readership

] 4 17 22 25

34

Divergences from the Budé Text

43

Translation

45

Commentary

98

Addenda

208

Index

213

PREFACE TO SECOND

EDITION

Authors who feel that their books have gone out of print too soon need others to share their view before a reprint is likely. Here my thanks must go first and foremost to John Betts, for accepting and expediting the proposal I put to him in spring 2001; but it is one I would probably never have made if two scholars, John Ma and

Graham Shipley, had not told me (independently and unprompted) that in their opinion Ainetas deserved a second lease of life. I am further indebted to Dr Shipley for permission to use his photograph of the walls of Eleutherai which appears on the new front cover. The present volume falls somewhere between simple re-issue and true second edition. Beyond the tacit correction of a handful of misprints (most of them kindly pointed out to me, in 1991, by Paul Cartledge), what makes it a re-edition is the section of Addenda,

positioned between the commentary and the index. This is in two parts: i) general material on Aineias himself, and ii) miscellaneous matters arising out of the introduction and, particularly, the commentary. Concerning material in category ii, readers who go to the Addenda section first will be directed back to the relevant pages; in the introduction and commentary themselves, asterisks (*) signpost the same link in reverse. D.W. November 2001

PREFACE ‘It is a book that should awaken the interest of the student of history and at the same time appeal to the average fifthform school-boy’ (T. Hudson-Williams). Since the ‘appeal’ of any

writer—to

readers

of any

age

(or

sex)—cannot

but

be a matter of individual response, resistant to artificial manufacture where it fails of spontaneous arousal, I must leave readers of this volume on Aineias to experience it or not, in his case, as they may. His historical interest

and

importance,

by contrast,

are matters

which

one can

legitimately seek to demonstrate in an introduction to and commentary on his own words. In accordance with the format

of this series, Aineias’ words appear here in translation only. I have naturally considered it my prime responsibility to translate his Greek accurately, to explain as fully as possible to Greekless readers the problems in translation which often arise from either vagueness on his part or the physical state of the transmitted Greek text (or both), and in general to bring a

greater internal coherence and order to his thought than in truth it frequently exhibits in its raw condition. Such is the basic task of any translator and commentator. But what to provide in addition? An all-encompassing commentary on Aineias would approach him from three main angles: (1) Lincuistic—his idiosyncratic language and dialect, broadly characterizable as an embryonic form of the koine; (2) GENERIC—his position in the very early stages of what was later (in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine times) to become

an identifiable genre of technical military handbooks; and (3)

HISTORICAL— the significance of his treatise as what Bengtson called a ‘Kulturbild’ of the fourth-century Greek polis. A commentary which does justice to all these three facets of the

work

has

yet

to be written.

Hunter

and

Handford,

for

example, essentially covered only (1) and (3); the Budé edition of Dain and Bon—which in any case falls short of being a full, line-by-line commentary—only (2) and (3). In the present volume the (virtual) exclusion of (1) is dictated alike by my inexpertise in that area and by the nature and

Vill

PREFACE

inherent constraints of this series. But the reader should also be warned that I have been decidedly sparing in my attention

to (2)— save in respect of non-Aineian military thinking in his day—and have preferred instead to concentrate on (3). That a particular piece of Aineias’ advice was repeated or elaborated by one or more of the later (often very much later) factici is rarely, I venture to say, of much heuristic value to historians

of classical Greece, for whom—as

indeed for Aineias himself

—the relevant context of his precepts is the actual prosecution of, and defence against, siege-warfare in and before the mid fourth century rather than after it. Accordingly the names of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon feature more frequently in what follows than do those of (e.g.) Philo, Asclepiodotus, or

Nicephorus Uranus; and by the same token I have drawn, amongst post-classical writers, most heavily on the likes of Polyaenus and Frontinus who preserve apposite classical material in anecdotal form. Working, since 1986, on Aineias—I transliterate his name directly from the Greek, to evade intrusive Vergilian overtones—has been a challenging experience for one whose

previous research interests had focused on Athens (a city for which Aineias displays, in the pardonable hyperbole of the Loeb edition, an ‘utter neglect’). What I owe to published work is, I trust, fully acknowledged in the usual ways, general

and specific; but I have also to thank various individuals for informal aid. In Manchester, in the early stages, my grasp of many ambiguous passages, especially ones involving items of arms and armour, was shaped by discussion with my colleague Alastar Jackson. He and Nick Sekunda have between them prevented my treating Aineias as even less of a pure Kriegsschriftsteller than he really was. Subsequently, in Washington (see below), my ignorance of cryptography has

been rectified—to a degree greater than may be apparent here—by bibliographical help from Rose Mary Sheldon. And as to my fellow editors, I gladly acknowledge the stimulus of encouragement and, in the case of Brian Bosworth especially, much constructive criticism.

Benevolent institutions, too, have fostered my endeavours. A subvention from the Wolfson Foundation enabled me to pay, at appropriate professional rates, for the translation of

PREFACE

ix

material on Aineias from Russian and other Eastern European languages that I cannot read; and the project as a whole has come to fruition in Washington DC, where during 1988-9, on sabbatical leave from my University, I have enjoyed the

pleasure and privilege of a ‘Junior’ (i.e. Visiting) Fellowship at the Center for Hellenic Studies. The material which appears here as Sections 1, 2, 3 and 5 of the Introduction has been presented as lectures and colloquia on

both

sides

improvements

of

the

Atlantic,

and

has

had

successive

thereby effected in it. For this I thank the

Manchester branch of the Classical Association, the Sheffield University Ancient History Society, and, in the United States,

university audiences at Brown, Colgate (a Marc R. Gutwirth Classics Memorial Lecture), Columbia—Missouri (the third Fordyce W. Mitchel Memorial Lecture), Harvard (a James

Loeb Classical Lecture), Pennsylvania, and Princeton. D.W. 18 May

1989

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND ABBREVIATIONS (a) Editions of Aineias (i.e. including the Greek text; see under (b) for translations only), in chronological order Casaubon

I. Casaubon, Aeneae vetustissimi lactici

commentarius de toleranda obsidione

(Amsterdam 1670). An appendix (pp. 1633-816) to his edition of Polybius, as republished by J. Gronov from the editio princeps (Paris 1609).

Köchly/Rüstow

Schône Loeb

Hunter/Handford

Budé

H. Köchly/W. Rüstow, Aineias, von Vertheidigung der Städte, in their Griechische Kriegsschrifisteller, 1 (Leipzig 1853, repr. Osnabruck 1969) 1-183. R. Schône, Aeneae Tactici de obsidione toleranda commentarius (Leipzig 1911). Includes textual notes by his son H. Schöne. Members of the Illinois Greek Club (W. A. Oldfather and others), Aeneas Tacticus, Asclepiodotus, Onasander (Loeb Classical Library: New York and London 1923; repr. 1948) 1-225. L.W. Hunter, Aineiou Poliorketika (Aeneas on Siegecraft), ‘revised, with some additions’ by S. A. Handford (Oxford 1927).

A. Dain/A.-M. Bon, Énée le Tacticien:

Poliorcétique (Association Guillaume Budé: Paris 1967). The text, by Dain, is the one followed here; but see below, p. 43. NB (1) These are the editions which I have actually used; for others (by J. C. Orelli, R. Hercher, and A. Hug) see Loeb 20 and

Bude hii—liii. (2)

Loeb,

Hunter/Handford,

and

Budé

I

cite

as

grammatical

singulars and, normally, without distinction (which is anyway only partially determinable) between the individual contributors. (3) For textual matter enclosed by angled or square brackets see the notes on pp. 46 and 47 respectively.

sc

ABBREVIATIONS

(b) Other works ABSA AC Adam

AFLS AJA AJP AncSoc Anderson

APAW

Annual of the British School [of Archaeology] at Athens L’Antiquité Classique J.-P. Adam, L’Architecture militaire grecque (Paris 1982) Annali della Facolta di Lettere e Filosofia dell’Universita di Siena American Journal of Archaeology American Journal of Philology Ancient Society J. K. Anderson, Greek Military Theory and Practice in the Age of Xenophon (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1970) Abhandlungen der preussischen Akademie der

Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse ASNP

Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere e Filosofia

Barends

D. Barends, Lexicon Aeneium: A Lexicon and

BCH BEFAR

Index to Aeneas Tacticus’ Military Manual “On the Defence of Fortified Positions” (Assen 1955) Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique Bibliothéque des Ecoles frangaises

d’Athénes et de Rome Belyaev

V. F. Belyaev, ‘Aeneas Tacticus: The first military theorist of antiquity’ (in Russian), VDI 91 (1965) 239-57 (an introduction toa translation at 258—68, continued in VDI 92

(1965) 217-43)

Bengtson

H. Bengtson, ‘Die griechische Polis bei Aeneas Tacticus’, Historia 11 (1962) 458-68 (repr. in his Kleine Schriften (Munich 1974)

Bergk

T. Bergk, Poetae Lyrici Graeci, 3. Poetae Melici (Leipzig 1882, repr. 1914)

Best

J.G. P. Best, Thracian Peltasts and their Influence on Greek Warfare (Groningen 1969) M. Bettalli, ‘Enea Tattico e l’insegnamento dell’arte militare’, AFLS 7 (1986) 73-89

Bettalli

178-89)

Brown

T.S. Brown, ‘Aeneas Tacticus, Herodotus and

Buckler

the Ionian Revolt’, Historia 30 (1981) 385-93 J. Buckler, The Theban Hegemony 371-3628c (Cambridge, Mass. 1980)

ABBREVIATIONS Burkert Burstein

CAH Casson

Celato, ‘Enea’

Celato, ‘Grecia’

CJ

ClAnt C&M

CP CQ CR CRHP

CW Delatte

W. Burkert, Greek Religion, Archaic and Classical (Oxford 1985) S. M. Burstein, Outpost of Hellenism: The Emergence of Heraclea on the Black Sea (University of California Classical Studies 14: Berkeley and Los Angeles 1976) The Cambridge Ancient History L. Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton 1971) S. Celato, ‘Enea Tattico: Il problema dell’autore e il valore dell’opera dal punto di vista militare’, MAP 80 (1967/8) 53-67 S. Celato, ‘La Grecia del IV secolo a.C.

nell’opera di Enea Tattico’, MAP 80 (1967/ 8) 215-44 Classical Journal Classical Antiquity Classica et Mediaevalia Classical Philology Classical Quarterly Classical Review

Centre de recherches d'histoire et de philologie de la 1v° Section de l’École pratique des Hautes Études, 3: Hautes Études du monde gréco-romain Classical World (formerly Classical Weekly) A. Delatte, Le Troisième Livre des Souvenirs

Socratiques de Xénophon (Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres de l’Université de Liege 58: Paris 1933) Delebecque

E. Delebecque, Essai sur la vie de Xénophon

Devine

(Paris 1957) A. M. Devine, ‘Aelian’s Manual of Hellenistic Military Tactics: A New Translation from the Greek with an Introduction’, The Anctent

Diels

EHR FGrH Fischer

World 19 (1989) 31-64 H. Diels, Antike Technik: Sieben Vortrage, 3rd edn. (Leipzig and Berlin 1924) Economic History Review F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Berlin and Leiden 1923-58) (O.) H. Fischer, Quaestiones Aeneanae, 1; De

compositione commentarii Aeneani (diss. Giessen; Dresden 1914)

xil

XIV

ABBREVIATIONS

Fortification

P. Leriche/H. Tréziny (eds.), La Fortification dans l’histoire du monde grec (Actes du Colloque International, ‘La Fortification et sa place dans l’histoire politique, culturelle et sociale du monde grec’, Valbonne 1982; Paris 1986)

Frolov

E. Frolov, ‘Das Problem der Monarchie

Fuks

Gabba Garlan, ‘Esclaves’

Garlan,

Poliorcétique Garlan,

“Synthemata’ Gauthier, Poroi

Gauthier,

Symbola Gehrke, Dritte

Gehrke, Stasis

GGA GRBS Gutschmid

und der Tyrannis in der politischen Publizistik des 4. Jahrhunderts v.u.Z.’, in Welskopf (q.v.) 1. 401-34 A. Fuks, Social Conflict in Anctent Greece ( Jerusalem and Leiden 1984) E. Gabba, ‘Sul miles inpransus dell ’Aulularia di Plauto’, RIL 113 (1979) 408-14 Y. Garlan, ‘Les Esclaves grecs en temps de guerre’, in Actes du colloque d’histoire sociale de Besançon 1970 (Paris 1972) 29-62 Y. Garlan, Recherches de poliorcétique grecque (BEFAR 223: Paris 1974) Y. Garlan, ‘Synthemata’, BCH 100 (1976) 299-302 P. Gauthier, Un commentaire historique des “Poroi’ de Xénophon (CRHP 8: Geneva and Paris 1976) P. Gauthier, Symbola: Les etrangers et la justice dans les cités grecques (Annales de l’Est 42: Nancy 1972) H.-J. Gehrke, Jenseits von Athen und Sparta: Das Dritie Griechenland und seine Staatenwelt (Munich 1986) H.-J. Gehrke, Stasis: Untersuchungen zu den inneren Kriegen in den griechischen Staaten des 5. und 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (Vestigia 35: Munich 1985) Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies H. A. (Freiherr) von Gutschmid, review of

Hug (q.v.) in Literarisches Zentralblatt 1880, 588—go (repr. in his Kleine Schriften 4 (Leipzig 1893) 218-21) Habicht

C. Habicht, Pausanias’ Guide to Ancient Greece

(Berkeley and Los Angeles 1985)

ABBREVIATIONS

Hammond / Griffith

N. G. L. Hammond / G. T. Griffith, A

History of Macedonia, 2. 550-336 ac (Oxford

1979)

Hanson

Harvey

V. D. Hanson, Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece (Pisa 1983) F. D. Harvey, ‘Women in Thucydides’, Arethusa 18 (1985) 67-90

HCT

A. W. Gomme / A. Andrewes / K. J. Dover,

HTR

A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, 1-5 (Oxford 1945-81) Harvard Theological Review

HudsonWilliams

T. Hudson-Williams, “The authorship of the Greek military manual attributed to “Aeneas Tacticus” ’, A/P 25 (1904) 390-

405

JRS Kassel/Austin Kerferd

A. Hug. Aeneas von Stymphalos: Ein arkadischer Schriftsteller aus classischer Zeit (Zurich 1877) Inscriptiones Graecae Journal of Hellenic Studies Jahreshefte des österreichischen archäologischen Institutes in Wien N. F. Jones, Public Organization in Ancient Greece: A Documentary Study (Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society 176: Philadelphia 1987) Journal of Roman Studies R. Kassel/C. Austin, Poetae Comici Graeci (Berlin and New York 1983-) G. B. Kerferd, The Sophistic Movement

(Cambridge 1981) Korus

K. Korus, ‘Greek civil defence in the

classical period according to Aeneas Tacticus’ (in Polish), Meander 24 (1969)

507-20 Kromayer/ Veith Launey Lawrence

LCM

J. Kromayer/G. Veith, Heerwesen und Krieg ftihrung der Griechen und Romer (Munich 1928, repr. 1963) M. Launey, Recherches sur les armées hellénistiques, 2 (BEFAR 169: Paris 1950) A. W. Lawrence, Greek Aims in Fortification (Oxford 1979) Liverpool Classical Monthly

XVi Lehmann

ABBREVIATIONS

G. A. Lehmann, ‘Krise und innere

Bedrohung der hellenischen Polis bei Aeneas Tacticus’, in Studien zur antiken

Sozialgeschichte: Festschrift Friedrich Vittinghoff (Kolner historische Abhandlungen 28: Cologne 1980) 71-86 LEW Lintott

Losada

MAP

Marek/ Kalivoda

Lexicon der alten Welt, ed. C. Andresen et al.

(Zurich and Stuttgart 1965) A. W. Lintott, Violence, Civil Strife and Revolution in the Classical City, 750-330 BC (London and Canberra 1982) L. A. Losada, The Fifth Column in the Peloponnesian War (Mnemosyne suppl. 21:

1972) Memorie dell’Accademia Patavina di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Classe di Scienze Morali, Lettere

ed Arti V. Marek/J. Kalivoda, Antické Väleëné Uméni [The Art of War in Antiquity] (Prague 1977) 558-63 (notes to a translation of

Marinovich,

‘Struggle’

Aineias at 161-229) L. P. Marinovich, “The sociopolitical struggle and the use of mercenaries in fourth-century Bc Greece in the treatise of Aeneas Tacticus’ (in Russian), VD/ 81

- (1962) 49-77 Marinovich, Mercenariat

L. P. Marinovich, Le Mercenariat grec au IV‘ siècle avant notre ère et la crise de la polis, trans. J. and Y. Garlan (Centre de Recherches

d’Histoire Ancienne 80 / Annales Marsden

Littéraires de l’Université de Besançon 372: Paris 1988) E. W. Marsden, Greek and Roman Artillery:

Meiggs/Lewis

Historical Development (Oxford 1969) R. Meiggs/D. M. Lewis, A Selection of Greek

Mosley Mossé

Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century sc (Oxford 1969) D. J. Mosley, Envoys and Diplomacy in Ancient Greece (Historia suppl. 22: 1973) C. Mossé, La Fin de la démocratie athénienne:

Aspects sociaux et politiques du déclin de la cité grecque au IV siècle avant J.-C. (Paris 1962)

ABBREVIATIONS Ober

OGIS Osborne Parke Pattenden

PCPS Pippidi

Pohlmann

J. Ober, Fortress Attica: Defense of the Athenian Land Frontier 404-322 ac (Mnemosyne suppl.

84: 1985)

Orientis Graecae Inscriptiones Selectae, ed. W. Dittenberger (Leipzig 1903-5) M. J. Osborne, Naturalization in Athens, 3-4 (in one: Brussels 1983) H. W. Parke, Greek Mercenary Soldiers (Oxford 1933, repr. 1970) P. Pattenden, ‘When did guard duty end? The regulation of the night watch in ancient armies’, RAM 130 (1987) 164-74 Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society D. M. Pippidi, “Towards an epigraphical commentary on Aeneas Tacticus’ (in Rumanian), StudClas 10 (1968) 240-2 R. von Pöhlmann, Geschichte der sozialen

Frage und des Sozialismus in der antiken Welt, grd edn. (Munich 1925) Pritchett

W. K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War, 1-4

RC RE

(Berkeley and Los Angeles 1974-85) Revue Critique d'histoire et de littérature Pauly/Wissowa/Kroll, Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart

REA REG RFIC RH RAM Rhodes

1893-)

Revue des Etudes Anciennes Revue des Etudes Grecques Rivista di Filologia e d’Istruzione Classica

Revue Historique Rheinisches Museum für Philologie P. J. Rhodes, A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (Oxford 1981)

RIL

Rendiconti dell’Istituto Lombardo, Classe di Lettere, Scienze Morali e Storiche

RP Ste. Croix

Revue de Philologie G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, The Class Struggle in Ihe Ancient Greek World (London 1981) E. Schwartz, ‘Aineias (3)’, RE 1 (1894) 1019-21 O. L. Spaulding, Pen and Sword in Greece and Rome (Princeton 1937)

Schwartz

Spaulding

XV

ABBREVIATIONS

Staatsvertrage

Stroheker

StudClas TAPA

Die Staatsverträge des Altertums, 3. Die Verträge der griechisch-romischen Welt von 338 bis 200 v. Chr., ed. H. H. Schmitt (Munich 1969) K. F. Stroheker, Dionysios I: Gestalt und Geschichte des Tyrannen von Syrakus (Wiesbaden 1958) Studii Clasice

Transactions of the American Philological Association

Tod

Tomlinson

Tuplin Urban

M. N. Tod, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions, 2 (Oxford 1948) R. A. Tomlinson, Argos and the Argolid (London 1972) C. J. Tuplin, ‘Aeneas Tacticus: Poliorketika 18. 8’, LCM 1 (1976) 127-31 R. Urban, ‘Zur inneren und äusseren

Gefährdung griechischer Städte bei Aencas Tacticus’, in Studien zur alten Geschichte:

VDI Vélissaropoulos

Villard

Siegfried Lauffer zum 70. Geburtstag am 4. August 1981 dargebracht von Freunden, Kollegen und Schülern (Rome 1986) 989-1002 Vestnik Drevnei Istorü J. Vélissaropoulos, Les Nauclères grecs: Recherches sur les institutions maritimes en Grèce et dans l'Orient hellénisé (CRHP 9: Geneva and Paris 1980) P. Villard, ‘Sociétés et armées civiques en Grèce: De l’union à la subversion’, RH 266

Welskopf

Welwei

Wheeler

(1981) 297-310 E. C. Welskopf (ed.), Hellenische Poleis:

Krise— Wandlung— Wirkung, 1-4 (Darmstadt 1974) K.-W. Welwei, Unfreie im antiken Kriegsdienst, 2. Die kleineren und mittleren griechischen Staaten und die hellenistischen Reiche (Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei 8: Wiesbaden 1977) E. L. Wheeler, Stratagem and the Vocabulary of Military Trickery (Mnemosyne suppl. 108: 1988)

Wilsdorf

H. Wilsdorf, ‘Technik und

Winter

Arbeitsorganisation, 4. Kriegstechnik und neue Waffen’, in Welskopf (q.v.) 4. 1807-9 F. E. Winter, Greek Fortifications (Toronto

1971)

ABBREVIATIONS

Wycherley ZPE

R. E. Wycherley, How the Greeks Built Cities, and edn. (London 1962) Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik

xix

INTRODUCTION I.

THE

PASSIVE

PERSPECTIVE

Besieged by land and sea, the Athenians had no idea what to do. They had no ships, no allies, no food; and they could see no future for themselves except to suffer what they had made others suffer— people of small states whom they had injured not in retaliation but out of arrogance, purely and simply

for being allies of the Spartans. As for the Spartans, the women could not even bear to see the smoke [of the burning houses], for they had never set eyes on an enemy before; but their menfolk, posted in small detachments here and there, stood guard over the unwalled town. There were precious few of them, though, and the fact was obvious. The first of these two passages describes the plight of the Athenians in autumn 405,' shortly before their capitulation to Sparta brought an end to the Peloponnesian War. The second occurs during an account of the Thebans’ first invasion of Lakonia, in winter 370/69, an invasion made possible by their

epoch-making

victory at Leuktra

eighteen months

earlier.

Both come from the Hellenika—2. 2. 10 and 6. 5. 28, respectively—of Xenophon (c.428-c.354); and in both he points, unemphatically, a moral which one might fairly call

‘the biter bit’ —first the Athenians, later the Spartans, being administered a dose of their own medicine. Xenophon writes as an Athenian born and bred and, for

much of his life, a fervent admirer of Sparta. Had he been neither, he would surely have driven home the moral more forcibly. In the Greek world at large, we may be certain, moments like these were savoured to the full; moments when

the great hegemonic superpowers of the age were compelled, ! All ancient dates are Bc unless otherwise indicated.

—

2

INTRODUCTION

however temporarily, to experience the unnerving psychological pressures exerted by the application to them of another’s

superior force, or even its mere existence. What

these pressures were, beyond the obvious, and what

effects they brought about are matters which tend to attract

scant attention from historians of the period, ancient and modern alike. We have, notoriously, inherited from antiquity the view There are view;? and go some otherwise

that political and military history is paramount.? many excellent reasons for seeking to resist that not the least of them is that by doing so we can also way toward liberating ourselves from what is our inescapable perspective upon ancient history—

the perspective of the active participants reactive

(and

mainstream

the

history

winners

rather

of classical

than

Greece

rather than the

losers).

the The

as it is normally

studied in schools and universities is dominated by the great

and powerful states, pre-eminently Athens and Sparta, and what they do to others, including each other. That subject is well documented (for the most part), interesting, and important;

but what it is not is the sole prerequisite for an understanding of the nature of history and society in the period. Whatever

other questions we might want to ask about classical Greece, one must surely be: what was life like in a typical polis then? To be sure, ‘a typical polis’ is a thoroughgoing abstraction,

not something that can be picked out on a map, but no matter: Athens and Sparta, each in their very different ways, were manifestly atypical, amongst the hundreds of (in most cases) much smaller and less successful poleis of the Greek world; so

if a paradigm of the typical or representative polis is to be constructed at all, the superpower perspective is precisely the

opposite of what is needed. ? See (e.g.) A. D. Momigliano, Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography (Oxford 1977) ch. 11, and again in M. I. Finley (ed.), The Legacy of Greece: A New Appraisal (Oxford 1981) 155 fl, esp. 160; C. W. Fornara, The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1983) 3 and 201. 3 See generally J. K. Davies, Didaskalos 5/1 (1975) 75-89. * E. Ruschenbusch has counted ‘mindestens 750° poleis in the core area of the Greek world alone, and calculates that a ‘Normalpolis’ had a territory of only 25-100 sq. km. and an adult male citizen membership of no more than

(1984) 55-7 and ZPE 59 (1985) 253-63.

133-800: ZPE 56

INTRODUCTION

3

How then to avoid it? In the fifth century particularly this is exceedingly difficult, with the Athenians and the Spartans occupying stage-centre and most of the rest of their fellowGreeks (not to mention non-Greeks) cast in the unrewarding role of extras. There is only the occasional vignette of what was really happening elsewhere, in what Hans-Joachim Gehrke, in his recent book on the subject, has dubbed Jenseits von Athen und Sparta: Das Dritte Griechenland—the Greek Third World. For example, Thucydides’ account of the civic strife in Korkyra in 427 (3. 70 ff.), which culminates in a general analysis of the phenomenon both there and elsewhere (3. 82— 3), is justly famous, but that fame stems quite as much from its rarity as from its profundity. Otherwise, in Thucydides and in fifth-century writers generally, there is little one can do

beyond

pausing long enough

to convert active verbs into

passive—and then contemplating the result. To note, for instance, that the Athenians attacked and besieged Oiniadai (unsuccessfully: Thucydides 1. 111. 3) or that the Spartans stormed Lampsakos (Xenophon, Hellenika 2. 1. 19) is to chart, respectively, the progress of Athenian foreign policy in the 450s and Spartan strategy at the climax of the Peloponnesian War. But to visualize, however inadequately, the impact of these events upon the inhabitants of Oiniadai and Lampsakos opens up different issues altogether. The ‘responsible passive” accordingly deserves a small corner in every Greek historian’s methodological toolbox; for by this and kindred means one reminds oneself to attempt to

discover as much as possible about Das Dritte Griechenland, the small, drab, one-horse (or even no-horse; cf. 26. 4 at p. 78 below) towns whose lot in life was just as often to endure warfare and siege as to inflict it on others. Yet wishing to know

about such places (and appreciating the value and importance of doing so) is one thing, implementing that wish quite another. For the fifth century, as stated, we are lamentably ° I coin this phrase by respectful (ifimperfect) analogy from Hexter’s irresponsible passive. ‘As an instructor concerned with the writing of history I have often inveighed

against historians who use the “irresponsible passive”. For example, in the sentence “Black slaves were bought from blacks in Africa”, the identity of a responsible party vanishes into the abyss of the passive. Compare, “White slave traders bought black

slaves from other blacks in Africa”. That way we know who did it’ (J. H. Hexter, On Historians (London

1979) 2 n. 2).

4

INTRODUCTION

served. Once we pass into the fourth century, however, it does start to become possible, as regards both quantity and quality of evidence, to adopt the passive perspective with useful results. Some of this evidence is provided by the narrative

historians, chiefly Xenophon and Diodorus, some by writers such as Pausanias who included narrative material. Yet to gain a detailed insight into what life was like—and in certain respects had always been like—in a small and vulnerable

polis

around

the

middle

of the

fourth

century,

and

to

appreciate something of the strategic and _ psychological preoccupations and tensions in such a community at that time, we need analysis as well as narrative; and we need it,

ideally,

from

participant. could

an

intelligent

Happily,

contemporary

we have

observer

and

it. ‘No better commentary

be desired on the interrelations of small Greek states,

the constant fear of treachery within, and the interminable strife with neighbours whose home is but a few miles away’ (Hudson-Williams 390). Admiring testimonials such as this are commonplace amongst the devotees—never sufficiently numerous—of the work to which it refers. Its author was one Aineias, known since the seventeenth century as ‘the Tactician’ (tacticus); and the remainder of this Introduction

will seek to explain why, for any serious student of classical Greek history and society, what unique interest and importance.”

2.

THE

WORK

AND

Aineias

ITS

has to offer is of

AUTHOR

That we are in a position to read Aineias today is thanks to the tenth-century Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. The Greek East during his life and reign (AD ® Davies (Didaskalos 5/1 (1975) ) 80 includes Aineias in ‘an enormous mass of written material which stands outside the Graeco-Roman historiographical tradition but is no less informative about ancient society for all that and ought to be exploited in its own terms far more than we are currently doing’. In his riposte to Davies, P. A.

Brunt asserts that ‘more can be learned about the ancient world, page for page, from Thucydides than from Aeneas Tacticus . . . ” (Didaskalos 5/2 (1976) 236-49, at 247). Yet Davies nowhere advocated attention to sources like Aineias instead of those like

Thucydides; and neither would I.

INTRODUCTION

5

912-59) was a ferment of scholarly activity of all kinds, much

of it initiated or at least sponsored by the learned emperor himself; and a prominent feature of this was the assembling of encyclopaedic collections of writings, past and contemporary, across a wide range of intellectual and technical fields.” One such collection, dating from c.950, was of military handbooks;? and a manuscript from this corpus—the parent-manuscript of all four others known to exist—has come down to us in the

Biblioteca Laurenziana, the great fifteenth-century library of the Medici in Florence.” Framed by various opuscula of Constantine

himself,

Laurentianus 55-4

(also known

as M)

comprises three distinct categories of treatise: notably, as far as we are concerned here, the ancient ones, which occupy the

central position in the manuscript. There are seven of them. Six of the seven are both well post-classical (first century Bc to third ap) and also, broadly speaking, all of a piece in their theoretical, even philosophical, approach to their subjects.'® But the seventh—actually the third in manuscript order—is

markedly different. Immediately after the treatise Tactics (or Tactical

Theory)

by one

Aelian

(early second

century

Ab)!

comes a work, the heading of which attributes it too to that writer: Ailianou taktikon hypomnema peri tou pos chre poliorkoumenous antechein (Aelian’s Tactical Treatise on How to Survive under Siege). At the end of it, however, a scribe has written ‘AINEIAS’ Siegecraft (Poliorketika)—or Aelian’s, as at the

’ See K. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur von Justinian bis zum Ende des oströmischen Reiches (Munich 1891) 59-69; G. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State (Oxford 1956) 247-8; N. G. Wilson, Scholars of Byzantium (London 1983) 140-5. # The handbooks: A. J. Toynbee, Constantine Porphyrogenitus and his World (London 1973) 292 fl. The date: J. Irigoin, Scriptorium 13 (1959)

177-81.

9 For what follows see in full Bude xxx ff; in brief Devine 33-5. ' I should reiterate the broadness of this characterization: there are in truth distinctions to be drawn, within the group, between—to take the instance of the two writers included in the Loeb ed. of Aineias—the dry, parade-ground technicalities of Asclepiodotus’ Art of Tactics, with its ideal phalanx of 16,384 men, and the more practical and psychological approach taken in Onasander’s Generalship. For the

practical element in Arrian’s Art of Tactics see P. A. Stadter, CP 73 (1978) 117-28, and, in brief, J. B. Campbell, /RS 77 (1987) 13-29, at 18. '! (To be distinguished, therefore, from his better-known namesake, the author of

the Varia Historia etc., a century later.) See K. K. Müller, RE 1 (1894) 482-6; A. Dain, Histoire du texte d’Elien le Tacticien (Paris 1946) 15-54; P. A. Stadter, CP 73 (1978) 1 1728; E. L. Wheeler, GRBS 19 (1978) 353 with n. 9; Devine, esp. 31-3.

6

INTRODUCTION

beginning’; and there, as is generally agreed, we see the truth of the matter struggling to break through:'? 1. Whoever he was, the author of the Siegecraft'? was certainly not Aelian. His style is altogether unlike Aelian’s (and indeed unlike that of any writer as late as Aelian); and in any case his work can be dated by internal evidence, as will be seen, more than four centuries before Aelian’s time. 2. The Laurentian manuscript’s retrospective alternative for his name, Aineias, finds support and context in the fact that

someone of that name is known to have written on military matters at least as early as the first quarter of the third century. Aelian—the genuine Aelian—credits an Aineias with ‘having composed a considerable number of military books, of which Kineas the Thessalian made an epitome (summary)’ (Tactics 1. 2); and this Kineas is copiously attested as a friend, general, and diplomatic representative of Pyrrhos of Epeiros."* Aelian later (Tactics 3. 4) cites Aineias as having defined tactics as ‘the science of military movements’. Between the time of Kineas and Aelian, Aineias was also read by Polybius, who calls him ‘the writer of the military treatises’ and criticizes his recommendations on fire-signalling (Polybius 10. 44; quoted below, in the commentary on Aineias 7. 4). Much later, in the sixth century AD, Aineias was named third of six Greek military writers listed by John the Lydian in his antiquarian work The Officials of the Roman Constitution (1. 47. 1). And finally, the brief ‘Aineias’ entry in the tenth-century AD Suda lexicon runs as follows: ‘he wrote on fire-signals, as Polybius says, and a treatise on stratagems’. There is no good reason to doubt that all this testimony pertains to one and the same writer, even if 2 T refer, for the time being, to general agreement

that our work’s author was

called Aineias, not necessarily about the further question, aired below, of whether he

is Xenophon’s Aineias of Stymphalos. The most forceful rejection of the former thesis as well as the latter remains that of Hudson-Williams.

3 The problem of the work’s authentic title is discussed below. 4 See P. Lévêque, Pyrrhos (BEFAR 185: Paris 1957) index s.v. ‘Cinéas’. Cicero testifies to armchair enjoyment of Kineas’ efforts in the mid first century (Epistulae ad familiares 9. 25. 1), and it is a reasonable supposition that this popularity contributed to the neglect and eventual disappearance of all but one of Aineias’ own treatises (sce below). Conversely, the Siegecraft may have survived precisely by being excluded from Kineas’ epitome: Fischer 66; cf. F. Stähelin, RE 11 (1922) 476. For the youthful A. Dain’s flirtation with the idea that the extant work is the epitome, and the mature

Dain’s sound rejection thereof, see Budé xlii n. 3.

INTRODUCTION

7

none of it demonstrably refers to the work we have in front of

us.

15

3. For anyone wary of accepting the scribal postscript in M as sufficient proof in itself that our work’s author was indeed called Aineias, there is a passage within the treatise which, for most scholars, tips the scales. Of the forty chapters (of very varying lengths) into which the work is conventionally divided, the longest and most remarkable is the thirty-first, devoted to what was plainly a major enthusiasm of the author’s: cryptography, the transmission and receipt of secret messages.'® It is replete with historical examples, drawn from Herodotus and elsewhere, to illustrate different ways of doing so; but its centrepiece (31. 16 ff.) is an elaborate theoretical scheme—palpably a scheme of the writer’s own devising—for winding thread through twenty-four holes bored in an astragal, a knucklebone-shaped die. When the account turns, in 31. 18, to a specific demonstration of this, an encoded word,

the transmitted Greek text descends for the space of several letters into gibberish, and the early editors could make little or nothing of it; however, ever since a flash of insight by Friedrich Haase in 1835 there has been almost universal agreement that the proud author and inventor succumbed to the pardonable vanity of using the illustration of his own name—AINEIAS.'"” 5 In the case of John

the Lydian, Loeb 3 (followed by Handford

in Hunter/

Handford xi) and Budé xiti—xiv evidently understand his phrase ‘in the Siegecraft’ as

embracing all six of the writers listed. This is most improbable, substantively (the list also includes Aelian, Arrian, and Onasander) as well as syntactically. The application of the phrase should be restricted to the last-named writer, Apollodorus (of Damascus, architect and engineer to Trajan), who in any case did write a (stillsurviving) Siegecraft (C. Wescher, La Poliorcétique des grecs (Paris 1867) 137 ff.). *

A writer who certainly knew, and exploited, Aineias’ Siegecraft without ever naming him as its author is the early third-century AD Jewish chronographer

Julius Africanus

(on whom see generally J.-R. Viellefond, Les “Cestes” de Julius Africanus: Etude sur l’ensemble des fragments avec édition, traduction et commentaires (Florence and Paris 1970) ).

For the fifteen portions of book 7 of Africanus’ Kestoi (Girdles), published ¢.230ap, which are rephrased excerpts from Aineias see Schöne ix and 115-23; Loeb 19, 24-5, 206-25; Hunter/Handford xli and 240-51; Bude xliv and 93-101. For other adaptations and paraphrases of Aineias see J.-R Viellefond, RP 6 (1932) 24-36; Budé xli-xlviii. ' For its significance in the history of cryptography see D. Kahn, The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing (London 1967) 82-3. " Haase’s conjecture—long standard in all editions (and relying on his reading of 31. 18 as a whole, which seems at least to verify A-I-N-E-)— was made in the course

8

INTRODUCTION

We are dealing then with a military writer called Aineias who lived and wrote in the classical or early Hellenistic period.

That much emerges, with an acceptable degree of certainty, before

even

studying

(save

for 31.

18)

the interior of the

treatise itself. But if we now do so, its date can be deduced

with some precision. (a) Terminus post quem Here one relies, first and foremost, upon Aineias’ habit of expanding and justifying his various precepts by appeal to positive or negative precedent, that is, occasions when his advice or something akin to it was either successfully followed or else imprudently ignored. To almost thirty of these illustrative episodes an exact or approximate date can be assigned, and the resulting chronological spread has frequently

been plotted: after a thin scatter of tales drawn

(through

intermediate sources, necessarily) from the history of the late eighth to the late fifth centuries, there comes a heavy concentration of them in the first four decades of the fourth century, especially the 370s and 360s. Hug proffered 24. 3-14, Charidemos’ capture of Ilion in (or, more properly, around) 360 as the latest securely datable event to which reference is made;

subsequently,

however,

any or all of four more

have

been plausibly claimed as belonging to the years 359-355."

Of a date later than that there is no positive indication.” of an article on Greek and Roman military writers in Jahns [later Neue] Jahrbücher für Philologie und Paedagogik 14 (1835) 88-118, at 93-7; it was subsequently developed, in minor matters of grammar and orthography, by Hercher and Schöne (see Schöne 87;

cf. Loeb 164). Amidst the chorus of praise for Haase’s brilliance (Hunter/Handford 210 is typical; and Schwartz 1020 stated it as simple fact that the name Aineias ‘in der

Schrift selbst (31. 18) vorkommt’) Hudson-Williams 397-401 stands out as a lone voice of protesting scepticism. '8 Most fully by Hunter/Handford xi-xii and, especially, xxxiv—xxxvii. See also Hug 4-8; Loeb 5-7; Belyaev 250-1; Budé viii-ix; Marinovich, Mercenariat 201. !% See the commentary on 4. 1 (Chalkis on the Euripos),

11. 3 (the betrayal of

Chios), 28. 6 (Iphiades of Abydos), and 31. 31 (DIONYSIOS). % No significance can be attached to the mention of Leukon of Bosporos (5. 2, with commentary) in the imperfect tense: Hunter/Handford xii. The suggestion of Bengtson 460, cf. 468, that the terminus post can be pushed as late as 340 stems largely from his unwarranted belief that Aineias drew his historical examples from Ephorus (see on this Celato, ‘Enea’ 60 n. 34; Lehmann 71 n. 2); it in any case runs counter to 31. 24 and the other pointers to a terminus ante—see

below,

(6).

INTRODUCTION

9

(b) Terminus ante quem A time—earlier than the epitome of Kineas provides anyway —before which the treatise had, manifestly, been written has

to be determined by rather different reasoning. Positive internal evidence is confined to a much-discussed passage (31. 24) where Aineias refers, as still in being, to the so-called Lokrian maiden-tribute to Troy/Ilion. We learn elsewhere that this was discontinued in c.346 but revived in the third century. The revival could be regarded as significant for the dating of the treatise—in a negative way, by neutralizing 31. 24 as a true terminus ante—only in conjunction with other pointers to a third-century date; but these, as scholars have repeatedly and rightly insisted, are entirely lacking. On the contrary, the complete absence of any discernible reference to events or background circumstances later even than the mid 350s, when juxtaposed with the lavish citation of episodes

occurring down to that time, not merely supports a formal terminus ante quem of c.346

but indicates

an actual

date of

composition (or at least of its completion: see below) several years earlier than that; perhaps very close to 355 itself, or at any rate in the later 350s rather than the earlier 340s. In other

words, a powerful argument in the determination of the time by which the treatise had been finalized is an argument from multiple silence: since not the faintest shadow is cast by the rise of Macedon, the Sacred War, and other such major developments of the third quarter of the fourth century,” it is all but inconceivable that Aineias was still at work when they

occurred.” Such are the results of combining actual internal evidence with general inferences from what the treatise does and, equally important, does not mention. When it was begun, and whether it took more than one draft to write, are unanswerable ?! Not least that of a form of (relatively) technological, machine-oriented siege warfare, pursued by Philip and Alexander, which is scarcely at all prefigured in the

image of such warfare that we see in Aineias; cf. below, n. 73. ® For variations on this theme see Hug 4-5; Loeb 5; Hunter/Handford xi-xit; Belyaev 251; Bude viii; Celato, ‘Enea’ 56; Lehmann 71 n. 2; Marinovich, Mercenariat

200.

10

INTRODUCTION

questions; we must be content to say that it was completed around or marginally before the very mid-point of the fourth century.

And

that,

after all, is a measure

of chronological

precision which makes nonsense of at least the first half of Richard Schône’s description of Aineias as ‘incertae aetatis

ignotaeque nobis patriae scriptor militaris’ (Schöne xii). For a little-known author of an undeniably lesser work of ancient Greek literature his time is as certain as it could reasonably be.?*

.

His provenance is another matter, however; for whether or

not one pronounces it unknown hinges almost entirely upon whether one accepts or (as in Schöne’s case, evidently) rejects

a particular thesis about Aineias’ identity which has dominated all thinking and writing on the subject since it was put forward by Isaac Casaubon in 1609. Casaubon’s suggestion was that Aineias the Tactician was not merely a contemporary of Xenophon’s but actually mentioned by him, in Hellenika 7.

3. 1: ‘at about this time [366] Aineias of Stymphalos, who had become general of the Arkadians, decided that conditions in

Sikyon were intolerable; so he went up to the akropolis [there] with his own army, called together such Sikyonian aristocrats as were still inside the city and sent for those who had been

exiled without [popular] decree’. (What Aineias had found ‘intolerable’ was the tyranny of Euphron (Hellenika 7. 1. 44-6; cf. Diodorus 15. 70. 3); and in the remainder of Hellenika 7. 3, we read that after Aineias’ intervention on behalf of the enemies of Euphron the latter at first re-established his position, at least in part, but was then assassinated during a

visit to Thebes.) 4 For all its subsequent influence, Casaubon’s thesis was aty the time presented obiter (Casaubon 1637) rather than being: argued at any length; and in fact the only supporting argument he adduced—the introduction, in 27. 1, of the term 3 Both this surviving treatise and the lost ones (see below) were doubtless the work of many years, as Hunter/Handford xii points out, and it would be prudent to

entertain at least the hypothetical possibility of a series of interim drafts before the final one. Fischer’s remains the most elaborate (and unconvincing; cf. L. W. Hunter,

CR 28 (1914)

169-70, and Loeb 10 n. ı) attempt to demonstrate that possibility,

however.

* Subsequently (in RAM 67 (1912) 303) Schöne qualified his statement to the extent of conceding a fourth-century date but would still go no further than that.

INTRODUCTION

II

panic (paneion) as ‘a Peloponnesian word, found especially in

Arkadia’—has been pressed into service by opponents of the identification as well as by its adherents.* A comprehensive discussion aimed at elevating Casaubon’s suggestion into a certainty did not appear until 1877, when Arnold Hug brought out his provocatively titled Aeneas von Stymphalos: Ein arkadischer Schriftsteller aus classischer Zeit; this, together with the

first part of the introduction in Hunter/Handford, remains the fullest exposition of the case in its favour.” Amongst its opponents and critics, the most vociferous, A. C. Lange and T. Hudson-Williams, have confined themselves to the negative: a severe (not to say nihilistic) insistence that the authorship question lies beyond satisfactory determination.” During the last sixty years or so scholars have understandably wearied of rehearsing the arguments, one way or the other, at length, and have mostly fought shy also of confident assertion that Aineias the Tactician is or is not Aineias of Stymphalos. And this, unless and until the (external) evidence increases, is as it should be; neither position is open to proof > See Hunter/Handford

xvi, disputing the anti-identification position of A. C.

Lange, De Aeneae commentario poliorcetico (Berlin 1879) 7-22. Lange’s main contention,

to be sure, was that the phrasc is interpolated and that what stands in the text without it-—‘some call them panics'—would not have been written by an Arkadian. Most will feel that in this instance Hunter/Handford wins the argument (cf. Köchly/Rüstow 9), but in truth the debate as a whole is characterized by special pleading on both sides— see below. * Hug 28 M Hunter/Handford ix IT. Those who (explicitly or implicitly) regard the case as proven are too numcrous to mention, other than e.g.: M. Cary, JHS 47 (1927) 267;J. Kromayer in Kromaycr/Veith 12; Parke 94; B. A. Van Groningen, Mnemosyne 6 (1938) 329; Mossé 226; Bettalli 79 with n. 16; L. Berkowitz/K. A. Squitier, Thesaurus

Linguae Graecae: Canon of Greek Authors and Works, 2nd cdn. (New York and Oxford 1986) 6.

” For Lange see above, n. 25. This position is also taken, in bricf, by (e.g.) Schwartz 1020; Bengtson 461; Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 52-3; Belyaev 241 n. 14; Celato, ‘Enea’ 58-60; Marinovich, Mercenariat 200-1. A geographical alternative to Stymphalos and the Pcloponnese—the Black Sea region—has been proposed by H. Sauppe, GGA 1 (1871) 729-53, at 730, and (apparently unaware of Sauppe) by Celato, ‘Grecia’ 220 n. 25 and 243-4; but Aincias’ knowledge of events in that part of the world is no more striking than his familiarity with mainland and Acgean Greece. Hunter/Handford xvii-xvii (following Hug 30-1) claims that ‘an Arcadian mercenary captain would probably have far greater opportunities, through service and travel, of obtaining detailed information about these [Pontic] districts than a native of the Euxine would have of becoming acquainted with the history, military or

constitutional, of mainland Greece’. This may be true—but it also illustrates perfectly the circular argumentation to which the more zealous supporters of Casaubon’s thesis fall prey; see further below.

12

INTRODUCTION

positive.“ Instead, while uncompromising denials that the authorship issue can usefully be addressed at all are still to be found,” in most instances the effective choice—made on the

basis of general academic temperament as much as anything else—has long narrowed down to a judgment between two, very much less extreme, points of view: that the identification is possible or that it is probable.” My own opinion is the latter. I see every reason to believe that the author of the treatise(s) probably was Aineias of Stymphalos, a man not only attested in his own right at a time and place eminently suitable for the author of the Siegecraft?' but also, it would seem, a scion of a

family with a long tradition in Stymphalian public life and military service elsewhere.” Does it matter whether we deem this ‘probable’ or merely ‘possible’? In theory it should not—as regards the way to read and use the treatise—but in practice it can. This is because of the danger of petitio principü: the almost irresistible temptation,

for believers ir Casaubon’s thesis about the man, to employ it as a lens through which to view the work. It would not be unfair to say, of the discussions of the authorship question by Hug and Hunter/Handford, that beyond making what they can of the name ‘Aineias’ the burden of their approach is to scour the treatise itself for ‘passages which give a certain # Setting aside the putative family of Aineias of Stymphalos himself (see below, at

n. 32) one may observe that the geographical distribution of the name Aine(i)as (Hug 43-4; Hunter/Handford xiv-xvi; Celato, ‘Enea’ 57 n. 21; and cf. now P. M. Fraser/E. Matthews (eds.), A Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, 1. The Aegean Islands,

Cyprus, Cyrenaica (Oxford

1987)

18-19)

is inconclusive, as admitted

by Hunter/

Handford xiv-xv (cf. Celato loc. cit.).

® References above, n. 27. # Possible (e.g.): A. Lesky, A History of Greek Literature (London 1966) 629; Bude xxii (though see next note); Ste. Croix 298; E. L. Wheeler, Chiron 13 (1983) 8-9. Probable (e.g.): Loeb 7, cf. 1; W. W. Tarn, CR 41 (1927) 227 (and posthumously in The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd edn. (Oxford 1970) 14); Delebecque 430; Ober 7.

On possible vs. probable see the end of the review of Barends by S. A. Handford (CR 7 (1957) 78), and further below.

3! Unless we entertain the gratuitous (indeed, mischievous) suggestion of Bude viii, cf. x, that the Stymphalian may have been assassinated in 366/5!

#2 Documented from the second quarter of the fifth century (Pindar, Olympian Ode 6. 88) and including another ‘Aineias of Stymphalos’ in Xenophon: a mercenary officer who died in Asia c.400 during the expedition of the Ten Thousand (Anabasis 4. 7. 13). On the family as a whole see Hug 43-4; Hunter/Handford xiv and xxvi-xxvii; Bude

vii-xii passim;

cf., on

Aineias

the

father

of the seer Thrasyboulos

(and

the

problematic (?)third-century battle of Mantineia in Pausanias), Pritchett 3. 54 (but reading ‘Aineias’ for his ‘Lineas’) and Habicht 101-2.

INTRODUCTION

13

amount of information about the writer’ (Hunter/Handford xviii). Such a procedure appears unexceptionable until one realizes that the criterion for determining which passages are and are not to be considered significant in this regard is a northern Peloponnesian one. A reference to Sikyon (29. 12)— there are none, let it be noted, to Stymphalos itself—is seen as

inference-worthy, one to (e.g.) Korkyra (11. 13-15) is not; and the case for Aineias of Stymphalos is artificially enhanced thereby. Part of the problem, therefore, is selectivity. The

other, related part is over-interpretation (of which the Budé edition too is guilty): features shared by a multitude of Greek states are proffered as indicative of Sikyon;* and, at times, the

absence of clear pointers to the northern Peloponnese is put down to the tact and diplomacy of a writer, if indeed not an actual participant, who knew more than he was prepared to say.** The methodological fallacy is embarrassingly obvious but none the less, it seems, needs to be exposed. Those of us

who think it probable (or even certain) that Aineias of Stymphalos and Aineias the Tactician are one and the same must never forget that the only legitimate way to discover anything about the latter is to look at what he wrote. To look at what Aineias wrote, however,

is easier said than

done; for, as we have already seen, the bulk of it—‘a considerable number of military books’ (Aelian, Tactics 1. 2)—

has

perished.

Furthermore,

determination

of what

that

number actually was? has to be based almost entirely on cross-references and other such internal indications in the surviving treatise,* some of which are woefully ambiguous. In

the following list the shift from certainty to uncertainty occurs after only the first two items: 1. On four occasions (7. 4, 8. 5, 21. 1, 40. 8) brief mention

is made # # # Loeb

of further

discussion

of a topic

in

Preparations

See Hunter/Handford xxv—xxvi. See the commentary on (e.g.) 18. 8, 23. 7-11, and 29. 3 (a city). Casaubon 1638-9 and1717-18; Köchly/Rüstow 4-6; Hug 19-22; Fischer 65-7; 8-10; Hunter/Handford xii-xiv; Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 49 n. 4; Belyaev 241

n. 16; Budé xii-xviii; Wilsdorf 1809 n. 54; Pritchett 2. 212 n. 17; Lehmann 72-3. Loeb

and Budé represent, respectively, the maximum and minimum of the range of estimates. % But see the following list for inferences, in my view uncompelling, from external evidence (7) and general considerations (8).

14

INTRODUCTION

(Paraskeuastike biblos);*’ and since 7. 4 deals with fire-signalling one can conclude that the long citation of ‘Aineias’ on that subject in Polybius 10. 44 is taken from this treatise (see the commentary on 7. 4). 2. In 14. 2 a similar cross-reference is made to a treatise called Procurement (Poristike biblos). 3. In 21. 2% Aineias indicates that he will cover certain matters (‘the proper procedure for posting sentries and patrols, dealing with panics, and devising passwords and accompanying signs’) in a work called Encampment (Stratopedeutike biblos). To judge from the extent to which these topics are in fact aired in chs. 22-7 of the Siegecraft, the materials for Encampment were already to hand; but was it ever formally written up? 4. In 11. 2 it is stated that the examples of plots which occupy the rest of that chapter are taken ‘from the book’. However, there is no means of telling whether this is a citation of an otherwise unmentioned book specifically devoted to (and

conceivably

named

after)

plots

or of a

treatise

that

is

mentioned elsewhere, such as Preparations: see the commentary. 5. ‘The occasions when any such failings [viz. inattention and

indiscipline

amongst

men

fighting on

the wall]

are

best

overlooked have been discussed in the Addresses’ (38. 5). My translation here embodies judgements on two interpretative

problems which this passage presents: the lesser, what the Greek word Akousmata means; the greater (whereon my opinion is especially unconfident), whether it should not in fact be in the lower case, that is, not a separate treatise at all but merely an internal cross-reference back to 26. 8-10. Again,

the issues are set out in the commentary. 6. The transmitted text of the surviving treatise ends, prematurely, as follows: ‘I pass on to the organization of a fleet. There are two ways of equipping a naval force... ’ Since naval matters are broached in the Siegecraft itself, to suppose that what we have lost was an entire and independent ” Literally ‘the Preparations book’. Note, however, that in 21. 1 the noun (which cannot, grammatically, be ‘book’) is left implicit: see the commentary there. * But not, I believe, elsewhere: sce the commentary on 22. 24, (entirely).

INTRODUCTION

15

work, The Organization of a Fleet, is unsound: see the commentary on 40. 8. 7. As stated earlier, the second citation of ‘Aineias’ in Aelian’s Tactics (3. 4) is for his definition of tactics as ‘the science of military movements’. No such definition occurs in the course of Siegecraft, but that is an inadequate basis for believing, as some scholars have done, that it was proffered in a separate Tactics (Taktike biblos),” rather than merely

in, for instance,

Preparations. 8. ‘We must also assume the existence of a special treatise ‘On the Conduct of Siege Operations’, a [Poliorketike biblos], partly because Aeneas was subsequently listed among the poliorcetic writers, whereas the present treatise deals exclusively with the defence of fortifications, but especially because the introduction to the present monograph, when considered as but a chapter in a comprehensive treatise on military science, by its emphatic contrast of the relative positions of the attacker and the defender, clearly indicates that the conduct of siege operations had already been treated . . . A general work treating of both the offensive and the defensive in time of siege might, without too great impropriety, be called a [Poliorketike biblos]. . . but the second part alone could not be designated by that title”. This is a pure house of cards. Setting aside for the moment the fact that we cannot be sure of the surviving treatise’s authentic title (see below), one can object on at least three counts: (a) Aineias is probably not ‘listed among the poliorcetic writers’;*' (6) the introduction (or preface) does not contrast attack and defence in a siege but combat abroad and at home; and above all (c) ‘the treatise on “defence” deals with almost every mode of attack known to the siegecraft of Aeneas’s day in Greece proper and Asia Minor’. To postulate a separate work written from the attackers’ perspective is as unwarranted as it is otiose. ‘La prudence est donc de rigueur en ces matières’ (Budé xvi). As a matter of certainty, the surviving treatise was preceded # Thus (e.g.) Hug 21; Loeb 9; Hunter/Handford xiv (hesitantly); Spaulding 59; Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 49 n. 4. I have not found their view disputed anywhere, though in Bude xii-xvüi, cf. xxiii, it could be said to be rejected by default.

# Loeb 8-9; cf. (e.g.) Casaubon +! See above, n. 15.

1717-18; Hug 21-2; Belyaev 241 n. 16. © Hunter/Handford xiv; cf. Lehmann

72 n. 9.

16

INTRODUCTION

by only two others (1, 2) and scheduled to be followed by a third (3). If the Akousmata (5) was an independent work, it too had already been written; and the same goes for ‘the book’ of

11. 2 (4). All else is profitless speculation. What

then of the title of the one component

of Aineias’

‘encyclopédie militaire’* that can still be read today? It is elusive,

to say

the least. As

we

have

seen,

the Laurentian

manuscript itself creates confusion on the point by apparently giving two versions of it: Tactical Treatise on How to Survive under Siege, or simply Siegecraft (Poliorketika). The foregoing survey of the lost works reveals Aineias’ own preference, however, for short titles. Indeed, apart from the enigmatic Akousmata (where doubts have been raised as to whether it is a book-title at all), what he favoured was an adjective of the -(t)ikos type

in agreement with and amplification of the noun biblos (book). It therefore seems reasonable to surmise that in referring to the extant manual Aineias himself would have used the term Poliorketike biblos, literally ‘the Siegecraft book’. Perhaps less likely, but still possible, is that he simply called it (the) Poliorketika. What does not, at all events, seem likely is that “Tactical Treatise on How to Survive under Siege’ is anything more than a description and characterization of the work, as

opposed to its original and authentic title. Whoever glossed the true title—or sought, ineptly, to manufacture it in its absence—as How to

SURVIVE under Siege was endeavouring

to do what Gronov, Orelli, Schéne, and others did, centuries

later, in giving the work the Latin designation De obsidione toleranda: to call attention to the fact that that is what it is

predominantly

about—the

passive

rather

than

the active

# C. Graux, RP (1879) 91-151, at 98; cf. (e.g.) Y. Garlan, War in the Ancient World (London 1975) 18; Bettalli 80; Wheeler 3 n. 10, who suggests that its overall title may

have been Strategika (cf. Hug 18-19). # Thus (e.g.) Bude xiii. * Loeb 2-3 and g—for the latter see above, at n. 4o—asserts too categorically, of Poliorketike biblos and Poliorketika alike, that such titles could not be used of a work concerned with defence against siege; sec rather Budé xxii—xxiii. In any case, as stated above, Aineias actually (and inevitably) deals with offensive siegecraft too.

