1. WAR AS AN ECONOMIC ACTIVITY
IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
Causes and Implicationsof the Hoplite Reform
Juan Pablo Poch
November 30, 2015
Ancient Economy
Prof. Andrew Smith II

2. 1
In 2000, American military historian Victor Davis Hanson wrote that “any time the Western
wayof war can be unleashed on an enemy stupid enough to enterits arena,victory is assured.” Beyond
idolizing Western civilization’s military performance throughout history, Hanson’s statement raises
several questions about the development of this particular approach to warfare and its various
consequences and implications at local and global scales. This evolutionary process traces back to
Ancient Greece (c. 800 BCE), of which the main if not only written accounts of the time were
Homer’s epics. Both the Iliad and the Odyssey not only stand as the prime works of literature of
antiquity —and, thus, entertainment—, but also illustrate the archetypical Greek role model as a
heroic warrior and adventurer. Most scholars admit that these characterswith God-given prowessand
divine aegis were inspired in the ruling landed aristocrats from the early city-states or poleis. These
used such religious themes as a unifying force to bring about the synoikism,or the coming together
of the oikos (“households”), and to bestow upon themselves the power to govern the emerging
structured societies. However, the continuing population growth of the newly formed urban centers
and the associated increases in demand for resources (e.g. land and food) triggered an extensive and
persistent change in the structures and institutions of the polis. This research seeks to address one of
these particular events, the Hoplite Reform, which encompasses from tactical and demographic
transformations in the military to further socio-economic consequences beyond the martial sphere,
into the domestic affairs of the polis. The introduction of the phalanx and the ensuing creation of the
hoplite “middle” class induced a more egalitarian redistribution of wealth and a steady political
transition to broader and more inclusive forms of government. Initially, these reforms root down to
the individual costs incurred by the citizen-soldiers participating in the army (explicit costs) and
foregoing the benefits of engaging in their civilian activities (implicit costs). Nonetheless, these can
be offset by economic incentives to protect or expand their wealth, and political ones – intricately
linked to the ancient Greek moral value system – to increase their status in society. Ultimately, the
citizen-soldiers engaged in a constant trade-off between military and agricultural lifestyles following
the lines of rational choice, for they picked the alternative that adjusted the most to their interests.
The aggregate behaviors of all the citizens of the poleis shaped the socioeconomic and political

3. 2
panorama of ancient Greece,to such extent that it continues to influence modern society. Given the
lack of specific primary and secondary sourcesabout the topic in a single area,this researchaddresses
a variety of locations across Archaic Greece. Moreover,even though spatial and temporal variations
are abundant between city-states, this investigation looks forward to derive the more general and
unifying features among them.
The Scholarly Battle: Orthodox versus Gradualist
To set forth “The Hoplite Debate,” Kagan and Viggiano gather a myriad of contending scholarly
perspectives around the issue and classify them within the most prominent schools of thought:
orthodox and gradualist. The orthodox claim that the transformations triggered by the Hoplite Reform
took place in an abrupt and sudden manner, and, thus, can be categorized as an intense revolution.
Kagan and Viggiano claim for a precipitated change in the archaic Greek structure and perception of
warfare beginning with Homer’s epics. Such evolution of the fighting style, from the individual
combat between hero-aristocrats to the massive engagement of entire hoplite armies, was driven in
great part by the innovations in weapons,armor and tactics. Nonetheless, the invention of the double-
griped hoplon andthe rearrangementof heavy infantry into a cohesive phalanx formation had various
political, socioeconomic and psychological implications outside the battlefield, especially concerning
the creation of a hoplite middle class. This model is most similar to George Grote’s thesis, as both
claim that the Hoplite Reform marked the turning point between Homeric aristocratic fighting style
and values in the later broader sociopolitical structure and mindset. Thus, these changes forced the
narrow, highborn aristocracy to secede a substantial portion of their power. Yet, it only enabled the
creation of a broader oligarchy and never reached the extent of a full democracy in the short run – the
landless poor, thetes, remained unattended until the creation of the Athenian navy c. 480 BCE.
According to Antony Andrewes, the fracture of the aristocratic monopoly of power was possible
through the leadership of tyrants (e.g.Peisistratus) and their support by the hoplite middle class. From
another vantage point, Victor Davis Hanson amalgamates the economic and cultural perspectives
around the hoplite mindset:

