Mycenaean Citadels c. 1350–1200 BC

An extract from ‘The Mycenaeans’

By the mid-14th century bc Mycenae had assumed the hegemony of the Aegean world, giving its name to the advanced civilisation in which it played the predominant part. Not that impressive memorials of the period are lacking in other parts of Greece: Messenia, Boiotia, Attica and Lakonia were all heavily populated, and it is to Pylos in Messenia that we turn for the best preserved palace on the mainland. The Linear B archives from there suggest that the ‘warrior-king’ (WA-NA-KA, wanax) of each region stood at the head of his own highly organised ‘feudal system’.‘Bronze-armoured Achaians’
In Homer’s version of the tale of Troy, despite the anachronisms, one basic fact is clear and consistent in his picture of the political geography of Greece. Namely, Agamemnon of Mycenae was the most powerful warrior-king of Achaia, and that he wielded some sort of loose overlordship over the other independent warrior-kings of Achaia, of Crete, and some of the Aegean islands. These local warlords, in their turn, were obliged to supply him with contingents for foreign ventures like that mounted against Troy. If we are to accept Homer’s tale, this geopolitical unity is basic to it. The Homeric conception of Achaia as a nation under a single ruler may reflect Mycenaean reality. Here it should be noted that for Homer the term ‘Achaia’ is the collective name for mainland Greece, and ‘Achaians’ the Greeks and their allies ranged against the Trojans.
Nearly a third of Homer’s monumental epic, which is over 15,600 lines long, is devoted to graphic descriptions of battle. Unfortunately for military historians the Homeric battlefield is confused and contradictory, an apparent amalgam of military customs and practices fashioned from some five centuries of bardic improvisation. On the other hand, excavations over the last century or so have produced a wealth of archaeological evidence, which enables us to build up a tentative picture of the Homeric warrior. Homer’s warriors seem to be a jumble of Mycenaean traditions padded out with details from the bard’s own day, that is, close to 750 bc. The Homeric hero rides to battle in a two-horsed war-chariot but fights on foot. He is armed with two throwing spears and a long slashing sword, which Homer claims could sever an opponent’s head, leg or arm, or cut him in two. He wears bronze body armour, helmet and greaves. He also has a large round shield hanging from a neck-strap, which can be swung round to protect his back when he is in retreat.
Homer’s warriors are often described as being heavily armoured with bronze (Iliad 5.698, 13.372, 14.383), while the epithet commonly used to describe them collectively is ‘bronze-armoured Achaians’ (Iliad 1.371, 3.131, 10.287). The regimented figures depicted on the Warrior Vase (LH IIIb/c), found by Schliemann at Mycenae are the best representations of warriors from the Trojan War period. The bearded warriors wear plumed horned helmets, body armour and greaves, and carry shields that are round except for a scallop on the bottom; they are armed with short spears.

Helmets
Although the horned helmet was common in the eastern Mediterranean at this time and Homer sings of such (Iliad 16.793–94), he does describe another type of helmet, that worn by Odysseus. This was ‘a helmet wrought of hide, with many a tight stretched thong was it made stiff within’. On the outside cut slivers of boars’ tusks were ‘set thick on this side and that, well and cunningly, and within was fixed a lining of felt’ (Iliad 10.261–65). Indeed, the boars’-tusk helmet is the commonest form of helmet shown in Mycenaean art, and examples of pierced boars’ tusks have been recovered from Thebes, Mycenae and Knossos.
As reconstructed, the hide thongs probably criss-crossed over the crown making it thicker on the top where the force of a blow would be felt, and some helmets appear to have the ends of the thongs hanging down at the back to form a flexible neck-guard. The inside of the helmet was lined with felt, which would have provided comfort and additional protection as well as keeping the layers taut. The helmet’s conical shape served to deflect missiles.

