The Myth of the \'Middle Class\' Hoplite

[Paralus]

...we may be at slight cross-purposes here. I've just had a quick look at Strauss and he tends to confine himself to the narrower period of the Peloponnesian War, when there is no denying that through the plague, battle casualties malnutrition etc Athens population took a severe dent ( estimates vary at between a quarter to a third ) but I was thinking in more general terms across the whole period, and Athens population did recover.

Yes: from memory he benchmarks the beginning of the war and the hoplite muster for Nemea River in 394. There has been a tendency to use Thucydides’ 5,000 in 411 as an indication of the remaining hoplite population. If I recall, Thucydides does not state that these were simply those capable of affording a panoply. He (or Aristotle or both – I’m at the office) indicate that it was selected group of the hoplite roll: those who could afford to pay for the liturgies and other civic functions. A speech of Lysias, I think, indicates that the hoplite “populationâ€

[Kineas]

Sooo

Warning--I did my thesis on the effect of distraint of knighthood. For those unfamiliar with the thing, it means that the King of England passed a law allowing him to fine a man with more the 20 (it went up quite often) pounds movable property if he refused to accept knighthood and consequent military service. I'm pretty sure I can stop typing, because alll of you know where I'm going, but here it is for the newer hoplites:

Were Solon's laws 1) Enforced? (in what period?) and 2) were they assessed by FAMILY or by INDIVIDUAL? I'd hazard a guess that they were enforced, if at all, by household, which is a concept all its own.
Further, was the assessment ever re-evaluated? In other words, if my family met the 200 Amphorae limit to be Hoplites in 550 BC, and them do to lazy relatives, too many sons, and some poor investment in livestock, I end up producing only 150 Amphorae a year in 525 BC--do I slip into the Thetes class? Does anyone notice? What about 430 BC, when we're actually shoemakers living int he city and we dont' own land?
What public official is charged with maintaining the muster list? Is there a public assize (I'm using the English medieval terms I know) which judges the fitness of my arms and the size of my estate?
It there a "distraint of hoplite" where a magistrate shows up at my door (different scenario) and says--Look here, lad, your Thetes family produced 250 Amphorae of wine last year--buy an aspis and a helmet and show up for muster by Panathenaia or I come and seize all your moveable property?

These questions may be funny, but whether you're in Athens or Thebes or Plataea, the guy who counts your hoplites is a major part of your war machine. As Paul's article above indicates, financial status would be vital in indicating the size of your hoplite force. So--you'd expect that a state like Athens would have been meticulous in maintaining their musters--and in assessing the equipment of a hoplite.

Yet there isn't a single "Assize of Arms" (except, I think, a Cretan one from quite early and another for Athenian colonists, of all people) that covers a major state--where you'd expect them to come out every war. I'm not sure just what that tells us. it is possible that Herodotus and Thuc. are telling us that before the Pelop. War, the states just didn't pay that much attention to details of arms and numbers... which in itself would be informative.

Just some thoughts...

[Paralus]

These questions may be funny, but whether you're in Athens or Thebes or Plataea, the guy who counts your hoplites is a major part of your war machine. As Paul's article above indicates, financial status would be vital in indicating the size of your hoplite force. So--you'd expect that a state like Athens would have been meticulous in maintaining their musters--and in assessing the equipment of a hoplite.

Sharp observations. I certainly think that Solon's laws were enforced - as were many others (eg Cleisthenes').

The documentation is rather fascinating though. Athens, very much like Germany in the thirties and forties, certainly "documented" many other matters - some as "trivial" as the amount the city contributed for a hypaspist on campaign.

I agree that the hoplite muster rolls must have been kept in reasonable nick. The data – admittedly later (fourth and third century) for the ephebate – indicates that some close scrutiny by the state was applied to those eligible to become hoplites. Why not after?

States, old (ancient) and modern, have always, it seems to me, kept tabs on how they earn a quid and who to tax. Similarly they seem always to have kept some sort of tab on who does qualify as a “shirkerâ€

[Paullus Scipio]

Kineas certainly has made some keen observations. I can't think off-hand of accurate answers to his questions, but can maybe supply some pointers from which we may draw inferences....