# ‘Tactical Treatise on’ is presumably no more than an introductory formula. Some scholars (e.g. Hudson-Williams 392; Loeb 2) find fault with ‘tactical’ (taktikon) as applied to the work. As with ‘poliorcetic’ (see the preceding note), this may be to construe the word too narrowly (thus Casaubon 1717; Budé xxiii); but in any event the issue is irrelevant to that of how Aineias himself understood the term.

INTRODUCTION

17

perspective. On that basis, in the present volume too it is the

description which, in the guise of a title, has been given pride of place.

3.

The

FORM

point has been

AND

made

CONTENT

in the preceding section, as a

warning against too narrow and formalistic an interpretation of ‘siegecraft’,

that

its two

facets,

attack

and

defence,

are

difficult to separate. Certainly Aineias himself experienced this problem—if indeed problematic is how he perceived it. He actually exhibits no qualms in switching, abruptly, from

(e.g.)

the standpoint

of those wishing

to keep

city gates

securely closed to those seeking to open them (18. 22), from quenching fires to starting them (35. 1), or from the prevention of sub-mural tunnelling to its facilitation (37. 8); and

more

broadly,

the

inevitable

concomitant

of,

say,

alertness to ingenious methods of smuggling arms and armour into a town (ch. 29) is expertise in those very methods. Yet in a

treatise

which,

whatever

title

Aineias

himself

gave

it,

appeared to the scribe of the Laurentian manuscript (or else a predecessor in the chain of transmission) to consist of advice to people on the receiving-end of a siege,*’ such is the perspective that we expect to find predominant. And so it is,

beyond question. The inhabitants of a polis ‘under siege’ in the most literal and immediate sense are told how to protect their

walls

and

gates

mechanical;

how

to deal

against with

attack,

both

incendiary

human

devices;

how

and to

detect and thwart the operations of sappers endeavouring to undermine

the fortifications; how

to create the illusion that

the defending forces are larger than they really are; and in

general how to deploy available manpower to best advantage.* Recommendations

of this sort,

however,

were

manifestly

not Aineias’ sole, or even his main, concern. By the time they * The intended recipients of Aineias’ advice are sought more

precisely in s. 6,

below. # I say ‘manpower’ advisedly: the military role of women in Aineias is either, with slaves, to throw tiles from the roof-tops at an enemy already inside the town (2. 6) or—in a famously sexist passage—to create a static illusion of armed men (40. 4-5).

18

INTRODUCTION

are being proffered—the time that the enemy is directly outside the city walls and, so to speak, showing the whites of his eyes—we have already reached the thirty-second of the

treatise’s forty chapters. It is only in these final nine (and quite short) chapters (32-40), constituting some 15 per cent of the work as a whole, that actual siege warfare is consistently envisaged as taking place and measures of the kind outlined

above come into play. What then of the first 85 per cent? It is by no means easy to describe. Even his most loyal admirers stop short of maintaining

that Aineias’ treatise is a paragon of internal organization and coherence; and editors and commentators have signally failed to establish, over the years, what might be termed a Table of

(its)

Contents

which

can

command

universal

assent.

The

unpalatable fact is that Aineias expounds his ideas in a far less systematic manner, and order, than methodically minded modern scholars wish he had. As Marco Bettalli has pointed out, this state of affairs owes less to personal competence or incompetence on his part than to the difficulties which would have faced anyone, in his shoes, pioneering the transference of an essentially oral body of knowledge and expertise into a written medium; yet while this point must certainly be appreciated, it can do nothing to reduce the actual haphazardness of much of that writing itself. The essential coherence of chapters 32—40, in the sense indicated already, is agreed on all sides,” but strikingly different perceptions have been conceived, and advocated, as regards the appropriate internal subdivisions of chapters 1-31. The greatest number of them is propounded in the Loeb edition, which declares that ‘the following are the general divisions [before 32-40] of the subject: I. On selecting and disposing troops and on preparing positions in and about the city for facilitating the defence (1-10. 24). | II. On maintaining morale and discipline and general measures for thwarting treachery and revolution (10. 25-14; phases of this latter topic are considered in a number of other chapters). III. On repelling sudden forays (15-16. 15). See Bettalli, esp. 82-5; and see further below, s. 6. # In addition to the various editors’ schemes, discussed below, see (e.g.) Fischer

62-4; Garlan, Poliorcétique 171-8 (implicit); Lawrence 58.

INTRODUCTION

IV.

Ig

On checking, at a distance from the walls, the advance of a foe,

and on taking special precautions in regard to religious processions outside the city walls and treachery at the gates of the city (16. 16-[ch.] 20: 21 is transitional). V. On guarding the walls by night and by day and preventing smuggling of arms to revolutionary factions and their direct communication with the foe (22-31)’.>!

Yet it is difficult to endorse as this which fails even demarcations (see II), and the damaging observation

a scheme as so to avoid which is in that ‘certain

elaborate, even fussy, breaches of its own any case preceded by paragraphs, or even

chapters, might appear somewhat more logically in a different connexion, and some of the transitions are not well marked’.

Both of these things are true,” and their upshot is that a completely

satisfactory

unattainable;

identifying undermined

our

aim

divisions or

dismemberment has

broad

invalidated

to be

the

and

few

by

of chapters more

modest

enough

subsidiary

not

1-31

is

one

of

to

be

organizational

anomalies within them. This was evidently the principle adopted in the Budé edition’s tripartite (town—countryside— town) scheme for guerre de la ville’ territoire’ (8-17); dans une ville mise

these chapters: (I) ‘mise sur le pied de (1-7); (II) ‘mise sur le pied de guerre du and (III) ‘organisation de la résistance sur le pied de guerre’ (18-31).% Here the

divisions are, to be sure, broad and few; but still the problem

is how

imperfectly

Chapters 6 and

the treatise actually

(especially)

conforms

to them.

7, for example, deal with the

countryside at least as much as the town; and, conversely, the long series of martial-law regulations in 10. 3 ff. is predicated on the assumption that the free population have evacuated their rural homes and congregated inside the walled city. Should we therefore admit defeat and accept chapters 1-31 as an undifferentiated whole?

Such

is, in effect, the view of

Kasimierz Korus, who insists that the level of threat which Aineias’ recommendations presuppose at any given point rises and falls in an almost wilful fashion. Nevertheless, for all that 3! Loeb to—11. 3 The former in particular is properly stressed by Korus 511 n. 28 in his critique of Loeb and, especially, Marinovich;

4 Bude xxili-xxiv.

see further below.

20

INTRODUCTION

there are occasions where this is demonstrably (and disconcertingly) so,* I believe it is still legitimate to follow Hunter/ Handford* in seeing one—and only one—significant internal

watershed in these pre-siege chapters, occurring after chapter 14. On this view, chapters 15-31 deal with operations against a hostile

force

which,

from

the standpoint

of the

town,

is

already known to be on its way, and even within sight (though not yet, to repeat, within striking distance of the walls until 32-40), whereas in chapters 1-14 most of the topics covered fall under the heading of preparatory measures prior, even, to

that

stage—and

indeed

in some

instances

prior even

to

certainty that any particular hostile force is in the offing. In 3. 4— 6, for example, a network of local rallying-points throughout the town is specifically recommended to be already in place ‘in

peacetime’;* and in 11. 3-6 there is an illustrative episode (otherwise unattested) from the history of Chios in which an attempt to capture the place through the treachery of one of its

officials revolved around his persuading his colleagues that ‘as it was peacetime’ (11. 3) the state’s defences, physical and human, could safely be dismantled. To recognize that the treatise as a whole exhibits, albeit

‘con una notevole approssimazione’,”’ this broadly tripartite structure, each part representing an intensification in the immediacy of the danger to the defending community and only the third and briefest of the parts concerning itself with

siege warfare as such, generates two crucial and interrelated consequences for our appreciation of Aineias’ aims in writing such a work and the circumstances to which he addressed it.

First, in advising a polis on how to survive under siege he is contemplating a potential siege at least as much as an actual one. Indeed his subject could fairly be said to be not merely survival ‘under siege’ but under the fhreat of siege (or at any rate invasion)*—a threat which, for ‘passive’ poleis of the # See for instance 22. 26-9, with the commentary on 22. 27.

> Hunter/Handford 146, cf. 102 and 218, followed ‘Struggle’ 55-6 (and Mercenariat 204) and Bettalli 82.

(tacitly)

by Marinovich,

% See 3. 4 with the commentary on already; cf. the commentary

on 4. 1, pre-

arranged, and jo. 1, Something else which should already have been done. 5? Bettalli 82. Of particular note in this regard is ch. 10, both as a whole and in the fact that it twice (10. 20, 10. 23) makes recommendations for actual siege conditions.

# For invasion as opposed to siege see s. 4, below.

INTRODUCTION

21

type he is catering for, was typically more chronic than acute; the backcloth of daily life itself rather than a neatly demarcated intrusion into it.” And the second point of significance, highlighted not only in the Chios episode but time and again throughout the entirety of the treatise, is that

from the position (which Aineias adopts) of the man or men whose responsibility it is to maintain such a polis’s security, danger can arise at least as readily from internal dissaffection, conspiracy, and subversion as from warfare and siege of purely extraneous origin; from the enemy within quite as much as the enemy without. What is more, that very distinction—between external and internal enemies—is one which any reader of the treatise soon

realizes to be, in practical terms, a distinction without a difference. The traitors and malcontents inside the community, who occupy so prominent a place in Aineias’ thinking,” frequently seek to attain their revolutionary ends in collusion with the enemy proper; this by, at the very least, secretly communicating with him (e.g. 5. I, 9. 2, 10. 6, 10. II, 10. 25— 6, 22. 5, 22. 7, 31 passim) and, as the primary aim in most instances, facilitating his actual entry into the town (e.g. 4. 14, 11. 3-6, 18 passim, 20 passim, 23. 7-11, 29. 3-10). Meanwhile the enemy outside, for his part, expects and hopes for precisely such fifth-columnist assistance (e.g. 18. 13-19,

24. 3-14, 28. 5, 31. 25-7) to save himself the trouble of a direct military assault. As Hunter/Handford pithily remarks, ‘it is assumed that force will not be applied until fraud has failed’.$! And that is why, in making recommendations to those charged with polis security in the middle of the fourth century, Aineias presents these two aspects of survival—the outward-looking and the inward-looking—as very much

facets of the same overall problem. To survive, the polis had to anticipate and neutralize the fraud® as well as repel the force. # Note Plato, Laws 626 a: ‘what most men call peace is a mere name; in reality all poleis are by nature in a state of undeclared war against all others’. © See 1. 3, 1. 6-7, 2. 1, 2. 7-8, 3. 3, 5. 1-2, 10. 3 and passim, 11 passim, 14. 1, 17 passim, 18 passim, 22. 4-8, 22. 10, 22. 14-21, 23. 6-11, 29. 3 ff., 30. 1-2, 31. 8-9; and below, n. 62. 6 Hunter/Handford xxxii. 6? This is of course to take Aineias’ standpoint on its own terms, which labelled as

fraud, treachery, and conspiracy what others might declare to be liberation or legitimate social revolution. See further, s. 5.

22

INTRODUCTION

4.

INVASION

AND

SIEGE

I have emphasized the point that (if chapters 32-40 are set ‘aside) Aineias’ treatise turns out to be preoccupied at least as much with the need for awareness of, and safeguards against, instability and subversion within the polis community itself as with matters relating in a purely military way to that community’s preparedness for, and appropriate reaction to, attack originating from beyond its borders. It should also be noticed how few of these military matters rest on the

assumption that such an attack will necessarily take the form of a siege.

Any element of surprise in this fact stems solely from one’s expectations in approaching a treatise which (whatever its author may have called it) has come down to us as a manual for those faced with siege—a highly specific form of aggression which the Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines as ‘the action, on the part of an army, of investing a town, castle, etc., in order to

cut off all outside communication and in the end to reduce or take it’. In reality the military threat, the attack, which Aineias’ work postulates as directed toward the polis is

altogether broader

than

that. And

inevitably so; for it is

abundantly clear—from the course of Greek history as a whole, not just from Aineias—that any self-respecting polis would consider itself under attack in the event (or prospect) of a hostile incursion into its outlying territory, the rural and agricultural chora, irrespective of whether such an incursion was intended or perceived as a prelude to a siege of the asty, the polis’ (usually walled) urban nucleus.°* Whether looked # Under the latter heading one could not really place much more than chs. ı(. 12), 4, 6, 8, 9, 15, 16, 21, 22(. 1-4), 24, 25, and 26. To add (e.g.) 1. 3-2. 1, 2. 7-3. 6, 12-13, 18. 1-2, 22. 5 ff, and 23. 1 ff. would be to move into areas where

straightforwardly military considerations merge with those of internal security. On the evacuation of the countryside in this regard, see below.

& On walls see principally R. L. Scranton, Greek Walls (Cambridge, Mass. 1941), especially on classification of masonry

styles; Wycherley

36-49; Winter 56-7 and

69 ff; Garlan, Poliorcétique 87-103; Lawrence 111 ff, Adam 16 ff. Unwalled poleis included Elis, Lampsakos, and (most famously) Sparta—and some equated wallbuilding with lack of moral fibre (Plato, Laws 778 D); but most poleis evidently shared

the view of Aristotle (Politics 1330°32-31*18) that a good wall was an ornament as

INTRODUCTION

23

at from the standpoint of attack or defence, in short, invasion

and siege were strategically distinct scenarios; the former might, by intent or perforce, lead to the latter or it might not; and with this distinction in mind when reading Aineias it becomes evident that for most of the time (before chapter 32) it is invasion rather than siege that he is envisaging and aiming to thwart. Furthermore, we also realize that if, from the defenders’ point of view, an invasion can indeed be anticipated, met, and

turned back before it progresses to an actual siege of the asty,

so much the better. The clearest expression of this preference® comes in 16. 16—18, which lays out a tripartite, Klausewitzian

hierarchy of strategic options: 1. If the chora ‘is not easy to invade and the ways into it are few and narrow’, seal its borders in advance (16. 16).® 2. Otherwise—that is, if this initial penetration is unavoidable —‘occupy such strategic positions within the territory as will make it hard for the enemy to advance upon the city’ (16. 17). 3. Failing even that, man ‘positions in the vicinity of the city itself which will help you to fight at an advantage, and from which you can safely withdraw when you want to return to town’ (16. 18). (A final option (4), that of withdrawing into the town itself and

preparing for a siege, is left implicit.) This sort of strategic thinking finds contemporary parallels in Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle (amongst others)® and, as well as a protection, that defenders as well as attackers were entitled to consider how best to achieve their aims, and that it made sense even for brave men to have the

Strategic option of operating from a fortified base. 8° The invaders too may hope to avoid such a progression, given their poor chances of successfully prosecuting a siege without internal collusion: see below. It is actually so clear, by Aineias’ standards, as to have contributed to the view of certain nineteenth-century scholars (notably Hercher and Hug) that ch. 16 is a later interpolation into Aineias’ text. See on this Fischer 27 ff, Hunter/Handford 149-50, cf. 126-7.

* Natural topography, it seems, is the sole determinant of this: Aincias says nothing of frontier fortresses (so crucial to the defensive strategy of (e.g.) Athens and Attica, as Ober has shown). Fortified positions other than the town itself appear to be within the chôra (see options 2 and 3) rather than at its periphery; cf. 3. 3 with the commentary on fortifications. ® See, e.g., Xenophon, Memorabilia 3. 5. 25-7, 3. 6. 10-11; Plato, Laws 7608ff, Aristotle, Politics 1326°39-27*10 (and above, n. 64).

24

INTRODUCTION

Yvon Garlan has argued, can be seen as the fourth century’s flexible, pragmatic development from, and compromise between, the traditional urge to defend one’s territory in pitched battle and the strategy of sacrificing the chora and defending

the asty alone—a strategy first attested as employed (successfully) by the Milesians against the Lydians in the first half of the sixth century (Herodotus 1. 17-22) but most closely identi-

fied with the policies of Themistokles and Perikles for fifthcentury Athens. Aineias does not endorse either of these extremes. *He is certainly no prisoner of the pitched-battle mentality (preferring sorties, ambushes, and other ways

in which those who know the terrain are better placed than those who do not),” and in chapter 8—a summary of a longer exposition in the lost Preparations—he advises a ‘scorched earth’ policy, for the chora, of dispassionate ruthlessness: booby-

trapping the harbours and beaches,’

poisoning the water,

and, in sum, either removing or spoiling anything at all that the enemy could conceivably rely on or find a use for. Yet as chapter

16 shows,

the whole

territory

will,

if possible,

be

defended (by expeditionary forces sent out from the town), once it has been evacuated of its population. Such an evacuation is clearly in the background throughout chapters 7—9 and emerges explicitly in 10. 3 as the first and most fundamental of

a long series of martial-law proclamations: with livestock and (agricultural) slaves in safe keeping across the borders (10. 1-2), all free persons—and foodstuffs—are to come into town. If the countryside is not to be abandoned without a fight, why evacuate it? In part, no doubt, for straightforward military reasons. The commanding general, after all—the

man for whom, essentially, Aineias is writing””—is based in town (see chapter 22) and can deploy his troops more easily and quickly if they are all there with him. Also, if it did come ® See Garlan in M. I. Finley (ed.), Problèmes de la terre en grece ancienne (Paris and

The Hague 1973) 149-60, and more fully in Poliorcétique 19 ff, E. Will, RH 253 (1975) 297-318. Garlan’s model is admittedly schematic, but enlightening none the less. For a less favourable view of it see Ober 2 and 71, whose own discussion of ‘the fourth-

century defensive mentality’ (69-86) is more nuanced. ” See especially 1. 2, 1. 5, 8. 2, 9. 1-3, 15. 1-7, 16. 1-15, 16. 19-22, 23. I-11. | Here, as elsewhere, proximity to the sea is presupposed: see the commentary on 8. 2. 7 See below, s. 6.

INTRODUCTION

|

25

to a siege, that defensive option was one which in military terms would still, in the middle of the fourth century, have stood a chance of success somewhere between good and excellent. It was not until the second half of that century (and beyond) that the balance of advantage in such a set-

piece confrontation swung—somewhat—from the besieged to the besiegers.” Before that, as has frequently been observed, besieging a well-walled town—a hugely expensive undertaking anyway—was a failure much more often than it was

a success,

and

such

successes

as occurred

were

more

commonly achieved with the aid of internal collaboration than by means of siegecraft techniques alone.” Yet this of course is

precisely the point, to which we are constantly brought back: ‘... force will not be applied until fraud has failed’. The defence of a polis was a defence against fraud as well as force; and although Aineias never says as much directly, there can

be little doubt in our minds that a significant part of his reasoning behind having everyone brought into town was to

keep them the better under scrutiny.”

5.

TREACHERY,

UNANIMITY, OF

THE

AND

THE

SURVIVAL

POLIS

The Janus-motif—the need to monitor the interior of the polis community

at the same

time as making ready to defend it

against any external dangers—occurs in the very first chapter # A major reason for this was what Aristotle, writing in the (?)330s, called ‘today’s

improvements in the accuracy of missiles and siege engines’ (Politics 1331*1-2; cf. above, n. 64), which can be taken to refer above all else to the Macedonians’ torsion

catapult: see the commentary on 32. 8, catapults, and in general, on this and other features of siegecraft from the 340s onwards, Garlan, Poliorcétique 201-69. P. Ducrey, Guerre et guerriers dans la grèce antique (Paris 1985) 168-77, while secing the advantage

starting to swing in the attackers’ favour from the beginning of the fourth century (likewise A. McNicoll in Fortification 305-13, at 306 ff.), nevertheless correctly regards Aineias as reflecting the earlier era (Ducrey, op. cit. 170); cf. the description of

Aineias’ treatise by G. T. Griffith in Hammond/Griffith 445 as ‘that interesting book which was partly out of date before it was written’ (cf. F. E. Adcock, The Greek and Macedonian Art of War (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1957) tor). # Thus (e.g.) Gomme in ACT 1. 16-19; Adcock, Greek and Macedonian Art of War

57-8; Lawrence 53-7; and most extensively P. Ducrey in Fortification 133-42. # This emerges indirectly, but still plainty enough, in 10. 3, the introduction to the

martial-law proclamations: see the next section.

26

INTRODUCTION

of the treatise (after its brief and formal preface). Following his comments there on the organization of expeditionary forces (1. 2), Aineias turns to ‘the troops which will remain within

the walls and guard the citizens’ (1. 3). The last three words here are striking, not to say startling, even if the notion of surveillance

is combined

(as it surely is) with

that of safe-

guarding, both in this general formulation and in the specific recommendations which flow from it. The first of them (1. 4),

for example, advocates selection of ‘the men who are most judicious and have the greatest military experience, to be attached to the authorities’. As we saw with the Chios episode in 11. 3-6 (and there are similar ones in 23. 7-11 and elsewhere), precedent suggested that the authorities might be

precisely the people who needed watching most closely. But then so, in Aineias’ view, did virtually everyone else: the led as

well as their leaders (22. 4-10 and 16—17), right down to, if not the dog-catcher, at least the gatekeeper.” Over and above the selection of trustworthy personnel (a matter to which we shall return below), the all-encompassing framework for the maintenance of internal security was the

imposition

of martial law; for the series of proclamations

enumerated in chapter 10 amount to nothing less than that.”

What is more, Aineias leaves the reader in no doubt as to why it was necessary: ‘announcements like the following should be made, to intimidate and deter the plotters’ (10. 3; plotters, we observe, has the definite article; cf. 2. 7). These announcements

add up to a very severe curtailment of the normal activities. and civil liberties of the populace, citizen and non-citizen alike. All private meetings, for example, are banned (save

for weddings

and

funerals, and

even

they require official

authorization in advance); all outgoing and incoming mail is examined (and presumably, if need be, censored, or even

confiscated); the possession of arms and armour is a matter of public record; and a strict curfew is in force. In 10. 18-19 the spotlight switches to the control of mercenary troops (whose * For dogs (if not expressly their catchers) in Aincias see the commentary on 22. 14. ” In point of fact Aineias counsels (5. 1) that gatekeepers be persons as important as their important functions: see below.

™ Hunter/Handford xxxii and 129; cf. Korus 517; Urban 991.

INTRODUCTION

27

presence is taken entirely for granted)’’—and later, in chapter 12, allies as well as mercenaries are identified as, in every sense, alien forces which, if too large, can endanger the polis from within—but at 10. 20 Aineias urges that attention also be paid ‘to the rest of your manpower as well; and the first thing to ascertain is whether there is unanimity (komonoia)® among the citizens, which would be of the greatest advantage during a siege. If there is not, one must get rid of (some) of the

opponents of the status quo, particularly those who have been leaders and initiators of policy in the state’.*! Other categories of potential malcontent, too, should if possible be removed from the firing-line. When an attack is launched against a state which has given hostages, evacuate the hostages’ parents and close relatives while the siege is in progress, so that they do not have to sit by and watch their own

children brought forward with the enemy as they attack and coming to a sad end. This is because if they remain in town they may well go as far as to engage in subversion of some kind. Should it prove impossible to send them away on these grounds, let them stay on— but with a minimum of involvement in what is going on. They must not know in advance where they are to be or what they are to do, and they should be left as little as possible, night or day, to their own devices; see to it, without arousing their suspicions,

that they are

always enveloped by a crowd . . . and are thus not so much on guard as under guard. (10. 23-4)

In passages like this we see Aineias to have been, beneath the deadpan veneer, a man of considerable psychological insight. Whether one finds his understanding of human nature and human fallibilities cold-blooded and manipulative or (as I should prefer to say) realistic, with even a touch of sympathy, 7? On mercenaries in Aineias—notably and overtly in 10. 18-19, chs. 12-13, and

24. 1-3, but also, implicitly, in (e.g.) 10. 7 and 22. 29, not to mention many of the treatise’s illustrative episodes—see the commentary on 10. 7, soldiers. ® The concept of homenoia means literally ‘being of one mind’; possible alternative translations would therefore be concord (the traditional rendering, via Latin), harmony, or even solidarity. At all events Aineias places great stress on it, here and

elsewhere: see further below. " ‘Getting rid’ of such people would be a chilling thought (reminiscent of the advice of Thrasyboulos to Periandros in Herodotus 5. 92) if left unexplained, but it

transpires that what Aineias means is ‘sending them away somewhere as ambassadors and on other official duties’. (As usual an historical example, in this case Dionysios I of Syracuse and his brother Leptines (10. 21-2), underscores the point.)

28

INTRODUCTION

will

be at bottom

a subjective

response;

but one

way

or

another his experience had taught him that, as well as outright treachery, someone in his position had to be equally alert to a range of more venial (if, in their way, no less sins such as simple folly, inefficiency, and carelessness. much to say, for example, especially in chapters 18 about shutting and bolting the city’s gates—but he

deadly) He has and 20, always

returns to the point that the commander should check for himself that the proper procedures, whatever they may be, have been followed. Once the gates are properly closed, the security of the town is of course primarily in the hands of the men guarding and patrolling its walls; but Aineias poses the question (tacitly, at least) ‘quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’; and again the only answer can be the commanding general himself, who must make his rounds and see with his own eyes that everything is at it should be. And if it is not? Here again the human touch, striking the balance between severity and solicitude, comes through. When the guards are demoralized or nervous, Aineias recommends,

patrols [to monitor the guard-posts] must be frequent. However, as they go on their rounds they should not be over-eager to catch out those guards who are too sleepy or weary to keep watch alertly. After all, when the army is in this state there is nothing to be gained from lowering its morale still further—and it is only natural for anyone found misbehaving to lose heart; better to set about attending to their needs and raising their spirits. At times like these patrols should advertise their approach to the guards from a distance, by saying something before they are close, so that if the man on watch is asleep he can wake up and get ready to respond to the challenge. (26. 8-9)

Deliberately trying to catch the poor wretches unawares, he goes on to say, should be kept for times when they are likely to

be over- rather than under-confident. To temporary, external, militarily determined circumstances

such as these the men charged with defending the polis could only hope, naturally enough, to react and respond as they arose. The underlying psychological state of the community, however, was another matter. Aineias urges that that state be, or be made, one of homonoia.®? The word itself or a grammatical 8 See above, at n. Bo.

INTRODUCTION

29

cognate of it occurs four times in all (10. 20, 14. I, 17. I, 22. 21), but these are no more than the multiple tips of the conceptual iceberg: the need for homonoia could fairly be said to be implicit throughout the treatise, both in the advice given

and equally in the numerous historical examples which back that advice up—examples illustrating, for the most part, the vulnerability of a polis where everyone is not ‘of one mind’.

How then was this happy condition to be attained? In 10. 20, as we have seen, his concern is narrow and negative, the

elimination of those most likely to take the lead in treachery and subversion. But the seeds of revolution required fertile

ground—enough people sufficiently dissatisfied or desperate to join or acquiesce in a conspiracy initiated by others (cf. 5. ı-2)—ın order to blossom and bear fruit; and this larger,

socio-economic

problem

is addressed

in the much-cited®°

chapter 14: Those in the state who are hostile to the status quo should be treated in the way already described. As for the mass of the citizens, it is of the utmost importance in the mean time to foster unanimity, winning them over by such means as lessening the burdens on debtors by reducing or completely cancelling interest-payments. At times of extreme danger, even the capital sums owed may be partially or, if necessary, wholly cancelled as well; there is nothing more alarming than to be constantly under the eye of men in debt. Provide the basic amenities of life for the needy, too. How this could be done fairly and without pain to the rich, and where the money might come from, are amongst the matters clearly explained in my book Procurement.

This is tantalizing, to say the least. If, amongst Aineias’ lost works, Preparations and Encampment are the casualties most grievous to military historians, from the standpoint of social and economic history the survival of Procurement would have

been the greatest of boons,™ both for the detailed substance of his prescriptions in this area and for their bearing on a larger question, the single issue which has dominated

the study of

® For bibliography see the commentary on 14. 1, unanimity. # I make the assumption that the analytical level of Poristikz fell no lower than that of the surviving treatise; in other terms, that it was a work more like Xenophon’s Poroi than like the second book of [Aristotle’s] Economics. See the commentary on 14. 2.

30

INTRODUCTION

Aineias in recent times: the core of his personal beliefs and sympathies. Most of this modern work, since the early 1960s, is in facta

delayed

response—the

delay attributable

Aineias’ treatise, until then, to command

to the failure of

any sort of consistent

place in Greek history’s academic agenda—to a particularly provocative statement of the question made long ago, in an extraordinary book by an extraordinary scholar, both of them

more familiar nowadays to historiographers than to historians.® The

scholar was

Robert

volume Geschichte des (Munich 1893-1901),

von

Pöhlmann;

the book,

his two-

antiken Kommunismus und Sozialismus retitled: for the second (1912) and

posthumous third (1925) editions Geschichte der sozialen Frage und des Sozialismus in der antiken Welt. Von Pöhlmann (18521914) was a conservative libertarian who familiarized himself with Marxist and socialist literature in order to play devil’s advocate with it; that is, he shared with Marxists a hypersens-

itivity to ‘class’ conflicts but his personal sympathies therein were the diametric opposite of theirs. For him, class conflict (and its outcome) in antiquity was intended to serve as a dire

warning to his contemporaries, a demonstration of the evils which communism and socialism entailed.” What von Pöhlmann had to say about Aineias” is, accordingly, symptomatic of the problem of his study as a whole; for he went well beyond stressing the existence of social and economic struggles in the fourth-century polis, as reflected in the treatise, to an assertion that Aineias himself

was manifestly on one side in those struggles—the side of the entrenched propertied class against the proletariat. # They even escaped the attention, as little else did, of Ste. Croix’s Class Struggle. ® See, on von Pöhlmann and his œuvre, F. Oertel's ‘Anhang’ (511-71) to the third edn. (repr. in Oertel’s Kleine Schriften zur Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte des Altertums (Bonn 1975) 40-98); A. D. Momigliano, Studies in Historiography (London 1966) 66; K. Christ,

Von Gibbon zu Rostovtzeff:

Leben und Werk führender Althistoriker der Neuzeit

{Darmstadt 1972) 201-47 (and summarily in Römische Geschichte und deutsche Geschichtswissenschaft (Munich 1982) 104-5); M. M. Austin/P. Vidal-Naquet, Economic and Social History of Ancient Greece (London

1977) 20; Fuks

10, cf. 52 n. 1; Gehrke, Stasis 2-3;

R. T. Ridley, Historia 35 (1986) 474-502, at 484-6; H. Kloft (ed.), Sozialmassnahmen und Fürsorge: Zur Eigenart antiker Sozialpolitik (Grazer Beiträge suppl. 3: 1988) 3 (reading ‘Robert’ for ‘Rudolf’), and S. Lauffer, ibid. 8-9. ® At pp. 336-8 of vol. ı of the third edn. (which I cite); they are substantively unchanged from pp. 421-4 of vol. 1 of the second edn., themselves entirely unchanged

from pp. 346-8 of vol. 2 (1901) of the first.

INTRODUCTION

31

For von Pöhlmann, of course, this was the right side to be

on, just as self-evidently as for Ludmila Marinovich, a Soviet scholar writing in 1962, it was the wrong one. Setting that consideration apart, however, von Pöhlmann and (at much greater length) Marinovich together represent the most

vehement articulation of the view that Aineias’ treatise is shot through from start to finish with anti-democratic animus: ‘uberhaupt ist das ganze System des Verfassers von tiefem Misstrauen gegen die Masse diktiert’.™ It is therefore puzzling

to emerge from a reading of von Pöhlmann and Marinovich and

to

contemplate,

38.

4-5,

for instance,

where

Aineias

Hunter/Handford’s

advises

his

general

response

to

‘give

appropriate encouragement—a word of praise here, an appeal there—to each of the men fighting on the wall. But do not make the rank-and-file even more disheartened by (losing) your temper. If it is necessary to scold anyone for inattention and indiscipline, singling out the most wealthy and influential of the citizens will serve as a lesson to the rest’. On this Hunter/Handford’s comment was short and anything but sweet: ‘the rich, as usual in Aeneas, have to suffer’.®°

Verdicts differing as radically as these can only be the outcome of preconceived attitudes which see in the work, selectively, only what they wish to find. That Aineias’ own political Tendenz is in fact indeterminable and, more important,

irrelevant (to our understanding and use of the treatise) has to my mind been demonstrated satisfactorily as well as repeatedly: first by Hermann Bengtson in 1962—the first scholar to take issue, as far as Aineias is concerned, with von Pöhlmann”—and

subsequently,

in reply chiefly to Marinovich,

Russian

F.

V.

Belyaev

and

by

Sergio

by her fellow

Celato,

Gustav

® Pöhlmann 337; cf. Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 60—1 and (more guarded) Mercenariat 208 ff.

It must

be

said

that

Marinovich

has

consistently

(‘Struggle’

60

n.

44;

Mercenariat 209) described von Pöhlmann’s view as too schematic, but is her own appreciably less so? In response to critics of ‘Struggle’ (refs. below, n. gı) her perceptions have shifted only within limits: distrust of, and distaste for, the masses, as betrayed (she maintains) by such passages as 23. 6 and 38. 4-5, is now regarded as significant in those passages (Mercenariat 211) rather than characteristic of the treatise as a whole (‘Struggle’ 61). ® Hunter/Handford 233, with my emphasis. % Barends

173 cited von Pöhlmann

but without discussion.

(first and second edns.) in his bibliography,

32

INTRODUCTION

Lehmann, and others.”' Aineias’ socio-political vocabulary and terminology stand in clear contrast to those of writers

such as Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, and (especially) the Old Oligarch in embodying bias neither against nor for democracy or oligarchy—or even tyranny; and in so far as he reveals a

‘political’ credo at all it is simply (as even Marinovich concedes) the broad one of seeking to uphold established governmental

authority whatever it is against those, whoever

they are, who disturb or destroy the internal equilibrium of a polis and thereby contribute, directly or indirectly, to its vulnerability to an external enemy. Readers (ancient or modern) intent on doing so may decry this stance of his as at

best complacent and at worst a reactionary’s wish to mask or gloss over social and economic

tensions which ought to be

allowed to run their course; but Aineias took the view—and

provided, in chapter 11 and elsewhere, ample illustrative support for it—that revolution and revolt were expressions, at least as often, of the political ambitions of cynical and powerhungry individuals and cliques as of deep-seated and broadly based grievances and inequalities in polis society at large.* The feasibility (or otherwise) of his suggestions in Procurement for addressing and alleviating such inequalities we shall doubtless never know; but the man was a realist about human

nature, and if he felt he had discovered the philosopher’s stone in this regard there would seem little reason why, in the surviving treatise, the emphasis upon internal instability and

insurrection is as pronounced as he makes it. If all-encompassing homonoia, then, remained more a goal than an attainable reality, hopes had perforce to be pinned, % See Bengtson 459 and (esp.) 461 ff; Belyaev 253-4; Celato, ‘Grecia’ 236ff; Lehmann 72 ff. cf. also (e.g.) Budé xxvii, and (on 38. 5) 86 n. 2; Frolov 434 n. 77; Villard 306 n. 68; Fuks 23 n. 16. % Thus Celato, ‘Grecia’ 241-2; Lehmann 76. (Belyaev 253-4 over-reacts to Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 60—1 in claiming a demonstrable leaning toward democracy and the poor; Marinovich responds in Mercenariat 213-14.) For Aineias and tyranny see the commentary on 22. 19, a tyrant’s citadel. % cf. Urban

091

and 999-1002,

contesting the thesis of Lehmann

75 ff. that—

personal sympathies aside—Aineias was in the main catering for states with democratic constitutions. * That is, his perceptions of the phenomenon were closer, rightly or wrongly, to those of (e.g.) Lintott, esp. ch. 8, and Gehrke, Stasis 309-53 than to those of (e.g.) Ste. Croix 31 ff. and passim or Fuks g ff. and passim.

INTRODUCTION

33

when it came to preserving a polis from its enemies, upon those with the most to lose from failing to do so. This idea is enunciated most unequivocally” on three occasions: 1. Select companies of troops standing ready for special duties in and around the town (1. 5) should be ‘men who are both

loyal and satisfied with the status quo: the existence of such a unified body is important, to stand citadel-like against the plots of traitors and intimidate the opposition within the state.

And

their commander

and

supervisor should

be not only

sensible and energetic but above all someone with most to fear from a change of regime’ (1. 6-7). 2. The best gatekeepers are not merely sensible, alert, and congenitally suspicious but ‘well-to-do individuals (euporoi) with something at stake in the community—children and a wife, I mean—and not men whom poverty, or the pressure of obligations, or desperation of some other kind might leave open to being persuaded to join a revolution, if they did not foment one themselves’ (5. 1). 3. In especially vulnerable parts of the city the guards should be ‘the wealthiest and most highly respected men, those with the largest stake in the community and thus the greatest incentive not to succumb

to self-indulgence; instead, remem-

bering their position will keep (their minds) on the job’ (22. 15). From the long catalogue of episodes of betrayal and deception by gatekeepers which fills chapter 18 we realize how frequently the second of these counsels in particular must have been insufficiently heeded—or else, if heeded, difficult to

translate into practice. Yet of the man who gave it, and so much other advice like it, one might justifiably conclude that any mid fourth-century polis which entrusted its overall security to him or someone of his kind could have rested as assured as those troubled times allowed that, there at least, it

had made a wise choice. ® In the context, that is, of other passages which recommend reliance on trustworthy persons (3. 3, 10. 11, 53. 1, 22. 1-7) without spelling out what might make them so, or call for bodies of men to be picked (16. 7, 26. 10, 38. 2) without

explicit specification of the selection-criteria.

34

INTRODUCTION

6.

GENRE

AND

READERSHIP

Irrespective of their position on the question of his identification with Aineias of Stymphalos, the vast majority of scholars who have studied Aineias’ treatise have judged it the work of a

practical soldier seeking to distil and systematize his experience and transmit it to others. To quote one assessment out of many like it: “There can be no doubt that Aeneas was well

versed

in

military

matters.

There

is an

atmosphere

of

assurance and authority about his treatise . . . [It] was not written from the point of view of a non-combatant’.”* As will have emerged from this Introduction so far, I too consider the

point beyond reasonable doubt (and will address it directly later in this section). There is, none the less, something to be said by way of background and the place of the work in its broad cultural context. It seems to have been in the last third of the fifth century— in other words, during the Peloponnesian War—that military

expertise began to evolve from its origins as a loose-knit body of traditional wisdom and experience, passed on from father to

son where it could not be absorbed from reading or listening to

Homer,

into

a

technical

subject,

a

branch

of formal

education taught by sophists and other self-styled experts.” In Memorabilia 3. 1. 1 ff, for example, Xenophon writes of one Dionysodoros visiting Athens and lecturing on ‘generalship’ —within disappointingly narrow terms of reference, ap-

parently—to a fee-paying clientele. This man, it is agreed, can have been none other than the sophist Dionysodoros of Chios (later of Thourioi). He and his younger brother and fellow-sophist Euthydemos are central characters in the Euthydemos of Plato—a dialogue with a dramatic setting of c.420—and are said there (at 273 c), albeit with heavy sarcasm,

necessary

to

‘understand

for the man

% E. S. McCartney, (e.g.) V. Hari, Guerra e fino al III secolo (Milan % See Bettalli 74-9.

all

who

about

intends

war,

and

whatever

to become a

is

general:

reviewing the Loeb edn. in CP 20 (1925) 183-5, at 184; cf. Diritto nel mondo antico, 1. Guerra e diritto nel mondo greco-ellenistico 1980) 189-91, at 191. That Aclian (Tactics 1. 2) apparently regarded Aineias as the

first military writer worth mentioning after Homer is intriguing but, doubtless, over-

simplified: see below.

* See Delatte 7-25.

INTRODUCTION

35

organizing and commanding armies and teaching armed men to fight’. That the last of these items was a skill taught, at this time, by example as well as precept emerges from another early Platonic dialogue with a comparable dramatic date, the Laches. Its debate about the nature of courage develops out of the fact that the (besides Sokrates) four principal contributors

have just witnessed an expert demonstration, not to say performance, of fighting in heavy armour (hoplomachia) and

are prompted to discuss whether it is a useful accomplishment to acquire—a question on which Nikias and Laches, the two generals, disagree.'” The fact that little of this material appears to have been committed to writing!” naturally makes it impossible to assess

its precise nature

and

content,

and

witnesses as unsympathetic as Plato and foolish. None the less the criticism that practical experience of their subject (e.g. come through with some force, and may

undue

reliance upon

Xenophon would be its exponents had no Laches 183 B—c) does be reckoned to carry

particular weight when it is the view of a man for whom military success (as a commander), for all the theoretical and technical knowledge it demanded, was first and foremost a

matter of human relations between the commander and his troops (Memorabilia 3. 1. 6, 3. 4. 12) and indeed the personal qualities of the man in whose hands, during wartime, the fate

of the whole polis rested (ibid. 3. 1. 3). Xenophon piously attributes these sentiments to Sokrates, but regardless of the truth of that they were certainly his own, for they also appear in both the Kyroupaideia (Education of Kyros)'® and, especially ” On Euthydemos and Dionysodoros see R. K. Sprague, The Older Sophists (Columbia, SC 1972) 294-301; Kerferd 53-4. 19 On the Aoplomachos, a blend of fencing-master and drill-sergeant, cf. Xenophon, Anabasis 2. 1. 7; Theophrastus, Characters 5. 10 (linked with philosophers, sophists, and musicians), cf. 27. 3; Hug 16; Rhodes 506-7; and, above all, E. L. Wheeler, GRBS 23 (1982) 223-33 and Chiron 13 (1983) 1-20. 10! The treatises on tactics and hoplomachy attributed by Diogenes Laertius 7. 48 to Democritus of Abdera are highly suspect (Hug 15 n. 2) and were probably the work of a Hellenistic writer of the same name: M. Weilman in H. Diels/W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 2, 1oth edn. (Berlin 1960) 150, n. to Il. 8-9. For the

(?)late fifth-century treatise on horsemanship by Simon of Athens, cited by Xenophon in his own manual on that subject (1. 1, 1. 3, 11. 6) and fragmentarily preserved (K. Widdra (ed.), Xenophontis de re equestri (Leipzig 1964) 39-44), see Budé xvi; G. R. Bugh, The Horsemen of Athens (Princeton 1988) 91.

"2 Chiefly Kyroupaideia 1. 6; sce Delatte 9 ff.

36

INTRODUCTION

concentrated, the Hipparchikos (Cavalry Commander).'*? And between the Hipparchikos and Aineias’ treatise there are both broad affinities of approach and emphasis—in that Aineias too highlights the pragmatic and psychological dimensions of military success—and some particular, substantive resemblances of content.!% What can be inferred from this? There is obviously a possibility that one of the two works drew directly on the other. If so, our date of the second half of the 350s for Aineias’ treatise (above, pp. 8-10) would suggest that it was he who borrowed from Xenophon rather than vice versa.'® But an alternative, and perhaps a preferable one, is to envisage informal contact and discussion between the two men,'® each

reinforcing in the other a conviction that the exposition of military theory divorced from practical experience was ‘une

science

artificielle,

privée de la souplesse

nécessaire

pour

s’adapter aux circonstances et condamnée à la stérilité parce qu’elle ignore la psychologie du soldat et la complexité des

qualités du chef d’armee’.'” Such exchanges of views (the historical counterpart of the Platonic one between Nikias and

Laches)

and development

increasingly

common

of ideas may well have become

in

the

fluid

military

and

political

conditions of the first half of the fourth century, and we can

pick up stray hints—beyond the ones indicated already— from Aineias himself of at least some of the areas of debate and the contributions to it. In 24. 16, for example, he reports that Iphikrates ‘used to urge’ that patrols and sentries each be assigned a different password; and elsewhere unnamed persons are cited as disapproving of throwing stones over the walls as an aid to guarding them at night (22. 13, cf. 26. 6), 3 e.g. Hipparchikos 1. 24-6, 2. 5, 4. 1-3 and passim, 6 passim, 7. 8—10, 8. 21-2, g. 12. 14 See the commentary on 6. 3, 16. 7 (the attack itself, etc.), 16. 12, 16. 19, 16. 20, 40. 6-7. 1% Delebecque 425-31 established, with tolerable certainty, a date of 357 for the

Hipparchikos, which he took to be a year or two later than that of Aineias’ treatise (and thus indicative that the imitator was Xenophon); however, he subsequently (in his 1973

Bude

edn.

of the

Hipparchikos,

at

11

n.

1}

contemplated

with

apparent

equanimity the probability that Aineias’ was in fact the later work. 1% ‘J'hus (e.g.) Anderson 17

Delatte

24.

cf.

(on

130. Aineias)

Schwartz

1020-1;

Bengtson

461;

Marinovich

‘Struggle’ 50; S. Usher, JHS go (1970) 211; Marinovich, Mercenariat 198.

INTRODUCTION

37

advocating a procedure of lantern-signals for the citycommander who (unwisely, in Aineias’ opinion) is disinclined to check for himself that all the sentinels are at their posts (26. 12), and suggesting ways of putting a stop to panics (27. 1).

That these are references to written sources is possible'™ but to my mind doubtful; such views (cf. 2. 7) may simply have belonged to a common stock of practical military wisdom still disseminated and elaborated orally.'” From the tentativeness of the foregoing discussion it will be plain that, in Budé’s almost self-contradictory formulation, ‘nous ignorons si Enée, ce pionnier, a eu lui-méme des modèles’ (Budé xv). No model or precedent, in the simple sense, can be discerned for the Siegecraft itself,''® but we must not lose sight of the fact that, as it seems, Aineias had written

between two and four other treatises before it (above, pp. 1316), and in retrospect at least was regarded as having essayed a comprehensive coverage of his subject. In that at any rate his position as a true ‘pionnier’ need not be questioned. His crucial decision to embody his views in writing may owe its inspiration, in whole or part, to Xenophon (who had been doing so since the 380s), but a clear picture of how the two

men might have influenced each other, in that respect as in others, remains tantalizingly out of reach.''' Xenophon

was

by far the more accomplished writer of the two, however; and

if it is correct to see inject a human and exposition,'!? it was to face with more

both Xenophon and Aineias as seeking to pragmatic element into sophistic military probably the Athenian who had come face of what he was reacting against, and

certainly he who appropriated more of its rhetorical skills for 1# Bude xv. ' cf. Bettalli 80 n. 17. "0 Late sources mention a Siegecraft by Daimachos of Plataia (FGrH 65 FF 3-4),

but there were two writers of that name, one in the first halfof the fourth century, the other the third-century author of an Indika; and {pace Jacoby in his commentary, FGrH Ic, 3-5; cf. W. Burkert in LEW 685) the majority of scholars have identified the poliorcetic writer with 84 n, 1).

the latter rather than

the former

(see Garlan,

Poliorcétique

'" For Aineias’ possible familiarity with Xenophon’s Anabasis see the commentary on 27. 11. (If—the ever-present question —Aincias was Aineias of Stymphalos he will

surely also have known

the account of that same expedition by his fellow-citizen

Sophainetos: FGrH 109; E. Bux, RE 3A (1929) 12 See above, at n. 107.

1009-13.)

38

INTRODUCTION

creating the requisite fusion of empirical military experience with the general lessons and axioms to which it gave rise. This is not to suggest that Aineias’ treatise is the work of an uneducated

man.

It is rather one in which, after a brief but

noticeable attempt at a polished preface, content is paramount and form—whether in the sense of overall structure or the actual articulation of the material as it unfolds—left largely to

fend for itself.''* The mode of discourse is unsophisticated but effective. Approximately two-thirds of the total substance of the treatise is straightforwardly didactic: recommendations and

prescriptions,

couched

in

a

limited

and,

ultimately,

repetitive repertoire of syntactical usages (‘must’ and ‘should’ clauses, gerundives, and the like), as to the most suitable or

fruitful procedure, course of action, or attitude of mind vis-avis the particular matter under discussion. At no stage does Aineias think it necessary to justify this austerely jussive persona, to present his credentials for presuming to give the advice he gives—which in any case he urges the reader not to take ex cathedra but to evaluate for himself (2. 8). Instead, the rationale of his counsels is partly inherent in their exposition

(that is, an explanatory clause or sentence will often spell out their purpose or consequence) but also externally corroborated by the stylistically more lively material which, unevenly distributed, accounts for the remaining one-third of the work: the empirical precedents. As noted above (p. 8), while some of the episodes which

furnished

these precedents were culled from earlier times,

with Herodotus as their major source,''* the bulk of them fall within what we may take to be Aineias’ own adult lifetime, and have given most scholars the clear impression—which I share—that they were ‘obtained probably by oral communication if not by personal experience’. The ‘personal experience’ element, to be sure, can only be suspected or sensed rather than demonstrated, on the level of specific 'H See on this Bettalli 82-5. "+ See (with commentary in all instances) 31. 9-ob, 31. 14, 31. 25-7. 31. 28-9, 37.

6-7, from Herodotus; 2. 3-6, from Thucydides; 4. 8-11; 11. 12. 15 Hunter/Handford xxxvi, with a catalogue; cf. Hug 26-7; Loch 4-5 and 10; Bengtson 466-7; Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 53-5: Celato, ‘Enea’ 57--8; Bettalli 83-4; Marinovich, Mercenariat 201-2.

INTRODUCTION

39

episodes.''® Yet even if Aineias was not in fact personally involved in any of the events he relates, the cumulative effect of so much recent and contemporary back-up to advice which in itself bears the hallmarks of deriving from an accumulated store of practical trial and error'’’ is to create and reinforce a conviction that one is reading the words of a man who ‘sait qu'il dit’ (Bude ix). Ifhe was Aineias of Stymphalos, that is no wonder. If he was not, we may still envisage him as someone of a broadly similar type: a (?)Peloponnesian Greek of varied military

experience,

at home

and

overseas

(or at least,

in

command of troops of diverse ethnic origin),''® whose especial

expertise lay in the defence of towns and their territories, and who felt that that expertise was worth passing on to others. But to what ‘others’, exactly? The latest scholar to ask this question, Marco Bettalli, sees anachronism in the notion that

Aineias’ treatise was destined for an undefined or abstract market, a body of ‘theoretical’ readers. Instead, while conceding that it (and his writings generally) probably circulated in due course more widely than Aineias can originally have foreseen, Bettalli believes that at the outset it was devised for a particular, concrete context, for customers actual rather than merely potential." His suggested analogue for this (written at almost precisely the same time) is Xenophon’s Poroi, a treatise which, whatever it may be deemed to enshrine by way of economic theory, addressed itself on a pragmatic level to the (then) current financial problems of a single polis—Athens.'”? However, the comparison is a bad one, serving in fact to highlight not similarities but crucial differences between the two works. Xenophon’s concern with Athens is overt and unwavering. Aineias resolutely declines to indicate that he has any particular polis 18 See, e.g., the commentary on 2g. 3, a city; and cf. the commentary on 31. 1 (concerning 31. 16-19). "7 On the eccentric insistence of Fischer 66-7 (following H. Sauppe) that Aineias’

treatises were mere Schulvorträge see L. W. Hunter, CR 28 (1914) 170; Loeb 10 n. 1. "8 See especially 24. 1-3; and note the view of B. A. Van Groningen, Mnemosyne 6 (1938) 329-34, at 329 (cf. Celato, ‘Enea’ 58; Marinovich, Mercenariat 203) that Aineias’ language is ‘une forme “péloponnésienne” de la lingua franca des soldats de son temps’. 1 Bettalli 85. 9 See generally Gauthier, Poroi 1-32 and 223-66.

40

INTRODUCTION

in mind.'?! On the contrary, the quite deliberate universality

of Aineias’ approach is made plain from the very start—‘the disposition of troops should be made in the light of the size of the state, the topography of its urban centre, etc.’ (1. 1); and frequently thereafter he expresses himself in such a way as to cover a range of possible circumstances, natural or man-made, rather than taking for granted a set of actual ones.'” While Bettalli may be right, then, in suggesting that the readership anticipated by Aineias himself was initially more restricted than it subsequently became (a point self-evident, indeed,

in

the

sufficiently

long

run),

the

nature

of

the

restriction is not to be found in any idea that he wrote for one

particular polis as distinct from another. The question is, rather: toward whom, within any and every polis which sought to ‘survive under siege’, was his advice truly targeted? The usual perception is that the work was ‘a handbook for military commanders’; that Aineias’ ‘s’adresse exclusivement

à d’autres militaires’.'”” But ‘exclusivement’ is an overstatement. When Aineias allows himself the use of the second person, singular or plural, the ‘you’ in question is, admittedly, always a military ‘you’: the commander, with or without his troops;'?* and, more broadly, even when the recommendations

lack a personal focus of this kind (as for most of the treatise they do) the bulk of them are such as would naturally be intended for, and implemented by, ‘the general in overall command’ (22. 2), ‘the city-commander’ (26. 12). However, could such a military official appoint ambassadors (10. 20) or intervene between debtors and creditors (14. 1)? Perhaps the

answer is that, under the kind of martial law imposed in chapter 10, he could. But the fact remains that, catering as he was for poleis in general and not any one polis in particular, 1 Bettalli, although regarding it as certain that Aineias is the Stymphalian (79 with n. 16), is none the less prudently unconvinced (85) by the attempt of Hunter/ Handford xxiv-xxvi to establish that his clients were the citizens of Sikyon. 12 See in particular 2. 7-8, 6. 1-4, 6. 6, 16. 15, 16. 16-18, 16. 21, 20. 2, 22. 2, 22. 15, 22. 22, 26. 4, 26. 14, 40. 1. (Note also, as general references to a rather than the

polis, 3. 1, 10. 23, 12. 4, 17. 1, 28. 1.) ' Quotations from, respectively, M. I. Finley, The Use and Abuse of History (London

1975) 128, and Bude x, cf. xiv (‘spécialiste s’adressant à des spécialistes”); cf. (e.g.) Hunter/Handford 104; Celato, ‘Enea’ 63; S. Usher, /HS go (1970) 211 (‘a manual for the guidance of the garrison commander’).

'4 See 9 passim, 16 passim, 22. 19, 33. 4, 37. 2.

INTRODUCTION

41

Aineias is studiously vague about the exact nature of the constitutional authority, military and/or civil, to which his putative polis ‘under siege’ is subject,'?° and, a fortiori, about any modifications to it necessitated by wartime conditions.

This enabled him to encompass a range of different powerstructures, and responses to crisis, which any given polis might in reality possess or adopt: officials whose sphere

of responsibility

and

leadership

combined

the

civil

and

the military;'? civil magistrates temporarily invested with military functions;'”” a citizen general given unrestricted powers (strategos autokrator), dictator-style;'* or even—though there are no tangible signs of this in the treatise—a military

expert hired from outside the community.'? Any or all of these people, then, were the intended readers

of Aineias’ work and beneficiaries of his advice: the people, whoever they were, upon whom the polis’ survival chiefly depended. Yet as we ourselves read the work, with a view to pinpointing who these people will typically have been, we receive one impression more vividly than any others: that of a single (military) figure who, in extremis, has only himself to rely on. ‘The general and the general alone has to supply the driving power for the whole machine: he can afford to leave nothing to the initiative and good faith of his subordinates’.'*° No matter how well-chosen the gatekeeper (5. 1), locking the gates is ultimately the general’s job (20. 1, cf. 18. 21). No matter how well-placed the guard (22 passim), even fatigue or indisposition must not, ideally, prevent their commander from

making his rounds and satisfying himself that everything is in order (26. 12). And ‘ideally’ is very much the qualification that comes to mind. Were such paragons—immune, seemingly, "5 See Bude xxi; Celato, ‘Grecia’ 216 n. 5. '® Lehmann 75. 7 cf. Bude xxi, on the ‘city-commander’ of 26. 12 (but see the commentary thereto). Hudson-Williams 402 declared that the treatise ‘was certainly intended for

the man in the street, the mere civilian novice suddenly called upon to organize the defence of his country’; but this is exaggerated as well as (in seeking to divorce the treatise from the ancient testimony about Aincias’ military writings) tendentious. 6 Hunter/Handford 104. '% Aineias nowhere states an expectation (let alone a recommendation) that the polis’ military supremo should be one of its own citizens, but this does seem implicit, especially in the contrast between the commander's relations with his citizen militia (26. 7-11, 38. 4-5) and with mercenary and allied troops (10. 18-19, 12. 5-5, 22. 29).

1% Hunter/Handford xxxii; cf. Pritchett 2. 237.

