 Editor in Chief Bill   | 31 Jan 2012 5:11 p.m. PST |
Othismos – literally, shoving or pushing – is the type of combat in which hoplite armies engage. Do you believe Ancient armies engaged in a literal shoving match, similar to a football scrum? Or was this a figurative, metaphorical term when used by ancient writers? |
| elsyrsyn | 31 Jan 2012 5:42 p.m. PST |
Not quite like a rugby scrum, but yes, I do believe the othismos would have been characteristic of some hoplite battles. Doug |
| Yesthatphil | 31 Jan 2012 5:44 p.m. PST |
Both and both. Hoplites engaged both in doratismos 'spear fighting' and othismos 'close combat' – so I believe they fought loosey at a slight separation _and in a shoving match 'at close quarters'. And I believe othismos means pressing both figuratively and literally. Depending on the circumstance*. Phil Steele
* but it almost certainly means too close to use your spear. |
| John the OFM | 31 Jan 2012 6:38 p.m. PST |
Once the two phalanges crashed into each other, what else are they going to do? If one or the other closes, that is what you get.
Since both sides expected the clash, rolling your morale to charge was not difficult. |
| Sergeant Paper | 31 Jan 2012 6:47 p.m. PST |
The press of pike is a whole lot of pushing and shoving. There was a samurai movie, shot in Canada in 1989, which showed ashigaru pike shoving away in just such a manner, ISTR it was called "Heaven and Earth" (Ten to chi to)." imdb.com/title/tt0099753 |
| Jemima Fawr | 31 Jan 2012 11:54 p.m. PST |
I think I went to his tomb in Egypt. |
| EvilBen | 01 Feb 2012 8:08 a.m. PST |
I think Phil's probably right. For what it's worth, my view is that othismos does not seem to be used of typical hoplite battles. Thucydides says that there was an othismos 'of shields' at Delium (4.96.2), in the context of a particularly gruelling struggle. The fact that he has to qualify it with 'ἀσπίδων' suggests to me that he does not understand it as a technical term for normal hoplite combat. Otherwise it tends to turn up where troops are particularly crammed together (as in Xenophon Anabasis 5.2 where some men are trying to get out of a town of the Drilai through the gates while others are trying to get in). At Plataia Herodotus says that 'it came to the othismos' (9.62) only at the very end of the bitter struggle around the sanctuary of Demeter (though that didn't involve hoplites on both sides). Doratismos is even rarer. Is it used by anyone before Plutarch? None of that has much direct bearing on the actual question, I suppose. My point is really that you can't build too much on the (infrequent) use of a single word. |
| Connard Sage | 01 Feb 2012 8:26 a.m. PST |
That's a hell of a lisp you've got there… |
| Keraunos | 02 Feb 2012 12:48 a.m. PST |
interesting thought EvilBen. Working in a similar vein to Koon's recent paper on Livy and his use of key Latin words. the difficulty with the literal interpretation of othismos is the guys in the front rank being squeezed between shields for and back. If the word is deomnstrably being used in the same way we use the word scrum (which outside of a rugby game, is a metophor), it is an interesting thought. and a small shivering forward and back of the shield line would look like something describable as othismos to anyone not in the front rank. |
| JJartist | 02 Feb 2012 10:02 a.m. PST |
Most struggles don't last that long… sometimes the combat is over before it starts, other times it comes to pushing and shoving. The idea of a formation of ranks 'weight' is nonsense and Du Picq debunks that… but a push of the soldiers in the front ranks in a mob action is verifiable on the streets of any city. A formation of ranks has psychological power (for those secure in the formation) but if it actually comes to a battle of attrition can be of value, but normally not as it is almost always it is the rear ranks that lose heart and run first… but hoplite battles rarely go that long… and can be diverse.
Koroneia is the wierdest example-- a Theban phalanx and a Spartan phalanx face off after turning completely around and the combat is extremely hard fought… the Thebans eventually break and run through the Spartan phalanx- back to their own lines. The Spartans don't appear to have been in an othismos or shield lapping formation after the prolonged fight, or this could not have happened. There are other references for reverse front combats where the defeated enemy break out through the victorious formation as well.
The simple answer is that there is no simple answer.
JJ |
