„Xenophon‘s Hipparchikos. A Mere Theoretical Essay or a Real Manual for the Actual Cavalry Commander of Athens?“, gehalten am 21.10.2016 anlässlich der Konferenz „Greek and Roman Military Manuals: Genre, Theory, Influence“ an der University of Winnipeg. (original) (raw)
Related papers
Technical Training of the Athenian Cavalry 375 - 350 BC JAHA 9.2 (2022) 5 - 25
Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology, 2022
Cavalry tactics require a well-thought-out horse and rider training on a regular basis as well as a cavalry led by a commander who has tactical skill, sufficient horsemanship and knowledge of horses. As a cavalry commander and horseman Xenophon studied the developments on the battlefield during the 5th and 4th century BC. He carefully analysed cavalry tactics of various enemies of Athens and he put forward recommendations on how the Athenians should train their cavalry. His works On Horsemanship and On the Cavalry Commander therefore show the most modern cavalry requirements of that time. They are important documents showing how the different styles of cavalry deployment came to influence each other. This paper wants to explain which foreign tactics he studied and
2006
Curriculum Vitae This will put my dissertation in the fields of both military and hippological science. These sciences will be connected by the research question which is 'Is there an explanation from the perspective of horsemanship why the Athenian cavalry seems not to be able to dominate the battlefield, especially in Xenophon's time?' This question first occurred to me, when I noticed, while studying Xenophon, that in contrast to the apparently highly effective cavalry of the Athenian Empire, the cavalry of the 4 th century apparently was not very effective. Xenophon even seems to complain about the state of the Athenian cavalry and so it appeared to me that he did not only want to put forward his own expertise in his works, but he had another, more hidden, motivation for writing these treatises On Horsemanship and Cavalry Commander. 1.2. Literary sources To answer this question I have made extensive use of many sources available. The list of publications on horses, warfare and horsetraining in general is endless. I will discuss only the ones that are relevant to my research. The books that are currently available on the subject deal in the main with the array of weaponry, the composition of the cavalry, tactics and description of battles or concentrate on social and economical issues. A number of scholars have completed research on the Greek cavalry. 2 2 J.K. Anderson wrote a book on Xenophon and horsemanship (J.K. Anderson, Ancient Greek Horsemanship, University of California Press 1961). But this mainly deals with horsemanship in general and not in a military context. In another book he sets forth Greek cavalry theory and practice in the age of Xenophon, in which he discusses weapon training, tactical training and battles (
Technical Training of the Athenian Cavalry (375 -350 BC) JAHA, 2022
Cavalry tactics require a well-thought-out horse and rider training on a regular basis as well as a cavalry led by a commander who has tactical skill, sufficient horsemanship and knowledge of horses. As a cavalry commander and horseman Xenophon studied the developments on the battlefield during the 5th and 4th century BC. He carefully analysed cavalry tactics of various enemies of Athens and he put forward recommendations on how the Athenians should train their cavalry. His works On Horsemanship and On the Cavalry Commander therefore show the most modern cavalry requirements of that time. They are important documents showing how the different styles of cavalry deployment came to influence each other. This paper wants to explain which foreign tactics he studied and why Xenophon advised specific horse training exercises to the Athenians.
2012
Xenophon analysed cavalry practises of several city states when he saw that the Athenians lost their battles against specifically the Boeotians who grew stronger with their hamippoi formations, cavalry intermingled with infantry. He therefore put recommendations forward to the city of Athens to improve their cavalry. He wanted them to adopt the Boeotian tactics which required them to improve their horsemanship on the level that they would be able to 'collect' their horses on the battlefield so they would be able to control them in even very slow paces but also be able to accelerate really fast. He describes several exercises and formations to practise this. He hoped that by doing so the Athenians would be able to gain back their hegemony as a counter weight to the rise of Thebes. This thesis offers an overview of cavalry tactics, cavalry training and a history of military horsemanship, which is the technology of cavalry warfare.
Of Horses And Men Developments in Greek Cavalry Training and Warfare (550-350 BC) with
Of Horses And Men - Developments in Greek Cavalry Training and Warfare (550 - 350 BC) with a Focus on Athens and Xenophon, 2012
Xenophon analysed cavalry practises of several city states when he saw that the Athenians lost their battles against specifically the Boeotians who grew stronger with their hamippoi formations, cavalry intermingled with infantry. He therefore put recommendations forward to the city of Athens to improve their cavalry. He wanted them to adopt the Boeotian tactics which required them to improve their horsemanship on the level that they would be able to 'collect' their horses on the battlefield so they would be able to control them in even very slow paces but also be able to accelerate really fast. He describes several exercises and formations to practise this. He hoped that by doing so the Athenians would be able to gain back their hegemony as a counter weight to the rise of Thebes. This thesis offers an overview of cavalry tactics, cavalry training and a history of military horsemanship, which is the technology of cavalry warfare.