Body armour
Virtually no body armour from the late Mycenaean period has survived. Bronze scales were found at Mycenae and Troy, and this, the oldest form of metal body armour, was used widely throughout the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East. Swedish archaeologists, however, discovered the earliest example of a beaten bronze cuirass at Dendra. It forms part of the Dendra Panoply (LH IIIa), which consists of 15 separate pieces of bronze sheet held together with leather thongs, which encased the wearer from neck to knees. The panoply also includes both greaves and lower arm-guards. The arm-guard is unique but greaves, probably made of linen, are often depicted in late Mycenaean art. A few bronze examples have been found, and these only covered the shins and may have been worn over linen ones. Although we have only one complete panoply to date, the Dendra Panoply appears often as an ideogram on Linear B tablets from Knossos (Sc series), Pylos (Sh series) and Tiryns (Si series).
The panoply’s cuirass consists of two pieces for the chest and back. These are joined on the left side by a hinge. There is a bronze loop on the right side of the front-plate and a similar loop on each shoulder. Large shoulder-guards fit over the cuirass. Two triangular plates are attached to the shoulder-guards and gave protection to the wearer’s armpits when his arms were in the raised position. There is also a deep neck-guard. The Linear B ideogram depicting armour of this type makes the neck-guard clearly discernible, and protection by a high bronze collar was a typical feature of Near Eastern body armour. Three pairs of curved plates hang from the waist to protect the groin and the thighs. All these pieces are made of beaten bronze sheet and are backed with leather and loosely fastened by ox-hide thongs to allow some degree of movement. The complete panoply thus forms a cumbersome tubular suit of armour, which not only fully protects the neck, but also extends down to the knees. It appears that lower arm-guards and a set of greaves further protected the warrior, all made of bronze, as fragments of these were also found in the grave at Dendra. Slivers of boars’ tusks were also discovered, which once made up a boars’-tusk helmet.
As previously mentioned, the figures on the Warrior Vase are wearing body armour. However this is an embossed waist-length leather corselet with a fringed leather apron that reaches to mid-thigh and possible shoulder-guards, very much like that worn by the ‘Peoples of the Sea’ depicted on the mortuary temple of Rameses III (d. c. 1155 bc) at Medinet Habu, Lower Egypt. Alternatively, the body armour was a ‘bell’ corselet of beaten bronze sheet, a type also found in central Europe at this time.

Shields
In the Iliad, shields are usually described as round and very large. Agamemnon’s shield, for example, can shelter a man on either side. Round shields are seldom seen in Mycenaean art but all the ‘Peoples of the Sea’ used them, and they were common in central Europe at this time. Homer’s description could possibly apply to shields with curved rims such as those on the Warrior Vase. In the dual between Ajax of Salamis and Hector, however, both combatants use full-body shields. Homer compares Ajax’s shield to a tower (Iliad 11.485, 527) and as Hector walked off after the duel Homer says ‘the dark leather of his bossed shield tapped him on the ankles and the neck’ (Iliad 6.117–18).
Two forms of full-body shield, namely the figure-of-eight and the tower type, were used in the early Mycenaean period and both types hung from a neck-strap and could be swung round onto the back when running away. The weight of the shield would clearly have been crucial in allowing the warrior some freedom of movement and they were presumably made from perishable materials as none survive in corpore. However, both forms are represented on the Lion Hunt Dagger and the Silver Siege Rhyton found in Shaft Grave IV at Mycenae (c. 1550–1450 bc), but disappear from later Mycenaean art. Homer’s shields were made of several layers of ox hide, probably stretched and then sewn over a wicker frame. This stitching is shown in a fresco from Knossos, and the dappling of the shields on the Lion Hunt Dagger suggests the use of ox hide. Both artistic depictions also indicate that the shields had bosses and were edged with bronze. These shields would have afforded good protection as they curved around the otherwise unprotected body, although their size would undoubtedly have made them somewhat cumbersome.

War chariots
In battle the Homeric warrior normally dismounted from his war chariot and advanced upon the enemy on foot (Iliad 8.320–22, 11.47–49, 16.426–27). He carried either one or two spears, which he could throw against his opponent (Iliad 3.346, 4.459, 14.461). If the enemy remained unscathed, he then protected himself with his shield against the retaliatory shafts (Iliad 5.15–20, 13.159–68, 21.159–73). If the spears of both parties were hurled in vain, the two warriors might set about each other with swords or, before resorting to these weapons, they might throw heavy stones at each other (Iliad 3.361–63, 22.306–11 [swordplay], 4.518–22, 12.379–85 [stone throwing]). Homeric war chariots, therefore, were not used for massed charges but merely for carrying the warriors to the front line where they dismounted and fought on foot.
In the ‘Chariot Kingdoms’ of the Near East, on the other hand, war chariots were not used as ‘taxis’ but were formidable close-quarter weapons. At the battle of Kadesh (c. 1275 bc), for instance, the Hittite king is said to have deployed no less than 3,500 chariots against his Egyptian opponents. No recognisable parts of a Mycenaean chariot has been brought to light but an inventory discovered in the ‘armoury’ at Knossos lists approximately 550 chariot bodies and at least as many pairs of wheels (Sc series). Similarly, at Pylos Linear B tablets list at least 200 pairs of wheels as well as wood for the making of 150 axles (Sa series), and two specifically mention chariot makers (En 421, 809). Requiring the services of a large number of specialists – besides chariot warriors and charioteers, the privileged elite, horse trainers, grooms, veterinarians, and carpenters were also a must – chariot forces were notoriously expensive to maintain. The rulers of Knossos and Pylos devoted a fair proportion of their resources to the maintenance of a chariotry of several hundred vehicles. To find the two-horsed war chariot often depicted in Mycenaean art need occasion no surprise.