Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome (30 page)

length of most urban clashes could be measured in hours or days, this

sort of struggle could devolve into chronic conflict, with a city semi-

permanently divided between warring sides, which might even construct

internal fortifications against each other. One such division occurred at

Notium in Asia Minor during the early years of the Peloponnesian War,

when hostile pro-Athenian and pro-Persian factions entrenched them-

selves in separate quarters of the city.15 Likewise, Syracuse in the late

460s was split between native-born citizens and rebel ious foreign mer-

cenaries, who for several years battled in and around the city.16

These rough categories by no means exactly describe every single

classical urban clash. Indeed, some urban battles featured combina-

tions of situations. At Sparta in 369, for example, King Agesilaus had

simultaneously to defend against a Theban assault and to squelch an

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uprising by a group of disaffected Spartans.17 The Thebans in 335 had

just succeeded in regaining their city from its Macedonian garrison

when they faced an external attack from Alexander’s main army. No

matter how they began, though, all urban clashes were shaped by the

characteristics of the ancient Greek city.

The Urban Battleground

The
polis
, sometimes translated as “city-state,” was the characteristic

political form of classical Greece.18 In physical terms the typical polis

consisted of a walled urban settlement surrounded by a rural hinter-

land. The urban center was built around its acropolis, a defensible high

point. Within the city walls could be found temples, public buildings,

a marketplace, and private dwellings. In the fourth century, Mantin-

eia, Megalopolis, and Messene incorporated open fields and croplands

within their fortifications, but such vast circuits were exceptional. Else-

where, suburbs sometimes extended beyond the walls.19 Larger
poleis

featured small towns or villages in their hinterlands; poleis near but not

directly on the sea often developed harbor towns. With the exception

of Piraeus, which grew into a sizable town, none of these subordinate

settlements ever came close to approaching the urban center in size or

significance.

By modern standards, most poleis
were tiny. The acropolis of Halai

in central Greece, for example, measured a mere 160 by 70 meters, and

the city’s entire walled area may have been only 0.85 ha (2.1 acres).20

Classical Halai probably had a total population of perhaps a few thou-

sand. Athens, with its hundreds of thousands of native Athenians plus

foreigners and slaves all living within several miles of walls, was excep-

tional. Whether their polis was large or small, most Greeks lived in the

countryside, not in the city.

The circuit wall of a city defined its urban space.21 Greeks had begun

constructing fortified enceintes in earnest during the sixth century BC,

and by the end of classical times only a handful of major sites, notably

Sparta, remained unfortified. Most walls were built of massive stone

blocks, though bricks, clay, and rubble were also employed. Gates with

flanking towers and sometimes with elaborate entryways regulated

Urban Warfare 143

access to the city. Additional towers and bastions along the walls pro-

vided positions for defenders.

The urban battleground proper began just inside a city’s walls, but

that did not render walls superfluous. Even if they could not forestall

entry into a city, walls in urban combat could become inverse barri-

ers, as at Plataea, where the circuit wall kept numerous Theban at-

tackers from escaping.22 The inside edges of city walls also furnished a

secure backstop against which troops involved in urban combat could

regroup. City gates, too, remained important as access points for rein-

forcements. At Tegea in 370–369 BC, for example, the factions contest-

ing the city retreated to opposite sides of town after their initial clash.

The pan-Arcadian faction fell back under the city wall, near the gates

leading east to Mantineia, whence they expected to receive additional

troops. Their opponents clustered on the other side of town, near the

gates leading to Pallantion. When the pan-Arcadians were reinforced,

their opponents quickly fled west out the gates.23

Fortified citadels inside cities could also shape the course of urban

battle. Most cities had only one acropolis, but larger ones could con-

tain multiple strong points. Athens, for instance, had the Mouseion hill

near the Acropolis and the Mounichia hill in Piraeus, in addition to

its famous Acropolis.24 Defenders who retained an acropolis or other

fortress could use it as a base for counterattacks. At Syracuse in the

350s, for example, the mercenaries of Dionysus II launched assaults

from the fortified island of Ortygia against the rest of the city.25 Hold-

ing the acropolis, however, did not guarantee control of a city. The

popular revolutionaries at Athens in 508–507 BC successfully trapped

the oligarchs and their Spartan supporters on the Acropolis.26 At Sardis

in 499, the Persians held the acropolis, but could not prevent the Athe-

nians and Ionians from ravaging the town below.27 When the Thebans

in 335 BC regained control of their city, they left the Macedonian gar-

rison bottled up on the Cadmea, Thebes’s acropolis.28 In chronic intra-

urban conflict, as we have seen, rival factions or communities might

rely on internal cross walls to bolster their positions.29 Such walls could

pen urban combatants into a narrow slaughter pen with no room for

maneuver, as happened at Syracuse in 357–356.30

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The real nerve center of the classical city was the marketplace or

agora
. Located at the junction of major streets and often containing

major administrative buildings, the agora was the largest open area

within the city walls. Foreign attackers entering a city usually headed

straight for the agora, and defenders typically fell back toward it.31 If

the defenders could hold on to the agora and reform their troops, they

stood a chance of pushing the attackers out of the city. The Athenians

and Ionians at Sardis in 499 BC, for example, were forced to fall back af-

ter they encountered Persian troops massed in the agora.32 Conversely,

the loss of the agora could be the final blow that crushed defenders’

morale.33 Even so, overconfident or outnumbered forces, like the The-

bans at Plataea, might find that taking the agora alone was insufficient.