Further, was the assessment ever re-evaluated? In other words, if my family met the 200 Amphorae limit to be Hoplites in 550 BC, and them do to lazy relatives, too many sons, and some poor investment in livestock, I end up producing only 150 Amphorae a year in 525 BC--do I slip into the Thetes class? Does anyone notice?
That there was some sort of registrar is certain, from the mere fact that a 'katalogos'/list was kept, and that that Thucydides is able to consistently give exact figures of Hoplites and Hoplite musters throughout his history....not to mention military necessity, as Paralus has remarked.
Doubtless it was revised from time to time, though apparently not too often. As an example, in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War, one of the 'reforms' of the Four Hundred (aristocratic oligarchs), who briefly ruled Athens was to revise the 'katalogos'/list of those who 'qualified' from zeugitoi/landowners, to simply those who could actually afford Hopla ( and as we have seen, there was a big difference between the wealth necessary to 'qualify' as zeugitoi, and the actual cost of Hopla), though this seems to have been narrowed further to those "able to carry out the liturgies(religious festivals) with their money and body" to produce 'The Five Thousand' who in turn came to rule Athens. Yet the registrar of 'The Five Thousand' had little trouble raising a force of nine thousand Hoplites, further evidence that many serving Hoplites did not meet even this lowered qualification level,
What about 430 BC, when we're actually shoemakers living int he city and we dont' own land?
What public official is charged with maintaining the muster list? Is there a public assize (I'm using the English medieval terms I know) which judges the fitness of my arms and the size of my estate?
It there a "distraint of hoplite" where a magistrate shows up at my door (different scenario) and says--Look here, lad, your Thetes family produced 250 Amphorae of wine last year--buy an aspis and a helmet and show up for muster by Panathenaia or I come and seize all your moveable property?
Don't know, though I have a vague recollection of some sort of enforcement..Certainly, once a muster and the age classes had been decided, lists were published and individuals had to report by Tribes...difficult to avoid when all your family and friends are present, though we do hear of conscription resistance/avoidance in Athenian plays...

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Paul'slast point is perhaps the most important. Who would dare not send his child to serve with the rest of the family's youths? You don't need law enforcement to achieve this especially in ancient Greece. And once you're written,you won't be erazed from the katalogos just because your harvest or sells were reduced one year. After all,there was no permanent bureaucracy,nor too many people with permanent duty for certain things about the matters of the state,though calling up for the army must sure have been commited by somebody from each tribe. That the youths were serving by tribe means that those who were called each year were relatively few and most probably known by eachother.
Khairete
Giannis

[PMBardunias]

Show me an image of a 7th rank hoplite and I will show you the evidence Good! We seem to be agreed then that there is no evidence for unhelmeted Hoplites in battle. None. Period. That's a relief. For a minute there, I thought you might be disagreeing with me!

That's a bit like arguing that there were no psiloi with hoplite armies be3cause we don't see them all together marching to the foe on vases. If anyone were depicted on a vase it would not be a 7th rank hoplite. Giannis posted a while back a perfectly good hoplite with a thracian cap and no helmet.

As to hoplites and javelins, on the Chigi we see two sizes of "spear" both with amentums. I would call the smaller one a javelin at least.

As you have pointed out, Hopla means "pan(h)oply/tools of war" and no ancient Greek would be confused between the two terms.

And yet more than one ancient author used the term "hoplon" to mean shield- which spawned that mess over the hopla/hoplite debate.

All we can say is that it may have been possible that rear rankers did not have helmets, but the evidence so far suggests that all were helmeted.

I agree with the above completely, and perhaps we should leave it at consensus. What would you call these helmetless men? Hoplites?

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Err,to continue from the previous theme about the obligation to serve in the army,and Solon's laws. Perhaps there was no punishment,but what about political rights,that were associated with serving as a hoplite or cavalryman? At Solon's time perhaps only hoplites had political rights,since the fleet was not yet ans Athens did not desperately need more fighting men. And this is not the case only for Athens of that period but for most city states,though none was Democratic at that point.
Khairete
Giannis

[SigniferOne]

Paul, let me get back to your original post, where you make claims that I think are a bit contentious:

What do we mean by ‘middle classes’ in a Classical Greek context?

