SECTION III. OF THE DIFFERENT KIND OF TROOPS WHICH COMPOSED THE ARMIES OF THE LACEDÆMONIANS AND ATHENIANS. THE armies both of Sparta and Athens were composed of four sorts of troops, citizens, allies, mercenaries, and slaves. The soldiers were sometimes marked in the hand to distinguish them from the slaves, who had that character impressed upon their forehead. Interpreters believe, that in allusion to this double manner of marking, it is said in the Revelations, that all were obliged "* to receive the mark of the beast in their "right hand, or in their foreheads ;" and that St. Paul says of himself, "I "bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." The citizens of Lacedæmonia were of two sorts, either those who inhabited Sparta itself, and who for that reason were called Spartans, or those who lived in the country. In Lycurgus' time, the Spartans amounted to 9000, and the others to 30,000. This number seems to have been somewhat diminished in the time of Xerxes, as Demaratus speaking to him of the Lacedæmonian troops, computes only 8000 Spartans. The latter were the flower of the nation; and we may judge of the value they set upon them, by the anxiety the republic expressed for 300 or 400, besieged by the Athenians in the small island of Sphacteria, where they were taken prisoners. The Lacedæmonians generally spared the troops of their country very much, and sent only a few of them into the armies. When a Lacedæmonian general was asked how many Spartans there were in the army, he answered, "As many as are necessary to repulse the enemy." They served the state at their own expence, and it was not till after a length of time that they received pay from the public. The greatest number of the troops in the two republics, were composed of the allies, who were paid by the cities which sent them. The foreign troops in the pay of the republic, to the aid of which they were called in, were styled mercenaries. The Spartans never marched without helots, and we have seen that in the battle of Platea every citizen had seven. I do not believe this number was fixed, nor do I well comprehend for what service they were designed. It would have been very ill policy to have put arms into the hands of so great a number of slaves, generally much discontented with their masters' harsh treatment of them, and who in consequence had every thing to fear from them in a battle. Herodotus, however, in the passage I have cited from him, represents them carrying arms in the field, as light armed sol-diers. The one were heavy The infantry consisted of two kinds of soldiers. armed, and carried great bucklers, lances, half pikes, and scimitars. The other were light armed, that is to say, with bows and slings. They were commonly placed in the front of the battle, or upon the wings, as a first line, to shoot their arrows and fling their javelins and stones at the enemy; and when they had discharged, they retired through the intervals behind the battalions as a second line, and continued their volleys. Thucydides, in describing the hattie of Mantinæa, divides the Lacedæmonian troops in this manner: There were seven regiments of four companies each, without including the squirites, to the number of 600; these were horsemen, of whom I shall soon speak further. The company *Rev. xiii. 16. + Gal. vi. 17. Lib. v. p. 390. consisted, according to the Greek interpreter, of 128 men, and was subdivided into four platoons, each of 32 men; so that a regiment amounted to 512 men; and the seven made together 3584. Each platoon had four men in front and eight in depth; for that was the usual depth of the files, which the officers might change according to occasion. The Lacedæmonians did not actually begin to use cavalry, till after the war with Messene, where they perceived their want of it. *They raised their horse principally in a small city not far from Lacedæmon, called Sciros, from whence these troops were denominated scirites, or squirites. They were always on the extremity of the left wing, and this was their post by right. Cavalry was still more rare amongst the Athenians: the situation of Attica, broken with abundance of mountains, was the cause of this. It did not amount, after the war with the Persians, which was the time when the prosperity of Greece was at the highest, to more than 300 horse; but increased afterwards to 1200: a small body for so powerful a republic. I have already observed, that amongst the ancients, as well Greeks as Romans, no mention is made of the stirrup, which is very surprising. They threw themselves nimbly on horseback, -Corpora saltu Subjiciunt in equos "And with a leap sit steady on the horse." En. 1. xi. ver. 287. Sometimes the horse, broke early to that kind of manage, would stoop down before, to give his master the opportunity of mounting with more ease: Inde inclinatus collum, submissus et armos Sil. Ital. de equo Cœlii. Equ. Rom. Those whom age or weakness rendered heavy, made use of a servant in mounting on horseback; in which they imitated the Persians, with whom it was the common custom. Gracchus caused fine stones to be placed on each side of the great roads of Italy, at certain distances from one another, to help travellers to get on horseback without the assistance of any body.