Descriptions Of Battles Research Articles

ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE OF EKPHRASIS IN ROMAN HISTORIOGRAPHY. DESCRIPTION OF THE GREAT FIRE OF ROME (TACITUS, ANN. XV, 38)

Ekphrasis, a stylistic figure characteristic of epic poetry, has also found its application in Roman historiography. Namely, the Roman historian Tacitus and his work Annals are known for its highly stylised poetic language. Tacitus' language – color poeticus, is full of rhetorical and stylistic figures with which this historian portrays events from the past. The author's narrative in visual images – faithful descriptions of people, events, battles, objects and phenomena – leaves a strong impression on readers. This pictorial expression in ancient times was called ekphrasis. Our goal is to explain the basic concept and role of ekphrasis, and then determine its application in a selected example from Tacitus' Annals. There are many examples of ekphrasis, and for the purposes of this work we have chosen the description of The Great Fire of Rome, which occurred during the reign of Emperor Nero. Based on the analysed example, we will see how Tacitus used ekphrasis in his ʻTacitus styleʼ to portray this terrible event.

Monster Duels in Byzantine Polemological Tradition of X-XIV Centuries

The article is dedicated to a common theme in Byzantine literature, with a particular focus on descriptions of battles between warriors and monsters. According to the authors, the reworking of stories about hunting large predators from ancient mythology is characteristic of the Byzantine and partially Western European military traditions from the 10th to 14th centuries. The authors argue that the ideas of rational warfare permeated not only strict military manuals but also hagiographical literature, historical chronicles, heroic epics, and other narratives. Therefore, the incorporation of the archetypal plot of ‘fighting monsters’ into military settings is at the center of this study. The authors demonstrate that ancient battle stories had no place in the strict orders of real actions by regular armies. The article introduces materials from M. Y. Suzyumov’s personal archive into scientific circulation and draws on sigillography data. The article shows that in medieval texts, such short but intense clashes between two opponents are interpreted not only as entertainment or instruction but also in a philosophical sense as an embodiment of the eternal struggle between good and evil.

Reportaż z pola bitwy. Jak przekładać opisy bitwy w Mahabharacie

Report from the Battlefield: How to Translate Battle Descriptions in the Mahābhārata This article discusses the problem of scene construal in translation, based on a selected description of the battle scene in the Mahābhārata. It is an old Indian epic (c. 400 BCE–400 CE), the greatest epic of mankind (c. 100,000 stanzas), composed in Sanskrit, most likely orally, and certainly distributed in this way. Its main theme is the war between related families. In Indology, descriptions of battles have been treated as conventional because of their orality, however, a closer analysis shows their well- thought-out structure. The article discusses examples of zooming-in/out strategy (Langacker 2005) as one of the methods of active scene building. I show how the authors of the Mahābhārata construed doubly dynamic scenes in which both the content of the description (i.e. the fight) and the description itself is dynamic, reflecting the narrator’s movement. I also discuss the difficulties it presents to the Polish translator and consider the extent to which Polish inflection allows for a similar construal, thus meeting the translation requirements proposed by Tabakowska (1993). My hypothesis is that in many cases such doubly dynamic scenes can be successfully reflected in Polish, as opposed to an English translation (Cherniak 2008–9), thus preserving the extraordinary value of the original.

Сравнения в речи повествователя и персонажей как традиционные элементы стиля эпического текста (на материале «Энеиды» Вергилия)

The article deals with the peculiarities of the functioning of similes in narrator’s and characters’ speech in Virgil’s “Aeneid.” The author of the article demonstrates the relation between the nature of the distribution of similes and the subject of speech, the content of the text and the development of the plot on the basis of quantitative data. As the analysis shows, similes in the narrator’s speech serve to describe and characterize heroes, people, gods, chthonic creatures and phenomena. Similes in the characters’ speech are used in communication with the shadows of the dead, prophetic dreams, prophecies, descriptions of chthonic creatures, as well as for characterizing actions of the opposing sides and individual heroes in the episode of the fall of Troy. The conclusion is that the distribution of similes in the text of the “Aeneid” is not accidental and follows the previous epic tradition: similes prevail in those parts and episodes of the poem in which the description of battles and duels is given, and they are concentrated in the speech of the narrator, in the speech of the characters they are significantly fewer. While preserving the features of continuity with the previous tradition, Virgil’s poem also distinguishes by its fundamental novelty in the creative selection and arrangement of aesthetic speech elements.

