[Script Preview] Feeding a Greek Army

Introduction

You know what hoplites looked like, but do you know what Greek armies smelled like?

Hoplites are iconically depicted as gleaming armies of bronze. However the dirty little secret which our visual mediums fail to depict, but which ancient authors are keen to point out, is that such armies reeked of fish and onion. So much so, jokes the 4th century playwright Aristophanes, that one could distinguish between a nation at peace and one at war by the pugnancy of its air.

Today we will dig deeper into this topic by examining the ancient Greek diet, the logistics of its armies, and the experience of each soldier’s daily meals. This is How to Feed a Greek Army.

The Ancient Greek Diet

An army marches on its stomach, but the particular diet of a force was often a reflection of their civilian culture. To this end, let us begin with a review of the ancient Greek dining habits. Generally speaking, their day could be constructed around three basic meals: Akratisma, Ariston, and Deipnon.

Breakfast, or Akratisma, was a relatively basic affair, often consisting of porridge or barley bread dipped in wine. For more well off households, they might add fruit such as figs and dates or a side of cheese. Pancakes were also a popular dish. These Tiganites consisted of wheat flour, olive oil, honey, and curdled milk which were easy enough ingredients to procure.

Lunch, or Ariston, was also light and simple. At home it often consisted of salted fish, bread, cheese, and olives. Nuts such as almonds, pistachios, and chestnuts were also common, as was a selection of fruits such as pomegranates, pears, or grapes. As a side note, we should mention that fresh meat was expensive for city-dwellers and was typically reserved for special occasions. While folks from the countryside had greater access to domesticated or wild animals they still tended to eat less meat than we do today.

Dinner, or Deipnon, was by far the most lavish meal of the day. This is where the Greek symposium would take place, a large party meant to encourage interaction and discussion, to bring people together and to speak of philosophy, politics, and current events. While it was generally served at nightfall, there are some attested cases of these dinners beginning as a late midafternoon lunch and culminating with a second course later in the evening.

Individual diets might vary depending on a person's wealth and location, but there are some recurring themes across the Greek peninsula. Naturally, given its plentiful coastlines, fish was common and main dishes often revolved around seafood. Aristophanes jokes at just how elaborate such preparations could be with at least sixteen major ingredients being added all on one platter. Another reflection of geography was the prevalence of grapes and olives. These might be eaten raw but were widely processed as olive oil and wine which would be watered down and honeyed in a mixing jar known as a Krater. Such food and drink were staples of daily life for meals, religion, and even bathing. No dinner, rich or poor, was complete without them.

While Greek farming was not the most prolific in the Mediterranean, it nonetheless provided many more additions to one’s table. This included onions and legumes such as lentils, chickpeas, and favas beans, or root vegetables such as turnips, carrots, and radishes as well as leafy greens like cabbage, lettuce, and mustard. Such additions were relatively cheap for most Greeks and greatly helped round off their nutritional needs.

As in earlier meals, cheeses made their appearance, usually as soft variants, and fruits such as Figs, Dates, and Pomegranates were extremely popular, though their availability was limited based on the season and natural perishability. As such they were often held in high regard, featuring prominently in Greek literature and mythology. Fruit could be candied with honey for extended preservation and made a great dessert alongside other small cakes or snacks which may have been prepared.

Exactly how much of this 3-meal tradition was reflected in a soldier’s diet on campaign would have very much depended on the situation. For a greater understanding of this topic, let us now take a look at the process by which a Greek army supplied itself whilst on campaign.

Army Logistics

Because conflicts of this era tended to be rather short and localized, Greek logistics were comparatively underdeveloped. Most armies had no centralized system of supply or quartermaster. Rather it was expected that soldiers would bring with them several days worth of rations and otherwise keep themselves fed whilst on the march. This task would be carried out by each man’s attendant who might be a slave, hired staff, or young family member. Herodotus indicates that 1 servant per hoplite tended to be the norm but wealthier soldiers might bring more.

Beyond this, the fighting men could also have a wider entourage of friends, family, and acquaintances with them for longer campaigns. Even more non-related individuals flocked to such walking cities in search of profit. Taken together, these noncombatants hugely bloated the size of armies, slowing them down and more than doubling the number of mouths to be fed. To meet this increased demand, additional supplies would be collected from allies, plundered from enemies, or bought from merchants who often trailed these forces.

Prudent generals therefore took great care in planning their army's march route to ensure its needs would be met. The following is a relevant passage about such deliberations from Xenophon's Anabasis: quote

“Now, therefore, make up your minds whether you will consider this question here and now or after you have set forth in quest of provisions. My own opinion is, seeing that here we neither have money with which to buy nor are permitted to take anything without money, that we ought to set forth to the villages from which we are permitted to take, since their inhabitants are weaker than ourselves, and that there, possessed of provisions and hearing what the service is that one wants us for, we should choose whatever course may seem best to us.”

Baked into these calculations is the rather brutal principle echoed by Thucydides in his writing on the Peloponnesian war that: quote “The strong do what they can; the weak suffer what they must.”

