Civilians Under Siege in the Ancient Greek World

Abstract

The cities and smaller urban centres of the ancient Mediterranean did more than merely fulfil the basic human need for shelter. They were the social, economic and religious focal points of communities that identified themselves with their city, so that to lose one’s city was to forfeit one’s place in the world. The ubiquity of what are conventionally termed ‘small wars’ in Antiquity meant that cities were frequently the targets of raids, assaults, blockades and, occasionally, prolonged sieges. Walls and warriors often failed to deter or defeat attackers, and if the inhabitants could not then negotiate a peaceful end to hostilities, they would be exposed to pillaging and destruction of their homes, rape, and enslavement of their persons, and sometimes the wholesale slaughter of some or all of the population. For ancient urban communities, therefore, a direct attack on their homes represented one of the most fearful aspects of warfare, and a negative outcome too often meant a dreadful fate. The contemporary, non-combatant’s perspective on sieges in ancient Greek warfare is elusive. Chapter 10 analyses passages from the Homeric epics, the Classical historians Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon, and a selection of the plays by the great Athenian tragedian Euripides in search of the voice of the victims of ancient Greek siege warfare.