[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
Our understanding of military service conditions in the ancient world and what kept men fighting in battle continues to improve. An important component of enabling soldiers to remain disciplined and stand in the line of battle was unit cohesion. This aspect of military service has long been recognized as important, but only during the last two decades have scholars of the ancient world started to study and employ it in historical scholarship.[1] In addition to providing readers with some useful examinations of military cohesion in ancient Mediterranean contexts, this volume demonstrates that military history is methodologically dynamic and has much to add to our understanding of ancient societies.
Joshua Hall begins with an historiographical consideration of ancient attitudes about why men fight and the importance of cohesive forces before moving to modern research and where scholarship stands now on these questions. Hall starts by defining the terms. We can think of vertical cohesion as the bonds between soldiers and officers at different levels of the hierarchy, while horizontal cohesion refers to the bonds among the soldiers on the same hierarchical level in a unit. Social cohesion is based on the social connection within a small set of soldiers, often called peer group bonds (or buddy system or band of brothers). Task cohesion is the bond created by a shared goal to finish a task or mission.
The volume coverage is chronological; it starts with the Greek world, moves west to Carthaginian and Roman armies and then back east with late antiquity.
Roel Konijnendijk opens the Greek section by analyzing cohesion among Athenian hoplites. His conclusion is that despite a lack of training and much else, including vertical cohesion (bonds up and down the hierarchy), the Athenian infantry enjoyed horizontal cohesiveness (bonds among soldiers within the unit) based on their commitment to their city and fellow community members. His discussion is clear and well-organized, but one is inclined to wonder if task cohesion was not also a significant factor in holding the Athenian ranks together. Konijnendijk’s chapter is clear and well organized with much that is applicable to soldiers of other poleis. Marshall’s chapter on Rhodian slingers in Xenophon’s Ten Thousand is useful for its focus on an often-overlooked unit. His examination is also helpful because of its emphasis on the mixture of task cohesion with social cohesion, which enhanced this unit’s effectiveness. Task cohesion is the way the goal of completing a task or mission binds a group together. Social cohesion is the force provided by positive relationships within the group. Marshall’s examination of both is a strength of his chapter.
Two chapters focus on sieges, in contrast to the typical attention on cohesion on the battlefield. Aimee Schofield uses Jason Crowley’s social cohesion model[2] to analyze Aeneas Tacticus’ advice for the defending unit in a siege. The treatment of the defending unit and the pressures on it is informative, but given that the defenders are united both by their community (social cohesion) and by their need to defend the city together (task cohesion), Schofield’s emphasis on primary-group bonding to the exclusion of task-based bonding is surprising since recent military sociological research has revealed that peer-group bonding is less important than has been thought.[3] The bond of the mission was a counterweight to the soldiers’ bonds to their non-combatant families and friends. Both bonds were necessary in different measures. Schofield recognizes that since Tacticus was writing about a generic community, it is not possible to derive full benefit from employing Crowley’s model, which does not really work in this chapter. Gabriel Baker draws on Greek and Roman sources to consider how units could remain cohesive when on the attack inside a city’s walls. He sets aside cases of wholesale chaos and slaughter, as those are not his focus, and makes a case for the obvious importance of unit cohesion (horizontal and vertical) in such situations. Baker acknowledges (p. 70) that some of the episodes he draws upon may be historiographically problematic but dismisses such concerns.[4]
Chapter five switches the book’s focus to the west by considering the case of Carthage’s armies. The strength of this contribution by Joshua Hall and Louis Rawlings is its attention to the importance of vertical cohesion. But the lack of ancient sources requires heavy speculation on some aspects like training and leadership, which they acknowledge. Modern analysis of the Carthaginian military is hamstrung because all their sources are from a Roman and Greek perspective (Polybius and Livy) which probably colors any study of Carthage. Adam Anders’s strong chapter on the importance of standards and trumpets is an important contribution that combines an extended, clear treatment of these tools for managing units with an examination of how they connect with horizontal and vertical cohesion. This study emphasizes the visual and auditory nature of maintaining unit effectiveness in battle. Considerations of unit cohesion would not be complete without a consideration of the role played by religion. Ben Greet examines the standards as religious objects open to every Roman soldier’s individual interpretations. In this way, he argues, they fostered cohesion within the legion.
