The Ekdromos

In this blog, we look at Aristokles, an Ekdromos (light hoplite) marching through the thick snow of the Armenian mountains in 400 BC, surrounded by hostile tribes and with a Persian army on his heels. He is a member of the ten thousand Greek mercenaries hired the previous year by the Persian usurper Cyrus to overthrow his brother. Now Cyrus is dead, and Aristokles and his lost comrades must find their way back to Greece through thousands of kilometers of hostile territory. Their commander Xenophon would later write a history book about their legendary journey, the so-called Anabasis.

The Greek hoplite emerged in the Archaic period as a product of the Greek polis (the Greek city-state). These soldiers, who made up the main part of Greek armies, were citizen-soldiers who fought to defend the city in which they lived and worked. 

In ancient Greece the polis (and citizenship thereof) was central to society. (Male) citizens of these poleis had special rights in addition to economic privileges. For example, they could participate in exclusive religious rituals and have a say at various levels in the political sphere of their city-state. However, citizenship of a polis was not only a privilege but also brought certain obligations. The largest of these was a form of military conscription for male citizens: if you were a member of the city community, you also had to be able to defend it. This connection between political rights and military duties worked the other way around as well: the Athenian democracy emerged from the fact that the rowers of the Athenian fleet were given a say by the statesmen Solon and Cleisthenes precisely because they fought for their city.

Hoplites were citizen-soldiers who, in their daily lives, were wealthy farmers or craftsmen who had to gather their own armor and were summoned in times of war to fight for their polis. This was not always the case: Spartan hoplites were an exception because they focused almost exclusively on military art even in times of peace. All other work in Spartan society was done by the Perioikoi and the Helots, underclasses of non-citizens. Due to their strong culture of small-scale autonomy, competition, and self-determination, the Greeks were fiercely opposed to any form of external domination; they saw this as a form of slavery compared to Greek 'freedom'. 

Polis like Athens and Sparta had their own form of government and urban identity but shared a common Greek culture of mutual competition. These cities ruled over the surrounding land and were constantly in conflict with each other over power and territory. Every summer was a 'war season', during which cities fought these conflicts. This was done in battles where the shield walls (phalanx) of both sides clashed and pushed against each other until one of the two lines was broken. The way hoplites fought in these battles reinforced their collective identity: they fulfilled their social duty together with friends, family members, and acquaintances and were protected by the shield of the soldiers (and fellow citizens) next to them. Due to this strong urban combat culture, not only was individual heroism valued by the Greeks, but also a kind of collective heroism for the prestige of the city community.

Ekdromoi were light hoplites who not only fought in the phalanx as part of the shield wall but could also quickly and nimbly leave this formation to attack the enemy's flanks or quickly advance to capture important points. Often, these were the less wealthy citizens of the city who could afford less equipment, but anyone who performed ekdrome (tactically leaving the phalanx) was an Ekdromos. Xenophon, the commander of our character Aristokles, made extensive use of these light and mobile infantrymen.

The 'ten thousand' were Greek mercenaries hired in 401 BC by the Persian usurper Cyrus to depose his brother, King Artaxerxes II. Together with the troops of their client, they marched directly to Babylon and won at the Battle of Cunaxa, where they defeated the field army of Artaxerxes II. However, Cyrus was killed in this battle, and the Greeks were left to fend for themselves. To make matters worse for the Greeks, they were betrayed by Tissaphernes, the satrap of Cyrus, who executed their generals and joined the Persian enemy.

The 10,000 Greek soldiers were now stranded in the middle of Mesopotamia; without leadership or supplies and left to fend for themselves in hostile territory. However, they did not give up and appointed new leaders, including the commander Xenophon. Lightly packed and desperate, they fought their way north, through the territory of the hostile Karduchoi tribes in the Anatolian/Armenian mountains and with the vengeful Persians on their heels. 

When they finally reached the Black Sea at the beginning of the following year, after a journey under the burning sun and thick snow of Asia Minor, they cried out in joy; their shout "Thalatta, Thalatta!" (the sea, the sea!) is the most famous moment of Xenophon's account of their journey. However, the end of their journey was still far from sight. When they reached the friendly Greek settlement of Trebizond, the city did not have enough ships to bring them back to Greece. The Greek soldiers bid farewell to the women, children, and severely wounded among them, and prepared for the next stage of their journey home.

The Greeks sent the Spartan general Cheirisophus to find ships. However, he returned with a work request from Anaxibius, the Spartan admiral in the Hellespont. This was a ruse; Anaxibius was bribed by the Persian satrap Pharnabazus to send the ten thousand along a route where they could easily be attacked by marauding Persian cavalrymen. Anaxibius did not intend to pay the ten thousand and had his own plan to trap them, by ordering the governor Aristarchus that the Greeks in Byzantium should be captured and sold as slaves. The Greeks escaped this fate, and when Anaxibius tried to send them away without paying them, he had to flee their anger. He later returned and tried to convince the Greeks to attack Pharnabazus because his Persian ally had abandoned him. This obviously failed, and the Greeks continued their journey.

