Western Way of War

In this unique program we trace the invention of the Western Way of War and its subsequent evolution. Victor Davis Hanson has suggested that the Greeks of the city-states were the first people on earth to contract between themselves, as equals, to fight the enemy shoulder to shoulder, without flinching from wounds, and not to yield the ground on which they fought until either the enemy had broken or they themselves lay dead. Fifth-century Greeks, in short, invented not only the central idea of Western politics—that power in a state should reside in the vote of the majority—but also the central act of Western warfare, the “decisive battle.” For ambush, skirmish, ritual conflict, and single combat between heroes, the types of warfare that had preceded their own, the Greeks of the city-states substituted the all-or-nothing of pitched battle.

We study the evolution of the Greek phalanx, Athenian and Spartan, through the battles Marathon and Thermopylae. Then in the battle of Mantinea we examine the Theban phalanx while in the battle of Chaeronea we witness the rise of the Macedonian phalanx. Lastly we consider the Romans contributed to the western way of war, making the legions more flexible and fluid, in the battles of Cynoscephalae and Pharsalus.