42

from

INTRODUCTION

the

otherwise

all-enveloping

climate

of deceit

and

unreliability, even at the highest levels'*'—actually to be found in sufficient numbers? Aineias betrays scarcely a hint of

doubt on the point.'* The expression of any such doubt, of course, would have been fatal to his cause, serving only to destroy the fundamental premiss which kept pessimism, even nihilism, at bay. We

may suspect, though, that he was quite

simply sincere in the belief that there would, as need dictated, be enough readers of his work who shared the high ideals of its author. 11 See especially 1. 4, 11. 2, 11. 3-6, 18. 1, 23. 7-11. Despite the fluid denotation of the term archon (official) in the treatise (cf. above, at n. 125), these passages lend

more support to one’s perception of an intrinsic lack of rapport between civil and military authority than is allowed by (e.g.) Celato, ‘Enea’ 64 and Lehmann 75; see rather Urban ggg with n. 27. 13 The reader, however, might well be disposed to reflect upon the part played, e.g., by Chares in the episode recounted in 11. 13-15.

DIVERGENCES

BUDE

FROM

THE

TEXT

Consult the commentary on the following:

4.2 10. 19 10. 25 11.1 18. 10

THE PENALTY IS IMPRISONMENT for surveillance’s sake

like that of a spike etc.

18. 13 22. 8 22. 29 23. 2

out of his own pocket

24. 6

pointed helmets

26. 12

fatigue

28. 3 31. 18

the a1(NE)

31. 31 32. 12

example and DEHORNED or is dug through

34.

I

See also the footnote on p. 47.

TRANSLATION (Preface 1) When men leave their own territory to meet combat and danger beyond its borders, the survivors of any disaster which strikes them, on land or at sea, still have their

native soil and state and fatherland between them and utter extinction. (Preface 2) But when it is in defence of the

fundamentals—shrines and fatherland and parents and children and so on—that the risks are to be run, the struggle is not the same, or even similar. A successful repulse of the enemy means safety, intimidated opponents, and the unlikelihood of attack in the future, whereas a poor showing in the face of the danger leaves no hope of salvation. (Preface 3) Those who are to fight for such high stakes must therefore be fully prepared and committed, mindful in advance of a multitude of different tasks, so that any defeat may at least not be

manifestly their own fault.

(Preface 4)

However, should

some calamity none the less occur, those who are left may at any rate recoup their losses later on, just like certain Greeks who have known total failure but recovered from it.

(1.1) The disposition of troops should be made in the light of the size of the state, the topography of its urban centre, the posting of sentries and patrols, and any other public functions which call for troops; these are the criteria which must determine the allocations. (1. 2) Thus the expeditionary forces should be organized with regard to the terrain through which they will have to march—bearing in mind danger-spots, strongholds, defiles, plains, commanding heights, ambush-

points, river-crossings, and the formation of battlefronts in such circumstances.

(1. 3)

There is no call, on the other

hand, to organize on these lines the troops which will remain within

the

walls

and

accordance with the immediacy of danger.

guard

the

configuration

citizens,

of the

but

city

rather

in

and

the

(1. 4) So first one must pick out the men who are most judicious and have the greatest military experience, to be attached to the authorities. (1.5) It then remains to select

46

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

(the) * troops with the greatest capacity for hard work and to

divide them

into companies,

so as to form units standing

ready and able to serve in sorties, in patrolling the city, in assisting those in difficulty, or in other duties of a similar kind. (1. 6) They must be men who are both loyal and satisfied with the status quo: the existence of such a

unified body is important, to stand citadel-like against the plots of traitors and intimidate the opposition within the state. (1.7) And their commander and supervisor should be not only sensible and energetic but above all someone with most to fear from a change of regime. (1. 8) From the rest select the strongest, those in the

prime of young manhood, walls; and divide and with the length of watches. (1.9) As some to the agora,

to station as sentries and on the

apportion the remainder in accordance the nights and the number of the to the mass of ordinary people, assign some to the theatre, and the rest to

whatever open spaces the city contains, so that, as far as resources allow, no public place is left empty. (2.1) However, to avoid having to send troops to such open spaces in the city as serve no purpose, it is best to block them off by digging trenches and by making them as inaccessible as possible to those wishing to occupy them as a prelude to starting a revolution. (2.2) Thus, when the Thebans had penetrated Sparta, groups of Spartans demolished the houses nearest to them and filled baskets with earth and stones taken from them and from the fences and walls—even, the story goes, making use of the many large bronze tripods from their sanctuaries— to block up in advance the entrances and alleyways and open spaces in the inner city and so thwart attempts to force a way into it. (2. 3) On another occasion, at night, the Plataians realized that the Thebans were inside their city but noticed that they were few in number and not taking the proper precautions, in the belief that the city was in their hands; so,

reckoning that an attack would

easily overcome

Plataians promptly devised the following plan.

them,

(2.4)

the

While

some of the authorities were in the agora discussing terms of * Words in angled brackets are editorial supplements to the transmitted text.

TRANSLATION surrender with the Thebans,

47

the others were passing secret

orders to the rest of the citizens not to leave their houses indiscriminately but to dig through the party-walls one or two at a time and assemble by stealth in each other’s homes. (2.5) Once an adequate fighting force was ready, they used wagons without draught-animals to block off the alleyways and streets, and then, at a signal, attacked the Thebans in a body. (2.6) The womenfolk and slaves were on the tiled roof-tops while all this was going on. As a result, seeking to operate and to defend themselves in the dark, the Thebans suffered just as much harm from the wagons as from their human assailants, because they themselves (were

fleeing) with no idea, thanks to the barricades of wagons, of where to turn for safety, whereas their pursuers who knew the ground soon killed them in numbers.

(2. 7) It must be admitted that there are arguments against these tactics. Those in the city are put at risk if there is only one open space and the first to occupy it are the plotters; when there is only one such common spot, it is a

question of who makes the first move for it. If there are two or three such places, however, there would be the following advantages:

(2.8)

the capture of one or two of them would

still leave those opposing the conspiracy in control of the remaining one; alternatively, if they were all seized, the separate groups of traitors would then be weaker than the combined strength of their adversaries in the city—unless the latter were outnumbered by each group alone. As regards all other plans too one must be equally alive to the inherent objections to my prescriptions, in order not to take a wrong decision for want of thinking it through.

[Another way of organizing citizen-guards]* (3.1) When sudden terror strikes a state which has not been put on a war footing, the quickest way to organize the citizens * Headings such as this introduce thirty of the forty chs., viz. all but 1, 2, 7, 8, 9,

10, 15, 17, 18, and 21. There is also one before s. 3 of ch. 10 (which does not have its own heading) and before s. 15 of ch. 27 (which does)—anomalies suggesting, surely,

that whoever inserted the headings

placed them where he wanted

them.

(With

Schône and Hunter/Handford I therefore leave the ones for chs. 13 and 14 in their positions in the transmitted text, i.e. after the first sentence in each case; Loeb and

Budé arbitrarily move them to the heads of the chs.) These headings, ‘although older

48

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

for its defence would be to assign by lot to each task of proceeding immediately to a section of and mounting guard over it, the length of wall to be being determined by the numerical strength of the tribes. (3. 2) Next, pick out (from) each tribe

tribe the the wall guarded different the men

capable of hard physical labour, for duties in the agora and on patrols and wherever else people of this kind may be called

for. (3.3) Do likewise when fortifications are manned by allies: entrust each allied contingent with a portion of the wall to guard. If there is mutual suspicion among citizens, however, trustworthy men will have to be positioned at every point where the wall can be mounted, to stop anyone else who attempts to climb up from doing so.

(3. 4) body

But in fact a peacetime disposition of the citizen-

should

already

have

been

made,

as

follows.

First,

appoint the most competent and judicious man in each street to be street-commander, around whom everyone can rally if anything untoward occurs during the night. (3. 5) Commanders of the streets nearest the agora should lead their men to it, those of the streets nearest the theatre to the theatre; and

all the other commanders should assemble at the open spaces nearest to them, with the men who have reported to them under arms.

(3. 6)

In this way the members of each unit

can arrive at their proper posts as quickly as possible while remaining very close to their homes—close enough to maintain domestic control of those who have remained there,

their

children

and

wives.

And

it must

beforehand, by lot, which assembly-point each should go to and send detachments of the there to the battlements. Beyond that, there supervise everything, provided—as will be

be

determined

of the authorities men assembled will be leaders to seen—they take

immediate command. [Pre-arranged signals] (4.

1)

arranged,

As

first

so

that

priority,

men

signals

will

not

should

go

have

unidentified

been

pre-

as

they

than the third century of our era, because known to [ Julius} Africanus, can hardly have come from Aeneas himself” (Loeb 19; cf. A. Dain, REG 48 (1935) 1-32, at 6 n. 2; Bude xxxii-xxxiii); I have followed the editorial convention of enclosing them in

square brackets.

TRANSLATION approach.

Once,

captured

by

an

for example,

exile

49

Chalkis on the Euripos

based

in

Eretria,

with

the

was

help

of someone in the city who contrived the following plan. (4.2) To the most deserted part of the city, where the gates stayed closed, he kept bringing a saw or file; this he had ready day and night, until one night he succeeded in sawing through the cross-bar unobserved and letting in soldiers at that point. (4.3) When about two thousand men had gathered in the agora, the alarm was hastily sounded. Many of the Chalkidians were killed because they failed to recognize one another: in their terror they joined forces with the enemy, taking them to be friends, and each man supposing that he was rather late in turning up. (4. 4) Consequently the majority of them perished, one or two at a time; and when eventually they did comprehend what was happening the city had already been taken. (4- 5) In time of war, then, and when the enemy is nearby, the first requirement is that troops sent out from the city for any operation, on land or at sea, be furnished with both daytime and night-time signals for communicating with those still in the city. This is so that the latter can tell friend from foe, if enemies put in a sudden appearance. (4. 6) And once the force has set out on its mission send some observers who will recognize its signals, so that those left behind can track its movements from as far out as possible; to be prepared for any eventuality in good time is most important. (4 7) The result of failing to take these precautions will

be clear (from) passing

actual incidents, which may be cited in

as illustration

and

pure

evidence.

(4. 8)

When

Peisistratos was general at Athens, for instance, he received word that a naval force from Megara was planning a night attack on the Athenian women during their celebration of the

Thesmophoria in Eleusis. On hearing this Peisistratos laid an ambush for them. (4.9) When the men from Megara had disembarked—unnoticed, they imagined—and were some way from the sea, Peisistratos burst from his ambush and overpowered them, killing most of them and also capturing the boats in which they had come. (4. 10) These he immediately filled with his own soldiers; and then, taking

~

50

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

from among the women those best suited to accompanying a

naval expedition, he landed at Megara late in the day and at some distance from the city itself. (4. 11) On sighting the boats sailing in, many of the Megarians including their officials duly gathered to watch the arrival, as they naturally

supposed, of a large body of female captives. (Then the Athenian soldiers were ordered) to disembark with daggers and stab some of the Megarians but carry off to the boats as many as possible of the most distinguished of them; which they did. (4.22) So itis plain that, if mutual misidentification is to be avoided, pre-arranged signals are essential both for mustering troops and for sending them on expeditions.

[ Gatekeepers | (5. 1) Next, do not leave to chance the appointment of gatekeepers: they should be men of sense and alertness, incapable of suppressing suspicion of everything as it is brought in. What is more they ought to be well-to-do individuals with something at stake in the community— children and a wife,

I mean—and

not men whom

poverty, or

the pressure of obligations, or desperation of some other kind might leave open to being persuaded to join a revolution, if they did

not foment

one themselves.

(5. 2)

Leukon

the

tyrant of Bosporos used to discharge even members of his bodyguard who got into debt as the result of gambling or other excesses.

[Daytime scouting] (6. 1} Daytime scouts, too, must be posted in front of the city, at an elevated point visible from as great a distance as possible. At each position there should be at least three scouts, chosen not at random but for their experience in war; this is to avoid any one scout’s ignorantly supposing that something is important, signalling or reporting it to the city, and causing needless trouble to the people there. (6.2) Such mistakes tend to be made by men who know nothing of warfare and

TRANSLATION

5!

how troops are used: they fail to recognize which of the enemy’s operations and activities are intentional and which are accidental.

(6. 3)

The experienced man, by contrast,

understands the enemy’s preparations, his numbers, his line of march and the other movements of his army, and so will communicate the reality. (6. 4) In the absence of such

places from which the signals are directly visible in the city there will have to be relay-stations at various points, to receive the signals as they are raised and transmit them to the city.

(6.5)

Also, the daytime scouts must be fleet of foot, able,

in circumstances where signalling is impossible and information has to be conveyed by word of mouth, to return quickly with the news even over the longest distances. (6.6) But where the terrain is suitable for horses—and there are horses available—the best way of sending messages more quickly is by relays of horsemen. Send out the daytime scouts from the city at dawn or while it is still night, to prevent their being seen by the enemy’s scouts, as they would be if they made their way to their lookout posts by day. (6.7) And they should all have one and

the same password, (different from the one in the city): this is so that if they are captured by the enemy they will be in no

position

to reveal,

either

willingly

or under

duress,

the

password which the men in the city are using. Order the daytime scouts to raise their signals from time to time, just as the fire-signallers raise their torches.

(7.2) Anenemy in the vicinity at harvest time will probably mean that much of the population will remain in the countryside nearby, fearful for their crops; (7.2) so here is how they are to be gathered inside the city. First, at sunset, give a signal for those outside the walls to return to the city. If

they are scattered across a wider area of land, use relaystations

everyone,

for the signal

into

town.

so as to bring

(7.

3)

After

everyone,

the

signal

or nearly

for them

to return give another for those in the city to prepare dinner, and a third for the guards to go and take up their posts. (7.4) The way to do this, and to raise fire-signals, is described

at greater length in my book Preparations; to avoid treating the same topics twice I must leave them to be studied there.

52

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

(8. 1) Next—if the hostile force expected to territory is larger and stronger than one’s own—the is to make the countryside difficult for the enemy to camp in, and to provision themselves from. Rivers

enlarged and made difficult to cross.

(8.2)

enter the first task attack, to should be

As regards the

number and nature of ruses to be employed against enemies landing on sandy or rocky shores; what kinds of barriers against them should be in readiness at the harbours of the city and its territory, to prevent them from sailing in or else, if they

have done

so already,

to bar their exit;

(8. 3)

how

to

render useless or, failing that, to conceal anything deliberately left behind in the countryside which could be helpful to the enemy in, for example, making walls or encampments or in other operations; (8.4) how one must (dispose of) the food and drink and the standing crops and everything else in the countryside, and make the still waters undrinkable, and spoil

the ground best suited to use by cavalry— (8.5) all these matters and how they should be dealt with are omitted here and

now,

so as to avoid

undue

explanation

and

repetition;

there is a full treatment of them in my book Preparations. (9-1) Here is what to do if the invaders try to make a show of aggression against you. First, send troops to occupy various places in your own territory. Then call an assembly of your own soldiers or citizens and issue them with orders appropriate to an attack to be made on the enemy: tell them in particular that during the night, at a signal from the trumpet, the men of military age are to take up their arms, muster at

an appointed

place, and

be ready

to follow their leader.

(g. 2) Once the news of this has been reported to the enemy’s camp or city it could deter them from attempting

their plans. (9. 3) By responding in this way, with a bold initiative, you will inspire your friends with confidence while alarming the enemy

(into) staying quietly on home ground.

(10. 2) Something else which should already have been done is the issuing of an order, to those citizens who own

draught-animals or slaves, to remove them for safe keeping with the neighbours—given that they cannot be brought into the city. (10. 2) In the case of any people who have no

TRANSLATION

53

foreign contacts with whom to place these possessions, they are to be entrusted to the neighbours by the authorities, acting in their official capacity and taking steps to ensure the

deposit’s security. [Announcements] (10.3) Then, after a certain length of time, announcements like the following should be made, to intimidate and deter the plotters:

FREE PERSONS AND CROPS ARE TO BE HOUSED IN THE CITY. OFFENDERS ARE LIABLE TO HAVE PROPERTY REMAINING OUTSIDE SEIZED WITHOUT REDRESS BY ANYONE WHO WISHES TO DO SO. (20. 4)

FESTIVALS ARE TO BE CELEBRATED

IN TOWN.

NO

PRIVATE MEETINGS MAY BE HELD ANYWHERE, DAY OR NIGHT. MEETINGS WHICH ARE ESSENTIAL WILL BE IN THE PRYTANEION, THE COUNCIL-CHAMBER, OR ANOTHER PUBLIC PLACE. NO SEER IS TO SACRIFICE PRIVATELY WITHOUT THE PRESENCE OF THE OFFICIAL. (10.5) COMMUNAL DINNERS ARE PROHIBITED: EVERYONE IS TO DINE AT HOME, EXCEPT IN THE CASE OF WEDDINGS AND FUNERAL-FEASTS, AND THEN ONLY AFTER NOTIFYING THE AUTHORITIES IN ADVANCE. If there are exiles, issue another announcement about what

will be done with, respectively, any citizen or foreigner or slave who absconds to them. (10.6) Also, anyone making contact with any of the exiles or with anyone sent by them, or

sending letters to them or receiving letters from them, should incur some hazard or penalty. Both outgoing and incoming letters must be submitted to a board of inspectors before

delivery. (10.7)

Compile a register of everyone who possesses more

than one set of arms and armour; and allow nobody to take

any arms away or accept them as security. To hire soldiers, or to serve as a soldier for hire, without

permission of the authorities should be forbidden.

(10. 8)

Allow no citizen, or immigrant, to leave by sea

without an identity-token; and see that vessels have been instructed in advance to drop anchor only by those gates

which the order then proceeds to specify.

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(10. g) Foreigners arriving must carry their weapons openly and ready to hand—and be disarmed without delay. Nobody, not even the innkeepers, should take them in without permission of the authorities, who should keep a register of them and, once they have found lodgings, their addresses. (10. 10) The authorities should also lock up the inns, from the outside, every night. After a certain length of time the vagrants amongst these foreigners will have to be publicly

expelled; but a register should be kept of men from neighbouring states whose visit is for educational reasons or some other

useful purpose. (10. 11) Conversation with official embassies who come from states or tyrants or armies in camp must not be open to all comers but monitored by some of the most trustworthy citizens, who remain with the ambassadors throughout their visit. (10. 12) When the city is running short of grain or oil or

something else, incentives proportionate to the size of his cargo—and a crown in his honour—should be on offer to anyone who imports them; and the ship’s captain should have beaching and re-launching facilities.

(10. 13)

Hold frequent musters of the armed forces, and

during them have the foreigners in town withdraw to a designated place or stay indoors; it should be a punishable offence if they are seen anywhere else. (10. 14) Ata given signal their markets and shops should be locked up and their lights extinguished, after which nobody else must enter.

(10. 15)

Anyone finding himself obliged to go out should

carry a lantern, until further notice. Announce a monetary reward for anyone denouncing a conspirator against the state or an infringement of any of the regulations above-mentioned; and put the reward offered on open display in the agora or at an altar or shrine, as an inducement to the frank exposure of any such offences. (10. 16) Where a monarch or general or ruler in exile is concerned,

issue a further

announcement

to the effect that

(anyone killing him will receive such-and-such a monetary reward), payable to the children if anything should happen

to the childless.

assassin

himself and

(10.17)

to his

next

of kin

if he

is

Ifsome action is taken against the exile

TRANSLATION

55

or monarch or general by one of his own associates, pay the man (part) of the reward and grant him permission to return home; these considerations will increase the likelihood of the

attempt. (10. 18)

As regards mercenaries, call for silence in camp

and, when everyone is listening, make the following announce-

ments: (10. 19) ANYONE DISSATISFIED WITH THE CONDITIONS HERE AND WISHING TO LEAVE IS ALLOWED A DISCHARGE— BUT IN FUTURE (ANY SUCH MALCONTENT ) SHALL BE SOLD INTO SLAVERY. FOR LESSER OFFENCES THAN THESE THE PENALTY IS IMPRISONMENT, IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PREVAILING LAW. ANY MANIFEST HARM TO MILITARY OPERATIONS, HOWEVER, BY UNDERMINING MORALE IN CAMP, IS A CAPITAL OFFENCE. (10. 20)

Attention must next be paid to the rest of your

manpower; and the first thing to ascertain is whether there is unanimity among the citizens, which would be of the greatest advantage during a siege. If there is not, one must get rid of

(some) of the opponents of the status quo, particularly those who have been leaders and initiators of policy in the state. Do this unobtrusively, on the plausible pretext of sending them away somewhere as ambassadors and on other official duties. (10. 21) That is how Dionysios dealt with his brother Leptines when he saw him popular with the mass of ordinary Syracusans and influential in many quarters. Dionysios grew suspicious of him and wanted to get rid of him but did not attempt to expel him openly, realizing that the strength of the goodwill toward Leptines might bring about a

revolution. So he contrived the plan of him, with a few mercenaries,

(10. 22)

sending

to a city called Himera,

with

orders to reorganize the garrison-troops there and bring some of them

back.

further orders: personally.

(10.23)

Once

in Himera,

to stay

there,

however,

until

sent

Leptines

for by

received

Dionysios

When an attack is launched against a state which

has given hostages, evacuate the hostages’ parents and close relatives while the siege is in progress, so that they do not have to sit by and watch their own children brought forward with the enemy as they attack and coming to a sad end. This is

56

AINEIAS THE TACTICIAN

because if they remain in town they may well go as far as to

engage

in subversion

of some kind.

(10. 24)

Should

it

prove difficult to send them away on these grounds, let them stay on—but with the minimum of involvement in what is going on. They must not know in advance where they are to be or what they are to do, and they should be left as little as possible, night or day, to their own devices; see to it, without

arousing their suspicions, that they are always enveloped by a crowd of people occupied with a succession of tasks and duties, and are thus not so much on guard as under guard. (10.25) And keep them divided, for surveillance’s

sake; their capacity to start a revolution will be small if they are split up. Something else which must be prohibited is going to bed with lanterns or other night-lights. This is because it has been known for individuals, finding themselves utterly thwarted in

their wish to start a revolution or to intrigue with the enemy, to have the idea of (10. 26) taking lights—torches or lanterns—to their guard-posts along with their baskets and

bedding; they have then used these sources of light not for their ostensible purpose, to see to go to bed by, but to make a pre-arranged signal. Everything of this kind must therefore be viewed with suspicion. [ Plots] (11.

1)

It is also

essential

to devote

attention

to those

citizens of a hostile disposition, and not to accept naively anything they suggest. To explain the reasons for this (11.2)

I shall give a succession of examples, from the book,

of plots hatched in states by either their officials or private individuals, and of how some of them were foiled and came to nothing. (12.3) Just before the betrayal of Chios, for instance, the

authorities were tricked by one of their number who was party to the plot. He persuaded his colleagues that as it was peacetime

they

ought

to have

the

harbour-boom

hauled

ashore, dried out, and given a new coating of pitch, the old

ships’ tackle sold, and repairs made to the leaking roofs of the ship-sheds, to the adjacent stoa, and to the adjoining tower

TRANSLATION

57

where the officials had their quarters. This was an excuse for ladders to be ready for those who were planning to seize the ship-sheds and the stoa and the tower. (11. 4) He also recommended discharging the bulk of the city’s guards—

on

the

grounds,

of course,

of minimizing

its expenses;

(11. 5) and using other arguments of a similar kind he persuaded his colleagues to do precisely what would assist the traitors to attack and capture the place. Hence the need to keep a constant watch on people who are keen to press such

proposals.

(12.6)

At the same time he fastened deer-nets

and boar-nets to the wall, hung out as if for drying, and elsewhere sails with their ropes outwards; and this enabled the soldiers to make their nocturnal climb. (11.7) And here is how the revolutionaries in Argos were dealt with. When the people’s leader realized that the rich were on the point of mounting their second attack on the democracy and were calling in mercenaries, he secretly induced two men from the hostile group which was to launch the attack to join his side. Thus, while publicly abusing them and representing them as his enemies he learned from them in private what his opponents were planning. (22. 8) Then,

when the rich were in the process of calling in their mercenaries, with accomplices waiting in the city and the action scheduled for the following night, he decided to summon a meeting of the assembly there and then. He did not disclose the plot, for fear of throwing the state into total confusion, but recommended amongst other things that

during the coming night all Argives should remain at arms, each man in his own tribe, (11. 9) and that any armed man seen elsewhere or following other orders be punished as a

traitor and conspirator against the state. (11. 10) The purpose of this was of course to make it impossible for the rich, scattered across the different tribes, to assemble at the same

point and join their mercenaries in the attack; split up in their tribes they would be outnumbered by their fellow-tribesmen. And this seems to have been an excellent way, both safe and

ingenious, of foiling the plan. (11. 10a) Something similar happened in Herakleia on the Black Sea. When a democracy was in power and the rich were plotting against it and just about to attack it, the people’s

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leaders got wind of the plan and induced the populace to establish sixty centuries—in place of the existing three tribes and four centuries—in which the rich would routinely perform both their guard-duties and their other obligations. (11. 11) Here again the result was that they found

themselves

dispersed

throughout

the

various

centuries

and outnumbered in each by their ordinary fellow-citizens. (11.12) Something of this kind is also said to have occurred, long ago, in Sparta. After receiving word that a planned attack would begin ‘when the cap is raised’, the authorities

thwarted the attempt by issuing an announcement prohibiting the men who were going to raise the cap from doing so.

(11.13) In Korkyra, however, a revolt of the wealthy and oligarchs against the democracy—a revolt supported by the Athenian Chares who was living there at the time as garrisoncommander—was

successful,

thanks

to a scheme

in which

(11.14) some of the garrison’s officers cut themselves about the body with cupping-vessels and then ran out into the agora covered in blood, as though they had been wounded. At the same time the rest of the troops, who had made themselves ready in advance, at once took up their arms, as did those Korkyraians who were in the plot. (11.15) The rest were unaware of what was going on, but were summoned to an assembly where the people’s leaders were arrested on a charge of starting the revolt and everything else arranged to the conspirators’ advantage.

[Necessary precautions concerning allies]

(12.1)

Ifallied forces (have been brought) into the city they

should never be quartered all together but split up, in the way stated above and for the same reasons. (12. 2) Likewise with paid mercenaries: the citizens who call them in to do something must always be superior to them in numbers and strength, or else both they and the state will be at the

foreigners’

mercy.

(12. 3)

An

example of this occurred

when the men of Chalkedon were under siege and were sent a garrison by their allies (the men of Kyzikos): the Chalkedonians

were

making

plans

in

accordance

with

their

own

best

interests, but the garrison refused to countenance them unless

TRANSLATION

59

they were deemed equally advantageous to the Kyzikenes, and as a result the Chalkedonians were much more intimidated by the garrison inside than by their enemies sitting outside. (12.4) Hence the importance of never allowing into one’s own

city an alien force stronger than the available citizen-troops, and of always maintaining considerable home-superiority over any foreign manpower engaged by the state; to be in the

power of foreigners and dominated by mercenaries is not safe. (12.5) What happened to the men of Herakleia on the Black Sea illustrates this. By calling in more mercenaries than they should they were able in the short run to destroy the opposition faction but subsequently brought themselves and their state to ruin—under the tyranny of the man who led the mercenaries in. (13. 1) If maintaining mercenaries is a necessity, however, here is how to do it with a minimum of risk.

{ Maintaining mercenaries] Get the most well-to-do men in the community to provide, in accordance with their means, one, two, or three mercenaries

each. Once the required total has been reached, divide them

into companies and appoint the most trustworthy citizens as their company-commanders. (13. 2) Let the mercenaries draw their pay and maintenance from the men who hired them—the maintenance actually provided by these men, the

pay augmented by the state— (13.3) and also be quartered in individual groups in the men’s houses, except when they are given their duties and night-watches and other assignments by the authorities and need to be called together under the supervision of their company-commanders. (13.4) Indue course reimburse those who have advanced money toward the mercenaries by allowing each of them to deduct it from the taxes he pays to the state. This will be the quickest, the safest and the cheapest way of maintaining mercenaries. (14.1) Those in the state who are hostile to the status quo should be treated in the way already described.

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[Pointers to unanimity] As for the mass of the citizens, it is of the utmost importance in the mean time to foster unanimity, winning them over by such means as lessening the burdens on debtors by reducing or completely cancelling interest-payments. At times of extreme danger, even the capital sums owed may be partially or, if necessary, wholly cancelled as well; there is nothing

more alarming than to be constantly under the eye of men in debt. Provide the basic amenities of life for the needy, too. (14. 2) How this could be done fairly and without pain to the rich, and where the money might come from, are amongst the matters clearly explained in my book Procurement.

(15. 1)

So much for these preparations. The next eventuality

to be considered is a message or fire-signal to the effect that part of the territory is under attack and help needed. (15. 2) The generals must immediately organize (the) available men, to prevent their making haphazard sorties in small groups bent on defending their own property. Such a

disorderly reaction and premature expenditure of effort would spell ruin for them as they were ambushed and killed by the enemy. (15.3) Instead, as men report for duty they must be assembled at the gates until a certain number—a single or double company’s

they

have

been

worth, say—has

organized

and

arrived; and then, when

assigned a

sensible

leader,

dispatch them with orders to proceed as speedily as good military formation permits. (15. 4) Continue sending out one detachment after another in this way, rapidly, until it is

felt that enough have been sent to provide the necessary relief: the object is to keep the different detachments in close touch with each other even on the march and, if one contingent has

to help another or all of them act together, to make it easy for them to form a combined unit without having to come up at

speed from a distance.

(15.5)

The available cavalry and

light-armed troops—in equally (good order)—should proceed ahead of the rest, both to carry out preliminary reconnaissance and to occupy high ground in good time; this is so that the heavy infantry get as much warning as possible of what the

enemy

is doing

and

avoid

being

caught

in

a surprise

TRANSLATION

61

attack. (15. 6) And place signs at the turning-points, bottoms of hills and road junctions—anywhere where routes diverge—to prevent the stragglers from mistaking their way and becoming detached from their comrades.

(15.

7)

There

are also many

reasons

for taking

pre-

cautions on the way back to the city, particularly the threat of

enemy ambush. Here is an example of something which once happened to a relieving force caught off its guard. (15. 8) When Triballians invaded the territory of Abdera, the Abderites marched out, made their dispositions for battle and won a fine victory over this large and warlike horde, which suffered substantial losses. (15. 9) Furious at what

had happened, the Triballians retreated and re-grouped before advancing a second time into Abderite territory, laying ambushes and starting to ravage the countryside only a short

distance from the city. The Abderites, contemptuous of opponents whom they had already defeated, threw caution to the winds in an enthusiastic counter-attack at full strength—

only to be drawn into the enemy ambushes.

(15. 10)

So

this of course was the occasion when they reportedly suffered heavier losses more quickly than any single state, at least of

comparable size, had ever done before. This was because not even the news of the destruction of those who had sallied forth to help first deterred the rest from doing the same; instead they kept urging each other on to the rescue until there was

not a man left in town. [Another method of relief | (16. 1) The following, alternative way of providing relief against invaders may therefore be preferable. (16. 2) In the first place, do not respond instantaneously to a (night) attack. Experience suggests that before dawn your people would be at their most disorganized and unready: some eager

to salvage their property from the fields without delay, others in the grip of understandable terror at the sudden news of the dangers to be faced, and others still completely unprepared. (16. 3) So the way to make preparations for relief is to muster your men with all speed, attending in the process to those who need their anxieties set at rest, their confidence

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boosted, or the issue of arms and armour.

(16. 4)

What

you must realize is that when intelligent and knowledgeable enemies go to war they march from the outset with their

strongest forces at the ready, expecting an attack

(to be

launched ) against them and primed to repel it. Some of them will have been split into groups to inflict damage on the countryside, while others might lie in ambush

to await any

disorganized attempts at relief by your men.

(26. 5)

Do

not, therefore, attack and harass them immediately: wait until

they have grown reckless and contemptuous of you and have begun looting, to satisfy their greed. They will tend as they do

so to fill themselves with food and drink and, once drunk, to

become

(16. 6)

careless

and

disobedient

to

their

officers;

and this, provided you choose a good moment

to

attack, will naturally impair their performance in combat and their

capacity

to retreat.

(16.

7)

Wait,

in other

words,

until your relieving force is ready at the appointed place and the enemy already dispersed for plunder: then is the time to bring pressure to bear on them, cutting off their lines of retreat with your cavalry, laying ambushes with the picked men, confronting the enemy with the rest of the light-armed troops, and

bringing

up

the

heavy

infantry

in formation

not far

behind the advance contingents. As to the attack itself, launch it in circumstances where you are under (no) compulsion to fight but will not be at a disadvantage if you do.

(16. 8) For the reasons already given, then, it is sometimes profitable to sit back and let enemies devastate as much of your territory as they like—the aim being, of course, that while they are looting and are encumbered with spoils, you

can easily make them pay the penalty; what has been seized can be fully recovered and the culprits given their just reward. (16. 9) But if you send help precipitately you might endanger your own men before they are prepared and organized, whereas the enemy, despite having had time to do a little damage, would still be in formation and would get away

scot-free.

(16.

10)

Far better, as I have

stated,

to

give way and then attack them unawares. (16. 11) Suppose, though, that the plunder from your territory has gone, before you were aware of it or able to stop

it. In that case do not mount a pursuit along the same roads

TRANSLATION

63

and through the same places as the enemy. Instead, make a showing there with just a few men, instructed to pursue the enemy in a convincing manner but deliberately not to overtake them; meanwhile the main body—a considerable one—makes a forced march as quickly as possible along other roads, to get to the looters’ territory first and lie in wait for

them near the border.

(16.12)

It will, probably, get there

first, given the fact that they are carrying their booty and marching more slowly. And as regards attacking them, do it

while they are preparing dinner: once plunderers are safely back on home vigilant.

(16. 13)

ground

they tend to relax and

become

less

If boats are available, the best way of keeping

your soldiers fresh is to make the pursuit by sea. This will ensure, amongst other things necessary for success, that provided your voyage goes unobserved by the enemy you will

arrive before they do.

(216. 14)

The men of Kyrene and

Barka, and certain other states, are said to have employed two-horse and four-horse vehicles to send relief expeditions along long roads which allowed their use. Once the vehicles had been driven to a suitable place and lined up in order, the heavy infantry would get off, form their ranks, and be fresh enough to attack the enemy straight away. (16.15) So to those who have it a plentiful supply of vehicles is a great asset, for the swift conveyance of soldiers who are fresh to the place where they are needed. Also the wagons could serve as impromptu barricades to protect camps, and as a means of

taking soldiers who have been wounded or otherwise disabled back to town. (16. 16) If your territory is not easy to invade and the ways into it are few and narrow, you should prepare them in advance—with troops distributed in the way already described—and present an obstacle there to your assailants in their wish to march on the city itself. Men who can recognize from fire-signals what is happening to the various detachments should also have taken up their positions; this will enable the different units to go to each other’s aid, if need be. (16. 17) If, on the other hand, your territory is not difficult to invade but offers numerous places for large armies

to enter, you must occupy such strategic positions within the

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AINEIAS THE TACTICIAN

territory as will make it hard for the enemy to advance upon

the city. (16. 18) But if even these are lacking you will have to settle for occupying positions in the vicinity of the city itself which will help you to fight at an advantage, and from which you can safely withdraw when you want to return to town. Also, if the enemy do invade your territory and march

on the city it is up to you to take the offensive against them, using these positions as your base.

(16. 19) When making attacks on them, try always to exploit your familiarity with the terrain. You will gain enormously from being acquainted with places in advance and being able to lure your adversaries on to ground which you know and which lends itself to your plans for defence, pursuit, flight, or withdrawal into the city, whether secretly or openly. What is more you will know in advance where in the countryside to find your provisions. To the enemy, however, these places will be unfamiliar and unknown, offering no such opportunities.

(16. 20)

They will be aware that one who

lacks experience of the terrain will find it not only impossible to accomplish what he wants but also—assuming the inhabitants choose to attack—difficult to make a safe retreat. So it is their inability to predict anything of this kind which will rob them of all confidence and boldness, and failure. The difference, in fact, between

doom them to your respective

circumstances will be just as great as if they (had to fight) at night while you were in daylight—supposing the two could somehow be simultaneous.

(16. 21) If you do have a fleet the ships should be ready manned. Putting some of your men in ships will prove no less aggravating to the enemy, provided the ships sail along their seaboard near their coast roads, with the aim of making a landing in their rear to coincide with your own harassing by

land.

(16.22)

In that way you can attack the enemy when

they are least prepared for it and take them by surprise.

(17.

1)

In a

state lacking unanimity and full of mutual

suspicion, foresight and caution is called for when crowds go out to see torch-races, horse-races, or other contests—in short, at all mass religious ceremonies and armed processions outside the walls, not to mention occasions when the

TRANSLATION

65

community beaches its ships or buries its dead. The reason is that a faction can exploit even occasions like these to get the better of its opponents. (17.2) Here is an actual example. When the Argives were celebrating a mass festival outside the walls, at which there was an armed procession of the men of military age, a large number of the conspirators also got themselves ready and joined in the demand for arms to carry in the procession. (17. 3) (When) the procession was nearing the temple and the altar, most people laid down their arms at some distance from the temple and went to pray at the altar. Some of the conspirators, however, kept their weapons; others positioned themselves, during the prayers, next to the officials and the other leading citizens, each earmarked for

someone

to stab with a dagger.

(17. 4)

This they did,

while their comrades who had retained their weapons hurried back with them into town; there yet more of their number had remained and had by now collected arms for themselves and occupied positions enabling them to let back in only those of their own choosing. At no time, therefore, should you allow such plots to catch

you off guard.

(17. 5)

When

the Chians

celebrate

their

festival of Dionysos and send magnificent processions to his altar they first line the streets leading to the agora with plenty of armed guards—no negligible deterrent to would-be revolu-

tionaries.

(17.

accompanied

by

6)

The

best

thing

the force mentioned

is

for

earlier,

the

officials,

to discharge

their ceremonial duties first, and to permit others to gather only when the officials are clear of the crowd.

(18.1) In the late afternoon, when the expeditionary forces have returned, give the signal to prepare dinner and mount the guard; and while the guards are getting ready, see to

it that the gates are well and truly closed. Many a mistake with the bolts results from slackness on the officials’ part, (18. 2) because whenever one of them goes to attend to the closing of the gates but does not do the job in person, delegating the task of securing the bolt to the gatekeeper

instead, harm can be done by gatekeepers who wish to let the enemy in at night.

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Here are some examples. (18. 3) One of them poured sand, during the daytime, into the bolt-socket of the gates so that the bolt would

remain outside

(and)

not drop into its

hole. And there are even stories of bolts already in situ being extracted, (18.4) by dropping sand, a little at a time, into the bolt-socket and—quietly enough to avoid being noticed—

shaking the bolt to and fro; as the sand fell in the bolt was thereby pushed upwards and easily extracted. (18.5) Once, a gatekeeper who had been given the bolt by a general to put in place surreptitiously cut a notch in it with a chisel or

file and looped a thread round it before dropping it in, thus allowing him to pull it up again shortly afterwards. (18.6) Another dropped the bolt enclosed in a fine-meshed net which he had prepared with a thread attached, and pulled it up later. The bolt has also been removed after being knocked upwards. It has even been extracted with delicate tweezers; for this, one blade of the tweezers must be curved

like a gutter and the other flat, so that the gutter-like part hooks under the bolt while the flat part grips it at the top. (18.7) And someone else, just before dropping in the bolt, secretly rotated the cross-bar, which meant that the bolt would not fall into its hole and (the gate) could subsequently

be pushed open. (18.8)

In Achaia, in the city of (?), some men who were

attempting to smuggle in mercenaries began by taking the measurements of the bolt, as follows. (28. 9) During the day they lowered into the bolt-socket a loop of fine, strong thread with the ends projecting but out of sight; and when the bolt was dropped in at night they took the ends of the thread, pulled up the loop and the bolt with it, measured the bolt, and replaced it. Their next step was to have a bolt-catcher made to these measurements, which they contrived by

(18. 10)

getting a smith to make a tube and a matting-

needle. The tube was to be of the usual manufacture, and the

needle too was like other matting-needles as regards its point

and shank; however, its handle was hollow, like that of a spike at the butt of a spear into which the shaft is fitted. (18. 21) And a shaft had indeed been fitted, at the smithy, but removed after it had left there, so that once the handle had

been

pressed

against the bolt it would grip it. Having

the

TRANSLATION

67

smith produce these implements, the tube and the mattingneedle, without suspecting what they were intended for surely showed great ingenuity. (18. 12) On another occasion some men took the measurements of a bolt while it was in its socket. What they did was to

wrap potter’s clay in a piece of fine cloth, lower it into the socket, and press it round the bolt with a tool; they then pulled it up, took a cast of the bolt, and had a bolt-catcher made to fit. (18. 13) An agreement was made to betray the great Ionian city of Teos to Temenos the Rhodian, with the complicity of the gatekeeper. To that end they agreed on,

amongst

other things, a dark and

moonless

night during

which the gatekeeper would open up and Temenos would come in with mercenaries. (18. 14) The day before the night in question, a man waited by the gatekeeper until it grew late, and guards were taking their stations on the wall and the gates were about to be closed—in short, until

darkness had fallen; he then slipped out, after making fast one end of a ball of snapped. (18.15)

twisted cord too stout to be easily Unrolling the ball as he went, he made

his way to the place, half a mile or more out of town, where the

invaders were to meet him. (18. 16) When the general came to close the gates and as usual gave the gatekeeper the

bolt to drop in, the latter took it and, without attracting attention or making a noise, filed or chiselled a notch in it to

take a thread. He next slipped a loop round the bolt, let the bolt down

with

the thread attached, shook

the cross-bar to

show the general that the gate was closed, and then kept quiet. (18.17) But after a time he pulled up the bolt and tied the end of the cord to himself, so that a tug on it would wake him up if he happened to fall asleep. (18.18) Temenos meanwhile was ready and waiting with his invasion force at a

spot specified by the man who had the ball of cord. The arrangement with the gatekeeper was that when Temenos got there he should tug at the cord; (18. 19) if the gatekeeper had everything prepared to his satisfaction he was to tie a tuft of wool to the end of the cord and unfasten it; and the sight of

this was to bring Temenos hurrying to the gates. In the event, however, since the gatekeeper’s plan did not succeed he had to

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let the cord go with nothing attached to it. As a result Temenos had ample time to withdraw unobserved; he and his men realized in the night that the cord (had not had the wool

attached)

in town,

making

it impossible

to proceed

any

further.

(18. 20)

Another gatekeeper did betray his city, in the

following way. He made a habit, just before the gates were due to be closed, of going out with a jug as if to fetch water. Upon arriving at the spring he would place stones at a point known to the enemy, who would come up each time and discover from the stones placed there whatever the guardian of the city

wanted to tell them.

(18.21)

That is, he placed one stone

at the agreed spot if he was to keep the first watch, two for the second

watch,

three for the third, four for the fourth,

and

conveyed by the same means the additional information of whereabouts on the wall and to which guard-unit he had been

allocated. Given all these possibilities, then, vigilance is essential: the official must close the gates in person and not give the bolt to someone else. (18. 22) Also, when undertaking anything of this kind yourself, hide the cross-bar, because there have been cases where failure to do so enabled opponents to make a sudden appearance and force the gates shut again. So be prepared for all such eventualities.

[Sawing a cross-bar] (1g. 1)

When sawing through a cross-bar pour oil on it, to

make the task quicker and quieter. The sound will also be deadened considerably if a sponge is tied on to both the saw and the cross-bar. Many other, similar hints could be mentioned, but I had better let them pass. [ Preventing sabotage to cross-bars and bolts|

(20. 1) If sabotage of this kind is to be avoided, a general’s prime duty is to go in person—and before dining—to close the gates and make his inspection, rather than entrusting the job to someone else out of laziness. At times of danger, indeed, this is something demanding his utmost concentration.

TRANSLATION

69

(20. 2) Secondly, the cross-bar should be reinforced with three or four strips of iron along its length, so that it cannot be sawed through. Thirdly, employ three dissimilar bolts, one in

the keeping of each general; if there are more than three generals, decide the custody of the bolt every day by drawing lots. (20.3) The best thing, however, is to have bolts that cannot be removed but are restrained by an iron plate: in that way the pincers will lift the bolt no higher than is necessary for the cross-bar to be pushed underneath when the gates are being closed or opened. The pincers must be of a type which

can slip under the plate and raise the bolt without difficulty. (20. 4) After the men of Apollonia on the Black Sea had fallen victim to one of the ploys I have described, they built gates which were closed with a huge mallet. This made a tremendous din, such that virtually everyone in town could

hear when the gates were being closed or opened, so massive and ironclad were their fastenings. (20.5) The same thing was done in Aigina. When the gates have been closed, give the guards a password and a sign to accompany it, and send them to their

posts. (21.2)

The

provision of equipment; the advance prepara-

tions (necessary) in friendly territory; the ways in which one should conceal or render useless to the enemy the resources

of the countryside—these topics are omitted here, as there is an exhaustive discussion of them in my Preparations. (21.2) As regards the proper procedure for posting sentries

and patrols, dealing with panics, and devising passwords and accompanying signs, most of this is to be covered in my book Encampment but a few points may be made here and now. [Guard-duty] (22.12)

Watch at night must be kept at times of danger and

when enemies are already settled near a town or camp. (22.2) The general in overall command, together with his colleagues, should be quartered in the civic buildings and the agora, ifsuch a position is defensible; if it is not, take steps to

occupy

the city’s

best-fortified

spot and

the one

affording

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AINEIAS

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maximum visibility. (22. 3) Billet the trumpeter and the dispatch-runners close to the generals’ quarters, and keep them there in constant readiness (for) any signals or messages

which may be needed to give notice of your plans, both to the rest of the sentries and—wherever they happen to be in their circuit of the city—to the patrols. (22.4) Furthermore the sentries on the wall, in the agora, at the civic buildings, the

entrances to the agora, the theatre, and the other occupied points should have short turns of duty: change the guard frequently and in large units. (22.5) One reason for this is that in a short stretch on guard nobody would be there long enough to enable him to make contact with the enemy and start a revolution by surprise; another is that men on short

watches are less prone to fall asleep; and a third is that having large numbers on guard together increases the likelihood that

news of any treachery will leak out. (22. 5a) At times of danger it is advisable that as many men as possible are on the alert, and also that everyone undertakes guard-duty at night, so that as many as possible

keep active guard at each watch.

(22.6)

Ifthe guards are

too few and their watches too long, the length of time on guard might well induce sleep, and would-be revolutionaries would

have the chance to initiate secret dealings with the enemy. So do not overlook this sort of thing.

(22.7)

Here are more matters which demand consideration

at times of danger. None of the sentries should know in advance either when or where he will be on guard in the city. Nor should the same officers always be in command of the same men. Instead, where guarding the citizens is concerned change everything as frequently as possible, because that is the way to minimize the opportunities for a traitor to betray anything to those outside or to receive anything from the enemy; (22. 8) he would be left in ignorance of where on the wall and in whose company he was scheduled to spend the night. It is not desirable that every man should know beforehand what his duties will be. And those who have stood guard during the day should not go on guard at night.

(22.9) Those in the guard-stations on the wall are to keep actual watch in the following way. During each watch one man from every station is to patrol as far as the next station,

TRANSLATION

another

man

from

there

to the

next,

7!

and

so on—all

co-

ordinated by signals. (22. 10) In this way there will be many men patrolling at the same time, with each moving only a short distance;

and

the same

men

will not often

remain

together, as different guards constantly come into contact with each other. Once this system is in operation it would allow the guards no opportunity for subversion. (22.11) Those on guard should stand facing each other, so that between them they can see in all directions, and are less likely to fall victim to a group approaching by stealth— something which has actually happened in the case of daytime scouts, as I have shown. (22. 12) And during the dark winter nights they should throw (a succession of) stones on to the outside of the wall and cry ‘Who goes there?’, in a pretence of seeing somebody; anyone actually approaching would thus automatically be discovered. (22. 13) If you like, have them do the same thing on to the internal, city side of the wall

as well. Some claim this to be bad practice, on the basis that an enemy party approaching in the darkness is forewarned by the sound of the patrols and the stone-throwing not to attack (there) but somewhere where it is quiet. (22.14) However, the best thing on such nights is to have dogs tethered overnight outside the wall: they will be quicker to detect an enemy spy, or a deserter stealthily approaching the town, or a chance deserter trying to leave it; and at the same time their barking wakes the guard if he happens to fall asleep.

(22. 15)

In parts of the city which the enemy can easily

approach and attack you should station as guards the wealthiest and most highly respected men, those with the largest stake in the community and thus the greatest incentive not to succumb to self-indulgence; instead, remembering their position will keep (their minds) on the job.

(22.16) (During) mass festivals those of the city’s guards who arouse particular suspicion and distrust amongst their own comrades should be dismissed from their stations and told to celebrate the festival at home. (22. 17) This will seem to them a mark of consideration while at the same time preventing them from causing any mischief. Assign others

more

trustworthy

to the stations

in their place,

because

would-be revolutionaries very often choose festivals (and)

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similar occasions to make their move;

(22. 18)

the incidents

associated with such occasions are described elsewhere. (22. 19) Hence, while you are about it, the places where the wall can be mounted should ideally be made inaccessible. Close them off, so as to deny anyone the opportunity of seizing

some portion of the wall in advance and betraying it to the enemy, and so that (the) sentries—men of your own choice— will be obliged to stay up on the wall and not come down. Furthermore, any of the enemy who have managed to climb

up the outside of the wall unobserved will find it difficult to descend quickly from the wall into the town, unless they are willing to risk jumping down from a great height where they

can be seen and are expected. This precaution concerning the ways up on to the wall can also be useful in a tyrant’s citadel. (22. 20) After the sea-battle at Naxos the garrisoncommander Nikokles, against whom a plot was being hatched,

posted guards on the wall, blocked the ways up, and maintained patrols with dogs outside the wall, the expectation being that a conspiracy would originate there. (22.21) When there is unanimity—and no-one harbouring suspicions—in

the city, lights should

be kept burning (in)

lanterns at (the) guard-posts (on) the wall, so that a signal of an enemy approach at any point can be made to the general

by the guards there raising their lantern.

(22.22)

Should

the lie of the land prevent the general from having a direct view of the lantern, a relay-station with its own lantern can

pass the signal on to him and he can communicate what he has seen to the rest of the sentries, by trumpet (or) dispatchrunners as appropriate. (22. 23) At such times, with the guards remaining on watch in the way already described, announce to the population at large that—after a given signal—nobody is to go out of doors; that if anyone for any reason cannot avoid doing so he should carry a lantern as he goes, so as to be visible to the patrols at a distance;

(22. 24)

and that no artisan (or) craftsman should be at

work, in case any noise they make distracts the patrols. The way to ensure that the watches fall fairly and equally on all, as the nights grow longer or shorter, is to regulate this

(entirely) by water-clock, resetting the clock every ten days. (22. 25) Preferably its inside should be coated with wax,

TRANSLATION which

is reduced,

to allow room

for more

73 water,

when

the

nights are lengthening, and increased, so that the clock’s capacity is smaller, when they are shortening. That must suffice as my explanation of how to equalize the watches.

(22.26)

At times of less immediate danger, the number of

men on watch and patrol should be half of those enlisted; in this way half of the army will be on guard each night. And during peacetime, when there is no danger, guard-duty ought to represent the least possible inconvenience to the smallest number of people. (22.27) Ifthe general needs to send out patrols, he should hand a baton with a seal to the first guard,

who been Each take (22.

must give it to the next, and so on in sequence until it has the rounds of the town and is returned to the general. guard on watch must have been told beforehand to the baton no further than the guard next to him; 28) and if on arrival at the place he finds no guard

there, to return the baton to the man from whom

he received

it, (so that) the general knows what has happened and can identify the individual, absent from his post, who failed to

accept the baton.

(22. 29)

Should anyone not turn up for

duty when it is his watch, his company-commander must immediately auction off the watch, for whatever price it can fetch, and put the buyer on guard in place of the defaulter; then (the) sponsor must pay out of his own pocket the man who has bought the watch, and the next day the regimentalcommander should impose on him the customary penalty.

[Secret sorties at night | (23. 1) The following precautions are necessary when making secret sorties at night against an enemy encamped outside. Make sure, first, that nobody deserts and, secondly, that there are no outdoor fires which might make the sky over the city brighter than elsewhere and so betray the plan. (23. 2) Also, stop the dogs barking and the cocks crowing: render them temporarily mute by cauterizing some part of their mouths. This is because the plan will be betrayed if their cries ring out (before) daybreak. (23. 3) Here is a ploy: which people once adopted in making a sortie: they first conveyed a false but plausible

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impression of internal discord, waited for an opportunity for a sortie, and then launched an unexpected attack on the enemy with

complete

success.

(23.

4)

And

once,

when

some

people were penned within their walls, they made a surprise sortie in the following way. They walled up their gates, in full

view of the enemy, and then at the point where the latter were most vulnerable to attack they hung out a small sail, and after a while hauled it up again. The enemy’s initial reaction to this was one of amazement, but later, after it had happened many

times, they lost interest in it. the city made

a breach,

(23.5)

One night the men in

of the desired dimensions,

in their

wall, constructed a mock-up in its place, and hung out the sail over it; they then waited for an opportunity for a sortie and

launched

a sudden

attack on the enemy.

And

during the

course of all this they were making sure that nobody deserted. None of these considerations should be overlooked, therefore.

(23.6) And another thing: think twice before ever venturing out of town at night with a crowd. This is because, at such moments, conspirators both inside the community and beyond are up to their tricks, seeking to lure one out with ruses like fire-signals or setting ablaze a ship-shed or

gymnasium (or) major public shrine, or anything else liable to bring people—and important people at that—out in numbers. _So exercise foresight and do not be too ready to accept even this sort of thing at face value.

(23. 7)

I shall also mention

here a plan which

some

officials adopted. They first arranged for a commotion to arise

in the countryside

and

for word

to be brought

in from

the fields to the city of a raid planned by robbers. This was news calculated to make the citizens hurry to the rescue: (23. 8) and when it arrived they were summoned, by the officials and their supporters, to go to help. Then, once the mass of the citizens had gathered under arms at the gates,

the officials’ ploy was (23. g) to order the assembled force to divide into three parts and lay ambushes a short | distance away from the town. These instructions suited their own plans without exciting the suspicions of their hearers. (23. 10)

So they led the men out and positioned them at

appropriate places with orders to ambush the hostile invaders, while they themselves took some troops who were party to the

TRANSLATION

75

plot and went on ahead, as if to investigate the reports and meet the danger first. Their ostensible objective was to entice the enemy into the ambushes by pretending to flee. (23. 11) But in fact they went to a spot where mercenaries whom they had secretly brought in by sea were ready and waiting. These they collected and, before anyone knew of it, led unobtrusively by alternative routes back into the city—giving the impression that they were returning with the citizens who had gone out on the sortie. They then used the mercenaries to seize control of the city, after which some of the men in the ambushes were exiled and others permitted to return. It is essential,

therefore,

to view

all such

reports

with

suspicion and to make no ill-considered sorties in force against an enemy at night. [ Passwords | (24.1)

When giving passwords to armed forces drawn from

a mixture of states and nationalities, take care to avoid

the

uncertainty which can arise if two names are applicable to a single entity. An example of this is DIOSKOUROI and TYNDARIDAI,

two different names

for the same entity.

(24. 2)

Other

instances are ARES and ENYALIOS, ATHENA and PALLAS, SWORD

and DAGGER, TORCH and LIGHT, and suchlike—all of them hard to remember if contrary to the normal usage of the

different nationalities, and dangerous to use if given out in dialect form (rather) than in universally intelligible language.

(24. 3)

So do not issue such words

to a mixed

force of

mercenaries, or to allies of different nationalities.

Here,

for

Charidemos

following

illustration, of Oreos,

way.

(24.

is what

after he had

4)

The

happened captured

governor

in

Aiolis

Ilion

of Ilion

to

in the

had

a

slave who was always venturing out for booty, especially at night, when he used to go out and return again with his haul.

(24.5)

At the time in question Charidemos realized that he

was doing

this, made

his acquaintance,

and

after a secret

meeting persuaded him to agree to go out, as if for booty, on a specified night. His instructions were to take a horse with him when he went out that night, so that the gates would be

76

AINEIAS THE TACTICIAN

opened for him; he was not to return, as he usually did, by the

passageway

or

the

wicket

gate.

(24

6)

Once

he

was

outside, Charidemos conferred with him and gave him about thirty of his mercenaries, wearing body armour and carrying daggers, shields, and pointed helmets. (24. 7) These the

man led off in the dark, in shabby clothing—under which he concealed their weapons—and made to look like prisoners-ofwar; and he brought them into town along with others,

women and children, who also gave the impression of being captives. The gates had been opened for him because of the

horse;

(24. 8)

and of course the instant they were inside

the mercenaries got to work, killing the gatekeeper and generally behaving as mercenaries do. As soon as they were in control of the gates, some of Charidemos’ troops who

had been waiting nearby arrived and seized the inner city. (24.9)

Charidemos himself then entered with his full force.

While all this was happening, however, he had taken steps (24. 10) to place part of his army in ambush, suspecting that a relief force would come to the place. And so it did: Athenodoros of Imbros was in the vicinity with an army, and when he heard what had happened immediately tried to send help.