Программа развития исторической живописи и пути создания словесного батального образа в эстетической мысли начала XIX в.

The subject of the research in the article are the categories of assessment of historical painting and the poetics of the battle image in the aesthetic thought of the early 19th century. The article deals with the views of N. M. Karamzin, G. R. Derzhavin, V. A. Zhukovsky reflected in aesthetic articles, poetry, epistolary on the cognitive nature of art and the specifics of the artistic perception of the historical process. The writers’ reasoning about historical plots, the heroic personality in history, the role and nature of the artist’s imagination significantly supplemented the academic program for the development of art. The author of the article proves that Karamzin, Derzhavin and Zhukovsky identified and substantiated the necessary components of the historical theme in painting and literature in their aesthetic reflections, which formed the thesaurus of their artistic and aesthetic thought. The result of the study was the reconstruction of aesthetic system of historical painting developed by writers at the beginning of the 19th century. The analysis of the battle descriptions by Karamzin, Derzhavin and Zhukovsky made it possible to identify the very process of their achieving vivid imagery when creating a verbal picture and to determine the mechanisms of visualization.

Основные направления современной англоязычной историографии датского периода истории Тридцатилетней войны

The article explores the history of the Danish period of the Thirty Years' War in the English-language historiography of the 20th and 21st centuries. The main characteristics of British historiography at the beginning of Modern History are presented. The article gives a brief overview of the main scientific patterns of studying events of the Danish period. English-language historiography refers not only to achievements of scientists from the United Kingdom and the United States, but also to publications of any other European historians made in English and actively used in historical society. In general, the use of achievements of scientists from other countries in the study of the Thirty Years' War history is quite typical for English-language historiography. This can be explained by the situation when parallelly with this “continental” war came the outcome of the English Civil War, which is steadily more interesting for British historians. The English-language historiography of the Thirty Years' War at the present stage represents both traditional themes of military history and new topics that appeared in the second half of the 20th century. Among the traditional, we can highlight descriptions of various military campaigns and battles, biographies of talented generals, kings and politicians. Among the new, we can note different attempts to expand the chronological and territorial framework of the war, as well as the use of the Thirty Years' War as one of the illustrations of the processes of military revolution or evolution in the European military art and technologies of the 16th-17th centuries. In relation to the Danish period, the concept that evaluates the war as a catalyst for further changes in the Danish political structure seems to be the most relevant. In general, the historiography of the Thirty Years' War can be characterized as successive, using many of predecessors' achievements; on the other hand, there is a high degree of openness in British and American scientific community for foreign researchers and the emergence of a sufficiently large number of fundamentally new areas of research. At the same time, unfortunately, the Thirty Years' War is still not the most demanded topic of military history, substantially inferior to the national English and American, as well as Modern History, topics. The Danish period of the war turned out to be the least interesting for historians. Its chronological arrangement between the issues of religion and the alignment of forces at the beginning of the war and the Swedish “military revolution” leads to the fact that the Danish period remains a rather poorly studied stage of the Thirty Years' War.

War in the Short Stories by Ambrose Bierce “What I Saw of Shiloh” and “Killed at Resaca”

The article considers the martial theme in Ambrose Bierce’s Civil War novels. With the help of historical, systematic, and comparative methods of research as well as content analysis, the author attempts to determine how the writer depicts the war, what his attitude to the conflict between the North and the South is, and how his war experience relates to his creative work. She focuses on two Civil War stories “What I Saw of Shilohˮ (1881) and “Killed at Resacaˮ (1887), paying special attention to connections between those texts. Bierce wrote about the war events in which he participated. He was not looking for fame and had no intention to glorify the military actions or combatants. Bierce’s Civil War stories are based on literary paradox and the principle of contradiction. Routine situations, in which his characters find themselves, always turn into something extraordinary. “What I Saw of Shilohˮ has a special place among Bierce’s war stories, since here he incorporates literary devices into a factual narrative, employing topographic accuracy in battle description, hyperorality in reporting deaths, and a clearly ironic approach to senseless heroism. Horror, fear, and death feature as key motifs in the writer’s creative work. Bierce wants the reader to remember the war without waxing nostalgic about the glorious past: his officers in white uniforms on white horses die in ugly ways, and those whom they loved quickly forget them (“Killed at Resacaˮ). By employing the illogical and irrational in his stories, Bierce compels the reader to decry the illogicality and irrationality of war.