At bottom we have the ‘lower’ classes – peasants who eke a living from a smallholding, labourers etc. These were called ‘Thetes’ in Athens. Above these we may cite as ‘middle classes’, the artisans –potters, metal workers tradesmen etc, skilled workers such as armourers, sailors, carpenters, masons etc

...Thus what we would call ‘middle classes’, who could not thrive except in a money economy, were never very numerous and in Athens were largely made up of metics

...So who did provide the Hoplites, if not this urban middle class?

There are a lot of things that I would disagree with here right off the bat.

Why were smallholders excluded from your 'middle class' definition? Why is the money economy at all necessary for middle classes? And why the persistent insistence that an 'urban middle class' is the only one of its kind worth mentioning?

All these definitions are at odds with what's commonly understood as the middle class in connection to Classical history (for example in V. Hanson's hoplite discussions).

Money economy is an inessential component to the middle class definition. Urbanity is even more inessential; in fact it could be said to be at odds with Classical 'middle class', for as soon as people moved out into the city they instantly turned into the proletarii or richy richies.

So Middle Class is something independent of the rich or the poor, something frequently at odds with one or both of them. It describes the kind of person who is entirely self-sustaining in his life -- he does not need to go somewhere else to work, and his life and his farm form the entire circumference of his existence.

If that is our definition, there were lots of men who were in the middle class. Urbanity, or trying to extrapolate the panoply affordability from urban laborer wages would be entirely misleading on the matter. And as Gianis said, extrapolating population numbers from Thucydides strongly skews the picture towards unorthodox phalanx membership, precisely for the reason that the original hoplites died out in large numbers. If you're willing to admit a 25% drop in Athenian population, you must agree that a lot of it was rural (i.e. middle class); while the loss of property was vastly and disproportionately rural. In other words, the Athenian rural middle class lost almost all of its property from Greek depredations on Athenian territory.

So if the clock is rolled back from Thucydides times, if we extend the numbers of native population and shrink the numbers of foreigners (who weren't very welcome), we get large numbers of Athenian self-sufficient farmers filling out most of the heavy infantry tasks during the Persian Wars. Which is precisely the orthodox view in the first place

[Paullus Scipio]

James, you raise many fair and proper points and so I think it worthwhile to respond in detail to pretty much all of them!

Paul, let me get back to your original post, where you make claims that I think are a bit contentious:
Well, The intention was to be provocative, and to challenge what I see as a mis-conception about the ‘Hoplite Class’, namely the misnomer that they were :

Giannis wrote
At last,hoplites were the middle and highest class of citizens,those who could go to the gymnasium,learn boxing,pankration,go to the Olympics.

This is the image usually conjured up of Hoplites; ‘gentlemen’ in an urban environment, with wealth and leisure time aplenty, and this is the image I wished to challenge……

Paullus Scipio wrote:
What do we mean by ‘middle classes’ in a Classical Greek context?

At bottom we have the ‘lower’ classes – peasants who eke a living from a smallholding, labourers etc. These were called ‘Thetes’ in Athens. Above these we may cite as ‘middle classes’, the artisans –potters, metal workers tradesmen etc, skilled workers such as armourers, sailors, carpenters, masons etc

...Thus what we would call ‘middle classes’, who could not thrive except in a money economy, were never very numerous and in Athens were largely made up of metics
...So who did provide the Hoplites, if not this urban middle class?

There are a lot of things that I would disagree with here right off the bat.

