The Mystery of Greek Warfare - What You "Know" is Wrong (Part 1 of 4) DOCUMENTARY

In this series we will explore the mystery of Greek warfare! Click this link to make some cash for giving your opinion! www.inflcr.co/SHIpH Thanks YouGov for sponsoring!
What you think you know is most likely wrong. The problem with our understanding of ancient Greek warfare is that no one has been a hoplite or seen them fight. We are therefore left to reconstruct models of combat. This is complicated by the fact that Greek hoplites themselves evolved over the years as have the schools of thought for interpreting clues from the past. To break this impasse, our friend, professor Paul Bardunias, has pioneered experimental research meant to validate or falsify the claims of historians.
In this first episode we will set the foundations for this discussion by exploring the evolution hoplite and comparing the competing schools of thought regarding their warfare.
Reenactment provided by the awesome team at the Greek Phalanx:
www.thegreekphalanx.org/
Video Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:54 What is a Hoplite
05:20 Hoplites (Early Archaic)
10:44 Hoplites (Late Archaic)
12:42 Hoplites (Classical)
15:18 Hoplite Recap
15:38 How Hoplites Fought
17:10 "Prussian" School of Thought
19:41 "Orthodox" School of Thought
21:53 "Heretic" School of Thought
24:03 Who is right?
Sources and Suggested Reading:
"Classical Greek Tactics: A Cultural History" by Dr. Roel Konijnendijk
"Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities" by Hans van Wees
"The Western Way of War" by Victor Davis Hanson
#history
#documentary
#military

[@InvictaHistory]

Hope you guys liked the video! I love using YouGov to make easy cash! Click my link: www.inflcr.co/SHIpH #YouGovPartner

[@CZPanthyr]

I've been doing this for several years now. The reward gift cards (I always get Amazon cards) are how I support my diamond art habit.

[@swanknightscapt113]

link doesn't work for me

[@brutalusgaming8809]

I never click these links but this time I did and I signed up.

[@SomeIdiotLUL]

Lots of content but, rome invaded greece an did battle with Greek factions. Surely there has to be information on hoplite formation

[@taylorfusher2997]

To Invicta: Did Spartans train everyday after the age of 30 years old at peacetime when the Spartans were not on military campaign, and the Spartans were not at war?

[@InvictaHistory]

What do you think of the new format? I think its a great way to bring on academics and serve as a platform for more dialog with the general public.

[@rahjah6958]

I’ll tell you when I find out what format means

[@Ltgaigley]

I love seeing historians come on and having your info graphics really helps lock in what's being taught

[@x-marks-x5137]

It’s always good to try out new things!

[@user-un8tv1pp8m]

I dont understand the question. How exactly is this different to your common video style? And how do you imagine yourself a hub for academics - instead of understanding the simple fact that you chose to be a pop-history edutainment entertainer?

[@JAI_8]

Thanks for great graphics and the great intro to some of the basic vocabulary of the “ things they carried” in Ancient Greece. Great coverage of the development of the gear over time too. It’s terrific to make this fine distinctions and try to figure out the changes to equipment over time and where they came from and how they spread. Looking forward to part two!!!

[@rahjah6958]

I imagine greek warfare to be 1700 English gentlemen with top hats and a pocket watch saying “good day sir” as they take swipes at each other in duels

[@vGalaxy1401]

I love this far to much now

[@nvmtt1403]

good day sir? no no no....thats a myth. More like: "Noice dey to go fer a fishing, innit?"

[@GadisAnime.0w0]

Very civilised indeed

[@julianshepherd2038]

The English are polite but will cut you open, sell your family and take your country. They are polite in an attempt not to kill each other.

[@arturrutkowski2100]

@@nvmtt1403 "ha ha"

[@javiersoria3913]

I have a History degree, and I have to admit that I never understood how exactly battles were fought. I tried to find a convincing answer many times, but it was never clear enough to me, neither in primary sources nor in historiography. Thanks for this series, it's very promising.

[@Rickpat16]

I highly recommend Paul Bardunias's book Hoplites at War, it presents a great comparison of the different theories and I find his conclusions pretty compelling.

[@proyohiyyiyes500]

It's just a bit weird that this guy (Prof. Bardunias) doesn't seem to have any formal education in the field, instead being a specialist on termites and the like... even the guy he wrote the book with (Fred E. Ray) is just a retired geologist. Very informative, just a bit surprised by the lack of formal qualifications!

[@5peciesunkn0wn]

@@proyohiyyiyes500 You don't need formal qualifications to start running experiments! This is a lot like Todd's Workshop's videos on Arrows vs Armor; posting stuff to get people's attention onto it so that more people start testing it themselves and starting data sets get gathered.

[@Rickpat16]

@@proyohiyyiyes500 He may not have a degree in it, but he is extremely well read and knowledgeable on the topic. And not coming from a historical academic background lets him approach the topic from a new perspective.

[@Condoctuc]

I think looking at modern day riot police vs rioters give you a picture especially riots where the rioters are more experienced and with a goal (Hong Kong riots, Palestine, certain football hooligans), I’ve been to these, it is usually there is a big gulf between opposite lines- a no man’s land, small groups of rioters would run forward to throw things then run back, the police would shoot their tear gas-protestor would throw it back, this back and forth ebb and flow of rioters who would get brave enough to move forward, eventually either ALL the rioters would charge and engage, some would end up being caught (casualties) and after a while disengage, OR instead the police would push forward together slowly shields raised, sometimes suddenly charge with no formation to pick off any stray rioters. This gives you a good idea of the psychology behind two large semi-armed groups facing each other, obviously in a real battle with troops holding weapons to KILL, there would be a far bigger psychological load (fear) and this premise of each side needing to build up the courage to all charge together, then getting tired and falling back becomes more true. This is why officers throughout history (like the Roman centurion) were so important, they would help prevent the psychological barrier of charging into a wall of death

[@paxromana7756]

Huge thanks to Invicta team! Also, special thanks to Professor Bardunias, appreciate his commentaries and explanation of this new approach. Can't wait to see part 2 and 3.

[@InvictaHistory]

Thanks for the thanks! Paul and the rest of the Greek team are great. We are all very excited to show the testing episodes they've been working on.

[@vanivanov9571]

But you know part four will suck, so it's not worth mentioning. 🤪😉

[@AkosJaccik]

I do have to say, Invicta, it always pains me a bit when these historical topics get less views compared to fantasy etc. videos of yours, because these are of exceptional quality, hugely important and much needed discussions.A lot of pop-history on YT is unfortunately either hastily "researched", biased, or both; and in some cases do more harm than good. I know you and your team are dumping a disproportionate amount of work into these historical series compared to low-key content factories, and I want to emphasize how much I appreciate it. Keep it up!

[@cp1cupcake]

It might just be I don't watch his stuff religiously, but I feel that he hasn't done a fantasy thing in ages. As to the second part of what you said, I once asked asked a relative to send me sources about a piece of activism they are very enthused about. I asked them to stop when every piece of evidence they sent me was at best directly contrary to what they thought or a propaganda piece which is easily disproven. To the extent that I have to wonder if the basic premise of the argument, something I realize I believed was true, might actually have just been something indoctrinated to me that I never questioned.

[@rotwang2000]

I think that one aspect that is often overlooked is the crowd management. It seems to me that formations and tactics were mostly designed to prevent masses from doing what great masses of people do, like trample each other in times of panic.

[@Cleeon]

I think so, I'm still 🤔 curious, how they managed it

[@jeffreese1828]

One would think formations were practiced in drill . When I was studying this subject 20 years ago , the second tier (the shoving match , Western way of war) seemed quite plausible. As the hoplites were "wealthy farmers/landowners" and against neighboring, similar armed polis , the goal was to win whatever the dispute was about and get back to the farm , rather than unnecessary and/or excessive brutality or attempts at extermination . Makes sense because those latter might lead to constant states of war , whereas a few men dying honorably would not . Later , against foreigners in larger State funded armies this would change , of course . Also , seems like common sense to fight together in formation , keeping enemies to the front only , instead of Hollywood melee style . If ever these formations were broken to any degree , it was near impossible to reform them , once battle was joined , imo , and the protection and moral they provide is hard to overstate .

[@TheScourge007]

I think experimental approaches to these kinds of questions can add interesting points, but I just want to caution about over reliance on them. 1) It's unethical to do the kinds of experiment that would match real battle conditions the most: namely that there is a real chance of death. Any re-enactment will have limits based on the participants knowing their opponents are not going to try and kill or seriously injure them. 2) The participants are not growing up in the culture that uses this kind of warfare. This can have all kinds of unpredictable implications with differing levels of fitness, differences in what kinds of movements are common, and differences in the expectations coming into a battle. Only some of this can be gleaned from the sources we have, and generally the most basic assumptions that seem most obvious to people at the time may not be written down since there would be an assumption everyone knows these things. As a practical modern example I can think of, many cultures in the world have people common squat (think the whole "slav squat" meme though it's not just a slavic thing) but that is highly uncommon in say the US. So even if you take a physically fit American and have them do that squat, it will generally feel unnatural and uncomfortable compared to even a less fit person from a culture that does that commonly from childhood. An adult American can get used to that kind of movement, but only with practice and only if they know to try practicing it in the first place. And we don't know all the kinds of physical movements that might have been common back then. 3) We need to be careful not to assume the Greeks actually optimized their way of fighting. What I mean by this is to caution against any assumption that the Greeks always avoided less efficient choices of how to fight in favor of more efficient options. People aren't perfect optimizers, even when their life is on the line. Clearly evolution did happen and so we can be on safe ground assuming they were trying to find ways to fight better, but social concerns, cultural mores, and just people's eccentricities can cause groups to do things that are not optimal for winning a battle, but did meet some other belief or objective. All this is not meant to discourage the experiment, there are some limitations that transcend cultures and there is value in just going out and trying, but just that we should be cautious about how firmly we hold to any findings that come from this.

[@b.h.abbott-motley2427]

Yeah. Remembering that historical militaries & soldiers didn't necessarily optimize is important. War absolutely involves pressures that can push optimization, but these still operate in a social context. Across the centuries, even reasonably effective militaries in their time & place could make massive blunders. & soldiers could be stubborn & conservative even against the wishes of their commanders. In the 16th century, Qi Jiguang complained about some of his troops steadfastly refusing to adopt the arquebus after seeing its superior accuracy. They preferred the other gunpowder weapons they were familiar with.

[@the-artistocrats]

As a game developer focusing on strategy games and with a passion for history, I'm very curious about the rest of this series.

[@giftzwerg7345]

I also recomend to read into the dynamic stand off model, it makes a lot of sense.

[@cp1cupcake]

The experiment you are planning reminds me a lot of some of the stuff Lindybeige did, like his theory based on reenactments he did with pikeblocks. He theorized that the number of people who would die or be heavily injured once they closed to engagement range would usually cause one side or another to break relatively quickly and the Swiss probably had the best pikes because they would stand and fight, continuing to cause heavy casualties to their enemies. He also noticed that proper spacing was really important since you can really easily pack too tightly and end up being unable to fight at all.

[@lovablesnowman]

We have plenty of videos of violent riots and how riot police deal with them. These videos probably give us the best idea of how Hoplites fought. Police standing in a relatively loose formation with the "front rank" being packed tightly together (you actually need a lot less space than you'd think to swing a baton down vertically onto someone)

[@LeonidasSparta-Fun-History]

Always a pleasure to be apart of these videos! Great job Invicta team!

[@InvictaHistory]

Thanks! I'm really looking forwards to the follow up episodes where we can show you guys in action. BTW great job with the documentary episodes you've been posting on the channel. Its a great use of the awesome footage.

[@LeonidasSparta-Fun-History]

@@InvictaHistory thanks so much! And thanks for letting us all use the footage!

[@gianlucarossi5672]

@@InvictaHistory Hi Invicta. Have you seen these original Ancient Macedonian tomb paintings that depict the original armor and clothing of 4th Century B.C.. Ancient Macedonian soldiers? Could you make a video about the various Soldier outfits based on these tomb frescoes? Here are the Ancient Macedonian paintings. kzbin.info/www/bejne/sKm0dKNnaqd4hJI

[@theknave4415]

As a layman, if I've learned anything about history is that things are *always* more complex than you had ever imagined. Anyone who offers a simplistic answer to historical events is either wrong or they are trying to sell you something. ;)

[@123goscrewyourself]

That's what I love about history, it is a great way to temper your certainty with the realization that there's almost always another layer or aspect that you haven't considered, that may reinforce or entirely upend your original conclusion. You can stay curious because there are always more questions, and it's a great thing once you abandon certainty.

[@r.h5550]

The visual quality and structure of this presentation is highly professional! Congrats and respect to everyone in the invicta team who participated! This would be a joy to watch even if i wasn’t interested in history.

[@firestorm1088]

Really shows how much historians, even today, need to be aware that, no matter how hard they try to be impartial, the present they live in will always cloud their interpretation of the past.

[@temmy9]

The biggest problem is the psychology of death. That psychology changes behavior in a very fundamental way and is very difficult to model

[@davegrenier1160]

Prey animals often crowd together (like a flock of starlings in flight, or herds of zebra and other ungulates) because in a mass the chances of any particular individual falling to a predator is reduced (or so it is surmised). Also, tight disciplined formations of men not only assure the individuals that make up the mass that they are not alone, but if makes it difficult to escape. It becomes "fight or die," because escape is not an option. (Merely turning to run could be fatal, as it exposes the back to the enemy.)

[@brokenworld94]

For some reason I really enjoy my perceptions of combat and warfare in general being challenged, if not outright shattered. Based on various things seen, read, and engaged with, I have in my mind a rather specific conception of hoplite warfare which I'm kinda excited to see destroyed. Really looking forward to the next parts. Thanks.

[@cp1cupcake]

It is nice to see orthodoxies challenged, but I've run into a number where the premise was an orthodoxy must be wrong because its an orthodoxy and the rational they come up with is hogwash but they keep trying to promote it as 'real'. I think I first noticed it in an English literature class where I noticed that each new generation of artists wanted to do the exact opposite of their immediate predecessors making it feel like a seesaw between 'urban is good' to 'rural is good'. In that vein, and I'm not saying they are wrong, but something I noticed, the Heretic school of though about hoplites might be falling into the same trap as the earlier ones where they assume things based on modern comparisons. The description given here would not feel terribly out of place by someone with some knowledge of modern warfare, ie that static formations are bad and repositioning is good.

[@melanoc3tusii205]

If you want to really obliterate it, see the work of Hans van Wees, mentioned in this video. He sets to coherently describing Greek combat in Homer in a fashion almost diametrically opposite to the standard universalised notion of the classical hoplite phalanx. Personally for me the two biggest breaks were the hoplite armour, as already lightly covered in this video (that is, that the only hoplites to engage in actual “phalanx” warfare were Classical and often had no more armour than a tunic and a metal cap, most of the popular hoplite panoply coming from Archaic elites) and the seeming predominance of swords in earlier Greek close combat, spears being mostly thrown - that is, javelins.

[@Laotzu.Goldbug]

​@@melanoc3tusii205on the one hand that's interesting, on the other I wonder if it's a little misguided. assuming we take Homer as a somewhat historical source, The Iliad takes place in an era much earlier than even the Early Archaic . described here, with very different elements. this was before the organization of large Greek city-states and rather than mass armies of citizen soldiers you see a lot more elements of tribal warfare, personal duels, small unit actions with a single leader, the fighting done by a pretty separate class of warriors and so on. It would be kind of like trying to understand modern American military operations by studying sources from the Civil War or the Revolution.