4. 3
Not only did such men find it in their own economic and political interests to fight
decisively—they had no wish to be absent from their farms on long campaigns and
no desire to tax or spend to hire others to do so—but also spiritually such fighting
reaffirmed the free farmers’ preeminence in Hellenic culture at large1
Hoplites supported the government that aligned with their economic and political interests, which
allowed them to increase their status through the achievement of areté (“excellence”) in service to
the polis. This leads to his second point on the issue in which he claims that conflicts were driven by
the struggle over land – including marginal plots that could have not been cultivated without the
development of iron tools. This means that the middle-class soldiers fought not only to protect their
own oikos – economic and political interest –, but also to defend the territory encompassed by their
polis, under the regime that advocated for their interests as well.
On the other hand, the gradualist perspective defends a much more smooth and prolonged
development of the polis’ late socioeconomic structure. Anthony Snodgrass suggests a piecemeal
evolution in which “the aristocratic soloists took up new items of equipment before the invention of
the phalanx,” even before the rise of the tyrants.2
He affirms that there wasno climactic point in which
the fighting style and military structure changed, but rather aggregate events at which an increasing
number of citizens could afford their own panoply and participate in the army. Another gradualist
viewpoint is Paul Cartledge, who claims that the broader socioeconomic and political circumstances
had a greaterinfluence than the period’s military developments. His main driving motives for warfare
were the increasing overpopulation and land hunger: communities competed to accumulate the
maximum amount of land, even within the same polis. From the accumulation of small-scaled
conflicts, the “wealthy and well equipped commoners” become a major faction within the Greek
poleis and the ruling aristocrats had no choice but to integrate them into the army. Inevitably, as the
power of independent farmer-hoplites kept rising, the aristoi had to acquiesce to the ensuing reforms
to avoid stasis and civil strife.
1
Hanson in Donald Kagan and Gregory F. Viggiano, “TheHopliteDebate,” In Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in
Ancient Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 23.
2
Kagan and Viggiano, “TheHopliteDebate,” 35.

5. 4
Hoplite Costs and Risks
“All men, or most men, wish what is noble, but choose what is profitable” Aristotle
Within the ancient Greek mindset, warfare comprised a fundamental necessity to protect
one’s oikos,around which every aspect of daily life revolved. However, with the phenomenon of
synoikism and the emergence of organized city-states, combat evolved into a more complex fashion
than the individual duels between aristocrats,as portrayed in Homeric narratives. The crucial tactical
development was none other than the phalanx, which consisted of ranks of soldiers amassed into a
tight formation that directly clashed against the enemy army. Such tactical maneuver was
supplemented by military technological developments such as the invention of the hoplon – a wide,
double-gripped shield –, the replacement of predominant missile weapons by thrusting spears, and
the sophistication of bronze armor into a heavier yet more survivable panoply. The battle success of
these changes remains unquestionable and accounts for a significant portion of the Greek military
edge over other remarkable civilizations (e.g. Persia). Nonetheless,the social and economic demands
for the polis to sustain such military organization fell, in a significant proportion, upon the general
population rather than on the government itself. The next sections will discuss such demands in the
form of explicit and implicit costs, including the risks on the battlefield, and the incentives that
countered the burden of such costs, thus motivating an increased participation in the army.
Essentially, once the phalanx became widespread, it relied on the size of the army more than
on its training, yet with the condition that each citizen-soldier had to provide his own panoply.
According to Kyriazis and Paparrigopoulos, the full set of bronze armor became extremely expensive
and almost unaffordable for the majority of the demos,because its production was scarce relative to
the number of warriors and, with increasing participation in the army, the demand for it was
abundant.3
Given that wealth in the ancient world was land-based, this constraint removed the
possibility for the landless poor and even many small landowners to enlist in the phalanx. Thus,
3
Nicholas Kyriazis and Xenophon Paparrigopoulos, “War and Democracy in Ancient Greece,” European
Journal of Law and Economics 34, 2012, 170.

