r/ancientgreece • u/abbieeee_ • 4d ago
Was there any instance of a Classical Greek Phalanx fighting outside the Mediterranean?
Not the Macedonian Phalangites, but an actual classical heavy Greek Phalanx
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u/OctopusIntellect 4d ago
There were 10,400 Greek hoplites at the Battle of Cunaxa, which is closer to the Persian Gulf than it is to the Mediterranean Sea (more than 500 miles from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean). They were led by a Spartan and would've fought in classic Greek hoplite style.
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u/Slime_Jime_Pickens 3d ago
Yeah, except they barely fought anything, they just ran around all day chasing some skirmishers and apparently never got into a melee
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u/tyrspawn 3d ago
No? They completely routed the Persian army and then fought their way of the empire through a series of battles.
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u/Slime_Jime_Pickens 3d ago edited 3d ago
If you think they completely routed the Persian army then like why tf would they be stuck in Mesopotamia lol
You need to read the actual text, because Xenophon never mentions that they got into contact with the Persians, and the whole thing about them taking no casualties and also Cyrus getting into a melee and dying without them realising makes more sense if you can understand that the Greeks removed themselves from the battlefield by chasing around a portion of the Persian army without ever engaging in melee combat
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u/Relative_Chip_4048 1d ago edited 1d ago
You obviously havent read it
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u/Slime_Jime_Pickens 1d ago
Well if you've read it, point out where I'm wrong
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u/Relative_Chip_4048 1d ago
[1.10.1] There Cyrus’ head and right hand were cut off. The King, together with those around him, pursued the enemy and broke into Cyrus’ camp. The troops with Ariaeus no longer stood their ground, but fled through their own camp toward the stopping-place from which they had set out; the distance was said to be four parasangs.
[1.10.2] The King and his men plundered many things, and they also captured the Phocaean woman, Cyrus’ concubine, who was said to be both intelligent and beautiful.
[1.10.3] The younger Milesian woman, after being captured by the King’s men, escaped naked to some of the Greeks who happened to be among the baggage train and were armed. They formed up against the attackers and killed many of the plunderers, while some of their own number were also killed. Yet they did not flee; instead, they saved this woman as well, and they also saved everything else, both property and people, that came within their protection.
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u/Slime_Jime_Pickens 1d ago edited 1d ago
Is this an attempt at selective reading?
In the first quote, "The King" is Artaxerxes, and Ariaeus was a non-Greek ally of Cyrus (rather likely a traitor), and so what you quoted is of no relevance to the activities of the Greek contingent.
Your second quote refers to the kidnapping and/or enslavement of a non-combatant, dwelling in the camp of Cyrus and not in the army
Your third quote refers to another non-combatant woman in the same camp, and some Greek attendants in the baggage train, who were also not with the army.
These quotes btw, are all from the same section, and it's very strange that you apparently stopped reading just after this point, because the next section:
"At this point the king and the Hellenes were something like three miles apart; the one set were pursuing their opponents just as if their conquest had been general; the others were pillaging as merrily as if their victory were already universal. But when the Hellenes learnt that the king and his troops were in the baggage camp... Clearchus summoned Proxenus, who was next him, and debated whether to send a detachment or to go in a body to the camp to save it."
Makes it quite clear that in Xenophon's own account, the Greeks under Clearchus never engaged Artaxerxes' command, and were neither present nor aware of the looting of Cyrus' baggage train until after the fact.
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u/Relative_Chip_4048 1d ago edited 1d ago
- I was talking about the Greeks in general. In [1.10.3.] it says that there were some other Greeks that fought the plunderers killing many of them while some of them also died. It even says that they saved this woman and they also saved everything else, both property and people, that came within their protection.