After two more adventures, when they were briefly hired by King Seuthes II of Thrace and the Spartan general Thibron, the Greeks managed to find ships that would bring them back to the Greek peninsula. In total, they marched more than 4000 kilometers, from Lydia, through Anatolia to Mesopotamia, through Armenia along the edge of the Black Sea and via Thrace back to the Aegean coast. The Anabasis, The travel account that Xenophon later wrote about this expedition became very popular in the Greek world. It would even convince King Philip of Macedonia in the coming century that a well-organized Greek army could conquer the weakened Persian Empire.

Aristokles wears a tunic, a belt, and a pair of worn leather sandals. He also wears his thick woolen cloak as protection against the Persian sun and the biting cold of the Anatolian mountains.

Greek tunics were made of linen, sometimes also of wool. The red tunic that Aristokles wears is made of thick fabric and has short sleeves, but in the warmer months, Greeks often wore light garments that left their arms and shoulders uncovered. Classical Greeks did not wear trousers under their tunic, as they considered them barbaric.

Due to the warm, temperate climate, sandals (sandaloi) like these were worn in classical Greece and the rest of the Mediterranean region. Although Aristokles wears simple military sandals that are less open to better protect the feet, there were constant new fashion trends for sandals in antiquity, determined by fashionable Athens. 

Besides sandals, from the fifth century BC onwards, people also wore a type of laced boots (such as endromis and embades) and in winter, felt socks (piloi) to keep the feet warm. 

To shape the tunic, both simple leather belts and fabric girdles were used.

The chlamys was a woolen cloak worn in classical Greece. It kept clothing clean and offered protection against the elements.

The cloak worn by Aristokles is not only intended to keep him warm but also serves as part of his armor. On the battlefield, he wraps the cloak around his weapon arm to protect it from spears, swords, and arrows.

The cloak was fastened with a fibula, a metal clothing pin that was often decorated.

The armor of Aristokles is light; he wears only a large bronze shield and a 'Corinthian' helmet to protect his body. He uses a long spear, the doru, to fight in formation and a short sword, the xiphos, as a secondary weapon.

The large bronze shield (hoplon / aspis) was the most important part of the hoplite's equipment; the name 'hoplite' is even derived from it. This heavy shield was intended for fighting in a dense shield wall formation (phalanx), where a hoplite was partly covered by the shield of those next to him.

The hoplon was often decorated with bronze work or paint. These decorations were applied for various reasons but usually had symbolic meanings. For example, the hoplon was used to display the identity of the hoplite's polis. For Athens, this was an owl, the symbol of the goddess Pallas Athena who protected the city. In Sparta, this was done with a lambda (the L in the Greek script) as a symbol for Lacedaemon, the region where Spartans came from. 

Many hoplites also had a creature from Greek mythology on their shield. This was a less patriotic decoration, intended to ward off evil forces and intimidate their enemies. The shield of Aristocles is adorned with a gorgoneion, the head of a monstrous gorgon demon that could petrify people with her gaze. This decoration also draws inspiration from the Iliad: namely from the aegis, a mythological armor or shield from which a gorgon head hung. It could protect the wearer against all dangers and was worn in myths by the gods Zeus (as a shield) and Athena (as armor).

The bronze Corinthian helmet was used from the eighth to the fourth century BC. This type of helmet had an iconic profile and protected the entire head, making it very popular among heavily armed hoplites. Until 500 BC, the Corinthian helmet was completely closed, and thereafter helmets were increasingly made with openings for the ear. Because the helmet completely enclosed the face, it was also pushed back to give the wearer a better hearing and field of vision. Some helmets, like those of Aristocles, also had a crest of horse hair.

In the following centuries, people eventually switched to the Phrygian and Chalcidian helmets, which restricted the wearer's sight and hearing less. Nevertheless, the Corinthian helmet remained very important in Greek art as a symbol of the classical period.

The spear wielded by Aristokles was the most important weapon of the hoplite and was used from the Archaic period to the time of Alexander the Great. The doru (or dory) had a length of 2-3 meters, long enough for multiple lines of hoplites to fight as part of the shield wall.

The spear was made of ash wood and had, besides a leaf-shaped spear head, also a pointed butt cap that could be used in various ways. This helped to plant the spear in the ground, and allowed hoplites to easily kill wounded enemies while keeping the spear upright. The butt cap could also be used by the hoplite as a backup-spear head when his doru broke in half.

Hoplites and other Greek soldiers also used smaller javelins.

The xiphos was a short, double-edged iron sword that served the hoplite as a secondary weapon and was only used when their spear (dory) broke or when combat had to occur at very close range, such as when lines were breached. 

You can also choose to use a kopis (also known as falcata for the Iberian variant)  for your composition, a single-edged sword. This became increasingly popular during the classical period and even took over the role of the xiphos as the primary 'hoplite sword'.