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Updated: June 14, 2025
In the maritime warfare of that period hoplites and archers no doubt fought from the deck, and projectile machines were also plied from it; but the ordinary and really decisive mode of action consisted in running foul of the enemy's vessels, for which purpose the prows were furnished with heavy iron beaks: the vessels engaged were in the habit of sailing round each other till one or the other succeeded in giving the thrust, which usually proved decisive.
The primitive Graeco-Italian military organization, which was probably based, like the Homeric, on the selection of the most distinguished and effective warriors who ordinarily fought on horseback to form a special vanguard, had in the later regal period been superseded by the -legio the old Dorian phalanx of hoplites, probably eight file deep.
He then recalled the thirty thousand cavalry and twenty thousand infantry, which he had sent across the river, and awaited the onset of Alexander, Darius was in his chariot, in the centre, behind the Grecian hoplites. But the ground was so uneven, that only a part of his army could fight. A large proportion of it were mere spectators.
For that expedition consisted of a hundred Athenian and fifty Chian and Lesbian triremes, conveying four thousand hoplites, all Athenian citizens, three hundred cavalry, and a multitude of allied troops.
The military unit came to be in the infantry the now doubled legion a phalanx, arranged and armed completely in the old Doric style, of 6000 men who, six file deep, formed a front of 1000 heavy-armed soldiers; to which were attached 2400 "unarmed". The four first ranks of the phalanx, the -classis-, were formed by the fully-armed hoplites of those possessing a full hide; in the fifth and sixth were placed the less completely equipped farmers of the second and third division; the two last divisions were annexed as rear ranks to the phalanx or fought by its side as light-armed troops.
For three years did this calamity desolate Athens, and the loss of life was deplorable, both in the army and among private citizens. Pericles lost both his children and his sister; four thousand four hundred hoplites died, and a greater part of the horsemen. But the soldiers carried infection with them, and a greater part of them died of the disease at the siege or blockade of Potidæa.
Gathering together, it hung in clouds about the hill-tops, while below, the river Krimesus appeared, with the enemy crossing it. First went the four-horse chariots in terrible pomp, all drawn up in battle array, while next to them followed ten thousand hoplites with white shields.
By the slaughter of so many of the Hoplites, the aristocratic party in Athens were greatly weakened, while the neglected remonstrances and fears of Pericles, now remembered, secured to him a respect and confidence which soon served to turn the balance against his competitor Thucydides.
The primitive Graeco-Italian military organization, which was probably based, like the Homeric, on the selection of the most distinguished and effective warriors who ordinarily fought on horseback to form a special vanguard, had in the later regal period been superseded by the -legio the old Dorian phalanx of hoplites, probably eight file deep.
But this time Agesilaus marched as he had announced, and in three days arrived unopposed on the banks of the Pactolus, before the Persian cavalry could be recalled. When they at last came up, the newly raised Grecian horse, assisted by the peltasts, and some of the younger and more active hoplites, soon succeeded in putting them to flight.
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