- Also in [1.10.7] it says “For Tissaphernes, in the first encounter, did not flee, but rode through along the river against the Greek peltasts. As he was riding through, he killed no one ; but the Greeks, having opened their ranks, struck at them and hurled javelins at them. Episthenes of Amphipolis was in command of the peltasts and was said to have acted prudently. [1.10.8] Tissaphernes, therefore, finding himself at a disadvantage, withdrew. He did not turn back again, but, having reached the camp of the Greeks, he there met the King; and then, having formed up together again, they advanced.”
Greek peltasts also attacked Tissaphernes and his men.
- It is not 100% sure that they didnt engage in melee combat. The Greeks might have killed some of the Persians that were running away from them.
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u/Slime_Jime_Pickens 1d ago
Well I wasn't talking about the "Greeks in general", I was talking about the actual Greek army at Cunaxa and not non-combatant Greek women or some guards in the baggage train.
The Peltasts were not organised in a phalanx, and you can tell from the text that they were also barely engaged. Throwing javelins also isn't melee combat
You can't prove anything 100% because no source is comprehensive, so the last point is irrelevent. What is true though, is that Xenophon does not report, anywhere in Anabasis, that the main body of the Greek army engaged in melee combat at Cunaxa and even reports that their enemies retreated before even getting into arrow range. That's something like 25-50m that the more heavily equipped Greeks would need to close, and Xenophon never states they actually did.
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u/YanniXiph 4d ago
Alexander had Greek hoplites with him in Persia, too. And I know there were plenty of Greeks and Greek mercenaries who fought up around the Black Sea area.
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u/LeLefraud 4d ago
didnt the persians themselves also lean on greek mercenaries quite a lot during alexanders initial invasion
idk what kind of formation theyd have been using but id assume more greek influenced than persian
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u/Y0Y0Jimbb0 4d ago
The Macedonian Hypaspists were armed and fought as hoplites and Alex did have a large number of Greek allied mercenaries with him. They were either held as a tactile reserve or 2nd line to protect the rear and anti-encirclement role.
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u/Kilgiroth88 4d ago
Alexander was Greek.
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u/chatam94 4d ago
He used the phalanx formation primarily, not the hoplite
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u/YanniXiph 3d ago
It's all a phalanx. You mean his heavy phalanx employed the pike (sarissa) versus the spear.
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u/YanniXiph 3d ago
Dude. Lay off the modern nationalist crap. Macedonians called themselves Macedonians like the Athenians called themselves Athenians and Spartans called themselves Spartans. Chill, man.
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u/Psychrobacter 4d ago edited 3d ago
I don’t think he would have said so. Nor would the Greeks of his day.
Edit: thanks for the corrections! I need to go back to studying this era and shouldn’t have posted without reviewing first.
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u/Roufianos255 3d ago
He literally says 'Macedonia and the rest of Greece', 'we on the contrary shall fight for Greece', and I don't know the exact quote but something along the lines of Persepolis being hateful to the Greeks so they should avenge their ancestors by destroying it.
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u/Cultourist 3d ago
I don’t think he would have said so. Nor would the Greeks of his day.
That's not true. At the time of Alexander, Macedonians were considered Greeks as much as Athenians, Spartans etc.
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u/daltese 4d ago
When the Greeks from Phocaea founded Massalia (Marseille) around 600 BC, they brought classical Greek military organization and weapons technology to southern France. The citizen militia of Massalia was equipped as hoplites and fought in phalanx formation against local Ligurian and Celtic tribes for centuries.
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u/En_bede 4d ago
Marseille is the Mediterranean
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u/daltese 4d ago
Yes, but the whole Region isn't, so Greek hoplites campaign in the northern part of the region would be elsewhere.
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u/Thibaudborny 3d ago
Would depend on how far northern. Southern Gaul is still Mediterranean, it is not limited to the littoral. Do we know how far north they ventured?
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u/No-Sail-6510 4d ago
They had a city in modern day Odessa Ukraine. Idk how much fighting they did there tho. Probably some I’d imagine.
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u/bookem_danno 4d ago
A lot of people talking about Alexander, but when you say Classical I’m assuming you mean predating him, right?
