Anabasis!
By Andrew Yamato
A woodland trek event simulating a route march and field encampment.
In July 2023, John Bracken and I undertook a Greek “trek” in upstate New York, paring down our impressions to a practical marching order for an overnight expedition in the wilderness. Although Roman and later reenactors have been mounting such trips for years in Europe (some very ambitious), this was to our knowledge the first time it’s been done with Greek kit.
The standard assumption is that hoplites had slaves, servants, and pack animals to carry their panoplies and supplies, and this was almost certainly the case in the Archaic era of small-scale border wars between neighboring poleis. One big exception to this rule were mercenary hoplites, many if not most of whom seem to have carried their own equipment; by far our most detailed evidence of classical troops on the march and encamped is Xenophon’s account of the 10,000.
We have some evidence that citizen hoplites also found themselves fending for themselves on the extended campaigns of the Classical era. Thucydides describes many overseas hoplite deployments during the Pentecontaetia (the approximately five decades between the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars); it’s unclear whether personal slaves/servants accompanied their masters on such expeditions, but given the very limited passenger capacity of triremes, we must assume that if they did so it was as rowers. By the Peloponnesian War itself, however, Thucydides specifically attests that hoplites sometimes “worked their own passage” – i.e. rowed themselves – on triremes, as as the case with the 1000 hoplites Paches led to Mytilene in 428. In such instances, hoplites must have found a way to move inland carrying their own panoply, equipment, and supplies, and the goal of the weekend was to experiment with several methods of doing so.
As many of us know all too well, the hoplite’s panoply alone makes for a heavy and awkward marching load. The helmet, greaves, and armor are most efficiently worn rather than carried, and this can get uncomfortably hot. Corinthian helmets in particular are oppressive when worn lowered and precarious when balanced on the back of the head, and it’s easy to surmise that for these reasons alone it fell out of favor as a poor “campaigning” helmet. We both opted to wear our petasoi(?) and carry our helmets suspended in jute net bags.
Our assumption was that even Classical hoplites would carry two spears on campaign, with the spare serving double duty as a centerpole for a simple tent. Further speculating that such a tent would accommodate two men, it seemed extremely practical to devise a portage system whereby two sussitoi (literally “tentmates”) shared their burden by bundling their spare spears (now doing triple duty) and wrapping or hanging their supplies and equipment from it – essentially a two-man version of the Roman legionnaire’s furca, and sharing with it the virtue of being easy to put down to rest or in case of attack.
The aspis can only be carried on the arm or slung on the back. Our aspides are rigged in such a manner that arm loops can easily be pulled out with the slack in the telamon; with its weight thus distributed across the breadth of the epomides and the porpax fitting into the small of the back, the aspis can be very comfortably carried for extended periods. The primary problem with this arrangement is that if the aspis is worn slung across the back, the rim prevents the ends of the baggage bundle poles from being carried on the shoulders. The bundle can be carried underhand, but this “fireman’s carry” uses small muscles in the forearms and quickly gets exhausting. We found the most sustainable option to be carrying the aspis on the left arm, resting on the shoulder, with the baggage bundle poles shouldered on the right. This arrangement also has the benefit of being more combat-ready.
In addition to our full panoplies, our equipment and supplies consisted of one canvas tent (with iron stakes in a leather carrier), woven grass sleeping mats, chlamyses, extra chitons, a blanket, two large gourds and a goatskin of water and watered wine, a (Roman) brass situla pail and patera pan for cooking, and various stachels and baskets filled with olive oil, barley flour, olives, cheese, onions, garlic, nuts, dried fruit, beans and fish, and itrion energy bars made from sesame seeds and honey.
We were lucky with the weather – clear, dry, and not too hot – but we found the approximately one mile hike in to be hard going, passing over heavily broken terrain and through dense underbrush that kept stripping off our leather spearhead covers. Frequent rest breaks were necessary, making us wonder how many miles an army so equipped could possibly have marched in a day, especially under a blazing Mediterranean sun! (We were mostly in the shade.) Marching barefoot was simply inconceivable.
Our chosen site was amid what we speculate might be extensive pre-Columbian Indian ruins near Suffern in upstate New York. Massive stone walls – in some cases up to 25 ft wide and extending far below grade – mark what seem to be a quite extensive and orderly system of roads, dams, and structures that perhaps pre-date both colonial settlers and the native tribes present at the time of their arrival.
Upon arrival at our campsite, we wasted no time in stripping down for a refreshing dip in a small pond fed by a stone weir. After setting up camp, we built a fire to cook a simple dinner. Our fire-baked barley masa cakes burst in our mouths with the taste and texture of fine gravel, but the dried fish and lentil stew was more successful. Owing to many evening libations, magmatic heartburn made for a dark night of the soul, but we made it back to the car with a slightly lightened load the next morning. The only people we encountered all weekend were an elderly couple hiking in the woods; we were probably their most-liked post on FB that month!
This was an incredibly rewarding and illuminating experience, and one we hope to repeat with the larger Phalanx on a regular basis.