The Date of the Hoplite Phalanx

Ralph Gallucci (University of California, Santa Barbara)

and

Alexander Nowinski (University of California, Santa Barbara)

The Greek hoplite phalanx was a formidable, highly disciplined, close-order line formation of heavy armed infantry that most Greek states employed in battle. Traditionally, the hoplite phalanx has been thought to have originated between 720 and 650 B.C.E. (See Hans van Wees’ discussion in War and Violence in Ancient Greece, “The Development of the Hoplite Phalanx: Iconography and reality in the seventh century,” 2000, London/Swansea, pp. 125 ff. and fn. 1 and Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities, 2004, London, pp.152, 166-183) Hoplite armor such as the shield, shin guards, breastplate, sword, and spear have been excavated in burial mounds dating to this time period. Also beginning about 650 we have pictorial and literary evidence for the phalanx. The Corinthian jug known as the Chigi vase portrays multiple organized ranks of shield-bearing spearmen opposing each other, and the poet Tyrtaeus describes Spartans fighting in the phalanx formation. Over the past decade Hans van Wees, rejecting traditional interpretations of the Chigi vase and Tyrtaeus as demonstrating the existence of the hoplite phalanx, has argued for a radical down-dating of the development of the phalanx. He argues (1) 7th century Greek warfare was much closer to Homeric warfare than that of the hoplite phalanx, and (2) it is not clear whether the development of the dense line formations of heavy armed infantry was complete even by the time of the Persian Wars. This paper argues that this new interpretation is wrong and that van Wees misinterprets crucial iconographic and literary evidence in his attempt to revise traditional views about the origin of the phalanx. The development of the classical hoplite phalanx did in fact begin with the introduction of hoplite armor around 700 B.C.E. and by the time the Chigi vase was painted around 650 B.C. had advanced to a point where the formation was nearly indistinguishable from that of the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars.