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rTHE CLASSICAL REVIEW 327
Pentateuch reflects usage before
c.
150
B.C.
Chapter
9
sums
up: the
central point
is
that
the
translators,
in
many places, directly eschew possible semitisms
in
favour
of
standard, even
technical
or
idiomatic
or
new-fangled, koine.
It
could
be
objected that this fact does
not in
itself
exclude
the
possibility
of a
'Jewish Greek dialect';
but
clearly
it
does exclude
the
possibility
of
a ghetto Greek quite cut off from the speech of non-Jewish contemporaries. Papyrologists might
want
to put
more emphasis
on
another argument
of
Deissmann's, which
L.
does
not
develop:
papyrus documents from Jewish circles (admittedly few,
and
few of those from Alexandria itself)
show
no
trace
of
the supposed dialect.
Christ
Church,
Oxford
P. J.
PARSONS
J. F. LAZENBY:
The
Spartan
Army. Pp. xiii +
210; 13
plates,
14
maps
and plans. Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1985. Paper, £16.
In
a
polis whose citizens were full-time hoplites
the
army dominated many aspects
of
Spartan
life.
As the medium
for
the extension of Spartan power abroad,
it
exerted
an
important influence
upon other contemporary
states.
Consequently,
no
excuse is required
for
devoting
a
whole book
to
the
subject, though exactly
how it
should
be
written
may be a
matter
for
dispute.
L.'s preface acknowledges
the
deliberately limited scope
of his
work, which examines
the
organization
of
the army
and its use in
warfare,
but
eschews discussion
of
its role within
the
Spartan state
or the
history
of
Greek warfare.
Of
the book's three parts, Part
I, on the
army's
organization,
is
of greatest interest to students of Spartan society (such as the
reviewer).
It
argues
three novel propositions: first, that the army's structure remained basically unchanged from
the
seventh-century hoplite reform
to the
battle
of
Leuktra; secondly, that during that period
it
consisted exclusively
of
Spartans (hence the book's title); the gaps caused by declining Spartiate
numbers were filled
by
hypomeiones,
but the
perioikoi were brigaded separately
and not
used
against Peloponnesian enemies until after Leuktra; thirdly, that
in the
time
of
Thucydides
and
Xenophon
the
army
was
twice
the
size usually thought.
These
are
challenging conclusions which,
if
true, would compel
a
reassessment
of
several
aspects
of
Spartan society.
L.
manipulates
the
notoriously contradictory evidence with
no
little
dexterity, though
in
this difficult field where definitive proof
is
well-nigh impossible some
conclusions inevitably appear more certain than others.
For
example,
his
arguments (48-52)
against
the
existence
of
an obal army
at
Plataia
or
earlier
are
well aimed (although anticipated
by
D. H.
Kelly, GRBS
22
[1981], 31-8,
not
noted
by L.). His
attempt (5-10; 41-4), however,
to equate Xenophon's army
of the
morai with that described
by
Thucydides, which involves
altering the evidence of both
writers,
seems
less
well-founded. Focussing on set battles alone (41),
L. sees
no
reason
for a
reorganisation between 418
and
403;
but
this neglects the possibility that
changes were made
in
connection with
the
need
to
station
a
portion
of
the army
at
Dekeleia.
(I owe this point
to Dr N. V.
Sekunda.)
L.'s
theories about
the
size
of
the mora (7-10)
and the
exclusion
of the
perioikoi (14-16) merit serious consideration.
A
broader perspective would,
however, have been helpful here because
of the
radical implications
for the
number
of
hypomeiones
in the
late fifth
and
early fourth centuries.
L.
discusses
the
evidence that
hypomeiones
fought within
the
army
and the
consequences
for its
efficiency (16-20; 60-1);
but
one also needs
to
consider
the
plausibility
of
the resulting picture
of
Spartan society,
not
least
the implication that
hypomeiones
constituted 4,080
out of
the 4,780 Spartan hoplites whom
L.
thinks participated
at
Leuktra (155).
Part
II
consists
of
discussions
of
battles from Thermopylai
to
Leuktra,
in
which
L.
employs
a sound understanding
of
the practicalities
of
Greek warfare
to
emphasize
the
limited tactical
flexibility of most hoplite armies.
In
contrast, the Spartan army demonstrated
an
unusual ability
to perform
a
variety
of
manoeuvres even
in the
heat
of
battle. Although
L.
makes frequent
comparisons between different battles,
he
attempts
no
overall analysis
of the
development
of
Spartan tactics.
