Page 131 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

131
aCta
an elderly woman during street-fighting in the town of Argos in 272 BC, when his troops,
bogged down in a maze of tiny little streets, were attacked not only by soldiers, but also by
the Argivan population throwing tiles from the rooftops. In general, the extent to which non-
4
combatants could be directly involved in war in antiquity is quite surprising at first.
A closer look however at who actively participated in war reveals a question of consider-
able complexity. On the one hand active participation in combat by people normally consid-
ered to be non-combatants was not only accepted as a reality of life, it was also the subject
of theoretical reflections both by military theorists and by philosophers. In the 3 century
rd
BC Philon of Byzantium, better known for his works on artillery, suggested in his collection
of stratagems that in the defence of a city, everybody should play an active role, including
children, female slaves, women and virgins. And already about a century earlier Plato was
5
particularly explicit in his Laws on possible roles of women in wartime - should the army
proper be away on a campaign, they were to be responsible for the defence of the state. To
that end, women not only had to care for their physical fitness, but were even allowed to train
in the use of weapons and to take part in monthly military maneuvers. 6
On the other hand active participation of non-combatants only took place under very
specific cirmcumstances. Thus, while there is substantial evidence for non-combatants tak-
ing part in defence efforts, offensive operations were always undertaken by armies in which
women or children had no place. Similarly, only men were involved in most of the rituals
around warfare that were common in Greek cities, having no part in the prayers, sacrifices
and celebrations before or after a battle. 7
In general, the phenomenon seems to have been mainly one of Greek history. Evidence for
Rome suggests similar developments mainly for the early and middle Republic, when Rome
found itself at the receiving end of civilian participation in war. During C. Marcius’ attack on
the Volscan city Corioli, the women of the town are said to have put up a barrage of roof tiles
against the Romans. Similarly, in 396 the Roman attack on Veii was met by women and slaves
8
of the town throwing tiles against the Romans. The Romans themselves were apparently not
9

4 Plut. Pyrrh. 34.2; Polyaen. 8.68; Paus. 1.13.8. Fittingly, W. D. Barry, Roof Tiles and Urban Violence in the
Ancient World, in: Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 37, 1996, 55-74, speaks of “perhaps the most his-
torically significant roof tile” (Barry 1996, 55).
5 Ph. C 31 (Y. Garlan, Recherches de poliorcétique grecque, Paris 1973).
6 Pl. Lg. 813e-814a. See also R. 456a1-2 for a more radical view, according to which women can actually
participate on the battlefield with the army. It is doubtful whether Plato considered it possible for women to
be members of the army proper in the Laws; S.B. Levin, Plato on women’s nature: Reflection on the “Laws”,
in: Ancient Philosophy 20, 2000, 81-97 points out that in the Laws, women’s military activity is too limited
to qualify for inclusion into the army. For a less sceptical interpretation see R.F. Stalley, An Introduction to
Plato’s Laws, Indianapolis 1983, 105 and D. Cohen, The legal status and political role of Women in Plato’s
Laws, in: Revue internationale des droits de l’antiquité 34, 27-40, 37.
7 See for example A. Th. 230: “It is the man’s duty to offer victims and sacrifices to the gods when they test
their enemy”. See also R. Lonis, Guerre et religion à l’époque classique, Paris 1979, 95-7 and 129-30.
8 D.H. Antiquitates Romanae 6.92.6; see also Plut. Cor. 9. Although the historicity of the whole episode is at
least questionable, it nevertheless clearly shows that the Romans did not considered the supposed behaviour
of the Coriolian women to be extraordinary or surprising.
9 Liv. 5.21.10. Again it is at the very least debatable, whether this episode is historical or not. However,it
shows that the idea of non-combatant citizens taking to the roofs and participating in the fighting was gene-