war as an economic activity in the Ancient World

Causes and Implications of the Hoplite ReformJuan Pablo Poch

November 30, 2015

Ancient Economy

Prof. Andrew Smith II

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In 2000, American military historian Victor Davis Hanson wrote that “any time the Western

way of war can be unleashed on an enemy stupid enough to enter its arena, victory is assured.”

Beyond idolizing Western civilization’s military performance throughout history, Hanson’s

statement raises several questions about the development of this particular approach to warfare and

its various consequences and implications at local and global scales. This evolutionary process

traces back to Ancient Greece (c. 800 BCE), of which the main if not only written accounts of the

time were Homer’s epics. Both the Iliad and the Odyssey not only stand as the prime works of

literature of antiquity —and, thus, entertainment—, but also illustrate the archetypical Greek role

model as a heroic warrior and adventurer. Most scholars admit that these characters with God-given

prowess and divine aegis were inspired in the ruling landed aristocrats from the early city-states or

poleis. These used such religious themes as a unifying force to bring about the synoikism, or the

coming together of the oikos (“households”), and to bestow upon themselves the power to govern

the emerging structured societies. However, the continuing population growth of the newly formed

urban centers and the associated increases in demand for resources (e.g. land and food) triggered an

extensive and persistent change in the structures and institutions of the polis. This research seeks to

address one of these particular events, the Hoplite Reform, which encompasses from tactical and

demographic transformations in the military to further socio-economic consequences beyond the

martial sphere, into the domestic affairs of the polis. The introduction of the phalanx and the

ensuing creation of the hoplite “middle” class induced a more egalitarian redistribution of wealth

and a steady political transition to broader and more inclusive forms of government. Initially, these

reforms root down to the individual costs incurred by the citizen-soldiers participating in the army

(explicit costs) and foregoing the benefits of engaging in their civilian activities (implicit costs).

Nonetheless, these can be offset by economic incentives to protect or expand their wealth, and

political ones – intricately linked to the ancient Greek moral value system – to increase their status

in society. Ultimately, the citizen-soldiers engaged in a constant trade-off between military and

agricultural lifestyles following the lines of rational choice, for they picked the alternative that

adjusted the most to their interests. The aggregate behaviors of all the citizens of the poleis shaped

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the socioeconomic and political panorama of ancient Greece, to such extent that it continues to

influence modern society. Given the lack of specific primary and secondary sources about the topic

in a single area, this research addresses a variety of locations across Archaic Greece. Moreover,

even though spatial and temporal variations are abundant between city-states, this investigation

looks forward to derive the more general and unifying features among them.

The Scholarly Battle: Orthodox versus Gradualist

To set forth “The Hoplite Debate,” Kagan and Viggiano gather a myriad of contending scholarly

perspectives around the issue and classify them within the most prominent schools of thought:

orthodox and gradualist. The orthodox claim that the transformations triggered by the Hoplite

Reform took place in an abrupt and sudden manner, and, thus, can be categorized as an intense

revolution. Kagan and Viggiano claim for a precipitated change in the archaic Greek structure and

perception of warfare beginning with Homer’s epics. Such evolution of the fighting style, from the

individual combat between hero-aristocrats to the massive engagement of entire hoplite armies, was

driven in great part by the innovations in weapons, armor and tactics. Nonetheless, the invention of

the double-griped hoplon and the rearrangement of heavy infantry into a cohesive phalanx

formation had various political, socioeconomic and psychological implications outside the

battlefield, especially concerning the creation of a hoplite middle class. This model is most similar

to George Grote’s thesis, as both claim that the Hoplite Reform marked the turning point between

Homeric aristocratic fighting style and values in the later broader sociopolitical structure and

mindset. Thus, these changes forced the narrow, highborn aristocracy to secede a substantial portion

of their power. Yet, it only enabled the creation of a broader oligarchy and never reached the extent

of a full democracy in the short run – the landless poor, thetes, remained unattended until the

creation of the Athenian navy c. 480 BCE. According to Antony Andrewes, the fracture of the

aristocratic monopoly of power was possible through the leadership of tyrants (e.g. Peisistratus) and

their support by the hoplite middle class. From another vantage point, Victor Davis Hanson

amalgamates the economic and cultural perspectives around the hoplite mindset:

