Hello and welcome back to the history of ancient Greece.

Episode 13, Hoplight Warfare.

As the Greek world was progressively opened up to outside influences. New ideas and opportunities, in turn influenced the individual communities in Greece as they developed into independent city states, each with its individual system of government, fiercely loyal to its own identity and traditions.

Now in this period there were important political, social, and economic changes.

And these changes also are accompanied by changes in military tactics and equipment, sometime

between 725 and 650 BC.

What evolved, the Hoplight Phalanx, completely revolutionized warfare in ancient Greece.

These significant alterations in the style of fighting were adopted eventually by all Greek communities. The increase in trade and the gradual rise in

disposable wealth meant that more people had access to arms and armor of better quality and therefore

more citizens could potentially contribute to the defense of the

Polis. This wasn't the Homeric style fighting for oneself anymore. Now the Greeks were fighting

for their polis and they were doing so on a phalanx, which was a deep-lined, defensive formation that formed a solid block and worked together as one entity, symbolic of the Polish.

Fighting in mass ranks was not created by the ancient Greeks though.

One of the earliest known Sumerian records, the Stellet of the vultures, appears to show the use of such a formation

as early as 2,500 D.C. Ancient Egyptian infantry were also known to have employed similar formations.

Furthermore, most scholars now believe that the phalanx evolved from an earlier

a looser type of mass formation, which they have labeled as Proto-Phalanx.

It is depicted somewhat in the Iliad, but for dramatic effect, the poet concentrates on

encounters between individual warrior heroes, largely ignoring the massive soldiers who fought around them.

This clouds our understanding of the actual deployment of the proto-Phalanx in battle.

It appears, however, that in Homer, the ranks move into spear range, hurled their short throwing spears, and then fight hand to hand with their long swords.

In any event, the principle of cohesion and the use of large groups of soldiers must have been a standard Greek tactic for centuries.

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