Athenian Military Organisation, Recruitment and Funding

A military built from citizens and public money

In fifth-century BC Athens, military strength depended on bringing together people, money and organisation. Athens had no permanent professional army. Its hoplites and cavalry were mainly citizens (resident foreigners could also be called up as hoplites), called up or volunteering when the city needed them; its fleets were crewed mostly by paid volunteers, both citizens and non-citizens. Its wars were paid for by a combination of public funds and the private wealth of rich Athenians.

The army and the navy made different demands. A hoplite, a heavily armed infantry soldier, normally provided his own equipment, so serving as a hoplite required some wealth. A rower did not need armour, but the ship he rowed in was very expensive to build and run. This is why poorer citizens could make an important military contribution at sea.

Paying for the navy

Public money built the fleet. In 483 BC a rich new seam of silver was found in Athens' mines at Laurium. Themistocles proposed using the silver to build a new fleet of 200 triremes, while his rival Aristides wanted it shared out among the citizens. The Assembly carried Themistocles' motion, but at first voted for only 100 triremes. Later, as they became aware of Persian preparations for invasion, the Athenians voted to build even more ships than Themistocles had first asked for. War with Aegina and the growing Persian threat gave Athens reasons to invest in ships.

Wealthy citizens ran the ships. Athens used liturgies: expensive public services that wealthy men performed at their own cost. The main military liturgy was the trierarchy. The trierarch paid to equip and maintain a trireme and its crew for a year, and was expected to command the ship himself. Because most of the fleet was kept ready in this way, wealthy citizens' money turned Athens' ships into working warships.

Pay kept crews at sea. Rowers were paid for their service. Plutarch says Pericles sent out sixty triremes every year, on which large numbers of citizens sailed for eight months under pay, practising seamanship as they went. Paying crews was a constant expense even when no new ships were being built.

Tribute and reserves funded long wars. Athens' power rested on the tribute paid by its allies. At the start of the Peloponnesian War, Pericles reminded the Athenians (Thucydides 2.13) that about 600 talents of allied tribute came in each year and that 6,000 talents of coined silver were stored on the Acropolis. These reserves allowed Athens to keep fleets and armies in the field for years.

A war tax on the rich. When the cost of war rose, Athens could levy the eisphora, a special contribution collected from the wealthy to help pay for the war.

Paying for the army

Hoplites bought and maintained their own arms and armour. Wealth also decided what role a man could take: the property class called the zeugitai could generally afford hoplite equipment, while many of the poorest citizens, the thetes, served as rowers. On campaigns abroad, however, soldiers were paid wages in silver by the state. During the siege of Potidaea (432–430/429 BC), each hoplite received two drachmas a day: one drachma for himself and one for his servant. The crews of the ships were paid at the same rate, one drachma a day for each man. Thucydides says this siege, together with keeping so many ships at sea, did most to exhaust Athens' treasury.

Recruiting the army

Military service was an obligation of citizenship. Athens raised hoplites in two main ways:

• The general levy. For a major emergency or an invasion, all men of military age could be called out at once, 'the whole army'.
• Selective conscription by list. For most expeditions Athens needed only part of its hoplites. The Assembly authorised a force of a particular size, such as 1,000 hoplites; the largest number known to have been conscripted in this way in the fifth century was 4,000. The generals then conscripted men up to that number and wrote their names on lists called katalogoi.

The lists were posted in the agora at the monument of the eponymous heroes, the statues of the heroes who gave their names to Athens' ten tribes, so every man could see whether he had been called up. Copies went to the commanders of each tribal regiment, who checked the names at the muster and noted anyone absent. Failing to serve when called could lead to prosecution.

Compulsion was not the only route. In one well-known case, the Assembly allowed the general Tolmides to conscript 1,000 hoplites for a raid on Spartan territory. He told those liable that it would be better to volunteer than to be seen to be forced, and so many volunteers came forward that he set out with 4,000 hoplites. By the fourth century, Athenians were organised into year-groups of citizens aged 18 to 59, each named after a hero, and could be called up by age group.