Conor Whately considers cohesion in late antiquity. Using literary, papyrological, and material evidence, Whately concludes that there is insufficient evidence to identify and discuss primary group cohesion in the Roman army of the fifth to sixth centuries. He accepts that unit cohesion existed and was useful, but that our sources do not provide enough evidence to draw more specific conclusions.
The volume ends on a strong note with Louis Rawlings’s concluding chapter on cohesion and unit disintegration (i.e., rout) generally. Rawlings points out that as part of understanding unit cohesion scholars must examine why it broke down sometimes in every military. After a useful discussion of the various factors that predispose a unit to disintegration in combat (casualties, exhaustion, strong opposition), and the triggers that led to it, Rawlings observes that in many cases unit cohesion continues even during a rout. Soldiers running away in fear often do so in groups. Drawing on research in social psychology, he explains how the same bonds that contributed to unit cohesion remained effective for some men in flight. Rawlings’ organization of the discussion, effective use of the Greek and Roman sources of famous routs (e.g., Battle of Delium in 423 BCE, Battle of Forum Gallorum 43 BCE), and clear treatment of the topic of disintegration contribute to the usefulness of this chapter.
Most chapters demonstrate that both vertical and horizontal cohesion were important. Readers will get a sense of the potential importance of unit cohesion as an additional explanation for why men fought and how leaders failed or succeeded to command them. Unit cohesion was one more tool, and a necessary one, for managing soldiers’ effectiveness in siege and in battle. This book also demonstrates that ancient military history is dynamic and methodologically open to new approaches such as military sociology and organizational behavior studies. It now comprises so much more than just battlefield and leadership studies; there are many opportunities for important further research still to be carried out in this field.
Readers will find some useful discussions of an important topic, and the chapters contained in this book are already stimulating further research.[5]
Authors and Titles
Unit Cohesion in the Ancient World: An Introduction – Joshua R. Hall
- The Eager Amateur: Unit Cohesion and the Athenian Hoplite Phalanx – Roel Konijnendijk
- The Rhodian Slingers in Xenophon’s Anabasis – C. W. Marshall
- Keeping It Together: Aeneas Tacticus and Unit Cohesion in Ancient Greek Siege Warfare – Aimee Schofield
- ‘Once within the Gates’: Storming Cities and Unit Cohesion in Ancient Mediterranean Warfare – Gabriel Baker
- Unit Cohesion in the Multi-Ethnic Armies of Carthage – Joshua R. Hall and Louis Rawlings
- Roman Standards and Trumpets as Implements of Cohesion in Battle – Adam O. Anders
- The Legionary Standards as a Means of Religious Cohesion – Ben Greet
- Looking for Unit Cohesion at the End of Antiquity – Conor Whately
- ‘… They Were Routed’: Cohesion and Disintegration in Ancient Battle – Louis Rawlings
Notes
[1] E.g., J. Crowley, The Psychology of the Athenian Hoplite: The Culture of Combat in Classical Athens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); J. Armstrong, “The Ties That Bind: Military Cohesion in Archaic Rome,” in Circum Mare: Themes in Ancient Warfare, ed. J. Armstrong, 101-19. (Leiden: Brill, 2016) 101-19; L. L. Brice “SPQR SNAFU: Indiscipline and Internal Conflict in the Late Republic,” in Romans at War: Soldiers, Citizens, and Society in the Roman Republic, eds. J. Armstrong and M. Fronda (New York: Routledge, 2020), 247-66.
[2] J. Crowley (2012) drew heavily on modern models of unit cohesion in his analysis of Athenian hoplites.
[3] E.g., Malešević, S. Why Humans Fight: The Social Dynamics of Close-Range Violence. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2022) 223-231.
[4] His discussion would have benefited from attention to Lendon’s 2017 analysis of battle narratives. J. E. Lendon (2017) “Battle Description in the Ancient Historians, Parts I and II,” Greece and Rome, 64.1-2: 39-64 and 145-67.
[5] Unit cohesion generally and some of the chapters in this book are cited in several chapters in J. Finn (ed.) Brill’s Companion to Courage and Cowardice in Ancient Mediterranean Warfare (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming 2025).