(24.11)

Buthe too, as it chanced, was a

shrewd man, and met suspicion with suspicion. Taking an alternative route to Ilion, not the one on which the ambushes were laid, he marched unseen, at night, until he had reached

the gates.

(24.12)

Inthe confusion some of his men, taken

for members of Charidemos’ army, entered the city undetected,

(24. 13) but before any more could do so they were recognized by their password and either driven out or killed at the gates. The reason for this was that they gave the password as TYNDARIDAI,

(24.14)

whereas

Charidemos’

had

been

DIOSKOUROI;

and it was this alone which prevented Athenodoros

from recapturing Ilion immediately, that same night. The passwords you give should therefore be both easy to remember and related as far as possible to the business in hand: for example, (24. 15) ARTEMIS THE HUNTRESS for

hunting expeditions, CRAFTY HERMES for an operation relying on stealth, HERAKLES

for an assault, SUN and MOON

for non-

secret undertakings, and others as much like these possible—very common names which everyone uses.

as

TRANSLATION (24. 16)

77

Iphikrates used even to urge that patrols and

sentries each be given a different password, rather than (the) same one for both, so that the man challenged first would answer with—for the sake of argument—ZEUS THE SAVIOUR and the other would respond with POSEIDON. This was calculated to minimize the harm caused if deserters betrayed

their password to the enemy. (24. 17) If the guards lose touch with each other they must communicate between themselves by a pre-arranged

whistle which,

except for those in the know,

will convey

nothing to anyone, Greek or non-Greek. (24. 18) Take care, though, that the whistling does not make the dogs cause

trouble. This tactic was employed at Thebes when the Kadmeia was captured: the troops were scattered in the darkness and unable to recognize one another but rallied to the sound of a whistle. (24. 19) Patrols and sentries on watch must ask each other for their passwords. It is inadvisable for the challenge to come from one side only, because an enemy might make one in the guise of a patrol.

[Signs to accompany passwords] (25. 1) In addition to passwords some people employ accompanying signs, both to prevent panics and to make

identifying friends easier.

(25. 2)

The signs should be as

distinctive as possible, yet as difficult as possible for the enemy to latch on to. Here are some suggestions for them. On dark nights the man demanding the password could add some other vocal sound or, preferably, make a noise; and in giving it, the man challenged would add some other pre-arranged sound or noise. In good light the challenger might take off his cap or, if he has it in his hand, putiton, (25.3) or pull it down over his forehead and push it up again, (25.4) or dig

his spear into the ground as he approaches, or take it in his left hand,

or hold it aloft in his hand, or raise it; and

the man

responding would not only give the password but in doing so perform one of these pre-arranged actions.

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AINEIAS

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TACTICIAN

[ Patrols]

(26.1) At times of danger the first thing to arrange is for two of the companies assembled in the agora to take it in turns to patrol the base of the city wall. They should be equipped with their usual arms and armour and also be given recognitionsigns which will enable them to identify each other clearly at

long distance. first watch

(26.2)

must

Those who are to patrol during the

do so before

their dinner,

because

if men

stand guard during the first watch when they have just eaten their behaviour tends to be rather slothful and indisciplined.

(26.3)

Patrols should not carry lanterns except on very dark

and stormy nights. Failing that, any lantern carried must be covered with something to make it shine only on the ground in

front of their feet, not upwards. (26.4) Ina state which maintains horses and has suitable ground for their use, make winter patrols on horseback: this will shorten the time spent on patrol when it is cold and muddy and the nights are long. (26.5) And if at the same time there are patrols on the wall, (see to it) that some of them

are keeping the outside under surveillance and others the inside. (26.6) On dark nights the men on patrol should in addition have stones to throw, one at a time, on to the outside

of the wall—though some people do not approve of this, for the reasons already stated. (26. 7) In circumstances of

mutual suspicion (you should . . . ) and order the patrols to pass along the base of the wall—the only patrolling on top of the wall being that of the sentries. If an army is in a wretched state after a defeat in battle, or demoralized and dejected because large numbers of men have died from their wounds or the allies have deserted or any other

calamity

has

occurred,

it is essential—if the enemy

are

dangerously close—to follow the instructions given above for

mounting the guard.

(26.8)

At such times patrols must be

frequent. However, as they go on their rounds they should not be over-eager to catch out those guards who are too sleepy or weary to keep watch alertly. After all, when the army is in this state there is nothing to be gained from lowering its morale still further—and it is only natural for anyone found misbehaving to lose heart; better to set about attending to

TRANSLATION

79

their needs and raising their spirits. (26. 9) At times like these patrols should advertise their approach to the guards from a distance, by saying something before they are close, so

that if the man on watch is asleep he can wake up and get ready to respond to the challenge. (26.10) However, it is best at such times for the general carefully to make each patrol himself, accompanied by the same body of picked men. When, on the other hand, the mood of an army is quite the opposite of downcast, there must be a greater element of urgency in the

inspection of the guards.

(26.11)

Also, the general should

never make his rounds at a fixed hour but should constantly change it, to prevent the soldiers from knowing his time of arrival well in advance and keeping especially careful watch

then. (26. 12) Here is another procedure, advocated and recommended in certain quarters, which some use. If fatigue or indisposition makes the city-commander unwilling to do his rounds but anxious none the less to know who in each watch is failing to stand guard, he should (26. 13) pre-arrange a lantern-signal with all the guards stationed on the wall, and have the men on watch raise their own lanterns in response when they see it. Make the signal at a spot from which every guard on the wall can see it; (26. 14) and if there is no such natural location, build one somehow, as high as possible. The lantern-signal should then be made from there and

answered from each guard-post, after which a count of those doing so will establish whether all the sentries have responded or if any guard is missing. [Panics]

(27. 1) Sudden alarms and terrors can occur in a city or camp, both at night and in daytime. Some call them ‘panics’—a Peloponnesian word, found especially in Arkadia;

and here is the advice sometimes given (for) putting a stop to them.

(27. 2)

Signals should be pre-arranged, which

the people in the city will see and recognize. They will know there is a panic when they notice a pre-arranged fire-signal at a place visible, as far as possible, by everyone in the city. (27. 3) And it is best to announce in advance that

80

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wherever an attack of terror strikes the soldiers they must remain calmly at their posts and sing a paian, or else pass the

word along from one man to the next that it is only a panic. (27. 4) One can tell who the frightened men are from whichever section of the army does not join in the paian. If, however, the general sees real cause for alarm he should order a trumpet-signal, to be understood as a call to arms. As

a rule,

the

time

when

terror strikes

is after a defeat

in battle, sometimes during the day but above all at night.

(27. 5)

To reduce the frequency of this, all the soldiers

should have orders for the night to remain as far as possible under arms, and told that an attack will come in their sector.

(27. 6) In this way—if it really does—they will be forewarned and unlikely to be taken by surprise, losing their heads in sudden terror and being killed.

(27.7)

Euphratas, the Spartan harmost in Thrace, found

that nocturnal terrors were occurring all the time in his army and that issuing night-orders as follows was the only way of

stopping them.

(27. 8)

In the event of a commotion the

men were immediately to sit up in bed with their weapons close by, but nobody was to get to his feet; anyone observed standing, the general proclamation ran, was to be treated as

anenemy.

(27.9)

so intimidating

He thought, you see, that this order was

that nobody

would

forget it. And

what

is

more, to show that what he said was no empty threat, during one alarm one of his more worthwhile men was wounded— albeit not fatally—and one of the inferior sort received a blow which killed him. (27.10) After that the men obeyed the order, and were careful to guard against commotions and to avoid getting out of bed in a fright. (27. 12) Another way of stopping a panic was this: in a camp in uproar at night the herald called for silence and announced that whoever reported the man who had let loose the horse which had caused the commotion (would receive a

certain sum of money). (27.12)

Ifan army is prone to this sort of thing at night,

men must be company or anyone they waking from

stationed on the flanks and in the centre of each regiment, at every watch, to keep a look-out for notice beginning to cause a commotion—after a dream or for some other reason—and to be on

TRANSLATION

81

hand to check and restrain him at once. (27. 13) As regards the rest of the troops, one man from each mess should be on the alert for any terror to strike and, if it does, to use his

experience of groundless fears to keep his own comrades calm. (27. 14) You yourself can alarm an enemy at night by giving your herds of heifers—and other draught-animals— wine to drink and then driving them with bells on into the

enemy camp. [ Reveille]

(27.15)

At daybreak the guards should (not) be dismissed

from their outside has enemy. The not all at completely

posts immediately but only when the ground been reconnoitred and seen to be clear of the guards may then disperse—but by detachments, once, so that the guard-posts are never left unmanned. [ Gatekeeping}

(28. 1) When a city is tn a state of terror the following precautions too are needed. Keep all gates closed except the one where access to the town is most difficult and from which anyone approaching is visible over the longest distance. (28.2) Even here only a wicket gate should remain open, so that men have to go in and out by it one by one. In this way a deserter trying to leave or a spy trying to enter will have little chance of doing so unnoticed—provided of course the

gatekeeper has his wits about him.

(28. 3)

To open (the

whole gate) for draught-animals, vehicles, and merchandise is dangerous. If the need arises to bring in grain or oil or wine or suchlike in a hurry, carried either on vehicles or by large numbers of men on foot, they should be conveyed by the nearest gates (under the escort of an armed force sent out to meet them); that will be the quickest and easiest way of bringing them in. (28. 4) As a rule, gates must not be incautiously opened early in the day, but later; and nobody should be let out of town before reconnaissance of the immediate neighbourhood. Furthermore, boats are not to be moored in front of the gates but at a distance. This is because

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in the past many plans have been put into effect, even in daytime, while both leaves of a gate were open. Tricks and pretexts like the following—and from a

single

episode many others like it (will be understood )—have

been

employed. (28.5) On the basis of some support inside the town, Python of Klazomenai waited patiently for the quietest time of the day and then captured Klazomenai by means of wagons which he had arranged to take in storage-jars. While the wagons were (standing) at the gates, some mercenaries who had secretly been im readiness nearby passed in through them and seized the city; and apart from those who were

accomplices in the plot the citizens were either unaware of what was happening or too late to stop it. (28. 6) Again, amongst the clandestine preparations made in the Hellespontine region by Iphiades of Abydos, for his capture of Parion by scaling the wall at night, was to fill wagons with twigs and brambles and send them, once the

gates were already closed, up to the wall, as if they belonged to the Parians. When (these) wagons were right outside the gates they were left there for the night, as if out of fear of an enemy; (28.7) however, the plan was to set light to them at an opportune moment, so that the gates would catch fire and Iphiades could get into the town at another point once the

Parians had rushed to put out the flames. I feel that it is important to demonstrate, from my collection of these episodes,

the various precautions

to be taken and

when to take them, in order that people do not naively take anything on trust.

[Smuggling arms in] (2g. 1) I turn now to the matter of conveying into town containers and cargoes in which things have been hidden— things which in the past have facilitated the capture of cities and even their citadels. (29.2) The need to guard against

this and

not

make

light of it applies

particularly

to the

gatekeeper, at any time when circumstances either outside or inside the city give rise to anxiety; his duty then is to scrutinize everything brought in. (29.3) I will cite as illustration a trick which was actually

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83

used to capture a city, with the complicity of certain people

inside it, during a mass festival. (29.4) The first step was to bring in arms and armour, for the foreigners who had already come to live there in anticipation of what was to happen, and for any citizens party to the plot who did not possess them: linen corslets, jerkins, helmets, shields, greaves,

sabres,

bows

and

arrows,

all

stowed

in

chests

used

for

transporting merchandise and appearing to contain clothing and other goods. (29. 5) When the customs officials opened the chests and saw inside what they took to be merely

clothing, they put them under seal pending the importers’ valuation; (29.6) and the chests were duly deposited near the agora. In addition, short spears and javelins—wrapped in wickerwork,

mats, and

half-woven

sails—were

also brought

in and placed unobtrusively at convenient points; bucklers and small shields were concealed in sacks containing chaff and

wool, other less bulky items in baskets full of raisins and figs, and daggers in jars of wheat, dried figs, and olives; (29. 7)

more daggers were brought in, unsheathed, in ripe

melons, pushed in at the bottom amongst the seeds; and as for

the instigator and leader of the plot, he came into town under a cart-load of twigs. (29.8) Night fell and the conspirators assembled, each waiting for the opportune moment when throughout the city, as inevitably happens during a festival, everyone had become thoroughly drunk. First the load of twigs was untied and the ringleader emerged ready for action. Then some of his men unrolled the wickerwork to get at the

short spears and javelins, some (emptied) the sacks of chaff and wool, some cut open the baskets, some opened the chests and took out the arms, and some smashed the jars in their haste to get at the daggers. (29.9) All these preparations were made within a short distance of each other and were coordinated by a signal—the one for battle formation—given in the city. (29. 10) Once the men had all armed themselves appropriately, some of them rushed to seize towers and gates, which enabled them to let (the) remainder of their men in;

others made for the civic buildings and the houses opposite; and the rest occupied various other points. (29. 12) For an enterprise similar to the one described, some men who needed shields and had no other means of

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AINEIAS THE TACTICIAN

providing or importing them brought in a quantity of osiers

and, at the same time, some workmen.

(29. 12)

By day

these men wove other kinds of basketry, but at night it was

armour—helmets and shields—that they plaited, reinforcing the latter with braces of leather and wood. One further point: do not ignore any boats, whether large or small, which sail in and drop anchor nearby, at night or in daytime. The harbour-guardians and dispatch-officers should

go on board and see the cargo for themselves—bearing in mind that when the men of Sikyon neglected such precautions they suffered a great calamity.

[Importing arms] (30. 1) Foresight is also necessary with regard to arms imported for sale and put on display in the agora or in the shops and markets. If collected together there might be a great

many (of them), so they must be placed out of reach of any would-be revolutionaries. disarm individuals shields and chests the lodging-houses. not be exhibited in

(30.2)

‘It is foolish, after all, to

on arrival while permitting boxes of small full of daggers to pile up in the agdra and Imported and collected arms must therefore the agora or left just anywhere overnight;

and they must not be offered for sale in bulk—merely

samples— (without)

as

official permission. [Secret messages]

(g1. 1)

ways

As regards secret messages, there are all sorts of

to send

them,

but they

(depend

upon) a

private

arrangement in advance between the sender and recipient. Here are the methods most likely to escape detection.

A message was once sent in the following manner. (31. 2) A book or some other document, irrespective of size and age, was inserted into a bundle or other baggage. The message had been written in it by pricking letters in (the first)

or second or third (line) with tiny dots, visible only to the recipient. Then, once the book had reached its destination, the

recipient made a transcript, writing out in order the marked

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85

letters from the first line, the second line, and so on until he

understood the message. (31. 3) A similar way of sending a short message is this.

First, write openly and at length about something, and then follow the same procedure of marking the letters to convey the

message you want. Make the markings as inconspicuous as possible: dots at long intervals or letter-strokes of different heights, which will make the message intelligible to the

recipient without arousing suspicion in others. (31.4) (Again), a man sent with news to tell or a message to deliver concerning something else which is no secret can, without his knowledge, have a letter inserted into the sole of his sandals and sewn inside there just as he is about to set off. For protection against mud and water it should be written on a thin sheet of tin, so that the water does not obliterate the letters.

(31. ga) Once the man has reached his destination and is resting for the night, the stitching of his sandals can be undone, the letter removed and read, and a reply written and secretly sewn back in while he is still asleep; and he can then be sent

back quite openly with a return message (or) even something to carry. (31.5) In this way neither the messenger himself nor others will be any the wiser—but make sure that the stitching of his sandals is as inconspicuous as possible.

(31. 6)

A message was once taken into Ephesos in the

following way: a man was sent with a letter written on leaves,

the leaves bound on to a wound on his shin.

(31.7)

A

written message can also be carried in on thin (sheets) of lead, rolled up and worn in women’s ears instead of ear-rings.

(32.8)

Once a traitor conveyed a note containing his offer

of betrayal to the enemy installed in camp outside his city.

What happened was that one of the cavalrymen setting out from town on a foraging expedition behind enemy lines had a

letter sewn under the waist-flaps of his corslet. His instructions were, if confronted by involuntarily from his prisoner, and

an enemy force, to appear to fall horse, allow himself to be taken

then, once inside the camp,

to hand

over the

letter to the appropriate person. And the cavalryman duly performed this fraternal service. (31.9) On another occasion a cavalryman was sent out with a letter sewn into his bridle-

rein.

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AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

The following episode also involved a message. While a city was under siege a man was admitted with some letters, but instead of delivering them to the traitor and (to the others) for whom they were intended he turned informant, going to the governor of the city and giving the letters to him.

(31. ga)

After listening to the man, however, the governor

told him to deliver these letters to the people for whom

they

were meant and to bring him their replies, as evidence that there was some truth in his accusations. The informant did this; and the governor, taking the letters and summoning the individuals

concerned

before

him,

showed

them

the

seals

made by their signet-rings—which they acknowledged to be their own—and then opened the documents and laid bare the plot. (31. gb) This way of proving their guilt seems a clever piece of work on his part, made possible by not taking the original letters from their bearer. Had he done so, the culprits would have been able to protest their innocence and claim that there was some conspiracy against them. By seizing only their replies, however, he proved his case against them incontrovertibly. (32. 10) For another way of conveying messages, take a bladder, as large as you need for the amount of writing to be done, and an oil-flask of the same size. Inflate and tie up the bladder, dry it thoroughly, and then write your chosen message on it in glutinous ink. (31. 12) Once the writing has dried, deflate and compress the bladder and push it into (the) flask, with the mouth of the bladder protruding from the mouth of the flask; (31.12) then inflate the bladder to its

fullest extent inside the flask, fill it with oil, cut off the part which is protruding from the flask, fit it to the flask’s mouth as inconspicuously as possible, and put the stopper in. The flask can be carried quite openly, its contents plainly oil and, to all appearances, nothing else. (31. 13) When it reaches the person for whom it is intended he empties out the oil, inflates the bladder, and reads the message; and he can wash off the words with a sponge, write his reply in the same way, and send it back. (32.14) There was also a case of someone writing on the wooden part of a tablet, pouring molten wax on it, and then writing something else on the wax; and when it subsequently

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87

reached its destination the recipient scraped off the wax, read the message, wrote a reply in the same way, and sent the tablet back again.

Another possibility is to write on a boxwood

tablet with

best-quality ink, allow it to dry, and then obliterate the letters with whitewash. When the tablet reaches the recipient he puts it in water, whereupon all the writing is clearly revealed. (31.15) You may also write whatever you like on a hero’s tablet, whitewash and dry it, and draw on it a horseman bearing a torch or any other picture you choose. His clothing

and his horse should be white or, failing that, any colour except black. Then give in some shrine near the (31.16) The man who shrine, identify the tablet

the tablet to someone to hang up city, as if in fulfilment of a vow. is to read the message must go to the by a pre-arranged sign of some kind,

take it home, and place it in oil; all the writing thus becomes

visible. However,

I shall now describe the most secret—and

most

troublesome—method of all: sending a message without writing. Here is what to do. (31. 17) Take a good-sized astragal and bore in it twenty-four (holes), six on each face, to stand for (letters; (31.18) and keep in mind) the sequence of letters on each face, as determined by which face begins with the A. Then, whenever you want these holes to represent a word, you pass a thread through them. If (for example) you want the passage of the thread to signify AINEIAS, you start from the face of the astragal where the A is and (pass the thread through); then ignore the succeeding letter-holes until you come to the face where the I is and pass the thread through again; then disregard the next holes and (pass it through) where the N is; then again ignore the succeeding

holes and pass the thread through where (the) Eis (...

);

and encode the rest of the word by passing the thread through

the holes in the same way as the AI(NE) which we have just ‘written’.

(32.19)

This will result in the astragal’s being

sent off wrapped in a ball of thread. (The) man who is to read the message has to transcribe on to a tablet the letters indicated by the holes. The unthreading is performed in reverse order to that of the threading, but it does not matter that the letters are written on (the) tablet in reverse order; the

88

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

message will be none the less comprehensible for that— though deciphering it is even more laborious than preparing

it.

(32.20)

A more manageable device would be a piece of

wood about eight inches long, bored with as many holes as

there are letters of the alphabet, through which the thread is passed as before. Whenever the thread has to pass through the same hole twice because a letter occurs twice in succession, it

is wound once round the wood before going through the hole

again. Alternatively, (321. 21) instead of the astragal or length of wood, make a polished wooden disk and bore a succession of holes round its rim for the twenty-four letters of the alphabet, adding others in the centre to avoid suspicion; then, with the holes representing alphabetical order, pass the

thread through them as before. (31.22) And whenever a letter has to be repeated, the thread, before returning to the same letter—by which I mean hole—is passed through one of

the holes in the centre. (31.23) It has also been known for people to write long lines of fine characters on very thin papyrus, so as to make the message as compact as possible, and then to insert it in the

shoulder of a tunic and fold back part of the tunic on the shoulder. Once someone has put on the tunic and is wearing it in this manner the message will surely get through, one feels, without arousing suspicion. (31. 24) Evidence suggests that thwarting plots to bring

things into a city is difficult. The people of Ilion { ... ) at any rate are still unable, after all this time and despite their utmost efforts, to prevent the entry of the Lokrian girls. No

matter how devotedly the Ilians keep watch, they are smuggled in, year after year, by a handful of individuals bent on doing so. (g1. 25) Here is a trick played in earlier times. When Timoxenos wanted to betray Potidaia to Artabazos, the pair of them agreed in advance on two spots, one in the city

and one in Artabazos’

camp,

(31. 26)

into which

they

used to shoot arrows carrying any information which one of them wanted the other to know. They contrived this by winding the note round the arrow by the notched end and

then feathering the arrow arranged places. (31. 27)

and shooting it into the preTimoxenos’ attempted betrayal

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89

of Potidaia was discovered, however, when a gust of wind and

some poor feathering made one of Artabazos’ arrows miss the designated spot and hit a Potidaian in the shoulder. As often

happens in war, a crowd rapidly gathered round the wounded man;

and

at once

the arrow

was

seized

and

taken

to the

generals, which is how the plot came to light.

(31. 28)

revolt)

When Histiaios wanted to send the signal (to

to Aristagoras

communiction—given

but

that

had

the

no

other

roads

safe

were

means

guarded

of

and

nobody carrying a letter could easily get through unnoticed— he shaved

the head

of his most

trusted

slave,

tattooed

the

message on it, and waited until the hair had grown again. (31.29) Then, as soon as (it had), he sent this tattooed man to Miletos, instructing him simply to tell Aristagoras, once he was there, to shave his head and examine it; and the tattoos

told Aristagoras what he had to do. (31.30) Another way of writing is to agree in advance to signify vowels by dots, corresponding in number to each

vowel’s order in the alphabet. (g1. 31) For example, DIONYSIOS DEHORNED becomes D)]...|....|N]......[S|...|....[S D|..|H] ..../R]N|../D, and HERAKLEIDAS HURRY is rendered H|..|R].|K| LI..|...|D].|S H|.....|R{R|...... . And these messages (should be

placed by the bearer) at some spot (known) to the recipient, who

recognizes from the man’s

arrival in the city and

his

purchase or sale of something that a message has come for him and has been deposited in the agreed place. In this way the

bearer does not know for whom it was brought, and nobody will realize that the recipient has it.

In Epeiros, dogs were widely used, as follows.

(31.32)

A

dog would be taken away from home on leash and a collar with a letter sewn inside put round its neck; then it would be released, at night or during the day, and would inevitably

return to its owner. The Thessalians do this (too). (31. 33)

Letter-tablets must be opened as soon as they

arrive. When a letter was sent to Astyanax, tyrant of Lampsakos, containing information about the plot which destroyed him, he actually neglected to open and read it straight away; instead he ignored it and gave other matters priority—and was still clutching it in his fingers when he

died.

(31.34)

The same mistake led to the capture of the

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AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

Kadmeia in Thebes; and something similar also happened at Mytilene in Lesbos. (31. 35) Glous, admiral of the King of Persia, once went before his master with a great many

important

matters

to

bring up. To carry a sheet of memoranda when going in to see the King, however, was forbidden; so Glous made a note of

what he needed to say in the spaces between the fingers of his hand. The gatekeeper must be painstaking in his attention to such

things, allowing nothing that is brought into the city, whether arms or letters, to escape his notice. [ Counter-contrivances] (32. 1) Your opponents’ assaults, with machines or troops, can be resisted in the following ways. In the first place, (sails) offer protection against missiles

coming over the wall from towers or masts or the like. Cover them with something taut, and once (they)

overshoot them. You thick smoke from possible, (32. 2) other tall structures

tear-proof, use capstans to stretch them are in position the projectiles will have to

should also start fires (which will emit) below and make as big a blaze as and raise in defence wooden towers or made of sand-filled baskets or stones or

bricks. (Even) cross-woven wickerwork can stop the missiles.

(32. 3)

Be prepared

in addition for rams and similar

machines being directed against the battlements: protect them by hanging in front of them sacks filled with chaff, bags of

wool, fresh ox-hides either inflated or filled with something,

(and)

other

things of this kind.

(32. 4)

Whenever

a

machine is managing to breach either a gate or any part of the wall you should lassoo its projecting end € stop its blows; (32.5) and have ready a stone, large enough to fill a wagon,

to drop on to and smash the drill. The stone should be held in place with clasping-hooks and dropped from the forebeams. (32.6) Make sure that the stone does not miss the drill as it falls by first lowering a plumb-line and dropping the stone

after it as soon as it touches the drill. (32.7)

Here is another excellent counter-measure against

attempts to breach the wall. When you know the point against

TRANSLATION

91

which the attack is directed, you get ready a counter-ram on the inside of the wall at that point and dig through part of the wall just as far as the outer layer of bricks, so as not to forewarn the enemy. Then, when their machine is close at

hand you deliver a blow from inside with the counter-ram— which will be much the stronger of the two.

(32. 8) As regards large machines used for bringing forward troops in quantity and for launching missiles, especially from catapults and slings, and firing incendiary arrows on to the houses which have thatched roofs, you must counter them initially by having the men in the city excavate,

in secret, beneath where the machines are to approach, so that their wheels fall through and sink into the holes. Then an internal barricade should

be built, from sand-filled baskets

and some of the available stones, which will overtop machine and neutralize the enemy’s missiles. (32. 9)

the At

the same time hang out thick curtains or sails as protection

against incoming missiles; any which get over the wall will be caught and easily collected, and none will reach the ground. (32. 10) And do the same anywhere else on the wall where

missiles can come flying over and disable or wound those on duty or passing by there. (32. 11) You must also be ready with counter-measures

at any point where the enemy have brought up a shelter to enable them to dig through or demolish the wall. (32. 12) Stop them digging by lighting a large fire, and stop the wall collapsing by excavating an internal trench to keep them out; and before the wall either collapses or is dug through build a counter-wall at the same time, if you cannot thwart them in any other way. [Starting fires] (33. 1) When the enemy do bring up shelters you should pour pitch and throw tow and sulphur over them and then drop on to them a burning bundle of sticks tied to a rush rope. Materials of this kind, suspended outwards from the wall, can also be thrown on to machines as they are being brought forward. The way to burn up machines, however, is

(33.

2)

to

prepare

pieces

of wood

shaped

like

pestles

92

AINEIAS

but much and

THE

TACTICIAN

bigger, each with sharp iron spikes,

larger,

hammered

into its ends and

(smaller)

pieces of highly

combustible material separately fastened on everywhere else,

top and bottom—so as to look like an artist’s impression of a thunderbolt. Drop this on to the oncoming machine and its design

will ensure

its sticking into the machine

and, once

stuck, keeping the fire going. (33-3) Next, if there are any wooden towers in the city or if the wall is partially made of wood, the parapets must be

provided with coverings of felt and hide to prevent the enemy burning them. (33. 4) But if gates are set on fire, bring logs and throw them on, to make it as big a fire as possible,

until you can dig a trench inside and hastily build a barricade from whatever materials you have to hand—pulling down the nearest houses if nothing else is available

[ Quenching fires] (34. 1)

Ifthe enemy attempt to set anything on fire with

highly combustible material, vinegar will put it out, and also make

it hard

to re-start. Even

better, though, is to smear it

beforehand (with bird-lime), which does not catch fire at all.

(34. 2) Those engaged in putting out fires from a height should shield their faces if they want to be less troubled by the flames leaping up at them.

[Combustible materials] (35.1) Here is how you yourself can make a fierce fire which will be quite impossible to quench: fill bags with pitch, sulphur, tow, powdered frankincense-gum, and pine sawdust,

set light to them, and place them next to anything of the enemy’s that you want to burn down.

[Preventing the placing of ladders] (36.1) The placing of ladders against the walls can be foiled (as follows). If the ladder, when in place, projects higher than the wall, wait until (the) man climbing it has reached the top and then—should a hail of arrows from below preclude any

TRANSLATION

93

other means of stopping him—use a wooden pitchfork to push either him or his ladder away. (36. 2) If the ladder is exactly level with the top of the wall you will be unable to push it away; in that case it is the people coming up and over who will have to be pushed off. But if this seems (impossible) you must employ a sort of door-panel constructed from planks, which, as the ladder is being brought against the wall, is placed just in time under the top of it. When the ladder comes into contact with the panel—which has been made to run on a roller underneath—the panel is gradually removed and

the ladder, failing to stabilize itself against the wall, is

bound to fall over. [Detection and prevention of tunnelling] (37. 1)

Here is how to prevent tunnelling. If you believe

that it is going on you must dig the trench outside the wall as

deep as possible, so that the tunnel will open into the trench

and expose the tunnellers to view.

(37. 2)

In addition, if

you have the means, build a wall in the trench, using the hardest and largest stones available. Alternatively, if there is no way to build a wall of stones, bring wood-shavings

{...);

(37. 3)

and if the tunnels do open out (at any

point) into the trench, pile the wood and shavings there and set them alight. Cover the rest of the trench to channel the smoke into the tunnel; it will be injurious to the men inside and perhaps even kill many of them. (37. 4) It has even been known for people to release wasps and bees into the

tunnel to plague the men inside it. (37. 5) If, however, you know where the tunnel is being dug you should undermine it with one of your own, counter-

attacking (the) fighting force in the tunnel and burning them out.

(37. 6)

A story is told about the distant past ( .. . )

when Amasis attempted tunnelling during his siege of Barka.

The Barkaians were aware that (the) attempt was being made but had no idea how to locate or anticipate the tunnel until a smith thought of a means of discovering it. This was to go round the internal perimeter of the wall with a bronze shield-plate and apply its inner side to the ground.

94

AINEIAS

(37-7)

THE TACTICIAN

Naturally enough, applying the plate at most points

produced no sound, but there was an audible resonance above

where the tunnelling was in progress; so the Barkaians dug their own tunnel at that spot and killed many of the enemy

tunnellers. As a result this method of locating a tunnel at night is still in use.

(37. 8) So much for a description of the advisable means of defence against an opponent’s stratagems. If, however, you are intending to dig tunnels yourself, here is the strongest sort

of protective screen. (37.9) You have to take two wagons and press down on their rear ends to fold them together, so that their poles are raised in the air and converge towards the

same point, where you bind them together. You then tie more timbers, mats, and other protective coverings on top, coating them all with clay. A screen constructed in this way can be wheeled out where you want it and wheeled back again, and the tunnellers can work underneath it.

[ Reserve troops] (38. 1) During the enemy’s assaults on the wall, with machines or with actual troops, the fighting men inside the town should be divided into three groups, so that there will be one fighting, one resting, and one preparing for action—and

thus always men on the wall who are fresh.

(38. 2)

In

addition a large body of picked men must accompany the general on his circuit of the wall, to relieve any sector which it

finds hard pressed. I say this because an enemy is more fearful of a force which may come to attack them than the one already

there. Keep all dogs chained up, too, at such times: (38.3) they will not be used to the sight and the commotion of armed men running all over the town, and might attack and harass them.

(38. 4) Give appropriate encouragement—a word of praise here, an appeal! there—to each of the men fighting on the

wall.

But

disheartened

do

not

make

by (losing)

the

rank-and-file

your temper.

even

(38. 5)

more

If it is

necessary to scold anyone for inattention and indiscipline, singling out the most wealthy and influential of the citizens will serve as a lesson to the rest. The occasions when any such

TRANSLATION failings

are

best

overlooked

have

95 been

discussed

in the

Addresses.

(38.6)

Do not permit indiscriminate stone-throwing; and

make arrangements for retrieving at night stones which have

been thrown during the day, by (38.7) lowering men over the wall in baskets to collect them. Once they have done so they should climb the wall by boar-nets or deer-nets hung out

for the purpose or on rush-rope ladders—

(38. 8)

one for

each collector, for a rapid ascent if any of them get into difficulties. The gates, you see, must not be opened at night;

use ladders of this kind instead, or anything you please.

[Ruses] (39. 1) Here are more sorts of tricks for the besieged to employ. Dig a trench in the gateway and for some distance inside it,

leaving room to pass on both sides, and then send out men to skirmish with the enemy and induce some of them to join the

rush back into town.

(39. 2)

Your own people, as they flee

into the city, must of course run in along the two sidepassageways which have been left; but any of the enemy who run in with them will not be forewarned about the trench— especially if you camouflage it— and will probably fall into it and be promptly killed (by the men) inside the city. Some of the latter should be in position in the alleyways and in places

at the traps near (the) gates. (39. 3)

If too many of the enemy are drawn in and it is

desirable to contain

middle of reinforced the enemy down. In

them, you

must

have

ready, above

the

the gate, a portcullis of the stoutest possible timbers with iron. (39.4) When you then wish to cut off as they rush in, this portcullis is dropped straight addition to killing some of the enemy as it falls it

impedes the entry of the rest, and while the enemy are at the gates they can be shot at by the men on the wall.

(39. 5) Ifenemy forces do ever join in a rush back into the city it is also essential, always, to have a pre-arranged place of rendezvous there for your own men, so that their position can identify them as such. This is because distinguishing friend

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AINEIAS

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TACTICIAN

from foe, in the commotion of a jumbled mass of armed men

all rushing in together, is no easy matter. (39-6) A method employed before now against an enemy who has over-confidently come closer to the wall than was

prudent, at night or in daytime, calls for the preparation of nooses—hidden by day but unconcealed at night—and the tactic of drawing the enemy forward by skirmishing and then hauling up those caught in the nooses. (39.7) The noose

must be made of the strongest rope to be had, and the line that lifts it should be a chain for the first three feet from the noose, so that it cannot be severed; the rest, the hauling part, can be

rush-rope. The whole thing is lowered and raised, from inside thé wall, by ropes or swing-beams. If the enemy attempt to cut their way out the defenders can foil them by using the swing-

beams again to let out slack. The point is that the use of chains to prevent this is impracticable and unwieldy, as well as expensive.

[Guarding a city] (40.1) Ifthe city is a large one, with a circuit-wall too long for its inhabitants to man all the way round, you will want nevertheless to guard it properly with the forces at your

disposal. To do this you must use whatever materials are available to raise the height of the wall anywhere in the city where it is easily approached, so that if any of the enemy either creep or force their way up they will be unable to jump down from such heights—having had no experience of doing so—and will retreat for lack of a way down. Keep (some of) your available men on guard on each side of these built-up stretches, to kill those who do make the jump from the top.

(40. 2)

Dionysios once wanted

to occupy a city which

he had conquered, but its inhabitants were either dead or in exile, and it was too large for a small garrison to defend. (40. 3) So what he did was to (instal) some overseers, together with the few troops he could spare, and to marry (the) slaves of the city’s most influential men to the daughters, wives, and sisters of their masters. This, he calculated, would

make the slaves bitterly hostile to their masters and more loyal to him.

TRANSLATION (40. 4)

When

the people of Sinope

97 found

themselves

dangerously short of men during their war against Datamas, they disguised and equipped the most physically suitable of

their women to make them look as much as possible like men, giving them jugs and similar bronze utensils in place of shields and helmets, and promenading them on the side of the wall where they were in fullest view of the enemy. (40.5) They were not allowed to throw anything, (however): a woman is recognizable a long way off by the way she throws. And care was

taken,

meanwhile,

to prevent

deserters from

disclosing

what was happening. (40.6) Ifyou want the patrols on the wall to appear more numerous than they really are, have them go round two abreast, the front rank carrying their spears on the left shoulder, the second on the right; in this way they will seem to

be four abreast. (40.7) If, however, they go round in a file of three, the first man should have his spear on his right shoulder, the second on his left, and so on; in this way each

man will look like two. (40. 8)

As regards grainless rations, shortages during a

siege, and the means of making water fit to drink, these are matters discussed in my book Preparations; so having dealt with them I pass on to the organization of a fleet. There are two ways of equipping a naval force . .

COMMENTARY

Aineias begins his treatise with a short preface or foreword which ‘has the appearance of having been composed with especial care. The effort to achieve a literary style is much

more conspicuous than in the remainder of the book’ (Hunter/ Handford 102, cf. Ixxx; see also Bettalli 82 and 84). For the theme of si vis pacem para bellum cf. Thucydides 4. 92. 4—the

speech of the Theban Pagondas—and other (Hellenistic and later) passages cited by F. Lammert, Klio 31 (1938) 389-411,

at 396-7; and on the place of this preface in ‘the development of the fourth-century defensive mentality’ see Ober 69 ff. Preface 1. It is impossible to detect the ‘direct reference’ which, according to Loeb 9, this opening sentence makes to a prior treatment of how to mount (as opposed to withstand)

siege operations, a discussion whereof what we have is further conjectured to be actually, and merely, the second half. But

the whole notion is misconceived in any case: see Introduction, p. 15. Preface 2. shrines. An indispensable element, no doubt, in any list of ‘the fundamentals’ which a Greek citizen-soldier would

hold

dear:

compare

(very

much

e.g.)

Aeschylus,

Persians 402-5, the war-song at Salamis; Thucydides 7. 69. 2, Nikias to his troops at Syracuse in 413. Aineias’ own attitude

to religion, none the less, is distinctly businesslike: see esp. 10. 4-5, ch. 17, and 31. 15-16.

and

so on.

The

failure to specify wives is striking, and

probably not only to a modern eye. Contrast (e.g.) Homer,

Iliad 8. 56-7,

10. 418-22,

15. 496-9, etc.; Callinus 1. 6-8;

Aeschylus, Thucydides, in preceding note; Lycurgus, Against Leokrates 2; Polybius 3. 109. 7 (L. Aemilius Paullus in 216, before the battle of Cannae).

Preface 3. manifestly their own fault. The stigma of military defeat and failure is a commonplace in Greek

COMMENTARY

99

literature from Homer (Jliad 2. 297-8) onwards; cf. especially

Thucydides 5. 111. 3, on the particular disgrace of failing through one’s own fault rather than misfortune.

Preface 4. certain Greeks. Particularly the post-Leuktra Spartans (Hunter/Handford 102)? Conceivably so, though the feat may have been commoner than we realize (Belyaev 250). There is no call to understand ‘Greeks’ here as standing in implicit contra-distinction to non-Greeks; for that—explicitly—see 24. 17 and note.

‘

1. 1. the state. A rendering, notoriously inadequate, of the Greek word ‘polis’ (cf. Preface 1 and passim). It has a variety of nuances in Aineias, most of them topographical (Barends

note)

118-19), but here the contrast with asty (see next

suggests

that ‘the city as a community

of citizens’

(Hunter/Handford 103) is the appropriate connotation; cf. Y.

Garlan, REG 81 (1968) 286.* urban centre.

This is Aineias’ solitary use of the term asty

(though see the note on 10. 5, citizen). It can sometimes exclude the akropolis or citadel (for which see 1. 6, 22. 19, 29. 1) but need not do so here (Hunter/Handford

sentries and patrols.

103).

See principally chs. 22 and 26 (and

the note on 22. 9, patrol as far as the next station). 1.2. danger-spots. In addition to the ones which Aineias goes on to specify here, see 15. 6-7. commanding heights. Etymologically ‘higher ground on the right’ (Ayperdexios), the side poorly protected by shields carried on the left arm (Loeb 28 n. 1; Budé 2 n. sometimes used more loosely: see Pritchett 4. 76-81.

ambush-points.

1), but

On the ambush motif in Aineias, particularly

prominent in chs. 15-16 and 23, see Pritchett 3. 184-5.

river-crossings.

cf. 8. 1 and note, Rivers.

100

1. 3.

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

remain within the walls.

I follow Budé 2 n. 2 in

construing the adjective teicheres so broadly (cf. 23. 4, where its meaning is tantamount to ‘besieged’). The alternative (Loeb

29; Hunter/Handford restricted sense.

3) envisages

garrison-troops

guard the citizens. ‘The paramount necessity not only the city but also the citizens [cf. 22. 7] is melancholy, feature which runs throughout the (Hunter/Handford 103; cf. Ste. Croix 298 with

in the

of watching a striking, if whole book’ some exact

references in n. 57). But in fact the idea of supervision seems linked with that of protection (Budé 2 n. 3); see also next note. For politophylakes, the noun (‘citizen-guardians’) cognate with the verb used by Aineias here, see Aristotle, Politics 1268°22-3

and, at Larisa, 1305°29. 1. 4.

attached

preceding

surveillance.

note)

to the authorities. is

Aineias’

the

dual

notion

perspective

Here again

(cf. the

of safeguarding

is a military

one:

and

civil

officials had turned traitor before (e.g. 11. 3-6, 23. 7-11) and their trustworthiness could not be taken for granted. (The ‘authorities’, archontes, in Aineias are sometimes, e.g. 13. 3, military as well as civil—see generally Budé xxi; Celato, ‘Grecia’ 216 with n. 5—though hardly so here.) This ‘Consiglio militare’ (Celato loc. cit.), of unspecified but presumably small size, is mentioned again in 17. 6, but references elsewhere to bodies of picked men (16. 7, 26. 10, 38. 2) seem unconnected, even with each other. See further on 16.

7, the picked men.

1.5.

capacity for hard work.

There is no good reason to

believe, with Hunter/Handford 104, that age is the criterion here, as it is in 1. 8. This is an élite corps, selected on a political basis (1. 6) which necessarily operates ad hominem. companies.

Division into ‘companies’

again at 13. 1 (mercenaries),

(lochoi) is mentioned

15. 3, 26. 1, and 27. 12 (and

company-commanders (lochagoi)—of mercenaries—figure in 13. 1-3 and 22. 29). Indications of the size of a fourth-century lochos vary considerably, e.g. twenty-four men in Xenophon,

COMMENTARY

101

Kyroupaideia 6. 3. 21, fifty in Xenophon, Anabasis ı. 2. 25, a hundred ın Anabasis 3. 4. 2ı and 4. 8. ı5; and unlike (e.g.) Barends 84 and Belyaev 245 I do not (cf. Bude 27 n. 1) regard it as self-evident that Aineias consistently had the same-sized

unit in mind: 15. 3, for example, implies (pace Hunter/ Handford 147) a high figure, 26. 1 a low one (Hunter/ Handford 188; Barends 84). For companies and regiments see

the notes on 22. 29, regimental-commander, and 27. 12. 1.6. A forte sounding of the chord which has been quietly struck in 1. 3; it will reach fortissimo sostenuto in chs. 10-11. The metaphorical usage of akropolis is at least as old as the sixth century: see Theognis 233; and cf. Simonides 137 Bergk; Euripides,

1. 7.

Orestes 1094; Plato, Republic 506 B; etc.

someone

. . . change of regime.

Compare

the

choice of a gatekeeper in 5. 1 and of guards in 22. 15.

1.8. the number of the watches. Both this passage and 22. 4-5 suggest that the number was flexible, though in 18. 21 a four-night watch is presupposed. See the note on 22. 24,

resetting the clock every ten days. 1. 9.

the mass of ordinary people.

As a category (the

fourth introduced in 1. 4-9!) even broader, evidently, than ‘the remainder’ of 1. 8, this is taken by Hunter/Handford 105 to embrace free aliens and even slaves. However, since Aineias

gives not the slightest indication elsewhere in the treatise of advocating the inclusion of non-citizens—other than mercenaries and allies—in a polis’ defensive manpower (see the note on 10. 8, immigrant), what he means here is surely the poorly armed lower reaches of the citizen body (thus Lehmann 78),

including non-combatants. open spaces.

Referred to again in 2. 1-2, 2. 7-8, and 3. 5.

The agora and theatre are singled out again in 3. 5; beyond them,

Aineias

is thinking

(particularly

in 2.

1) of ‘waste’

land—‘les espaces libres aussi bien bordés de constructions que non encore batis’ (Budé 4 n. 1; cf. Barends 63)—as well as

102

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

any other formal features (such as gymnasia,

on which see

Wycherley 139-53). 2. 1.

digging

trenches.

cf. (when

the city is actually

under attack) 32. 12, 33. 4, 37. 1-3, 39. 1.

2. 2.

Here occurs the first of Aineias’ numerous historical

illustrations, and a recent one (summer 362, shortly before the battle of Mantineia; see generally Buckler 210—11)—probably too recent for his source of information (‘the story goes’) to be written rather than verbal. Delebecque 444 prudently rejects the possibility that Aineias’ account derives from Xenophon,

Hellenika 7. 5. 9-14, only to conjecture, unconvincingly (cf. Budé 4 n. 2), that it was Xenophon who used Aineias. Notice that both 2. 2 and 2. 3—6 illustrate blocking-off tactics in a general way, rather than (as 2. 1 would lead us to expect) their specific value as an impediment to internal treachery.

large bronze tripods.

Supporting cauldrons: see, e.g., A.

M. Snodgrass, Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment (London 1980) 52-4 and 62, with fig. 2. Sparta is called ‘manytripoded’ by the third-century poet Alexander of Aitolia (Palatine Anthology 7. 109. 4). 2.3.

On another occasion.

Thus Loeb 33; cf. ‘similarly’

(Hunter/Handford 5); but Aineias himself actually switches to this second illustrative episode (2. 3-6) very abruptly. It is generally accepted that Aineias’ account of this Theban attack on Plataia in spring 431 is drawn from our prime

Rüstow

source

for it, Thucydides

149; Hug

10-11;

2. 2-6

(thus, e.g., Kôchly/

Loeb 33 n. 2; Hunter/Handford

107-8; Bude 4 n. 3; Celato, ‘Enea’ 60 n. 35; Losada 100; Lehmann 71 n. 3; Brown 388; Gehrke, Stasis 132; Bettalli 83 n. 32); E. Cavaignac, REA 30 (1928) 151 casts gratuitous doubt on the matter (though see next note). For another borrowing from Thucydides see 38. 2 and note, an enemy etc. 2.4. These delaying tactics on the part of the authorities are not mentioned by Thucydides.

COMMENTARY

2.5.

draught-animals.

Handford

7)

but

also

generally,

on

heavy

103

Not necessarily horses (as Hunter/ mules

and,

transport

in

above

the

all,

ancient

oxen;

see

world,

A.

Burford, EHR 13 (1960/1) 1-18. 2.6.

womenfolk and slaves.

They were positioned there,

as Thucydides 2. 4. 2 recounts, to hurl stones and tiles at those below. (This was a standard tactic, for women (and tiles) at least: cf. (e.g.) Thucydides 3. 74. 1, Pausanias 1. 13. 8, 4. 21. 6, and 4. 29. 5, and other instances collected by D. Schaps, CP 77 (1982) 193-213, at 195-6, and by Harvey 73-4.) Aineias’ concern, explicit in the next sentence, is to highlight the

barricades at the expense of other elements in the story; cf. Hunter/Handford 107.* “Womenfolk’ is an attempt

to capture

in translation

the

flavour of Aineias’ neuter plural gynaia (his sole use of the word, as against nine cases of the more common

and more

grammatically flattering gynaikes). It perhaps (Barends 31) embraces girls as well as women— though there is no factual warrant in Thucydides for this—and in any case seems to share some of the masculine disdain of 40. 5.

2. 7.

these tactics.

That is, blocking off the unnecessary

open spaces (2. 1). One can regard 2. 7-8 as ‘clearly in the nature of a modern foot-note’ (Hunter/Handford 109, following Fischer 12), though in fact this might be more appropriately said of 2. 2-6.

one open space. Presumably Wycherley xx and passim). the plotters.

Note

an

agora

(on

which

the definite article: their existence

see is

taken for granted (cf. 10. 3).

2.8.

if they were all seized, etc.

‘Optimistic reasoning,

for it is difficult to see where the defenders themselves could muster in force if the enemy had occupied all the open spaces’

(Hunter/Handford

110).

outnumbered by each group alone. A hypothetical condition but an arresting one, given the picture elsewhere in the

104

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

treatise of small factions of conspirators: Lehmann 76 with n. 20. all other plans etc. whole,

therefore,

This is applicable to the treatise as a

and

represents

a

nice

combination

of

modesty with an injunction to readers to think for themselves; see the imaginative expansion in Hunter/Handford 110.

3.1.

sudden terror.

Occasioned, evidently, by a sudden

attack. Contrast the groundless fears—panics—discussed in ch.

27. by lot. Its use, here and elsewhere (e.g. 3. 6, 20. 2, and cf. 18. 21), is regarded by Lehmann 75-6 as one of several

indications

that

Aineias

is

writing

for

a

polis

with

a

democratic constitution; I agree with Urban 1000 that it is more probably a security measure with no constitutional implications.

tribe.

cf. 11. 7-11 (Argos and Pontic Herakleia). In 3. 1-2

tribal subdivision of the polis 1s taken for granted, without (pace Celato, ‘Grecia’ 217 n. 9) specification that it will necessarily be territorial in nature. (For territorial and nonterritorial tribes alike, Jones now provides an exhaustive body of evidence and discussion.) On the tribe as ‘un élément de sécurité, de stabilité” in Aineias, see Villard 306-7.

3. 3.

fortifications.

The

Greek

term phrourion regularly

means an outlying fort (Hunter/Handford 111; Lawrence 137). Barends 153 understands it here as ‘station in the

guarding of a town’; but Aineias perhaps chose a word broad enough to cover both.

allies.

They could sometimes be valuable helpers in such a

task (e.g. Xenophon, Hellenika 1. 1. 26, Syracusans at Antandros in 410) but for Aineias represented in general a potential source of trouble: see 12. 1-3, 26. 7.

where the wall can be mounted. Restricted access to such points (by wooden ladders and/or stone steps: see Winter 149) is recommended in 22. 19-20 and 26. 1-7.

COMMENTARY

105

3. 4. already. I follow Hunter/Handford 112 in this inference from Aineias’ employment of the perfect tense; see also 4. 1 and 10. ı. In any event the scheme put forward in 3. 4-6 operates on a different basis, or at least at a different level, from

that

of 3.

1-2—and

both

of them

cut

across

the

(subjectively) hierarchical organization advocated in 1. 4-9. street ...street-commander. For an (extremely hypothetical) example of such a system, the pyrgoi of Teos (cf. 18. 1319), see Jones 308- 10.

3-5.

open spaces.

See the note on 1. 9, open spaces.

3.6. children and wives. A strikingly un-modern order, though far from universal in Greek idiom, as is sometimes claimed (e.g. by K. J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality (London 1978) 65; see rather T. Hudson-Williams, Early Greek Elegy (Cardiff and London

1926) 76-7). Most writers are actually

inconsistent—or else, if consistent, unfathomably so—in

this

regard. (For Thucydides’ usage, with thoughtful comments on the question generally, see Harvey 73-7 and, especially, 78.) Aineias’ own preferences vary: contrast 3. 6 and 5. 1 with 24. 7.

as will be seen.

Where? Not, to be sure, in the chapter

following but, one can only assume (with Budé 7 n. 1), in the remainder

of the

treatise

as

a whole.

The

alternative,

a

retrospective demonstrative (‘as above’: Hunter/Handford 9, cf. 112) is uncomfortable both linguistically and in its equal lack of a precise point of reference (since, pace Lehmann 78 n. 26, the ‘leaders’ here look like a broader category than merely the street-commanders of 3. 4—5). But in truth this is Aineias at his most frustratingly vague.

4. 1.

pre-arranged.

Sce above, on 3. 4, already. Never-

theless the context shifts, as so often in Aineias (see Korus

511): from procedures already in place in peacetime (3. 4-6) the backcloth now becomes war (4. 5).

Chalkis on the Euripos. . In Euboia; the best known of numerous poleis of that name but given a qualifier here to

106

obviate

AINEIAS

any

doubt

on

THE

TACTICIAN

the point

(cf.

11.

roa and

12. 5,

‘Herakleia on the Black Sea’, and 20. 4, ‘Apollonia on the Black Sea’). Where doubt does arise is over the identity of the

episode in question (4. 2-4). Loeb 38 n. 1 (tentatively followed by Marek/Kalivoda 559) favours the traditional ascription to the (?)eighth-century ‘Lelantine War’ (on which see generally L. H. Jeffery, Archaic Greece: The City-States c. 7005008C (London

1976) 63-7), while the much later alternative

advocated by Hunter/Handford

113-14, the events of 357/6

(Diodorus

nos.

16. 7. 2-4 with Tod

153-4), has convinced

(e.g.) Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 66-7, Belyaev 251 (though cf. 252!), and Celato, ‘Enea’ 54 n. 5. Not all of Hunter/ Handford’s arguments are equally strong—in 4. 8—11 there is

an excursus into the archaic period which is in no way signposted as such; but whether or not the incident is one we know (and it may well not be: Budé 8 n. 1; Gehrke, Stasis 38 n. 1), the amount of detail given here—always provided that it is not fantasy—does tell against an early date.

4.2.

sawor file...sawing.

A notorious textual crux, but

perhaps needlessly so. Most editors (e.g. Köchly/Rüstow 223; Schöne 8; Loeb 38-9; Budé 8 with n. 1) extract from the garbled Greek here a tale of a brazier used for burning through the cross-bar of the gate. That, however, seems an enterprise of unacceptably conspicuous danger, even in ‘the most

deserted part of the city’. I have therefore followed the version (and text) of Hunter/Handford 8-9 and 114-15; it is palaeographically unexceptionable ( pristera € rhinen, ‘saw or file’, for pyrgastren, ‘brazier’, and diaprisas, ‘sawing’ (cf. 19. 1), for diaprésas, ‘burning’), it makes excellent sense, and it

possesses the additional virtue of prefiguring chs. 19 and 20. 2. (For cutting through a cross-bar unnoticed cf. (e.g.) Thucydides 2.4. 4 (Plataia, 431) and 4. 111. 2 (Torone, winter 424/3).) A

compromise, suggested to me by Brian Bosworth, would be to envisage the exile merely warming himself by his fire until the opportunity to deploy a saw; on that view ‘brazier’ could stand. 4. 3. about two thousand men. This, as Belyaev 244-5 points out, is the largest figure of its kind in the treatise.

COMMENTARY

107

failed to recognize one another, etc. For this problem, and ways to avoid it, cf. 24. 17-18, 25. 1-2, 39. 5 (and Thucydides 4. 68. 5-6—Megara, 424—with Losada 107 n. 1).

4.5.

daytime and night-time signals.

More precise than

4. 1 (and 4. 12). The distinction is drawn again in. 6. 7, with the additional indication that the signals—of both varieties— envisaged by Aineias were routinely visual rather than aural ones (though see the note on 7. 2, relay-stations). For firesignalling, at night, see ch. 7, especially 7. 4. On the exact nature of daytime (visual) signals he is silent, but incidental passages in historical writers suggest that, over long distances, reflecting sunlight from a polished shield was a well-tried method (Herodotus 6. 115 ff, Xenophon, Hellenika 2. 1. 27, etc.;

see Budé

4.7.

12 n. 2).

actual incidents.

Only one is proffered, in fact (4. 8-

11); others which might have been include two Thucydidean ones cited by Budé g n. 1—3. 112 (the Ambrakiots at Idomene, winter 426/5) and 7. 44 (the Athenians at Syracuse,

413). 4. 8-11. This episode, from the 560s (and evidently one of the ‘great exploits’ which paved the way to Peisistratos’ tyranny: Herodotus 1. 59. 4; A. Andrewes in CAH 3. 3, 2nd edn. (Cambridge 1982) 373 and 397), is Aineias’ only direct appeal to the history of Athens (though see 11. 13 and 24. 16 for individual Athenian generals). There is a complex

relationship between his version and those of our four other extant sources, notably the ‘popular’ account in Plutarch, Solon 8; it is discussed briefly by Hunter/Handford 115-16 and R. P. Legon, Megara: The Political History of a Greek CityState to 336 ac (Ithaca, NY 1981) 126-8, cf. 136-7; more fully by (e.g.) A. Hug, RAM 32 (1877) 629-32; A. J. Beattie, RAM 103 (1960) 21-43, at 38 ff; and T. J. Figueira in T. J. Figueira/ G. Nagy (eds.), Theognis of Megara: Poetry and the Polis

(Baltimore 1985) 280-5. See further, next note. 4. 8.

Thesmophoria.

A: festival

celebrated

by

women

only. See L. Deubner, Attische Feste (Berlin 1932) 50-60; H.

108

W.

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

Parke, Festivals of the Athenians (London

for Greece

generally,

Burkert

242-6.