Cavalry. Athens also kept a cavalry force of about 1,000 men, drawn from the richest citizens. Each year the cavalry commander recruited replacements for the men who had been lost or had retired, to keep the total at 1,000. Xenophon advised him to find suitable rich young men and persuade them to join voluntarily, but if necessary they could be compelled by legal means.

Metics (resident foreigners) could also be called on: the emergency mobilisation of 480 BC against Persia applied to metics as well as citizens, and Athens decided in each war whether to include metic hoplites in a general levy.

Recruiting the navy

A trireme needed a crew of about 200 men: 170 rowers, a dozen or so sailors and officers, and a small force of marines. The captains themselves were recruited in a similar way to the cavalry. At the start of their year in office, the generals drew up a list of 400 trierarchs. Wealthy men would ideally volunteer, but the process always also involved legal compulsion.

Athens filled the crews in three ways:

• Paid volunteers. Normally the rowers and sailors served voluntarily and were recruited for wages by the ship's captain, the trierarch. They did not have to be citizens: crews included poorer citizens, resident foreigners (metics), foreign professional rowers and slaves.
• Volunteer marines. The marines, typically about ten per ship, were volunteer hoplites enrolled by the generals.
• Compulsory levies in emergencies. When Athens needed every ship manned at once, it could order a general naval levy, as in 480 BC against Persia. In a naval levy of 362 BC, local officials had to draw up lists of men and deliver them for the ships, and one captain whose men failed to appear hired professional rowers instead.

Because most crews were paid, a large fleet depended on a steady supply of money.

Training

Athens organised very little training for its hoplites. Unlike Sparta, Athens did not put its citizens through a long, compulsory military upbringing, and democratic cities like Athens exercised only limited control over military training. Pericles turned this into a boast in his Funeral Oration (Thucydides 2.39): while Athens' enemies 'seek bravery with painful training from the cradle, we live at ease, yet are equally prepared to face the same dangers'. Athenian hoplites relied on their own fitness and on experience gained by serving on repeated campaigns alongside the men of their tribe.

The navy was different, because rowing had to be learned together. Rowers had to keep a common rhythm and respond instantly to commands. The sixty triremes Pericles sent out each year gave thousands of citizens eight months of paid practice at sea, which is one reason Athenian crews were so skilled. On board, the piper (aulētēs) gave the rowers their rhythm.

Command and organisation

Generals. From the reforms of Cleisthenes, Athens elected a board of ten generals (strategoi) every year, originally one from each tribe. The ten were of equal status, and over time they took over the military role of the older war-leader, the polemarch, who had lost it by the classical period. They commanded Athens' forces on land and at sea. Many leading politicians of the fifth century, such as Themistocles, Cimon and Pericles, also served as generals, combining military command with political influence. Because generals were elected each year, the citizens chose who led them.

The army. Hoplites were organised in tribal regiments, one for each of the ten tribes, each led by its own tribal commander under the generals. This meant that men served alongside fellow members of their tribe, and orders passed from the generals through the regimental commanders to the ranks.

The navy. Each trireme was commanded by its trierarch. Below him, the deck crew (hypēresia) was headed by the helmsman (kybernētēs), an experienced seaman who steered the ship and was often its effective commander. Other officers included the bow lookout, the boatswain (keleustēs), who directed the rowers, a shipwright and the piper. A trireme also carried about 10 to 20 marines (epibatai) and a few archers for fighting.

Evaluating the system

Athens' system had clear strengths. It could raise large numbers of citizen hoplites when needed, it could compel its richest citizens to serve as cavalrymen and trierarchs, its public wealth and the trierarchy kept a large fleet at sea, and paid practice made its rowers among the best in Greece. Its weaknesses came from the same features: hoplites had little organised training, and the fleet depended on a steady flow of money, from tribute and reserves, to keep paying its crews.