…which is why I was careful to define the subject, and of course you are free to choose a different definition, as you have below. The problem, as we can see, is that the term ‘middle class’, as used in it’s normal modern context, gives us a very distorted view of just who these ‘Hoplites’ were……
Why were smallholders excluded from your 'middle class' definition?
…..simply because they are not what most modern readers would think of as ‘Middle Class’…..
Why is the money economy at all necessary for middle classes? And why the persistent insistence that an 'urban middle class' is the only one of its kind worth mentioning?
…I was trying to make the point that what we generally think of as ‘Middle Class’ – professionals, small businessmen, successful tradesmen/artisans etc represented only a small minority ( though a growing one) in the Classical economy of Athens, and that this ‘urban Middle Class’ of the relatively wealthy did not provide the bulk of the ‘Hoplite Class’.
All these definitions are at odds with what's commonly understood as the middle class in connection to Classical history (for example in V. Hanson's hoplite discussions).


…ah, here is the nub of the matter. A scholar might know – because like Hanson, he defines it as such – that ‘Middle Class’ can mean any poor peasant on a few acres who can grow a bit of a surplus, but that is not what a general readership thinks of as ‘Middle Class’. ( BTW; fine scholar though he is, I seldom agree with Hanson’s views – historical or otherwise.)
That view is – very understandably – more typified by Giannis’ statement:

Giannis wrote:
At last,hoplites were the middle and highest class of citizens,those who could go to the gymnasium,learn boxing,pankration,go to the Olympics.

…in other words, by using a bad definition, a false impression is created, which is what I wished to address…

Money economy is an inessential component to the middle class definition. Urbanity is even more inessential; in fact it could be said to be at odds with Classical 'middle class', for as soon as people moved out into the city they instantly turned into the proletarii or richy richies.

[color=blue][i]….and that too is something which I think would come as a surprise to a general readership; that in Sixth century BC Athens, before coinage came into general use, a peasant growing a surplus, living on a smallholding in a primitive ‘barter’ economy, could be described as ‘Middle Class’. To take an extreme example, that is a little like describing Hillbilly dirt-poor farmers as “middle classâ€

[SigniferOne]

Paul, thanks for a thoughtful reply. The result came down (as I suspected) to definitions.

Why choose the word "middle class" for the small landholders of 6-5th century BC Athens? "Middle" is nothing more than a comparative term, and it's used here to describe people who were sociologically in-between those people who were the very rich and the proletarii who were the dirt-poor. What level of property they owned is a secondary question, entirely optional in my opinion. The point is that they had the equivalently modern standard of wealth extrapolated to those times. Persians didn't have this Middle Class, poor as it may seem to our spoiled judgment, which indicates that it was not something trivial, and the standard of wealth that they did attain was considerable. "Middle" is not a normative term, where you would say "You must have a TV to be considered middle class". I completely agree that modern people possess a misconstrued and an unclear perception of what these terms mean, but that is why it is our job to get those misconceptions clarified (not throw the baby out with the bathwater! ).

A clear example of the difference between the middle class and the proletarians is represented in Salamis with the manning of the triremes. Whom was this navy peopled by? It certainly wasn't the old hoplites (who probably were too proud to stoop down to such activity). Thus who manned this navy was primarily the rowdy urban proletariat, unattached to its country and rather interested in the salary, not very different from proletarii as they've existed in other times of history. The middle-class smallholder hoplite was very different, strongly attached to his property, and to the laws and customs of his country which safeguarded that property. Thus you saw archaic Greece, filled and populated with such hoplites, rallying and defeating Persians in pitched infantry battle; while Salamis presages the rise of proletarii and erosion of the old hoplite warrior ethic. This erosion is extremely visible in Athenian literature, most especially in Aristophanes who despises the proletarians and hero-worships the old Marathon soldiers, who were aged and pitiful by his time, a dying breed in a new (skeptical) world.

It is these Marathonomachoi which epitomize that middle stratum of society, and which so strongly characterized Archaic hoplite battle. "Classical" Greece sees a swift collapse of the citizen hoplite in favor of metics, mercenaries, and others. I may be victim of idealizing here, but I find it very hard to believe that Alexander and Philip would've been able to conquer a Greece peopled by Aristophanes' Men of Marathon.

At last,hoplites were the middle and highest class of citizens,those who could go to the gymnasium,learn boxing,pankration,go to the Olympics.

