Alexander : a history of the origin and growth of the art of war from ...

FIRST MESSENIAN WAR. 41the Spartan, — the names merely differing. Each of the tenphylaj furnished a body of one thousand or more hoplites,under command of a chiliarch, or colonel. The phyla3 selectedeach a commander, called strategos, who was the equivalentof the Spartan polemarch. Of the ten strategoi, eachin turn took command of the entire army ; all together theyconstituted the council of war.The Athenian was equally brave, more fiery in his courage,but less constant and enduring than the Spartan, and the disciplineto which he was subjected was somewhat less strict, asaccorded with the national character.Wars. — Immediately after the Trojan war came the invasionsof the Heraclidse (1104 b. c), who subjugated the Peloponnesus.Except these, the wars of the Greeks, down to750 B. C, were much what tlie quarrels of small semi-civilizedti'ibes are wont to bring about, i. e., wars quite without system.When Sparta and Athens had grown to be substantialnations, military movements came to be more noticeable.But they were stillThe territory ofmostly confined to small-war and sieges.Greece, cut up by natural and political divisionsinto limited domains, narrowed operations down to thisspecies of warfare. Larger evolutions were out of the question.But small-war was conducted with much intelligence.Sieges were more properly blockades ;situation rather than art.fortification relied uponThe first Messenian War (743-724 b. C.) is worthy of notefor nothing so much as the long and excellent defense againstthe Spartans by Euphaes, king of Messenia. His maintaininghimself in his capital during five years of preparation forwar, his holding his own against the so-called invincibleSpartans in the bloody but undecided battle of Amphaea, andthe defense of Ithome, mark Euphaes as a great man. At