[@melanoc3tusii205]

@@Laotzu.Goldbug While we don't know exactly when the oral tradition started, for obvious reasons, it's a pretty probable that the Iliad was transcribed into an inflexible written format somewhere around the late geometric / early archaic, and therefore most accurately shows a version of the story that was in contemporary use in that time, and therefore influenced by period norms and conceptions of warfare - a told tale which the audience cannot relate to or comprehend is a poor one; while the retentive capacity of orally-transmitted knowledge is impressive, there is little reason to believe that as a matter of consequence a period rendition would strive to authentically depict centuries-old Mycenaean practice over other artistic values. Our earliest written sources for the existence of the transcription and its derivatives comes from that time period, and moreover the arms and armour used in it are telling - while spears are thrown as much as they are thrusted, they still occupy prominent positions in close combat; additionally, archery is seen as socially inferior and is stigmatized, even though some heroes practice it. Those are both characteristics that apply to the early archaic but that run entirely counter to Geometric archeological evidence; pottery of the time period dealing in combat shows only swords in close combat, and frequently depicts archers fighting at the front and undifferentiated from their peers - distinct from later artistic traditions that would come to increasingly depict archers as kneeling, in poorer clothing, and in the back of combat scenes. As for the period in which the epic is supposed to be set, I would hesitate to affirm that warfare was more disorganized than that of Archaic Greece. In fact, I would argue, the reverse was true: the post-palatial Mycenaean Warrior Vase, almost contemporary with the supposed date of the fall of Troy, depicts marching troops which look exceedingly like genuine soldiers of the sort that tends to imply a centralized state military apparatus - they march carrying their own equipment (a sign of discipline powerful enough to be practically symbolic of good generalship in Ancient Rome), are identically equipped, don't seem excessively armoured, and are carrying single long spears. And of course if we go further back in time to palatial Mycenae, the Mycenaeans of that period were wealthy and centralized in a way that subsequent Greece would not live up to till the Macedonian rule of the 4th century at the least.

[@ariebrons7976]

Dear Invicta, Where is part 2 of this fascinating documentary?

[@sacagaweya]

Y’all make some of the most interesting and thoughtful historical videos I’ve ever seen. Bravo!

[@EnergeticHeretric]

This was a wondeful video to watch and I am excited to see more of this style of content. Using a cross discipline approach to analyze history is always fantastic to see. As a current history grad student, seeing history done at this level of professionalism is a treat on KZbin!

[@midshipman8654]

in a way, hoplite is a rough equivalent to the medieval term “man at arms”, that is, “the man who is equipped (for war)”.

[@aymerichm8835]

Very nice! I love hearing not only about historical theories but about the evolution of historiographical debates. It's something too often left aside by popular history channels. I hope you will develop on the implications not just for ancient history but for the "longue-durée" philosophy of warfare! Looking forward to the next episodes!

[@TheIrishvolunteer]

Amazing video, keep up the great work. Don't worry about KZbin not recommending your videos, you have a loyal fanbase here who love your history. Can't wait for part 2 and 3!

[@sanguinerain1660]

This has got to be the most succinct and clear description of a Hoplite in video format I’ve seen. Well done, I look forward to further episodes!

[@alans3023]

Excellent and thought provoking start. I am really looking forward to the next parts of the series.

[@marckuiper87]

This is the kind of video that will keep me subscribed to and interested in this channel! Though videos that talk about history as a way of entertaiment can be fun, they get dull after a while and I often kind of watch them in the background. Videos like this that actually challenge views and spark debate have actual value to me and keep my attention glued to them. Well done!

[@aanchaallllllll]

0:24: 🤔 The mystery of ancient Greek Warfare and the lack of firsthand evidence. 3:16: 🛡 A Hoplite is a fully equipped warrior with a big shield and a spear. 7:06: 🛡 The Crest and Bell Curas were worn to create a more intimidating appearance and provide protection, while the Medes and Aspis were used to protect the lower legs and body. 11:01: 🛡 The rise of organic corsets as armors made of linen or leather with various styles of scales for protection, including iron or rawhide. 15:07: 🔍 The length and balance point of a hoplite's spear varied depending on how they held it, with larger and heavier spears used for longer reach. 18:56: 🛡 Hoplite battles were fought between groups of hoplites and the outcome was often decided by the victorious right flank. 22:48: 📚 Scholars in the late 20th century challenged traditional interpretations of ancient combat, proposing a more individualistic model based on single combats rather than mass formations. Recap by Tammy AI

[@chrisd997]

Thebes wars that led to their dominance ( for a short time frame) in the Greek Word, provided a lot of information how hoplites fought and how they brought new tactics on defeating long established hoplite tactics.

[@Laotzu.Goldbug]

Do you know any good primary sources on this?

[@lloyd9500]

This is the kind of content that really gets me going. Amazing amazing work Invicta team. Genuinely gobsmacked at the quality.

[@TypdersichderTypnenn]

Great idea and excellent video, looking dorward to the rest of the series. Thank you! ❤

[@rodnabors7364]

Interesting that with so many people studying (what now seems like fairly limited amount of actual data?) that we still don't know for sure. Metatron did a similar episode on Greek/Roman cultural norms that are almost always repeated as fact. Looking forward to the rest of this series.

[@Laotzu.Goldbug]

I think it has to do both with the lack of cultural context that you describe, but also with the fact that the element of mortal danger changes any situation irrevocably. the difference between everyone wearing actual period correct hoplite armor and using all the best tactics and information that they can come up with, but still doing it as a demonstration or reenactment, and those same people doing it with the actual intent to kill other men is not just a difference in degrees but qualitatively. Not too different from people trying to do as realistic as possible milsim airsoft (or even Simunitions), versus actually getting shot at. When it becomes real, massive psychological changes take place in terms of what you will do to protect yourself and what you will do to the other guy. In other words, there doesn't seem to be any way to come to truly definitive answers short of doing the real thing.

[@drakonos79]

@@Laotzu.Goldbug this ^. when exercises do come to head, is when you actually get to find out what works in theory, but fails in practice. just like martial arts. some maneuvers look great at a tournament or in class, but would not risk using it on the street. Most battles in history were not of the type 'fought' in training. Scipio's 'parade ground' tactics at Ilipa during his campaigns in Hispania are something not seen often throughout the centuries. Sure, many had phases or movements that gained an upper hand at one point or another during the battle, but most flowed from advantage to disadvantage quickly and unexpectedly, with most commanders/historians of said battles implying that victory came down to plain luck. Reenacting something that happened millennia ago without clear descriptions is mainly guesswork as to what most likely happened because of A, B, or C conditions.

[@JRyomaru]

This is the second source I hear this from in the last year, and as a Greek I was dumbfounded when I heard. Thanks for adding sources, I definitely want to learn more about this.

[@melanoc3tusii205]

What was the first, incidentally?

[@fredjohnson9833]

@@melanoc3tusii205 it may have been The Historian's Craft. He did a video on the different schools of thought not too long ago.

[@NathanRae]

This is one of the best history videos I've seen in a while. Looking forward to the next episode.

[@zargonfuture4046]

This is excellent, keenly looking forward to the rest of this serie. Love this subject matter.

[@DubyaDeeEight]

Hoplites had a big red button attached to the back of their heads called Phalanx Mode. Pressing this button causes them to lower their spears and chew up any infantry in front of them and shit out dead men behind them.

[@dale6947]

The problem being that if they are flanked all the hoplites evaporate into thin air.

[@williamcaton8432]

This is an excellent presentation of Greek armor and fighting principles as we understand them! I took part in one of these experimental archaeological hoplite battles in Athens in the 1990s. Very intense.

[@zutrue]

EXCELLENT. I am eagerly awaiting your next installment in this series.

[@HistoricalGameplay]

a fantastic episode, thanks a lot and looking forward to continuation of this series!

[@PenguinofD00mxxx]

Experimental archeology is a really interesting concept to couple with traditional research. There is only so much that we can gain from historical sources, as even they have misconceptions or biases. I like what Todd's Workshop has been doing with their Arrows vs Armor series.

[@matthewcharles5867]

One bias that experimental archaeology and reanacting has is that some of the rules that are followed to make it safe change how people interpret how things such as weapons are used and also just how fluid a situation like a ancient battle would have been. But it is a very good way of finding out how different things work or can be used. Todd's workshop does a lot of interesting experiments.