This is most certainly a misconstrued notion. Most hoplites, while middle class, were not fancy/chiseled gymnasts and mathematicians. These were rustic, old-fashioned Greek farmers, the kind of hardy men which peopled Attica before the 5th century and the rise of the sciences. Aristophanes and Aeschylus give the clearest representations of this old Greek character. Sophocles, the elegant man of taste (with penchant for boys) was a new entirely 5th century phenomenon. Fancy higher-up men of taste and education would probably not serve as hoplites; they would more likely serve as knights, or probably wouldn't serve at all, merely writing out a large check and outfitting a trireme for others to fight for them.

[Paullus Scipio]

Well, I certainly can't find much in your last post to disagree with ! D

....but there are a couple of points I'd just like to add to.....

"Middle" is nothing more than a comparative term, and it's used here to describe people who were sociologically in-between those people who were the very rich and the proletarii who were the dirt-poor. What level of property they owned is a secondary question, entirely optional in my opinion. The point is that they had the equivalently modern standard of wealth extrapolated to those times.

Given that we are discussing a simplistic and arbitrary division of 'social classes' into 'Rich' 'Middle' and 'Poor', in this division where do those urban artisans/merchants/enterpreneurs that I referred to fit ? They are clearly generally wealthier than our small-holder 'Hoplite Class' but a potter with his small workshop could hardly qualify as one of Athens 'rich'....perhaps to answer my own question, it depends on their 'net worth' in Solonic terms....

A clear example of the difference between the middle class and the proletarians is represented in Salamis with the manning of the triremes. Whom was this navy peopled by?..... Thus who manned this navy was primarily the rowdy urban proletariat, unattached to its country and rather interested in the salary, not very different from proletarii as they've existed in other times of history.

Oh dear, another generalisation that could start another 'Myth' thread, I suspect. :lol: :lol:
Something tells me that if we were to put this generalisation under the microscope and look in detail, as we have with the Hoplites, we would find that not just the Athenian 'Hoi Polloi' provided the fleet's rowers, but that many came from the islands and Empire, many others were hired mercenaries etc.......

....but nevertheless, your point is well made, the 'Hoplite Class' certainly saw themselves, distinguished by their status and political rights, as a cut above the 'Hoi Polloi' - the 'Thetes' - as evidenced by the plays you refer to.

[SigniferOne]

Given that we are discussing a simplistic and arbitrary division of 'social classes' into 'Rich' 'Middle' and 'Poor', in this division where do those urban artisans/merchants/enterpreneurs that I referred to fit ? They are clearly generally wealthier than our small-holder 'Hoplite Class' but a potter with his small workshop could hardly qualify as one of Athens 'rich'....perhaps to answer my own question, it depends on their 'net worth' in Solonic terms....

A difficult question. A small potter would have as much to fight for as the small-holder farmer of the countryside. On the other hand the mercantile classes (at least in Rome) were not liked very much, and were usually shuffled to the back of the line, or disqualified from the army altogether. I don't know how the Greeks resolved this issue (after all, a merchant doesn't have anything to really fight for, just like a proletarius).

Either way, Athenian history doesn't afford enough scope to trace how these social changes played out, or even how they would've played out if things turned out fine. Unfortunately the course of action that did take place was a takeover of Athenian society by the proleterian sub-stratum, led by power-hungry politicians with Pericles at the helm. This element never gets sufficiently emphasized, but Pericles was little different from Caesar in subverting the Constitution and riding his popularity on the wave of handouts and demagogic mob-rule (disbanding the Areopagus Council wasn't okay...). Once the spell of his personality wore off, men like Cleon clearly showed the system for what it was.

So -- where did this developing urban middle class fit into the hoplite schema? I don't know, and the Athenians didn't either, because the civic hoplite ethic was swiftly undermined and by 450s BC Athens was scarcely recognizable as a hoplite city-state anymore.

Something tells me that if we were to put this generalisation under the microscope and look in detail, as we have with the Hoplites, we would find that not just the Athenian 'Hoi Polloi' provided the fleet's rowers, but that many came from the islands and Empire, many others were hired mercenaries etc.......

Perhaps you may be falling back on the Peloponnesian War statistics here. I thought it was uncontroversial that when Themistocles organized the hoi polloi into the navy, it was fueled primarily by the Athenian citizens themselves.

