Could the Achaemenids have conquered Greece?

Could the Achaemenids have conquered Greece?

  • No

    Votes: 11 7.4%
  • Yes, during Darius' campaign

    Votes: 96 64.4%
  • Yes, during Xerxes' campaign

    Votes: 101 67.8%
  • Yes, some other time

    Votes: 48 32.2%

  • Total voters
    149
  • Poll closed .
Regarding the Chigi vase, note that the men do carry two spears; they're throwing the shorter one with a strap attached, while holding up the longer one. Snodgrass and Hans Van Wees have analyzed it exhaustively, and conclude that it cannot be used as evidence of an archaic phalanx.

"In the centre, two groups of hoplites are about to join battle and throw javelins at one another. The army on the right is about to be reinforced by a larger group of hoplites who have come running up and are just raising their spears to join the fray. In danger of being overwhelmed, the troops on the left call for help in turn, but
their reinforcements, the largest group of all, still have some way to run, and indeed some are only just getting armed. The role of the piper in this scenario is not to set a marching rhythm, but to sound a call to arms, as trumpeters do elsewhere: this explains why he is evidently blowing at the top of his lungs, and why we see no piper on the other side, which has the temporary advantage."

Is the bit you quoted supposed to back up the claim that the Chigi Vase "cannot be used as evidence of an archaic phalanx"? Because it doesn't at all. At most, if we accept their (entirely hypothetical) reconstruction of what the scene is depicting, it shows that it cannot be used as evidence for the use of marching music. But plenty of infantry have fought in dense formations without the use of music to keep time.

Yes there is, because earlier we're told the strength of the Persian contingent that faces the Spartans. Herodotos later contradicts this, but between the overall size of the army as deduced from the camp size, the earlier given strength of the contingent in question, the weight of evidence suggests the Persians were outnumbered, and it's just disingenuous to claim there's no reason to come to this conclusion. We all agree that 60,000 fighting men (based on camp surface area and a 1:1 camp follower ratio) is a more likely fighting strength for the Persian army, and Herodotos claims the Immortals, 10,000 strong, were the largest contingent.

What do you mean "we all"? Wikipedia gives estimates in the range of 70,000 to 120,000 for the Persian army.

Anyway, I've gone back and looked at the relevant passage of Herodotus, and as far as I can see he never actually claims that the Immortals were the largest contingent, nor that they were the only Persians who stayed with the army. His actual words are (8.113): "Mardonios chose out for himself first all those Persians who are called "Immortals," except only their commander Hydarnes (for Hydarnes said that he would not be left behind by the king), and after them of the other Persians those who wore cuirasses, and the body of a thousand horse" (τοὺς Πέρσας πάντας τοὺς ἀθανάτους καλεομένους… μετὰ δὲ τῶν ἄλλων Περσέων τοὺς θωρηκοφόρους καὶ τὴν ἵππον τὴν χιλίην). So there appear to be three groups of Persians: (1) the Immortals, (2) one thousand horsemen, and (3) the ones wearing breastplates (θωρηκοφόροι). When it comes to the battle itself, Mardonius takes "the Persians" in pursuit of the Spartans (9.59); the cavalry seem to commence the attack (9.60), and the Spartans are hard-pressed by the arrows of "the Persians" (9.61) until they charge into hand-to-hand combat with "the Persians" (9.62). At no point, then, does Herodotus ever indicate that, out of the three groups of Persian soldiers Mardonius had in the army, only the Immortals were involved at Plataea -- indeed, the reference to the cavalry in 9.60 rather seems to contradict such an interpretation.

The decision to attack is understandable in light of the considerable confusion in the Greeks; the Persians feared that the Greek army would only continue to grow as more allied contingents arrived, and this seemed as good a chance as any to finish it.

The different contingents in the Greek army were separated, but the Spartan and Athenian contingents at least seem to have been in reasonably good order. If the Persians came across a formed body of Spartans who outnumbered them five-to-one, they'd be more likely to wait for reinforcements rather than attacking against such odds.

We don't know that, because we don't have detailed accounts of earlier battles, and we also aren't entirely sure what Herodotos meant when he said it was the first time it was done.

Presumably that running into battle wasn't common practice before the 5th century. I don't see why this is a difficult inference, except that it contradicts your thesis that Greek armies charged into battle like undisciplined mobs.

They're really our only evidence for the attitudes people had towards hoplomachoi.

They also aren't enough to prove that the Greeks hated military training, as I showed above. Insufficient evidence doesn't become sufficient just because we can't find anything better.

The fact that multiple authors had to advocate for even the most basic military training and attest to its low public esteem is good evidence for the fact that it was generally absent.

So far you've only provided one author -- Xenophon -- who could be described as doing such a thing. Of the Platonic examples, one (the passage from the Laws) was advocating for a particular kind of quite intense military training, and the other (Laches) is criticising the people who teach weaponry skills, not saying that nobody bothers learning to handle weapons in the first place.

This is more the product of a documentary quirk than history, since we only get detailed narrative accounts when the Greeks start winning. The fact that the Persians had a 60 year unbroken winning streak against Greek armies in battle is too easy to forget given the lack of detail in our accounts.

It's not that there are no detailed accounts of battles, it's that there are no mentions of battles at all. Per Herodotus, it seems that the Ionian cities all either surrendered to Cyrus or retreated behind their walls, not that they fought pitched battles and lost. Maybe there were battles which for whatever reason Herodotus doesn't record, but basing our theories on the outcome of hypothetical battles which may not even have taken place seems like an unsound procedure to me.
 
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