There were property requirements, but also these were for hoplites, and I speak for the skirmishers. These men were very poor (at least the slingers) but then, if the drafting is with those who have enough property, how can there be others who do not employ it? Was the draft larger than simply "those who can afford a shield and a helmet"? There were mercenaries after all, so maybe the draft was indeed larger than simply those who can afford shield and helmet.
His City Needed Him, But He Couldn't Afford Hoplite Equipment. You Won't Believe What Happened Next!
We all know that moment: when your community is at war and it turns out you've been picked. You're right in the middle of the grain harvest and suddenly your neighbour comes up and says their cousin in the city saw your name on the board. And then you're off to gather 3 days' rations and tell your slave to get your shield down off the wall because the pair of you will be heading straight down to the nearest mustering place.
We all know that moment, too, when the war goes overseas and your taxiarchos picks you to sail with the army. You're with the good men, the other citizens from the lists, and you'll be with them for a while - the hoplites and the horsemen, all resplendent in the armour they bought for themselves, out to take care of business for the rest of the city. This is where you earn your right to the highest offices of the state. You paid the price and you've earned your place among the best.
Yes, we all know what it's like to be on the lists when war breaks out. But what happens when you're not?
Of course, us respectable citizens don't spend too much time thinking about what the poor are up to - and rightly so! They have no stake in our country. They're probably sitting around in the harbour waiting eagerly for the next trireme to be launched. They're just in it for the cash, not for the noble duty to protect the land of their ancestors. They can't even afford to buy a simple shield and spear! But did you know that they, too, have a duty to the state?
It's true! Even though it's hard to distinguish these wretched, idle masses from the foreigners and slaves they cohabit with, they are in fact citizens, by virtue of their destitute fathers and depraved mothers being citizens, somehow. And when our great state has a need, it calls on all the citizens and foreigners to do what they can.
This is what happened to young Psilomachos, age 26, from a rural village in northern Attika. The generals of the city had concocted a master plan to destroy the Boiotians once and for all; and while Demosthenes was running his part of the show in Phokis, at home in Athens, Hippokrates called out the whole people, pandemei, and all the resident foreigners to march with him into Boiotia.^1 And when the call came for the whole people, that meant poor Psilomachos, too!
"I didn't know what to do at first," Psilomachos told ASKHISTORIANS UNCUT. "My dad was killed in a Boiotian border raid years ago and they took his javelin. He'd spent years saving up for that. I asked my uncles and my father-in-law and the others in my phratry but they only had enough to arm themselves. And we all had to go."
What was Psilomachos to do? This had never happened before. There was a report that a noble benefactor from the next deme was handing out shields to the people, but they'd all gone by the time Psilomachos heard about it. Even his demarch couldn't help him. "It wasn't his business, he told me." Psilomachos still feels the raw emotion he felt then. "He said if he started to arm one labourer, the others would say it was unfair, and there'd be no end to it."
The demarch of 424 BC had returned to being an ordinary citizen after his alotted year in office, and could not be reached for comment.
There was now no more time to lose. Hippokrates was waiting. The city needed him. Seven thousand hoplites and hundreds of horsemen were ready to march; they would not wait for poor Psilomachos to find a weapon. So he simply went to the mustering place carrying nothing but the clothes on his back, and walked north.
"I had no weapon," Psilomachos stresses. "I thought they'd mock me and tell me to turn back, but I found out that I wasn't alone. There were thousands of us drafted through the pandemei levy, and most of us were totally unarmed."^2
Ready to serve, but unable to fight, what could Psilomachos do?
"It was actually pretty dumb," he relates (ASKHISTORIANS UNCUT notes the typical shameless bluntness of the Athenian poor). "The general just wanted us to help him build a palisade around a temple at Delion. Then he told us to go home. Five days of digging and hauling, and then they sent us away."
Psilomachos is here to tell the story. A thousand good Athenian hoplites were not so lucky. As the Athenians let their useless light-armed go home, the rest of the army was suddenly attacked by the pandemei levy of the Boiotians, and suffered a crushing defeat. But it's not likely that Psilomachos and his countless unarmed poor friends would have been able to change anything about that.
Thucydides 4.90.1; for the plot, see Thucydides 4.76.
Thucydides 4.94.1.