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Not only did such men find it in their own economic and political interests to fight decisively—they had no wish to be absent from their farms on long campaigns and no desire to tax or spend to hire others to do so—but also spiritually such fighting reaffirmed the free farmers’ preeminence in Hellenic culture at large1

Hoplites supported the government that aligned with their economic and political interests, which

allowed them to increase their status through the achievement of areté (“excellence”) in service to

the polis. This leads to his second point on the issue in which he claims that conflicts were driven

by the struggle over land – including marginal plots that could have not been cultivated without the

development of iron tools. This means that the middle-class soldiers fought not only to protect their

own oikos – economic and political interest –, but also to defend the territory encompassed by their

polis, under the regime that advocated for their interests as well.

On the other hand, the gradualist perspective defends a much more smooth and prolonged

development of the polis’ late socioeconomic structure. Anthony Snodgrass suggests a piecemeal

evolution in which “the aristocratic soloists took up new items of equipment before the invention of

the phalanx,” even before the rise of the tyrants.2 He affirms that there was no climactic point in

which the fighting style and military structure changed, but rather aggregate events at which an

increasing number of citizens could afford their own panoply and participate in the army. Another

gradualist viewpoint is Paul Cartledge, who claims that the broader socioeconomic and political

circumstances had a greater influence than the period’s military developments. His main driving

motives for warfare were the increasing overpopulation and land hunger: communities competed to

accumulate the maximum amount of land, even within the same polis. From the accumulation of

small-scaled conflicts, the “wealthy and well equipped commoners” become a major faction within

the Greek poleis and the ruling aristocrats had no choice but to integrate them into the army.

Inevitably, as the power of independent farmer-hoplites kept rising, the aristoi had to acquiesce to

the ensuing reforms to avoid stasis and civil strife.

1 Hanson in Donald Kagan and Gregory F. Viggiano, “The Hoplite Debate,” In Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 23.2 Kagan and Viggiano, “The Hoplite Debate,” 35.

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Hoplite Costs and Risks

“All men, or most men, wish what is noble, but choose what is profitable” Aristotle

Within the ancient Greek mindset, warfare comprised a fundamental necessity to protect

one’s oikos, around which every aspect of daily life revolved. However, with the phenomenon of

synoikism and the emergence of organized city-states, combat evolved into a more complex fashion

than the individual duels between aristocrats, as portrayed in Homeric narratives. The crucial

tactical development was none other than the phalanx, which consisted of ranks of soldiers amassed

into a tight formation that directly clashed against the enemy army. Such tactical maneuver was

supplemented by military technological developments such as the invention of the hoplon – a wide,

double-gripped shield –, the replacement of predominant missile weapons by thrusting spears, and

the sophistication of bronze armor into a heavier yet more survivable panoply. The battle success of

these changes remains unquestionable and accounts for a significant portion of the Greek military

edge over other remarkable civilizations (e.g. Persia). Nonetheless, the social and economic

demands for the polis to sustain such military organization fell, in a significant proportion, upon the

general population rather than on the government itself. The next sections will discuss such

demands in the form of explicit and implicit costs, including the risks on the battlefield, and the

incentives that countered the burden of such costs, thus motivating an increased participation in the

army.

Essentially, once the phalanx became widespread, it relied on the size of the army more

than on its training, yet with the condition that each citizen-soldier had to provide his own panoply.

According to Kyriazis and Paparrigopoulos, the full set of bronze armor became extremely

expensive and almost unaffordable for the majority of the demos, because its production was scarce

relative to the number of warriors and, with increasing participation in the army, the demand for it

was abundant.3 Given that wealth in the ancient world was land-based, this constraint removed the

possibility for the landless poor and even many small landowners to enlist in the phalanx. Thus,

3 Nicholas Kyriazis and Xenophon Paparrigopoulos, “War and Democracy in Ancient Greece,” European Journal of Law and Economics 34, 2012, 170.

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owning a piece of armor was not only a high cost to bear, but also a display of wealth and,

consequently, status: “my great wealth is my spear and sword and fine animal hide shield, the

defense of my flesh.”4 This parameter may also apply to the aristocratic elites, who might spend

additional wealth in more elaborate armor and might have adhered some sort of legacy or divine

association to it. Nonetheless, the fact that both aristocrats and small farmers spent some portion of

their income on their panoplies served as an initial equalizing factor, for both had undergone the

same explicit cost to participate in the army.

