Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

244 Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks
Spartan hoplite c. 500 b.c.e. Courtesy akg-images,
London: Peter Connolly.
prowess but on the collective discipline of the whole army, whose
members were rewarded for their services by being given a role
in the politics of the community they defended. Those who could
not afford to purchase a suit of armor had to serve as light-armed
troops known as peltasts, or, in Athens’s case, especially from the
470s b.c.e. onward, as rowers in the navy. Certainly at the time
of the Peloponnesian War, however, and possibly earlier, metics
who could afford to purchase the requisite gear—presumably a
sizeable proportion—were required to fight as hoplites alongside
Athenian citizens.
Before a general gave orders for his army to engage in battle, a seer
took the omens to determine whether they were favorable. Sacrificial
victims were then slaughtered to the gods in the hope of securing
their goodwill. The Spartans, for instance, drove whole herds
of goats onto the battlefield for sacrifice. Armies advanced singing
a paean or hymn in honor of Apollo. Because they often closed in on
each other at a trot and because each hoplite was carrying approximately
seventy pounds of bronze, the initial engagement must
have resembled a head-on collision between two armored vehicles.
When the Athenians advanced against the Persians at the battle of