WAR IN THE HELLENISTIC WORLD

THE AGE OF WAR: FIGHTING YOUNG MEN
military matters (shortly before 207 BC). Young men, we are told, started
spending their money on arms and armor, neglecting luxuries (Plut., Philop.
9.3–4). And if a mistrust in the narratives of literary sources is justified,
such narratives can be confirmed by documentary sources about restless
young men. When King Ptolemy died (probably King Ptolemy IX, 80 BC),
and the repeated attacks of bandidts (kakourgoi) were threatening life in
the countryside of Berenike in Kyrenaika, Apollodoros, offspring of a good
family, was asked to command the “young men” neaniskoi in order to avert
this danger. His troops were between 20 and 30 years of age (cf. Sacco
1979; Gauthier and Hatzopoulos 1993: 77–8) and with their support
Apollodoros “established the greatest peace, taking upon himself every danger”
(SEG XXVIII 1540, 62/61 BC; see chapter 2, section 5). It was a rule
that when a surprise attack occured, the young men were sent to repel it.
For example, when Antigonos Doson invaded Phokis in 228 BC, contigents
of young men (neoteroi) from the cities of Doris hurried to Delphi to
defend the sanctuary of Apollo (e.g., SEG XXXVIII 1476, lines 96–7), and
Metropolis (Ionia) mobilized her young warriors (neaniskoi) at the beginning
of Aristonikos’ revolt in 133 (Dreyer and Engelmann 2003: 34–40).
Military service in the countryside and in the forts of the frontier was a
typical duty of young men, deeply rooted in their training. Military education
and military rituals for young men are also the key for understanding the
historical background of narratives about their enthusiasm for war.
3.2. Training Fighters
What did one expect from a young man in the Hellenistic Age? The oath of
the young men in Dreros on Crete (I.Cret. I ix 1; Austin 1981: no. 91) gives
us one answer: it is the answer of the collective, not of an individual thinker,
the answer of a community surrounded by enemies during a war, not that
of a philosopher discussing the matter over Chian wine in a symposium:
In the year in which the tribe of the Aithaleis provided the kosmoi [officials]
who were in office together with Kyias and Kephalos, Pyros, Pios, Bision, and
in the year in which Philippos was scribe, 180 members of the “herds” [units
of ephebes] took the following oath, not girded. “I swear by Hestia [‘Hearth’],
who is in the magistrates’ hall, and by Zeus, the patron of the assembly, and
by Zeus of the Tallaian Mountains, and by Apollo Delphinios, and by Athena,
the patron of the citadel, and by Apollo Pythios, and by Lato, and by Artemis,
and by Ares, and by Aphrodite, and by Hermes, and by the Sun, and by
Britomarpis, and by Phoinix, and by Amphione, and by the Earth, and by the
Sky, and by the male and female heroes, and by the water sources, and by
the rivers, and by all gods and goddesses; truly, I will never be benevolent towards
the Lyttians, in no way and through no pretension, neither by day nor
by night; and I will try, to the best of my capacity, to harm the city of the
Lyttians. And neither a trial nor an execution of verdicts will be protected by
46