But the
attentive reader
can
perceive from
his
account that
the
Spartans were
continually modifying their practice
of the art of
war,
as at
Nemea when, building upon
the
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328
THE
CLASSICAL REVIEW
lessons learned
at
Mantineia, they moved their own troops
to the
right
in
order
to
outflank
and
'roll
up'
the enemy
line.
The
net
effect is
to
cast doubt upon the supposed extreme conservatism
of the Spartan military organization suggested
in
Part
I.
Finally, Part
III
contains
a
short chapter which summarizes
the
evidence
for
the
army
and
for Spartan commanders abroad in the late fourth century and Hellenistic period, both neglected
subjects worthy
of
attention.
In spite
of
the
criticisms above,
L.
has
performed
a
valuable service
in
departing from
the
pattern of general histories
of
Sparta, of which several have been published
in
recent years, and
focussing instead
on
the organization
and
role of this central institution of Spartan life. Whether
or not one accepts the particular hypotheses argued in this study,
it
is this kind of re-examination
of the precise working
of
its social institutions,
and the
debate
it
engenders, which
is
necessary
to achieve
a
deepened understanding
of
the character
of
the Spartan state.
University
of Manchester
STEPHEN HODKINSON
LUIGI GALLO: Alimentazione
e
demografia delta Grecia antica.
(Piccola biblioteca Laveglia.)
Pp. 135.
Salerno: Pietro Laveglia,
1984.
Paper,
L.
8,000.
This little book arrived for review
at a
time when Bob Geldof's face featured
on
every instalment
of the television news,
and
when
the
world's concern
was
focussed,
as
never before,
on
general
issues
of
'alimentazione'. This concern
is
perhaps relevant
to
the
large number
of
books
and
articles about Greek
and
Roman food supplies published since about
1980, the
year
of
G. Rickman's
Com
Supply of Ancient Rome.
(P.
Garnsey
and
C. Whittaker's
Trade
and
Famine
in
Classical
Antiquity, 1983,
is
the
most important,
and
Garnsey
is not
only
the
co-author
of
a study
in
JRS
1984 of a remarkable Thessalian grain inscription,
but
has written
a
provocative
piece about Athens' grain supply,
on
which more below.
And
Foxhall
and
Forbes
on
'Sitometreia'
in
Chiron 1982 ought also
to
be
mentioned).
Gallo attempts to determine the size of ancient Greek populations
by
the amount of food they
imported
and
consumed.
In
fact
his
title
is
too
broad because inevitably
he
soon narrows
the
enquiry down
to
Athens
(the
third
and
final chapter 'L'Attica:
un
caso privilegiato' takes
up
half the book, after two short introductory
chapters).
The
approach is
not
new;
and
there is
no
new evidence. Gallo
is
concerned above
all
to
defend
the use
of
a
very familiar text, Dem.
20.
31-2,
which claims that the 400,000 medimnoi imported from Leucon
of
the Bosporus equalled
imports from all other
sources.
Gallo follows Gomme and others in accepting
(p.
44) that Athens
relied
to
an
extreme degree
on
imported cereals. This view goes back of course
to
Demosthenes
he.
cit.,
but
P. Garnsey, 'Grain
for
Athens',
in CRUX:
Essays presented
to
de
Ste
Croix (1985),
pp.
62ff., has
now challenged
it.
After reading Garnsey's
p.
74 one may well feel uncomfortable
about
the way in
which students
of
Attic population have pressed that figure
of
400,000.
Scepticism can only be reinforced
by
M.
H.
Hansen,
Democracy
and Demography, 1986,
a
book
of 116 pages which dismisses
the
whole argument from grain consumption
in
8
lines (pp. 24f.).
I don't think that Gallo,
to
whom neither Garnsey's
nor
Hansen's latest treatments were
available, offers
any
arguments which will surprise
or
convince either of the scholars
I
have just
mentioned. Gallo does however reach the same conclusion as Garnsey about 329/8
B.C.,
the year
of another key bit of evidence, the Eleusis first-fruits inscription:
it
was,
contra Jarde,
a
bad year.
And there
are
useful remarks about
the
'Food
Aid'
inscription from Cyrene,
Tod 196.
This book
has
plenty
of
interesting,
and
intelligent, incidental remarks
in
both text
and the
40-odd pages
of
generous footnotes,
and
for
that reason
it
is
worth bringing
to the
attention
of
scholars
in
this country, although
I
do not
think that
the
author
has
really achieved
his aim of
firming up
the
connexion between 'alimentazione'
and
'demografia'.
Oriel
College,
Oxford
SIMON HORNBLOWER
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