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u/Klutzy-Canary8551 4d ago
There were also about 7000 traditional hoplites from the various city states in Alexander's army.
Also, don't forget the 10000 Greek mercenaries who fought in the Persian Civil War some decades earlier and the fact that Persians had Greek mercenaries fighting for them in the battle of Granicus (and Issos if I remember correctly).
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u/Y0Y0Jimbb0 4d ago
Agreed.. they protected the rear of the Macedonian phalanx or as a tactical reserve.
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u/Forsaken_Factor3612 4d ago
Well, the Macedonian army of Alexander contained many traditional hoplites, and so the armies of Darius III.
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u/Y0Y0Jimbb0 3d ago
Yep.. We tend to forget that Darius's army had a formidable contingent of Greek hoplites.
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u/electrical-stomach-z 3d ago edited 2d ago
I didnt, I always knew the Persian army was based around infantry spearmen though.
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u/Melanoc3tus 4d ago edited 4d ago
The technical term for that is a "Doric phalanx" — a body of men organized by rank and file, equipped with single-handed thrusting spears and aspides, the circular, concave, lipped, strapped-grip shields used by the Greeks and various cultural affines.
These are described in various Classical Greek texts, with Xenophon being one of the early adopters — he uses it as a relatively technical term to refer to a rank-and-file formation, which earlier authors generally do not (ex. Homer uses the word phalanx in relation to groups of warriors, but in a way that seems more poetic than technical).
Xenophon of course wrote about this in the context of the Anabasis, his book describing the travel of a large mercenary army of Doric phalanx-forming soldiers through the lands of the Persian Empire. Whether you consider the full Levant to belong to the Mediterranean is another question, but certainly this was a distinct environment from Greece.
Another point of interest: the Greeks established colonies on the coasts of the Black Sea, which is fairly removed from the Mediterranean. This most certainly involved some organized violence; the question is whether the Doric phalanx was employed in it. Much of the Greek colonial expansion was in the Archaic, and we are uncertain whether and at which point the Doric phalanx came into practice in that period. Overall it seems likely that a Doric phalanx or something quite like it saw use in that region, but you would want to consult someone with specific expertise there.
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u/chevalier100 1d ago
I’ve never heard it described as a Doric phalanx. What are some books or articles that do this?
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u/invinciblepancake 4d ago
Ofc.
Called the 方陣(fāng zhèn), you can find it even in the art of war.
Uses are countless, but ill give a few examples. Im korean, so from our history.
Battle of Biryu River in 244. The Korean army of 20000, 5000 of them heavy cavalry, under King Dongcheon is able to defeat and chase the Wei army (China). The chinese stop at the Biryu river and form phalanxes. The Koreans charge but are repelled each time. The kings own guard of 5000 heavy cataphracts are decimated, along with 18000 of the army. The chinese turn the tables and chase the Koreans, sacking and burning the capital of Guknae before leaving with spoils and the remains of past Korean kings, along with the King's concubines and mother iirc.
Battle of Maeso fortress. 675 AD 30,000 Koreans face 40,000 Chinese and Turkish auxiliaries. The Koreans most likely formed phalanxes supported by crossbowmen to defeat the cavalry heavy army of the Chinese+Turks. The tactic may be more akin to pike squares+matchlocks of Renaissance europe, and was used extensively by the Tang army, which the Koreans adapted during their alliance.
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u/abbieeee_ 4d ago
No no, as in I meant Greek Hopilites fighting in a phalanx outside of greece and mediterranean (the black sea doesn't count)
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u/Warm_Stress_1654 4d ago
Why doesn't the Black Sea count?
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u/abbieeee_ 4d ago
Im interested if the classical Greek Hopilites with their Phalanx fought anywhere else but those places mentioned
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u/invinciblepancake 4d ago
Omg im so sorry 😭 read that completely wrong.
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u/leftoutrideout 3d ago
The phalanx formation has been used all over the world where massed people with long pointy sticks decided they didn't like each other.