This

1977) 82—8; and,

passage

aside,

evidence for a local Thesmophoria (in the upper case: the word is unjustifiably watered down by—see under preceding note—Hug

631-2

and Figueira 282) at Eleusis is less than

explicit: S. Dow/R. F. Healey, A Sacred Calendar of Eleusis (Harvard Theological Studies 21; Cambridge, Mass. 1965) 32-8; D. Whitehead, The Demes of Attica, 508/7-c. 250BC: A Political and Social Study (Princeton 1986) 80 and 189-90. That fact in itself, however,

cannot

prove

the authenticity of the

alternative setting of the episode, at Cape

Kolias. The two

problems actually chase each other’s tails. 4. 10. those best suited to accompanying a naval expedition. cf. 40. 4 (Sinope), ‘the most physically suitable of their women’. 4. 11.

female captives.

cf. 24. 7.

(Then the Athenian soldiers weré ordered).

The exact

words which once stood in this textual lacuna are disputed (see Hunter/Handford 116) but this must be their general

sense. daggers. for

The most appropriate rendering—given the need

concealment—of

the

Greek

encheiridia,

both

here

and

equally in 17. 3, 24. 6, 29. 6-8, and 30. 2; see however the note

on 24. 2, SWORD and DAGGER. 5-1. gatekeepers. They are unsurprisingly crucial—but for the pun, one might say key—figures for Aineias: see further 18 passim, 24. 8, 28. 2, 29. 2, 31. 35. On the selectioncriteria cf. 1. 5-7 and 22. 15; and see further below, children

and a wife. everything as it is brought in.

What the gatekeeper must

be on the look-out for is succinctly summarized in 31. 35: arms (ch. 29) and letters (ch. 31).

children and a wife. (For the order see the note on 3. 6, children and wives.) For children representing ‘a stake in

COMMENTARY

109

the community’ cf. Thucydides 2. 44. 3 (the Periklean funeral speech);

Dinarchus

1.

71;

Onasander,

Generalship

1.

12.

Aineias’ metaphorical use here of the word enechyron to describe the military stimulus exerted by the need to protect family and property (its more common and concrete use appears in 10. 7) finds a later parallel in Philo Judaeus, On Farming 149; and compare generally the Latin pignus.

5. 2. Leukon. Fourth representative (reigned probably 389/8-349/8; on the imperfect tense here see Introduction, n. 20) of the Spartokid dynasty, rulers of the area straddling the

Kimmerian Bosporos (Straits of Kertch) at the top of the Black Sea. See in brief M. I. Rostovtzeff in CAH 8 (1930) 564 ff., and Tod no. 115; more fully R. Werner, Historia 4 (1955) 412-44. Further testimony to Leukon’s canniness appears in Polyaenus

6. 9, including bodyguard.

(6. 9. 2) another anecdote

Ancestrally

concerning

close relations, stemming

his

from

the

grain trade, with the Aegean make it unproblematical that such

insignificant

circulated;

there

details

(so

Belyaev

is no call to wonder,

252) with

should Budé

have

ro n.

1,

whether Aineias knew him personally. even. For Aineias the argument obviously applies a fortiori (‘if Leucon would not allow his bodyguard to get into debt, much less should the more important [gatekeepers] be chosen from the ranks of debtors’: Hunter/Handford 117). Leukon himself might well have disagreed.

gambling.

Specifically, on the throw of (six-sided)

dice.

(On ancient dice see the note to 31. 17.) For debtors in general, as a threat to security, see 14. 1 with note,

unanimity. 6. 1 ff. Handford

Scouting in Greek warfare is discussed by Hunter/ 118-19

and,

more

fully,

Pritchett

1.

127-33.

According to Ober 197, ‘the [fourth-century] Athenian signal system was in fact designed in accordance with the suggestions of Aeneas (6. ı-4)’.* 6.1. anelevated point. Like those in Euboia occupied by daytime scouts during the invasion of Xerxes: Herodotus 7.

110

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

183. 1, 192. 1, 219. 1. Notice also the Herakleot trumpeter up a tree in Polyaenus 5. 39. chosen etc. Another rationale for a multiplicity of scouts— the prevention of treacherous collusion—is illustrated by Polyaenus 5. 33. 6 (on the otherwise unknown Arkadian general Pompiskos).

6. 3.

The

experienced

man

etc.

Like

Demokrates

of

Temnos in Xenophon, Anabasis 4. 4. 15. On the gullibility of patrols cf. (e.g.) Xenophon, Hipparchikos 7. 15.

6.4. 6.

relay-stations. 5.

fleet

seemingly,

See the note on 7. 2, relay-stations.

of foot. is

the

(Hunter/Handford

Rather

adjective 119);

a poetic

which

phrase—but

Aineias

cf. the notes on

10.

uses,

so,

podokeis

10, vagrants,

and 32. 5, large enough to fill a wagon. 6. 6.

suitable for horses.

unsuitable 26. 4.

(8.4)!

For

mounted

And not deliberately rendered patrols inside

the

town

see

6. 7. password. On passwords in the treatise generally (especially chs. 24-5), and elsewhere, see Garlan, ‘Synthemata’,

and the note on 24. 1, passwords.

(different from the one in the city).

The textual problem

here is explained by Hunter/Handford 119-20, but I have preferred the solution to it adopted by Budé 12. In any event the substantive point (conveyed also by 24. 16, on Iphikrates) is clear enough.

under duress.

This deadpan phrase (symptomatic of Aineias’

‘impassibilité de technicien’, according to Budé xxviii) excites, without at all satisfying, our curiosity to learn more of torture in Greek warfare, psychological (as in 10. 23) as well as physical.

fire-signallers.

See 7. 4 and note.

COMMENTARY

7.

1.

There

is a particularly

Iii

striking

example

of what

Aineias envisages here in Xenophon, Hellenika 7. 5. 14 (Mantineia in 362). Notice also, e.g., Thucydides 4. 88. 1, for a decision made by men (the Akanthians in 424) ‘fearful for their crops’.

7. 2.

gathered inside the city.

See 10. 3, and the next

note.

return.

The word should imply, if pressed, an agricultural

labour-force

largely

resident

in town;

and

indeed

there

is

ample support elsewhere (e.g. Xenophon, Hellenika 5. 4. 3, Thebes)

for such a picture. By contrast passages like 10. 3

and, especially, 16. 2 presuppose a substantial rural population needing to be evacuated or assisted. Yet there may be no genuine contradiction here, even within a single polis. For the complex settlement-patterns in the sort of fourth-century polis which Aineias is catering for, see the detailed study of Mantineia by S. and H. Hodkinson, ABSA 76 (1981) 239-96, esp. 271-91.

relay-stations.

There is merit in the (unelaborated) sugges-

tion of Barends 37 that the signals to be relayed here—unlike the more purely military ones of chs. 4 and 6— might be aural rather than visual; an aural signal or alarm will better attract the attention of people who are not necessarily expecting it. This is even more true of the two close-range signals of 7. 3, perhaps given by trumpet (for which cf. 9. 1, 22. 3, 22. 22, 27. 4).* 7.4. The first of four citations Preparations, which collectively contents. From its treatment of 6. 7, 15. 1, 16. 16—editors

(see also 8. 5, 21. 1, 40. 8) of give us some notion of its fire-signalling—for which cf. universally suppose that a

substantial portion has been preserved, apparently in indirect quotation, in the fragmentary tenth book of Polybius (i.e. from the Polybian excerpta antiqua, on which see W. E. Thompson in The Greek Historians— Literature and History: Papers Presented to A.

E. Raubitschek (Stanford 1985) 1 19-39, esp. 125 ff.). At 10. 437, Polybius has a lengthy excursus on various methods of firesignalling, including, at 10. 44, that of ‘Aineias, the writer of

112

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

the military treatises’. With the condescending air of one inventor (see 10. 45. 6 ff.) towards a struggling predecessor, Polybius (10. 44. 1, elaborated at 45. 1-5) pronounces Aineias’ recommended method slightly superior to the primitive systems of earlier times but still decidedly inadequate for transmitting the unpredictable variety of messages which might arise: He says that those who intend to exchange urgent messages by means of fire-signals should prepare two earthenware vessels exactly

the same size in both diameter and depth; their depth should be three cubits [c. 4/2 feet] and their diameter one. They should then prepare corks, slightly smaller in diameter than the mouths of the vessels, and in the middle of these corks fix rods calibrated in equal segments of three finger-breadths, each marked by a clear dividingline. Within each segment should be inscribed one of the most obvious and universal wartime occurrences: in the very first, for example, CAVALRY ARRIVED IN THE TERRITORY, in the second HEAVY INFANTRY, in the third LIGHT-ARMED MEN, in the next INFANTRY WITH CAVALRY, then sHips, afterwards GRAIN, and so on in succession until

all the segments have had written on them the contingencies and occurrences to which the established circumstances of war will most likely and predictably give rise. This done, he instructs us carefully

to pierce both of the vessels in such a way that the outflow pipes are equal and carry off an equal amount of fluid. Then the vessels are to be filled with water, the corks with their rods laid on top, and the outflow pipes started running simultaneously. Once this is happening it plainly stands to reason—with everything equal and identical—that the corks will descend into the vessels and the rods be lost to view commensurately with the fluid outflow. Having verified that these processes do take place in uniform synchronization, we are then told to take one of the vessels to each of two places where it is the intention to watch out for the fire-signals. Then, as soon as any of the things inscribed on the rods actually happens, he says to raise a torch and wait for the answering signal from those with orders to give it; and when both of the torches are visible at the same time, to

lower them and immediately start the outflow pipes running. The torch is to be raised again [i.e. on the signalling side] once the cork and rod have fallen low enough to indicate, on the rim of the jar, the

message desired. At this the others instantly stop up the outflow pipe and look to see which of the things written on the rod is level with the rim; and this—provided every operation is performed at the same speed on both sides—is the transmitted message.

COMMENTARY

113

Diagrams of this device are provided by (on an ascending scale of detail) Diels 81, Hunter/Handford

123, and-—unneces-

sarily complicated, and not at all what Aineias describes— Wilsdorf, fig. Polyaenus 6. communicate century). For

45 (cf. fig. 12. 2 is to with their critiques

46 for the similar contraption used, if be believed, by the Carthaginians to troops in Sicily in the (?)early fourth of Aineias’ proposed method, taking

their cue from Polybius’ own, see W. Riepl, Das Nachrichtwesen

des Altertums (Leipzig and Berlin 1913) 66 ff, Diels 81-2; Hunter/Handford 121-3; Budé xxix. Ober 198 is more generous than most in insisting that ‘while it is not known whether this system was ever put into practice, the principle behind it is practicable’. On the wider area of Greek fire- (and smoke-) signalling generally, embracing as it does such celebrated testimony as the opening scenes of the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, a select

bibliography must suffice here: Riepl (see preceding paragraph) 46-74; Diels 71-90; R. J. Forbes, Studies in Ancient Technology 6, end

edn.

Havelock/J.

(Leiden P.

1966)

Hershbell

171 ff; J. (eds.),

P.

Hershbell

Communication

in E. Arts

A.

in the

Ancient World (New York 1978) 81-92; Ober 197-8. Hunter/ Handford 120-1 assembles a convenient dossier of ancient references, though the view that the Greeks’ acquaintance

with fire-signalling did not antedate the Persian Wars seems squarely contradicted by the evidence of Homer: see particularly Iliad 18. 207-14. 8. 1 ff. On ‘scorched earth’ strategies such as are advocated here see Hanson 98-100. Actual examples of their implementation are rare. One is Xenophon, Hellenika 6. 5. 50: part of the reason why the Thebans left Lakonia in 370 was that their potential supply of provisions had been variously concealed, destroyed, and burned. See also—outside Greece— Herodotus 4. 120 and 140 (the Skythians, against Dareios, in 514); Xenophon, Anabasis 1. 6. 1, 5. 2. 3; Arrian, Anabasis 1. 12. 9-

10, 3. 19. 1, 3. 28. 8-9. In Thucydides 1. 143. 5 Perikles is made to doubt his ability to persuade his fellow-Athenians to

forestall the Spartan devastation of Attica by undertaking it themselves; and the degree .to which limited (Thucydides 2. 14. 1).

they did so was duly

114

8.1.

AINEIAS

Next.

THE

TACTICIAN

‘A vague and unsatisfactory connexion, certainly

not fitting on well to c. vii. The precautions mentioned here must precede those mentioned there in actual order of time.

Probably

it only

indicates

a change

of topic’

(Hunter/

Handford 124). It is at any rate not the case, pace Bude xxiii— xxiv, that ch. 8 marks one of the treatise’s major internal divisions; see Introduction, p. 19.

Rivers.

Their presence, as (potentially) significant features

of the terrain, seems assumed without question (as in 1. 2); cf. next note, on the sea. Budé 14 n. 1 cites, in Xenophon,

Anabasis 2. 3. 10-14, a good illustration of tactical inundation (by the Persians) to hinder an enemy’s progress; see also Loeb 49 n. 1 and Hunter/Handford 124-5. 8. 2. Here occurs the first of numerous direct indications (‘on land or at sea’ in Preface 1 and 4. 5 being little more than a cliché) that Aineias’ polis will have some degree of access to the sea; cf. 10. 8, 10. 12, 16. 13, 16. 21, 28. 4, 29. 12, 40. 8.

Their possible implications for the question of the treatise’s authorship are discussed with an excess of special pleading by Hunter/Handford xvi, xxvi, and

125; Celato, ‘Grecia’ 219-20

is more judicious: Aineias was evidently familiar with maritime states, even if he did not hail from one himself. ruses. Like everything else in 8. 2-4 they are left tantalizingly unspecified, because dealt with elsewhere (see 8. 5, with Budé 14 n. 2). ‘Pits in sandy districts, and rocks rolled down from the cliffs on a rocky shore, suggest themselves’ (to Hunter/

Handford 125). If the element of concealment and surprise is uppermost here, one might also think of, for instance, the spiked iron caltrops (triboloi) which were a particular hazard to cavalry: Polyaenus 1. 39. 2 (Nikias at Syracuse in 415), etc.; Garlan, Poliorcétique 386-7. See generally, on obstacles and traps, Hanson 92-4.

barriers . . . at the harbours.

For the ad hoc closure of a

(very wide) harbour mouth, to trap an enemy already inside, see Thucydides 7. 59. 3 and 69. 4 (the Athenians at Syracuse in 413). The evidence for more permanent structures,

COMMENTARY

115

including the Aleithron at Chios mentioned later by Aineias himself (11. 3), is assembled by Garlan, Poliorcétique 388-9. 8. 3.

cf. 21. 1 (and the note on 8. 5, below).

8.4.

make the still waters undrinkable.

sources

of water

(‘that is lakes,

pools,

Rendering such

wells,

and

cisterns’:

Loeb 49 n. 2, cf. Marek/Kalivoda 559) literally undrinkable can only mean purposely polluting (cf. Hanson

poisoning

them.

Hunter/Handford

100 n. 25) or

126 declares

that ‘this

horrible practice was against the spirit of Greek warfare’; but in fact this was true only of wars of a special, ‘holy’ kind (Aeschines 2. 115, the rules of Delphi’s Amphictionic League; cf. Tod no. 204, Il. 37-8; G. Daux in Studies Presented to D. M.

Robinson, 2 (St. Louis 1953) 775-82; P. Siewert, Der Eid von Plataiai (Vestigia 16: Munich 1972) 76-80). Thucydides 2. 48. 2 records a belief amongst the inhabitants of the Peiraieus in 430 that the outbreak of plague there was the result of the

Peloponnesians

poisoning

their

cisterns.

Half

a

century

earlier, the Athenians may have deliberately fouled their own water supply before abandoning the city to Xerxes: thus E. D. Francis/M. Vickers, ABSA 83 (1988) 143-67, at 150-1.

8.5.

repetition.

As Hunter/Handford 124 notes, Aineias’

concern to avoid this (cf. 7. 4) is sometimes unsuccessful: compare (e.g.) 7. 3 with 18. 1, 8. 3 with 21. 1, 10. 15 with 22. 23. For his Preparations see the note on 7. 4. 9. 1 ff. The authenticity of this chapter is convincingly defended (against the nineteenth-century charge of interpolation) by Fischer 24-7 and Hunter/Handford 126-7; cf. M. Cary, JHS 47 (1927) 268; see also, on ch. 16, Hunter/ Handford 149-50 and Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 56 n. 37. With the deception recommended by Aineias here compare

the trick of Iphikrates, to head off a Theban attack on Athens in (?)369, reported by Polyaenus 3. 9. 20.

9. 1. an assembly. The lower case seems appropriate (pace Celato, ‘Grecia’ 218), given ‘soldiers or citizens’. Although

an

authorized

public gathering

(cf.

10. 4), it is

116

AINEIAS

probably

THE

what Thucydides

TACTICIAN

2. 22.

1 meant

by a xyllogos as

opposed to an ekklesia; see Gomme in HCT 2. 76;J. Christensen/ M. H. Hansen, C & M 34 (1983) 17-31. (That the ‘soldiers’ here are foreign mercenaries, as assumed by Parke 95 n. 1, is inconceivable. )

9.2.

reported.

The inevitability of this is taken utterly for

granted.

9. 3. a bold initiative. On the aggressive element in Aineias’ strategic thinking see Korus 513 with n. 30; Ober 72.

10.1.

Something else which should already have been

done. ‘Something else’ connects naturally, as Hunter/ Handford 126 and 129 points out, with ch. 8 rather than ch. 9. I also follow Hunter/Handford

129 in giving the past tense its

full weight; cf. the note on 3. 4, already. The effect of this is to emphasize the break between 10. 1-2 and 10. 3 ff.—a break realized, in any case, to be importantby whoever inserted the rubric ‘Announcements’ before 10. 3 rather than 10. 1.

draught-animals

or slaves.

A significant ranking-order,

some would claim (Belyaev 253; Korus 516); however, the cautionary comments of Harvey 78 on the analogous case of

children and women wives)

may

(see the note on 3. 6, children and

be pertinent here too. At all events the ‘slaves’

(Aineias’ solitary use of the stark neuter plural andrapoda) here are manifestly those who both live and work in the countryside; it emerges

indirectly

from

10. 5 that those

based

in town

already will stay there. See on this point Celato, ‘Grecia’ 2234; Garlan, ‘Esclaves’ 46; Welwei 57, stressing that, nevertheless, there is no question of levying or recruiting them (cf. the

note on 10. 8, immigrant). remove them for safe keeping. Aineias uses the verb hypektithesthai for this, a technical term well attested in what we know of both actual events of this kind and the advance provision made for them (in treaties, etc.). An exhaustive literary and epigraphical dossier, with discussion of the

COMMENTARY

117

procedure in all its facets, is provided by H. Müller, Chiron 5

(1975) 129-56.*

the neighbours. That is, the people of neighbouring poleis, with whom prior amicable relations are presupposed in 10. 10; cf. Celato, ‘Grecia’ 222-3. 10. 2.

foreign contacts.

(xenia),

on

which

see

More precisely, guest-friendship generally

G.

Friendship and the Greek City (Cambridge

acting in their official capacity.

Herman,

Ritualised

1987).

This perhaps implies

payment from public funds (so Budé 16 n. 1; the alternative possibility raised there, ‘des décrets honorifiques’. is rightly condemned by H. Müller, Chiron 5 (1975) 136 n. 18 as irrelevant to this passage).

10. 3. after a certain length of time. Alternatively ‘from time to time’, or the like (Köchly/Rüstow 33; Loeb 53; Barends 157; Budé 16). But I have preferred a version, following Hunter/Handford 129 (cf. Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 63 n. 51), which both reflects the shift between 10. 1-2 and ro.

3 ff. (see the note on 10. 1, Something else which should already have been done) and, particularly, regards 10. 3 ff. as the once-for-all imposition of martial law. (A similar phrase, and interpretative dilemma, occurs in 10. 10.)

the plotters.

cf. 2. 7 and note; the definite article must not

be lost sight of (as it is by Loeb 53 and Hunter/Handford contrast Budé 16); cf. the note on 9. 2, reported.

17;

FREE PERSONS. With the agricultural slaves already gone (10. 1), the countryside will thus be completely empty (‘free

persons’

plainly extends

beyond

citizens; in any case the

presence of (free) non-citizens inside the town is presupposed at 10. 5 and elsewhere) and all available manpower under the eye of the commanding general; see Introduction, pp. 24-5. On the theory and practice of evacuations generally see Pippidi 241; Garlan, Poliorcétique 19-86, esp. 44-65; Hanson 87-101; Ober 51-66, esp. 55-6.

118

crops.

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

Examples of the removal of foodstuffs, growing and/

or stored, include Herodotus 5. 34. 1 (Naxos, 500), Thucydides 5. 115. 4 (Melos, 416), and Diodorus 13. 81. 3 (Akragas, 406); see in general Hanson 87-9. SEIZED WITHOUT REDRESS. Better known as an inter- than an intra-community sanction; but B. Bravo, ASNP 10 (1980) 675-987, at 799 ff, assembles some instances of it ‘à l’intérieur d’une cité’.

10.4.

A strikingly matter-of-fact attitude toward the niceties

of customary religious observance and sensibility is displayed here (and in 10. 5): military security comes a clear first. On the contrast in this regard between Aineias and (e.g.) the

pious Xenophon see Hunter/Handford xxxiv and Budé 16 n. 2. FESTIVALS...IN TOWN. This is doubtless to be envisaged, in most poleis, as the imposition of uniformity upon a mixed pattern of rural and urban locations: Hunter/Handford 130 notes, without further comment, that this restriction is absent from ch. 17; but there Aineias is once

more

presupposing

‘peacetime’

conditions

(Marinovich,

‘Struggle’ 57, cf. Mercenariat 205-6).

NO PRIVATE MEETINGS . . . MEETINGS WHICH ARE ESSENTIAL. Celato, ‘Grecia’ 218 and 224 understands the latter as a subset of the former. But more probably Aineias intends an absolute prohibition of private gatherings (allowing only the particular exceptions made, in 10. 5, for weddings and funerals). ‘Essential’ meetings are seen as by definition public meetings, in nature as well as location, even if they may sometimes defy strict constitutional classification (see the note on 9. 1, an

assembly). THE PRYTANEION. À multi-purpose public building: see generally S. G. Miller, The Prytaneion: Its Function and Architectural Form (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1978), esp. 4-24. THE COUNCIL-CHAMBER.

Aineias actually says ‘in the council’

(boule itself, as opposed to its meeting-place the bouleuterion);

COMMENTARY

119

this is perhaps shorthand for ‘in the presence of the boule in the bouleuterion’, but in an otherwise purely locative context it is odd phraseology. (I thank Prof. P. J. Rhodes for advice here.)

On bouleutéria see generally W. A. McDonald, Meeting Places of the Greeks (Baltimore 1943)

SEER.

The Political

127-2809.

On seers in a military context see in brief Hunter/

Handford 130; at length Pritchett 3. 47-00, citing this passage of Aineias at 49 and adding that ‘the implication is that the seer might have a fatal influence on public opinion’. If public

opinion is to be influenced, the presence of ‘the [chief? appropriate?] official’—provided he is trustworthy!—will ensure that the ceremony and its interpretation proceed along approved lines; cf. Spaulding 55. Anecdotes recording official as well as unofficial manipulation of sacrifices may be individually suspect (e.g. Plutarch, Moralia 214 E-F, on Agesilaos) but are too weighty in aggregate to be discountable.

10.5.

COMMUNAL DINNERS.

Hunter/Handford 17 translates

‘club’ dinners, with a (these days) amusingly Wodehousian

note appended (‘the excuse of “dining at the club” was apparently no less popular in the fourth century Bc than it is to-day as a means

of escaping occasionally from

circle’: Hunter/Handford

the home

130). There is at any rate nothing

military about the syssitiar (clubs) here, in contradistinction to

the syssitia (messes) of 27. 13 (Hunter/Handford 193; Budé 16 n. 3; Celato, ‘Grecia’ 224 n. 45). WEDDINGS

AND

former,

Erdmann,

W.

FUNERAL-FEASTS.

See

generally,

on

the

Die Ehe im alten Griechenland (Munich

1934) 255-61; on the latter, R. S. J. Garland, The Greek Way of Death (London 1985) 39-40 with 146. exiles. “The most dangerous class of enemies to the established government’ (Loeb 53 n. 4), as 4. 1 has already illustrated. In addition to 10. 5-6 see 10. 16-17. citizen.

Here and in 10. 8 Aineias uses the term astos (cf. the

note

1.

on

1, urban

centre)—perhaps

in keeping

with

120

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

proclamations and regulations of this kind (e.g. Thucydides 6. 27. 2)—instead of his usual polites.

10.6. inspectors. Or ‘censors’ (Loeb 55; Hunter/Handford 17; cf. Budé 16), since that was presumably the essence of their role and function (though it may be doubted whether

serious

conspirators

will

have

made

much

use

of open

correspondence when so many covert media could be devised: see ch. 31). Parallels for the routine inspection of mail are hard to seek, but Loeb 55 n. 1 may have found a reasonable one in the portitores of New Comedy (Plautus, Trinummus 7945; Terence, Phormio 149-50; etc.).

10.7.

one set of arms and armour.

Aineias’ allusions to

arms and armour are frequently ambiguous,

and here it is

possible (as Dr A. H. Jackson suggests to me) that he means not one set but one item; that is, that the register is to include all sorts of potentially dangerous odds and ends such as hunting spears and swords, which might otherwise escape notice.

But

after

reflection

I

have

adhered

to

the

usual

interpretation, on the basis of which 10. 7 as a whole still allows for an adequate working knowledge of the quantity and ownership of arms and armour in the beleaguered city (given) that foreigners will be disarmed on arrival: 10. 9). These and other passages (notably chs. 29-30) revealing Aineias’ anxiety over arms control and procurement are discussed by Mossé 334-5; cf. Celato, ‘Grecia’ 225, esp. nn. 47-8.

soldiers.

Mercenaries,

in plain

terms.

Their presence

is

taken entirely for granted by Aineias, and its hazards represent a major preoccupation for him: see especially 10. 18-19, chs. 12-13, and 22. 29. For discussion see Parke 94-6;

Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 67-77; Celato, ‘Enea’ 65-6; W. Lengauer, Greek Commanders in the 5th and 4th centuries Bc: Politics and Ideology (Warsaw 1979) 107-10; Marinovich, Mercenariat 197200 and 219 ff.

10.8.

immigrant.

Aineias uses here—for the only time—

the word metoikos, the most widely attested of several etymologically related terms which designate those (free)

COMMENTARY

121

aliens that a polis considered and treated as residents, not visitors (see generally D. Whitehead, AC 53 (1984) 47-59). (The ‘foreigners in town’ of 10. 13 I take to embrace visitors (10. g-10) too.) The metoikoi of Athens formed a routine component of that city’s military manpower (D. Whitehead,

The Ideology of the Athenian Metic (PCPS suppl. 4: 1977) 82-6), and their counterparts elsewhere could be so regarded in an emergency (e.g. Megalopolis in 318: Diodorus 18. 70. 1); it is therefore striking (cf. Lehmann 78) that Aineias’ distrust of foreigners of any and every kind evidently precluded his recommending this.

leave by sea.

But not if they leave by land? The assumption

here that Aineias’ polis will, rather than merely might (as in 16. 21), be coastal (see the first note on 8. 2), and indeed land-

locked, is sudden and unexplained. identity-token. An imperfect translation, but still preferable to ‘passport’ (as Loeb 55; cf. Budé xxx and 17; Celato, ‘Grecia’ 220; Losada 112; Mosley 78) or even ‘pass’ (Hunter/

Handford 19 and 131). The essence of a symbolon, at least of the type in question here (and in Aristophanes, Birds ı21215), is its physical divisibility into halves, one of which remains in the hands of the authorities to be matched against the other as and when it is presented. The discussion of all this

by Gauthier, Symbola 75-6, is definitive. 10.9. disarmed. and armour. innkeepers.

See the note on 10. 7, one set of arms

Rather a despised

breed

(Plato, Laws 918 ff;

Theophrastus, Characters 6. 5; cf. Horace, Satires 1. 1. 29, 1. 5.

4), in whom

it is even clearer in 10. 10 that Aineias reposes

little trust.

10. 10. from the outside. Perhaps with a Lakonian key (Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazousai 421-3, etc.), which operated thus; see generally I. M. Barton, Greece & Rome 19 (1972) 2531, esp. 27.*

122

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

After a certain length of time. See the note on 10. 3, after a certain length of time; and below, on publicly expelled. vagrants.

Another word (cf. the note on 6. 5) with poetic

reverberations: talapeirioi. Belyaev 245 assigns it an excessively broad connotation here—the sick and the destitute; it may

well, more objectively, mean no more than those who have been

unable

or

unwilling

to find

themselves

registerable

lodgings (10. 9).

publicly expelled.

The phrase inevitably calls to mind the

alien expulsions, xenélasiai, associated pre-eminently with Sparta (on which see H. Schaefer, RE 9A2 (1967) 1436-8).

Analogous practices elsewhere are often assumed (e.g. by Celato, ‘Grecia’ 221 n. 32), but in some respects mistakenly (such as for Crete: see D. Whitehead, AC 53 (1984) 50). This

passage of Aineias is too vague and fleeting to be of much assistance in the matter. He appears to envisage mass rather

than individual expulsions, but that still leaves obscure—as it is in the Spartan case also—the question of whether their timing was cyclical and

automatic or simply at (irregular)

need.* a register.

Permitting their continued residence, evidently.

They will not be regarded as immigrants (10. 8) but as a special category of foreign nationals safeguarded from the ignominy of summary expulsion.

neighbouring states.

See 10. 1-2 and the note on 10. 1, the

neighbours. educational reasons. ‘An interesting reference to a subject of which we know very little—education in other parts of Greece besides Athens’, Thus, unexceptionably, Hunter/ Handford 131; most of the illustrative assemblage of other such evidence appended (Hunter/Handford 131-2) is otiose,

however, in pertaining to the education of children; Aineias surely

had

in

mind

older

youths

and

adults

(and

their

teachers). See rather Loeb 55 n. 3; Celato, ‘Grecia’ 221 n. 31.

COMMENTARY

123

10.11. With Aineias’ recommendations here (on which see Mosley 9) cf. for instance the Athenians’ precautions in respect of the Spartan envoy Melesippos in spring 431 (Thucydides 2. 12. 2).

tyrants.

See the note on 22. 19, a tyrant’s citadel.

armies in camp.

On their propensity to behave like poleis

on the move see in brief C. Mossé, REA 65 (1963) 290-7; more fully (not to say verbosely), G. B. Nussbaum, The Ten Thousand: A Study in Social Organization and Action in Xenophon’s Anabasis (Leiden 1967); also S. Payrau, REA 73 (1971) 2479, at 66; Marinovich, Mercenariat 196. 10.

12.

‘From

the

later

fourth

century

and

into

the

Hellenistic and Roman periods throughout the Greek world we hear a great deal about private or privately assisted state

actions to secure grain. Private persons, first foreigners and then

residents,

both

citizens and

metics,

either furnish

free

grain or grain at the normal price at a time of shortage and high prices, or provide loans without interest or at a low interest for the purchase of grain’ (M. H. Jameson in P. D. A. Garnsey/C. R. Whittaker (eds.), Trade and Famine in Classical Antiquity (PCPS suppl. 8: 1983) 6-16, at 12). Aineias 10. 12

succinctly

illustrates the embryonic

form

of this nexus

of

practices, evolved to help large and small poleis alike through temporary food-shortages, which were all too common (as opposed to genuine famines, which were rare: the distinction is drawn, and pressed, by P. D. A. Garnsey, Famine and Food

Supply in the Graeco-Roman passim).

oil.

World (Cambridge

1988) 6-7 and

More than a foodstuff (cf. 28. 3), of course: see chs. 19

and 31. 12-16.

incentives.

Their exact nature is left unstated. Most discus-

sions (e.g. Loeb 56 n. 1; Hunter/Handford 132; Budé 17 n. 4) visualize some sort of profit-fixing: the state—which has undertaken to purchase the cargo in bulk—formally guarantees a return, or bonus over and above ordinary profit-margins,

124

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

large enough to warrant the risks of running the blockade (cf. Thucydides 4. 26. 5: Pylos, 425) without need for excessively

high prices to the eventual consumers. However, the commonest meaning of the word Aineias uses, fokoi, is actually interest (cf.

14. 1), and H. Engelmann, ZPE 51 (1983) 126-9 argues forcefully for that meaning here too: the state will literally pay whatever interest importers are charged on the capital they

need

to borrow

to buy their cargoes. Another

suggested to me by Brian Bosworth, advantageous loans by the state.

and a crown in his honour.

would

possibility, be

specially

Aineias’ thinking here—add

honour to profit—is exactly paralleled in Xenophon, Poroi 3.

4. See Gauthier, Poroi 84-6 on this and for some examples of Athenian honorific decrees of this kind (more in P. D. A. Garnsey, Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World

(Cambridge and

1988)

P. Gauthier,

154-62); for other cities see Pippidi 241, Les Cités grecques et leurs bienfaiteurs (BCH

suppl. 12: 1985) 66 ff.

the ship’s captain.

The least unsatisfactory translation of a

term, naukleros, which actually has a shifting locus of meaning;

see Vélissaropoulos 1 and passim. beaching and re-launching facilities. Free of charge, presumably—though again (cf. above, on incentives) we are left frustratingly short of full comprehension. See Loeb 57 n. 2;

Hunter/Handford 10.

13.

132; Budé 17 n. 5.

foreigners

in

town.

See

the

note

on

10.

8,

immigrant. Here, more directly than ever (cf. 10. 9), is the cardinal point that the only non-citizens involved in the city’s

defence are mercenaries and (possibly) allies. 10. 14.

their markets and shops.

The key word here is

‘their’ (cf. Loeb 57), i.e. Aineias does seem to imply that these

retail outlets are in foreign hands (cf. 30. 1-2). The Greek lends itself less well to the alternative interpretation, which

sees the foreigners as customers rather than proprietors (‘les entrepôts et les marchés leur seront fermés’: Budé 18).

COMMENTARY

10. 15.

carry a lantern.

125

More to be seen by than with:

witness 22. 23. The broader relationship between the curfew regulations in 10. 15 and in 22. 23-4 is admittedly unclear,

and it can be argued (Budé 18 n. 1, followed by Celato, ‘Grecia’ 222 n. 35) that the former apply to foreigners, the latter to citizens. I prefer to see a break in sense and subjectmatter

between

applicable Handford

10.

14

and

10.

to the population

15,

such

that

as a whole and

10.

15

is

(cf. Hunter/

133) 22. 23 merely reiterates it.

a monetary

reward.

For illustration of this see Meiggs/

Lewis no. 83 (Thasos, late fifth century), with other instances appended; and cf. 10. 16-17.

10. 16.

a monarch or general or ruler in exile.

Hardly

three discrete categories, either here or, re-arranged, in 10. 17.

For attempted elucidation see Budé 18 with (esp.) n. 2 (though the tentative suggestion that Aineias may be adopting

here ‘non plus le point de vue de la défense, mais celui des attaquants qui assiégent la ville’ is thoroughly Celato, ‘Grecia’ 231-2, esp. 231 n. 70.

unhelpful);

(anyone... reward). This is another instance (cf. 4. 11) where a phrase has been lost but its general sense can be reconstructed—in this case both from the next sentence and from tyrannicide and allied legislation actually enacted at (e.g.) Athens (Andocides 1. 96-8, etc., with M. Ostwald,

TAPA 86 (1955) 103-28), Miletos (Meiggs/Lewis no. 43), and Ilion (OGIS no. 218, 11. 19 ff.). See Loeb 58 n. 1; Bude 18 n. 2.

10.17.

(part).

Marinovich, supposition.

‘Half’ (Loeb 59, following Schöne 19; cf.

‘Struggle’

64

n.

56)

10. 18.

mercenaries.

10.19.

(ANYSUCH MALCONTENT).

can

be

no

more

than

See the note on 10. 7, soldiers.

This fills the lacuna as

neutrally as possible; it may actually have contained something

rather more precise.

126

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

THE PENALTY IS IMPRISONMENT.

Here I depart from the text

and, hence, the translation (‘la prison ou l’amende’) of Bude

18 (cf. Casaubon following

1657; Marinovich, Mercenariat 219). In the

sentence,

the

third

and

last

of the

regulations,

Aineias uses the noun zemia in its broad sense of ‘penalty’ (see also 10. 13); that immediately beforehand it should have its

narrow sense of ‘fine’ is therefore improbable; so (with Kôchly/Rüstow 36, Schône 20, Loeb 58, and Hunter/Handford 20) I take the word which follows desmos, imprisonment, to be not € (‘or’) but the feminine definite article hé. See further on

22. 29, the customary penalty. THE PREVAILING LAW. Or merely norm/custom? Greek nomos was a word of fluid connotations (see generally M. Ostwald, Nomos and the Beginnings of the Athenian Democracy (Oxford 1969), esp. 20-54); this is its solitary appearance in

Aineias, and I am less confident than previous translators and commentators (and Barends 94) that ‘law’ is necessarily what he meant by it; cf. the cognate passive participle in 22. 29 and

24. 2. 10. 20. unanimity. The concept is homonoia, literally ‘being of one mind’ (see Introduction, n. 80). It and its attainment preoccupied many other fifth- and, particularly, fourth-century writers besides Aineias (10. 20, 14. 1, 17. 1, 22. 21)—see (e.g.) R. Andreotti, Historia 5 (1956) 257-302, at 282-5; Celato, ‘Grecia’ 227-30; W. C. West, GRBS 18 (1977) 307-19, esp. 319-10; Kerferd 149-50—but nowhere else are the means to the end addressed so pragmatically. For analysis see Celato, ‘Grecia’ 230 ff; Garlan, Poliorcétique 180-3; Lehmann 73-4; Urban 996-9; and the note on 14. 1, unanimity.

during a siege.

So that attention can be concentrated on

the enemy outside the walls (22. 21).

10. 21.

Dionysios.

That is, Dionysios I, tyrant of Syracuse

405-367 (cf. 40. 2-3 and note). Aineias is the sole source for

this particular incident, which is dated between 388 and 386 (the year of Leptines’ exile: Diodorus 15. 7. 3) by Stroheker 130 and, less justifiably, in the preceding decade by (e.g.) Loeb

COMMENTARY

61

n.

1

and

Hunter/Handford

127

133.

Dionysios’

fraternal

suspicions here have a precedent, as Hunter/Handford notes,

in

those

(Diodorus

10. 22.

of an

earlier

tyrant

of Syracuse,

134

Hieron

11. 48. 3-5).

a city called Himera.

On Sicily’s northern coast,

and as far distant from Syracuse as Dionysios’ writ ran. ‘The phrase . . . suggests that [Aineias] knew, or at all events expected his readers to know, very little about Sicily’ (Hunter/ Handford xxxvii n. 1, cf. 134). The only other identifiable references to Sicilian history occur in 31. 31 and 40. 2-3.

10.23.

hostages.

They are specifically children, as is soon

made clear. The practice was common, and the psychology behind it elucidated perfectly well here. For evidence—in abundance—and discussion see R. Lonis in Mélanges offerts a L. S. Senghor (Dakar 1977) 215-34, at 222-4; on hostages more generally, M. Amit, RFIC 98 (1970) 129-47.

brought forward ...sadend. This cold-blooded exploitation of (adult) hostages was employed by Agathokles in his siege of Ityke (Utica) in 307 (Diodorus 20. 54. 2-7).

10. 24.

not know in advance.

cf. 22. 7, on guard-duty in

general.

10.

25.

for surveillance’s

sake.

The

transmitted

text

here, although (characteristically) defended by T. W. Allen,

RP 10 (1936) 204, has otherwise been universally recognized to be garbled. Schone 22 and Budé 20 mention but decline to

adopt the correction suggested by Köchly/Rüstow 38. With Loeb 62-3 and Hunter/Handford 22-3 (rationale at 134-5) I follow it here, faute de mieux. it has been known.

Here, as elsewhere (e.g. 31. 23, 37. 4,

39. 6), Aineias uses a vague form of words which of itself precludes certainty as to whether he has in mind one occasion or several.

In

this

case,

however,

the

Peloponnesian

War

furnishes good examples of what he describes in 10. 25-6 (e.g. Thucydides 4. 111, Brasidas at Torone in winter 424/3;

128

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

Plutarch, Alkibiades 30. 4-5 and Diodorus 13. 67. 3, Alkibiades

at Selymbria and Byzantium in 408); and the ploy doubtless figured in other nocturnal attacks involving internal collab-

orators. 11. 1.

naively.

Editors note but resist here H. Schöne’s

emendation (in Schöne 23) of eutheos (‘readily’) to euethös (‘naively’), as in 28. 7. On substantive grounds either would

serve; but I agree with Celato, ‘Grecia’ 238 n. 99 that the change should be made, both to produce the verbal parallel

with 28. 7 and because naiveté is well examples Aineias now proceeds to give.

to the fore in the

11.2. a succession. ‘In chronological rather than merely textual order’, claims Burstein 125 n. 62; but he ignores the

Chios episode, 11. 3-6, which seems to disrupt this (see the note on 11. 3, the betrayal of Chios), and too readily accommodates

11. 12, which explicitly does so.

the book, of plots.

The comma is, or may be, crucial: is this

a citation of an otherwise unmentioned lost work specifically about, and conceivably named after, plots (the view of Schöne 23, favoured by Loeb 8 and 64-5; Hunter/Handford xiii, 22—

3, and 136; Barends 26; Lehmann 73) or one of Aineias’ other lost treatises

that

he does

mention

elsewhere,

its title here

perhaps accidentally omitted (thus, e.g., Budé xvi, followed by Bettalli 83 n. 29; for suggestions as to which other treatise see Loeb 64 n. 1, Hunter/Handford 136, and Belyaev 241 n.

16)? Either is possible; but an application of Occam’s razor pushes probability toward the latter; see Introduction, pp. 14 and 16.*

11. 3.

the betrayal of Chios.

An episode (11. 3-6) of

uncertain date. (On the unlikelihood that the overall structure of ch. 11 offers any chronological assistance see the note on 11. 2,

a succession.) The level of detail provided points to its being an event fresh in the minds of both Aineias and his readers (Hunter/Handford 136, most fully; Marinovich ‘Struggle’ 75 n. 87; Budé 21 n. 2; Gehrke, Stasis 46 n. 30); however, Hunter/

Handford’s ‘guess’ of 357, the revolt of Chios from Athens in

COMMENTARY

129

the prelude to the Social War (Diodorus 16. 7. 3), encounters the crushing objection that Aineias’ story expressly pivots around peacetime conditions. A date of c. 346 is implied by A. B. Bosworth, A Historical Commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander (Oxford 1980) 178, by linking Aineias 11. 3 with Demosthenes 5. 25, the (real or rumoured) take-over of Chios then by the Karian dynast Idrieus (cf., seemingly, Gehrke, Dritte 189); yet this, whatever its intrinsic attractions, would entail lowering the treatise’s terminus post quem by an uncom-

fortable margin

(see Introduction, p. 8). I am inclined to

follow Gehrke’s earlier discussion (Stasis 46-7), wherein the dating of the episode shortly after the peace of 355 reduces

that margin to acceptable proportions. If correct, this is the

latest event which the treatise incorporates.* the harbour-boom. harbours. pitch.

See 8. 2 and note, barriers ... at the

Rather than, as Barends

114, ‘tar’: see the termino-

logical study by J. André, AC 33 (1964) 86-97, and in general R. Meiggs, Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Oxford 1982) 467—71. For pitch as an inflammable substance (cf. Meiggs, op. cit. 467 with n. 4) in Aineias, see 33. 1 and ch. 35: stoa.

To

be

visualized

here

possibly

as

a

‘colonnade’

(Hunter/Handford 23) or portico but more probably, under the circumstances, as a ‘dépôt’ (Budé 21) or even ‘arsenal’ (Loeb 65; cf. Barends 133; compare (e.g.) Xenophon, Hellenika 5. 4. 8 and Plutarch, Pelopidas 12. 1 on the loyalist recapture of the Theban Kadmeia (see 24. 18, 31. 34) in 379; Arrıan, Anabasis 1. 23. 2-3 on Alexander’s siege of Halikarnassos in 334). If so, it will hardly be the ‘large and beautiful’ Chian stoa restored and refurbished by Herod in 14 (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 16. 18-19). See generally, on the multifarious functions of stoas,J. J. Coulton, The Architectural Development of the Greek Stoa (Oxford 1976) 1-17, esp. 8-13. 11. 4 Chios at this time. was evidently more reliant on mercenary guards than Aineias saw (12. 2 and 4) as prudent.

130

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

11. 6. At the same time etc. A curious, concrete afterthought, given that the moral of the story has already been

pointed at the end of 11. 5. deer-nets and boar-nets.

cf. 38. 7 and note.

On these, ‘the ancients’ distinctive device for shortening or furling sail’, see Casson 70.

11. 7.

the revolutionaries in Argos.

It is customary to

date this episode (11. 7—10) to the year 370. Thus, e.g., Hug 6; Loeb 67 n. 1; Hunter/Handford 137-8; Marinovich, ‘Struggle’

69

and

Mercenariat

221;

Budé

22

n.

1; Tomlinson

193;

Lehmann 77; Villard 307 n. 72; M. T. Mitsos, BCH 107 (1983) 243-9 (publishing a fragmentary Argive inscription

which contains some—on his own estimation—unimpressive verbal correspondences with Aineias 11. 7-10); Gehrke, Stasis 31-3 and Dritte 188; Jones 116. Aineias calls it the ‘second attack on the democracy’; that of 417 (17. 2-4—though see the note on 17. 2!) is plainly the first such attack, leaving this ‘second’ one begging identification with the events of autumn

370 which culminated in the so-called skytalismos (clubbing-todeath) of at least twelve hundred wealthy Argives and even some of their opponents (Diodorus 15. 57-8, etc.). However, this consensus is challenged—in my view convincingly—by E. David, AJP 107 (1986) 343-9, who calls

attention to what look like significant discrepancies between what is described (1) so dispassionately by Aineias and (2) so luridly by Diodorus (and others): notably the fact that in (1) a single popular leader (see next note) is clearly in control of the situation while in (2) a plurality of them is equally clearly at its mercy. So there is much to be said for David’s insistence that Aineias 11. 7-10 relates to an unsuccessful oligarchic

coup

in Argos

at some

time

between

386

and

371;

cf.

H. Swoboda, Hermes 53 (1918) 96 n. 2.

the people’s leader.

Hunter/Handford 138 (following Hug

32-3, and followed in turn by Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 53) took this phrase as indicative of ‘a definitely recognized post of

[ prostates tou demou) at Argos, as at Athens’. No such post,

COMMENTARY

131

however, did exist at Athens (W. R. Connor, The New Politicians of Fifth-Century Athens (Princeton 1971) 110-15; Rhodes 345-51), and ostensibly more appropriate parallels from Tegea and elsewhere are less than compelling: see M. Worrle, Untersuchungen zur Verfassungsgeschichte von Argos im 5. Jahrhundert vor Christus (diss. Erlangen: 1964) 39-43, esp. 40 n.

32. With Worrle (and Gehrke, Stasis 32) I therefore believe that Aineias is using the phrase in a generalized and nonconstitutional] sense, as for instance Thucydides (3. 82. 1 and

elsewhere) does; cf. Lehmann 76 with n. 19. Its appearance here in the singular—and indeed with the definite article (contrast, e.g., Thucydides 6. 35. 2)—as opposed to the plurals of 11. 10a (Pontic Herakleia) and 11. 15 (Korkyra)

need signify no more than the especial de facto pre-eminence of the unnamed individual in question (cf. 8. 89. 4), a pre-eminence enabling him to constitutional machinery (see 11. 8) in a of Perikles in Thucydides 2. 22. 1 (with

Thucydides 6. 89. 4, manipulate his city’s manner reminiscent K. J. Dover, JHS 80

(1960) 61-77, at 74-5). 11. 8.

each man in his own tribe.

For the four Argive

tribes (phylai) and other civic subdivisions see Jones 112-18,

including 116 on Aineias 11. 8-10. (D. Roussel, Tribu et Cité (Paris 1976) 247, oblivious to the break between 11. 8-10 on Argos and 11. toa—11 on Herakleia, is puzzled in consequence by what he takes to be Aineias’ allusion to three Argive tribes;

the error is condescendingly corrected by P. Charneux, BCH 107 (1983) 263.) The episode is also analysed by Villard 307, with the comment that ‘il fallait bien sûr que l’organisation

tribale ne se calquat pas sur des distinctions de fortune mais reprit des critéres géographiques ou des restes de traditions’. In fact the Argive tribes can be shown to be non-territorial (Jones 115), notwithstanding the point, upon which Aineias’ story pivots (see 11. 10), that their members could evidently

be mustered in widely separate locations. ı1.10a.

similar.

As

illustrative of naïveté (11.

being

(Herakleia)

That is, another episode featuring tribes.

and, especially,

11.

1-2),

both

12 (Sparta)

11.

1oa-711

actually stray

132

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

somewhat off the point, before 11. 13-15 (Korkyra) returns to

it. Herakleia on the Black Sea.

For the qualifier, repeated in

12. 5, see the note on 4. 1, Chalkis on the Euripos. The episode in question here necessarily antedates the establishment of the tyrant-dynasty of Klearchos (cf. 12. 5 and note) in 364, though probably by only a few years. See (e.g.) Hunter/ Handford 139-40; Budé 23 n. 2; Burstein 20 and passim, esp. 125 n. 62 (though see the note on 11. 2, a succession); Lintott 267-8; Gehrke, Stasis 71-2.

sixty centuries—in place of the existing three tribes and four centuries. There are multiple obscurities here, and those which relate to the ‘existing’ civic organization of Herakleia inevitably cloud one’s view of the character and significance of the reform itself. (Its—for Aineias—principal effect, at least, is spelled out: see 11. 11, with Villard 307.)

Discussion must proceed from the tribes, there being no suggestion here of change to either their number or their nature (and certainly not the ‘Kleisthenic’ shift from kinship to territorial units conjectured by D. M. Pippidi, StudClas 11 (1969) 235-8). The ‘existing three tribes’, after as well as before this reform, are therefore surely the usual Dorian three (Dymanes, Hylleis, and Pamphyloi), a legacy from the foundation of Herakleia by Megarians (Jones 282). But the Megarian precedent—denied, in any case, by Burstein 21—is of little assistance (see Jones 94-6) in clarifying understanding of

the Herakleian ‘centuries’ (hekatostyes) and their relationship to the tribes. Assuming such a relationship to exist ( pace (e.g.) G. Grote, A History of Greece, 4th edn. (London 1872) 10. 3945; Burstein 21-2, cf. 46), Aineias 11. 10a has generally been reckoned to mean—or even, by modest textual emendation, to say—that each of the three tribes subsumed four centuries,

making twelve (pre-reform) centuries in all; and I follow this consensus. Jones 282 gives examples of alternative textual changes to the passage (including a suggestion of his own) which produce higher numbers of centuries than twelve and thus ‘a credible basis for the subsequent increase of their number to sixty’; but the necessity for these is disputable.

COMMENTARY

133

What seems clear on any reasonable view is that, if the number of ‘centuries’ could be thus multiplied, a Aekatostys (whether in Herakleia or elsewhere) had lost whatever numerical

significance,

possessed: see Jones Gauthier in Bulletin

11.12.

collective

or

partitive,

it had

once

9-10 and 282; cf. Budé 23 n. 1, and P. Epigraphique 1987, no. 230.

Something of this kind.

The link with 11. 10a- 11,

let alone any relevance to 11. 1-2, is tenuous; cf. the note on 11. 10a, similar.

long ago, in Sparta.

The event referred to is indubitably

the attempted revolution of the so-called Maidens’ Sons, Partheniai, in the last decade of the eighth century. See (e.g.) Loeb 69 n. 3; Hunter/Handford 141; P. Wuilleumier, Tarente: Des origines à la conquête romaine (BEFAR 148: Paris 1939, repr.

1968) 29-47, at 30 n. 2; Budé 23 n. 3; and the next note. the men who were going to raise the cap. Strabo 6. 3. 2-3 preserves the two fullest accounts of the episode, a fifthcentury one from Antiochus of Syracuse (FGrH 555 F 13) and a fourth-century one from Ephorus (FGrH 70 F 216), which

differ from each other in numerous respects (see Hug 12; Hunter/Handford 141; Wuilleumier, Tarente (cited in preceding note) 29-30). Aineias’ summary version is closer to that of Ephorus, not least in this rather odd matter of the cap: though singular it was, apparently, to be raised by a plurality of conspirators. 11. 13. Korkyra. Diodorus 15. 95. 3 records the troublesome presence of Chares (on whom see generally Pritchett 2. 77-85) at Korkyra—modern Korfu—in 361/0, which is accordingly the orthodox date for this incident (11. 13-15) of

Aineias’ (e.g. Loeb 69 n. 5; Hunter/Handford 141; Marinovich ‘Struggle’ 66; Bude 23 n. 4; Pritchett 2. 57-8; Gehrke, Stasis 96). J. Cargill, The Second Athenian League: Empire or Free Alliance? (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1981) 172-6 contends that Diodorus’ dating is arbitrary and the episode more plausibly located earlier in the 360s, but his reasoning is

134

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

insufficiently convincing; cf. J. T. Roberts,

AJP 104 (1983)

411-12. 11.14.

cupping-vessels.

For their description and (med-

ical) use—the latter entailing not leeches, as Loeb 530, but suction—seeJ. S. Milne, Surgical Instruments in Greek and Roman Times (London 1907, repr. New York 1970) 101-5. as though

they

had

been

wounded.

An

old

trick

(cf.

Peisistratos in ?Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians 14. 1, with other instances cited by Rhodes 200) but evidently still a good

one. 12.

1 ff.

‘The

connexion

of thought

with

the preceding

chapter is . . . the dangers created by inviting assistance’ (Hunter/Handford 142; cf. Bettalli 83).

12.1.

in the way stated above.

outside

Presumably in 3. 3 rather

than in 15. 10 and 11. 11 (which relate to the splitting-up of a citizen body). 12. 2. A comparable point of view, albeit one stemming from moral and psychological rather than practical considerations,

is expressed

by

Xenophon,

Poroi

2. 3-4;

cf. Celato,

‘Enea’ 65-6. 12.3. Anexample. Possibly from the later 360s (Hunter/ Handford 142-3; cf. Budé 24 n. 1), though the basis for thinking so, [Demosthenes] 50. 5-6, is circumstantial at best. For Chalkedon, on the Asiatic side of the Bosporos opposite

Byzantium, isthmus)

and

Kyzikos,

of Arktonnesos

on on

the the

offshore southern

island shore

(later of

the

Propontis, see generally A. J. Graham in CAH 3. 3, 2nd edn. (Cambridge 12. 4.

1982)

119-20.

The advice is paralleled (echoed?) in Polybius 2. 7.

12. 12.5.

the man who led the mercenaries in.

see the note on

11.

10a, Herakleia

Klearchos:

on the Black Sea, and

COMMENTARY

135

generally Hunter/Handford 143-4 (but read Mithridates, satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, for ‘Mithridates I, King of Pontus’: W. W. Tarn, CR 41 (1927) 227) and Burstein 47-65.

13.1 ff.

‘Here again, as at the end of c. xi, the last historical

illustration (that concerning Clearchus’ mercenaries) suggests the subject for the next chapter’ (Hunter/Handford 144; cf. Bettalli 83).

13. 1. companies ... company-commanders. note on 1. 5, companies.

See the

13.2. This is a difficult passage but crucial, obviously, to a full understanding of this aspect of what Aineias is advocating (which overall, pace Gabba 412, is a good deal less than ‘chiarissimo’!). In the first place it is clear that translators and commentators alike have regularly treated pay and maintenance as effectively a single entity, pay-and-maintenance, responsibility for which is then envisaged, perforce, as being assigned to the two providing parties quantitatively rather than qualitatively, i.e. ‘partly . . . partly . . . ’ (Loeb 73 and Hunter/ Handford 29; cf. ‘une partie... l’autre . . . ’ in Bude 25; likewise (e.g.) Parke 95-6; Barends 88; Marinovich, ‘Struggle’

73 and Mercenariat 226; Gabba 411-12). However, Pritchett 1. 3 ff. has demonstrated at length that by the mid fourth century if not earlier a substantive distinction was observed

between basic pay (misthos) and maintenance in cash or kind (trophe). He sees this distinction ‘sharply drawn’ (ibid. 6) in Aineias 13. 2; and (with Gauthier, Poroi 24 n. 7) I believe this to be right. But if it is, a question immediately arises: is the assignment of the two elements here not, after all, quantitative but qualitative? Pritchett himself reckons so, as emerges from his subsequent description of Aineias’ proposal (Pritchett 1. 35 n. 18): ° . . . misthos should be furnished at the expense of the wealthy, the trophe contributed by the state’. However, as my translation indicates, I have ventured to suppose that this is

correct

in

principle

but

misattributes

the

two

elements.

(Usual Greek idiom of the. type at issue here does not, admittedly, elaborate items A + B in the order B + A, but

136

AINEIAS

THE TACTICIAN

there are respectable instances: Thucydides 1. 68. 4, 3. 82. 7, 4. 62. 2; Xenophon, Anabasis 1. 10. 4.) Given Aineias’ constant

apprehensiveness about mercenaries and/or conspirators, the latter regularly rich, it seems highly unlikely that he would

recommend private individuals’ being the mercenaries’ prime paymasters; and, if Gabba is justified in connecting this chapter of Aineias with Il. 5325-31 of the Aulularia of Plautus, it is there his wealthy sponsor that the miles inpransus (soldier who has not breakfasted) approaches for ration-money. But in truth the heart of the matter remains stubbornly impenetrable.

