ABSTRACT
No one alive today has ever experienced anything really like a hoplite battle. Contemporary accounts survive, at least one by an eye-witness, but they chiefly take a wide-angle view. There is no ‘blow-by-blow’ commentary. To try to understand what went on at the ‘sharp end’, we have to draw on many sources, including poets and dramatists, and the best we can hope to achieve is a composite picture, since no two battles were exactly alike.
