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Cleon's Orders at Amphipolis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

J. K. Anderson
J. K. Anderson*
Affiliation:
University of California
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Extract

How Cleon issued his fatal order to retreat from before Amphipolis does not seem to have been discussed by the commentators. But it would appear that he violated correct military procedure, and that this violation was in itself the cause of much of the subsequent confusion in the Athenian ranks. Thucydides says that both a signal and a verbal command were given—the signal conveying the definite meaning ‘Retire’, while the verbal command explained how it was to be done; and signal and command were issued together.

Signals are divided by Arrian into three groups. Verbal orders, being most readily intelligible, are preferable when they can be heard above the din of battle. Visual signals may be obscured in the dust and confusion. Finally, the trumpet is useful in overcoming ‘atmospheric disturbances’ (τὰ ἐκ τοῦ ἀέρος ἐμπόδια).

Visual signals are found in Greek warfare from at least the fifth century B.C. onwards, but they are generally prearranged, either to convey the news that some foreseeable event has actually occurred or to coordinate the operations of two bodies of troops who are widely separated but in sight of each other. Everybody concerned must be instructed in advance that after certain developments a certain signal will be displayed, upon which certain movements will be carried out. In this way Croesus in the Cyropaedia directs the evolutions of his vast army, Antigonus plans to coordinate the separate attacks at Sellasia, and Gorgidas ends the feigned retreat of the Sacred Band. But the signals used—the display of a red cloak or a white; the raising of a helmet on a spear—are all obviously arranged for the occasion. There does not seem to have been any code by which the commander of a Greek army, at any rate in the classical period, could convey orders to his men on the spur of the moment by visual signals. In the army described by Arrian each battalion (σύνταξις) had its own standard bearer, and the rank and file could at least have conformed to the movements of the standard.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 85 , November 1965 , pp. 1 - 4
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1965

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References

1 I find nothing on the nature of Cleon's signal in Gomme, A. W., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides iii (Oxford, 1956), 646 ff.Google Scholar (but note the discussion of τοῑς ἀπιοῦσιν iii 647) or in Gomme, 's essay, ‘Thucydides and Kleon : the Second Battle of Amphipolis’, in More Essays in Greek History and Literature (112–121)Google Scholar or in earlier editors.

I am indebted to Professor Sterling Dow for advice and encouragement.

2 The use of παραγγέλλειν of the fire-signals in Aeschylus, , Agamemnon 289, 294Google Scholar, is perhaps metaphorical; otherwise the word seems generally to be used of verbal orders (compare examples cited below).

3 Arrian, Tactica 27.Google Scholar

4 e.g. Thucydides viii 95.4; Xenophon, , Hellenica i 1.2 Google Scholar, ii 1.27.

5 Thucydides i 63.2.

6 Xenophon, , Cyropaedia vii 1.23.Google Scholar

7 Polybius ii 66.10–11.

8 Polyaenus ii 5.2.

9 Arrian, , Tactica 10.4.Google Scholar

10 Thucydides vi 69.2.

11 Xenophon, , Anabasis iv 4.22.Google Scholar

12 Plutarch, , Moralia 236E Google Scholar; Xenophon, , Cyropaedia iv 1.3 Google Scholar (compare Plutarch, , Comparison of Pelopidas and Marcellus 3.1 Google Scholar).

13 Polyaenus v 16.4. The trick was played on the Argives by Cleomenes I at Sepeia, but here the Argives followed the Spartan herald, not trumpet signals (Herodotus vi 78).

14 Diodorus xiv 52.1–5.

15 Xenophon, , Anabasis iv 3.29–32.Google Scholar

16 Polyaenus i 41.3; Xenophon, , Anabasis vii 4.16.Google Scholar

17 Polybius xii 26.1.

18 Thucydides vi 32.1.

19 Xenophon, , Anabasis ii 2.4 Google Scholar; Cyropaedia v 3.44.

20 Vegetius, , De Re Militari 2.22.Google Scholar

21 Xenophon, , Anabasis iii 4.3–4Google Scholar; v 2.12–14; vi 5.25.

22 Xenophon, , Anabasis ii 2.20 Google Scholar; iii 1.46; iii 4.36; v 2.18.

23 Onasander 25.

24 Xenophon, , Anabasis v 2.12 Google Scholar (τοὺς ἐπιτηδείους). These were not a special body of staff officers or A.D.C.'s (compare Anabasis vii 7.13) but just whoever happened to be appropriate on that particular occasion.

25 Thucydides v 66.3.

26 Reading παρήγγελλε.

27 Thucydides v 10.5.

28 Polybius xi 16.5–8.

29 Xenophon, , Cyropaedia vii 5.3–6.Google Scholar

30 ἐπὶ πόδα. For this phrase, compare Xenophon, , Cyropaedia vii 1.34 Google Scholar, Anabasis v 2.32, and Polyaenus, ii 2.9; ii 5.2.

31 Xenophon, , Hellenica vi 5.18–19.Google Scholar

32 For the division of an Athenian expeditionary force into τάξεις compare Thucydides ii 79.5.

33 Gomme, , Commentary on Thucydides iii 647–648 Google Scholar; More Essays on Greek History and Literature 117. Philip V's peltasts at Lissus did use ‘leap-frogging’ tactics in their retreat, but they withdrew one σπεῑρα at a time, not by successive ranks. (Polybius viii 14.5).

34 Thucydides v 10.3.

35 Thucydides v 10.8.

36 Thucydiees v 10.4, reading, with Gomme, σχολῇ γίγνεσθαι. But the delay would seem to have been on the right wing, not the left, as it was on the right that Cleon thought his personal intervention necessary αὐτὸς ἐπιστρέψας τὸ δεξιὸν