Spartan Mora regiments at Battle of Plataea

[Paullus Scipio]

Paralus wrote:

Firstly one might note the possibility that the army had, in fact, halved - going by your reference to Xen. Lac Pol 11.4:

The men so equipped were divided into six regiments (mora) of cavalry and infantry. The officers of each citizen regiment (mora) comprise one colonel (polemarch) , four captains (lochagous tettaras), eight first lieutenants (pentêkontêras oktô) and sixteen second lieutenants (enômotarchous hekkaideka).

Secondly, if the above is true, there has been a chage in the Spartan army organisation. There is, then, the possibility that, post Leuktra, the largest "division" of that army was now the lochos; the titles remaining.

To address your first point, the proponents of this theory must come up with a plausible reason for a sudden "halving" of numbers in the Spartan Army after Leuktra, which after all was more a bloody draw than a decisive victory, even if the Spartans did formally concede. The six 'Morai' plus the 'Hippeis' had numbered potentially almost 8,000 men with all age classes called up. The 'Hippeis' and four 'Morai' had taken part in Leuktra, and Xenophon tells us that there were slightly less than a thousand casualties in the whole army ( though admittedly the Allies took little part, apparently), and that of these 400 were 'Homioi', most of whom will have been the 'Hippeis'. The loss among 'Homioi', particularly young ones, was severe, but not the Army as a whole. The 600 or so 'hypomeiones'/inferiors could no doubt be readily replaced, and there would have been 'Homioi' coming of age, and others would have been replaced by 'Hypomeiones' inheriting 'Kleroi/estates'......... So what has happened to the other 3,000 or more 'losses' necessary to "halve the Army" ?

Further, many commentators believe there is a corruption of the text in this passage of the 'Constitution' and that for example a copyist has read "duo" (two) as "d' " (four)... an emendation of the text to "duo" gives us a total of twelve 'Lochoi', consistent with Xenophon elsewhere.

As to changes to Spartan organisation, the proponents of the "5 Lochoi, then 6 Lochoi, then 6 Morai, then 12 lochoi" school would have all these fundamental organisational changes in a space of 100 years, and would also ( fatally to their argument in my view) postulate that Imperial Sparta at the height of her power, had only available an army of some 4,000 or so men, at a time when Argos could field 7,000 Hoplites and even the island of Euboea 3,000.

Plutarch refers to the fact ( in his Pelopidas) that Kallisthenes and Polybius both referred to 'Morai", and of course both wrote well after Leuktra, though we don't know the exact context, but Kallisthenes will have been writing of the Spartans resisting Alexander and Polybius was probably writing about the third century, prior to Cleomenes III's reform into a Macedonian phalanx and 'tagmata'. That would mean yet another change - back to 'Morai' again, after Xenophon's time !!

While there was certainly change in the Spartan army in this period - in equipment, in the number of 'Homioi' it contained etc; and like other Greek states, the adoption of mercenaries ( and in impoverished Sparta, the substitution of cheaper Helot Hoplites at times), peltasts, archers, slingers and cavalry, I , and others, think that the basic Hoplite Phalanx organisation did NOT change ( why should it after all ?.....A Phalanx is a Phalanx is a Phalanx - and we don't hear of other Greek states changing their fundamental Phalanx organisation either.