ABSTRACT
To the Greeks of the fifth and fourth centuries bc wars between the city states, however much they deplored them, were normal and expected. It was taken for granted that each city should be able to call on its citizens to fight for it, and that each city possessed the military organization that made this possible. Argos, naturally, was no exception to this. So important to the Greek city was the need to defend itself that the concept of military service as an essential pre-requirement of citizenship was normal and this meant that military organization was inextricably interwoven with the political system. Presumably, the original military organization of the Argives was that of the three Dorian tribes, as at Sparta; for the continuing political importance of the tribes can only have resulted from their continuity in the military and religious life of the communities in which they existed.