In what concerns implicit costs, both small landholders and aristocrats were subject to

opportunity costs such as the forgone income by engaging in their day-to-day activities. Such

expenditure extended to all sorts of activities around the hoplite lifestyle such as training and drills,

which implied forgone time to increase their wealth.5 Nevertheless, the burden of this lost benefit

represented a different percentage of the total wealth for landholders with oikos within various sizes

and productivity levels. As mentioned by Quinn, the “loss of the hoplite's labor on the family farm,

it is thought, would be offset by the labor of the slaves who would have been owned by moderately

prosperous households.”6 Moreover, wealthy aristocrats could afford a sizable slave labor force to

work their fields, even when they were not in combat. Yet, this means that those landowners who

barely costed their lavish panoplies, could have returned from duty with a significant reduction of

their income – unless their wives and children could cover for missing labor. Furthermore, it is not

unreasonable to assume that many of these hoplites that returned empty-handed were unable to pay

back their debts, say for their panoply, and were forced to repay with their land and to sell

themselves into debt-bondage – as had happened previous to Solon’s reforms.

The battlefield was the reuniting place for all soldiers in the service of their polis, regardless

of wealth or status. As mentioned above, epic duels between highborn aristocrats were substituted

4 “The Drinking Song of Hybrias,” c. 700 BCE, In Readings in Greek History: Sources and Interpretations, edited by D. Brendan Nagle and Stanley Mayer Burstein (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 29.5 Hanson claims that hoplite armies were increasingly amateur with the exception of Sparta. See Victor Davis Hanson, The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 32.6 Michael F. Quinn, Beyond the Phalanx: Hoplites at War in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, 432-404 BC (Seattle: ProQuest LLC, 2010), 27.

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by the implementation of the phalanx. In such tight formation and in the battle tactic of pushing and

thrusting against the enemy line, the collective dynamism outweighed the individual prowess: “but

yet there is a lesson to be learnt (…) the lesson of mutual assistance. ‘Shoulder to shoulder’ must

we march to meet the invader; ‘shoulder to shoulder’ stand to compass the tillage of the soil.” 7In

this excerpt, Xenophon describes the essential, tight formation of the phalanx – “shoulder to

shoulder”–, but it may also resemble the egalitarian ethos within the military based on the way that

citizen-soldiers of different strata interacted – not to mention that it was within the interests of both

the wealthy elite and the landed poor to defend their holdings from invaders. In another account,

Plato highlights the same ideal of equality in the battlefield: “When the ruling class and their

subjects find themselves thrown together (…) as fellow soldiers, even in the face of danger they

will be watching one another. There the poor will not in the least be regarded with contempt by the

rich.”8 Thus, the development of a sense of equality is a recurring theme along different hoplite

narratives – every soldier was an equal to the men around him, was entitled an equal right of

audience and claim over the spoils of war, and bore the same responsibilities in battle as his fellow

men. In a poem by Archilochus, he introduces a standard of the real value of a soldier, which

correlates with the emerging egalitarian ethos: “I don't like a general who is big or who walks with

a swagger, or who glories in his curly hair, cut-off moustache. Give me a man who's little, bandy-

legged, feet firm on the ground, and full of heart.”9 Although it is inevitable that there was some

sort of hierarchy in the army, the hoplite narrative reveals the expectations for an ideal warrior,

disregarding any sort of exogenous inequalities. And, as the wealth and status barriers were cast

aside within the ranks of the phalanx, the claim for isonomia by the middle-class hoplites became

stronger and well-founded:

The citizen-hoplites became gradually conscious of their power in battle, and thus gained a new awareness of their personal worth (…) citizens of hoplite status did no longer look upon their ‘‘social betters’’ with awe, as during the Mycenaean period, nor were they any more willing to obey their commands.10

7 Xenophon, Oeconomicus 5.5 – 5.6, In The Works of Xenophon, Vol. 3, translated by H. G. Dakyns. (London: 1890).8 Plato in Quinn, Beyond the Phalanx, 52.9 Archilochus, “Fr. 60D,” c. 650 BCE, In The Aristocratic Ideal and Selected Papers, edited by Walter Donlan (Wauconda, Ill.: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 1999), 45.10 Kyriazis and Paparrigopoulos, “War and Democracy in Ancient Greece,” 171-172.