[Paullus Scipio]

I thought it was uncontroversial that when Themistocles organized the hoi polloi into the navy, it was fueled primarily by the Athenian citizens themselves.

True.....but even in the beginning, the crews weren't entirely Athenian....Plataians and Chalkidians served at Salamis; (Hdt 8.1). though the evidence points strongly to citizen manning of the fleet at least being a regular feature. To cite just three of many examples: in Perikles' speech to the Athenian Assembly he speaks of three types of sailor in the Athenian fleet, foreigners, metics, and "ourselves", i.e. the Athenian citizens whom he is addressing. (Th. 1.143); the Old Oligarch says that the 'demos' of Athens provides the rowers for the fleet (Ps.-X. AP 1.2); the Chorus in 'Frogs' (702) suggests that all who fight at sea for Athens should be made enfranchised citizens, in a context that implies that at least some already were, but clearly many were not. How great a proportion of the Athenian navy's rowers were citizens is uncertain, and it probably varied from campaign to campaign (Nikias seems to have had a high proportion of non-citizens in Sicily: Th. 7.13).
But there would undoubtedly have been a large number of those Athenians who could not afford hoplite armour or horses in the fleet, mostly 'Thetes', who often even provided the Hoplite Marines(Epibatai) , for example the Sicilian campaignm which seems to have involved a relatively small number of citizen troops' ; but the Old Oligarch is clear that it is upon the 'Thetes' contribution to Athenian power that Athenian democracy rested.

[Paralus]

This erosion is extremely visible in Athenian literature, most especially in Aristophanes who despises the proletarians and hero-worships the old Marathon soldiers, who were aged and pitiful by his time, a dying breed in a new (skeptical) world.

It is these Marathonomachoi which epitomize that middle stratum of society, and which so strongly characterized Archaic hoplite battle. "Classical" Greece sees a swift collapse of the citizen hoplite in favor of metics, mercenaries, and others. I may be victim of idealizing here, but I find it very hard to believe that Alexander and Philip would've been able to conquer a Greece peopled by Aristophanes' Men of Marathon.

Ahh yes: the mirage of the "Men of Mararhon". It was a strong myth that Athens never quite let go of. Demosthenes was to raise its powerful allure and lead the third century version of those hoplites to their final resting place at Chaeroneia. Despite the successes of their naval forces over the generations, the Athenians were still ready to rely on that Marathonian mirage in 336.

I've often wondered just what Philip might have done if Athens had sailed a 100 plus fleet into the Thermaic Gulf behind him. Even though the records suggest so, it is, of course, entirely hypothetical that she could equip and man such a fleet. Triremes, like modern day aircraft carriers, cost a good deal of Attic Owls to keep in fighting condition. Interesting to ponder though.

[Scythian]

I think that there were far too many passages in Thucydides which mention Helots equipped as hoplites or light troops equipped as hoplites for there to be any doubt that during the Peloponnesian war Hoplites did not necessarily have to afford their own kit and need not have been drawn from an monied class.

however I think Paul is wrong when he says that Herodotus does not indicate who the hoplites where. In Herodotus 8.25 when the Persians view the dead at Thermopylae "some of the corpses where, of course, those of helots, but the sightseers imagined that they were all Spartans and Thespians." What were these helots doing, remaining around for the final suicidal clash with the persians and if the persians could not tell them from the Spartiates does this not imply they been equipped in the same way?

What about the 35,000 helots at Plataea? Surely nobody seriously believes that the Spartans brought a force which outnumbered their own by seven to one to the most crucial conflict in their history and kept them out of the way, doing nothing, because they were too worried to leave them at home in Laconia.
There is a lot less mention of light troops playing a major role in a Greek army during this time, so what were these helots, if not hoplites? It seems too convenient to be a coincidence that when the Greeks typically formed a phalanx 8 rows deep they had just enough helots to provide the weight needed for seven rows of troops.

When Brasidas led 500 helot hoplites to Thrace there is nothing in Thucydides account to indicate that this was something new or unusual for the Spartans.