† I am surprised that the Athenians, expert as they were in the art of war, did not distinguish that the cavalry was the most essential part of an army, especially in battles; and that some of their generals did not turn their attention that way, as Themistocles did in regard to maritime affairs. Xenophon was well capable of rendering them a like service in respect to the cavalry, of the importance of which he was perfectly apprised. He wrote two treatises upon this subject, one of which regards the care it is necessary to take of horses, and how to understand and break them; to which he adds the exercise of the squadron; both well worth the reading of all who profess arms. In the latter he states the means of placing the cavalry in honour, and lays down rules upon the art military in general, which might be of very great use to all those who are designed for the trade of war. I have wondered, in running over this second treatise, to see with what care Xenophon, a soldier, and a pagan, recommends the practice of religion, a veneration for the gods, and the necessity of imploring their aid up * Lib v. p. 390. + Αναβολέος μη δεσμένος. This word αναβολεύς, signifies a servant, who helped his master to mount on horseback. on all occasions. He repeats this maxim in thirteen different places of a tract, in other respects brief enough; and rightly judging that these religious insinuations might give some people offence, he makes a kind of apology for them, and concludes the piece with a reflection, which I shall repeat entire in this place. "If any one," says he, "wonders that I insist "so much here upon the necessity of not forming any enterprise without "first endeavouring to render the Divinity favourable and propitious, let "him reflect, that there are in war a thousand unforeseen and obscure "conjunctures, wherein the generals, vigilant to take advantages, and lay ambuscades for each other, from the uncertainty of an enemy's motions, "can take no other council than that of the gods. Nothing is doubtful or "obscure with them. They unfold the future to whomsoever they please, "on the inspection of the entrails of beasts, by the singing of birds, by "visions, or in dreams. Now we may presume that the gods are more "inclined to illuminate the minds of such as consult them not only in urgent necessities, but who at all times, and when no dangers threaten "them, render them all the homage and adoration of which they are ca"pable." cr It became this great man, to give the most important of instructions to his son Gryllus, to whom he addresses the treatise we mention, and who, according to the common opinion, was appointed to discipline the Athenian cavalry. SECTION IV. OF MARITIME AFFAIRS, FLEETS, AND NAVAL FORCES. If the Athenians were inferior to the Lacedæmonians in respect to cavalry, they carried it infinitely against them in naval affairs; and we have seen their abilities that way make them masters at sea, aud give them a great superiority to all the other states of Greece. As this subject is very necessary to the understanding many passages in this history, I shall treat it more extensively than other matters, and shall make great use of what the learned father Don Bernard de Montfaucon has said of it in his books upon antiquity. The principal parts of a ship were the prow or head, the poop or stern, and the middle, called in latin carina, the hulk or waist. The prow was the part in the front of the waist, or belly of the ship; it was generally adorned with paintings and different sculptures of gods, men, or animals. The beak, called rostrum, lay lower, and level with the water it was a piece of timber which projected from the prow, covered at the point with brass, and sometimes with iron. The Greeks termed it εμβολον. The other end of the ship, opposite to the prow, was called the poop. There the pilot sat and held the helm, which was a longer and larger oar than the rest. The wist was the hollow of the vessel, or the hold. The ships were of two kinds. The one were rowed with oars, which were ships of war, the other carried sails, and were vessels of burden, intended for commerce and transports. Both of them sometimes made use of oars and sails together, but that very rarely. The ships of war are also very often called long ships by authors, and by that name distinguished from vessels of burden. The long ships were further divided into two species; those which were called actuariæ naves, and were very light vessels, like our brigantines; and those called only long ships. The first were usually termed open ships, because they had no decks. Of these light vessels there were some larger than ordinary, of which some had 20, some 30, and others 40 oars, half on one side and half on the other all on the same line. The long ships, which were used in war, were of two sorts. Some had only one rank of oars on each side; the others two, three, four, five, or a greater number, to forty; but these last were rather for show than use. The long ships of one rank of oars were called aphracti, that is to say, uncovered, and had no decks. This distinguished them from the calaphracti, which had decks. They had only small places to stand on at the head and stern, in the time of action. The ships most commonly used in the battles of the ancients were those which carried from three to five ranks or benches of oars, and were called triremes and quinqueremes. It is a great question, and has given occasion for abundance of learned dissertations, how these benches of oars were disposed. Some will have it that they were placed at length, like the ranks of oars in the modern galleys. Others maintain, that the ranges of the biremes, triremes, quinqueremes, and so on, to the number of 40 in some vessels, were one above another. To support this last opinion, innumerable