spear, sword, bow, &c., and commanded by the chiefs in their
war-chariots. In historic times all this is changed. Greece becomes a
congeries of city-states, each with its own citizen-militia. Federal
armies and permanent troops are rare, the former owing to the
centrifugal tendency of Greek politics, the latter because the
"tyrannies," which must have relied very largely on standing armies to
maintain themselves, had ultimately given way to democratic
institutions. But the citizen-militia of Athens or Sparta resembled
rather a modern "nation in arms" than an auxiliary force. Service was
compulsory in almost all states, and as the young men began their career
as soldiers with a continuous training of two or three years, Hellenic
armies, like those of modern Europe, consisted of men who had undergone
a thorough initial training and were subsequently called up as required.
Cavalry, as always in the broken country of the Peloponnesus, was not of
great importance, and it is only when the theatre of Greek history is
extended to the plains of Thessaly that the mounted men become numerous.
In the 4th century the mainstay of Greek armies was the _hoplite_
([Greek: hoplitaes]), the heavy-armed infantryman who fought in the
_corps de bataille_; the light troops were men who could not provide the
full equipment of the hoplite, rather than soldiers trained for certain
special duties such as skirmishing. The fighting formation was that of
the _phalanx_, a solid corps of hoplites armed with long spears. The
armies were recruited for each war by calling up one or more classes of
men in reserve according to age. It was the duty and privilege of the
free citizen to bear arms; the slaves were rarely trusted with weapons.