[@haldorasgirson9463]

I am loving this episode. I have ~20 years experience fighting in heavy armor (Society for Creative Anachronism) and being 6'4" I specialized in spears and polearms for melee battles. We normally fought in thinner formations, typically a single row of shields closely backed up by spears and pole-arms. I did learn that heavy counterweights reduce point control on spears and make them less accurate at hitting weak points. Heavy counterweights also rob pole axes and great swords of impact. I normally used a larger diameter, wooden ball screwed to the end of my spear as a hand-stop to make it easier to retain hold of the spear.

[@SilentSword-tc8dt]

Great Video! Good aproach to this new format can't wait to see the next parts, and why not more theories questioned and put up to test, like the cavalry equipment, formations (very curious if the wedge or diamond of Alexander was practical).

[@MegasDemetrios]

A really well made documentary. I liked it a lot! The topics were presented in a well understandable manner and watching it was really interesting. You can also see that there is a proper scientific background here. Looking forward to the next episode!

[@MenacingWithVideos]

My problem with the modern testing is that nobody is trying to kill each other and you cannot really replicate that. India and China have an interesting situation on their border. There are fights but neither country wants to use guns. Maybe they can bring back hoplite warfare.

[@kanadashyuugo873]

Funnily enough that WAS probably the case most of the time when citystates fought skirmishes. Nobody really wanted to waste TOO MUCH of their higher status citizens able to afford hoplite gear.

[@MenacingWithVideos]

@@kanadashyuugo873 Were they not trying to kill each other?

[@SusCalvin]

@@kanadashyuugo873 Like hunter-gatherer "posture" warfare where you stay at range to chuck spears and harsh words, but not so close that the spears start to inflict mass casualties on both sides. And maybe a few brave people run up, chuck a spear at effective range and get back.

[@dinos9607]

@@SusCalvin Ancient Greek warfare was not at all hunter-gatherer "posture" warfare. Stone age tribe had tiny armies of a few 10s of men, no wonder they did not want to kill each other since it would had been literally down to the last man, thus even the victorious tribe would had suffered such losses that would endanger the very survival of the tribe right the next day. Hence they mostly did posture-warfare and engaged briefly until one backed down and fled. Ancient Greek warfare involved invariably full engagement of the armies, tactics, strategems and a lot of killing with the only difference that, no matter how brutal it was, it was usually (but not always!) a bit less lethal than other styles of warfare. The latter was down to the fact that hoplites at least the army's major units tended to be heavily armored thus with higher surviveability chances (apart the front 2 lines which in case of close combat were mostly dead or seriously injured). And also down to the fact that once the one side had beaten the other they usually (not always!) did not chase the fleeing opponents since this was both tiring, useless as well as risky - to chase fleeing opponents one needs necessarily to break out of ranks (too much risk for too little benefit). All in all, ancient Greek warfare was very brutal but statistically with lower average casualties than other styles of warfare. The Roman for example, they did not care, they just sent their men in the grinder, they could not care less if they would lose whole legions, they had plenty to replace them - hence their warfare while not much more brutal than the Greek one, it was nonetheless far more murderous not just for enemies but also for Romans themselves.

[@everett6072]

Granted I am not a scholar of Greek history, but I think that the "motley crew" view seems to make the most sense when describing the early archaic hoplites. It's hard for me to imagine being able to outfit armies in the thousands with such heavy and expensive armor. But a core of heavily armored hoplites would've provided great support for lighter skirmishing troops. If the enemy tries to charge your skirmishers then they can fall behind the few armored hoplites. And the fact that early hoplites carry throwing spears seems to indicate that skirmishing was a bigger role in the flow of a battle. We actually see similar tactics in later history where you have a mixed blob of heavy and skirmish infantry supporting each other. But as time moved on, a bigger and bigger focus would be moved onto the heavy infantry and the melee and it moves less from a motley crew and more towards that rugby style, although I don't think the shield push ever happened unless it was to exploit an opening from the spear fighting. The armor gets lighter because now both 1) more people are serving as melee infantry, so armor must become cheaper and 2) The heavy infantry are now expected to serve a more offensive role and thus mobility, breathability, and hearing become more important. Spears grow larger as spear to spear melee combat becomes more common, and the spears stop being made to be thrown. Battles shift from 'blocs" of mixed troops operating largely independently to contiguous and cohesive formations. This shift towards melee could've been the result of physical factors like better armoring making ranged weapons less effective, or a cultural emphasis on honor and melee combat.

[@InvictaHistory]

I do think a big part of reconciling the models had to do with the evolving nature of warfare over the years

[@Marveryn]

i think we have to look at several factors on how greeks fought. We know their land wasn't flat so at times they couldn't form the perfect square that lead to me to a more open formation. We can take the illiad as a source that at least early greek may had fought with more one vs one duels. What it not talk about much about in these early battle was did the greek employee mx solidiers. like archers. We can presume they had at least spear throwers till the late period but archers are seldom mention within greek armies. Yet many of their gods were archers. Apollo/ Artimis so on. So archery can be seen as part of the culture just seldom mention as part of their army. We know they at least use some form of calvery. giving the early helmets lack of earhole one can speculate that the front line troops were not giving many instructions beside advance and retreat so a lot of the battle was perform by personal imitative and whatever training they were giving prior to the battle.

[@Kevin-mx1vi]

Just one thing you don't seem to be aware of - Hoplites were not part of a standing army but came from the wealthier class of citizens who could be called upon to fight when needed, and they were expected to provide their own equipment so it wasn't the job of the city state to pay for it.

[@midshipman8654]

supporting, but its a general principle that non mixed units work more efficiently. having a unit of heavy infantry, a unit of light infantry, a unit of cavalry. They dont have to be equipped exactly the same within that unit, but they just have to be similar enough to preform the same tactically significant function. that is to say gain and hold ground for heavy infantry, and skirmish and harass for light. The overly mixed just doesn’t sit right with me when you cross examine it with warfare that we DO have more information about like medieval.

[@SomeIdiotLUL]

My theory each Greek state probably had their own method thru trial an error for hoplite battle . But I think the Spartans perfected it ..eventually it became became the ideal way

[@sanny8716]

This is extremely fascinating! Will be on the lookout for the next episodes!

[@lukedogwalker]

An excellent presentation with very good supporting graphics. This video exemplifies why I watch youtube documentaries and have given up on most mass media documentaries. Looking forward to the rest of this series.

[@vaskil99]

This is a very important subject to study and experiment on. As a modern historical swordsman, I am of the understanding that combat had a lot more of an individual nature than we often might think. Because many seemed to be well known for their personal combat skills and it seems far too risky for two solid walls of soldiers to meet as it would prevent effective fighting and not allow for troop rotation to the front as easily. However, the overlapping of spears as is suggested about the Macedonian Phalanx seems to point more towards tight formations that create an impenetrable wall. I'm curious to see the future videos detailing the test results. If I could find a local group to get involved with, I undoubtedly would enjoy testing this myself.

[@SaltyChickenDip]

I think we get hung up on a single tactic used . Most likely they shifted their fighting style to meet the demands. Overlapping shield and a tight formation to prevent Calvary charges, loosen up for more mobility. For example.

[@codyraugh6599]

The Macedonians also were using much longer spears (I think other sources outright call them pikes) and everyone outside the formation the crucial detail is instead the layers of spear tips and fact that to fight the guy at the front you have to get through that layer of spear tips and then it's still possible for guys further back to potentially level their spears and start thrusting away at you. But this would ironically require something with more space between the men, though certainly a LOT tighter together than what the Dynamic combat theory would allow for say sword and shield.

[@GothPaoki]

Yea Macedonians used pikes called sarisa 7 meters long if i recall.

[@mikets42]

I also thought of the column wise troop rotation as the most probable principle for fighting is utterly anaerobic activity and 16 rows shall be for something meaningful. Let's see the experimental data. I practiced with a spear - and I understand why the armor in archaic period covered entire body without gaps.