In the mid-fifth century, Athenian leaders judged it essential for the Athenian arkhē (‘empire’) to have a cavalry-corps. By 438 BC at the latest, they had convinced the dēmos (‘people’) to expand the corps from 300 to 1000 horsemen. Their decision, of which Pericles had probably been the main advocated, was celebrated in the Parthenon frieze, which focussed on this greatly expanded cavalry-corps. In order to find the 1000 recruits, the dēmos also agreed to subsidise their hippotrophia (‘horse-raising’) through a range of subsidies, which cost a staggering 100 talents per year. Because this represented only a tenth of the public income that Athens had in the 430s, there was broad consensus that it was affordable. The defeat of 404 shattered this consensus about the ‘imperial’ cavalry. Some Athenians asked whether the state could still afford 1000 horsemen, while others argued that public subsidisation of them at such a level was no longer justified in view of the fact that the corps had backed the oligarchic regime of the Thirty Tyrants. In the decades that followed, the corps, at times, struggled to find 1000 recruits, often performed poorly on campaign and was the target of attacks in the law-courts. There was also political debate about whether the corps should be completely reformed or maintained in the form that it had reached by 438. Such debate also figured in the private treatises of intellectuals, such as Xenophon. Debating cavalry-reforms came to an end only at the close of the fourth century, when Athens after the Lamian War drastically reduced the number of recruits in its cavalry-corps.
War As Training, War As Spectacle: The Hippika Gymnasia From Xenophon To Arrian, by Dr. Anna Busetto, investigates the loci paralleli in the descriptions of hippika gymnasia in Xenophon’s Hipparchicus and Arrian’s Tactica. The Xenophonian echoes appearing in the Tactica show not only a generic literary influence by an admired model, but also the vitality – across centuries and cultures – of specific aspects of military training. In Arrian’s treatise, their re-enactment is mediated by the Adlocutio Hadriani, an epigraphic record of a speech by the Emperor Hadrian at Lambaesis, where he witnessed a spectacular performance by the auxiliary troops stationed there. Certain precise lexical correspondences suggest that the Tactica might be – in its “Roman part” (chap. 32, 3-44, 3) at least – a sort of literary re-working of the earlier Adlocutio.
Xenophon’s Hipparchikos and the Athenian Embrace of Citizen Philotimia
Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek Political Thought, 2018
Although negotiations over the competing claims of honour (timê) and awards of instantiated honours (timai) were central features of Athenian democracy, the dangerous ambiguities of philotimia meant that only from the 340s BC were the Athenians explicitly embracing this love of honour and celebrating its display by citizens and non-citizens alike. Here I argue that a close reading of Xenophon’s treatise on cavalry command, Hipparchikos, advances our understanding of this embrace of public-spirited honour in three ways. First, Xenophon founds the success of the cavalry on the training of knowledgeable officers who are able to harness the Athenians’ extraordinary love of honour, on display and on campaign. Second, he reveals the diverse roles played by timê and philotimia throughout the entire institution of the Athenian cavalry, fostering competitive excellence as well as community amongst cavalry, polis, and gods. Third, Xenophon’s arguments about the nature and negotiation of Athen...
"Hippokratein: The Importance of Cavalry in the Macedonian Wars"
2023
In my undergraduate thesis, I argue that the Roman Republican cavalry, particularly its war elephants, played a greater role in Rome's victories over Antigonid Macedon than has been previously argued. While the Roman legion was superior to the Macedonian phalanx in many respects, it could not have truly overcome it in the Battles of Cynoscephalae, callinicus, and Pydna without the help of the cavalry.
The Tactical Development of Achaemenid Cavalry
Gladius, 2006
In the 6th and first half of the 5th century BC, Persian horsemen were armed with bows and javelins, and fought as a light cavalry. In the second half of the 5th century in the western regions of the Persian empire there was an increase in heavily-armoured cavalry, armed with the spears (palta) for thrusting and throwing. I propose that this evolution is connected with the long wars against the Greeks and the deterioration of the morale quality of Persian warriors. The attempt of the last Persian king Darius III to re-arm his horsemen with lances to fight the Macedonian Companions did not succeed in saving the Achaemenid empire from collapse.