6. 5
owning a piece of armor was not only a high cost to bear, but also a display of wealth and,
consequently, status: “my great wealth is my spearand sword and fine animal hide shield, the defense
of my flesh.”4
This parameter may also apply to the aristocratic elites, who might spend additional
wealth in more elaborate armor and might have adhered some sort of legacy or divine association to
it. Nonetheless, the fact that both aristocrats and small farmers spent some portion of their income on
their panoplies served as an initial equalizing factor,for both had undergone the same explicit cost to
participate in the army.
In what concerns implicit costs, both small landholders and aristocrats were subject to
opportunity costs such as the forgone income by engaging in their day-to-day activities. Such
expenditure extended to all sorts of activities around the hoplite lifestyle such as training and drills,
which implied forgone time to increase their wealth.5
Nevertheless, the burden of this lost benefit
represented a different percentage of the total wealth for landholders with oikos within various sizes
and productivity levels. As mentioned by Quinn, the “loss of the hoplite's labor on the family farm,it
is thought, would be offset by the labor of the slaves who would have been owned by moderately
prosperous households.”6
Moreover, wealthy aristocrats could afford a sizable slave labor force to
work their fields, even when they were not in combat. Yet, this means that those landowners who
barely costed their lavish panoplies, could have returned from duty with a significant reduction of
their income – unless their wives and children could cover for missing labor. Furthermore, it is not
unreasonable to assume that many of these hoplites that returned empty-handed were unable to pay
back their debts, say for their panoply, and were forced to repay with their land and to sell themselves
into debt-bondage – as had happened previous to Solon’s reforms.
The battlefield was the reuniting place for all soldiers in the service of their polis,regardless
of wealth or status. As mentioned above, epic duels between highborn aristocrats were substituted by
4
“TheDrinking Song of Hybrias,”c. 700 BCE, In Readings in Greek History: Sources and Interpretations, edited by D.
Brendan Nagle and Stanley Mayer Burstein (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 29.
5
Hanson claims that hoplitearmies were increasingly amateur with the exception of Sparta. See Victor Davis Hanson,
The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 32.
6
Michael F. Quinn, Beyond the Phalanx: Hoplites at War in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, 432-404 BC
(Seattle: ProQuest LLC, 2010), 27.

7. 6
the implementation of the phalanx. In such tight formation and in the battle tactic of pushing and
thrusting against the enemy line, the collective dynamism outweighed the individual prowess: “but
yet there is a lesson to be learnt (…) the lesson of mutual assistance. ‘Shoulder to shoulder’ must we
march to meet the invader; ‘shoulder to shoulder’ stand to compass the tillage of the soil.”7
In this
excerpt, Xenophon describes the essential, tight formation of the phalanx – “shoulder to shoulder”–,
but it may also resemble the egalitarian ethos within the military basedon the waythat citizen-soldiers
of different strata interacted – not to mention that it was within the interests of both the wealthy elite
and the landed poor to defend their holdings from invaders. In another account, Plato highlights the
same ideal of equality in the battlefield: “When the ruling class and their subjects find themselves
thrown together (…) as fellow soldiers, even in the face of danger they will be watching one another.
There the poor will not in the least be regarded with contempt by the rich.”8
Thus, the development
of a sense of equality is a recurring theme along different hoplite narratives – every soldier was an
equal to the men around him, was entitled an equal right of audience and claim over the spoils of war,
and bore the same responsibilities in battle as his fellow men. In a poem by Archilochus, he introduces
a standard of the real value of a soldier, which correlates with the emerging egalitarian ethos: “I don't
like a general who is big or who walks with a swagger, or who glories in his curly hair, cut-off
moustache. Give me a man who's little, bandy-legged, feet firm on the ground, and full of heart.”9
Although it is inevitable thatthere wassome sort of hierarchy in the army, the hoplite narrative reveals
the expectations for an ideal warrior, disregarding any sort of exogenous inequalities. And, as the
wealth and status barriers were cast aside within the ranks of the phalanx, the claim for isonomia by
the middle-class hoplites became stronger and well-founded:
The citizen-hoplites became gradually conscious of their power in battle, and thus
gained a new awareness of their personal worth (…) citizens of hoplite status did no
longer look upon their ‘‘social betters’’ with awe,as during the Mycenaean period,
nor were they any more willing to obey their commands.10
7
Xenophon, Oeconomicus 5.5 – 5.6, In The Works of Xenophon, Vol. 3, translated by H. G. Dakyns. (London: 1890).
8
Plato in Quinn, Beyond the Phalanx, 52.
9
Archilochus, “Fr. 60D,” c. 650 BCE, In The Aristocratic Ideal and Selected Papers, edited by Walter Donlan
(Wauconda, Ill.: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 1999), 45.
10
Kyriazis and Paparrigopoulos, “War and Democracy in Ancient Greece,” 171-172.