[@GothPaoki]

It makes sense. Hoplites were heavy infantry not every civilian could afford this equipment and fight in a phalanx. Even if you think to guys like the Spartans they had infamous light infantry like the skiritai who specialised in fast raiding actions and ofc wouldn't fight in formations. There's a lot of room for speculation.

[@rbwbr]

For whoever wonders: Yes, that helmet does look phallic, thats normal for Greek city-states at the time (and later)

[@apresmidi153]

This is exactly the kind of video I want to see for these topics. Looking forward to the next episodes!

[@InvictaHistory]

Yay! I'm hoping we find more opportunities to have guests like Paul on the channel.

[@opaio9]

Great video format, looking forward for the remaining parts!

[@hoegild1]

The problem of understanding ancient warfare extend to a lot of other cultures- Viking, Roman etc. Experimental archeaology is key here, and I think you could profit if you compare the results from tests from different cultures. A Viking spear works pretty much the same way as a Greek spear after all..

[@goliard84]

Stop right there. Xenophon fought at Cunaxa so we do have a first hand, ground zero account of hoplite warfare. Also Thucydides, although it can be argued that never took part in a battle personally, have spoken with belligerents of such battles on Peloponnesian side and related their fresh, first hand accounts. So yes, we have quite good contemporary descriptions how battles were fought.

[@paulbardunias5950]

We have many first hand accounts by hoplites, that is not the problem. The problem is understanding what they are telling us when they left out so many details that would have been obvious to their readers back then, or when they use language that has many possible translations. Coming up with a context to understand them is what I am doing.

[@calebcampbell9280]

Everything about this was fantastic. I'm waiting eagerly for the next part!

[@timulbrich954]

man, this sounds awesome! Looking forward to watching this, thanks for doing what you do!

[@davidnguyen467]

Crazy how shield wall combat have been around practically since the beginning of recorded history, and used by every military with thousands of years of military doctrine based around it. Yet, a couple hundred years later, we can only speculate how they fought especially with how many fate changing battles that revolved around the shield wall

[@johnking6252]

Excellent observation, it's why I find history so interesting. ✌️

[@cp1cupcake]

I think there is a rising theory that a lot of the historical references to shield walls are poetic more than anything else. Really hard to tell though.

[@giftzwerg7345]

​@@cp1cupcakeno they are not, we have way enought accurate descripitions, a shieldwall is what happenes if you Pack Aa many men as closely Aa possible to bring mire guns, oh Pardon spears against the enemy.

[@vasili9756]

No, sir. Hoplite (oplitis) means the man who caries the hoplon (oplon), which is the shield. Hopla (opla) means weapons (plural). Panoply (panoplia) is both the armor of the warrior, the whole gear, as well as the situation when someone or an army is fully equipped and ready.

[@rafaelbeltraobronzon6192]

Gotta say I always read that hoplite came from hoplon, too!

[@melanoc3tusii205]

That is a well-intrenched and very incompetent mistake made by the abysmal 20th century frauds who covered the topic, and has been since found to be baloney, much like a lot of supposed Spartan child-rearing practices. The hoplite shield was not ever called a hoplon, and the word hoplite does not come from the word for a shield. The hoplite shield was the aspis. The term hoplite originated from the word hopla, meaning *tools in general*. A man possessing all the *tools* of war was considered well-equipped and thus a hoplite, in a similar fashion to the medieval term man-at-arms denoting someone serving as an armoured cavalryman (“arms” as a term for weaponry likewise descending from the Latin “arma”, originally referring to tools in a general capacity).

[@bendearborn1033]

This is a very exciting series. Cant wait to see the rest. Great job.

[@DamnYouDamnMe]

That;s a really great small documentary. I look forward to a lot more. Thanks!

[@stephenoconnell6577]

So, where are Parts 2-4?

[@tangodroid]

Wow, amazing video. I absolute love the mix between biology and history. Can't wait for the next ones!

[@tomkiernan254]

Excellent video, very excited. I have an MA in ancient history and I did a lot of research on naval warfare. Never really did much research on hoplite warfare. My understanding is probably quite outdated. Can't wait for the next video !

[@gwennblei]

I wanna see episode 2 o.o One interesting experiment would be to try each model against each other and see how they fare, after giving the practicionners time to train them for a while. (Although you probably can't put horses in such training, but you can still integrate archers) I'm sure plenty of HEMA people would be down to try :) I personally suspect model 3 might be closer from the truth, having done some engagements with large number of people in HEMA with viking era equipment, model 2 would lead to a very quick slaughter of a large number of people if one side decides not to go for the litteral push and to start stabbing. In our case, lines usually came to a halt at some distance, arrows and javelins were exchanged, as well as spear strikes, but mostly delivered at the maximum possible reach.

[@carebear8762]

You need a lot more people, trained for years together, to replicate real formations of essentially semi-professional soldiery to the degree necessary to "test" anything. Undersized units of modern reenactors cannot compare to any useful degree.

[@gwennblei]

@@carebear8762 Many of these men were not trained semi professional, they had another job and campaining would be an incredibly exceptional affair for them, at least in the beginning of the war. unless you want to see specifically the effect of the epilektoi, most hoplites would have less practice than reenactors.

[@carebear8762]

@@gwennblei That is incorrect. Even today's "militia" gets regular training in tactics and working together. It isn't like the options were "go on campaign" and "do nothing". The wealthy in particular would have the time and social impetus to do so, and such regular training was a legal and moral obligation of citizenship in Greece. Modern reenactors can't hold a candle to the people whose part-time job was war, which job they had been training for regularly since literal childhood. For them it was life and death, not a fun weekend activity once in awhile.

[@gwennblei]

@@carebear8762 We're not talking about modern day militia though. And yes for the powerful and wealthy, as in most of the ancient world, aristocrats did have the money and spare time to train, they would often be the ones selected in the epilektoi I mentionned earlier. For the rest of them ? Surely if there was an obligation by law for regular training, you could provide example of these laws for a few cities? I'd be happy to read translations of period sources on the subject and expand my knowledge if I'm mistaken. I'm only aware of a military service in Athens for around a year up to 335 when after the macedon hegemon, it was pushed up to two. After this service though, I'm not aware of a legal obligation to train regularly. Sparta of course, had a professional standing army, and Macedon later had one too, both of which tended to overwhelm completely other greek forces, safe for their epilektoi, as shown by Thebes' sacred battallion, which definitely shows training was important, but doesn't hint that most hoplites outside of the elite trained much. Lastly it's tedious to group all of ancient greece as having similar laws regarding hoplite training, when it was a fractured world of city states. Many didn't have the wealth of Sparta and Athens to fund their warriors so extensively, and likely lacked the organisation to group their citizens for manoeuvers and training, when their daily life jobs, the true life or death situation they had to face everyday to keep their family fed, kept them busy. (Edited for typos)

[@carebear8762]

@@gwennblei Looks like my reply got wiped, which is fine. You make a good point about over generalizing. But you need to reverse that as well, militias train where there is threat of war, and war, for much of the pre-Roman period, was essentially constant. Your personal "primary history" would likely not mention you going to the store every week, but we can infer you do because it also wouldn't mention you not having any food. Military training in a system with mandatory service for decades of your life would be treated similarly, as a given, not worth recording unless something unusual happened. Heck, most of my military career would have little worth recording, as day to day training is pretty monotonous. Since we have records of wars and threats of wars being near constant, the necessity of training may also be inferred, as we don't read about catastrophic losses for every known battle and war. "Life and death" meant just that, if you did not train, your formations would fall apart, and you would be slaughtered. If you did not train, the enemy would ravage your fields, and you would starve. Reenactors are playing games a few times a year, in unrealistically small formations, well fed and rested, with nothing substantive on the line. They simply could not stand up to armies of the time who actually knew and used the tactics they try to reenact. Even if they had enough numbers to study and utilize those tactics properly. 10 men cannot simulate a phalanx in a militarily useful way.

