Rhipsaspia in Ancient Greek Literary Tradition

Cezary Kucewicz

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Chapter 21 Rhipsaspia in Ancient Greek Literary Tradition

于Brill's Companion to Courage and Cowardice in Ancient Warfare

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Cezary Kucewicz

Cezary Kucewicz
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类型:: 章节

Page Range:: 601–629

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004749290_022

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Abstract

The topos of rhipsaspia, or throwing away one’s shield, is most famously associated with the poetry of Archilochus. In his iambic poems, which often satirized war narratives known from the epic, Archilochus advised his listeners to choose life over glorious death in combat and flee the battlefield whenever necessary (Frs 5, 115a). This message, seen as scandalous by later writers in antiquity, has been interpreted by modern scholars as deliberately mocking the values of the Homeric epics, while also challenging the hoplite ethos of fighting in a phalanx formation, in which success depended on the cohesiveness of warriors and breaking the line endangered the safety of the entire unit (e.g., Barker & Christensen 2005; Zavaliy 2020). In his 1982 article, which remains the only scholarly treatment of rhipsaspia in ancient Greek literature to date, Schwertfeger questioned the consensus, interpreting Archilochus’ poems as continuous with epic ideals and arguing for a more complex understanding of early Greek attitudes towards flight and cowardice in battle. The 2005 publication of the so-called Telephos Elegy (P. Oxy LXIX 4708) seems to confirm this notion, implying that discourses on rhipsaspia remained varied and lively in Archaic poetry (Swift 2012; 2014), thus challenging our understanding of early Greek experience of warfare. In this chapter, I will revisit the debates on cowardice in Archaic poetry (Homer, Archilochus, Alcaeus, Tyrtaeus, Mimnermus), demonstrating that the radical changes in the perception of rhipsaspia witnessed in Classical sources were closely related to the advent of first citizen armies and the introduction of laws against desertion (lipotaxion). Studying the development of the topos of rhipsaspia in literature, as I will show, provides important insights into the process of the institutionalization of public militias, which changed the way in which the Greeks thought about bravery in combat.

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Brill's Companion to Courage and Cowardice in Ancient Warfare

丛编： Brill's Companions to Classical Studies, 卷： 12and Brill's Companions to Classical Studies: Warfare in the Ancient Mediterranean World, 卷： 12

ISBN:: 9789004749290

出版社:: Brill

印刷出版日期:: 02 Dec 2025

Subjects
- Classical Studies
  - Ancient History
  - Greek & Latin Literature

Front Matter

Introduction

Part 1 Courage and Cowardice: Setting the Groundwork

Part 2 Philosophy

Part 3 Courage and Its Limits

Part 4 The Individual and the Collective

Part 5 Fear and Flight, Punishment and Reward

Epilogue

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Chapter 21 Rhipsaspia in Ancient Greek Literary Tradition

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