8. 7
Even though many scholars claim that the ensuing hoplite class needed an external influence to
acquire such awareness,the narrativesby severalancient authors suggest that these soldiers had some
sort of self-consciousness of their power. Moreover, there is no doubt that they were safeguarding
their personal interests, including the protection of their wealth and the achievement of areté. In the
end, the most evident equalizing factor in the phalanx was the fact that every man faced the same risk
of death as his peers.
Motives and Incentives
“Since often enough in war it is surer and safer to quest for food with sword and buckler than
with all the instruments of husbandry” Xenophon 11
Why would the Greeks go to war in the first place? Moreover, why would small farmers
participate in the phalanx rather than cultivate their crops and earn income? The fact that such tactical
development and the ensuing improvements in the military technology were effective in battle is not
a sufficient argument for the drastic increase in the size of armies. Thus, the events of the Hoplite
Reform occur within a political context in which even the less wealthy had to stand their ground
against invaders and function within a moral frameworkthat compels them to live a world of violence.
First, the economic incentives to go to war are mainly associated with the protection of one’s oikos.
In the Western Way of War, Hanson proposes that by the 7th
century BCE farmers decided to arm
themselves after they “became restless at the idea that anyone may traverse their own parcels of
land”12
Furthermore, invading armies might have engaged in sabotage tactics, such as ravaging the
fields and destroying the orchards, vineyards and olives, to inflict a lasting long-term damage to their
enemies.13
Hence,warentailed to a considerable extent an economic necessityto either preserve one’s
property or accumulate further holdings. Based on this reasoning, engaging in combat held a lower
opportunity cost – the reduction of the farmer’s income – than that of avoiding strife and risking the
destruction or complete loss of their oikos.
11
Xenophon, Oeconomicus 5.4.
12
Hanson, The Western Way of War, 29.
13
Hanson, The Western Way of War, 33.

9. 8
In a second instance, the political and moral arguments to participate in the military are
closely attached. For example, the pursuit of higher political status is associated with the ancient
Greek moral standards, which beheld areté and timé (“honor”) among fundamental values. As the
following excerptby Tyrtaeusillustrates, these were achieved to its maximal expression during battle:
For the man is not agathos (brave) in war, unless he endures seeing the bloody
slaughter, and stands close reaching out for the foe. This is areté,this is the best and
loveliest prize for the young man to win. A common good is, for the whole polis and
all the demos,when a man holds, firm-set among the fighters, unflinchingly (…) For
it is a fine thing for an agathos man to die, falling among the front-fighters, fighting
for his fatherland14
Even though Tyrtaeus lived in Sparta and, inevitably, was deeply influenced by the warrior culture
of this particular polis, the areté and courage portrayed in his narratives is a recurring theme across
the rest of the Greek states – especially concerning the duty to the polis15
. Yet, setting aside the
technological and tactical developments, the mindset behind the devastating Greek military force was
nurtured by the shame culture:
It is a fine thing for a good man to fall in the front line fighting on behalf of his
country; but is a grievous fate for a man to leave his city and rich fields and wander
begging (…) He shames his family and ruins his noble beauty, and every form of
disgrace and evil follows him16
It is important to notice that there is no shame in death. If a soldier dies in battle he will be a martyr
to his polis and he will be mourned and remembered. Therefore,the only way to fall into disgrace is
in life, through which an individual is bound to bear the consequences of his lack of courage. And, in
the same way as glorious ancestry, infamy and shame are attached to the legacy of any hoplite.
However, Hanson suggests a limitation to this line of thought based on the fact that, even
though several military campaigns took place, the Greeks desired to limit confrontation to reduce
costs.17
This might seem like a contradiction to the absolute bloodlust discussed by Tyrtaeus,Socrates
14
Tyrtaeus, “War Songs,” No. III, c. 650 B.C. In A Source Book of Greek History, edited by Fred Morrow Fling (Boston:
D. C. Heath, 1907), 56-57.
15
The duty to thepolis was a recurring theme within the Greek poleis. This is shown in the Athenian epheboi – theoath of
service to the army: “I will not bring shame on my sacred arms nor will I abandon the man beside me, wherever I may
stand in line. I will defend the sacred and holy and will pass on my fatherland, not smaller, but greater and better insofar
as I am able and with the help of others.”See Quinn, Beyond the Phalanx, 59-60.
16
Tyrtaeus “Fragment 10.” In Elygy and Iambus, Vol. 1, edited by J.M. Edmonds (Cambridge, 1931)
17 Hanson, The Western Way of War, 4.