[@michaelweir9666]

As interesting as this new theory sounds in abstract, I take pretty big issue with the hypothesis that battles, which throughout history have massively depended on cohesion and disciplined coordination to be effective on the field, were in actuality fought in single duels and deliberately disorganized mobs in the same fashion as some cheesy Hollywood movie. I could imagine these conditions as an unfortunate side-effect due to limitations of the time, but not as a school of thought itself. I'm willing to keep an open mind about this in the future videos, but I feel like an extraordinary amount of evidence is going to be needed to dismantle these preconceptions.

[@Caldwing]

I am no historian, but as I understand it professional soldiers were by and large invented in ancient Rome, long after these times. The fact that they fought in organized and well equipped formations is what allowed them to beat most of their foes, and their knowledge is what has been transmitted down to us as our concept of ancient warfare. Before that time and even often afterwards, I suspect battles were largely chaotic affairs. Just knowing how people are I highly doubt most ancient armies had any significant cohesion or even a clear strategy. It was like a gang-fight but really big. Lots of yelling, posturing, stuff like that. There may have been gifted leaders from time to time who had some understanding of tactics who could at least execute some kind of general plan of battle, at least for the initial engagements.

[@thomasvogel8169]

@@Caldwing By the time of Peloponnesian War, elite troops such as some spartans and mercenaries only devoted to war already existed. Thucydides quite often puts emphasis on discipline and drill, sometimes battles were won without a clash because the other side was not coherent enough and feared the skills and discipline of their opponents. Of course battle were cahotic, they never ceased to be, of course they had strategies and sometimes these strategies went wrong, but once again it keeps happening. With the rise of Alexander and the Diadoches armies, warfare gained another level and got a lot more complex, formations got more professional, equipment and drills were standardized. End of Republic/beginning of the empire Rome improved and adapted the hellenistic models, for sure !

[@michaelweir9666]

​@@Caldwing I wouldn't say professional armies were invented by the Romans, though they were the most successful. The closest I can think of would also be Philip II of Macedon's army, which relied heavily on salaried soldiers instead of traditional greek militias. Though, there's evidence to show professional armies existed long before Macedon as well. That is not to say professional armies were the standard everywhere, especially not in Greece. Moreover I want to make the argument that even as early as the bronze ages warfare was an affair that was treated as more than a tribal brawl. There are key principals to every battle that anyone in any time period ought to understand on some level, regardless of military science; Soldiers are at their best when they fight together, not pairing off into duels which is far more risky and with less payoff. Invicta himself even stressed this point in a previous video when guessing how battles were actually fought. After all, the objective of a battle isn't to kill the enemy one at a time, it's to destroy their cohesion by routing, surrounding or breaking up their formations to mitigate their feeling of safety in numbers. If you, as an army, aren't actively trying to force the enemy back or to break through their line then you are doing very little. You're just faffing around otherwise. I'm not saying duels were uncommon in early eras of warfare. They were actually fairly common amongst the aristocracy in Greece after the bronze age collapse. They would, while the battle lines were forming or during lulls in the fighting, ride out in their chariots to challenge the other side's warriors. Typically that side's own own elite would meet their challenge, they'd exchange blows until one gave up the fight or sometimes slain (I'd argue rarely) and that side got a nice morale boost. It's worth noting that even in these cases though that these duels were not key to the battle as a whole. If anything they were just ways for the aristocracy to contribute without having to put themselves in serious danger on the battlefield like the soldiers. The objective of these duels was in fact to simply fight for its own sake, which I don't think can be said for battles as a whole.

[@aaronthompson192]

Was that his hypothesis or was that just more contemporary sources' hypothesis? Agree with your point though. If it were mostly single duels and brawls then what would the purpose of standardized equipment be? And that equipment is arguably not designed for individual combat.

[@melanoc3tusii205]

First of all, go read Hans van Wees. No, seriously. Go do it. Now. They’re small papers and you can find the PDFs easily and for free online. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I’m sure you properly appreciate that both duels and Hollywood chaos are complete strawmen and indeed mainly irrelevant to discussion of real human battle. Instead, we are talking about two groups of armed, largely psychologically average people who want to do each other harm. The groups form up just out of range of eachother. What happens next depends on the intensity of the conflict and the level of coordination between the individuals of each group. In situations of low intensity and low coordination, small numbers of people venture out into the intermediary area and engage individuals from the other side doing the same. In Greek, these were called promachoi - those who fight at the front. Unless killed, they eventually tire or suffer wounds, physically or psychologically, and thereafter retire back into the safe zone of their group. In situations of low coordination but high intensity, a substantial fraction of each group are drawn into being promachoi simultaneously, resulting in a much more crowded combat environment; in this sort of context, should a sufficient number of a group’s combatants wish to retire simultaneously without a symmetrical phenomenon on the other side, a more general retreat of the retiring group might take place, generating higher casualties and a more decisive result. In both of the above situations, the main predicament faced is that of mobilising the members of a group to risk injury as promachoi for the benefit of the group as a whole. In such an environment, social ideals of bravery and combative excellence are fostered to animate participants. Elite members of each group repay their high social currency by seeking to be exemplary warriors, which involves both investing in combat equipment and visibly partaking in combat as promachoi; such displays of participation motivate lesser members of the group hierarchy to participate themselves, especially those who have ties of dependency and social obligation to the elites fighting, and thus increase the efficacy of a group in battle. Conversely, misfortunes to elites may demotivate others of their group, and this provides a motivation for elites to defeat their elite opposition, which to a distant view can appear to imply a culture of formal duelling with decisive battlefield effect, but which really involves far more frequently informal, one-sided assaults on opposing leaders. An exotic parallel can be drawn to the actions of WWII fighter aces; by far their most prevalent and successful aerial combat strategy was to ambush an opponent and, closing from behind while they were unawares, gun them down at close range. Often in the failure of this strategy did a superficially equal and duelling dogfight emerge between fighter pilots, but this element is often overrepresented due to its popular appreciation and prestige, and thus can convey imbalanced notions of the affair. When there is significant coordination within a group, as is most common in the case of a contingent under a unified command structure, like when soldiers are raised by a strong and centralised military institution, different tactics emerge. Troops under a coherent command structure can be organised and maintained in compact formations. They can similarly be moved roughly as a coherent unit. When they are moved into an enemy group, the social pressure of both military discipline and of the allies close at their sides, as well as the psychological pressure and physical barrier of the individuals behind them, act in unison to overcome psychological inhibitions to venturing into high-intensity combat and the risks to life and limb attendant. Such techniques allow for increasingly greater simultaneous group engagement as promachoi in function of the strength and sophistication of the group’s organisational and command structure, and additionally bring palpable benefits to individual combat effectiveness and protection consequent of the closer and greater cooperation allowed by cohesive dense formations. For all the above reasons, a developed form of such an organisational tactic, like the 5th century phalanx, may enjoy a significant superiority to less cohesive groups, to the point of being irresistible to anything but another group with a similar tactic provided that there is sufficient combined-arms support. This greater effective manpower also renders confrontations between organisationally complex groups more decisive and bloody: the objective of each group is to disturb the cohesion of the other, at which point it would effectively become much less organisationally complex, and thus fall easy prey to the remaining cohesive group. Knowing this unfavourable result, the reaction of group members to their suspicion that their group’s cohesion is soon to break down frequently takes the form of a fully-fledged flight from their group in pursuit of safety. This often occurs first from the rear ranks of the group, as they are farthest from the enemy and thus logically know that their chance of survival is highest in the case of a general rout.

[@odd-ysseusdoesstuff6347]

I'M LOVING THESE ANALYSIS! Please make more!

[@grillyalta]

Extremely interesting for me as someone, who practices historical martial arts! Really looking forward to the coming parts!

[@Fearior]

Where can I watch part 2?

[@timothyclancy6919]

I see Professor Roel Konijnendijk has entered the chat; so clearly Hoplites fought by digging a ditch!

