"Spartan Banners or Symbols" Topic

Does anyone know if Spartans carried flags, banners or symbols into battle? I have not seen anything in pictures. Thanks.

It's hard to prove a negative, but I'd be very surprised. No references in contemporary writing to any such, and no images on Greek pottery show anything along those lines. (Before you ask, this is also true of Athens and Thebes.)

For myself, I stick with painted shields. I'm probably using those Lambdas on the shields earlier than is strictly historical, but then I don't build two periods of Spartan Army.

No, they didn't. The Greeks generally didn't carry standards till after Alexander, and even then it's not clear that it ever caught on in the city-state armies as opposed to the Hellenistic kings.

There is, though, a reference in Diodoros (XV.52.5) to a Theban clerk or orderly ("grammateus") with a ribbon tied to his spear used for signalling orders. No reason to believe that Thebans were unique, so I'm putting something like that on a Spartan command element to help identify it.

Thanks for the information. One less thing to worry about. As an aside, from your gaming experience how do Spartans hold up in many ancient rules? Thanks again

That last question is very rules specific and potentially scenario specific. Also, it will depend whether you are playing strictly historical opponents or not.

I have run into the same reference as above about the possibility of colored pennants, but that is it.

However, this topic is arguable as command control was supposedly present and if it was present, a unit marker (same color tunics? Flags? Banners? Shields? Something?!) would need to be present, more so than indicated. It is laughable to assume there was none, unless the garbage about any ancient commander actually "commanding" is as overblown as I think it is as you aren't going to hear anything in the cacophony of a field battle.

Current thinking seems to be that ancient battles were a series of surges of activity and lulls. Presumably new instructions (command) would be issued during those lulls.

I've certainly never seen any indication of colour coded tunics, flags, banners or shield designs within the Spartan army.

Cheers,
John

There are references by ancient writers to the "docana" being carried into battle by Spartan armies (presumably when the king was in the field). This was a symbol of the Dioscuri, the "twins", Castor and Pollux (Polydeuces), who were revered in Sparta as religious figures, and would correspond to the sign for Gemini, something like a roman numeral II. What form this device took is unclear. On a banner or flag, or a carved or moulded shape like a Roman eagle?

Who are these ancient writers, piper909? I'd be grateful to find out. The only reference to "dokana" I can find in anything classical is in Plutarch (478a, beginning of the peri philadelphias). No mention there of their being a symbol carried into battle, though: it just sounds like a kind of statue (and a # rather than a II). So I must be missing something.

Let me check my library and I'll get back to you! Just house moved, as well as getting my TMP membership active again. I should have those books unpacked and on the shelves now.

OK, here's a couple of things I was able to re-check. Unfortunately, most of the modern books on ancient Sparta have woefully inadequate indices. Docana/dokana barely registers. I looked up a few references to dioscuri but did not generally find anything very useful, altho L.F. Fitzhardinge's "The Spartans" discusses the symbolism of the dioscuri in art and bas-relief finds in Sparta and includes a few photographs of these.

Nick Sekunda's "The Spartan Army" (an Osprey Elite series title) mentions the dokana in the description to Plate C, which depicts a representation; he also notes this as a "standard" of Sparta and refers to the "beam figures" as being "carried in front of the army on campaign" but cites no reference for this.

H. Michell's "Sparta" (Cambridge University Press) provides the reference I remembered best. On p. 107, he writes, "When the king advanced into battle the sacred symbol of the Dioscuri, the dokana, were carried before him." This statement is footnoted as follows:

"Dokana: Plutarch, De frat. amore, 1; Suidas, s.v.; two upright bars joined at each end by horizontal bars, as in the astronomical figure of the Gemini. Nilsson, "Minoan-Mycenean Religion," p. 470, explains this on the ground that the Dioscuri were the house gods of the Spartan kings and the symbol represented a house. Cf. also Farnell, "Greek Hero Cults," p. 189; A.B.S.A. XIII, p. 214; Tod-Wace, "Catalog of Sparta Museum", fig. 588, p. 193"

Sorry that the "select bibliography" does not provide more information about all these abbreviations!

Anyway, without doing more extensive combing, that's the best I can provide.

Thanks, Piper! That's really helpful. I appreciate it!

The abbreviations aren't a problem. (That's the same bit of Plutarch I found; ABSA is the Annual of the British School at Athens, I assume).

I still don't see why Michell thought that the dokana were carried in front of the king, since Plutarch doesn't say that; nor, so far as I can see, does Xenophon in the Lak Pol. I now see that Cartledge makes the same claim in his Agesilaos book, though not mentioning the dokana specifically (just some kind of image of the Dioscuri). His footnote goes to an article by Carlier in a journal (Ktema) that I shall have to look up in an actual library… If I don't get any joy there I guess I'll just have to ask him! Anyway, I shall report back.

Thanks again!

Khaire, Ben! (you can';t truly be "evil") -- you're welcome! Glad this was of some use -- I'm only sorry I couldn't provide more, what with limited time to trawl the library or review the classical sources I have on hand. I expect this is just going to be another of those things that in the end, we simply don't have enough information about. But that doesn't stop modern scholars from furiously writing new interpretations and re-imaginings. How else are those eager academics going to get tenure, or chairs?