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Even though many scholars claim that the ensuing hoplite class needed an external influence to

acquire such awareness, the narratives by several ancient authors suggest that these soldiers had

some sort of self-consciousness of their power. Moreover, there is no doubt that they were

safeguarding their personal interests, including the protection of their wealth and the achievement of

areté. In the end, the most evident equalizing factor in the phalanx was the fact that every man

faced the same risk of death as his peers.

Motives and Incentives

“Since often enough in war it is surer and safer to quest for food with sword and buckler

than with all the instruments of husbandry” Xenophon 11

Why would the Greeks go to war in the first place? Moreover, why would small farmers

participate in the phalanx rather than cultivate their crops and earn income? The fact that such

tactical development and the ensuing improvements in the military technology were effective in

battle is not a sufficient argument for the drastic increase in the size of armies. Thus, the events of

the Hoplite Reform occur within a political context in which even the less wealthy had to stand their

ground against invaders and function within a moral framework that compels them to live a world

of violence. First, the economic incentives to go to war are mainly associated with the protection of

one’s oikos. In the Western Way of War, Hanson proposes that by the 7th century BCE farmers

decided to arm themselves after they “became restless at the idea that anyone may traverse their

own parcels of land”12 Furthermore, invading armies might have engaged in sabotage tactics, such

as ravaging the fields and destroying the orchards, vineyards and olives, to inflict a lasting long-

term damage to their enemies.13 Hence, war entailed to a considerable extent an economic necessity

to either preserve one’s property or accumulate further holdings. Based on this reasoning, engaging

in combat held a lower opportunity cost – the reduction of the farmer’s income – than that of

avoiding strife and risking the destruction or complete loss of their oikos.

11 Xenophon, Oeconomicus 5.4.12 Hanson, The Western Way of War, 29.13 Hanson, The Western Way of War, 33.

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In a second instance, the political and moral arguments to participate in the military are

closely attached. For example, the pursuit of higher political status is associated with the ancient

Greek moral standards, which beheld areté and timé (“honor”) among fundamental values. As the

following excerpt by Tyrtaeus illustrates, these were achieved to its maximal expression during

battle:

For the man is not agathos (brave) in war, unless he endures seeing the bloody slaughter, and stands close reaching out for the foe. This is areté, this is the best and loveliest prize for the young man to win. A common good is, for the whole polis and all the demos, when a man holds, firm-set among the fighters, unflinchingly (…) For it is a fine thing for an agathos man to die, falling among the front-fighters, fighting for his fatherland14

Even though Tyrtaeus lived in Sparta and, inevitably, was deeply influenced by the warrior culture

of this particular polis, the areté and courage portrayed in his narratives is a recurring theme across

the rest of the Greek states – especially concerning the duty to the polis15. Yet, setting aside the

technological and tactical developments, the mindset behind the devastating Greek military force

was nurtured by the shame culture:

It is a fine thing for a good man to fall in the front line fighting on behalf of his country; but is a grievous fate for a man to leave his city and rich fields and wander begging (…) He shames his family and ruins his noble beauty, and every form of disgrace and evil follows him16

It is important to notice that there is no shame in death. If a soldier dies in battle he will be a martyr

to his polis and he will be mourned and remembered. Therefore, the only way to fall into disgrace is

in life, through which an individual is bound to bear the consequences of his lack of courage. And,

in the same way as glorious ancestry, infamy and shame are attached to the legacy of any hoplite.

However, Hanson suggests a limitation to this line of thought based on the fact that, even

though several military campaigns took place, the Greeks desired to limit confrontation to reduce

costs.17 This might seem like a contradiction to the absolute bloodlust discussed by Tyrtaeus,

14 Tyrtaeus, “War Songs,” No. III, c. 650 B.C. In A Source Book of Greek History, edited by Fred Morrow Fling (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1907), 56-57.15 The duty to the polis was a recurring theme within the Greek poleis. This is shown in the Athenian epheboi – the oath of service to the army: “I will not bring shame on my sacred arms nor will I abandon the man beside me, wherever I may stand in line. I will defend the sacred and holy and will pass on my fatherland, not smaller, but greater and better insofar as I am able and with the help of others.” See Quinn, Beyond the Phalanx, 59-60.16 Tyrtaeus “Fragment 10.” In Elygy and Iambus, Vol. 1, edited by J.M. Edmonds (Cambridge, 1931)17 Hanson, The Western Way of War, 4.