[@timothyclancy6919]

Also interested how you look at emergence in future episodes. I'm very familiar with that murmuration/flocking video as I model complex systems of conflict with simulations. Be fascinated if the answer is that, much like starlings, Hoplites followed simple rules of interaction towards one another and from that emerged the movements of the group.

[@paulbardunias5950]

Shhhh...that is the answer.

[@timothyclancy6919]

@@paulbardunias5950 🤣 Ooops sorry! Although I've found like the opening line of Heraclitus emergence is one of those topics that... "the majority of people have no understanding of the things...nor, when instructed, do they have any right knowledge of them..." I'm interested to see how you present it and I'll be taking notes myself!

[@joebainter]

I am looking forward to this series. I have always had an interest in Greek history and warfare but found little convincing explanations of what goes on and how battles were fought. Hope to be further enlightened and see more in the next episodes.

[@kranjcalan]

One of the best videos that you made, keep up good work.

[@sweepingtime]

Warfare... It's all Greek to me.

[@Wesley_Cavalcanti]

The Phalanx Heresy.

[@InvictaHistory]

I did see that video pop up a while ago and thought "dang, the beat us to the punch". But we were already preparing this series and working on the follow up testing episodes so I think our series will work well as a companion piece which advances to conversation

[@westrim]

@@InvictaHistory Yeah, The Historians Craft is very thought provoking, but it's not an insult to point out that it's a lecture channel. That video is similar in many ways to this one, but the next three parts sound like they aren't something he's set up to lay out.

[@c0ntag10n]

Great channel! Can't wait for part 2!

[@mrspeigle1]

Really looking forward to the rest of these series

[@ziggurat-builder8755]

Great video! I myself am a Roman reenactor who has carried out mock battles against infantry and cavalry. I also have a degree in Ancient History and Archeology. But. I see this a lot, academics look at previous theories and destroy them by saying the academics drew on current cultural knowledge to form their opinions. Just look at the Victorians and the Beaker People … invasions, invasions, invasions. What modern academics fail to understand is that they are doing exactly the same right now, in current day. Now this video seems great to me, and I am looking forward to the experimental archaeology which I love! But you see other academics “reassessing” history “through the lens” of feminism or racial equity or gender politics. All of these terms are anathema to human history and they cannot help but push modern 2020s ideologies onto their limited view of history. Just like those Prussians. With that rant over, I can’t wait to watch episode 2.

[@cp1cupcake]

Something which I think you missed was how I think the Heretic school of though also falls into the trap of putting more contemporary concepts into their view. While I entirely believe that a lot of the earliest wars might resemble what they describe, a group fighting like that might resemble what one expects within the last few decades (really since WW2, but we know that in that war there a couple of instances of units basically walking into gunfire still in something resembling parade formations) where movement and repositioning is highly important.

[@DarrenGedye]

@cp1cupcake I had a similar thought. Scholars from our modern individualistic society think the battles were more individualistic? Well fancy that.😏

[@catocall7323]

I think that's an artifact of Greek storytellers who focused on the individual deeds of great heroes in battle. Of course, they are describing the exceptional not the normal, and they are making a good story more than an accurate program of war.

[@joshanderson9391]

Great video idea. Love this sort of challenging of past theories

[@farmaccount1653]

I enjoyed this video. I like that you've made the effort to investigate and 'play' with the equipment and have delved into it's evolution. The remaining videos are very much anticipated. :) As an aside (although a definitely supportive one) The author Christian Cameron in his books about the Long War (Greek/Persian wars) has it appears, arrived at very similar conclusions as yours. He himself is a reinactor of this period and others. His insights are.... refreshing... in that he challenges the long standing academia. He also is very candid about his historical research and it's difficulties. His books are well worth a read (bear in mind that these books are historical novels, but, set in the historical period with as much attention to detail as possible to the contemporary people, politics, industrial capabilities and warfare as was available.. he even changed some references as more information became available from various sources through the series). I am obviously a fan, but, I am also a military Veteran. His words rang 'true' for me. I can't wait to see if you guys reach similar conclusions :) Brilliant

[@paulbardunias5950]

Christian is a good friend of mine and we have been working together for decades to figure out what actually occurred in hoplite combat. We have been together in phalanx many times. He was kind enough to mention me in one of his books forwards, maybe Tyrant.

[@farmaccount1653]

Somehow I had a feeling that both You and Christian had a connection with regard to this, lol. The pothos shines through, as one might say :) I look forwards to your other 'chapters' with an almost child like anticipation. Good job buddy.

[@monadsingleton9324]

*The question 'when is a hoplite' is probably the key to solving the great hoplite debate. The 'Orthodox' view seems to be most appropriate for the period predating the Persian Wars, when wars really were decided by a single battle and the soldiers partaking were citizen militias (the notable exception of Sparta notwithstanding). There was also a dearth of specialized infantry roles before the Persian Wars among the ancient Greeks (again with the notable exception of Sparta notwithstanding) - we don't hear much in the way of cavalry or skirmishers or archers during the Archaic period.* *Contrast this with the Classical period, and especially the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides reports that both the Spartans and the Athenians began experimenting with using heavy infantry hoplites in tandem with cavalry, light infantry, and archers. This was not an overnight transformation, but a long and awkward process that did not culminate until King Philip II of Macedon introduced his version of the Greek phalanx which was composed solely of professional soldiers organized into a formation which relied on other integrated units performing specialized roles - cavalry, light infantry, archers - in order to be effective on the battlefield. This is much more in keeping with the Heretic view.*

[@FelixstoweFoamForge]

D'you know, you just about summed up my position on the whole thing. A bunch of middle-class farmers couldn't really afford a long war, so I think Hanson may be right that for them, the battle WAS the war. In fact, most pre-persian wars seem to have been decided by the single battle. After that? Yup. Agreed, things changed. And armies got bigger, and poorer classes got involved, (that's why, I think we see lighter equipment emerging- if the state is going to supply a man's equipment, it's going to be cheaper, hence the Pilos helmet), and wars lasted longer, and you had to send troops overseas etc etc. My view is; Othismos, yes, but not always. But I'm firmly against the idea of hoplites being "individual" fighters. The Aspis is a pig for one-on-one, compared to a single grip shield. (I've tried mock ups of both).

[@stein1919]

@@FelixstoweFoamForge I agree. and one of Hanson's best sources for his thesis, the Spartan poet Tyrtaeus, wrote during the archaic period so that lines up for that period.

[@FelixstoweFoamForge]

Yup. that's my view.@@stein1919

[@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl]

God. The myth of Spartan professional army again. Sparta didn't have a professional army anymore than you can consider knights to be professional army.

[@monadsingleton9324]

@@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl Medieval knights were professional soldiers, they simply weren't organized into permanent units that remained standing year-round, unlike the Spartan army.

[@Guy-Mann]

"Unfortunately, the old view hoplite warfare was influenced by the cultural and political biases of the people who theorized on it, basing it's principles on their familiar contemporary norms of agricultural community and team sports games with rigid rules." "Unfortunately, the OLD old view of hoplite warfare was influenced by the cultural and political biases of the people who theorized on it, basing it's principles on their familiar contemporary norms of draconian military discipline and mass organization." "Luckily, our contemporary norms of individualism and diverse means of approaching problems allow us to more accurately speculate on the nature of millennia past warfare and conclude that it's principles were based in individual combat and diverse means of approaching battle. Call me a cynic, but I think I've spotted a pattern.

[@InvictaHistory]

The biases will be impossible to remove entirely. That's why the idea of actually trying to test this stuff can be informative. But there will always be the caveat that modern testing can never match the real thing

[@Guy-Mann]

@InvictaHistory I do very much respect putting it to experimentation. We'll have to wait and see how well designed and conducted they turn out to be. Also, I know my comment might come across as a little mean, but I appreciate what you're doing here. It's not like I've contributed this much to the debate anyway.

[@FelixstoweFoamForge]

You may well have a point. Mind you, the Othismos debate was well and truly raging as far back as the early 1980's. (I say debate. More like an out and out argument).

