ABSTRACT
In the Greek city-states, the military class – meaning, adult citizen males who could afford armor – was a minority. Upon setting out to war, therefore, the army left behind the vast majority of the population: women, children, the elderly and disabled, foreigners, slaves, and, last but not least, adult male citizens who were either too poor to afford armor or, for some other reason, were not drafted for the given campaign. What exactly did they do in time of war? What were the contemporary views of their ideal participation in warfare? Finally, why is there no term for “non-combatants” or “civilians” in the Ancient Greek language? This essay proposes answers to these questions by surveying the theory and practice of non-combatant and civilian participation in Greek land warfare in three different periods: Archaic Greece (c.800–480 bce), the era of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 bce), and the Late Classical period (the fourth century bce). It argues that the portrayals of civilians’ participation in warfare in Greek literature and historiography become increasingly less symbolic and more “hands-on” over time, reflecting the changing nature of Greek land warfare. In the Archaic period, the accepted ideal was for heroes to do the fighting, in order to retain their monopoly on glory. As a result, the contribution of civilians to warfare in the Archaic period was limited to the religious sphere. The rise of the hoplite phalanx eradicated the possibility of winning individual glory, since all soldiers now had to fight together within the formation. This new ideal of communal participation in war affected the place of the civilian in warfare as well. The era of the Peloponnesian War, specifically, with its introduction of “total war” mentality, encouraged a reassessment of the ideal roles of civilians in the process of war. Finally, following the invention of the catapult in the early fourth century bce, and the increasing complexity of siege warfare thereafter, the role of the civilian in warfare evolved into an even more active one. The chapter suggests that from the fourth century onwards, because of the prevalence of siege warfare, the difference between combatants and non-combatants in the Greek city at war became tenuous, as all citizens were now expected to defend their city in time of siege.
