Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity (review)

John Lendon, a Yale Ph.D. now teaching at the University of Virginia, is the author of a well-received but challenging 1997 book, Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World. His new book, Soldiers and Ghosts, is even more provocative—deliberately so, challenging many accepted ideas about Greek and Roman warfare. Although Lendon never tells us exactly what culture means, he seems to have in mind a congeries of valued Greek and Roman male traits, sometimes contradictory, that include aggressive courage, self-discipline, a sense of decline from a greater past, and a tendency to look to that past for inspiration. For the Greeks, the Iliad defined the proper conduct of war; for the Romans, Greek practice and their own heroic past, neither of which were always well understood, provided the models.

Soldiers and Ghosts, with its analysis of military combat in cultural terms, has much to recommend it. It is a lively and well-written book that is based on close readings of the classical sources and critical reviews of the secondary literature. It also offers a fine, if unwieldy, guide to the recent literature on classical warfare. Lacking a straightforward bibliography, the book tucks its information away in endnotes keyed to the text and an equally substantial set of bibliographic notes that further elaborate key points. There is also a chronology and glossary.

Each of the two major sections has its own introduction and conclusion, first "The Greeks" in seven chapters (pp. 15–161), then "The Romans" in six (pp. 163–315). The narrative proper begins with a chapter on warfare as depicted in the Iliad, then proceeds to a history of land warfare in classical antiquity from the semi-mythical Battle of the Champions between Argos and Sparta (c. 550 BCE) to the Gothic victory over Rome at the Battle of Adrianople in 378 CE. Each chapter centers on a specific battle that illustrates a key theme. Cultural approaches work better for some battles than others, and the seeming equation of tactics and strategy with trickery seems odd, to say the least (see especially pp. 303–11).

Lendon considers Greek individual competitiveness and the tension between Roman virtus (aggressive courage) and disciplina (obedience) to be the touchstone of classical warfare. Although he can find numerous examples of Greek hoplites competing for glory, his elaborate cultural explanation for hoplite warfare seems more a justification or rationalization for a style of fighting that, in material terms, demanded little skill or training—that is, it opened military participation to a wider swath of the male population. Lendon likewise notes many instances of Roman troops acting aggressively and competitively without, or even against, orders, while downplaying the common attribution of Roman success to her armies' formidable discipline. This seems to me highly dubious. What distinguishes armies from war bands is precisely the discipline of soldiers in armies versus the individual heroics of warriors.

Material factors, in general, receive short shrift. In his zeal to promote culture, Lendon does not so much ignore technology as dismiss its importance, offering instead a vigorous exposition of what can only be termed "anti-technological determinism." He claims that his ambitious study was stimulated by "curiosity about how practical methods of doing anything at all might change over many centuries in a world with very limited technological progress" (p. 317). An interesting question, but historians of technology will note the dubious assumptions embedded in this claim, and most will find the book annoying, if not perverse, because it pays close and intelligent attention to changes in the individual soldier's equipment, training, and organization while largely dismissing their relevance.

To my eyes, Lendon's argument suffers from two major flaws: his concept of technology, and his notions about technological innovation. Without ever actually defining it, he seems to view military technology very narrowly as being personal weaponry and armor. Fortification, siegecraft, road building, logistics, or any other...