When an army came through one's lands, there was little the locals could do to resist the bronze clad horde of locusts. In later years however, Greek militaries shed some of their marauding ways. More sophisticated means of replenishment by baggage train and ship convoy kept armies topped off while campaigns were kept relatively lean thanks to limits on the numbers of accompanying non-combatants.

With this high level concept in mind, let us now see what the experience of feeding a Greek Army was like for the individual soldier.

Army Diet

Generally speaking we must imagine a more basic military diet which reflected the origin and route of an army with a preference for foods that were easy to collect, easy to preserve, and easy to consume.

To this end, it seems that the foundation of a soldier’s diet was grain based. Both wheat and barley were consumed in great quantities. As with the Romans, the former was held in higher regard. However barley proved easier to grow in the Greek landscape and was therefore the more affordable option. Yet regardless of the variant, all grains would have to be processed in some way. This would be the responsibility of a soldier’s attendant. In the morning, they would mill the day's flour, likely with a mortar and pestle style instrument or even simple stones.

For breakfast, coarse flour could be boiled to make porridge while finer flour could be turned into dough and baked into bread or cake. Supplementing the grains, legumes - such as lentils, fava beans, and chickpeas were commonly eaten. Like grains, they were readily dried and preserved for transport in large quantities. While not the most appetizing of options, these were filling and nutritious meals that would give the soldier enough energy for the day's march and duties.

Naturally however, most hoplites would seek to supplement such bland rations with more varied ingredients. Much of this would be obtained at the start of a campaign. Aristophanes for instance describes how departing armies would go on mass shopping sprees to hoard such goods. Fish could be found in great abundance though it would have to be salted and eaten in the early days of a campaign. For the longer term, goat or sheep’s cheese was a popular purchase as it was easy to obtain, kept well, and was quite light. Another hoplite favorite was the onion. While certainly useful as a flavorful and nutritious ingredient it was reportedly eaten raw by the men.

One can only imagine the smell of a soldier’s travel sack, let alone the breath of such an army which lived on salted fish, cheese, and onions. Truly it must have been enough to break an enemy by itself. Indeed Aristophanes jokes that a country at war could be distinguished from one at peace largely by the pungency of its air.

Other ingredients were collected opportunistically in the field. This included whatever soldiers could get their hands on, be it fruit harvested from an orchard, berries collected from the forest, or nuts ransacked from a storehouse. Yet such practices were not without risk. Dispersed troops were vulnerable to attack and there was no guarantee that what they collected would actually be safe for consumption as evidenced by the famous account of an army becoming debilitatingly intoxicated from wild honey.

Returning to our discussion of each day’s meals we can now move from breakfast to lunch. This was likely to have been a lighter snack which was consumed over the day’s march. Once more, the soldier’s servant would have prepared such a meal for their master at the start of the day. Jerky, sausage, or biscuits packed with cheese and olives all made for convenient grab and go options.

Our friend Max Miller from Tasting History has actually recreated another option for a type of hoplite power bar. We’ll let him describe it to you in his own words:

[INSERT MAX CLIP]

Thanks for that insight Max.

Finally, at the end of the day came dinner. As in civilian life, this was the most important meal of the day. While we should not expect an elaborate Symposium to have been the norm, they are occasionally attested to, especially among the upper ranks of the army. The following is a relevant passage from Xenophon’s Anabasis: quote

“When they had come in for the dinner - the noblest of the Thracians who were present, the generals and the captains of the Greeks, and whatever embassy from any state was there - the dinner was served with the guests seated in a circle; then three-legged tables were brought in for the whole company; these were full of meat, cut up into pieces, and there were great loaves of leavened bread fastened with skewers to the pieces of meat.”

Most rank and file troops partook in a simpler version of this communal experience. Yet even still it was the highlight of a soldier’s day. As such dinners were ideally enjoyed hot with the best ingredients being used. It would be here that meat or fish would most likely make their appearance. In most cases these would be spit and roasted over a fire though dishes could certainly be boiled or stewed if time and equipment allowed.

Another highlight of these dinners was wine. It would be kept in large earthenware jugs and poured out into each warrior's cup with added water and sometimes honey. Such wine was key to army morale and prudent generals did well to ensure its steady supply. However history is replete with examples of overindulgence. Xenophon recounts one more humorous tale of how Greek soldiers pillaging across an esteemed wine region soon degenerated into a luxurious band of snobs who would no longer accept any but the best of wine stocks.

In this way was a Greek army kept fed whilst on campaign. Theirs was a simple yet effective diet which kept the men suitably fueled for the short-burst campaigns of the era. Yet as Greek armies would find, their methods would have to evolve in later years when wars dragged on over greater distances and durations. But such discussions will have to wait for another video.

Outro

We hope you have found this topic both entertaining and enlightening. A big thanks once more to The Greek Phalanx for their reenactment and Max Miller for his cooking insights. A special shout out as well to our supporters on Patreon and YouTube for helping to fund the channel. And finally a thanks to the researchers, writers, and artists for making this episode possible. We couldn't have done it without this team or this community.

If you liked this topic, be sure to like and subscribe for more content and check out these other related videos. See you in the next one.

Bibliography

Anabasis by Xenophon

Hellenika by Xenophon

Peace by Aristophanes

Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens by James Davidson