10. 9
and other sources of the time, yet it justifies the effectiveness of Greek combat. The more time small
farmers spent campaigning, the less income they produced from working their crops. Therefore,any
sort of strife was to be brief and decisive, and hoplites were to display the most of their courage and
achieve areté throughout the short-lasting conflicts. Nonetheless, this frameworkis constrained to the
small-scaled struggles between poleis, setting aside major events such as the Persian and the
Peloponnesian Wars. During the latter two, the moral mindset around courage and areté is almost
conspicuous, yet the costsof both warswere extremelyelevated to demonstrate that either side desired
an expedite end to the conflict.
Alternative Explanations
In The OtherGreeks,Hansonsuggestsa similar socioeconomic model of the Hoplite Reform,
yet he centers his study on the object of farming land rather than the whole picture of tradeoffs
between the hoplite and the agricultural activities. He concurs with Viggiano and Cartledge in that
overpopulation and relative land hunger were stimuli of revolution and struggle both inside and
outside the polis. Within the local affairs of the city-state, “the population pressure on limited land
led to the use of more intensive farming techniques, such as the cultivation of marginal lands and
farmstead residence.”18
The concept of “land hunger” originates from the fact that, as population
escalatedat a fasterrate,land became increasingly scarce – especially quality arable land –,and small
farmers started colonizing terrains around mountain slopes and relatively away from water sources.
According to Hanson, the conflicts that arose during the time of the Hoplite Revolution were over
land, and followed the competitive settlement of marginal lands.19
This “novel agrarianism” expanded
in massive proportions and promoted an egalitarian ethos, based upon the fairly similar holdings of
these independent landed non-aristocrats. Consequently, it was they who provided “the ‘best’ type of
government (…) but possible only when they are present in sufficient numbers to prevent class strife
between the very rich and the abject poor.”20
Thus, the broader oligarchies, which had acquired
18 Hanson in Gregory F. Viggiano. “TheHopliteRevolution and theRise of thePolis,” In Men of Bronze: Hoplite
Warfare in Ancient Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 122.
19 Hanson in Kagan and Viggiano, “TheHopliteDebate,” 28.
20 Aristotlein Kagan and Viggiano, “TheHopliteDebate,” 33.

11. 10
significant political and military power, emerged as a middle ground between the narrow aristocracy
and the direct democracy, which included the poorest classes.
As a major critique of Hanson’s model of the agrarian and military reforms, Lin Foxhall
affirms that “archaeological and historical data differ in character,and historical ‘events’ do not map
easily onto archaeological ‘events.’”21
After conducting severalarcheological excavations across the
Greek Peninsula, her findings of the Early- to Mid-Archaic period (650 – 535 BCE) reveal the
movement and settlement patterns of the land-working population – unlike Hanson’s revolutionary
colonization of marginal lands (e.g. hillslopes). Naturally, Foxhall questions not the increasing rural
mobilization, but, rather, the purpose or motives behind it: “in periods when investment in the
countryside and pressure on land increased for whatever reasons (e.g., increased wealth, increasing
population, additional sources of labor), individual households tried to make the most of the land to
which they had access.”22
The sites studied during the expedition suggest a predominant
agglomeration of farmers in isolated “farmsteads” around places with direct access to water sources
(e.g. valley bottoms and basin plains). Nonetheless, she insists that the occupation and exploitation
of marginal lands were a later phenomenon during the Classical and even Roman Greece. One of the
main issues faced was the spatial variability of particular phenomena. Foxhall mentions that even
though many poleis present some general traits, the relative peaks of rural settlement vary spatially
and are linked to different historical developments throughout. A question left unanswered by the
expedition is who owned these properties, or, to a further extent, were the settlements found worked
or, at least, inhabited by non-aristocrat, independent farmers?
Broader Political Implications
The events of the Hoplite Reform and the strengthening claim for isonomia inevitably
reshaped the social and political structure of the polis. The mindset developed in the interior of the
phalanx and the ensuing political capital acquired by the middle class represented a threat to the
21 Lin Foxhall. “Can We See the‘HopliteRevolution’ on the Ground? Archaeological Landscapes, MaterialCulture, and
Social Status in Early Greece,” In Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2013), 195.
22 Foxhall, “Can We See the ‘HopliteRevolution’ on the Ground?,” 217.