Portrayal of Masculinity in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart

The paper investigates the construction and representation of masculinity in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. The study digs underneath the structure and tradition of Igbo culture which celebrates the customs centered on male dominance. The protagonist, Okonkwo turns to be the major focus of study who tries to maintain all the traits of masculinity with strict application. His extreme ‘macho man’ life rejects any practice which might associate him with his father. The text offers the motives behind Okonkwo’s sheer concern regarding preservation of male dominance. Achebe’s narrative of Okonkwo’s character associating description of physical power, wealth, authority and violence portrays the masculinity in Things Fall Apart. The description of wrestling, battles, yam feasts or Clan meeting upholds the supremacy of males sending all other ideals to the periphery.

Schlacht und Struktur

Abstract This article assesses how historical events play an important role for the narratological structure of Hans Jacob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen’s Simplicissimus Teutsch and Courasche. Furthermore, it asks whether it was possible for the contemporary literate reader to foresee parts of the books’ plots based on his historical knowledge. The plot devices thought to be most promising for such an analysis were descriptions of battles in which the main characters were engaged. It can be shown that battles, as datable and locatable events, allow the reader to estimate the duration between certain parts of the story line.

Joseph ha-Kohen, humanist historiography and military history

Humanist historiography remains one of the most exceptional intellectual monuments of the Italian Renaissance. The extent of the effect that humanist historiography had on Jewish perception of history and historiography in Italy remains debatable. One of the most prominent attempts to create a historical work that seemed to display several of the main characteristics of humanist historiography was doubtlessly Joseph ha-Kohen’s Sefer Divrey ha-yamim le-malkhey Tsarefat u-bet Ottoman ha-Togar . In this article I would like to demonstrate that at least from the stand point of military history ha-Kohen consciously incorporated the basic elements that were considered appropriate and instructive by sixteenth-century humanist historians. By comparing several of ha-Kohen’s battle descriptions to those of other contemporary historical narratives I aim to show that ha-Kohen’s traditional narrative, language and religious undertones did not prevent him from displaying some of the fundamental ideals of humanist historiography.

A epipolesis – receção de um discurso de origem homérica pela historiografia portuguesa de Quinhentos

Este artigo aborda, de forma breve, a receção de um tipo de discurso que remonta à épica homérica pela historiografia portuguesa do século XVI: a epipolesis. Numa época de emulação, os historiógrafos quinhentistas fizeram das suas obras não só repositórios da memória passada, mas também composições elevadas e eruditas em que a retórica desempenhou um papel determinante. Tal como na Antiguidade, assiste-se à progressiva dramatização das obras historiográficas, com a inserção de impressivas descrições de batalhas e de discursos, como a epipolesis. Na circunstância, este tipo de discurso imprime enargeia às ekphraseis em que se enquadram, já que um capitão, proferindo um discurso exortativo enquanto avança pelas alas do seu exército, contribui não só para a consagração do seu estatuto de ótimo general, como provoca comoção nos leitores destas narrativas. Assim, do ponto de vista metodológico, um corpus de discursos identificado na historiografia portuguesa quinhentista é analisado tipológica e diferenciadamente de acordo com fatores como a superfície terrestre ou marítima em que os ditos discursos são pronunciados. Em seguida, o mesmo corpus será analisado de acordo com os princípios metodológicos aplicados por Longo (1983) aos discursos de Tucídides que, atendendo à sua pronunciação, podem ser unitários ou diferenciados dependendo da homogeneidade ou heterogeneidade qualitativa do auditório.

BATTLE DESCRIPTION IN THE ANCIENT HISTORIANS, PART II: SPEECHES, RESULTS, AND SEA BATTLES

If Herodotus borrowed from Homer the way the later tradition of historical battle description described fighting, adapted the array of the armies from the Homeric catalogue, and himself invented the ‘weighing’, the historian's declaration about why one side defeated the other, Thucydides was the creator of the battle speech – theparaklēsisorparainesis,cohortatioin Latin – that so frequently became a part of the depiction of ancient battles. There is, of course, a great deal of incidental talking and encouragement during fighting in Homer, and many of the sentiments that later authors were to use can be found in Homer as well. Herodotus borrowed from him the habit of including incidental snippets of encouragement before or during battles by the way (6.11, 8.83, 9.17–18, 9.42), and the habit was adopted here and there in later authors, and especially by Livy. So similarly theepipōleēsis, the general's going along the ranks of his army and addressing a few appropriate remarks to each different contingent: this imitated Agamemnon's tour of his forces in Book IV of theIliad, and was to have a long life in historical authors.