13.3. quartered in... houses. For this practice, albeit in different circumstances, cf. Kleandros in Xenophon, Anabasis 7. 2. 6, and (with Burstein 51) Klearchos in Polyaenus 2. 30. 1. Another responsibility of the men concerned emerges in 22.

29. 13.4.

reimburse etc.

Hunter/Handford 145 voices needless

surprise ‘to find it assumed that the taxes outweigh the state’s debt’; see rather Budé

25 n. 1; but both

discussions fail to

recognize the distinction between misthos and trophe, only the latter of which is seemingly at issue here (see note on 13. 2). Against

the

‘private

enterprise’

character

of

Aineias’

proposals overall (13. 1-4) the charge of Utopian impracticability has been levelled by (e.g.) G. T. Griffith, The Mercenaries of the Hellenistic World (Cambridge 1935) 256-7, and V. Ehrenberg, The Greek State, 2nd edn. (London 1969) 86. For more charitable assessments see Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 73-5 (cf. Mercenariat 225-7) and Gabba 412. The expedient

adopted

by

Agesilaos

in

Asia

Minor

in

396

mercenary cavalry (Xenophon, Hellenika 3. furnishes as close a parallel as can be found.

14.1.

already described.

in the mean time.

to 4.

recruit 15,

etc.)

In 10. 20 ff.

Thus Loeb 75 (cf. ‘for the time being’:

Hunter/Handford 29); alternatively ‘first’, as antecedent to ‘at times of extreme danger’ (Barends 141, followed by Celato, ‘Grecia’ 234 n. 81).

COMMENTARY unanimity.

137

See the note on 10. 20, unanimity. Here in ch.

14 Aineias comes closest to spelling out his ideas about means to this end but (as, mutatis mutandis, in chs. 7-8) tantalizingly short-circuits this by simply referring the reader to a full exposition elsewhere: see 14. 2 and note. Even so, what he has to say, particularly about the danger posed by insolvent debtors (cf. 5. 2), has made citation of this fourteenth chapter tantamount to a cliché in modern work on social and economic conditions in the fourth-century polis. See (more than usually e.g.) Pöhlmann 338; Bengtson 465; Mossé 224-

33, at 227;

Marinovich,

‘Grecia’ 234-6; (London 1975)

‘Struggle’

58-9

and

62; Celato,

M. I. Finley, The Use and Abuse of History 129; Burstein 48; M. M. Austin/P. Vidal-

Naquet, Economic and Social History of Ancient Greece (London 1977) 341, no. 110; Lehmann 73-4; Ste. Croix 298; Lintott 254; H. W. Pleket, Mnemosyne 35 (1982) 431-2; Fuks 23 n. 16; Gehrke, Stasis 323-8, esp. 323 n. 76 and 328 n. 103; Urban

996-9; Marinovich, Mercenariat 207-8. The assertion of Urban 996, cf. 998, that Aineias has in mind well-to-do debtors only is mistaken: he is explicitly considering ‘the mass of the citizens’ (cf. Pleket, loc. cit.).

According to Macrobius, Satumalia 1. 11. 33 (cf. K. Ziegler, RE 10A (1972) 763-4; Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 62 and Mercenariat 213), the success of the resistance of Olbia against Zopyrion c. 325 was due in part to the cancellation or adjustment of debts (‘factis novis tabulis’).

constantly under the eye. to wish to create alarming ephedroi’ is pounce; see (e.g.) cognate verb), and

The picture that Aineias seems

by calling that of men Thucydides the note in

the basic amenities

the debtors, literally, ‘very waiting, at close quarters, to 4. 71. 1 and 8. 92. 8 (the Hunter/Handford 146.

of life for the needy.

Surely

noi

‘unemployment relief? (W. W. Tarn, CR 38 (1924) 73) but, first and foremost, food. ‘It is worth noticing that Aeneas does not here consider the possibility of the whole city’s suffering from dearth of provisions. With a few exceptions . . . siege-

operations treachery

in Hellenic

warfare

than by famine’

were

concluded

(Hunter/Handford

rather

by

146). This is

138

AINEIAS THE TACTICIAN

fair comment, though in point of fact it is possible (despite ‘at times of extreme danger . . .’) that Aineias’ recommendations in this regard are not confined to blockade-conditions. The

subject of food-rationing during an actual siege (as must have been necessary at, e.g., Plataia in 429-7: see Thucydides 3. 20. 1 and 52. 1; and cf. Xenophon, Hellenika 2. 2. 10-16 on

Athens in 405/4) is touched on in 4o. 8 and, as stated there, was dealt with fully in the lost Preparations.

14. 2.

my book Procurement.

The solitary reference to

this treatise. The notion of procurement, poristike, calls to mind Xenophon’s Poroi (see Gauthier, Poroi 7-19, on its title),

though, as Hunter/Handford xiii notes, that work is predicated upon peacetime conditions, whereas Aineias’ subject was (presumably)

‘the

financial

aspect

of warfare’.

However,

when Hunter/Handford further sees Xenophon’s treatment as

resting ‘on a broader basis’ than Aineias’, this is surely to underestimate the breadth indicated explicitly here in ch. 14 and implicitly elsewhere (e.g. 10. 12 and 13. 1-2: see on this Bude 26 n. 2; Celato, ‘Enea’ 60 n. 37; Lehmann 73-4). B. A. Van Groningen, Aristote: Le second livre de l’Économique (Leiden 1933) 35 Nn. 1 appears to suggest that the character of Procurement can be judged from [Aristotle], Economics 2. 2; yet there the anecdotal material is more prominent, to say the least, than in Aineias’ surviving treatise, and I see no good reason to suppose that it formed the structural element of any of his lost ones.

15.1.

Whatever the internal inconcinnities and shifts of chs.

I-14, a transition to the second of the treatise’s three parts should be discerned here; see Introduction, pp. 18-20.

fire-signal.

See

the

note

on

7. 4.

The

need

for good

communications—preferably visual— between a town and all parts of the surrounding countryside is stressed by Aristotle, Politics 1327° (cf. Ober 201).

15. 2. pation

disorderly. On Aineias’ understandable preoccuwith orderliness and disciplined organization see

COMMENTARY

139

Hunter/Handford xxxii, and, with parallels from Xenophon and (as reported) Iphikrates, Pritchett 2. 236-8. For the disorderly (and premature) response to the initial penetration

of the territory cf. specifically 16. 2. 15.3. a single or double company’s worth. on I. 5, Companies. a sensible leader. 15.5.

See the note

cf. 1. 7 and 3. 4.

cavalry and light-armed troops.

For cavalry cf. 6.

6, 16. 7, 26. 4. This is the first explicit reference to ‘hghtarmed troops’ (cf. 16. 7), a generalized term which Best 120-1

reasonably takes to embrace peltasts. (Aineias never uses the word ‘peltast’, though in 29. 6 he does mention the light pelte shield from which peltasts derived their name; see the notes

there and on 16. 4, their strongest forces.) Aincias’ allusion to both cavalry and light-armed troops as ‘the available’ ones lends itself more naturally to Best’s belief that such forces usually were, in some measure, available to a polis (see also 16. 7) than to the inference that ‘sometimes’ (Hunter/ Handford 147) they were not.

15. 6.

Bude 28 n. 1 regards this advice as indicative that

Aineias has mercenary forces principally in mind here; I agree with Lehmann 75 n. 17 that any such deduction is unwarranted. For the general advantage of familiarity with one’s terrain see 16. 19-20. 15. 8-10. The incident belongs in 376/5, as is clear from Diodorus 15. 36. 1-4, despite considerable divergences between that account of it—notably the sudden defection of

the Thracians to the Triballian side—and Aineias’. See Loeb 78 n. 1; Hunter/Handford 148; Belyaev 251; Budé 28 n. 2; Lehmann 71 n. 2. The credibility of Diodorus’ version

certainly cannot extend to the part allegedly played in it by the Athenian general Chabrias (on whom see Pritchett 2. 72— 7), whose death—after driving the Triballians away—Diodorus places incorrectly here as well as (correctly, in 16. 7. 4) eighteen years later. None the less the superiority of Aineias’

140

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

account is less clear-cut than Hunter/Handford 148 maintains (‘ . . . carries conviction with it in every line’); for while Diodorus may have a moral to point (‘brave Greeks fighting at overwhelming odds against treacherous barbarians’: Hunter/

Handford 148), Aineias palpably does have one (15. 7).* 15. 8. Triballians. An ‘autonomous’ (Thucydides 2. 96. 4, cf. 4. 101. 5) people of mid Danubian Thrace (north-west Bulgaria).

Like the later Vandals

their name

became

syn-

onymous—for sophisticated Greeks—with their real or imagined attributes (Demosthenes 54. 39).* Abdera.

An

Ionian

‘colonial’ foundation on the coast of

Thrace east of the river Nestos, its agricultural and commercial prosperity evident from (e.g.) its very high tribute-payments to the fifth-century Athenian Empire (R. Meiggs, The Athenian

Empire (Oxford 1972) 61 and 529-30). Like their adversaries here (see preceding note) the Abderites too became a byword—for stupidity (G. Hirschfeld, RE 1 (1894) 23); it is uncharacteristically sardonic of Hunter/Handford 148 to com-

ment that this reputation ‘is not dispelled by the incident here recorded’.

16. 1.

The following, alternative way etc.

‘c. xvi seems

to contradict the advice given in c. xv’ (Hunter/Handford 126—7, proffering the (reasonable) explanation that the former may have been ‘added at a later date, when the author saw fit to revise his treatise in the light of further experience’). The correspondences between Aineias’ work and the Hipparchikos of Xenophon (Introduction, p. 36) are especially close in this chapter: see the notes below.

16. 2.

a (night) attack.

‘peacetime’

cf. 3. 4 for nocturnal alarms in

(and 9. 1-3 for a nocturnal response to attack).

Despite this phrase—wherein

the addition of ‘(night)’ or

something similar (cf. ‘at dawn’: 150) is mandatory, given what much in ch. 16 as a whole which rather than night-time action:

Hunter/Handford 33 with follows—there is actually seems to pertain to daytime see Hunter/Handford 150

(following Fischer 32) on this; and the note on 16. 5.

COMMENTARY

eager to salvage their property. completely unprepared.

141

cf. 15. 2 (and 7. 1).

This apparently means unarmed:

see the next note.

16.3.

those who need etc.

It seems natural to equate the

three categories of ‘need’ specified with the three problematic

groups identified in 16. 2. 16.

4.

their

strongest

forces.

They

are

likely

to

be

peltasts, given the roles assigned to them in the next sentence; cf. Ober 45-6.

atthe ready.

Surely not ‘in hand’ (Hunter/Handford 33), if

by that is meant held in reserve; Aineias suggests precisely the opposite.

expecting an attack etc.

A good illustration of the benefits of

such discipline and alertness, cited by Hunter/Handford

151, is

the Peloponnesian advance on Stratos in 429 (Thucydides 2. 81. 2 ff). 16. 5. drunk. ‘There do not seem to be any instances of troops actually getting drunk on the march in fourth-century

warfare, but it shows the spirit in which these petty raids were normally conducted’ (Hunter/Handford 151). Alternatively it perhaps shows that by now, and in fact since the end of 16. 3,

the focus on night-time activity (16. 2) has receded, with these inebriates not ‘on the march’ but, as in 16. 12, off duty at the

end of the day. (In Xenophon, Hellenika 6. 4. 8, which Hunter/ Handford cites, the midday drinking before the battle of Leuktra is—pace V. D. Hanson, ClAnt 7 (1988) 206—expressly moderate.)

16.7.

your cavalry.

the picked men. article

would

See the note on 15. 5.

Their identity is mysterious. The definite

suggest

either

that

they

have

been

already

mentioned, or that poleis regularly possessed them, or both. Hunter/Handford

151-2

argues for both, yet offers as the

142

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

prime internal precedent a (surely rather small) group which, it is conceded, will probably stay in town (see 1. 4). Confusingly, Hunter/Handford also invokes the select troops of 1. 5, who can be considered more likely candidates; they at least will, or may, go out on ‘sorties’. But even if this is correct

it may be quite unrelated to the matter of the various standing élite corps which are attested elsewhere, themselves seemingly heterogeneous

in size, character, and function

Hunter/Handford

151-2;

more

(references in

fully in Pritchett 2. 221-4,

with a critique of Hunter/Handford at 221 n. 52). The only point of any certainty in 16. 7—unnecessarily

doubted

by

Hunter/Handford 152—is that ‘the picked men’ (epilektoi) are light-armed.

the attack itself, etc. Such advice (given also by Xenophon, Hipparchikos 4. 13) is less banal than it is reckoned by Budé 30 n. 2: see Y. Garlan, REG 81 (1968) 288 (and Poliorcétique 77) on the lingering ‘compulsion’ exerted by the pitched-battle mentality.

16. 8. 16. 10.

reasons already given. as I have stated.

In 16. 2 ff, esp. 5-7.

The repetition

(cf. preceding

note) is becoming irksome; a new point is badly needed, and in 16. 11 duly arrives.

give way etc.

Budé 30 n. 3 cites an apposite illustration

from the career of Iphikrates (Frontinus, Stratagems 1. 6. 3: ‘in Thracia’, probably in 389). The case of Attica in 431 (Thucydides 2. 19-24), on the other hand, is altogether more complex: see Garlan, Poliorcétique 44 ff, esp. 50-1.

16. 12. while they are preparing dinner. Again (cf. above on 16. 7, the attack itself etc., and below on 16. 19 and 16. 20) Xenophon gives his cavalry commander very similar advice: Hipparchikos 7. 12. Examples of its efficacy are legion: Hunter/Handford 153 adduces five, including three from the classical period (Thucydides 7. 40, the Syracusans in 413; Xenophon, Hellenika 2. 1. 27, the Spartans at Aigospotamoi in

COMMENTARY

143

405; Polyaenus 3. g. 53, Iphikrates, contextless; see also Herodotus 1. 63 and 6. 78); cf., e.g., Demosthenes 23. 165, Charidemos at Perinthos in 359.

16. 13.

boats.

16.

Kyrene

14.

cf. 16. 21, and the general note on 8. 2. and

Barka.

The

two

principal

Greek

‘colonial’ cities of North Africa (eastern Libya), the latter— for which cf. 37. 6-7—founded by the former; see A. J. Graham in CAH 3. 3, and edn. (Cambridge 1982) 134-8. (We have no means of telling whether the ‘certain other states’ were in this region too.) The fact that their vehicular tactic (whatever exactly it was: see the next note) is ‘said’ to have been practised leads Hunter/Handford 153 to remark on Aineias’ unfamiliarity with the south, as with (see the note on 10. 22) the west. This is probably fair comment, though there are cases elsewhere (2. 2, 15. 10) of similar phraseology without any such geographical implications. vehicles. I follow Loeb 85 in this deliberately non-committal translation. Were they actually chariots or (merely) wagons?

Since—in my opinion—Aineias does not enable us to decide, with certainty, one way or the other, this passage (together with Xenophon, Kyroupaideia 1. 6. 27: see below) appears doomed to play an inconclusive role in scholarly debate over the use(s) of chariots in Homeric (or ‘Homeric’) warfare. That the Libyan vehicles here are chariots, and that this passage accordingly lends support to the historicity of the principal function which the {liad seems to assign to chariots —transporting warriors to the battlefront—is a view which has been most strongly and repeatedly championed by J. K. Anderson (AJA 69 (1965) 349-52; Anderson 158-9; AJA 79

(1975)

175-87); cf., e.g., J. H. Crouwel,

Chariots and Other

Means of Land Transport in Bronze Age Greece (Amsterdam 1981) 145 and ch. 7. However, Anderson’s theories have come under vigorous attack, chiefly from P. A. L. Greenhalgh, Early Greek Warfare: Horsemen and Chariots in the Homeric and Archaic Ages

(Cambridge

1973)

14-18 and passim. Greenhalgh

seeks to

uphold the view (of G. S. Kirk, The Songs of Homer (Gambridge 1962) 124-5; cf, amongst many others, A. M. Snodgrass,

144

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

Early Greek Armour and Weapons (Edinburgh 1964) 159-63, and

M. I. Finley, Early Greece (London

1970) 83) of ‘Homeric’

warfare as an anachronistic construction which, on the matter

of chariots and their functions especially, has quite lost contact with historical reality; and in the process Greenhalgh insists (op. cit. 16) that ‘Aeneas is talking [in 16. 14} about transport-waggons . . . which are not brought into battle but remain as a bulwark for the fortified base-camp, and as a

means of transport for the wounded’. (This fails to recognize the hiatus between 16. 14 and 16. 15: see next note.) Whatever the answer to the larger questions (further ramifications in Pritchett 4. 14 with n. 44), their relationship with the one at issue here—what Aineias is telling us about Kyrene and Barka—remains at an impasse. In the sporting arena the chariots (and horses) of the region were renowned (for references and discussion see F. Chamoux, Cyrene sous la

monarchie des Battiades (BEFAR

177: Paris 1953) 234 ff.), but

that may be of little or no relevance. In warfare their function(s) persisted into and beyond Aineias’ day (Diodorus 18. 19. 4, 20. 41. 1); and—tantalizingly—his contemporary

Xenophon explicitly claims continuity in chariot-use(s) between Homer’s Troy and fourth-century Libya (Xenophon, Kyroupaideia 6. 1. 27, cf. 6. 2. 8). This, as Greenhalgh observes (op. cit. 16), is scarcely proof positive ‘that the primary role of the Cyrenaic war-chariot was that of the Homeric one’. On the other hand no such claim could reasonably be founded upon what

Aineias,

at

least,

says,

as

his

topic

is that

of relief

expeditions (cf. the next note). For a general axiom it would be rash to disagree with Anderson’s observation (AJA 79 (1975) 187) that ‘there was no single “proper” system of

chariot-tactics in antiquity’. See further, next note. 16.15.

the wagons.

sic—but not, unfortunately, a simple

solution to the chariots-or-wagons dilemma discussed in the preceding note: whatever the precise identity, if any, of the Libyan vehicles mentioned in 16. 14, 16. 15 clearly moves ‘to a hypothetical situation, and is perhaps considering the impressing of all available vehicles, of whatever type, to meet an emergency, in states which did not maintain a regular transport service’ (J. K. Anderson, AJA 79 (1975) 176).

COMMENTARY 16. 16.

145

Here occurs a clear break within the chapter, which

up to this point has concerned itself with ways (alternative or additional to those in ch. 15) of dealing with invaders. The assumption now, abruptly, is that no actual invasion has yet occurred,

but might; and the three sections

16. 16-18 draw

up a ranking order of strategic options to meet that eventuality: preferably—topography permitting—seal the territory’s borders in advance (16. 16); otherwise fall back to defendable positions within the territory (16. 17); and failing even that, make a stand near the town itself (16. 18). On all this, in the general context of other fourth-century thinking (Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle) on territorial defence, see Ober 77-86, esp. 81-2; and Introduction, pp. 22-4.

already described.

Possibly in 15. 1-5 rather than 16. 7,

but given the new topic (see preceding note) it is hard to tell.

fire-signals. 16.

19.

your

See 7. 4 and note. familiarity

with

the terrain.

Less

than

perfect, at times (15. 6)! None the less the observations encompassed in 16. 19-20 as a whole (and paralleled, again, in Xenophon, Hipparchikos, at 4. 6) are justifiably seen by

Garlan, Poliorcétique 75-6 as central to Aineias’ thinking. 16. 20.

inability to predict etc.

cf. Xenophon, Hipparchikos

4. 1. night . . . daylight.

cf. Xenophon, Hipparchikos 8. 3 (the

blind and the sighted). 16. 21-2. These final sections of the chapter revert to the naval theme of 16. 13, as well as switching again from defence to attack. The specific tactic recommended, synchronized land and sea assaults from different quarters, is most grandly illustrated by the Athenian descent on the Megarid in autumn 431 (Thucydides 2. 31).

17. 1.

unanimity.

See the notes (under unanimity)

on

10. 20 and 14. 1. Ch. 17 does indeed follow on fairly coherently

146

AINEIAS THE TACTICIAN

from ch. 14, not only in overt subject-matter but also, less obviously, in background assumptions; there is now, it would seem,

no enemy

in the immediate

offing.

What

is more,

if

extramural religious gatherings are possible, the martial-law

regulations of ch. 10 cannot be in force: see the note on 10. 4, FESTIVALS . . . IN TOWN. torch-races, horse-races. A catalogue raisonné of work on both these events is provided in the two recent bibliographical surveys devoted to ancient athletics: T. F. Scanlon, Greek and Roman Athletics (Chicago 1984) 23 with 76-7, 24 with 85-8; N. B. Crowther, CW 79 (1985) 76-7, 90-2.

religious ceremonies and armed processions.

Sometimes

the same thing (17. 2).

beaches its ships or buries its dead. The ceremonial aspect of the former plainly follows from its association with the latter (on which see Thucydides 2. 34, with N. Loraux, The

Invention of Athens:

The Funeral

Oration in the Classical City

(Cambridge, Mass. 1986), esp. 15-76), but we have virtually no independent information. Vegetius 4. 39 is regularly cited for festivities accompanying the beginning of the sailing season,

in spring; one can only assume (with Hunter/Handford

156

and Budé 34 n. 1) that its end gave rise to something similar. occasions like these. As-well as the one chosen by Aineias himself (17. 2-4) see (e.g.) Herodotus 1. 150. 1 (Smyrna, eighth century), Thucydides 1. 126. 6 (Kylon in Attica, 7632), and Thucydides 3. 3. 3 (the Athenians’ strategy against Mytilene, 428).

17.2.

the Argives.

This episode (17. 2-4) is customarily

identified with the oligarchic revolution in Argos in 417 (cf. the first note on 11. 7), studied most recently by E. David, AC

55 (1986) 113-24, esp. 119-21 on Aineias’ version of events. For this identification see also (e.g.) Hug 5; Loeb gi n. 1;

Hunter/Handford 156-7; Budé 34 n. 2; Korus 519; Losada 95, cf. 101; Marek/Kalivoda 560; Lehmann 76-7; Lintott 123 n. 57 (implicitly); Gehrke, Stasis 27-30 (esp. 28 n. 33) and

COMMENTARY

147

Dritte 188. No other Argive context readily suggests itself; but mention should be made—and largely has not been—of the attempt by J. Labarbe, AncSoc 5 (1974) 21-41, esp. 23-8, to transfer Aineias’ story to archaic Samos. Labarbe calls attention to suspiciously close resemblances between Aineias 17. 2-4 and Polyaenus 1. 23. 2, on the accession to power of Polykrates and his brothers in the 530s, and he argues that because Samos and Argos both had important Hera cults (for

Argos see Hunter/Handford 156-7 and Tomlinson 203-4; for Samos, G. Shipley, A History of Samos 800-188sc (Oxford 1987) 262 and 280) Aineias misattributed the story while taking his notes.

Ingenious

and

well-argued

as

Labarbe’s

theory

is,

however, it inevitably falls short of proof positive. 17. 5. the Chians. cf. 11. 3-6. ‘Enée semble trés au courant des affaires de Chios’ (Budé 35 n. 1, cf. 21 n. 2). 17. 6.

the force mentioned earlier.

Budé 35 n. 2 is at a

loss to identify the cross-reference here, but it is surely to 1. 4 (so Hunter/Handford 158) rather than 17. 5; Aineias has now

left the Chios example and is making a general point. 18. 1.

give the signal etc.

cf. 7. 2-3.

see to itetc. This injunction, as is implied here but does not emerge explicitly until 20. 1, is addressed to the commanding general, a paragon of steadfast reliability (though see 18. 16!) amidst slapdash (civil) officials and treacherous gatekeepers.

the gates are ... closed. and

On the design of Greek city-gates

their boltable-bar mode

of closure see Köchly/Rüstow

164-7; Loeb 92 n. 1; Hunter/Handford 158-61 (by Handford, condensing his article on the subject in JHS 46 (1926) 181-4), inc. figs. 2-5; Barends 162-8, inc. diagrams 1-2; Bude 10513 (Appendix I), with figs. I-IV; F. W. Walbank, A Historical

Commentary on Polybius 2 (Oxford 1967) 64; Winter 253-68, inc.

numerous photographs and figures. Individual points in chs. 18 and 20 will be taken up as they arise, but what we have to visualize is essentially as follows:

148

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

1. The leaves of the gate opened inwards, unless prevented from doing so by the presence of a substantial wooden cross-bar or beam, extending horizontally across the full extent of the gates from one jamb to the other. 2. The bar was secured in place by one or more (20. 2) metal bolts or pegs, which passed vertically through the bar into boltsockets beneath.

3. Once in place, the bolt(s) could be extracted—if adequately precision-made

(see 18. 4 and note)—only

by a special tool:

tweezers (18. 6), bolt-catcher (18. 9 and 12), or pincers (20. 3).

18.2.

harm can be done by gatekeepers.

See 5. 1 on the

need to choose them with care, and the criteria for doing so.

18. 4.

easily extracted.

As Hunter/Handford

161 and

165 notes, it is obvious both here and in 18. 12 that sometimes the bolts were very loose-fitting. For a makeshift bolt see Thucydides 2. 4. 3 (Plataia, 431).

18. 6.

knocked upwards.

‘Presumably a hole was made

in the wall, in order to reach the [bolt] from the bottom, since the [socket] cannot have been exposed underneath’ (Hunter/ Handford 162).

tweezers.

As

opposed

to

either

of the

two

legitimate

extracting-tools, the bolt-catcher (balanagra: 18. 9 the pincers (karkinos: 20. 3). The observations Handford 162 and Barends 167 (with diagram 3, helpful in visualizing what Aineias means here;

and 12) and of Hunter/ item IV) are the essential

point is that the curved or hooked blade is longer than the flat or straight one.

18.8.

the city of (?).

After the quickfire summaries of 18.

3-7 Aineias now comes to an illustration deemed worthy of sustained narrative (18. 8—11); but the location of the incident presents an intractable problem, reviewed and addressed

most recently by Tuplin. Hunter/Handford

(xvii, esp. n. 1,

and 163) surmised that Aineias deliberately withheld the name of the polis in question because of personal acquaintance

COMMENTARY or involvement with it. However,

149

as Tuplin

127-8 observes,

whatever the merits—in my view dubious—of the reticence theory for 29. 3-10 (or 23. 7-11), where geographic specificity is entirely eschewed, the mention of Achaia here in 18. 8 tells strongly against any idea that Aineias wanted his readers to remain genuinely baffled by the identity of the city concerned. There are in short good substantive as well as linguistic grounds for adhering to the orthodox view that he did name it but that the name has been (irretrievably) lost in transmission. As to what that name might have been, however, it is easier

to be negative than positive. Casaubon 1745-6 proposed Heraia, a suggestion founded upon identifying Aineias’ incident with the stratagem of the Achaian general Dioitas, against that city, recorded by Polyaenus 2. 36. But this has long been pronounced unconvincing, on at least three counts: for all their general (or generic?) similarities the two stories do diverge on significant points; Arkadian Heraia was neither ‘in’ nor even (if Aineias could mean this) particularly ‘near’ Achaia;

and,

above

all, the Dioitas

episode

belongs

in the

230s, some 120 years later than any other illustrative material in the treatise. (See variously Köchly/Rüstow 167-8; Loeb 94 n. 2; Hunter/Handford 163; Budé 37 nn. 2-3; Tuplin 128 and 130-1.) As to an alternative, Tuplin 128-30 makes out as good a case for Pellene (and a date in the 360s) as circumstantial evidence will allow; but it would certainly be rash to insert it into the text.

18. 10.

a tube and a matting-needle.

‘Together these

tools could be a substitute for the [bolt-catcher]’ (Barends 167, with diagram 3, item V).

like that of a spike etc.

The transmitted text is in some

disarray at this point, and Budé 37 leaves it so (cf. Schone 42). But after discussion with Dr A. H. Jackson I adopt here the text (and translation) of Loeb 96-7. To some extent—as far as we are concerned—Aineias is seeking to explain ignotum per

ignotius, but the essential point of comparability between the (upward-facing) end of the spear-butt and the (downwardfacing) handle of the special needle manufactured here is that both were female ferrules.

150

18. 13.

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

For his second full-scale (18. 13-19) panorama of

treachery at the gates Aineias chooses an episode which, while firmly located geographically, offers no basis for dating.

Marinovich,

‘Struggle’

71 n. 78 (cf. Mercenariat 224)

sees

“Temenos the Rhodian’ as a fourth-century commander of mercenaries attempting here to set himself up as a tyrant in Teos. This is perfectly plausible, but naturally does not in itself add anything to our knowledge of either the man or the incident beyond what Aineias himself can reveal. And because of textual corruption, most particularly here in 18. 13 at the very beginning of the story, a major uncertainty obtains: did

Temenos’

attempt

succeed

or fail? To

my

mind

Hunter/

Handford 165-6 marshals persuasive arguments for believing that it failed. I have accordingly followed the Hunter/ Handford text for both the first Greek word of 18. 13 and—more crucially from a substantive point of view—the substitution of ‘since’ (epei) for ‘if’ (ei) in 18. 19, i.e. actual, not potential, failure on the gatekeeper’s part. Otherwise, for incidental detail, the Budé text is still adhered to (though see the note on 18. 19). 18.17. the cord. That is, the stout cord of 18. 14 which led out of town to Temenos, not the loop of thread round the bolt.

18.19.

he and his men realized etc.

Shifts of grammatical

subject are frequent in this story, and it is possible that the realization referred to here took place inside Teos, 1.e. the tied end of the cord was noticed by some people there. On that view (taken by Hunter/Handford 43-5) the lacuna detected in this sentence by Schöne 45 could be ignored, on a substantive level; and Hunter/Handford duly did so. However, with Budé 39 I prefer to see the men outside the town, (Temenos et al.) as the ones who ‘realized’ something, namely that their plans had been exposed and, consequently, the tuft of wool not attached to the cord. Schöne’s suggestion of ‘without a tuft’ for the lacuna can be no more than exempli gratia from a textual standpoint and is properly treated as such, following his lead, by Loeb

100 and

Budé

39; I have

COMMENTARY

I5!

nevertheless assumed the correctness of either it or something else very like it in my translation here.

18. 20.

did betray.

For justification of the emphasis see

the note on 18. 13. This episode (18. 20-1) is impossible locate geographically as well as chronologically (like that 18. 12, not to mention all those encompassed in 18. 3—7); it interesting, but ultimately unhelpful, to note that the town question was reliant on water from an external spring.

the guardian of the city.

to of is in

The gatekeeper himself. (Barends

154 sees irony in the phrase.) 18.

21.

the

first watch,

etc.

See

the

note

on

22.

24,

resetting the clock every ten days. the official. Budé xxi regards this as an alternative designation for the general of 18. 5 (cf. 18. 16), i.e. archon as (military) ‘commander’, as in 31. 9-9a. However, given Aineias’ several overlapping uses for the word archon in both singular and plural (see the note on 1. 4), it is at least equally likely that we should understand it here as meaning whatever official, civil or military, bears the ultimate responsibility (like the polemarchoi of Kynaitha in Polybius 4. 18. 2) for closing the gates in his town.

18.22.

undertaking anything of this kind yourself.

An

unexpected and abrupt change of ‘side’ (Hunter/Handford 168), sustained into and through the very short ch. 19. For other instances of this, occurring from now on, see 27. 14, 31. I

and passim, 35. 1, 37. 8-9 (cf. Budé xxiv n. 2; Lehmann 73 n. 11). In an obvious sense all such material is of relevance to defenders too, as a warning of what might be contrived against them (Spaulding 57, on ch. 19); yet Aineias undeniably does proffer actual recommendations to a city’s ‘assailants’ (Loeb 103 n. 1) both external and internal (18. 22-19. 1, for example, seem better addressed to those inside a town than outside, in contrast to (e.g.) 37. 8-9). For the significance of their inclusion, without any reference to a separate, offence-

oriented treatise, see Introduction, p. 15.

152

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

19. 1. a sponge. ‘He probably means that the sponge should have been first soaked in oil. In that way it would feed oil steadily and uniformly’ (Loeb 103 n. 1).

I had better let them pass.

Perhaps a touch of dry humour,

though in a writer of this kind it is rarely easy to tell. (Compare the case of Pausanias, with Habicht 160-1.) See also, e.g., 20. 1, 22. 14, the self-deprecating 31. 19, and above

all 40. 5. 20.

1.

before

dining.

cf.

26.

2,

on

patrols.

‘Dinner,

apparently, was apt to play havoc with all ranks’ (Hunter/ Handford 168). Doubtless so, though there is more than postprandial alertness at issue here in 20. 1; it is also a matter of priorities. 20.2. reinforced etc. Winter 260—1 surmises that this was probably common (whatever precisely it entailed: Hunter/ Handford 47 translates three or four ‘thicknesses’ of iron). Yet one’s impression, from both Aineias and elsewhere, is that it

was nowhere near common enough! three dissimilar bolts. a plurality of cross-bars.

each general.

Rather than, as Barends 168 notes,

Immediately undermined

though it is, the

implication here of a norm of three generals—one of whom, at any given time, might be ‘in overall command’ (22. 2, with Lehmann 75)—deserves attention. Hard evidence for threegeneral poleis may be meagre (Celato, ‘Enea’ 63 n. 55) but the triadic Dorian tribal organization, as in Pontic Herakleia (11. 10a), was ubiquitous ( Jones 11-12 and passim); it is therefore tempting to suppose that such states were in the forefront of Aineias’ mind. (The conjecture of Celato loc. cit. that three generals might correspond merely to the tripartite division of defending troops under direct attack in 38. 1 is unconvincing.)

by drawing lots.

See the note on 3. 1, by lot.

20. 3. the pincers. An alternative to the bolt-catcher of 18. g and 12, and evidently more suitable than the key (or

COMMENTARY

153

even absolutely necessary?) for use with the non-removable bolt or bolts. See Barends

166 with diagram 3, item II; Budé

112.

20.4.

Apollonia on the Black Sea.

For the qualifier cf. 4.

I, 11. 10a, 12. 5. (Aigina, in 20. 5, needed none.) The episode

referred to here resists even approximate dating; it may or may not belong with the incident(s) mentioned by Aristotle, Politics 1303°36 ff. and 130777 ff., to which Gehrke, Stasis 24, cf. 255, tentatively assigns a pre-fifth-century date.

with a huge

mallet.

What

is the sense of ‘with’ here?

Hunter/Handford 47 translates ‘to the sound of” the mallet, appealing to the difficulty of envisaging how the gates could

have been closed by its actual application (Hunter/Handford 169). That difficulty certainly exists; yet it may none the less be the case that ‘with’ demands a literal interpretation. If the noise of the process was in fact no more than a useful byproduct of mallet strokes needed, quite literally, to close (and re-open) the gates, such strokes may somehow have been directed against either the bolt (M. Cary, /HS 47 (1927) 268) or the cross-bar (Barends 163 n. 3). 20.5.

same thing...in Aigina.

And equally (cf. the note

on 20. 4, Apollonia on the Black Sea) undatable. a sign to accompany it.

See 21. 2 and, especially, ch. 25.

21.1. A curious repetition, in brief, of 8. 2-5 (but note that this citation of Preparations is marginally different, grammatically speaking, from the three others (7. 4, 8. 5, 40. 8): see Hunter/ Handford 169; Budé 42 n. 2).

equipment. This is a woolly term, but so is Aineias’ Greek one, armena; it is used of ships’ tackle in 11. 3 and of tools and implements in 18. 11 and 12.

21. 2.

my book Encampment.

Mentioned nowhere else

(see the note on 22. 24, (entirely)) and, evidently, planned

154

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

but not yet written. Aineias is decidedly lavish (chs. 22—7) in

anticipatorily excerpting it here. * 22.1.

attimes of danger.

This is a frequent formulation

in the treatise (14. 1, 20. 1, 22. 5a, 22. 7, 26. 1, etc.). Here at least it would seem to mean that an enemy is nearby but not actually attacking (cf. 26. 7).

22.2.

The general in overall command.

See the note on

20. 2, each general. With Budé 43 I interpret the phrase immediately following this—in Greek, simply ‘and those with him’—to mean his fellow-generals (who probably assumed overall command in rotation); ‘his staff’ (Loeb 107) has more than a whiff of anachronism (cf. Loeb 23 n. 3), while ‘his bodyguard’ (Hunter/Handford 47 and 170, cf. 189, 233) is an erroneous cross-reference to the civil officials’ attachés of 1. 4 and 17. 6; cf. the note on 26. 10.

the civic buildings.

Again (cf. the note on 21. 1, equipment)

one must resort to vague English to convey Here, and again in 22. 4, the phrase may encompass all possible permutations of such the prytaneion: 10. 4) in all possible cities; in 29. those of a single one.

vague Greek. be needed to buildings (e.g. 10 it is used of

affording maximum visibility. Alternatively ‘most conspicuous’ (Loeb 107 and Hunter/Handford 47; cf. Bude 43, ‘celle qu’on découvre de la plus grande distance possible’); but with T. W. Allen, RP 20 (1946) 125 (‘a place with the longest view of the town’) I construe the participle as middle, not passive.

22.3.

thetrumpeter.

dispatch-runners.

See the note on 7. 2, relay-stations.

cf. 22. 22 (and the stratagem of Eudok-

imos in Polyaenus 5. 26). They surely undertook shorterrange missions—indeed, apparently within the confines of the town—than did the various ‘day-runners’ (hemerodromoi) adduced by Bengtson 466.

COMMENTARY

the generals’ quarters.

155

In the light of 22. 2 this need not

necessarily designate a specific building of that name, a strategion, though several cities are independently known to have had one (Garlan, Poliorcétique 401 assembles the literary and epigraphical references; for the remains of the Athenian stratégion see J. M. Camp, The Athenian Agora (London 1986) 116-18).

22.5.

prone to fall asleep.

cf. 22. 6, 22. 14, 26. 8-9.

22. 5a-6. A rather unnecessary (though see the next note).

22.5a.

keep active guard.

repetition

of 22.

4-5

Here and elsewhere (22. 9, 22.

11, 22. 27, 24. 19, 26. 2, 26. 8-9, 26. 13-14) a distinction seems

to be drawn between a guard- or sentry-unit as such and those members of it on actual guard at any given time (while their comrades enjoy legitimate sleep: 10. 26), but the terminology may not be wholly consistent. See the discussions in Hunter/ Handford 172-3 (on 22. 9) and Budé 44 n. 1.

22.7. guarding the citizens. the citizens. 22.8.

It is not desirable etc.

See the note on 1. 3, guard I adopt here the tentative

suggestion of Loeb 108 n. 5 that the transmitted manuscript order of the two clauses in this sentence be reversed. Even logic as imperfect as Aineias’ so often is seems to demand this.

22. 9.

During each watch.

Thus

Hunter/Handford

49

(and Barends 77); alternatively ‘at each change of the watch’ (Loeb 109; cf. Budé 44). patrol as far as the next station. Not very far (22. 10), though we are not told how many guard-stations there will be. A basic distinction between (stationary) guards/sentries/ sentinels and (mobile) patrols/rounds has been introduced as early as 1. 1 (and repeated in 22. 3, 22. 26, 24. 16, and 24. 19); and the latter occupy stage-centre in ch. 26. Here in ch. 22 Aineias’ terminology becomes at times difficult to grasp (cf.

156

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

the note on 22. 5a); it does appear to emerge, however, that at least some of the ‘patrolling’ and ‘rounds’ of ch. 22, notably here in 22. g—10, is (as 22. 10 in particular indicates) shortrange mobile surveillance by members of guard-units which are in themselves stationary, as opposed to the fully mobile patrols which monitor them.

22.11.

Those on guard etc.

They are not, we may take

it, the ‘patrollers’ of 22. 9-10 but others in the unit on stationary watch. As to their ‘facing each other’, this is unlikely to mean one man at one station facing his counterpart at the next, which would create only patches (punctuated by blind spots) of the all-round vision that Aineias wants to facilitate, but rather pairs of guards at the same station, one scanning the outside of the wall, the other (cf. 22. 13-14) the inside. as I have shown. Where? This must be either an imperfect cross-reference to 6. 6-7 (where no such thing, strictly speaking, is ‘shown’ but, at most, envisaged as a possibility) or else a presumably valid one to one of the lost treatises: Loeb 111 n. 1; Hunter/Handford 174; Bude 45 n. 1. 22. 12-13. Both language and substance here are repeated in 26. 6, in relation to the monitoring patrols. For ‘Some claim...’ (22. 13) see the note on 26. 6. 22. 14. dogs. An example of this precept (echoed by Vegetius 4. 26) in practice is given at 22. 20, and others can be found elsewhere, e.g. the fifty dogs set by Aratos to guard Akrokorinthos in 243 (Plutarch, Aratos 24. 1), and the modest three which, in a third-century inscription published by L. and J. Robert in 1976 ( Journal des Savants, 153-235), are to be purchased by the city of Teos (cf. 18. 13-19) for maintenance and deployment by the garrison-commander of nearby Kyrbissos (English translation in S. M. Burstein, The Hellenistic Age (Cambridge 1985) no. 28, ll. 18-21). For the use of dogs by the besiegers of a town see Polyaenus 2. 25 (Agesipolis’ siege of Mantineia in 385). Dogs recur in Aineias, besides 22. 20, in

COMMENTARY

157

23. 2, 24. 18, and 38. 2-3— where their barking turns from help to hazard—and in 31. 31-2, as message-carriers.*

spy...deserter. leave.

See the note on 28. 2, a deserter trying to

22. 15. For the principle of selection here cf. 1. 5-7 and, especially, 5. 1. To comment that in this instance it merely betrays Aineias’ fear and distrust of the common man (Pöhlmann 337; Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 60-ı and Mercenariat 210-11) does scant justice to the totality of his attitude to the rich and to ‘the responsibilities of wealth’ (Hunter/Handford 175). If, as he saw it, more could justifiably be expected from such people (38. 4-5) they could also pose the greatest internal danger (10. 20).

22.18.

described elsewhere.

In ch. 17 (cf. 10. 4).

22.19.

where the wall can be mounted.

See the note on

3. 3, where the wall can be mounted. a tyrant’s citadel. Tyrants (as a genus; for individual specimens see 5. 2 and 31. 33) have up to now been mentioned only in the martial-law regulations of ch. 10, as rulers elsewhere who might send embassies to Aineias’ polis (10. 11) and as former rulers of that polis now in exile (10. 16-17, implicitly: the word monarchos rather than éyrannos is used). Yet

here in 22. 19, fleetingly, we are made to visualize the tyrant as the man being defended from outside forces. Hunter/ Handford xxvi ingeniously appeals to this as contributory evidence for the identification of Aineias with the tyrannophobe

Aineias of Stymphalos. Irrespective of that consideration it shows the work’s recognition of the facts of life (Lehmann 75 n. 16; cf. Urban 1000). 22. 20. the sea-battle at Naxos. In 376 (Xenophon, Hellenika 5. 4. 61, Diodorus 15. 34. 3-35. 2, etc.). The transmitted text, manifestly faulty at this point, can be made to read either ‘at Naxos’ (Casaubon 1681 with 1755-6) or ‘at Kition’ (Köchly/Rüstow 78-9 with 169-70); and on the latter

158

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

view the sea-battle in question is the one won by Persian forces off Cyprus in 386 (on which see, e.g., G. F. Hill, A History of Cyprus 1 (London 1940) 135-8). Modern editors have found Casaubon’s text and interpretation both palaeographically—as an emendation of the transmitted ‘exo’—and substantively preferable (Loeb ı 14-15; Hunter/Handford 523 With 176—7; Budé 46, esp. n. 3), and I follow this consensus.

Aıneias’ Nikokles is accordingly not the well-known Cypriot dynast of that name (on whom see Hill, op. cit. 143-5) but an otherwise

unattested

(?)Spartan

garrison-commander

in an

indeterminable city. 22.21. unanimity. See the notes (under unanimity) on 10. 20, 14. 1, and 17. 1. Its presence—the opposite assumption from that in 17. 1—is probably a condition for everything which is now recommended up to and including the restriction on night-time working in 22. 24, but, as elsewhere, Aineias does not make it easy for us to feel certain; cf. the note on 22. 23.

22.22.

trumpet or dispatch-runner.

22. 23.

At such

times.

More

See 22. 3.

infuriating vagueness:

at

what times? It is hard to credit, with Hunter/Handford 177, that this resumptive phrase takes us all the way back to 22. 16. I would suggest understanding it in a much more immediate sense (as indeed Loeb 117 and Budé 47 appear to do), namely, when a nocturnal enemy approach has, after detection, been

signalled (22. 21). On the relationship between the curfew regulations here in 22. 23-4 and those in 10. 15 see the note on

the latter, carry a lantern. 22. 24. (entirely).

I follow Budé 47 in adopting Schône’s

simple, adverbial way of filling the lacuna here (Schöne 55). Loeb 117 with n. 1 develops the notion of H. Schöne (to be found in C. Behrendt, De Aeneae Tactici commentario poliorcetico quaestiones selectae (diss. Kônigsberg: 1910) 38 n. 2) that a cross-reference to another treatise, probably Encampment (see 21. 2 and note) has been lost; but whatever the palaeographic arguments in favour of a longer lacuna, filling it so is excessively speculative.

COMMENTARY resetting

the clock every

ten days.

159 This

is the most

troublesome clause in Aineias’ description of a procedure and a device which also present other problems of comprehension; see the next two notes. With no great conviction I follow Loeb 116-17 and Budé 47 in accepting the text and interpretation

proposed by Diels 195 n. 1. (The transmitted text is defended by Hunter/Handford 178, whose translation has the clock ‘correspond with the change of the reliefs’. This may (or may

not) be thought intelligible enough but needs a good deal of coaxing to emerge from the Greek.) Pattenden has challenged Diels’ thesis on several counts, among them the arbitrariness of the ten-day cycle between adjustments; and he himself sees here a textually garbled

mention of four divisions or markers, corresponding to four night watches, within the body of the clock. Pattenden’s argument Is actually stronger from a substantive point of view than he seems

to have realized, since his reiterated caution

(Pattenden 165, 170, 171, 172) about assuming a four-watch night on the strength of only late Roman (Vegetius 3. 8)

rather than contemporary Greek evidence oddly overlooks the evidence of Aineias himself, in 18. 21 (though cf. the vagueness of 1. 8 and 22. 4-6; E. Schramm in Kromayer/ Veith 223 unaccountably asserts, of (implicitly) 22. 24-5, that ‘es gab drei Nachtwachen’). None the less the succession of four textual corruptions which Pattenden has to postulate, including a crucial confusion between the number four in the alphabetic number-system and the number ten in the acrophonic (i.e. the letter delta in both), is too conjectural to claim a place in the text; and since in any case at the end—or rather, as posited, the beginning—of it all we find a piece of Greek hardly if at all more satisfactory than the one defended by Hunter/Handford, I take the view that Diels’ reading is still to be preferred.

22.25.

Preferably.

This is the usual sense of the compar-

ative adverb mallon in Aineias (see Barends 85). Nevertheless,

given the textual uncertainties of 22. 24, discussed in the preceding two notes, and the consequent obscurity as to

whether 22. 25 introduces a second procedure or elaborates

160

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

the first one, its meaning here (as in 22. 19) might actually be more akin to ‘ideally’; cf. Pattenden 167-8.

wax

...

shortening.

Pattenden

168-71

points out that

removing wax when the nights are lengthening, and vice versa, seems precisely the opposite procedure of resetting or adjustment to that apparently demanded by the type of waterclock (klepsydra) described most fully in [Aristotle], Problems 16. 8 (and illustrated in Diels 192), that is, a perforated vessel placed on the surface of water and slowly filling up with it. The progressive removal of bungs of wax from the perforations weuld make the vessel sink more quickly, appropriate to the cycle of nights shortening (from c.15 to ¢.g hours), not lengthening. No solution is offered to this puzzle, but perhaps the obvious one is to question some of the unexamined assumptions that Pattenden himself makes: chiefly, that Aineias’ clock is, necessarily, of this design (Pattenden

168),

and that the primary purpose of the wax was to add to or subtract from the number of perforated holes open at any given time, rather than (as orthodoxy supposes: see particularly the translations of Loeb 117 and Hunter/Handford 55, and Barends 128) to modify the overall internal capacity of the clock left free for water. It is surely prudent to admit that even pre-Hellenistic water-clocks were of differing designs and that we do not know what type Aineias was thinking of beyond

what he tells us about it himself (which is virtually nothing at all). As Pattenden 168 rightly says, it certainly cannot have been the small earthenware type best known from their use in the Athenian law courts, which ran for only minutes at a time (see S. Young, Hesperia 8 (1939) 274-84; Rhodes 719 ff.). Yet it may, on the contrary, have been large, like the night-time klepsydra said to have been made or designed by Plato (Athenaeus, Deipnosophistai 174 c), or even the monumental clocks in situ in the Athenian agora and at Oropos in the fourth century (J. E. Armstrong/J. M. Camp, Hesperia 46 (1977) 147-61).

22.26.

enlisted.

Thus Loeb 117 and Budé 47 (cf. Barends

123). Hunter/Handford

55 and

178 understands this as an

COMMENTARY

internal

cross-reference

(‘half

of

161

the

numbers

indicated

above’) to 22. 5a. people. Rather than simply ‘men’, I would suggest. Aineias has been mindful before of the cohesion of families (3. 6).

22.

27.

It is difficult

to know

whether

the

remaining

recommendations of the chapter (22. 27-9) relate only to ‘peacetime’ (22. 26) or are of general application. By their paragraphing, Loeb 117 and Budé 48 appear to conclude the former, Hunter/Handford 55 the latter. A third possibility, to which I cautiously incline, is that the sentence in 22. 26 about minimal guard-duty in peacetime is in effect a parenthesis, such that 22. 27-9 in fact apply ‘at times of less immediate danger’. (When danger ts immediate, patrols do not seem to be discretionary: 26. 1.)

22. 29.

auction off the watch etc.

We suddenly realize

that these guards are, or are likely to be, mercenaries (albeit in

companies commanded by citizens: 13. 1). The procedure advocated here for dealing with day-to-day (actually night-tonight) dereliction of duty on their part has greatly mystified the commentators,

and

others:

see Loeb

118 n.

1; Hunter/

Handford 179; Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 75-6; Bude 48 n. 1; A. Gerolymatos, Espionage and Treason: A Study of the Proxenia in Political and Military Intelligence Gathering in Classical Greece (Amsterdam 1986) 29-30. The bulk of the obscurities, however, are magisterially resolved by Gauthier, Symbola 52 with (esp.) n. 124, to whose discussion both my understanding and my translation of 22. 29 are much indebted (though see

note on the customary penalty). sponsor.

Not some sort of mercenary-supply agent, hitherto

unmentioned

(so Loeb

118 n.

1; Barends

125; Marinovich,

‘Struggle’ 75-6), but ‘the citizen who [see ch. 13] engaged him’ (Hunter/Handford 55 and 179; cf. Gauthier, Symbola 52; Marinovich, Mercenariat 228), called here his proxenos.*

out of his own pocket.

Retaining the transmitted text of

this phrase, as (e.g.) Schone 57 and Budé 48 do (cf. Barends

—

162

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

23-4), necessitates understanding the defaulter himself, not

his proxenos, as liable (‘sur la solde du coupable’, Budé). With Hunter/Handford 179, Marinovich ‘Struggle’ 75 (reviewing, at 75 n. 88, other possible readings) and Mercenariat 227 n. 54, and Gauthier, Symbola 52 n. 124 I prefer to make the change of aspirate—ex autou to ex hautou—which produces the translation given here.

regimental-commander.

The Greek term, not used else-

where in the treatise, is taxtarchos. He is confidently identified by Belyaev 245 as the commander of the double lochos mentioned in 15. 3; be that as it may, he is certainly an officer intermediate in rank between the company-commanders (lochagoi) and the general(s). For companies see the note on 1. 5, companies; and for the relationship (in Xenophon and elsewhere, a varying one: Anderson 97) between companies and regiments (laxeis) see 27. 12 and note. impose on him. On whom? The defaulter or his sponsor? Hunter/Handford 179 (followed by Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 75 n. 89) suggests the former, adding ‘but if the defaulter did not appear, the [sponsor] would probably have to pay the fine’. However, the likelihood that the penalty was not a fine but imprisonment (see the next note) makes it in my view improbable—pace Loeb 119—that liability extended to the sponsor at all. He has already on the previous day paid, doubtless well over the odds (cf. Gauthier, Symbola 52 n. 124), for a replacement guard; the fate of the original, absentee guard is now a matter for military discipline.

the

customary

penalty.

cf.

Barends

64;

Marinovich,

‘Struggle’ 75 (but see below); Bude 48 (‘la peine accoutumée’). The word for ‘penalty’, zemia, can also mean, more specifically, a fine, and is so understood here by many (Loeb 119; Hunter/ Handford 55 and 179; Gauthier, Symbola 52; Marinovich, Mercenariat 228). Yet phraseology as well as subject-matter recall the announcements made in the mercenaries’ camp in 10. 18-19; and on the best interpretation of what is said there—see 10. 19 with the note on THE PENALTY IS IMPRISON-

COMMENTARY

163

MENT— 22. 29 surely has the taxiarch impose ‘the customary penalty’, which was in fact (10. 19) imprisonment.

23. 1.

am enemy

encamped

outside.

Thus

Loeb

119.

Bude 49 translates ‘des ennemis qui l’assiègent”, but the verb which Aineias uses both here and in 22. 1 carries no necessary implication that actual siege operations have begun.

23. 2.

their mouths.

The

transmitted

text reads ‘their

bodies’, and in accepting it editors routinely cite the Parthian practice, mentioned by Julius Africanus (Kestoi 9) and elsewhere, of binding a horse’s tail to prevent its neighing: Casaubon 1759; Kôchly/Rüstow 171; Loeb 121 n. 1; Hunter/ Handford 180; Budé 49 n. 1. But Aineias writesof cauterizing, not binding; and would it not seem sensible to stop sound issuing from any creature by doing something to its mouth? Since the Greek words for body (soma) and mouth (stoma) are so similar, and textual confusion between them known elsewhere

(e.g. Aristotle, History of Animals 531°4; Aesop, Fables 2567 Halm), I follow those (S. A. Naber, Mnemosyne 16 (1888) 101-2, cf. 106-7; T. W. Allen, RP 20 (1946) 126) who detect it here too. For troublesome dogs cf. 24. 18 and 38. 2-3; and amongst episodes recounted

elsewhere,

Plutarch, Aratos 5-8

(Sikyon,

252).

23. 3.

a false but plausible impression.

Here is further

indication of the frequency of the real thing (Lehmann 77 n. 24), as well as of the certainty that intelligence, whether true

or false, would not fail to reach the enemy (cf. g. 2 with note).

23. 4

some people.

Although

the episode is described

more fully (23. 4-5) than the one in 23. 3—and is more distinctive anyway—its date and location are equally indeterminable. a small sail. the treatise: 11. (generic?) word specified as the

Later in the story, in 23. 5 (and elsewhere in 6, 29. 6, 32. 1, 32. 9), Aineias uses the common for a sail, histion; but here in 23. 4 it is actually smaller (Xenophon, Hellenika 6. 2. 27) akateion

164

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

or ‘boat’ sail, used as emergency rig on warships and as a topsail on merchantmen (Casson 236-7, 241 with n. 72).

(This assumes the correctness, as most except Schône 58 and T. W. Allen, RP 10 (1936) 205-6 do, of the emendation of angeion—sack/bag/basket—to akateion proposed by A. Kirchhoff, Hermes

23.5. not

1 (1866) 451.)

mock-up.

otherwise

As the term Aineias employs, antidome, is

attested,

its

meaning

is open

to differing

interpretations. Some (e.g. Hunter/Handford 57 and 181; Y. Garlan, REG

81

(1968)

287) see it as a hefty construction

adequate, if need be, as a second line of defence (cf. 32. 12, 33.

4). Yet from Aineias’ own account it is hard to imagine why something so elaborate would have been either necessary,

behind the sail, or (more important) desirable, as part of the planned and executed ‘sudden attack’. I therefore envisage it as some sort of lightweight façade; cf. Loeb 121 and Budé 49, with 50 n. 1.

23.6.

lure out with ruses.

As well as the example given

here (23. 7-11) see for instance Diodorus 13. 66. 3 ff, esp. 67. 1-3 (Alkibiades’ capture of Byzantium, 408).

23. 7-11.

‘Cette tortueuse trahison, sur laquelle Enée est à

la fois si discret et si bien renseigné, pourrait se rapporter a l’histoire de Sicyone au temps d’Euphron’ (Budé 51 n. 1). This is surely to add gratuitous speculation to over-interpretation; cf. the notes on

18. 8 and 29. 3, a city. Even to assert,

without any positive ascription to Sikyon (which he is happy to mention in 29. 12), that Aineias here deliberately withholds the name of the city in question (thus Lehmann 77) is tendentious. Across the whole range of his illustrations, from fleeting vignette to extended narrative, there is simply no intrinsic rationale discernible in whether or not he identifies their location by name.

