Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece by Donald Kagan, Gregory F. Viggiano Page A

still remains to testify to the wealth and elite status of the helmet’s original owner. Rich decoration had been applied with chasing hammers and punches: two snakes curling above the eye-holes; a palmette or peacock’s tail on the forehead; and heraldic lions on the cheek-pieces. Such elaborate decoration is rare on Corinthian helmets, though more common in the Archaic period than in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. This spectacular piece of early Greek metalworking is now on display at Israel’s National Maritime Museum in Haifa, which overlooks the waters where the helmet lay hidden for some 2600 years. Photo by Warhaftig Venezian Photographers for the Maritime Museum of Haifa. Text description courtesy of Israel Antiquities Authority and Jacob Sharvit.

Copyright © 2013 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire ox20 1tw
    press.princeton.edu
    Jacket Photograph: Haifa Bay helmet. Photo by Warhaftig Venezian
Photographers for the Maritime Museum of Haifa. Courtesy of
Israel Antiquities Authority and Jacob Sharvit.
    All Rights Reserved
    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
    Men of bronze : hoplite warfare in ancient Greece / edited by Donald Kagan and Gregory F. Viggiano.
        pages cm
    “The papers published in this volume resulted from a conference on early Greek hoplite warfare held at Yale University in April 2008.”
    Includes bibliographical references and index.
    ISBN 978-0-691-14301-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Military art and science—Greece—History—To 1500—Congresses. 2. Soldiers—Greece—History—To 1500—Congresses. 3. Greece—History, Military—To 146 B.C.—Congresses. 4. Weapons, Ancient—Greece—Congresses. 5. Armor, Ancient—Greece—Congresses. I. Kagan, Donald, author, editor of compilation. II. Viggiano, Gregory, author, editor of compilation.
    U33.M46 2013
    355.4′738—dc23
    2012047892
    British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
    This book has been composed in Garamond Premier Pro
    Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
    Printed in the United States of America
    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

PREFACE
    DONALD KAGAN AND GREGORY F. VIGGIANO
    The papers published in this volume resulted from a conference on early Greek hoplite warfare held at Yale University in April 2008. The idea for the conference grew out of a spirited debate that took place following a panel presentation at the American Philological Association’s annual meeting at San Diego in January 2007, “New Perspectives on Ancient Warfare.” From the audience, Gregory Viggiano argued in favor of the theses of Victor Davis Hanson’s The Western Way of War and The Other Greeks against the positions of Peter Krentz and Hans van Wees. These scholars later agreed to continue the debate in a formal setting. Viggiano then discussed with Donald Kagan the unique possibility of having the world’s leading scholars on the subject air out their differences face-to-face at Yale. Further discussions with Paul Cartledge helped bring about the Yale conference. The conference panels debated a variety of issues surrounding the hoplite orthodoxy and the attempts to revise it: (1) questions concerning the origins of the tactics and weapons employed by the Greek hoplite (heavily-armed infantryman), fighting in massed formation on behalf of his autonomous city-state (polis); (2) questions about the political, economic, and social significance of the new mode of fighting; and (3) questions regarding the impact hoplite warfare had on Greek culture in general. All these issues have in recent years been at the center of one of the liveliest and most important controversies in the fields of classical studies, ancient political history, and ancient military history.
    We want to thank everyone who contributed to the success of the Yale conference, which was