Confederate Sharpshooter Major William E. Simmons: Through the War with the 16th Georgia Infantry and 3rd Battalion Georgia Sharpshooters by Joseph P. Byrd IV

Reviewed by: Confederate Sharpshooter Major William E. Simmons: Through the War with the 16th Georgia Infantry and 3rd Battalion Georgia Sharpshooters by Joseph P. Byrd IV Lisa L. Denmark Confederate Sharpshooter Major William E. Simmons: Through the War with the 16th Georgia Infantry and 3rd Battalion Georgia Sharpshooters. By Joseph P. Byrd IV. (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2016. Pp. xxviii, 292. $35.00, ISBN 978-0-88146-568-6.) Joseph P. Byrd IV grew up listening to his father recount childhood memories about "Uncle William," a "Confederate War hero" (p. vii). Aided by a previously unpublished manuscript produced in the 1960s by a second cousin, an unreconstructed Byrd proudly recounts the Civil War experiences of his ancestor, Major William E. Simmons. In the first two of twenty-five very short chapters, Byrd briefly relates the early life of Simmons, who was born to a prominent family in Gwinnett County, Georgia, received his education at Emory College, and edited the Lawrenceville (Georgia) News, established by his father, himself a prominent attorney, politician, slave owner, and cotton mill owner. In contrast to his Unionist-leaning father—an interesting individual deserving of greater attention—the younger Simmons took an uncompromising stance on the expansion of slavery and supported John C. Breckinridge's candidacy in the presidential election of 1860. Byrd moves hurriedly through secession and employs only one direct quotation from Simmons's newspaper, noting that secession was "the only safe and honorable course left to the South" (p. 9). Simmons's service in the American Civil War constitutes the bulk of this conventional military biography. In the spring of 1861 Simmons was elected a lieutenant in the Gwinnett Volunteers, which became part of the Sixteenth Georgia Infantry. As part of the Army of Northern Virginia, Simmons's regiment saw action in most of the war's major engagements, including the [End Page 430] Seven Days, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chattanooga, Knoxville, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, and Cold Harbor. In 1863 Simmons received promotion to captain of the newly formed Third Georgia Sharpshooter Battalion, commanded by a fellow Georgian, Brigadier General W. T. Wofford. Byrd provides some interesting details about sharpshooter training exercises, particularly range finding; however, beyond noting that the Third Battalion was "in the thick of the action," Simmons's battlefield activities remain rather amorphous (p. 143). During Wofford's poorly planned attack on George Armstrong Custer's Union cavalry at Front Royal in 1864, Simmons, recently promoted to major, was captured and sent to Fort Delaware. He remained in prison until well after April 1865 for refusing to take the oath of loyalty after the surrenders of Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston. The final four chapters recount Simmons's postwar experience. Byrd relates that "the Major" put the war behind him and looked to the future (p. 178). That future included a stint in the Georgia General Assembly during the 1870s, a career as a successful attorney, involvement in the newspaper business, an appointment to the Georgia University Board of Trustees, and familial responsibilities as a generous and devoted husband and uncle. Byrd makes use of the Official Records in detailing the movements and activities of the Sixteenth Georgia Infantry and the Third Sharpshooter Battalion and the actions of the generals who served under James Longstreet. As a member of Longstreet's regiment, Simmons indeed may have been present, but his personal experiences and individual voice are largely lost in the minutiae of troop movements and battle descriptions. In describing the soldier's perspective of life in the regiment, Byrd provides numerous block quotations derived from other personal accounts. With few exceptions, such as Simmons's compassion toward injured enemy soldiers and his postcapture meeting with Custer, the reader never really gets a sense of Simmons's personal experience. Confederate Sharpshooter Major William E. Simmons: Through the War with the 16th Georgia Infantry and 3rd Battalion Georgia Sharpshooters is generally well written. The author utilizes the most common official sources, several personal memoirs, and a few of the most recent secondary works. While specialists will find little that contributes to our overall understanding of the role of sharpshooters during the American Civil War, general readers and...