passages are cited from ancient authors, which seem to leave no manner of doubt in it, and are considerably corroborated by the column of Trajan, which represents these ranks one above another. Father Montfaucon however avers, that all the persons of greatest skill in naval affairs whom he had consulted, declared, that the thing conceived in that manner seemed to them utterly impossible. But such a way of reasoning is a weak proof against the experience of so many ages, confirmed by so many authors. It is true, that in admitting these ranks of oars to be disposed perpendicularly one above another, it is not easy to comprehend how they could be worked; but in the biremes and triremes of the column of Trajan, the lower ranks are placed obliquely, and as it were rising by degrees. In ancient times the ships with several ranks of oars were not known: they made use of long ships, in which the rowers, of whatever number they were, worked all upon the same line. * Such was the fleet which the Greeks sent against Troy. It was composed of 1200 sail, of which the galleys of Boeotia had each 120 men, and those of Philoctetes 50; and this no doubt intends the greatest and smallest vessels. Their galleys had no decks, but were built like common boats; which is still practised, says Thucydides, by the pirates to prevent their being so soon discovered at a distance. The Corinthians are said to have been the first who changed the form of ships, and, instead of simple galleys, made vessels with three ranks, in order to add by the multiplicity of oars to the swiftness and impetuosity of their motion. Their city, advantageously situated between two seas, lay well for commerce, and served as a staple for merchandise. From their example the inhabitants of Corcyra, and the tyrants of Sicily, equip ped also many galleys of three benches, a little before the war against the Persians. It was about the same time the Athenians, at the warm instances of Themistocles, who foresaw the war which soon broke out, built ships of the same form, the whole deck not being yet in use; and from thenceforth they applied themselves to naval affairs with incredible ardour and success. The beak of the prow, rostrum, was that part of the vessel of which most use was made in sea fights. * Ariston of Corinth persuaded the Syracusans, when their city was besieged by the Athenians, to make their prows lower and shorter; which advice gained them the victory for the prows of the Athenian vessels being very high and very weak, their beaks struck only the parts above water, and for that reason did little damage to the enemy's ships; whereas the Syracusans, whose prows were strong and low, and their beaks level with the water, at a single blow often sunk the triremes of the Athenians. Two sorts of people served on board these galleys. The one were employed in steering and working the ship, who were the rowers remiges, and the mariners nauta. The rest were soldiers intended for the fight, and are meant in Greek by the word en Catal. This distinction was not understood in the early times, when the same persons rowed, fought, and did all the necessary work of the ship; which was also not wholly disused in latter days for † Thucydides, in describing the arrival of the Athenian fleet at the small island of Sphacteria, observes, that only the rowers of the lowest bench remained in the ships, and that the rest went on shore with their arms. 1. The condition of the rowers was very hard and laborious. I have already said, that the rowers as well as mariners were all citizens and freemen, and not slaves or strangers, as in these days. The rowers were distinguished by their several stages. The lower rank were called thalamitæ, the middle zugitæ, and the highest thranitæ. Thucydides remarks, that the latter had greater pay than the rest, because they worked with longer and heavier oars than those of the lower benches. It seems that the crew, in order to act in concert, and with better effect, were sometimes guided by the singing of a man, and sometimes by the sound of an instrument; and this grateful harmony served not only to regulate the motion of their oars, but to diminish and soothe the pains of their labour. It is a question amongst the learned, whether there was a man to every oar in these great ships, or several, as in the galleys of these days. What Thucydides observes on the pay of the thranitæ, seems to imply that they worked single for if others had shared the work with them, wherefore had they greater pay given them than those who managed an oar alone, as the latter had as much, and perhaps more of the labour than they? Father Montfaucon believes that in the vessels of five ranks there might be several men to one oar. He who took care of the whole crew, and commanded the vessel, was called nauclerus, and was the principal officer. The second was the pi lot, gubernator; his place was in the poop, where he held the helm in his hand, and steered the vessel. His skill consisted in knowing the coasts, ports, rocks, shoals, and especially the winds and stars; for before the invention of the compass, the pilot had nothing to direct him during the night but the stars. * Diod. 1. xii. p. 141. Thucyd. iv. p. 175. Musicam natura ipsa videtur ad tolerandos facilius labores veluti muneri nobis dedisse. Siquidem et remiges cantus hortatur; nec solum in iis operibus, in quibus plurium conatus præeunte aliqua jucunda voce conspirat, sed etiam singulorum fatigatio quamlibet şe rudi modulatione solatur. Quintil. 1. i. ç. 19. |