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Socrates and other sources of the time, yet it justifies the effectiveness of Greek combat. The more

time small farmers spent campaigning, the less income they produced from working their crops.

Therefore, any sort of strife was to be brief and decisive, and hoplites were to display the most of

their courage and achieve areté throughout the short-lasting conflicts. Nonetheless, this framework

is constrained to the small-scaled struggles between poleis, setting aside major events such as the

Persian and the Peloponnesian Wars. During the latter two, the moral mindset around courage and

areté is almost conspicuous, yet the costs of both wars were extremely elevated to demonstrate that

either side desired an expedite end to the conflict.

Alternative Explanations

In The Other Greeks, Hanson suggests a similar socioeconomic model of the Hoplite

Reform, yet he centers his study on the object of farming land rather than the whole picture of

tradeoffs between the hoplite and the agricultural activities. He concurs with Viggiano and

Cartledge in that overpopulation and relative land hunger were stimuli of revolution and struggle

both inside and outside the polis. Within the local affairs of the city-state, “the population pressure

on limited land led to the use of more intensive farming techniques, such as the cultivation of

marginal lands and farmstead residence.”18 The concept of “land hunger” originates from the fact

that, as population escalated at a faster rate, land became increasingly scarce – especially quality

arable land –, and small farmers started colonizing terrains around mountain slopes and relatively

away from water sources. According to Hanson, the conflicts that arose during the time of the

Hoplite Revolution were over land, and followed the competitive settlement of marginal lands.19

This “novel agrarianism” expanded in massive proportions and promoted an egalitarian ethos, based

upon the fairly similar holdings of these independent landed non-aristocrats. Consequently, it was

they who provided “the ‘best’ type of government (…) but possible only when they are present in

sufficient numbers to prevent class strife between the very rich and the abject poor.”20 Thus, the

18 Hanson in Gregory F. Viggiano. “The Hoplite Revolution and the Rise of the Polis,” In Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 122.19 Hanson in Kagan and Viggiano, “The Hoplite Debate,” 28.20 Aristotle in Kagan and Viggiano, “The Hoplite Debate,” 33.

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broader oligarchies, which had acquired significant political and military power, emerged as a

middle ground between the narrow aristocracy and the direct democracy, which included the

poorest classes.

As a major critique of Hanson’s model of the agrarian and military reforms, Lin Foxhall

affirms that “archaeological and historical data differ in character, and historical ‘events’ do not

map easily onto archaeological ‘events.’”21 After conducting several archeological excavations

across the Greek Peninsula, her findings of the Early- to Mid-Archaic period (650 – 535 BCE)

reveal the movement and settlement patterns of the land-working population – unlike Hanson’s

revolutionary colonization of marginal lands (e.g. hillslopes). Naturally, Foxhall questions not the

increasing rural mobilization, but, rather, the purpose or motives behind it: “in periods when

investment in the countryside and pressure on land increased for whatever reasons (e.g., increased

wealth, increasing population, additional sources of labor), individual households tried to make the

most of the land to which they had access.”22 The sites studied during the expedition suggest a

predominant agglomeration of farmers in isolated “farmsteads” around places with direct access to

water sources (e.g. valley bottoms and basin plains). Nonetheless, she insists that the occupation

and exploitation of marginal lands were a later phenomenon during the Classical and even Roman

Greece. One of the main issues faced was the spatial variability of particular phenomena. Foxhall

mentions that even though many poleis present some general traits, the relative peaks of rural

settlement vary spatially and are linked to different historical developments throughout. A question

left unanswered by the expedition is who owned these properties, or, to a further extent, were the

settlements found worked or, at least, inhabited by non-aristocrat, independent farmers?

Broader Political Implications

The events of the Hoplite Reform and the strengthening claim for isonomia inevitably

reshaped the social and political structure of the polis. The mindset developed in the interior of the

21 Lin Foxhall. “Can We See the ‘Hoplite Revolution’ on the Ground? Archaeological Landscapes, Material Culture, and Social Status in Early Greece,” In Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 195.22 Foxhall, “Can We See the ‘Hoplite Revolution’ on the Ground?,” 217.