[@pax6833]

I see the biases at play in the new interpretation already. The idea that other units are 'integrated' into the phalanx can literally be lifted directly from the modern concept of combined arms warfare, in which many components of a military function like cogs in a single engine. It's great when it works but it also requires extreme degrees of communication to coordinate into a functioning system. Could ancient hoplite armies seriously coordinate the movements of skirmishers, cavalry, and spearmen into a formation that cooperates together? I have my doubts that anything more than the most rudimentary tactics could be achieved. The orthodox view, while it has its faults, presents the simplest and therefor easiest to execute form of warfare of the three 'ideas'

[@josephbiggie6047]

Wait, you mean as we unearth more evidence every single year, now that we have professional scholars instead of a bunch of largtely wealthy military veterans who took history as a hobby without any specific training, who were just writing their own guesses and opinions,and now with the internet can share much much more information and access to thousands of images and finds that never could have been shared before, we maybe have a better understanding than a bunch of guys 150 years ago....? And thats surprising to you?

[@Tom-le9sl]

Love it - always found the pushing aspect hard to get my head round. Envisioned more of spear fencing

[@austrocraft6477]

I am waiting for the second part! Hyped!

[@MMMichaelTTT]

Books are wrong, historians are wrong, movies are wrong, games are wrong! But I, the youtuber, am right! - Ackshually These type of history videos from youtube are exhausting, I suppose its to bring in views cause controversy sells. Well, I guess I should take my sub elsewhere if you want those type of viewers. These videos have an aura of thinking they have some secret knowledge and the academic community around the world is wrong. There is no mystery. I would rather listen to accredited historians with peer reviewed papers and books than someone from youtube saying everyone is wrong and using an 'AI guy' who likes to play in reenactments.

[@InvictaHistory]

The premise of the series is not to say everyone is wrong and we have the answer. The idea is to say we face an academic impasse and additional insight can be gained through experimental research. We will be showing the tests meant to falsify/validate claims by historians and from there see which of the proposed models best accounts for these findings. I would hope this approach would be valid.

[@JAI_8]

One thing they all have in common including the makers of this video. None of them have seen any hoplite or any real hoplite battles. And dressing up like a hoplite is not the same as being a hoplite or “experimenting” on hoplites. It’s just modern day guesswork, with expensive toys. The same thing ancient historians have always done, just without the cosplay. Analysis of textual evidence and attempt to draw reasoned conclusions about historical hypotheses. There’s no difference. These “experiments” are cosplay and serve only to tell us what modern day people with all their modern day knowledge and modern day understanding of the worlds and modern day prejudices wearing such items would do. Computer simulations are a little more interesting, but again can’t really tell us what happened. Just point to interesting outcomes given certain assumptions on the part of the historian / historical experimenter. Human behavior incorporates the irrational and rules of conduct that cannot always conclusively be derived by reasoned argument or experiment. This is certainly true of warfare, a thing the Greeks are known to have regarded as conferring “arete” (ἀρετή) or “virtue / excellence” upon participants. Arete was a moral principle they had a great deal of difficulty explaining to themselves, never mind to us thousands of years in the future. And if we don’t fully understand “ἀρετή” we will never really understand how hoplite battles were fought since we’ll never understand the mind and the psychology of the soldier; what his aims were what was the goal of group combat and individual combat, what was unthinkable on the battle field etc. It will all be just … well reasoned guess work based on the textual and physical evidence we have … the same thing historians have been doing for centuries. And of course historians bring their own presuppositions to the study as well … or their own “panoply” and computers in the case of these modern day cosplay “historical experimenters”. This new work is interesting but shouldn’t be thought of as definitive and permanently replacing the work the great historians of the past; especially if the modern day re-enactors are not 100% familiar (like past historians prided themselves in being) with ALL the text-based evidence in their ORIGINAL LANGUAGES (Greek, Assyrian, Egyptian, Latin … whatever). The ability to read these texts in their original language is fast disappearing and NOTHING can replace them as evidence for what happened in the past. Not computers, not “experiments”, not cosplay / simulation reenactors. Original texts in their ORIGINAL LANGUAGE of composition is the beginning of all good history. All good historians will remind people of this again and again. Not stress the novelty of their own new approach in order to generate clicks.

[@nvmtt1403]

@@InvictaHistory looks like we found the university history graduate. Don't let these people bother you. You are an entertainment channel first and foremost and this doesnt lessen that.

[@paulbardunias5950]

You should have googled me before commenting. The study of hoplite warfare had broken down into two opposing camps whose positions were irreconcilable. Two "reenactors" came forward to help bridge this impasse, Christopher Mathew and myself. Both of us have been embraced by the academic historian community. A lecture I gave at a symposium of academic historians at Harvard is on KZbin, and much of what I will discuss in the upcoming episodes is published in a book chapter coauthored by a fellow who is probably the leading historian on hoplite warfare.

[@nvmtt1403]

@@paulbardunias5950 if it is ok to ask, is there a link to the lecture? I would love a greater understanding of the mechanics of this part of ancient warfare.

[@eroskajanaku5887]

Huge video, looking forward to the next episodes

[@Jamesthestruggeler]

Beautifully built, absolute legend and that you are putting it to the test 🙂 history, ever fluent

[@martijnvanderzee5215]

great video mate! I like the new format, bringing in academics can liven up videos and create some nice new perspectives (like prof. Bardunias using tests to create empirical data) . Bringing in academics creates an aura of prestige, not that I doubt your knowledge or research capabilties, on the contrary even since you have highly educational content; but I guess you catch my drift. Keep going with what you're doing and I'll always drop by to watch

[@carlespou4607]

Love it! I can not wait to see the next!

[@joshuacalderon5148]

Brilliantly done and presented - Bravo

[@alexgedrose]

Love this format!!!

[@nemesis4353]

This is such a cool and unique concept for a series!

[@petersherman2187]

This is awesome! So excited to see the results of this experiment.

[@GnomaPhobic]

I got my history degree in 2009 and this is the most exciting historical project I've come across since school. I can't wait to watch the rest of the series!

[@georgepapatheofilou6118]

Kudos for the collaboration. Impressive most impressive indeed. Bravo . Opa

[@timfogelson7076]

Awesome stuff..i look forward to the other parts.

[@kurtschmidt5005]

Now this is the kind of stuff we want to learn!!!! Classical Greek warfare is fascinating

[@mrnice7570]

Innovative, informativen, fascinating and beautiful presented, impeccably researched. Strategos level vid

[@horseface31]

Love this kind of stuff, can't wait for more

[@Meevious]

11:45 The helmet with the "Chalcidian" label is known as an Attic helmet - it's the one to the right, with a nasal, that's called Chalcidian. Almost all of these names are modern inventions (mostly based on early find sites), but they are well established. 15:29 Spears becoming longer is a really big deal. A quick skim through the Iliad will tell you that throwing spears was the main mode of combat for early Greek warriors, so losing that ability would completely change the nature of combat. Longer spears are also heavier and slower, which means you need more of them to control the same space, resulting in closer formations - culminating in Hellenistic pezhetairoi, whose use of sarissai (which could be more than three times longer than an Archaic dory) completely prohibited them from performing most kinds of action that would have been available to earlier hoplites. Look forward to seeing the rest of the series. I've always been appalled that there are people living in the real, physical world who could ernestly believe the "orthodox" (should be called "othismodox") narrative. =p It's also really interesting to think about the dynamics of things like troop spacing, reserve ranks, the tactics of engaging lines, specialist troop placement and so on, so I'm very interested to see computer modelling applied to some of this stuff.

[@thekev506]

Very interesting and looking forward to future episodes. Surprised there's no mention of the wars of the 17th century considering 'push of pike' was a feature of the period in Europe that may prove to have some insights. Maybe it'll appear in subsequent episodes.

[@anselmdanker9519]

Thank you for an insightful presentation on hoplite warfare.

[@arturleperoke3205]

FANTASTIC! Cant wait for more!

[@davidsabillon5182]

This has to be a top ten KZbin channel. Old school history channel level of quality production. ❤