Hoplite Musicians

[armchairgeneral]

There seems to be two options for musicians for hoplite units. Trumpet or horn (salphinx) or pipes. Does it matter which? I thought the latter were a Spartan only thing? You would think they would be hard to hear over the din of battle.

Secondly would/could the musician be armoured? If not he would seem so vulnerable to missiles and spears if I assume he would be in the front rank? Unless there was an understanding that musicians would not be targeted.

[Fremitus Borealis]

Yeah I often wonder how much is conjecture vs stuff we really know for sure. Like I know there are artistic depictions of non-Spartan hoplites accompanied by the reed flute players (Chigi Vase, maybe?) but I can't recall any texts that specifically refer to it (which, obviously that means almost nothing, as my memory is far from comprehensive )

I agree it seems like on a practical level you really wouldn't be able to hear then once the fighting started. But they might have had more of a ceremonial or religious purpose? That might also explain the lack of armour.

[Melnibonean]

Ancient Greek armies did not have musicians as part of their units. There was no place in the phalanx for a guy with a set of pipes.
The musician figures you see and the depictions that appear on artifacts are not soldiers. What they did was play what is called a paean. The paean was a battle chant sung before and during the battle to get the troops blood up, sort of like a marching song. The piper would accompany the chant to keep the troops in tune and in time.

Also, the pipes are called the aulos and if you have ever heard them you'd hear that they are very loud with a harsh rasping sound.

Something else to consider is that in times past soldiers thought differently to how you expect modern troops to think. In most cultures musicians were considered sacred on the battlefield and a non-target. Even in the second world war musicians were still used as non-combatant stretcher bearers. In ancient times there were a lot more traditions, sacred and religious considerations to be taken into account before, during and after a battle.

[armchairgeneral]

Okay so pipes aside, wasn’t the salphinx not used in the phalanx to signal commanders intentions at least before battle commenced?

[Jjonas]

Depends a bit of the period and army. We do know that later armies became more organized.

There are numerous references in the Alexander historians to orders being given by
the bugle (salpinx).6 On numerous occasions a bugler (salpingtes) is stated explicitly as
giving orders to the different units in the army.7 Clearly buglers played an important role
in dispensing instructions in Alexander‘s army.8 They may even have been children as
they often were in British regiments in the 18th and 19th centuries.9
Aides (hyperetai) were used to convey messages between units and to do whatever was
required by the commanding officer. They were the general help for the officer, as both
the ancient and modern terms imply. An aide was indispensable to the commanding
officer in doing the little things so that he could concentrate on the important task at
hand of leading the unit. Wellington relied heavily on his aides during the Peninsular

5 Sekunda‘s assumption that since Ptolemaic Egypt was trying to mimic the army structure of the
Romans they would have adopted every aspect is far from perfect. The size of the phalanx was reduced to match the Roman maniple because it was too cumbersome a unit but this reduction in size did not specifically require three supernumeraries only.
6 Diodorus has seven references to a bugle giving commands in book 17: 17.11.3; 17.25.1; 17.26.5;
17.45.7; 17.68.3; 17.89.1; 17.106.7. Arrian has seven: 1.14.7; 3.18.5; 3.18.7; 4.4.5; 5.24.3; 6.3.2; 7.3.6. Cf. the occurrence of tuba (―trumpet‖) in Curtius: 3.8.23 (Issus); 4.13.22 (Gaugamela); 5.2.7 (the trumpet cannot always be heard above the din); 5.4.17 (at the Persian Gates); 7.1.25 (on the role of the trumpet);
8.1.47 (Cleitus episode, to summon the troops); 8.11.11 (at Aornus); 8.14.10 (the Indians used drums in situations where Macedonians used the trumpet).
7 Arrian: 5.23.7 (x2); 5.24.2 (salpingtai: plu.). Diodorus: 17.86.5. There are many other references to
buglers in historical works. Polybius for example provides 7 references and a further 17 concerning the use of the bugle. Diodorus has 37 other references to buglers and bugles.
8 It is very unlikely that a bugler was not used in the Ptolemaic army because of the necessity for the
passage of clear orders. The lack of reference to one in the papyri occurs because the bugler was not
important enough to be classed even as a junior or non-commissioned officer. The kerux may have taken over the role of the bugler in giving orders but the linguistic origin of the word must mean that originally
there was a herald who used his voice to pass on orders and a bugler who used his bugle.
9 The Chigi Vase shows hoplites marching to flute players.

https://openprairie.sdstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1009&context=hppr_pubs

[Jjonas]

From a strictly literary point of view, the hoplite phalanx did not exist until the fourth century, when Xenophon refers to “the phalanx of hoplites” (Anabasis 6.5.27).13 The word “phalanx” apparently derives from a root meaning “log.” Neither Herodotus nor Thucydides uses it in a military context, and with a single exception, the Archaic poets use it only in the plural, phalanges, with one exception in the Iliad.14 The word “hoplite,” which derives from hopla (military equipment), first occurs in the fifth century as an adjective in poetry; it becomes common as a noun in the second half of the century, first in Herodotus, then in Thucydides, Aristophanes, Euripides, and inscriptions.15 When discussing Archaic warfare, we might do well to avoid the expression “hoplite phalanx” and refer simply to phalanges or ranks, without prejudicing the issue of who fought in them.

Who did fight in the Archaic phalanges? By the time of the Peloponnesian War, lightly armed troops fought separately from the hoplites, as emerges clearly from Thucydides’ description of the battle of Syracuse (6.69.2): “The stone-throwers, slingers, and archers of either army began skirmishing, and routed or were routed by one another, as might be expected between light troops.” Following this inconclusive skirmishing, the seers sacrificed and the trumpeters blew, and only then did the hoplites move forward. So the phalanx of hoplites existed before any surviving source names it. When was the exclusive hoplite phalanx invented? How historians have answered this question makes for an interesting story.

https://erenow.net/ancient/men-of-bronze-hoplite-warfare-in-ancient-greece/9.php