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phalanx and the ensuing political capital acquired by the middle class represented a threat to the

aristocratic claim to power. Nonetheless, the transition to democracy was far from expedite and

such form of government arose only after Kleisthenes’ reforms. Ironically, the aristocracy played a

crucial and decisive role in the development of previous reforms. According to Vassillopolus, the

Athenian ruling elite “allowed Solon extraordinary powers” to modify the legislation in an attempt

to avoid any possibility of civil war or stasis, while preserving their privileged position in society.23

Thus, Solon’s reforms can be perceived as a preemptive concession by the aristocrats, yet it would

not cease the constant pursuit for egalitarianism. In other words, even though these reforms were

not violent, they were inevitably anticipating a further revolution:

Solon did not seek to overthrow the aristocrats but simply to check their power, and it was he who first gave to the citizens of middling property and to the general mass, a locus standi against the eupatrids. The hoplites broke the monopoly on political power that the aristocracy of birth had held.24

As a result of the breach of elite power monopoly, new non-aristocratic leaders rose to power after

building their support on the empowered demos. To explain the rise of tyrannies, Hammer relies

upon the concept of plebiscitary leadership “in which the decisions of leaders derive at least part of

their legitimacy from the acclaim (…) of the people.”25 Thus, tyrants and their followers can

resemble an early form of patronage in which the demos supported the ruler that satisfied their

interests. In return, the ruled acknowledged his authoritarian actions as legitimate. For instance,

following Solon’s reforms, Aristotle writes that “people fell to the ground and accepted

[Peisistratus] with awe” after his first return from exile, and he “told to the crowd (…) to go home

and look after their private affairs [while] he took care of the state.”26 However, the debate behind

the rise of democracy begs the question of the hoplite class’ self-consciousness. According to

Snodgrass, conceiving a political class with a solid and defined internal initiative to change the

social structure was unprecedented and challenged the ancient Greek traditional mentality.27 Thus,

one can affirm that the hoplite class was the most potentially powerful political force, but only

23 Christopher Vasillopulos, “The Nature of Athenian Hoplite Democracy,” Armed Forces & Society (1995), 58.24 Grote on Kagan and Viggiano, “The Hoplite Debate,” 6.25 Dean Hammer, “Homer, Tyranny, and Democracy,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 39, no. 4 (1998), 335.26 Aristotle on Hammer, “Homer, Tyranny, and Democracy,” 354.27 Anthony Snodgrass, “The Hoplite Reform and History,” Archaeology and the Emergence of Greece, (2006), 115.

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lacked a trigger or an inciting incident to make its will and desire manifest. This leads to a more

intriguing question: to what extent did aristocrats bring upon the upsurge of democracy?

Conclusion

The hoplite reform occurred at a time when the non-aristocrat citizens of the polis faced political

and economic dependence on the basilei and, subsequently, on the narrow ruling elites. This picture

started changing around the military demands of a violent society, which influenced every citizen’s

life, especially his wealth and status. Thus, it is impossible to deny that ancient Greeks had at least

some grasp of economic rational choice, especially when individuals were faced by the various

costs of living and serving in the phalanx. This may have triggered a reform of the socioeconomic

relationship between the different classes, aiming towards a reduction of the imbalances between

the wealthy aristocrats and the smaller landholders. Nonetheless, even though the claim for

isonomia spread in the ranks of the phalanx, there is little evidence to prove that the middle class

transformed the political system, at least by their own internal initiative. One reason for uncertainty

is the lack of primary sources written by authors of the demos, for the vast majority of evidence was

created or sponsored by the aristocratic elites. Yet, these accounts acknowledge the importance of

the hoplite middle class in the pursuit of any political move. The claim that the external leadership

contributed to channel the pleas of this social group towards particular political objectives seems

more plausible than the spontaneous and organic materialization of an early form of socialism.

Although the zeugitai were the main focus of the hoplite reform, full democracy was not

achieved until the Classical Period, once the thetes – landless poor – were integrated into the

political and economic specter. Hence, the framework of this research can be applied to the

incorporation of the lower classes into the Athenian civic navies, especially in terms of the

incentives, risks and costs of participating in war. Moreover, such public investments also contain

an important participation of the wealthy aristocrats who financed many of the ships and held

important political and military offices. Taking this into account, the amount of wealth surrounding

military activity proves that war was probably the greatest economic activity of antiquity.

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