Many civil wars began with coups or massacres in the agora.34 Again,

winning the agora did not guarantee victory, as the oligarchic party dis-

covered at Elis in 397 BC. Having seized the agora, the oligarchs declared

victory,
only to find that Thrasydaios, leader of the popular faction, was

not dead but just at home sleeping off his midday wine. Shaking off a

hangover, Thrasydaios led a counterattack that routed the oligarchs.35

In addition to being communication centers and rallying points,

marketplaces could contain vital arms supplies for urban combatants.36

The conspirators who allegedly sought to seize power at Sparta in 400–

399 BC, for example, had planned to use Sparta’s tool market, with its

abundance of axes, hatchets, and sickles, as their arsenal.37 At least one

other city was taken by insurgents employing weapons that had been

smuggled into the agora inside baskets of fruit and boxes of clothing.38

Forgetting the dangers of an urban armed mass, the Spartan officer

commanding the defense of Mytilene in 427 made the mistake of arm-

ing the city’s populace, which promptly rebelled against him.39

Beyond the agora, any spacious and defensible location where com-

batants could form up or find refuge was tactical y important. These

places included theaters, temples, gymnasia, and other large buildings.40

During the Athenian civil war of 404–403, oligarchic horsemen used the

Odeion of Pericles, a meeting hal just below the Acropolis, as their base,

while the democratic light infantry gathered at the theater in Piraeus.41

Like marketplaces, temples and public buildings could furnish arsenals

Urban Warfare 145

for urban combat. At Thebes in 379, the anti-Spartan forces equipped

themselves with weapons, probably religious dedications, taken from a

portico.42 Given enough time, defenders might dig trenches across open

areas, or sow them with obstacles to impede an enemy advance.43

Large buildings promised security but could become death traps.

During the final stages of the Corcyrean civil war, members of the oli-

garchic faction, knowing they were about to be executed, tried to hold

out in what may have been a warehouse. Their enemies climbed atop

the building, broke open the roof, and rained down tiles and arrows; the

defenders who survived the barrage kil ed themselves rather than sur-

render.44 Something similar happened at Tegea in 370–369, when mem-

bers of a defeated faction took refuge in the temple of Artemis. Their

opponents surrounded the temple, climbed up, dismantled its roof, and

hurled down tiles. The men inside gave up, only to be put to death.45

Urban war also meant street fighting. The oldest Greek towns had

grown up organically over the centuries and so did not have regular

layouts. The irregular web of narrow streets and alleys that crisscrossed

these cities could confuse and disorient foreign invaders—think again

of the Thebans at Plataea—while defenders who knew the shortcuts

could move quickly from one neighborhood to another. Irregular

street networks forced commanders to split forces into small detach-

ments, making communications and mutual support nigh impossible.

With attackers and defenders split into uncoordinated small groups, a

street battle could last all night, with troops slaying each other at ran-

dom in the darkness, as happened at Syracuse in 355.46

By the mid-fifth century, regular street grids became popular for

new cities and for expansions to old ones.47 Street widths in these grids

could range from 3–5 meters (9.8–16.4 feet) for residential byways to 13–

15 meters (42.6–49.2 feet) for main thoroughfares.48 As Aristotle noted,

cities built in this new “Hippodamian” style made for more convenient

and pleasant living but for less security in war.49 To keep a city defen-

sible, Aristotle recommended that planners use grids only in certain

neighborhoods, or lay out blocks with a few wide avenues connecting

to smaller streets.50 A regular street plan made matters easier for at-

tackers, who could send mutually supporting detachments up parallel

avenues with less risk of getting lost. In response, defenders could dig

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pits or trenches in streets and set up barricades. They might also bur-

row through house walls to outflank enemy forces.51

Even in grid-planned cities, narrow streets compelled command-

ers to draw up troops in unwieldy formations. In Piraeus in 404–403,

for example, the oligarchs had to form their hoplites fifty ranks deep.52

A regular street grid also provided missile troops better fields of fire.

The oligarchs at Piraeus were able to take the agora, but when they

advanced up a main avenue toward the Mounichia hill, the democrats

threw them back with a volley of stones, javelins, and arrows.53

In grid-planned cities, houses were built in blocks sharing common

walls, sometimes with a narrow alley running down the center of the

block. As in modern subdivisions, houses in each block often shared a

similar design. Houses in planned districts could be spacious. Plots on

the North Hill of Olynthos, for example, average about 17 meters on a

side.54 In older cities, houses were often smaller and house layouts less

regular. New or old, houses were perhaps the most difficult of classical

Greek urban terrain. From Sicily to Ionia, the typical house was of mud

brick on stone foundations.55 It faced inward, with a narrow entry giv-

ing access to a central courtyard around which rooms were arranged.

Exterior-facing windows were high off the ground and generally in-

accessible. Some houses had second stories, often used for women’s

quarters. Houses generally had pitched, tiled roofs, although in some

regions flat roofs were preferred.

Unlike pitched field battle, urban warfare took place in three dimen-

sions. In city fights, house roofs provided a vital height advantage. Roof

tiles, which could weigh from 10 to 30 kg, provided ready-made projec-

tiles for defenders to hurl down upon invaders. Even women and slaves

ascended the roofs of their homes to assail advancing enemies with

such missiles.56 Sometimes other structures gave a height advantage. A

Theban attempt on Corinth in 369 BC was repelled by light troops who

mounted burial monuments and grave markers to hurl stones and jav-

elins.57 Attackers too used roofs as firing platforms, as the Thebans did