Essays on Command and Cohesion in Ancient Armies

According to an old nautical joke, the most important ship in the Navy is Leadership. This volume, part of a series on “Antiquity in Global Context” is a collection of scholarly essays on the subject of leadership by a variety of European and American academics. The essays cover a vast sweep of time from about 2900 BCE to the ninth century of the common era.

“Leaders abounded in the ancient world, from kings, pharaohs, emperors, tyrants, politicians and orators, to generals, minor officials and intellectuals. This book opens fresh perspectives on leadership by examining under-explored topics, posing new questions, and revisiting old concepts.” (p. i)

Across many times and places, leadership has been hereditary, passed down from father to son (or in matriarchal tribes, mother to daughter,) but a common lesson of history is that competent and charismatic parents often produce offspring who prove to be … disappointing. In warrior cultures, personal strength, prowess with weapons, and the ability to mete out violence were essentials of leadership, but as societies grew more complex, the capacity to charm and persuade others became more useful than raw ability to “crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.”

The book consists of ten chapters:

1. Leadership in Third-Millennium Mesopotamia, by Sebastian Fink
2. Leadership in Rural Pharaonic Egypt: Village Chiefs, Small Potentates and Informal Networks of Power in the Provincial World, by Juan Carlos Moreno García
3. The Importance of Religion in Achaemenid Leadership, by Reza Shaghaghi Zarghamee
4. Leadership in Ancient China, by Yuri Pines
5. Public Generosity and Models of Leadership in Classical Athens: The Case of Demosthenes, by Marc Domingo Gygax
6. Divine Kingship as Reflected in Deuterocanonical Literature: A Challenge for Jewish Thought in the Hellenistic Period, by Beate Ego
7. Cicero, Octavian and the Failure of Republican Leadership, by Jonathan P. Zarecki
8. Ciceronian Aspects of Leadership in Livy’s Ab Vrbe Condita, by Georgios Vassiliades
9. Imperial and Episcopal Leadership Networks in the Later Roman Empire, by Bronwen Neil
10. Concluding Remarks, by Norman Sandridge

Readers with a primary interest in military history will find the essays on Achaemenid Persia (the empire conquered by Alexander the Great), ancient China, and the Roman Republic especially relevant. I learned from the essay on Classical Athens that Demosthenes, known to history mainly as a brilliant orator, was so rich that he paid to equip and crew warships, and repair the city walls out of his private wealth.

A brief concluding remark by Norman Sandridge, Associate Professor of Classics at Howard University, eloquently relates the topic to some of our contemporary concerns:

“Any publication of a volume on aspects of leadership in the ancient world can no longer be regarded as an exclusively academic exercise…will leadership, however we define it, be treated as a moral endeavor, an art focused on addressing the needs of others and activating their potential for good? Or will it be treated as a morally neutral endeavor, to be studied primarily for its power-dynamics or impact, for example on technology?” (p. 223)

The editor, Melina Tamiolaki holds a PhD from the University of Paris-Sorbonne, and is Professor of Ancient Greek Literature in the Department of Philology of the University of Crete. She specializes in Greek historiography and leadership.

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Our Reviewer: Mike Markowitz is an historian and wargame designer. He writes a monthly column for CoinWeek.Com and is a member of the ADBC (Association of Dedicated Byzantine Collectors). His previous reviews include At the Gates of Rome: The Battle for a Dying Empire, Roman Emperors in Context, After 1177 B.C., Cyrus the Great, Barbarians and Romans: The Birth Struggle of Europe, A.D. 400–700, Crescent Dawn: The Rise of the Ottoman Empire and the Making of the Modern Age, The Missing Thread: A New History of the Ancient World Through the Women Who Shaped It, The Roman Provinces, 300 BCE–300 CE: Using Coins as Sources, The Cambridge Companion to Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, Archaic Greece, Amazons: The History Behind the Legend, The Byzantine World, Classical Controversies, Reassessing the Peloponnesian War, War and Masculinity in Roman and Medieval Culture, Nemesis: Medieval England's Greatest Enemy, The Wars of the Roses: A Medieval Civil War, The Emperor and the Elephant, Tiberius, and The Roman Empire and World History.

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Note: Leadership in the Ancient World is also available in e-editions.

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