24.1. passwords. They have been mentioned in passing earlier (principally in 6. 7) but are now dealt with at length, drawing—to judge from 21. 2—on material earmarked for even fuller exposition in another treatise, Encampment. See in

COMMENTARY

165

general Hunter/Handford 181-2; Marinovich, 3 (cf. Mercenariat 224-5); Garlan, ‘Synthemata’. 44 (the Athenian night-attack on the Epipolai Syracuse in 413) is a classic illustration of the passwords could create, albeit not for the primarily concern Aineias here.

‘Struggle’ 72Thucydides 7. heights above confusion that reasons that

the same

provided,

entity.

Namely,

in the example

the

mythical Castor and Pollux/Polydeukes, twin brothers of Helen, whose joint names in patronymic form claimed their

father variously as Zeus (Dioskouroi = Sons of Zeus) or King Tyndareos of Sparta. See Burkert 212-13 on them, 169-71 on Ares/Enyalios (cf. Launey 925-31), and 139-43 on Athena/ Pallas. The martial associations of all three make it highly likely that they were common choices—under whatever name—as passwords (note the ‘lack of imagination in Greek passwords’ complained of by K. J. Dover in HCT 4. 423,

citing Xenophontine

examples);

for Dioskouroi/Tyndaridai

witness indeed the main narrative illustration that Aineias himself proffers (24. 3-14, at 13). 24.2. SWORD and DAGGER. The two do not on the face of it seem easily confused, as the second term here, encheiridion, is most appropriately translated thus elsewhere in the treatise: see the note on 4. 11, daggers. Perhaps ‘swords’ and ‘daggers’ are better regarded not as two discrete and different weapons but as two broad areas of a spectrum of weaponry which in its middle range passed uninterruptedly from short swords to long daggers, or even entailed a degree of overlap. Alternatively, the distinction may be the one conveyed by ‘sword and cutlass’ (Hunter/Handford 59); for thrusting swords and slashing swords—note the ‘sabres’ (machairai) of 29. 4—see

Anderson 37-8.* if contrary etc. Thus Loeb 125. Hunter/Handford 59 and Budé 52 say ‘because’; but it would have taken extreme ineptitude to pick a password unfamiliar to all its users. 24.3.

for illustration.

‘Notice that the major part of this

interesting story [24. 3-14], down to §10, is wholly irrelevant

166

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

to the matter in hand, which is the confusion of passwords. It is inserted simply on its own merits, in a manner that is characteristic of Aineias’

(Hunter/Handford

183). Also

the

point, when finally reached, is inverted: see the note on 24. 13. A date of 360 for this capture of Ilion (which stood on the site of ancient Troy; cf. 31. 24 and note) can be derived from the chronological review of the early career of Charidemos (see next note) in Demosthenes 23. 148 ff, at 154: Pritchett 2. 85. Hunter/Handford 182-3 provides lavish background detail; see also Parke 128-30. Charidemos. Oreos

A controversial

mercenary

general, born

in

in Euboia, whose intermittent career under Athenian

auspices—see Pritchett 2. 85-9—secured him Athenian citizenship, either in 357/6 (thus, e.g., J. K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families 600-3008c (Oxford 1971) 571) or six-seven years earlier (thus, e.g., Osborne 56-8). The fact that Aineias calls him Charidemos ‘of Oreos’ probably signifies nothing from a chronological point of view; old habits of nomenclature will have died hard if (especially for a non-Athenian) at all. 24. 4. The governor of Ilion. Installed by, or at least loyal to, Artabazos the (subsequently renegade) satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia: see Parke 122 ff, esp. 129, and the note on 24. 10. 24. 5. persuaded. Bribed, according to the version in Polyaenus 3. 14, which has also, and plausibly (cf. Parke 129), had Charidemos capture the slave in the first instance.

the passageway or the wicket gate.

It is unclear whether

these are genuine alternatives, i.e. two actual exits of different types, or whether one term (probably the second) has been provided, by Aineias himself or by someone reading him, as clarification of the other. The latter position is taken by Hunter/Handford 183-4, quoted with apparent approval by Garlan, Poliorcétique 198 n. 5. Certainly a wicket gate, cut out of one of the leaves of the main gate (see 28. 2-3; and note ‘they opened all of the gate’ in Polyaenus 3. 14) is easier to visualize (particularly with the help of diagram 1 in Barends

COMMENTARY

167

163 = Winter 258 fig. 297). The ‘passageway’, if not the same thing, was perhaps ‘a small gate at the side of the big gate’ (Hunter/Handford

183), or elsewhere in the circuit-wall; that

is, a species of postern (on which see generally Winter 234 ff; Lawrence 355-42; Adam 93-8).

24.6.

daggers.

See the notes on 4. 11, daggers, and 24. 2,

SWORD and DAGGER. shields. Aineias usually employs the neuter plural hopla generically, to embrace the totality of arms and armour; I have translated it so passim, without comment. But this is the first of three passages—the others are 29. 4 and 40. 4—where it appears in conjunction with specific terms and should therefore itself be understood specifically, as shields. (For a different view see Bude 53 n. 1. I am indebted here, and even

more in the following note, to the advice of Dr A. H. Jackson.)* pointed helmets.

The adjective here presents a problem. In

the transmitted text it is koryphaias, a term both uncommon and difficult to comprehend (see below); the emendation of Casaubon 1686 to a more common and comprehensible one,

kryphaias (‘concealed’), has accordingly been adopted without discussion by many editors, including Köchly/Rüstow 88-9,

Loeb 126-7, and Budé 53. However, with Schöne 62 (indicating unease), Hunter/Handford 58-9 (cf. 184), and T. W. Allen, RP 10 (1936) 206, I retain the reading koryphaias, for two main reasons. First (as Hunter/Handford notes), it would be odd if Aineias had described the helmets (or, in the translations of Loeb 127 and Budé 53, all the weaponry) as concealed when he goes on to mention the act of concealing

them

in 24. 7. Secondly

and

more

important,

a koryphaia

helmet does correspond to an actual item of headgear: the pilos, a pointed cap covering the crown of the head only (see Anderson 29-37). Aineias indeed uses the word pilos for a cap made of felt (11. 12, 25. 2-3; cf. 33. 3 for the material), and it may therefore be that he did not care to do so for bronze headgear of the same shape. At all events the pointed shape of a koryphaios pilos is clear—it is the phrase Plutarch uses (Marcellus 5) for the conical apex of the Roman flamen; and here

168

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

in the Charidemos episode, so far from being inappropriately and dangerously conspicuous (cf. Hunter/Handford 184), it might well in the dark have been taken for a peasant’s cap.

24. 7. women and children. (For the order see the note on 3. 6, children and wives.) They were probably campfollowers of the mercenaries: Mercenariat 225).

because of the horse.

Marinovich,

‘Struggle’

72 (cf.

Polyaenus 3. 14 permits himself the

‘small joke’, at the end of his account, that this was Ilion/Troy’s second fall to a horse-stratagem; however, he was outdone in

mythological erudition by Plutarch (Sertorius 1. 6)—ranging more widely, to be reckoned it the third.

24.

8.

behaving

sure,

for

equine

as mercenaries

connections—who

do.

Here

I broadly

follow the translation of Hunter/Handford 61 (quoted in turn by Parke 129), though not necessarily the commentary to it (Hunter/Handford 185; cf. Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 72-3 and

Mercenariat 225), which sees in the phrase an adverse valuejudgement—brought out directly in ‘other barbarous acts’ (Loeb 127). For the opposite extreme see Budé 53 n. 2: ‘il voulait probablement dire “de spécialiste”, les commandos ne

se confiant pas à n’importe qui’. 24.10.

Athenodoros of Imbros.

A

freelance mercenary

captain, currently operating to the benefit of Artabazos (see the note on 24. 4) and soon, with Charidemos and others, to act for rival claimants to the throne of Thrace. See Plutarch,

Phokion 18, and (as plain ‘Athenodoros’) Demosthenes 23. 10 and passim, Isocrates 8. 24, and Polyaenus 5. 21, with Parke 129-32. Imbros, an island west of the Hellespont, had been an Athenian possession since the early fifth century: thus, ‘of Imbros’ or no, Athenodoros was actually Athenian. See on

this, and on him, A. J. Graham,

Colony and Mother City in

Ancient Greece (Manchester 1964) 167-8.

24. 13.

The reason for this etc.

Aineias leaves unstated

the pivotal fact that Athenodoros, besides moving extremely

COMMENTARY

169

swiftly (24. 12, with Hunter/Handford 185), had also discovered Charidemos’

password—or

rather, in the terms of 24. 1, its

entity but not its name. “The story is not a very apt illustration of the danger of issuing such [ambiguous] passwords, since Charidemus, who originally issued the password, so far from being injured, was actually saved by the confusion resulting from the two [names], the mistake in this case being made not by his own men but by the enemy. But Aeneas’s object is simply to give an example of the way in which such mistakes are made’ (Hunter/Handford 185-6).

24.15. hunting expeditions. With what as quarry—beasts (Budé 54 n. 1) or men (Hunter/Handford 186, following Casaubon 1761)? Given the overlapping personalities of Artemis, the choice is probably an unnecessary and unreal one. See Burkert 60 and 149-52 (esp. 152: ‘hunting and war are... equivalent’) on this (cf. Launey 936-7; Pritchett 3. 84); and, for Aineias’ other examples, Burkert 156-9 on Hermes, 208-11 on Herakles, 175-6 on Sun and Moon (on which see the note below).

an

operation

relying

on

stealth.

For

the

concept

of

‘stealth’ (klope) in Greek warfare, which some—though apparently not Aineias—found morally ambivalent, see D. Whitehead, C & M 39 (1988) 43-53; Wheeler 32-3, cf. 65-6.

SUN and MOON.

Thus—i.e.

as two separate passwords—

Loeb 129 and Hunter/Handford 61. Budé 54 combines them (as, seemingly, did Casaubon 1688 and Köchly/Rüstow go-1, though

in both cases it is their translations, not their texts,

which indicate as much); but it is surely a natural supposition that they would be assigned to daytime and night-time ‘undertakings’ respectively. 24.16. Iphikrates. Of Athens (as it was needless to say). This is Aineias’ first and only mention of the most celebrated and innovative general of the day, on whom see (e.g.) U. Kahrstedt/T. Thalheim, RE 9 (1916) 2019-22; Loeb 129 n. 1;

Hunter/Handford xxx-i and 186; Parke 48-56 and 74; Best 85-97; Anderson 121-31; Pritchett 2. 62-72 and 117-25.

|

170

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

Hunter/Handford 186 suggests that ‘in all matters concerning discipline and organization it is not improbable that Aeneas owed a good deal to him’ (cf. also Hug 15-16). Conceivably so; but there is no solid evidence that any such debt will have been incurred through a medium other than word of mouth, direct or indirect. The military writer Iphikrates listed by Aelian, Tactics 1. 2, is expressly distinguished from the Athenian general by Arrian in his expanded repetition of Aelian’s list (Art of Tactics 1. 1; cf. perhaps ‘Iphikrates’ and ‘the Athenian Iphikrates’ in Plutarch, Pelopidas 2. 1 and Galba I. 1 respectively); indeed, to judge from his position in both lists he belongs no earlier than the late Hellenistic period (cf. F. Jacoby, RE 9 (1916) 2022). If, at any rate, what the fourthcentury Iphikrates ‘used to urge’ about passwords (or anything else) was ever committed to writing, the work has left no unambiguous trace.

a different password.

The

recommendation

of the two

passwords (cf. 6. 7, but allocated differently there) is echoed, or at least paralleled, in Polybius 9. 17. 9, lamenting the failure of a third-century general, the (then) young and inexperienced

Aratos,

to

capture

Kynaitha;

cf.

Garlan,

Poliorcétique 385-6 and ‘Synthemata’ 301-2. ZEUS THE SAVIOUR. A common choice: cf. Xenophon, Anabasis 1. 8. 16 and 6. 5. 25, Kyroupaideia 7. 1. 10; and see generally Launey 914-109. 24. 17. Greek or non-Greek. Aineias’ only (and fleeting) allusion to this fundamental dichotomy in the Greeks’ view of the world. See generally A. Diller, Race Mixture among the Greeks before Alexander (Urbana 1937) 14-56. 24.18.

dogs.

See the notes on 22. 14, dogs, and 23. 2.

when the Kadmeia was captured.

This must refer either to

the Spartan seizure of the Kadmeia—the Theban Akropolis—in

382 (Xenophon, Hellenika 5. 2. 25-31; other sources with discussion in Buckler 281 n. 3) or else to its liberation in 379

COMMENTARY

17!

(Hellenika 5. 4. 1-12; Buckler 16-17), and there are sound reasons for preferring the latter (with, e.g., Loeb 131 n. 1; Hunter/Handford 186-7; Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 67; Budé 54 n. 3). Aineias writes here of a nocturnal operation; the original seizure had occurred in the middle of a hot summer’s day (Xenophon, Hellenika 5. 2. 29); and on the reasonable assumption that he alludes again to this same event in 31. 34 (the phraseology is all but identical), he does so there to illustrate the folly of not opening a letter immediately upon receipt of it—precisely the fateful mistake made by the polemarch Archias in 379 (Plutarch, Pelopidas 10). As Hunter/Handford 186-7 notes (cf. Bude 54 n. 3), the whistling episode must belong to the night before the ‘capture’, which was actually accomplished by surrender rather than assault. No other account mentions this detail, a fact which lends support to the suggestion of Lehmann 71. n. 2 that Aineias had learned of the affair by word of mouth.

24.19.

one side only.

The patrol’s side, as the explanatory

clause makes clear. A procedure where patrols merely sought

and received such vital information while giving none of their own was obviously vulnerable to the sort of bold impersonation, on the enemy’s part, that Aineias’ recommendation is designed to thwart. Unfortunately he does not go on to say

exactly how it was to be done. If the two parties shared a single password they could each have an accompanying sign (see ch. 25) to back it up; alternatively—as seems to be

assumed

by

Garlan,

‘Synthémata’

agreed with Iphikrates passwords (24. 16).

25. 1.

on

the

accompanying signs.

301—Aineias merits

may

of assigning

have two

See generally Garlan, ‘Syn-

themata’ 300-1.

panics. 25. 2.

cf. 21. 2 and, in full, ch. 27. preferably.

Onasander,

Generalship 26.

1 concurs,

while evidently favouring visual signs (which Aineias goes on to exemplify) overall.

172

AINEIAS

In good light.

THE

TACTICIAN

That is, ‘on clear or moonlight [sic] nights’

(Hunter/Handford 188); such precautions would hardly have

been necessary during the daytime. 26. 1.

At times of danger.

See the note on 22. 1.

two of the companies etc. size (cf. Barends

Probably companies of smallish

84), themselves subdivided

for this duty:

Hunter/Handford 188; Budé 56 n. 1. their usual arms and armour.

cf. Hunter/Handford 63,

‘their ordinary armour’. This—an additional aid to recognition—seems the required nuance, rather than ‘the arms

available’ (Loeb 133) or ‘des armes dont on dispose’ (Budé 56). 26. 2.

before their dinner.

cf. 20. 1 and note.

26. 3.

mot carry

lanterns.

sentries

too

advance

much

To do so would warning

approaching (Hunter/Handford

that

a

give the

patrol

was

188). In 26. 8-11, however,

Aineias advises reducing or even increasing this element of

surprise and suspense in accordance with the circumstances and morale prevailing; see the note there.

Failing that.

This elliptical formulation

(Aineias simply

says ‘If not, etc.’) presumably means ‘If lanterns cannot be dispensed with’ (cf. Budé 56) rather than ‘On nights other than very dark and stormy ones’.

26. 4.

suitable ground.

Inside the town; contrast 6. 6

(with the note) and 8. 4. For a mounted patrol of but outside the walls see Xenophon, Hellenika 2. 4. 24 (Athens, 403).

26.6.

already stated.

In 22. 13. Such references (‘Some

people do not approve etc.’) to the views of others prompt in Bude xv the suggestion that Aineias is using written sources. As with what Iphikrates ‘used to urge’ (see 24. 16 with note,

Iphikrates) the notion is not in itself unreasonable but utterly beyond proof, and (like Bettalli 80 n. 17) I am disinclined to believe it; cf. the note on 26. 12, in certain quarters.

COMMENTARY

26. 7.

(you should ...).

173

The Greek grammar of this

sentence suggests that it contained two recommendations (Schône 66; cf. Loeb 134 n. 3); if so, the first has been irrecoverably lost in transmission.

the only patrolling etc. as the next station.

See the note on 22. 9. patrol as far

the allies have deserted. A calamity, to be sure, but not the worst sort of outrage that ‘allies’ had been known to perpetrate: see 12. I-3.

the instructions given above. In ch. 22 as well as the present chapter: Budé 57 n. 1 (cf. Marek/Kalivoda 562). 26. 8-11.

Aineias’ psychological insight here has been duly

noted (Hunter/Handford xxxiii and 188; Budé 57 n. 2; Celato, ‘Enea’ 63-4). The point of prime importance, however, is made by Lehmann 79: that his advocacy of humane flexibility in discipline (cf. Arrian, Anabasis 6. 25. 2, Alexander in Gedrosia), both here and (on different criteria) in 38. 4-5, is to be understood as applying to citizen troops only; for the mercenaries there is no such latitude (see 10. 19 and 22. 29; and compare the summary ruthlessness of Iphikrates towards a sleeping (mercenary) sentry in Frontinus, Stratagems 3. 12. 2).

26.10.

the same body of picked men.

That is, the same

each time, not the same as in 26. 1. Who these men are is left

opaque, as in most of Aineias’ other expressions of this kind:

see the note on 16. 7, the picked men. Hunter/Handford 189 calls them ‘the general’s own bodyguard (i. 4)’, but it was the civil officials who were to have that guard: see the notes on

1. 4 and 22. 2, The general in overall command. 26.12.

in certain quarters.

Sce the note on 26. 6. In this

instance Aineias’ whole phrascology conveys a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the idea (cf. Hunter/Handford 190). fatigue. The transmitted text has ‘fear’ (phobos), which is retained by Hunter/Handford 64-5 and Budé 58, and can

174

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

hardly be pronounced demonstrably wrong. However, the palaeographically similar kopos, fatigue, proposed by A. Meineke,

Hermes 2 (1867)

uses, in 15. 2; and preferring it.

the city-commander.

182, is

I join Schöne

a word

Aineias knew

68 and

Loeb

136-7

and

in

The word, otherwise entirely unat-

tested, is politarchos. An almost identical one, politarches, occurs

frequently in inscriptions from Hellenistic and Roman

Ma-

cedonia (see, e.g., C. Schuler, CP 55 (1960) 90-100; F. Gschnitzer, RE suppl. 13 (1973) 483 ff; C. KoukouliChrysanthaki in Ancient Macedonian Studies in Honor of C. F. Edson (Thessaloniki 1981) 229-41, esp. 236 ff; N. G. L. Hammond/F. W. Walbank, A History of Macedonia, 3. 336-167 Bc (Oxford 1988) 476; F. Papazoglou, Les Villes de Macédoine à l'époque romaine (BCH suppl. 16: 1988) 50-1 and passim; cf. A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Oxford 1963) 95-6 on the same term, at Thessalonike, in Acts of the Apostles 17. 5-9), and has recently come to light also in Epeiros and southern Illyria (F. Papazoglou, Historia 35 (1986) 438-48; P. Cabanes, Historia 37 (1988) 4807); see Gschnitzer, op. cit. 495-6 for the handful of (obscure) attestations elsewhere. However, it would probably be unwise to follow Loeb 137 n. 1 in venturing geographical deductions on the strength of any of this. Hunter/Handford 190 firmly equates ‘the city-commander’ here in 26. 12 with ‘the general in overall command?’ of 22. 2. Budé xxi, cf. 58 n. 1, takes him

to be ‘un magistrat civil investi en cas de siége de fonctions militaires’. On either view (and both are reasonable) the term is being used, as it were, in the lower case: Aineias’ concern is

the role—in any and every city—rather Gschnitzer, op. cit. 496-500, esp. 496-7.

than the title; cf.

26. 13-14. According to Polyaenus 1. 40. 3 (and Frontinus, Stratagems 3. 12. 1), such a procedure was employed by Alkibiades—positioning himself on the Akropolis—‘during

the Spartans’ siege of Athens’. If there is any truth in this at all, either the ascription to Alkibiades is erroneous (Hunter/ Handford 190) or the date is earlier than the implied one of 405 (cf. Bude 58 n. 2), i.e. presumably 407.

COMMENTARY

27.

1.

Sudden

alarms

and

terror’ of 3. 1 which results tangible (an unexpected enemy briefly alluded to in 21. 2 and anticipation of the treatment in

terrors.

175

Not

the

‘sudden

from something thoroughly attack) but the phenomenon 25. 1 and now described (in Encampment: 21. 2) at length:

that irrational, groundless fear, in a multitude, which derived

its name from its putative instigator, the god Pan. See Budé 59 n. 1; Pritchett 3. 45; P. Borgeaud, The Cult of Pan in Ancient Greece (Chicago 1988) 88-116; E. L. Wheeler, GRBS 29 (1988)

153-84, esp. 172 ff.

a Peloponnesian word, etc. the advice sometimes given. 27. 3.

sing a paian.

See Introduction, pp. 10-11. Sce the note on 26. 6.

The paian was a hymn or chant—

sometimes a mere cry—associated particularly with one manifestation of the god Apollo and sung, amongst other occasions, before entering battle. See A. Fairbanks, A Study of the Greek Paean (Cornell Studies in Classical Philology 12: Ithaca, NY 1900), esp. 18-24; Loeb 139 n. 2; Pritchett 1. 1058; R. Lonis, Guerre et religion en Grèce à l’époque classique (Paris 1979) 117-28; Burkert 74 and 145.

As

Hunter/Handford

191-2

points

out,

Alexander

the

Great is said to have quelled a panic in 331 with measures similar

(‘almost

identical’

is an overstatement:

there

is no

paian) to the ones recommended here (Polyaenus 4. 3. 26). 27.7. Euphratas. Though attested elsewhere, the name is otherwise unknown to Spartan prosopography, and some (e.g. A. Hug, Aeneae commentarius poliorceticus (Leipzig 1874) 58, cf. Hug 6; H. W. Parke, CQ 41 (1927) 161 nn. 3-4, and JHS 50 (1930) 72) have adopted A. Schaefer’s emendation (Philologus 31 (1872) 185) to Eudamidas, brother of Phoibidas, who was

sent to campaign in western Thrace in 382 (Loeb 141 n. 1 has the misprint ‘363’): Xenophon, Hellenika 5. 2. 24-5; Diodorus 15. 21-2. I find no justification for this, and retain the name as transmitted. For his date—on either reading—see the next note.

176

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

the Spartan harmost in Thrace. If the terminology can be relied on, 371 is a firm ¢erminus ante quem, as the Spartans’ network of harmosts—military governors or commanders abroad—was

dismantled

after their defeat at Leuktra

(Pau-

sanias 9. 6. 4). Belyaev 251 dates Euphratas shortly before this,

but

there

is

no

basis

whatever

for

doing

so;

and

Euphratas/Eudamidas is entirely ignored by G. Bockisch in her list of known harmosts (Klio 46 (1965) 129-239, at 230g). The title ‘harmost in Thrace’, if authentic, points to an area harmost rather than one located in a particular city (for this distinction see most recently P. A. Cartledge, Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta (London 1987) 93); conceivably, therefore, Euphratas’ command should be likened to that of Eteonikos in 405 (Xenophon, Hellenika 2. 2. 5; Bockisch, op. cit. 183) or even Brasidas in 424-1 (H. W. Parke, JHS 50 (1930) 37-79, at 40-3, esp. 42; Bockisch, op. cit. 142-50); cf., for Thrace in

the fourth century, Parke, op. cit. 61 n. 50. Parke evidently took the emendation to Eudamidas (see the preceding note) as guaranteeing a date of 382 (Parke, op. cit. 41); but even that, while

undeniably

reasonable,

would

fall short

of certainty,

given the different postings as well as the different types of known harmosts.

27.9.

more worthwhile...inferior.

Given our inability

to identify even the broad context of this episode (see the notes on 27. 7) it is obviously impossible to appreciate the basis of the distinction, ‘subjective’ (as in 1. 5-6, etc.) or ‘objective’, e.g. Spartan troops as opposed to mercenaries; note the contrasting assumptions about the composition of Euphratas’ army, each wholly conjectural, made by Hunter/Handford 190-1 (‘Even the Spartans . . . were not exempt [from panics] when encamped in a barbarous district’) and M. Cary, J/HS 47 (1927) 268 (‘more probably they were mercenaries’). 27. 11. A virtually identical story—save that the beast in the hoaxing proclamation is an ass rather than a horse-—is told by (1) Xenophon, Anabasis 2. 2. 19-21, of the Spartan Klearchos on the retreat after the battle of Kounaxa, and by (2) Polyaenus 3. 9. 4, of Iphikrates in Thrace. Loeb 143 n. 1 suggests that (1) and (2) be taken at face value, i.e. as separate

COMMENTARY

177

incidents (‘The idea was a good one and was probably employed more than once’). However, ‘it is possible that such an occurrence happened twice, but more likely that Polyaenus is wrong: all ingenious expedients tended to centre round Iphicrates’ name’ (Hunter/Handford 193). And since Polyaenus conceivably used or followed Aineias anyway (see the next note) there can surely be little doubt that (1) and (2) are variants of the same tale and that the episode here in 27. 1 is the Klearchos one. As regards the ass/horse discrepancy, Brown 388 feels this ‘would not seem to be especially important, especially considering that both animals were imaginary’. The discrepancy is there none the less, and points to one of two conclusions about Aineias’ source for the story (cf. Hunter/Handford xxxv): that it was oral (Hunter/Handford 193) or that, if Xenophon, it was Xenophon (mis-)quoted from memory (Brown 388, implicitly). (would receive lacuna in the text (cf. Loeb 142-3 Anabasis 2. 2. 20,

a certain sum of money). /f there is a here it seems to demand filling on these lines and, more warily, Budé 60). Xenophon, actually specifies a (silver) talent. But it is

curious to notice, with Hunter/Handford

193, that in Polyaenus

3. 9. 4 too the proclamation was apparently left unfinished; and Hunter/Handford 69 might therefore be right to reflect this in translating the passage. 27. 12-13. For Iphikrates (cf. 24. 16) at least, a man who could resist a panic was made of officer-material: see Polyaenus 3. 9. 10.

27. 12.

each company

or regiment.

It is just possible

that these terms are meant to be understood here as interchangeable, to encompass differing military nomenclature and organization in different places. But more probably the ‘regiment’

(taxis)

subsumes

the

‘company’

(lochos):

see

the

notes on 1. 5, companies, and 22. 29, regimental-commander. (Barends 138, under taxis, claims the opposite relationship, but this is surely a slip, given his correct definition of taxiarchos, vis-à-vis lochagos, immediately beforehand.)

_

178

27.

AINEIAS

13.

each

mess.

THE

TACTICIAN

See the note on

10. 5, COMMUNAL

DINNERS. 27.14. Another abrupt change of perspective; cf. 18. 22 and note. No exact parallel or illustration for this recommendation suggests itself, though every commentator since Casaubon has been put in mind of Hannibal’s torch-bearing oxen in 217 (Polybius 3. 93. 3-94. 6, etc.). For the tactical exploitation of fauna cf. 37. 4 and note. 27.15. The chapter ends rather lamely, and not altogether consequentially, as must have been felt by whoever inserted the ‘Reveille’ rubric. At worst 27. 15 may bear no direct relation at all to 27. 1-14 (note its partial repetition at 28. 4);

but more probably we are to understand its prescriptions as applying specifically to the morning after a night of panic.

28. 1.

a state of terror.

See the note on 27. 1, Sudden

alarms and terrors. Now the context seems once again to be ‘rational’ rather than groundless fear. closed. Lawrence 248 interprets this to mean actually blocked up, as in 23. 4, rather than merely kept closed.

28.2. wicket gate. the wicket gate.

cf. 24. 5 and note, the passageway or

a deserter trying to leave. Aineias says simply ‘a deserter’, and Loeb 145 understands him to mean that the deserter as well as the spy is one seeking to enter the town. My (contrary)

interpretation—cf.

22.

14 for

both

eventualities—follows

Hunter/Handford 71 (and, implicitly, Budé 62). On spies and deserters generally see C. G. Starr, Political Intelligence in Classical Greece (Mnemosyne suppl. 31: 1974) 8-18.

28. 3.

(under the escort etc.).

The gist of the missing

phrase here can be recovered from the parallel passage in Julius Africanus 49 (for which see Loeb 209-11; Hunter/ Handford 242; Budé 94-5). For this particular version of it— slightly longer than most, on stichometric grounds (see

COMMENTARY

179

generally Hunter/Handford 251-7, esp. 251~2)—I Hunter/Handford 195 with 251 and 255-6. 28.4.

reconnaissance.

boats.

See the first note on 8. 2.

both leaves of a gate.

follow

See the note on 27. 15.

Aineias actually says ‘both gates’ but

his meaning is clear; cf. Winter 213. a single episode. In fact two are proffered (28. 5, 28. 6-7), a small indulgence engagingly defended at the end of 28. 7. others like it. example.

28. 5.

Thucydides

4. 67. 3-5

(Megara,

424), for

Klazomenai was a small island off the Ionian coast,

north of Teos (cf. 18. 13-19), which struggled for control of territory on the neighbouring mainland (Aristotle, Politics 1303P7-10, Tod no. 114, etc.). No firm date can be assigned to this episode, but it bears the hallmarks of belonging—like 28. 6—7—to the series of illustrations drawn from the history of fourth-century tyrannies (cf. Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 71 and Mercenariat 223-4). Hunter/Handford 196 suggests identifying this Python with Python of Ainos (in eastern Thrace), one of

the two brothers who assassinated King Kotys of Thrace in c.360 and received Athenian citizenship as their reward (Demosthenes

23.

119,

127,

163; Osborne

58-9);

however,

Athenodoros ‘of Imbros’ (24. 10 with note) is no parallel for calling an Ainian a Klazomenian. Gehrke, Stasis 79 reasonably locates Python’s tyranny in the period following the King’s Peace.

28.6.

in the Hellespontine region.

Loeb 147 and Budé

63 construe this phrase as being attached to, and qualifying, Abydos. I suggest they are wrong, on two counts. First, there is no reason to think that either Aineias or his readers will have heard of the Abydos in Upper Egypt, or at least have been apt to confuse it with Hellespontine Abydos. Secondly and especially, when Aineias does employ such qualifiers

180

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

elsewhere (4. 1, 11. 10a, 12. 5, 20. 4) they are couched in the form ‘x, (namely) the one in/ony’. Here in 28. 6 the phrase ‘in the Hellespontine region’ is not adjectival—i.e. attached to either Abydos or (as, seemingly, Hunter/Handford 71; Tuplin 128; and P. Frisch, Die Inschriften von Parion (Bonn

1983) 66)

Parion—but adverbial, i.e. to be taken with ‘for his capture’ (cf. Barends 77); compare generally 24. 3.

Iphiades of Abydos.

Another faction-leader become tyrant:

Aristotle, about him 197 dates mouth of

Politics 1306°26-31. From this and other testimony (chiefly Demosthenes 23. 176-7) Hunter/Handford his capture of Parion—further up the coast, in the the Propontis—to the complicated period 362-59;

cf. Parke

100 n. 1 and

130; Frisch, loc. cit. in preceding note.

But plainly it could be either earlier or later.

28.7.

naively.

cf. 11. 1 and note.

29. 2.

See 5. 1 and notes.

29.3. (1867)

acity. It is not named—pace A. Meineke, Hermes 2 183, who proposed various textual emendations

including that of Amphipolis for polis (‘city’) and, thereby, the identification of this episode (29. 3-10) with Brasidas’ capture of Amphipolis in winter 424/3 (Thucydides 4. 102-6); a close comparison of the two accounts simply does not warrant this (cf. Loeb 149 n. 1). Budé 64 n. ı comments on the vivid detail of Aineias’ narrative (cf. Hunter/Handford 198 and Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 70 with n. 73, both surmising that he may have been personally involved), which can be ungrudgingly conceded. But the accompanying suggestion that the name of the city was deliberately and tactfully withheld is gratuitous (cf. the notes on 18. 8 and 23. 7-11); and to conjecture further that that name is, finally, unveiled at the very end of the chapter

(29. 12: Sikyon) is surely a view which embodies its own refutation. (It has alarmingly taken on the status of undisputed fact in (e.g.) Vélissaropoulos 209 with n. 30.) If clues are craved one might search for them primarily in 29. 5—see the note below; but really the only sensible course is to admit ignorance, of both place and time (cf. Belyaev 252).

COMMENTARY

during a mass festival. 29.4.

181

cf. ch. 17.

the foreigners etc.

Not mercenaries, as the explan-

atory clause shows (cf. Hunter/Handford 198; Budé 64 n. 2). One might infer from their involvement, as (especially) from that of citizens who needed to be armed (cf. also 29. 11-12), that the coup in question was directed against an oligarchy. shields.

See the note on 24. 6, shields.

sabres.

The

word

is machaira,

not

used

elsewhere

in the

treatise (though see the note on 24. 2, SWORD and DAGGER).

29.5.

the customs officials.

These ellimenistai (cf. Demos-

thenes 34. 34 for such officials in the Bosporan kingdom (5. 2

and

note,

Byzantium;

Leukon)—Hunter/Handford and

Hunter/Handford

Vélissaropoulos

219-22)

200

wrongly

are declared

says by

199-200 to be the same as the ‘harbour-

guardians’ (limenophylakes) of 29. 12. If true, this is true only in the sense (mutatis mutandis) of 24. 1; in the light, that is, of

Aineias’ habit (cf. the note on 26. 12, the city-commander) of varying his terminology for officials, so as to encompass different titles for the same or similar functionaries in different places. See further on 29. 12, The harbour-guardians and

the dispatch-officers. 29. 6. bucklers. That is, peltai, the light shields from which peltasts took their name; see the note on 15. 5, and Anderson 112-13. As Best 127-8 observes, the wide variety of arms and armour procured for this coup (29. 4-6) ‘includes, apart from the equipment for hoplites and archers, also javelins, daggers, peltai and small shields—in other words the equipment of the peltast’. 29. 9. Gnomon phalanx, than its

battle formation. More exactly (cf. F. Lammert, 28 (1956) 308), Aineias’ solitary reference to the ‘a line formation with a width considerably greater depth’ (Pritchett 1. 134).

29. 10. the civic buildings. civic buildings.

See the note on 22. 2, the

182

AINEIAS

the houses opposite.

THE

TACTICIAN

Rather than ‘of their opponents’, as

the paraphrase of Julius Africanus Handford 201 and 248-9.

29. 11. similar. unidentifiable.

And

50 has

it; cf. Hunter/

from our point of view similarly

29.12. helmets. Probably of the conical kind; see the note on 24. 6, pointed helmets. shields.

For similar improvisation of wicker and/or wooden

shields cf. Thucydides 4. 9. 1 (Pylos, 425) and Xenophon, Hellenika 2. 4. 25 (Peiraieus, 403).

The harbour-guardians and the dispatch-officers.

The

former, limenophylakes, are attested in Hellenistic Karystos (IG 12. 9 nos. 8-9) and the latter, apostoleis, in fourth-century Athens (evidence and discussion in P. J. Rhodes, The Athenian Boule (Oxford 1972, corrected repr. 1985) 120; B. Jordan, The Athenian Navy in the Classical Period (University of California Classical Studies 13: Berkeley and Los Angeles 1975) 54-5 and 99-101). But the relevance of this is dubious, not least

since the Athenian apostoleis dealt with warships and Aineias’ concern is manifestly merchant shipping; cf. Köchly/Rüstow 174. He is surely employing, as in 29. 5 (see the note there), whatever terminology sprang to mind; indeed, in a general recommendation like this, excessive specificity would have been a disadvantage and a distraction. Had he written ‘the harbour-guardians or dispatch-officers’ the point would be plainer still; yet even as it stands his phraseology does not demand the view (taken by, e.g., Barends 20 and 84) that the two are separate boards of officials in the same place(s), as opposed to differently designated officials with duties broadly similar from one place to another.

Sikyon.

Aineias’ sole reference to this city but a direct one,

direct enough to undermine suggestions (e.g. Budé 51 n. 1 and 64 n. 1: see the notes on 23. 7-11 and 29. 3, a city) that he suppresses its name elsewhere.

COMMENTARY

183

The episode in question, as Hug 6 with n. 3 recognized (cf.

e.g.,

Hunter/Handford

(Baltimore

1928)

202;

72 n. 40; Budé

(Oxford 1982) 68 with harbour by a Theban Xenophon, Hellenika 7. 1. and Frontinus, Stratagems

go.

1.

C.

imported.

H.

Skalet,

Ancient

Sicyon

66 n. 2; A. Griffin, Sikyon

n. 20), is the capture of Sikyon’s force under Pammenes in 369: 18; more fully in Polyaenus 5. 16. 3 3. 2. 10.

That

is, legally and above

board,

as

opposed to the clandestine smuggling of ch. 29; cf. Budé 67 n.

I. go.

2.

disarm

individuals

upon

arrival.

See

10.

9,

specifying individual foreigners, and the note on 10. 14. 31. 1. secret messages. Cryptography was clearly a subject of enormous fascination for Aineias. This chapter (on which see generally Bettalli 86-9) occupies some 12 per cent of the entire treatise, and creates the impression that it could easily have been expanded into a treatise of its own (perhaps like the one written, or at least projected, by Philo of Byzantium in the second half of the third century: see Budé xlii and

xliv; Garlan,

Poliorcétique 282).

Even

represents by far the fullest accumulation

as it stands

it

of cryptographic

theory and practice from classical antiquity (on which see generally E. C. Reinke, CJ 58 (1962/3) 113-21), covering— unequally—both of the basic ways in which messages can be hidden: steganography, which aims to conceal the actual existence of the message, and cryptography proper, which leaves it unconcealed but seeks to render it unintelligible. (For this distinction see (e.g.) D. Kahn, The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing (London 1967) xii, with 82-3 on Aineias himself.) Much of the material is anecdotal or quasianecdotal—and several of the anecdotes are told too summarily to be identified (cf. Budé 70 n. 1); but some of the methods are presented simply as recommendations, and, in the case of 31. 16-19 especially, betray themselves as the author’s own invention. The omission of the well-known Spartan skytalé need

occasion

no

surprise,

since

it was

not,

as

has

almost

184

AINEIAS THE TACTICIAN

universally been supposed, a cryptograph: see T. Kelly in The Craft of the Ancient Historian: Essays in Honor of C. G. Starr (Lanham and London 1985) 141-69, reviving a view of J. H. Leopold, Mnemosyne 28 (1900) 365-91; cf. independently S. R.

West, CQ 38 (1988) 42-8. the

sender

and

the

recipient.

The

actual

bearer,

by

contrast, could be left in ignorance: see 31. 4-5 and 31. 31.

31.

2.

irrespective

of size and

age.

This

is an odd

comment within the context of a specific anecdote, even one imperfectly recalled; but no doubt the ploy had often been used (cf. Budé 70 n. 1).

pricking letters etc.

There is some textual corruption in

this clause, but it emerges clearly enough from the following sentence—and even more from 31. 3, a similar method of sending short messages—that the dots are not confined to one of the first three lines. What Aineias means is, begin at the first line and continue for as many lines as are necessary. 32.

4.

sandals.

This

is one

of several

artifices

in

the

chapter which find echoes in Ovid’s mock-didactic advice, in the third book of his Ars Amatoria, to wives seeking secret communication with their lovers. For the sandals cf. Il. 623-4 (though the bearer there is a female accomplice), and generally Il. 493-8 and 619-30.

31.6.

Ephesos.

The first anecdote in the chapter so far to

have a declared location. Its date, however, is anyone’s guess.

written on leaves.

By no means the improbable medium

that it might seem to a modern reader: witness (e.g.) petalism, the short-lived Syracusan counterpart of Athenian ostracism, where the names were inscribed not on potsherds but olive leaves (Diodorus 11. 87).

bound to a wound.

For this practice see generally E. D.

Phillips, Greek Medicine (London

1973) 89-90.

COMMENTARY

185

31.7. instead of ear-rings. The deception presupposes a decidedly simpler design of ear-ring than most of those which actually survive from archaic and classical Greece (for which see R. A. Higgins, Greek and Roman Jewellery (London 1961) 122-7); lead ones, however, were doubtless simpler as well as

(Higgins, op. cit. 45) cheaper. For lead foil as a medium for writing see (e.g.) E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and The Irrational (Berkeley 1951) 194-5 (curses); P. Calligas, ABSA 66 (1971) 79-93 (bottomry loans); B. Bravo, Dialogues d’histoire ancienne 1 (1974) 111-87, esp. 111-16 (letters).

31.

8.

this

fraternal

service.

This

phrase

has

been

recognized as an allusion to a proverbial notion (thus Plato, Republic 362 D) of ‘brotherly’—in a metaphorical sense—support and assistance. But in Aineias’ story who is helping whom?

Hunter/Handford

retains the transmitted text, where

‘cavalryman’ lacks a definite article. This compels the view that a third party was involved, i.e. that ‘a brother trooper’ (Hunter/Handford 79) on the expedition aided in the deception, wittingly or unwittingly (see Hunter/Handford 206). However, reading ‘the cavalryman’ (with Loeb 158-9 and Budé 60, following E. Capps) permits an interpretation at once more likely and more economical, requiring the involvement of only two people: the deliverer of the message and his ‘brother’cavalryman the traitor.

31.9.

The following episode etc.

Although the episode

is recounted at fuller length (31. 9-gb) than any other in the chapter, the first attempt to identify it was made only recently, by Brown 385-9. He argues persuasively that the city is Sardis

and

the

incident

the

Ionian

Revolt

one

recorded,

briefly, by Herodotus 6. 4: letters from Histiaios of Miletos (cf. 31. 28-9), destined for pro-Greek Persians in Sardis, are — betrayed by their carrier Hermippos of Atarneus to the satrap Artaphrenes, who entraps the conspirators in precisely the manner Aineias describes. Brown anticipates and addresses the principal potential objection to this identification—the fact that Aineias not merely omits some Herodotean detail (most obviously all the names, personal and geographical) but adds a significant one

186

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

of his own, that of the signet-ring seals—by assessing it in the context of the four well-established instances of Aineias’ borrowing from Herodotus, three of them in this same chapter: 31. 14, 31. 25-7, 31. 28-9, 37. 6-7. In the first and, especially, second of these cases Aineias supplies details not to be found in Herodotus, without thereby undermining the identification (cf. 2. 3-6, from Thucydides); so he could easily be doing the same here in 31. 9-gb. (Brown does not make it wholly clear, however, whether these additional details should

be seen as deriving from other sources—discussed, for the Sardis incident, ibid. 389—93—or simply manufactured by Aineias himself in his imperfect struggle to remember his Herodotus.) That Sardis was not, in fact, ‘under siege’ (31. 9) at the time would be a venial error by the author of a Siegecraft. 31. 14. a case. It is universally agreed to be that of the crucial letter sent to the Spartans in 481 by their deposed king, Damaratos, forewarning them of Xerxes’ invasion plans (Herodotus 7. 239; cf. Polyaenus 2. 20 and Justin 2. 10. 13-17; and for the same story attached to other names see Justin 21. 6. 1-6 and Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 17. 9. 16-17, with Brown 386 n. 3). Herodotus does not say, as Aineias does, that the wax surface was itself written on (though that is likely enough), or indeed that the recipient, Queen Gorgo, sent a reply, but such additions are not unknown in Aineias’ assimilation of Herodotus (see the preceding note); and the Damaratos anecdote, specifically, ‘cannot be traced back to the sole authority of Hdt. in this passage’ (R. W. Macan, Herodotus: The Seventh, Eighth and Ninth books 1. 1 (London

1908) 354). 32. 15. shrine of fulfilment (HTR 37

hero’s tablet. A terracotta plaque placed in the a minor deity (on ‘heroes’ see Burkert 203-8) in of a vow (Burkert 68-70). As A. D. Nock remarked (1944) 166 n. 83 = Arthur Darby Nock: Essays on

Religion and the Ancient World, ed. Z. Stewart (Oxford 1972) 596 n. 83; I owe this reference to Prof. Stewart), Aineias’ phrase ‘implies a regular type’. See further W. H. D. Rouse, Greek

Votive Offerings (Cambridge 1902) 47 and 80; J. E. Harrison in Hunter/Handford 208; and in general F. T. van Straten in

COMMENTARY H. S. Versnel (ed.), Faith, Hope and Worship: Mentality in the Ancient World (Leiden 1981) 104. It is interesting to note, with Budé xix, with which Aineias proffers and describes exploitation of religious practice. 31.16.

mostsecret.

187 Aspects of Religious 65-181, esp. 78the ‘desinvolture’ (31. 15-16) this

In the sense not that it will be unseen

but, when seen, considered meaningless; cf. the note on 31. 1,

secret messages, and Spaulding 58 (citing an uncannily close parallel, using a comb, from the First World War).

most troublesome. Both to the sender and (in the disarming admission of 31. 19, relished by Hunter/Handford Ixxxii) even more to the recipient.

31. 17.

astragal.

One of the two main types of ancient

dice, made from or modelled on an animal’s knucklebone. As

Aineias’ instructions go on to make clear, it differed from the six-sided kybos in having only four numbered faces (1-3-4-6), the remaining two being blank (and rounded); see H. Lamer,

RE 13 (1927) 1900-2u29, at 1933-5. 31. 18. AINEIAS. More probably in the accusative case, AINEIAN (or AINEAN), but in any event the author’s own name; see Introduction, p. 7.

the AI(NE).

I follow here the text of Hunter/Handford 80-1,

cf. 211, but the alternative (see Loeb 164-5 and Budé 72) is substantively the same.

31. 19. Handford

deciphering it etc.

‘Amusingly naive’ -(Hunter/

211); cf. the note on 31. 16, most troublesome.

g1. 20. Not only a ‘more manageable’ device but also one incorporating the double-letter feature unmentioned (and indeed barely conceivable) for the astragal-coder. (The disk-

coder of 31. 21-2 has it too; the repetition of letters referred to in 31. 22 must mean their repetition in succession.) 31.21-2. A diagram of and modus operandi for this disk-coder are given by Diels 74-5. (Hunter/Handford 209 n. 1 wrongly

188

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

supplies this reference for the astragal-coder.) Those of Wilsdorf, fig. 44 with caption, are again—cf. the note on 7. 4—needlessly complicated. But on either scheme the central holes are actually functional (31. 22; see the preceding note) as well as diversionary (31. 21).

31.23. Ithas also been known. has been known.

See the note on 10. 25, it

31.24. An important passage for dating Aineias’ treatise. It is the earliest of numerous references by ancient writers to the bizarre custom, possibly inaugurated between c.750 and c.675 (thus G. L. Huxley in Ancient Society and Institutions: Studies Presented to Victor Ehrenberg on his 75th Birthday (Oxford 1966) 147-64; contrast the all-embracing scepticism of J. Fontenrose, The Delphic Oracle (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1978) 131-7), whereby pairs of noble Lokrian virgins were periodically sent to Troy/Ilion (cf. 24. 3-14) to be temple-servants of Athena,

in atonement for the rape of Kassandra in that temple (as epic poetry told) by the Lokrian warrior-hero Aias during the sack of Troy. They had to be introduced into the town clandestinely, and the Trojans/Tlians could kill them if they were apprehended. Within the convoluted source-tradition which grew up around the practice and its real or imagined origins (on which see Fontenrose, loc. cit.; F. Graf, Studi storico-religiosi 2 (1978) 61-79) one item is paramount for our purposes here: the fact, recorded by Apollodorus of Athens (Epitome 23. 9) and, apparently, by Timaeus of Tauromenion (FGrH 566 F 146b, with Huxley, op. cit. 149, though see A. D. Momigliano, CQ 39 (1945) 49-53, at 49 = Secondo contributo alla storia degli studi classici (Rome 1960) 446-53, at 446), that the custom came to an end after the ‘Phokian’ (= Third Sacred) War, i.e. in c.346. The significance of Aineias’ allusion to it as still in being is therefore clear—if less clear than it used to be. It was once possible to declare the passage a straightforward terminus ante quem for the composition question (thus (e.g.) HudsonWilliams 391 n. 2; Loeb 5; Hunter/Handford xi and 212).

However, the subsequent revival of the practice in the third century—from which time it continued into the first century AD—emerges not only from literary evidence (Aelian fr. 47; cf.

COMMENTARY

189

Huxley, op. cit. 151-2) but also and especially from a third-

century Lokrian inscription, the so-called Mädcheninschrift, on the subject (A. Wilhelm, JOAT 14 (1911) 163-256; Staatsvertrage

no. 472). This would be problematic, from the standpoint of dating Aineias, if the treatise showed any other signs of belonging in the third century; but as it does not—see Introduction, p. 9—31. 24 can still lay claim to being an extremely strong formal indication of a composition date before c.346. See further W. W. Tarn, CR 41 (1927) 227; Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 52; Celato, ‘Enea’ 54-6; Lehmann 71. year after year.

Thus

Hunter/Handford

83; cf. Budé

74

(‘année par année’). This is to assume—as, even more firmly,

does ‘at yearly intervals’ (Loeb 169)—that the girls were dispatched annually, though on this point there is in truth confusion in the sources generally which Aineias’ phrase does nothing to dispel; see Momigliano, op. cit. (in preceding note) 50-ı (= 448-50). A more non-committal translation, in this regard, would be ‘over many years’ (Huxley, op. cit. (in preceding note) 149; cf. U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Die Ilias und Homer, 2nd edn. (Berlin 1920) 384 n. 1, ‘über viel Jahre hin’).

31.

25.

in earlier

times.

Namely

479:

the

source

is

Herodotus 8. 128, to which Aineias (31. 25-7) adds some details; see Hunter/Handford 213-14 and Brown 387 (cf. the note on 31. 9). On Pot(e)idaia generally see J. A. Alexander,

Potidaea: Its History and Remains (Athens, Ga. 1963), esp. 32-3 on this episode and its context. For message-bearing arrows cf. (e.g.) Plutarch, Kimon 12. 4 (Phaselis, c.469). Timoxenos. Of Skione, as Herodotus 8. 128 (cf. Polyaenus 7. 33. 1) records.

31. 26.

by the notched end.

Aineias uses here—as did

Herodotus—a technical term, glyphides (pl.), which seems to mean ‘notches’ or ‘grooves’. The plural would appear to rule out its referring to the notch which fitted on the bowstring (cf. Hunter/Handford 214; contra Budé 74 n. 3), but even so it is unclear whether glyphides were longitudinal grooves for the

190

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

feathers (Hunter/Handford 214) or circular ones designed to aid the grip of the archer’s fingers (Barends 30). 31.28. (torevolt). The infinitive is supplied from Herodotus 5. 35, which this illustrative episode (31. 28-9) from the Ionian Revolt (cf. the note on 31. 9) follows closely in both

substance and wording. See Hunter/Handford 215; J. A. de Foucault, REG 80 (1967) 182-6, with comparison of later versions, including that of Polyaenus 1. 24 (but read ‘Polybe’ for ‘Polyen’ at the foot of p. 185) which purports to give the actual message; and Brown 387. On ancient tattooing and branding see C. P. Jones, JRS 77 (1987) 139-55, esp. 146 on this incident. (The incident’s historicity, or otherwise, is too large and vexed a question to enter into here, and I note merelyJ. A. S. Evans, AJP 84 (1963) 113——28, at 121: ‘Modern historians have been nearly unanimous in rejecting this story, although it is possible [cf. A. Blamire, CQ 9 (1959) 142-54, at 147] Histiaeus could have communicated with Aristagoras in a more orthodox fashion’.) 31.30. Some scholars have found this substitution-code (for an alternative type see Suetonius, Divus Julius 56. 6 and Divus Augustus 88, on the private correspondence of Julius Caesar and Augustus)

a lamentably

naive cipher from

a man

who

earlier in the chapter had been outlining such elaborate ones. For caustic comments to this effect see notably Gutschmid 589, echoed by Bengtson 461. Bettalli 88-9, however, rightly perceives beneath this superficial modern perception (‘patetico nella sua facilità di decodificazione’) the limited impact of literacy, even in the mid fourth century, on the practicalities of military life; cf. Loeb 11-12 for the same point more simply made. It might also be noted that a code easily crackable (or so the implication runs) by any self-respecting schoolboy presents,

in the example

Aineias

provides,

at least one real

problem of transcription: see the note on 31. 31, DEHORNED. 31. 31. example. Save in one particular (see the note below, DEHORNED) I follow Hunter/Handford 84-5 with 21516 for the textual arrangement and punctuation of this chapter, such that (inter alia) there are actually two, associated

COMMENTARY

191

examples given, and a single method illustrated by them. For the alternative—a single, bipartite message to exemplify the dots-for-vowels code, followed by two other (unexemplified) methods—see, e.g., Loeb 170-3; Bude 75 (though n. 1 there

does separate the two messages). DIONYSIOS. As Gutschmid 589 was the first to realize, the conjunction of this name with that of Herakleidas indicates that the names are drawn from life (a possibility ignored by

Hunter/Handford

215, cf. xxxvi, and inexplicably so, given

Hunter’s knowledge (and approval) of Gutschmid’s thesis as revealed in CR 28 (1914) 170) and that their chronological context is late 357, when Herakleidas and Dion—the latter the sender, whether actually or hypothetically, of the message(s) —usurped Dionysios IJ of Syracuse. See also Fischer 59-61; Loeb 5-7; Bengtson 460; Budé 75 n. 1; and esp. G. A. Lehmann, Historia 19 (1970) 401-6. DEHORNED. Casaubon 1705 transcribed k-/-s (the transmitted text leaves out the dots) as kalos, ‘handsome’ or ‘beautiful’; but although this is retained by Köchly/Rüstow 124-5, Schöne 91, Hunter/Handford 84-5, and Bude 75 it is inappropriate and feeble in the context, even if (as is not likely, pace Budé 75 n. 1) the two messages emanated from opposite sides in the conflict (see the preceding note). H. Diels, APAW 1913/3, 29 n. 4 and Fischer 60 proposed the adverb kakos, ‘(is doing) badly’, which produces better sense but at the price of assuming textual corruption. I therefore join those (e.g. Loeb 6 and 170-1; W. W. Tarn, CR 41 (1927) 227; Bengtson 460; Celato, ‘Enea’ 54 n. 5; Lehmann, op. cit. (in preceding note) 404; Marek/Kalivoda 563) who would read kolos, as suggested by H. Schone in Schône 92. The word is used of an ox or goat

without horns and could readily have been applied in military telegraphese or slang to a neutralized opponent. HERAKLEIDAS. The Doric dialect (in propria persona Aineias would have written Herakleides) adds a touch of authenticity. dogs.

See the note on 22. 14, dogs.

192

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

31. 33. ‘Nothing further is known of this incident or of its victim, but there is no reason against assigning to it a more or less contemporary date’ (Hunter/Handford 216). On Lampsakos—midway between Abydos and Parion (cf. 28. 67)—see generally W. Leaf, Strabo on the Troad (Cambridge 1923) 92-7; P. Frisch, Die Inschriften von Lampsakos (Bonn 1978) 103-57, esp. 126 on this episode.

31. 34. the Kadmeia. See 24. 18 and note, when the Kadmeia was captured. The Mytilene reference, however, eludes us.

31. 35.

Glous.

More

properly Glos, son of Tamös,

an

Egyptian who after joining the rebellion of Kyros in 401 served Artaxerxes II until his murder, in 380 or 379, for real or (as suspected by D. M. Lewis, Sparta and Persia (Leiden 1977) 58 n. 59) merely alleged intriguing with the Spartans; see H. Swoboda, RE 7 (1912) 1431-2. Belyaev 251 places the incident to which Aineias refers at the very end of Glos’ career; Hunter/Handford 217-18 more judiciously reckons it undatable, within the limits indicated.

forbidden.

No such prohibition is otherwise attested, and

Aineias may carrying in protocol—in a precaution

simply have had in mind the impracticability of such memoranda, given that Persian court this regard combining ceremonial deference with against assassination—required the hands to be

thrust

inside

the

sleeves

(Xenophon,

Hellenika

2.

1. 8, cf.

Kyroupaideia 8. 3. 10). Hunter/Handford 218 comments, on the Glos story, that ‘it is difficult to see how, if a man had to hide his hands in his sleeves, memoranda even between his fingers [which provide the link between 31. 33(-4) and 31. 35] would be of much use’. However, as Brian Bosworth points out to me, the fingers of the right hand, at any rate, would be momentarily raised to the mouth in the act of obeisance or proskynesis (see, e.g., the Persepolis Treasury Frieze: J. M. Cook, The Persian Empire (London 1983), plate 9), and Glos could have consulted his inter-digital memoranda in that instant.

COMMENTARY

193

The gatekeeper etc. This rather flat concluding injunction (cf. 27. 15 and note) to such a colourful chapter harks back to 29. 2 and thereby seeks to impose some retrospective coherence upon the miscellany of topics discussed and illustrated in chs. 29-31. 32.2. From now until the end of the treatise the subject is— at last—actual siege warfare; see Introduction, pp. 17 fff.

with machines or troops.

Deployed, as the similar phras-

eology of 38. 1 shows, by the besiegers (Hunter/Handford 87; Budé 77) not the besieged (Loeb 175).