The Many Transformations of Albert Facey

In the last months of his life, 86-year-old Albert Facey became a best-selling author and revered cultural figure following the publication of his autobiography, A Fortunate Life. Released on Anzac Day 1981, it was praised for its "plain, unembellished, utterly sincere and un-self-pitying account of the privations of childhood and youth" (Semmler) and "extremely powerful description of Gallipoli" (Dutton 16). Within weeks, critic Nancy Keesing declared it an "Enduring Classic." Within six months, it was announced as the winner of two prestigious non-fiction awards, with judges acknowledging Facey's "extraordinary memory" and "ability to describe scenes and characters with great precision" ("NBC" 4). A Fortunate Life also transformed the fortunes of its publisher. Founded in 1976 as an independent, not-for-profit publishing house, Fremantle Arts Centre Press (FACP) might have been expected, given the Australian average, to survive for just a few years. Former managing editor Ray Coffey attributes the Press's ongoing viability, in no small measure, to Facey's success (King 29). Along with Wendy Jenkins, Coffey edited Facey's manuscript through to publication; only five months after its release, with demand outstripping the capabilities, FACP licensed Penguin to take over the book's production and distribution. Adaptations soon followed. In 1984, Kerry Packer's PBL launched a prospectus for a mini-series, which raised a record $6.3 million (PBL 7–8). Aired in 1986 with a high-rating documentary called The Facey Phenomenon, the series became the most watched television event of the year (Lucas). Syndication of chapters to national and regional newspapers, stage and radio productions, audio- and e-books, abridged editions for young readers, and inclusion on secondary school curricula extended the range and influence of Facey's life writing. Recently, an option was taken out for a new television series (Fraser).

Accounts of single combat in Byzantine historiography: 10th - 14th centuries

Accounts of single combat between heroic figures feature prominently in descriptions of battle that can be found in the works of historians of the middle and late periods of Byzantine history. This article investigates the characteristics of single combat in Byzantine historiography and examines how different authors used descriptions of single combat to promote their agenda and praise the military virtues of their heroes. Moreover, it discusses the impact of Homer, Old Testament, Byzantine epic and Western European ideals on the concept and descriptions of duelling in Byzantium.

Spring 1865: The Closing Campaigns of the Civil War by Perry D. Jamieson

Reviewed by: Spring 1865: The Closing Campaigns of the Civil War by Perry D. Jamieson Mandy Tompkins Spring 1865: The Closing Campaigns of the Civil War. Perry D. Jamieson. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015. ISBN 978-0-8032-2581-7, 320pp., cloth, $34.95. Part of the Great Campaigns of the Civil War series, Perry D. Jamieson’s Spring 1865: The Closing Campaigns of the Civil War relates the final campaigns of the Civil War in a concise narrative that will enable the work to be a steadfast source for anyone interested in the final months of the war. The details of the ending battles and surrenders in both the eastern and western theaters of the war will allow the average reader to easily follow the history; yet Jamieson includes enough details and valuable information that Civil War scholars will find the book useful as well. Attempting to provide a succinct history of early 1865 while also contrasting the events occurring in the two theaters of war, Jamieson acknowledges that he focuses on “planning and operations at the strategic and operational levels of warfare” rather than “tactics or more human-interest stories” (xi). His study of the operations involved from February to May 1865 displays the decisions leading generals on both sides faced and how those choices affected the overall outcome of the war. Tactics and human-interest stories are not neglected completely though, and interested readers can use Jamieson’s rich bibliography to find works that focus on these aspects. Jamieson sets the stage for the spring campaigns in chapter 1 with a summary of the winter of ‘64–’65. The siege at Petersburg along with Sherman’s march through Georgia had strongly defeated Confederate morale. Grant’s plan to combine Union forces would be the ultimate blow to Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. The next two chapters narrate the Union capture of Fort Fisher and Wilmington and the beginning stages of late warfare in the Carolinas. Jamieson does an accurate job showing the “incompetency” of Braxton Bragg as well as the events leading up to Lee’s decision to replace P. G. T. Beauregard with Joseph Johnston as commander of [End Page 334] the Army of Tennessee (29, 44). Many people believe that the Confederacy lost the war because of defeated morale and low numbers, but by discussing the struggles of the Confederate leadership, Jamieson acknowledges a factor sometimes forgotten. Chapter 4 focuses on Confederate issues at Bentonville before Jamieson switches to the eastern theater, the siege at Petersburg, and Lee’s first idea of combining forces with Joseph Johnston (93). The remaining chapters narrate the final battles of the Army of Northern Virginia and Robert E. Lee’s movement away from Petersburg to the west, ending at Appomattox Court House. With a daily decreasing number of troops under Lee’s command, Jamieson shows that Ulysses S. Grant’s pursuit would ultimately lead to a surrender. The final two chapters discuss the other Confederate surrenders, including the largest one, at Durham Station when Johnston surrendered to William Sherman (199). Ending with the smaller surrenders further west, Jamieson does a good job of wrapping up the final events of the American Civil War. Writing about such a large geographic area and several months of the war might prove daunting for some, but Jamieson manages to recount the events in an easy-to-follow account. Historians looking for extensive tactical details and intensive battle descriptions may not find the book extremely helpful, but it could be a great source to help them review the overall details of the campaigns. Other readers not interested in maneuvers and battle plans will still find the work useful as a way to more fully understand “how an unimaginably painful, and extremely crucial, American war came to an end” (xii). One of the main ideas Jamieson conveys throughout his work is how the choices generals, both Union and Confederate, made greatly affected the outcome of the war. The mistakes made at Fort Fisher, Confederate errors at Bentonville and the lack of communication between Beauregard and Jefferson Davis enabled Sherman to capture places such as Columbia and Fayetteville. Another important aspect the author focuses...

