Thanks so much /u/400-Rabbits for inviting me to do this podcast. I really enjoyed this and I can't wait to hear your questions. To answer the obvious ones first, yes my name really is pronounced "rule", and yes I really do have a PhD in Rome Total War Classical Greek warfare. This is me.

It may be a bit confusing to only hear the description of a battle, so I've dusted off an old sketch I did of the battle of the Nemea to hopefully make things a little clearer:

The Battle of the Nemea (394 BC) (main source: Xenophon, Hellenika 4.2.16-23)

The first image shows the deployment of the hoplite contingents of the two armies. The army in red is the Spartan alliance, with the leading Lakedaimonian contingent of 6000 hoplites in dark red on their right (viewer's left). The remainder of the line consisted of contingents from Sikyon, Mantineia, Epidauros, Hermione, Troizen, Pellene and numerous other small members of the Peloponnesian League. The far left of the Spartan line was held by the Eleians, 3000 strong.

In blue is the allied army. On the day of the battle, the leaders of the alliance were the Boiotians (this is normally spelled "Boeotians" in English and pronounced "beeotians" in the podcast). Their 5000 hoplites are in dark blue on the right wing, with the Athenian 6000 also marked in dark blue on the left. In between the two are 7000 Argives, 3000 Korinthians and 3000 Euboians.

We do not know the depth of the Spartan phalanx, but we do know that the allies agreed to make their line 16 deep. They set this depth to keep single contingents from making their formations even deeper, shortening the line and exposing it to the danger of outflanking. The Boiotians, however, decided to ignore the agreement and make their phalanx "extremely deep", as Xenophon puts it. We do not know what this means, but it must have been more than 16, and the Boiotians fought other battles with phalanxes 25 and 50 deep, so the difference may have been considerable. The result, as predicted, was that the Athenians on the left were outflanked from the word go.

Not pictured, because no source tells us about their deployment, are the other forces, most notably the 700 Spartan and 1550 allied cavalry.

The second image shows the mutual outflanking that naturally happened when two phalanxes advanced on each other. I have to castigate past me for not properly rendering the Spartan manoeuvre of marching out to the right in column and wheeling inward. The tall grasses of the Nemea riverbed actually prevented the Spartans from seeing that their enemies were on the move until it was almost too late; they only knew that battle was imminent when they heard their enemies singing the paean, as Greek hoplites did to steel themselves for the charge.

The third image shows the result. Nearly all of Sparta's reluctant allies break almost immediately, and the allied army appears victorious - except for the 3600 Athenian hoplites who actually found themselves facing the Spartan line. These men resisted for a while, but soon broke and fled, massacred as they did so by the remainder of the Spartan line that had now wheeled inward and advanced on their exposed flank.

The fourth image shows how the Spartans won. While the victorious allies contented themselves with chasing their routed enemies for a while and then returning to camp, the Spartans kept their good order, and simply marched forward across the battlefield. The returning allied contingents were tired and no longer in battle order, and the Spartans attacked them one at a time, allowing them to pass by and then tearing into their flank and rear. Only the Athenians escaped this fate, because they had not returned from the chase yet. Every other allied contingent was hit hard and routed. About 2800 allied hoplites were killed.

I know I treated a bunch of things only superficially in the podcast, so there will probably be a lot of questions - please don't hesitate to ask!

Special thanks to Elm, Mark K., Vlad, Max M., Will R., Sarah G., Bill R., and Richard B. for their generous support of the podcast through the AskHistorians Patreon. And thanks to all our new supporters as well!

Special mention to Matt F., for boldly being our first supporter, Andy B. for putting us over the top in meeting our first funding goal, and Bill R. for getting us to our second funding goal.

And, of course, a big thanks to /u/iphikrates for spending his morning talking on the podcast.

Finally, congratulations to Bill R. for winning our first book giveaway. To recap, he gets to pick on the following texts to get delivered hot and fresh to his door:

Matthew Restall - Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest

Hans van Wees - Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities

John Hagedorn - The Insane Chicago Way: The Daring Plan by Chicago Gangs to Create a Spanish Mafia

Herbert Butterfield - The Whig Interpretation of History

This has got to be my personal favorite yet.

I wish there were more.

I'm a little late with this, but I only got the chance to listen to the podcast today.

I was going to ask some questions, but I'm going through all your old comments first to make sure you haven't already answered them. So instead, I just want to say thank you, /u/Iphikrates for such a fascinating episode. Without a doubt my favourite one to date.

/u/400-Rabbits can we please make a part two happen?

From listening to the podcast, would you say that the Spartan's greatest strength was their ability to keep their cohesion and communication in the thick of battle?

So, I'm only halfway through the episode, but you already covered armor.

What do you think about the linothorax guy at UW? He came to my campus a few years ago. Unfortunately TSA seized his samples (who knew hypothetical Greek body armor is restricted?), so I wasn't able to get a close look.

Were those classical? How is the reconstruction?

I've once heard a claim that the greeks used to wear bronze but switched to the linothorax because bronze became too expensive to afford. Is there any truth to this or would this apparent shift be caused by the increase in the number of capable fighters in the greek armies (rather than just the very rich fighting) or something else?