12. 11
aristocratic claim to power. Nonetheless, the transition to democracy was far from expedite and such
form of government arose only after Kleisthenes’ reforms. Ironically, the aristocracy played a crucial
and decisive role in the development of previous reforms. According to Vassillopolus, the Athenian
ruling elite “allowed Solon extraordinary powers” to modify the legislation in an attempt to avoid any
possibility of civil war or stasis,while preserving their privileged position in society.23
Thus, Solon’s
reforms can be perceived as a preemptive concession by the aristocrats, yet it would not cease the
constant pursuit for egalitarianism. In other words, even though these reforms were not violent, they
were inevitably anticipating a further revolution:
Solon did not seek to overthrow the aristocrats but simply to check their power, and
it was he who first gave to the citizens of middling property and to the general mass,
a locus standi against the eupatrids. The hoplites broke the monopoly on political
power that the aristocracy of birth had held.24
As a result of the breach of elite power monopoly, new non-aristocratic leaders rose to power after
building their support on the empowered demos. Toexplain the rise of tyrannies, Hammerrelies upon
the concept of plebiscitary leadership “in which the decisions of leaders derive at least part of their
legitimacy from the acclaim (…) of the people.”25
Thus, tyrants and their followers can resemble an
early form of patronage in which the demos supported the ruler that satisfied their interests. In return,
the ruled acknowledged his authoritarian actions as legitimate. For instance, following Solon’s
reforms, Aristotle writes that “people fell to the ground and accepted [Peisistratus] with awe” after
his first return from exile, and he “told to the crowd (…)to go home and look aftertheir private affairs
[while] he took care of the state.”26
However, the debate behind the rise of democracy begs the
question of the hoplite class’ self-consciousness. According to Snodgrass, conceiving a political class
with a solid and defined internal initiative to change the social structure was unprecedented and
challenged the ancient Greek traditional mentality.27
Thus, one can affirm that the hoplite class was
the most potentially powerful political force,but only lacked a trigger or an inciting incident to make
23 Christopher Vasillopulos, “TheNature of Athenian HopliteDemocracy,” Armed Forces & Society (1995), 58.
24 Groteon Kagan and Viggiano, “TheHopliteDebate,” 6.
25 Dean Hammer, “Homer, Tyranny, and Democracy,” Greek, Roman and ByzantineStudies 39, no. 4 (1998), 335.
26 Aristotleon Hammer, “Homer, Tyranny, and Democracy,” 354.
27 Anthony Snodgrass, “TheHopliteReform and History,” Archaeology and the Emergence of Greece, (2006), 115.

13. 12
its will and desire manifest. This leads to a more intriguing question: to what extent did aristocrats
bring upon the upsurge of democracy?
Conclusion
The hoplite reform occurred at a time when the non-aristocrat citizens of the polis faced political and
economic dependence on the basilei and, subsequently, on the narrow ruling elites. This picture
started changing around the military demands of a violent society, which influenced every citizen’s
life, especially his wealth and status. Thus, it is impossible to deny that ancient Greeks had at least
some grasp of economic rational choice, especially when individuals were faced by the various costs
of living and serving in the phalanx. This may have triggered a reform of the socioeconomic
relationship between the different classes,aiming towards a reduction of the imbalances between the
wealthy aristocrats and the smaller landholders. Nonetheless, even though the claim for isonomia
spread in the ranks of the phalanx, there is little evidence to prove that the middle class transformed
the political system, at least by their own internal initiative. One reason for uncertainty is the lack of
primary sources written by authors of the demos, for the vast majority of evidence was created or
sponsored by the aristocratic elites. Yet, these accounts acknowledge the importance of the hoplite
middle class in the pursuit of any political move. The claim that the external leadership contributed
to channel the pleas of this social group towards particular political objectives seems more plausible
than the spontaneous and organic materialization of an early form of socialism.
Although the zeugitai were the main focus of the hoplite reform, full democracy was not
achieved until the Classical Period, once the thetes – landless poor – were integrated into the political
and economic specter. Hence,the framework of this research can be applied to the incorporation of
the lower classes into the Athenian civic navies, especially in terms of the incentives, risks and costs
of participating in war. Moreover,such public investments also contain an important participation of
the wealthy aristocrats who financed many of the ships and held important political and military
offices. Taking this into account, the amount of wealth surrounding military activity proves that war
was probably the greatest economic activity of antiquity.

14. 13
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