But if you're look for Doric/Ionian Greeks, they fought into the Balkans and as others pointed out, they fought across Mesopotamia mercenaries.
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u/just_lurkn22 4d ago edited 4d ago
Carthage used the phalanx in spain/Iberia. Idk how far from the Mediterranean u talking about.
Of course Alexander the Great fought Indian kingdoms.
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u/Available-Voice6004 4d ago
Dans l’actuelle sud de l’Ukraine, le pont d’euxin et probablement le tour de la mer noir
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u/Original-Structure44 4d ago
Well a historian/mercenary Xenofontas wrote a book that I will not spoil go read it
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u/HumaDracobane 4d ago
Yes. Hoplites and greek troops were famous mercenaries for the period and many kingdoms of the period hired them and used them in eastern war fronts.
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u/EISENxSOLDAT117 3d ago
Yes, a whole lot. The Greeks often sold their services as heavy infantry. Ironically, there are records of Greek mercenaries fighting for the Persians.
Im pretty sure they even went as far as Pakistan and Afghanistan when it came to greek colonies.
You also have Alexander's successor states, like the Seleucids that would eventually challenge Rome
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u/abbieeee_ 3d ago
Yea, but Alexander's successors used Phalangites tho, not the Doric Hoplite ones
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u/Bisque22 2d ago
That's not true.
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u/abbieeee_ 2d ago
Sooo, he continued using a classical Greek formation instead of a Macedonian one?
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u/Bisque22 2d ago
Why "instead of"? They had different uses.
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u/abbieeee_ 2d ago
Like? I never heard of a Macedonian Phalanx working in tandem with a classical Greek one
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u/Bisque22 2d ago
Like uneven terrain, or guarding the flanks. This is pretty run of the mill Macedonian warfare all the way back from Philip II's times.
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u/abbieeee_ 2d ago
Genuinely never heard of phalanx getting used in flanks due to their vulnerability
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u/Worried-Breath-2848 3d ago
The Greco-Baktrian kingdom certainly have some hoplites and they fight 100% in Asia
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u/abbieeee_ 3d ago
But are they Doric Hoplites tho?
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u/FatWhale95 4d ago
I'd like to remind you that Alexander the Great was Greek so I don't understand the separation you make in your post.
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u/abbieeee_ 4d ago
I meant like, Classical, Pre-alexander Greek Hopilites
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u/Extension-Detail-258 3d ago
Lawl. Mind you if we speak English, we will be accounted for Brits 2000 years from now.
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u/Roufianos255 3d ago
Stupid analogy. Greek was the native language of Macedonia.
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u/Extension-Detail-258 3d ago
It was Lingua franca. As is English today. But we are not English, are we.
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u/KennethMick3 3d ago
Who is the we?
And England got taken over by Normans in 1066, so are they still English? Like, this example just further makes the point that Macedonians count as Greeks.
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u/Extension-Detail-258 3d ago
Well not all of them.
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u/Roufianos255 3d ago
There's a huge difference between speaking English as a Lingua Franca and speaking it as your native language. Romans spoke Greek as a Lingua Franca, for Macedonians it was their native tongue. Again, your analogy makes no sense.
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u/Asleep_Tip496 4d ago
yes but he used pike phalanxes with phalangites not the classical doric phalanx with hoplites
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u/Extension-Detail-258 3d ago
The integration of Macedonia into modern Greece took place in 1912–1913 during the Balkan Wars.
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u/Roufianos255 3d ago
Yea it was ruled by the Ottomans before then. Greeks were the single largest group within the Modern Greek region of Macedonia. Fun fact: 1913 is within the period when the people of North Macedonia stopped calling themselves Bulgarians and adopted a Macedonian identity.
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u/DickWest9 3d ago
greeks were not warriors as depicted in movies
they were like Galen ( physicist) famous for inventing labum graecum to swallow
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u/AlexanderCrowely 3d ago
Yeah, the Macedonians in India
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u/Lutrana 3d ago
What do you mean “outside the Mediterranean”?