(sails) etc.

cf. 32. 9-10.

towers. On wheels (32. 8). Unless, as Hunter/Handford 219 suggests, the ‘machines’ brought against Poteidaia by Nikias in 430 (Thucydides 2. 58. 1) are taken to include siege-towers, they are first recognizably attested in Sicily from the late fifth century onwards: Diodorus 13. 54. 7 (Hannibal at Selinous, 409) and 14. 51. 1 (Dionysios at Motya, 397); cf. Lawrence

42-3.

Their

potentialities were

not exploited

to the full,

further east, until the era of Philip and Alexander (see generally Garlan, Poliorcétique 225-34), but this passage of Aineias implies nothing novel or unfamiliar about them as such. masts. Garlan, Poliorcétique 171 reasonably visualizes these as lighter and more makeshift than the towers, consisting probably of pivoting beams from which were suspended some sort of leather or wicker cradles capable of carrying, and sheltering, one or more men. (For an alternative use of masts see Polyaenus 3. 10. 15, cited by Hunter/Handford 220: Timotheos

fastened barbs and sickles to their extremities, to

slash through the defensive sand-baskets Torone in 364.) Garlan finds no formal devices, but there is a possible one, as A. (1977) 200 suggests, in the ship-borne

(cf. 32. 2 and 8) at precedent for such H. Jackson, /HS 97 ‘machines’ used by

Nikias—cf. the preceding note (and Marsden 50)—against Minoa in 427 (Thucydides 3. 51. 3; the assertion of Gomme in

194

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

HCT 2. 334 that ‘these will be scaling ladders only’ is, at all events, far too sweeping, given that ladders are so called in 3. 20. 3-4, 3. 22. 3, 4. 135. 1, and 5. 56. 5).

32.

3.

rams

and

similar

machines.

The

procedures

recommended in 32. 4—6 for dealing with an actual made by such machines (whether because the various of 32. 3 have not been used or because they have ineffective) appear to presuppose two basic types: a

breach buffers proved (literal)

ram, and a drill or borer; cf. Polyaenus 6. 3 (‘the rams and the

drills’), and see the note on 32. 5, the drill. 32. 4. lassoo etc. As Thucydides 2. 76. 4 relates, the Plataians in 429 were successful with this response (as indeed with a variation—heavy beams rather than stones—on the crushing tactic of 32. 5). “The manœuvre would be a comparatively easy one, as the ram was slung from a wooden frame, and if its end was caught up its balance would be destroyed’ (Hunter/Handford 221).

32. 5.

large enough to fill a wagon.

A

prosaic English

phrase for a poetic (cf. the notes on 6. 5 and 10. 10, vagrants) Greek

adjective,

hamaxoplethes.

It is used,

also

of a stone

deployed during a siege, in Euripides, Phoenician Women 11578; see Y. Garlan, REA 68 (1966) 264-77, esp. 271 on this terminological link. For the value of such boulders in impeding the approach of siege-engines see Xenophon, Hellenika 2. 4. 27 (Peiraieus, 403). the drill. Hunter/Handford 221 struggles to interpret this as ‘the nose of the ram’ (of 32. 4) while conceding in general terms the ram/drill distinction (see the note on 32. 3) which surely underlies Aineias’ vocabulary here. See rather Budé 78

n. 1; Winter 72 n. 8; Garlan, Poliorcétique 171. clasping-hooks.

See Barends 167 with diagram 3, item ITI

(as corrected at 169).

the forebeams. Not previously mentioned (despite the definite article), but evidently the equivalent of the ‘two poles

COMMENTARY

195

resting on the wall and extending over it’ at Plataia in 429 (Thucydides 2. 76. 4).

gz.

7.

the

outer

layer

of bricks.

Bricks

have

been

mentioned earlier in the chapter (32. 2) as material for building temporary defensive structures, but here the presupposition is that the actual city walls, or at least their superstructure, will be made of brick. On the ubiquity of such walls, even into and

beyond

the fourth century, see Winter

68-73; Garlan, Poliorcétique 13 and 198-9; Adam

19. Pausanias

8. 8. 8, amongst

the blows

others,

claims

that

‘against

of

machines’ the flexibility of brick walls offered advantages over stone (though countervailing disadvantages in their vulnerability to water—and, we may add, the drill). will be.

Thus the transmitted text, retained by (e.g.) Schone

95 and Budé 78. Loeb

176-9 and Hunter/Handford

88-9

adopt emendations which produce the sense that the counterram should be the stronger (cf. the translation of Köchly/Rüstow 130-1,

though

they

leave

the

text

unemended)—without

thereby making the procedure fully intelligible: see Hunter/ Handford 221-2. As so often, Aineias simply does not make himself clear on the matter (cf. Budé 78 n. 3). However, ‘will be’ can stand, and be understood, if (following Winter 72 n. 8) one supposes that the enemy machine here is still the drill of 32. 5-6, boring through a brick wall, rather than a batteringram; the nose of the (true) ram striking outwards will—if successful—snap off the more fragile point of the drill. 32. 8. catapults. Aineias’ solitary mention of them (though Lawrence 58 reckons that ‘he may have envisaged the besieged as owning some’; cf. generally Marsden 116, and J. Ober, AJA 91 (1987) 569-604). Given the development of Greek artillery in general and catapults in particular as established by Marsden, this must refer not to the true torsion-catapult, which was to revolutionize siege warfare from the 340s onwards, but to the much less formidable crossbow-type (and non-torsion) gastraphetés, pioneered by Dionysios I of Syracuse and known in mainland Greece by the second quarter of the fourth century. See above all Marsden,

196

AINEIAS THE TACTICIAN

esp. 5-12, 48-73, 99-100 (and (Thessaloniki 1977) 211-23); cf. Poliorcétique 171-3; G. T. Griffith in 9; Ober 44 and 95 (and in AJA 91

slings.

in Ancient Macedonia 2 Winter 219-20; Garlan, Hammond/Griffith 444(1987) 569-70).

Coupled here with catapults ‘doubtless as being the

two weapons which would outrange a bow’ (W. W. Tarn, Hellenistic Military and Naval Developments (Cambridge 1930, repr. Chicago 1975) 105 n. 3, adducing Arrian, Anabasis 4. 30. 1 for the same conjunction; cf. Garlan, Poliorcétique 172). On the range of slings see (e.g.) Thucydides 2. 81. 8 and, outranging bows, Xenophon, Anabasis 3. 4. 16. excavate etc. Tunnelling subject of ch. 37.

and

32.9.

Whether inside the town, where

reach the ground.

counter-tunnelling

are the

they would create a hazard underfoot (Budé 78 n. 6), or outside, where the enemy could retrieve and recycle them (Barends 155; Lawrence 58). 32. 11. a shelter. cf. 33. 1, and the makeshift version in 37. 9 (with note). Literally, a tortoise (as the Roman testudo); cf. Xenophon, Hellenika 3. 1. 7, Thibron at ‘Egyptian’ Larisa in 399. Its fifth-century origins, including its possible use by Perikles at Samos

in 440

(Diodorus

12. 28. 2-3;

Plutarch,

Perikles 27. 3-4) are controversial: see (e.g.) Gomme in HCT 1. 354; Marsden 50 n. 7; Winter 85 n. 44, cf. 309 with n. 65; Garlan, Poliorcétique 131-4; Lawrence 42. 32-12. fire. Not to set alight the shelter, as in ch. 33, but to deter the actual digging beneath it; cf. in principle Thucydides 6. 102. 2-3 (Syracuse, 414) and Xenophon, Hellenika 7. 2. 8 (Phleious, c.369); and see 33. 4 and note, gates... set on fire.

or is dug

through.

Here

I follow the text of Hunter/

Handford go—1, justified at 224: ‘throughout the passage there are two possibilities in view: the wall may be either knocked down . . . or dug through’. The alternative—attributed by Budé 79 to Loeb 178-9 but actually standard since Casaubon

COMMENTARY

197

1708—simply envisages the wall collapsing where it is being dug through. counter-wall.

Compare,

once again, the Plataians in 429

(Thucydides 2. 76. 3). Within the treatise the relevant point of comparison is not, pace Hunter/Handford 224, the façade-like

construction of 23. 5 (see the note there) but the substantial one of 33. 4.

33-1.

thrown on to machines etc.

For an instance of this

see Diodorus 14. 51. 2-3 (Motya, 397). If the machines were not within range of the walls, of course, a special incendiary

sortie could be mounted: Diodorus 13. 85. 5 (Akragas, 406), 14. 108. 4 (Rhegion, 388), etc.

33-2. an artist’s impression of a thunderbolt. Many of these still survive, on coins (e.g. G. K. Jenkins, Ancient Greek Coins (London

pottery

1972) nos. 81, 175, 180, 240, 451, 516, 631),

(e.g. J. Boardman,

Archaic Period (London

Athenian Red-Figure

Vases:

The

1975) nos. 55 and 329) and even the

cheek-piece of a helmet (C. Carapanos, Dodone et ses ruines 2 (Paris 1878) plate 55, no. 3). (I owe these references to Dr A. H. Jackson.) They indicate that Aineias’ device, pace Loeb 181 n. 2, had spikes at both ends, which naturally increased the

likelihood of its embedding itself in its target. 33.3.

wooden towers.

fact ‘wooden’, probably, Winter 75-7, cf. 175.

33.4.

That is, as part of the wall (and in in the upper

gates...setonfire.

storey(s)

only):

see

cf. 26. 6-7, and (e.g.) Diodorus

14. 90. 5-6 (Rhegion, 393), where the successful defensive ploy of enlarging rather than extinguishing the fire, to buy

time for troops to rally, pre-echoes Aineias’ recommendation here.

barricade.

34-1.

See 32. ı2 and note, counter-wall.

(with bird-lime).

Bude 81 declines to adopt the

supplement (suggested by A. Meineke, Hermes 2 (1867) 186),

198

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

but both the internal logic of the passage—calling for mention of a substance other (and more readily smearable) than vinegar—and external parallels (e.g. Theophrastus, On Fire 61) seem to require it: Loeb 182-3, esp. 183 n. 1; Hunter/ Handford 90-3 and (esp.) 226.

35.

1.

you

yourself.

See the note on

18. 22

(though

defenders, of course, needed incendiary devices as much as attackers). 36. 1. ladders. Specifically scaling-ladders, though the same general word—no more specialized one being available —is used of them throughout this chapter as of the workmen’s ladders in 11. 3 (and the rush-rope ladders in 38. 7-8). Hunter/Handford 227 cites and analyses Xenophon, Hellenika 7. 2. 5-9, the night-attack by Arkadians ef al. on Phleious in c.369, as a prime illustrative episode both for the use of scaling-ladders (cf. also Thucydides 4. 135. 1, Brasidas at Poteidaia in winter 423/2; and the note on 32. 1, masts) and for much else in Aineias’ treatise.

36. 2.

(impossible).

Presumably

when

the ladder does

not quite reach the top of the wall. See further, next note.

a sort of door-panel.

This contrivance

has been

much

discussed and variously interpreted: see Hunter/Handford 228; H. Waschow, 4000 Jahre Kampf um die Mauer (Leipzig 1938) 33-4; Barends 168-9 with diagram 4; Budé 114-17; Y. Garlan, REG 81 (1968) 287, and Poliorcétique 173-6 with fig. 2. To my mind it is the Bude solution, as modified by Garlan, which makes Aineias’ words describe an adequately simple device and a procedure for deploying it that one can actually visualize as practicable and effective. Its essence, on

this view,

is that

the ladder

is made

to slide and

fall

laterally along the face of the wall, rather than outwards and only incidentally sideways (Barends), directly outwards (Waschow), or—after being suspended outwards—inwards (Hunter/Handford). Garlan points out the practical difficulty of placing the panel itself under the ladder, as Aineias seems to have considered the ideal, and suggests that for the ladder

COMMENTARY

199

to be anywhere between (and under) the two (?)ropes from which the panel was suspended would have been sufficient; hauling in one rope and paying out the other could then have

brought the panel into contact with the ladder and, when continued, precipitated its fall. 37-1 ff. On tunnelling and counter-tunnelling (cf. 32. 8) see generally Winter 133-4, 155-6, 200; Garlan, Poliorcétique 1435, 176-7, 235-6; Lawrence 41.

37.1.

believe.

As opposed to ‘know’ (37. 5).

the trench outside the wall. A perimeter trench or moat has not been previously mentioned but here its existence is taken for granted; cf. Garlan, Poliorcétique 190-1.

37.3.

smoke.

The best illustrative episode for this recom-

mendation is the Romans’ siege of Ambrakia in 189 (Polybius 21. 28. 11-17, etc.), where the smoke from burning feathers and charcoal in a large pot was blown at the tunnellers with bellows. 37.4. wasps and bees. The latter, at least, were employed by the defenders of Bithynian Themiskyra against Lucullus in 72 (Appian 12. 78), together with ‘bears and other beasts’. For the use of insects in Old Testament

warfare see E. Neufeld,

Orientalia 49 (1980) 30-57. (M. D. Grmek’s study of ‘les ruses de guerre biologiques dans l’antiquité’ in REG 92 (1979) 141-

63 restricts itself, except briefly at 144-5, to the inanimate.) On bees and wasps in ancient writers generally see M. Davies/J. Kathirithamby, Greek Insects (London and New York 1986) 47-83; I. C. Beavis, /nsects and Other Invertebrates in Classical Antiquity (Exeter 1988) 187 ff. 37-6. story. The source is Herodotus 4. 200; for comparison of the two versions see Hunter/Handford 229, Brown 387-9,

and the next note. For Barka cf. 16. 14 and note, Kyrene and Barka. Its siege by Amasis (.a Persian general, not the wellknown Pharaoh) belongs in c.512.

200

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

its inner side.

cf. Barends 56 (‘convex side up’). Similarly

‘technical’—or pedestrian—elucidation by Aineias of an historical narrative occurs in 2. 6 (Thucydides) and 31. 27

(Herodotus); cf. Hunter/Handford 214. 37. 7.

at night.

conducted

Either because the operation would be

not inside the walls, as at Barka, but outside, or

(Budé 85 n. 1) so as to conduct background of noise (cf. 22. 24).

still in use.

The

Ambrakiots

it against

(see

the

note

a

minimal

on

37.

3)

employed thin sheets of bronze hung on the outer wall of an internal perimeter trench; and cf. Vitruvius 10. 16. 9-10 (Illyrian Apollonia, 214).

37. 8.

to dig tunnels yourself.

See the note on 18. 22.

37.9. Another obscure, or obscurely described (Loeb 188 n. 1), contraption (cf. 36. 2). The interpretation of Barends 169 with diagram 5 is characteristically thoughtful, but flawed most obviously in its presupposition that Aineias had in mind four-wheeled (cf. Barends 14) rather than two-wheeled wagons; see in general H. L. Lorimer, JHS 23 (1903) 132-51. The ruling theory, therefore, is still that of Hunter/Handford

230-2 (including figs. 6-7), endorsed by W. W. Tarn, CR 41 (1927) 227 and Budé 117-18; and I happily follow it here.

38. 1. with machines machines or troops.

three groups.

etc.

cf.

32.

1 and

note,

with

See the note on 20. 2, each general; and, on

the organization of manpower in relays, R. K. Sinclair, CQ 16 (1966) 249-55, esp. 252.

38.2. a large body of picked men. /fthis group has been previously mentioned it must be in the earlier passage on the general’s rounds, 26. 10. Hunter/Handford 233 calls these men ‘the general’s bodyguard mentioned in 1. 4 and xvi. 7’; but this is doubly wrong, in conflating two separate bodies neither of which can naturally be taken to be the one in

COMMENTARY

201

question here. See the notes on ı. 4, 16. 7 (the picked men), 17. 6, 22. 2 (The general in overall command), and 26. 10.

an enemy etc.

The influence of Thucydides on Aineias has

been detected in stray words and phrases elsewhere (see in

brief Hunter/Handford Ixxi and Ixxxi with n. 1; E. Cavaignac, REA 30 (1928)

151), but here is the clearest echo of substance

(outside 2. 3-6): the sentiment is uttered in almost identical words by Brasidas to his troops before the battle of Amphipolis

in 422 (Thucydides 5. 9. 8).* dogs. (In fact the grammar reveals that Aineias has specifically bitches in mind.) See the note on 22. 14, dogs. 38.

4.

appropriate

encouragement.

The

criterion

of

appropriateness here in 38. 4-5 is not that of general external circumstances,

as

in

26.

8-11,

but

the

ad hominem

socio-

economic one which has been evident throughout the treatise. The subjectivity of modern responses to it in this instance can be judged from the contrast between Hunter/Handford 233 (‘the rich, as usual in Aeneas, have to suffer’) and Marinovich,

‘Struggle’ 60-1 (cf. Mercenariat 210-11), extracting from this passage—with scant justification, to my mind—the view that reprimanding those not ‘wealthy and influential’ would result in not merely individual dismay but general sedition. See

rather

Budé

86

n.

2, laying

the

emphasis

on

military

psychology; cf. 22. 15 and note.

38. 5.

im the Addresses.

Should

this be in the lower

case, i.e. merely an internal cross-reference back to 26. 8-10? So argues Budé xvi-xvii (cf. 57 n. 2, and the translation of this phrase of 38. 5 at p. 86: ‘en parlant d’instructions orales’),

followed by Lehmann 72 n. 10. In support of this is the fact that Aineias writes of ‘occasions’, which appears to indicate that the determinant of leniency has shifted from the ad hominem criterion operative earlier in 38. 4-5 to that of the all-

embracing external circumstances which form the background to 26. 8—11 (cf. the preceding note). It may additionally be conceded (to Budé xvii) that what is said in 26. 8—10 does not

stand in manifest need of expansion in a separate treatise. On

|

202

the

AINEIAS

other

hand

it

THE

would

TACTICIAN

be

unwarranted,

and

indeed

implausible, to suppose that any such treatise dealt with this matter and no others; cf. 21. 2 on the broad coverage of Encampment. I have therefore adhered, albeit without ironclad conviction, to the traditional view that this last sentence of 38. 5 contains not an internal cross-reference but citation of another treatise,

completed but now lost. Its title Akousmata (best known, in an altogether different context, as that of the orally transmitted maxims and aphorisms of Pythagorean philosophy: W. Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Cambridge, Mass. 1972) 166—208) literally means ‘things heard’. Casaubon 1808-9 took this to signify a collection of historical illustrations in anecdotal form (cf. C. G. Mahlstedt, Uber den Wortschatz des

Aineias Taktikus (diss. Kiel: Jena 1910) 30; Barends 11; Belyaev 241 n. 16, 243 n. 22), but more probably the sense is that of instructions or admonitions to be addressed by

commanders

to

their

troops:

thus

Köchly/Rüstow

5-6,

followed by (e.g.) Hug 20-1; Loeb 8; Hunter/Handford xiii and 233; Marinovich, ‘Struggle’ 50; Celato, ‘Enea’ 60 n. 37, cf. 64.

38. 6. origines

stone-throwing. ‘La pierre à lancer qui, aux de l’humanité, avait armé la main du premier

agresseur, ne perdit jamais pendant toute l’antiquité de son efficacité dans la guerre de siège’ (Garlan, Poliorcétique 135). As Hunter/Handford 233 observes, the careful directions (38. 6-8) for retrieving such stones shows what a valuable, and finite, resource Aineias considered them. *

38. 7. boar-nets or deer-nets. cf. 11. 6; and see generally J. K. Anderson, Hunting in the Ancient World (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1985) hunting).

38.8.

38-9

The gatesetc.

(nets)

and

48 ff.

(deer-

and

boar-

This is a more categorical injunction

than anything in chs. 18 and 28 (though implicit in 28. 4).

39. 2.

in the alleyways.

Where they can ambush those

who have not fallen, as intended, into the trench.

COMMENTARY

39. 3.

the middle of the gate.

203

cf. Loeb 193 (and Barends

89). But Aineias uses a compound

noun, mesopylon, which is

otherwise

elements—middle/centre

unattested,

and

its two

and gate—could be differently combined and construed: ‘la porte centrale’ (Budé 88, seemingly endorsed by Garlan, Poliorcétique 197). 1 know of no linguistic or archaeological

justification for ‘the beam above the gate’ (Hunter/Handford

99). portcullis.

Thus,

e.g.,

Loeb

193,

Bude

88

(‘herse’;

cf.

Garlan, Poliorcétique 197-8), and Winter 264-5. Lawrence 262 insists that it is merely ‘a deadfall barrier, which gave the effect of a portcullis’.

39.5. distinguishing friend from foe. failed to recognize one another, etc.

See 4. 3 and note,

39. 6. employed before now. See the note on 10. 25, it has been known. In this instance it seems more likely that Aineias had in mind several occasions (Loeb (Hunter/Handford 99).

195) than one

nooses. cf. ‘Schlinge’ (Köchly/Rüstow 143 and 145; O. Lendle, Texte und Untersuchungen zum technischen Bereich der antiken Poliorketik (Palingensia 19: Wiesbaden 1983) 117 n. 127), ‘lassos’ (Hunter/Handford 99). The alternative—‘nets’ (Loeb 195; Barends 27), ‘filets’ (Budé 89) —is ill-founded, as their (later) attested utilization in both theory and practice (see Budé 89 n. 2) is not for the purpose described here but simply to throw, wholesale, over assailants so as to immobilize them. In any case Aineias’ use of the word brochos elsewhere (18. 5, 18. 9, 18. 16, 32. 4) always presupposes a loop.

39.

7.

swing-beams.

Best

known

in

agricultural

and

horticultural contexts, for drawing water (Herodotus 1. 193. 1; Aristophanes fr. 697 Kassel/Austin; etc.), but their military application—or at least that of their Latin counterpart the tolleno—is also attested in Vegetius 4. 21 and elsewhere: see Lendle, op. cit. (in preceding note) 117-27.

204

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

to let out slack. And so deny the cutter a firm grip on the rope—or else to lower a second rope; cf. Budé 89 n. 3.

The point is etc.

As an explanation of what has gone before

this is actually somewhat oblique. Hunter/Handford 236-7 cites 22. 13 and 31. 20 as parallels for Aineias’ correcting his own suggestions with an afterthought, yet in neither of those cases is the additional material couched in the form of an explanation. What we have here is in effect an answer to a hypothetical, unexpressed objection—why not use chains for the whole length, not merely its bottom three feet?—which maintains that the disadvantages of doing so outweigh the vulnerability (especially when the noose is on or near the ground) of rush rope. 40.1. a circuit-wall too long etc. Particularly problematic for poleis like Messene and Phigaleia with lengthy, rambling ‘country walls’ (Geländemauer), for all that their very nature and intent made certain sectors of them, at least, difficult to

approach and attack. See generally Winter 111-14, cf. 304-5.

raise the height etc.

Compare again the Plataians in 429:

Thucydides 2. 75. 4 ff.

unable to jump down.

cf. 22. 19.

40.2—3. ‘Nothing is known of the date of this incident or the name of the city: presumably it is Dionysius I who is referred

to, as

he

has

been

mentioned

before

(x. 21)‘

(Hunter/

Handford 238; cf. Loeb 197 n. 1). There is a good deal more to be said. First, although Dionysios IT has been mentioned also (31. 31 with note, DIONYSIOS), the ascription of this incident in 40. 2-3 to his father does seem assured, on two counts: it fits into the context of Dionysios I’s overall policy toward the exploitation of slaves (see Welwei 27-32; a more precise criterion, surely, than general perceptions of his character, as

invoked by Köchly/Rüstow 182 and Hunter/Handford 238), and it finds corroboration in at least one and arguably two other sources. Polyaenus 5. 2. 20, recognizably based on Aineias’ account (N. Luraghi, Prometheus 14 (1988) 164—80, at

COMMENTARY

205

165-7, cf. 180), is one of nineteen (out of twenty-two) stratagems in Polyaenus 5. 2. 1-22 where the ‘Dionysios’ in question is the elder Dionysios (J. Melber, Uber die Quelle und den Wert der Strategemensammlung Polyäns (Leipzig 1885) 497501); and in Diodorus 14. 65-9, at 14. 66. 5, the speech of Theodoros, set in the year 397/6, accuses Dionysios I of having “given the wives of the exiles in marriage to slaves and half-breeds’. Unfortunately this second testimonium creates more problems than it solves. In the first place it appears to relate to Syracuse itself (thus, e.g., Luraghi, op. cit. 167; but read ‘397/

6’ for his ‘369/8’), whereas the clear implication in both Aineias and Polyaenus is that Dionysios is dealing with another, captured city. Furthermore, the whole Theodoros speech is hard-hitting anti-Dionysios propaganda, generally thought to derive from Timaeus

(thus, e.g., Stroheker 16 and

passim; the consensus is challenged, to my mind unsuccessfully, by L. J. Sanders, Historia 30 (1981) 394-411, and in Dionysius I of Syracuse and Greek Tyranny (London 1987) passim); and since in any case similar stories are told of Kiearchos of Herakleia,

Chairon of Pellene, and Nabis of Sparta they are all quite possibly ‘part of the stock picture of the brutal tyrant’ (Burstein 53, with documentation in n. 47; cf. Welwei 29). Yet to identify, or claim, something as a ‘stock picture’ is not to rob it of an ultimate germ of historicity; and in this instance Aineias 40. 2-3 might be precisely that germ.*

40.3.

hostile to their masters.

We are left to assume that

this was indeed the outcome. The same calculation misfired badly,

however,

for

Philip

V

at Chios

in

201

(Plutarch,

Moralia 245 B-c). 40. 4.

Sinope...

Datamas.

The career of Datamas

(or

Datames), the maverick satrap of Kappadokia, is documented between c.384 and his assassination in or after 362. His ‘war’

against Sinope (a Milesian foundation on the southern shore ofthe Black Sea) should probably be dated c.370, though from the juxtaposition of literary evidence stating that it was abandoned (Polyaenus 7. 21. 5) with numismatic evidence

indicating that it succeeded (D. M. Robinson, AJP 27 (1906)

206

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

245-7) there emerges the likelihood that capturing the town took two attempts, not necessarily in the same year; and Aineias’ story could belong equally well to either of them. See further W. Judeich, RE 4 (1901) 2224-5; Robinson loc. cit.; Hunter/Handford 238 (with W. W. Tarn, CR 41 (1927) 227); Burstein 126 n. 12.

physically suitable.

cf. 4. 10, ‘those [women] best suited to

accompanying a naval expedition’. shields.

40.5.

See the note on 24. 6, shields.

a woman is recognizable etc.

A clubman’s remark

to which Aineias’ (male) readers have nodded sage assent, from Hunter/Handford Ixxxii (a ‘great truth’) and 238 (‘This particular means of distinction between the sexes is perhaps one of the few that still holds good to-day’) to S. Hornblower, The Greek World 479-3238c (London 1983) 159 (‘quite true’). Evidently Hunter/Handford had been observing different women from Tarn, who in the same year claimed that Aineias’ dictum ‘is fast ceasing to be true’ (W. W. Tarn, CR 41 (1927) 227). At all events it seems necessary to comment that there are—and always have been—numerous exceptions to the ‘characteristic’ female throwing-style (without full rotation of the shoulder), the determinant and perpetuation of which is cultural and behavioural rather than anatomical. According to Köchly/Rüstow 183, the image of women ‘armed’ with domestic utensils cannot fail to put the reader in mind of Mambrino’s barber’s-basin ‘helmet’ in Don Quixote ch. 21. By the same token, the notion of a transvestite disguise which movement will betray as such is reminiscent of a classic novel from a later age: Huckleberry Finn ch. 11. 40. 6—7. Short of extensive alterations and additions to the text, so as to have each man carry two spears (C. Graux, RC 9 (1875) 55, developed in the note in Schone 110; cf. Loeb 198 n. 1), what Aineias describes here does not readily produce the optical illusion (cf. generally Xenophon, Hipparchikos 5. 2 and 5-7; Polyaenus 2. 1. 17, 3. 9. 19) required; witness the inconclusive discussion in Bude gı n. 1. My translation

COMMENTARY

largely,

and

tentatively,

follows

the

207

interpretation

(with

diagrams) of Hunter/Handford 239, which has four men give the appearance of eight (40. 6) and, by another means, three look like six (40. 7). Even so, anyone likely to be deceived by this must be looking at it not only from long distance but also, and especially, from an oblique rather than a right angle to the line of the wall.

40. 8.

grainless rations.

A matter-of-fact phrase which

leaves us to visualize desperate circumstances: accumulated foodstuffs (10. 3) are exhausted, their replenishment (10. 12,

28. 2) difficult or impossible, and normal criteria of edibility progressively abandoned. For illustration witness (e.g.) the Sullan siege of Athens in 86: Plutarch, Sulla 13 and lurid) Appian 12. 38. my book Preparations.

(more

cf. 7. 4 (with the note), 8. 5, 21. 1.

two ways of equipping a naval force. cf. Loeb 199 and Hunter/Handford ı01. Alternatively, two ways of using it (Barends 133), or even two divisions within it (F. Lammert,

Gnomon 28 (1956) 308, cf. Klio 33 (1940) 281; Budé gı with n. 3); as the text abruptly breaks off at this point, there is really

no means of telling. At any rate, given that the Siegecraft itself discusses naval matters (e.g. 16. 13, 16. 21-2, 29. 12), there is no call to suppose, with Köchly/Rüstow 5, Loeb 8, and Belyaev 241 n. 16, that what we have lost was a self-contained treatise on naval organization: cf. Hug 22; Budé xvii;

Lehmann 72 n. g.

ADDENDA AINEIAS

HIMSELF

a) Complete editions M. Bettali, Enea Tattico, La Difesa Di Una Citta Assediata (Poliorketika). Introduzione, traduzione e commento a cura di Marco Bettali (Pisa 1990). (Also includes the Greek text, facing the Italian translation. Highly recommendable to all readers/users of Aineias. The first edition of the present work! appeared just in time for Bettali to take general note of it: see pp. vi-vii of his Introduction.)

b) Translations

J. Vela Tejada, Eneas el Tactico, Poliorcética. La Estrategia Militar Griega en el Siglo IV a.C. (Madrid 1991) (Spanish translation, with introduction and notes). J. Vela Tejada and F Martin Garcia, Eneas el Tactico, Poliorcetica. Polieno, Estratagemas. (Madrid 1991) (Spanish translation, with introduction and notes). c) Monographs Jj. Vela Tejada, Estudio sobre la lengua de la Poliorcética de Eneas el Tactico (Zaragoza 1991). d) Articles of general import G.A. Lehmann, ‘Aeneas Tacticus und die politisch-soziale Krise der zeitgendssichen Polis-Welt’, Index 17 (1989) 105-15. | For reviews of it see: B. Rochette, Les Etudes Classiques 58 (1990) 395; L. Boffo,

_ Athenaeum 78 (1990) 593; JF Lazenby, CR 41 (1991) 34-5; CJ. Tuplin, LCM 16 (1991) 22-32; D. Lateiner, Bryn Mawr Classical Ranew 2 (1991) 400-4; PJ. Rhodes,

Greece and Rome 38 (1991)99; F. Hinard, REG 104 (1991) 647; M. Clarke, Hermathena 150 (1991) 60-2; D. Donnet, AC 61 (1992) 348-9.

ADDENDA

209

A. Winterling, ‘Polisbegriff und Stasistheorie des Aeneas Tacticus: zur Frage der Grenzen der griechischen Polisgesellschaften im 4. Jahrhunder v. Chr”, Historia 40 (1991) 193-229. D. Whitehead, ‘L'image de l'étranger dans la Poliorcétique d’Enée le Tacticien’, in R. Lonis (ed.), L’Etranger dans le monde grec II: actes du colloque organisé par l’Institut d’Etudes Ancienne Nancy, septembre

1991 (Nancy 1992) 315-31. J. Vela Tejada, ‘Eneas el Täctico come testimonio histörico’, in Homenatge a Josep Alsina, | (Tarragona 1992) 353-8. J. Vela Tejada, “Tradicién y originalidad en la obre de Eneas el Tactico: la génesis de la historiografia militar’, Minerva 7 (1993) 79-92 (prefaced by an English summary).

MISCELLANEOUS

MATTERS

(A

SELECTION)?

p. 7 n. 15, Apollodorus of Damascus. See generally PH. Blyth, ‘Apollodorus of Damascus and the Poliorcetica, GRBS 33 (1992) 127-58. The first ever English translation of Apollodorus (and of Athenaeus Mechanicus), with introduction and commentary, is

currently in preparation by Blyth and Whitehead. p- 24 (and again 142). The pitched battle mentality is searchingly explored by V.D. Hanson, The Western Way of War: infantry battle in classical Greece (New York 1989). See also Hanson (ed.) Hoplites: the classical Greek battle experience (London and New York 1991). p. 99, under the state. The meaning(s) of the word polis in Aineias

are further studied by M.H. Hansen, “The Copenhagen inventory of poles and the Lex Hafniensis de Cuitate’, in M.H. Hansen (ed.),

Introduction to an Inventory of Poleis (Copenhagen 1996) 7-72, at 29-30. p. 103, under womenfolk and slaves. See generally W.D. Barry, ‘Roof tiles and urban violence in the ancient world’, GRBS 37 (1996) 55-74.

2 SEG = Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum.

-

210

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

p. 109, under 6. 1£¥ (scouting). I.G. Spence, The Cavalry of Classical Greece (Oxford 1993) 134-5 links Aineias’ recommendation (6. 1) that daytime scouts be positioned in groups of at least three with what Xenophon, Anabasis 4. 4. 15, says about the exceptional reliability of any information emanating from Demokrates of Temnos; each passage in its different way suggests that ‘the general standard of intelligence reporting was fairly low’. p. 111, under relay-stations. On the trumpet (salpınx), see now

M.L. West, Ancient Greek Music (Oxford 1992) 118-21; and esp. P. Krentz, ‘The salpinx in Greek warfare’, in Hoplites (cited above, under p. 24] 110-20. p. 116, under remove them for safe keeping. Miiller’s catalogue of such episodes is conveniently summarized by W.K.

Pritchett in Pritchett 5.[1991] 348-52. p. 121, under from the outside. See further D. Whitehead, “The Lakonian key’, CQ 40 (1990) 267-8. p. 122, under publicly expelled. There is possible evidence for Cretan xenélasiai in a law (early fifth century) from the city of Lyttos: see H. and M. Van Effenterre, BCH 109 (1985) 157-88 (= SEG 35. 991), with the special study, on this point, by M. Van Effenterre summarized in SEG 39. 974. p. 128, under the book, of plots. One reviewer queried my assumption that Occam’s Razor - the principle that entities should not be multiplied beyond what necessity requires — would be familiar to readers without explanation. For the application of this axiom of medieval philosophy to ancient history, see, for example, A. Powell, Athens and Sparta: constructing Greek political and social history from 478 BC (London and New York 1988) 46-7. p. 128, under the betrayal of Chios. For points of generic comparison between this anecdote and the episode recounted in Thucydides 4. 66-74, at 67-8 (Megara, 424), see S. Hornblower, A

Commentary on Thucydides, ü (Oxford 1996) 236 and 238.

ADDENDA

211

pp. 139-40, under 15. 8-10. On this incident see further AJ. Graham, ‘Abdera and Teos’, JHS 112 (1992) 44-73, at 64-5.

p. 140, under Triballians. Aristophanes’ Birds put a Triballian god on the Athenian comic stage in 414. See generally N. Dunbar (ed.),

Aristophanes, Birds (Oxford 1995) 702. p. 153, under my book Encampment. On encampment as ‘a standard topic of military instruction’ in fourth-century Greece (cf. Plato, Republic 526D on the usefulness of geometry in warfare,

including pitching camp), see in brief L.A. Tritle, Phocion the Good (London etc. 1988) 73; and consult generally Pritchett 2. 133-46. p. 156, under dogs. For (working) dogs in the Attic garrison-deme of Rhamnous in the third century see SEG 21. 154 and SEG 41.

76. p. 161, under sponsor. See now K. Maratanga, ‘Un étrange proxéne chez Enée le Tacticien’, Cahiers du Centre G. Glotz 4 (1993) 223-7. p. 165, under SWORD and DAGGER. Actual, if not necessarily terminological, confusion between them may have been more likely than is allowed here, given (e.g.) the Spartans’ use of a sword so short that it was ‘strictly, perhaps, a dirk’ (PA. Cartledge, ‘Hoplites and heroes: Sparta’s contribution to the technique of ancient warfare’, JHS 97 (1977) 11-27, at 15; see also J.K. Anderson in Hoplites [cited above, under p. 24] 27). p. 167, under shields. While this paragraph can stand as it is, see generally J.F Lazenby and D. Whitehead, “The myth of the hoplite’s hoplon’, CQ 46 (1996) 27-33. Aineias here, as often elsewhere, anticipates post-classical usage.

p. 201, under an enemy etc.. On this clear echo of Thucydides (and other Aineian matters), see S. Hornblower, ‘The fourth-century

and Hellenistic reception of Thucydides’, 745 115 (1995) 47-68, at 53.

212

AINEIAS

THE

TACTICIAN

p. 202, under stone-throwing. See generally W.K. Pritchett, ‘Stone throwers and slingers in ancient Greek warfare’, in Pritchett 5. [1991] 1-67, discussing this passage at 14. p. 204, under 40. 2-3. For this and other examples of forced intermarriage between slaves and free women, see Y. Garlan, Slavery

in Ancient Greece (Ithaca NY and London 1988) 158-60.

INDEX Abdera Abydos

Amphipolis

35n., 61, 140 8n., 82, 179-80, 192

accompanying signs (for passwords)

14,

Antiochus of Syracuse Apollo

69, 77, 171

Achaia

133

175

Apollodorus of Athens 188 Apollodorus of Damascus 7n.

66, 149

Aclian (military writer)

180, 201

animals, see dogs, horses, livestock

5-6, 7n., 15,

34n., 170 Agathokles 127 Agesilaos 119, 136

Apollonia (Black Sea) 69, 106, 153

agora 46, 48, 49, 54, 58, 65, 69, 70, 78,

Ares 75, 165

Appian 199, 207 Aratos 156, 170 Argos 57, 65, 130-1, 146-7 Aristagoras 89, 190

83, 84, 101, 103

Aigina 69, 153

Aristotle 22n., 23, 25n., 32, 138, 145

Aincias lost works 6n., 10n., 13-16, 51, 52, 56,

60,

69,

95;

97;

98,

1121-13,

128,

138, 151, 153-4, 156, 158, 164,

175, 201-2, 207 provenance

6n., 10-13, 34, 37n., 39,

4on., 114, 157 Siegecraft (How to Survive under Siege): antecedents 34-8; chapterheadings 47n., 116, 178; date 6,

5n., 7n., 170 83, 88-9, 92, 189-90

Artabazos (fifth century)

88-9

Artabazos (fourth century) Artaphrenes 185

language and style 6, 32, 37-8, 122, 127,

166, 168

131, 137, 143, 194, 209; personal beliefs and sympathies (not) mani-

Artemis

fested in 30-3; psychological

assemblies 52, 57, 58, 115-16 astragals 7, 87-8, 187

insights

17-20,

asty 22, 24, 45, 99 Astyanax of Lampsakos 89, 192

38, 114, 138, 193; title 5-6, 15, 16-17, 17, 22

Athena

Ainos 179 Aiolis 75 akropolis, see citadel Alexander the Great gn., 129, 173, 175, 193 Alkibiades 128, 164, 174 1, 27, 4ın., 48, 58-9, 75, 78, 101,

104, 124, 173

Amasis (Persian) 93, 199 ambassadors 27n., 40, 54, 55, 123, 157 Ambrakia/Ambrakiots

ambushes

107, 199, 200

24, 45, 49, 60, 61, 62, 74-5,

76, 99, 202

76, 169

Asclepiodotus 5n.

27-8, 35-6, 37, 173, 201;

structure and organization

allies

54, 62, 64-5, 76, 78, 80, 82-4, 101, 108, 120, 141, 165, 167, 172, 181 see also arrows, daggers, helmets, javelins, sabres, shields, spears, swords Arkadia 10-11, 79, 110, 149 Arrian arrows

8-10, 36, 128-9, 149, 188-9; intended readership 24, 34-42; 39n., 98, 110, 119-20,

[Aristotle], Economics 29n., 138 arms and armour 17, 19, 26, 48, 52, 53,

75, 165

Athenodoros of Imbros 76, 168-9, 179 Athens/Athenians 1-3, 23n., 24, 34, 39, 49-50,

107,

109,

113,

115,

121,

124, 125, 128-9, 130-1, 138, 140, 142, 145, 155, 160, 165, 166, 168, 174, 179, 182, 184

Augustus 190 authorities, see officials

,

Barka 63, 93-4, 143-4, 199, 200

battering-rams and drills go- ı, 194-5

bees 93, 199

Biblioteca Laurenziana

5

INDEX

214

bird-lime 92, 197-8 Black Sea ıın., 57-8, 59, 69, 106, 109,

205

137, 138

booty 63, 75

Democritus

see also looting Bosporos (Kimmerian) 8n., 50, 109, 181 Brasidas 127, 176, 180, 198, 201

brick(s) 90, 91, 195 caps 58, 77, 133, 167-8 Carthaginians 113 catapults 25n., 91, 195-6 51, 52, 60, 62, 85, 112, 114,

136, 139, 185 see also horses

censorship of mail 26, 53, 120 centuries (civic subdivision)

Chabrias

186

Datamas 97, 205-6

debt 29, 33, 40, 50, 60, 109, 123-4,

boats, see ships

cavalry

Damaratos

58, 132-3

139

Chairon of Pellene 205 Chalkedon 58-9, 134 Chalkis 8n., 49, 105-6

35n.

deserters 53, 71, 73, 74, 77, 81, 97, 178 see also espionage

dice

7, 109, 187

dining-clubs 53, 119 Diodorus 4, 139, 205 Dioitas 149 Dion 191 Dionysios (I) 27n., 55, 96, 126-7, 193, 195, 204-5 Dionysios (IT) 8n., 89, 191, 204 Dionysodoros 34-5 Dionysos 65 Dioskouroi 75, 76, 165 discipline 14, 18, 28, 31, 55, 94-5, 138-9, 141, 162, 170, 173 dispatch-runners

70, 72, 154

dogs 26, 71, 72, 73, 77, 89, 94, 156-7,

Chares 42n., 58, 133

163, 201 drills, see battering-rams and drills

Charidemos 8, 75-6, 143, 166, 168, 169 chariots(?) 63, 143-4 children 27, 33, 45, 48, 50, 54, 55; 76, 105, 108-9, 116, 122, 127, 168

education 34-8, 43, 122

Chios

8n., 20, 21, 26, 34, 56-7, 65,

115, 128, 128-9, 129, 147, 205 chara, see countryside Cicero 6n. citadel (akropolis) 10, 46, 72, 82, 99,

101, 170, 174 companies (lochoi) 46, 59, 60, 78, Bo, 100-1,

161, 162, 172, 177

company-commanders 177

59, 73, 100, 162,

conspiracy passim

Constantine Porphyrogenitus 4-5 council(-chamber)

53, 118-19

countryside (chora)

19, 22-5, 51-2,

60-4, 69, 74-5, 112, 117, 138, 139, 145

see also topography cryptography 7, 84-90,

120, 183-93

ear-rings 85, 185 Eleusis 49, 108 Elis 22n. Enyalios, see Ares

Epeiros

6, 89, 174

Ephesos 85, 184 Ephorus 8n., 133 Erctria 49

espionage 52, 71, 81, 163, 178 see also deserters Etconikos 176 Eudamidas 175-6

Euphratas 80, 175-6 Euphron 10, 164 Eunpides 194 Euthydemos

34-5

evacuation 19, 22n., 24-5, 51, 52, 53, 55, 117 exiles 10, 49, 53, 54-5, 119, 157, 205

cupping-vessels 58, 134 curfew 26, 54, 72, 125 Cyprus 157-8

festivals 49, 53, 64-5, 71-2, 82-3, 118, 146-7 see also religion

daggers 50, 65, 75, 76, 83, 84, 108, 165, 181

fire(s)

Daimachos of Plataia 37n.

1, 17, 73, 74, 82, 91, 92, 106

as defensive tactic

196, 197, 199

17, 90, 91-2, 93,

215

INDEX

fire-signalling 14, 51, 60, 63, 74, 79,

horses

3, 51, 64, 75-6, 78, 80, 85, 87,

103, 110, 144, 146, 163, 168, 176-7

107, 185-13, 1398

see also signalling food/foodstufls 1, 24, 29, 51, 52, 53, 54,

see also cavalry hostages 27, 55-6, 127

60, 62, 64, 81, 83, 97, 109, 111, ı12, 113, 118, 123, 137-8, 207 foreigners, see allies, mercenaries, noncitizens, slaves funerals private 26, 53, 118, 119 public 65, 146

148, 150, 151, 193

gates 17, 19, 28, 41, 49, 53, 60, 65-9, 75-6, 81-2,

83, 90, 92, 95,

generals 24, 28, 34-5, 40-2, bo, 66, 67,

68-9, 69-70, 72, 73, 79, 80, 89, 94, 117, 147, 151, 152, 154, 155, 162, 173,

174,

Ilion 8, 9, 75-6, 88, 125, 166, 168, 188-9 Imbros 76, 168, 179

inns/innkeepers 54, 121, 122

115, 139, 142, 169-70, 172, 173, 176-7, 177

Iphikrates (military writer)

javelins 83, 181 John the Lydian 6, 7n. Julius Africanus 7n., 47n., 163, 178-9, 182 Julius Caesar

190

200-1

see also officials

Glous 90, 192 guards, see sentries

Karystos 182 Kineas 6, 9 Kition 157-8

Hannibal (fifth century) 193 Hannibal (third/second century)

Klazomenai 82, 179

harbours harmosts

170

106,

147-53, 166-7, 179, 197, 202, 203 Geländemauer 204

166,

53, 121

Iphiades of Abydos 8n., 82, 180 Iphikrates (Athenian general) 36, 77,

gatekeepers 26, 33, 41, 50, 65-8, 76, 81-2, 82, 90, 101, 108, 109, 147,

74

identity-tokens Idrieus 129

178

52, 56, 114-15, 181, 182 80, 176

Klearchos of Herakleia 135, 136, 205

59, 132, 134-5,

heavy infantry (hoplites) 60, 62, 63,

Klearchos of Sparta 176 klepsydra, see water-clock

112, 181 hekatostyes, see centuries Hellespont 82, 168, 179-80

Kyrene 63, 143-4 Kyzikos 58-9, 134

Korkyra

3, 13, 58, 131, 132, 133-4

helmets 76, 83, 84, 97, 167-8, 182, 197,

ladders 57, 92-3, 95, 194, 198-9

206

Hera

147

Heraia

149

Herakleia (Black Sea) 57-8, 59, 106, 131-3 Herakleidas

89, 191

Herakles 76, 169 Hermes

76, 169

Lampsakos 3, 22n., 89, 192 lead 85, 185 leaves 85, 184

Lelantine War 106 Leptines (Syracusan)

27n., 55

bos go

Leukon 8n., 50, 109

Hermippos of Atarneus 185 Herodotus 7, 38, 185-6, 189-090, 199, 200

Leuktra (battle of) 1, 141, 176 light-armed troops 60, 62, 112, 139, 142

Himera

Aomonoia, see unanimity

livestock 24, 52-3, 73, 81, 103, 116, 178, 191 see also horses lochagot, see company-commanders

hoplites, see heavy infantry

lochoi, see companies

hoplomachia 35

Lokrian maiden-tribute

55, 127

Histiaios 89, 185, 190

Homer 34, 98-9, 113, 143-4

see also peltasts

9, 88, 188-9

216

INDEX

looting 62-3, 141

Old Oligarch 32 Onasander 5n., 7n., 109, 171

see also booty

Lydians 24

optical illusions

Macedon/Macedonians 9, 25n., 174

Oreos 75, 166 Ovid 184

Mantineia 111, 156 martial law 19, 24, 25n., 26, 40, 53-5, 117-26, 146, 157

masts 90, 193-4 Megara/Megarians 49-50, 107, 132, 145, 179 mercenaries ıın., 26-7, 41, 53, 55, 57; 58-9,

66,

67,

73,

75:

76, 82,

100,

101, 116, 120, 124, 129, 134, 135-6, 139, 150, 161-3, 166, 168, 204

messes 81, 119 Miletos/Milesians 24, 89, 125 mining, see tunnelling

Moon (as password) morale

76, 169

28, 55, 78-9, 94-5, 172, 173,

201 Motya 193, 197 Mytilene go, 192 Nabis

paian 80, 175 Pallas, see Athena Pammenes 183 Pan 175

panics

10-11, 14, 37, 69, 77, 79-81,

104, 175-8 Parion 82, 180, 192

Partheniai Parthians

133 163

passports, see identity-tokens

173, 176

Messene

17, 97, 206-7

205

navy 14-15, 49, 50, 64, 97, 145, 207 see also harbours, sea, ships Naxos 72, 157-8

passwords

165-71

14, 36,

51, 69,

7577,

110,

patrols 14, 28, 36, 41, 45, 46, 48, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 77, 78-9, 97, 110, 155-6, 156, 161, 171, 172

see also sentries, watches

Pausanias 4, 12n., 103, 152, 176, 195 peacetime 20, 21n., 48, 56-7, 73, 105, 118, 129, 138, 161 Peisistratos 49-50, 107, 134 Pellene 149, 205 Peloponnesian War 1, 3, 34, 127-8

peltasts 139, 141, 181

neighbours 4, 24, 52-3, 54, 117

see also light-armed troops penalties 53, 54, 55, 57, 73, 118, 126,

night(-time) 46, 46-7, 48, 49, 51, 52,

Perikles 24, 113, 131, 196

nets 57, 66, 95, 202, 203

53, 54, 56, 57, 59, 61, 64, 66, 67-8, 69-75, 75-6, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 89, 94, 95, 107, 140, 141, 145, 158, 159, 160, 161, 169, 171, 172, 178, 200

161-3 Persia/Persians 90, 93-4, 113, 158, 192, 199 Phigaleia 204 Philip II of Macedon gn., 193 Philip V of Macedon 205

Nikias 35, 193, 193-4

Philo of Byzantium Phleious 196, 198

non-citizens 26, 53, 54, 59, 83, 101, 117, 120-2, 123, 124, 181, 183

pitch 56, g1, 92, 129 Plataia/Plataians 37n., 46-7, 102, 138,

Nikokles

72, 158

see also allies, mercenaries, slaves

183

194, 195, 197, 204

Plato 22n., 23, 32, 34-5, 35, 36, 145, officials 20, 26, 41, 42n., 45, 46-7, 48,

50, 53, 54, 56-7, 58, 59, 65, 68, 74-5, 79, 83, 84, 100, 102, 119,

120, 121,151, 154, 173, 174, 181, 182

see also generals oil 54, 68, 81, 86, 87, 123, 152

Oiniadai 3 Olbia

137

160

plots passim Pôhimann, R. von 30-2, 157 poison 24, 52, 115 Polyaenus 113, 147, 149, 166, 168, 174,

176-7, 190, 193, 204-5, 205-6

Polybius 6, 14, 111-13, 134, 170, 178, 190 Polykrates 147

INDEX

see also fire-signalling, trumpets/ trumpeters

Pontos, see Black Sea portcullis 95, 203 Poseidon 77

posterns

167

Pot(e)idaia 88-9, 189, 193, 198 proskynesis 192

Sikyon 10, 13, 4on., 84, 163, 164, 180, 182-3 Simon (Athenian cavalry writer)

350.

Sinope 97, 205-6 skytalé 183-4

prytaneion 53, 118, 154

Pyrrhos 6 Python of Klazomenai

217

82, 179

rams, see battering-rams and drills regimental-commanders 73, 162 regiments (taxeis) 80, 162, 177

religion 19, 45, 46, 53, 64-5, 74, 87, 98, 118, 119, 146, 147, 186-7

see also festivals revolution passim rewards 54, 54-5, 80, 123, 124, 125,

slaves ı7n., 24, 47, 52, 53, 75-6, 89, 96, 101, 103, 116, 117, 205 sleep 28, 67, 70, 71, 78-9, 80-1, 155,

173

slings 91, 196 Sokrates 35 Sophainetos of Stymphalos sophists 34-8

sorties 24, 46, 60, 73-5, 142 sortition 48, 69, 104 Sparta/Spartans

177

37n.

1-3, 22n., 46, 58, 80,

rivers 45, 52, 114

99, 102, 113, 121, 122, 127, 133,

rope(s) 57, 91, 96, 130, 198, 199, 204

158, 170, 174, 175-6, 176-7, 180, 183-4, 186, 192, 198, 201

rounds, see patrols

sabres 83, 165, 181 Sacred Wars 9, 115, 188

sails 57, 74, 83, 90, 91, 163-4

Samos

147, 196

Sardis

185, 186

‘scorched earth’ 24, 52, 69, 113 scouts/scouting 50-1, 71, 109- 10

sea 1, 24n., 45, 49, 52, 53, 54, 63, 72,

75, 114, 121, 124, 145

see also harbours, navy, ships

seers 53, 119

sentries 14, 28, 33, 36, 37, 41, 45, 46, 48, 51, 56, 58, 65, 67, 68, 69, 69-73,

m

78, 78-9, 81, 96-7,

spears 77, 83, 97, 120, 206-7 butt 66, 149 Spies, see espionage status quo 33, 46, 55, §9 stoa 56-7, 129 stones 36, 46, 68, 71, 90, 91, 93, 95,

103, 194, 202 street-commanders 48, 105 Stymphalos, see Aincias (provenance) Suda 6 Sun (as password) 76, 169 swing-beams 96, 203 swords 75, 120, 165 symbola, see identity-tokens

Syracuse/Syracusans 55, 126-7, 165,

101, 155, 155-6, 161, 172 short-range ‘patrolling’ by 70-1,

155-6 see also patrols, watches

184, 204-5

taxeis, see regiments taxiarchot, see regimental-commanders

shields 76, 83, 83-4, 84, 93-4, 97, 99,

Tegea 131 Temenos of Rhodes

ships 1, 49-50, 53, 54, 56, 63, 64, 65,

Teos

107, 139, 167, 181

81, 84, 112, 124, 146, 153, 163-4,

182, 193 beaching 54, 65, 124, 146 see also navy, sea

Sicily 55, 89, 96, 126-7, 191, 193,

204-5 signalling 37, 48-50, 50-1, 52, 54, 56, 65, 70, 71, 72, 79, 80, 83, 107, 110, 111

67-8, 150

67, 105, 150, 156, 179

territory, see countryside theatre 46, 48, 70, 101 Thebes/Thebans 1, 10, 46, 46-7, 77,

89-90, 102, 111, 113, 129, 170-1, 183 Themistokles 24 Thesmophoria 49, 107-8 Thessaly 89

Thibron 196

INDEX

218 Thrace/Thracians

80, 139, 140, 168,

vagrants 54, 122

Vegetius

175, 176, 179

Thucydides 3, 4n., 38n., 98-9, 102, 103, 105, 116, 131, 180, 193-4, 200, 201 thunderbolt (artist’s impression)

92,

146, 159, 203

vinegar 92, 198 votive tablets 87, 186-7 wagons

47, 63, 81, 82, 83, 94,

194, 200

197

Timaeus 188, 205 Timotheos 193 Timoxenos of Skione

walls

71, 72, 78, 79 81, 96,

46,

48,

64,

65,

67, 68,

69-73,

74, 78, 79, 82, 90-1, 92-3, 94-5,

95, 96, 97, 100, 104, 148, 195,

topography 45, 46, 47, 50, 51, 52, 60-1, 63-4, 69-70,

144,

1, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 25, 26, 31, 45

88-9, 189

143,

196-7,

198,

200,

204

99, 101, 103, 104, 109— 10, 110,

Wasps 93, 199

114, 139, 145, 154, 172, 204

watches 59, 68, 70-1, 72-3, 78, 79, 80,

tortoise (shelter) 91, 196 torture 51, 110

psychological 27, 55, 110, 127 towers 56-7, 83, 90, 92, 197

mobile (offensive) 90, 193

155, 161 length 70, 72-3 number 46, 68, 70, 101, 159

see also patrols, sentries water

24, 52, 68, 85, 87, 97, 112, 115,

151, 195

treachery passim

trenches 46, 91, 92, 93, 95, 102, 199, 200, 202

Triballians 61, 140 tribes 48, 57, 58, 104, 131, 132

tripods 46, 102 trumpets/trumpeters

52, 70, 72, Bo,

110, 111 tunnelling 17, 93-4, 199-200

water-clock 72-3, 159, 160 weddings 26, 53, 118, 119 whistling 77, 171 wicket gate 76, 81, 166-7 wine 62, 81, 83, 141

women

1, 17n., 33, 47, 48, 49-50, 50,

76, 85, 88, 96, 97, 98,

107-8,

108-9,

103,

105,

116, 168, 205, 206

Tyndaridai, see Dioskouroi

tyrants/tyranny

10, 32, 54, 54-5, 59,

Xenophon

1, 3, 4, 6n., 10, 23, 29n., 32,

72, 89, 107, 125, 132, 150, 157, 179,

34-8, 39-40,

180, 205

118, 124, 134, 138, 139, 142, 144,

100-1,

145, 165, 176-7, 198 unanimity

(homonoia)

27, 28-33, 55, 60,

64, 72, 126, 137, 145-6, 158

Zeus 77, 165, 170 Zopyrion 137

102, 110,