Dilemma as a Tragic Figure of Thought in Lucan’sBellum Ciuile

AbstractThis paper explores the role of dilemma in the rhetoric, plot, and metaphysics of Lucan’s Bellum Ciuile. In passages including Nigidius Figulus’ speech in book 1, the narrator’s outcry at the beginning of book 2, and some descriptions of battle, dilemma resonates with Senecan tragedy to create generic dissonances within the epic and polarize readers’ responses to Roman history. It also provides a model for decision-making that favors Caesar’s headlong embrace of the inevitable civil war over other characters’ equivocation.

Riding on Homer's Chariot: The Search for a Historical ‘Epic Society’

AbstractThis paper continues the author's long-standing quest to define the historicity of ‘epic society’ and to understand epic warfare and battle descriptions. It summarises the range of questions involved and a number of aspects on which some agreement has been achieved. Further progress is only possible by using new approaches. One of these, the comparative study of epic traditions, has recently yielded important results that are briefly summarised. Another new approach, overlapping with that of narratology, aims at understanding the working methods and conventions of the epic singer's art. The application of this approach to the narrative of epic battles has made it possible to distinguish between two large type scenes: ‘normal battles’ and ‘flight andaristeiaphases’. The former are essentially historical and thus help us understand early Greek fighting, while the latter are essentially fantastic. Three elements occur predominantly or almost exclusively in these fantasy scenes: thearisteiaiof the greatest heroes, the active intervention of gods in battle, and the use of chariotsin battle.The demonstration, provided in the final section of this paper, that the latter — a component of Homeric battle that has long resisted convincing explanation — is part of the singer's arsenal of fantastic entertainment and ‘special effects’, removes it from historical consideration and further facilitates the explanation of epic battles and their historicity.

THE TOPOGRAPHY OF THE PYLOS CAMPAIGN AND THUCYDIDES’ LITERARY THEMES

Thucydides' account of the Spartan defeat at Pylos in 425 B.C. has long been plagued by supposed topographical errors for which there is no agreed-upon explanation. A comparison of the Pylos episode in Book4 with the description of Phormion's sea battles in Book 2 suggests that certain literary themes, namely, the respective characterizations of the Athenians and Spartans, might have led the historian to alter several topographical details in order to support his attributions of motive to the Athenians and Spartans at Pylos.

Warrior Ants: Elite Troops in the Iliad

In the Iliad , Achilles' Myrmidons and the troops under Telamonian Ajax represent elite infantry contingents distinct from the rest of the Achaean force, specifically in their use of phalanx formations. This is evinced by several passages within the Iliad itself, and also by the mythological origins of the Myrmidons. Importantly, the tactics used on both sides of the conflict at Troy were variegated rather than uniform. Apparent discrepancies in Homeric descriptions of battle, such as the portrayal of the phalanx at some points and loose formations at others, can thus be explained.