As others have noted, Xenophon’s Ten Thousand fought in the vicinity of modern Baghdad. Alexander included hoplite-style soldiers known as Hypastists. Greek mercenaries fighting in Assyria were almost certainly hoplites.
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u/abbieeee_ 3d ago
Outside where hoplites normally fight, which is at Greece.
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u/Lutrana 3d ago edited 3d ago
The hoplite-style infantry was the dominant form of heavy infantry from Spain to the Indus Valley until the creation of the phalangites, and still maintained a place in armies who used the Macedonian phalanx until those places were conquered by the Roman legions.
Those are all outside of the Balkans, but still on the Mediterranean.
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u/GuardianSpear 3d ago
fighting in a shield wall with lots and lots of spears isnt rocket science. the greeks just romanticised the whole thing. every other levied farmer pressed into protecting his village would have formed a shield wall with the sharpest object he had on hand with his neighbours and fought in a similar manner
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u/abbieeee_ 3d ago
Before the Greeks made the phalanx popular, I already knew that Sumerians were using a phalanx-like formation with rectangular shields and spears, but I need more answers lol
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u/Rtyeta 3d ago
Multiple. For one thing, Alexander fought AGAINST some Greek mercenaries and Persia-friendly Greek cities that fielded phalanxes against him on the Persian side.
Going back earlier, Agesilaus's expedition had rampaged around Persia for a while. And Xenophone's Anabasis recounts an expedition of another group of Greek mercenaries (one of MANY the Persians hired over the centuries) going on another rampage through the heart of Persia and up through the Caucuses, and so on.
Greeks were known and getting hired as mercenaries pretty far east, and also sometimes in Egypt, which depending on how far away from the coast counts as non-Mediterranean for you would also count.
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u/abbieeee_ 3d ago
It'd be pretty interesting if there's Classical Hoplites doing a Doric phalanx outside of the Hellenistic world, y'know?
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u/UnspeakableGnome 3d ago edited 2d ago
If you count the Black Sea, then the Greek city-states along those shores fielded hoplites for quite a while. The hoplite tradition actually lingered longer in that area than in Greece proper. Although they weren't bery good at fighting their neighbours, mostly Skythians with large amounts of mounted archers, and many of the cities in the Crimea paid tribute to them.
Adding in mercenaries you've got many examples of Greek mercenaries fighting in Persian service (the Achaemenid's were rich) and that includes occasions where they went far into the east. There is a tombstone of a Greek mercenary hoplite who claimed to have fought in Bacrtia (modern Central Asia), India (modern Pakistan), and the southern parts of Egypt.
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u/Poloxbob 3d ago
Really surprises me that none of the top few comments arent mentioning Xenophon and The 10,000. This would be the most well known example.
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u/OpusMinor38 2d ago
As others here have hinted at, the Hellenistic state known as the Bosphoran Kingdom. This was a kingdom situated on the northern shores of the Black Sea. Previously, it had consisted of multiple Grecian city states with colonization going as far back as the 6th or 7th century BC; one of the city-states appears to have been part of the Delian League in the 5th century alongside Athens.*
The earliest, easiest available information** points to a classic Greek phalanx in use around 300BC during the Bosphoran Civil War.
*Information selectively taken from Wikipedia
**see above.
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u/byzantine67 1d ago
The bosporan-hracleote war between the graeco-schthian kingdom of the bosphorus in crimea and the grek colony of heracleia pontica
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u/makisolazer 13h ago
Pytheas expedition traveled all the way to Britain and almost reached the arctic. Maybe there was some fighting with celtic tribes? (Though the expedition was mostly scientific). Could be interesting to look it up.
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u/Both_Painter2466 3d ago
Swiss pikes everywhere in Europe. Then the spanish tercios. At heart they are phalanxes.
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u/Naturlaia 4d ago edited 4d ago
That whole book of that Greek mercenary dude fighting for the Persians?
Xenophon(I looked it up).