WAR IN THE HELLENISTIC WORLD

MASCULINE WARRIORS, DEFENSELESS WOMEN, AND BEYOND
collective sexual desire, and their collective envy for the one woman who
has won his heart, were expressed in spontaneous song. Admittedly, Sparta
is a particular case, and we can expect such a role primarily in communities
dominated by a warrior spirit. This may have been the case in Cretan cities.
According to the literary sources on the Cretan “men’s houses” (andreia)
of the citizen-warriors, which still existed in the Hellenistic period (Chaniotis
1996a: 123, 133), women were responsible for the organization of common
meals, and had the privilege of distributing the food according to valor
and military achievement (Dosiadas, FgrHist 458 F 2).
The praise of heroic death in battle is, however, not limited to Sparta and
Crete. A few grave epigrams written by Anyte and Nossis, Hellenistic women
poets, praise the heroic death of men in battle (Greek Anthology 6.132;
7.208, 232, 724; Loman 2004: 34–5).
Aineias the Tactician (mid-fourth-century BC) describes a trick used by the
people of Sinope during a war (ca. 370 BC), in order to create the impression
that their army was bigger: they dressed women like men and placed them
on the walls, in full view of the enemy (Aeneias Tacticus 40.4). When
Pyrrhos attacked Sparta in 272 BC, the women refused to be transported to
Crete, completed one third of the trench that was built in a hurry (Phylarchos,
FgrHist 81 F 48), and urged the young men to defend it, “saying that it is
sweet to be victorious before the eyes of the fatherland and glorious to die
in the hands of mothers and wives” (Plut., Pyrrhos 27.9). One should remark
here that the Spartan women were led by Archidamia, widow of a king and
one of the richest women in Sparta (Schaps 1982: 194; Cartledge and
Spawforth 1989: 33–4); wealth and status for women was no less important
than for men with regard to participation in public life.
Women and slaves frequently participated in street battles, throwing
clay tiles from the roofs of their houses (Aeneias Tacticus 2.6; Polyainos,
Strategemata 8.69; Schaps 1982: 195–6; Barry 1996; Loman 2004: 42),
and the women of Chios are said to have saved their city from an attack in
this way (Plut., mor. 245). Philon of Byzantion explicitly recommends this
practice: “the children, the female slaves, the women, and the virgins should
hit from the roofs and everyone in the city should be active” (C 31, ed.
Garlan 1974: 311, 384). This is – we are told – the way King Pyrrhos was
killed while invading the city of Argos in 272 BC: “the Argive men ran to
the market place with their arms, while their women occupied in advance
the roofs and forced the Epeirotans to withdraw by throwing objects from
above, so that even Pyrrhos, the most skillful of generals, was killed when a
roof-tile fell on his head” (Plut., Pyrrhos 34; Polyainos, Strategemata 8.68;
Paus. 1.13.8). It should be remarked that the Argive women are said to
have saved their city as early as the fifth century BC, after Kleomenes of
Sparta had defeated the men and was attacking Argos (Sokrates, FgrHist
310 F 6 = Plut., mor. 245; Polyainos, Strategemata 8.33). The women
armed themselves, defended the walls, and pushed the enemy back. The
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