Strategos

For the board game, see Stratego.

The term strategos (plural strategoi; Greek στρατηγός) is used in Greek to mean "general". In the hellenistic and Byzantine Empires the term was also used to describe a military governor. In the modern Hellenic Army, it is the highest officer rank.

The office of Strategos in Athenian democracy

From 501 BC the Athenians elected ten generals each year, one for each of the ten 'tribes' that had been created with the founding of the democracy. Originally the generals worked together with the old polemarch ('war leader'), but while the name remained this figure soon lost all military function . Strategos literally means 'leader of the army', hence the translation general, but once Athens at the instigation of Themistocles became a naval power, the generals had charge of the navy as well. The ten generals were equals of each other without any ranking: at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC the generals decided the battle plan by majority vote. Particular assignments, however, might be given to individual generals and from some point there was a regular division of reponsibilitiess. At times at least some generals were elected in a purely honorary capacity: the poet Sophocles had a spell as general in advanced old age. In the event of a general's death or dismissal a replacement would be elected for the remainder of the year.

The 10 generals were among the hundred or so officials who were elected under the democracy and among these they were the most prominent. The tendency under the democracy was to select officials by lot, but generals needed to be both experienced in war and capable of operating on the level of interstate relations, which in the Greek world generally was an aristocratic preserve. It is probable that the generalship was open to any citizen, but in practice only prominent upper class citizens were elected. The generals were paid but only when on campaign. It could however be an extremely lucrative office to hold, as they received a share of the booty and interstate diplomacy could involve lavish gift giving, legitimate or otherwise.

Throughout the 5th century BC there was a very strong link between the board of generals and the leadership of the state. The generals were often prominent in the initiation of policy within the assembly. They did not do so however by virtue of the power of their office. Formally speaking, if they rose to address the assembly, they did so only in their capacity as citizen. The premier example is Pericles, re-elected many times including a generalship every year between 443-430 BC. According to the historian Thucydides, his dominance was so great it was democracy in name, but monarchy in fact. Like any general, however, Pericles could be removed from office simply by a vote of the assembly.

In the 4th century BC there was a shift, those guiding policy in the assembly and those leading armies usually being different people. This was because of the increasing complexity both in military affairs and in the administration of the city. On the military side, the use of mercenaries became more and more common, with mercenary leaders sometimes even being given citizenship so they could be elected general. With the loss of its 5th century empire, the finances of Athens became much more precarious and a series of new financial officials rose to prominence. These, together with expert speakers in the assembly, edged the generals out of their political role. By the 4th century too the generals were elected from the people as a whole and were no longer linked to the tribes.

Generals were frequently subject to impeachment and prosecution in the courts. Penalties ranged from execution to banishment and fines. The fines imposed might be truly monumental, figures that could swallow up the estates of the very richest Athenians. In 430 BC Pericles himself was temporarily removed from office by the assembly and fined. After the victorious naval battle of Arginusae in 406 BC, all eight generals in command on the day were tried and sentenced to death for failing to rescue survivors, though not all came home to accept the penalty.

The Athenian military was organised on democratic principles and discipline was relatively weak. There are a few (doubtful) cases of summary executions carried out by generals on campaign, but the normal mode in the case of severe derelictions of duty by soldiers was for the general to bring a prosecution before a court with the serving men acting as jurors. The generals themselves like any democratic office holders underwent review (euthunai, literally 'straigthenings') the year following their service. This review could be used to trigger a full court session at which the general would be on trial with those he had commanded sitting in judgement over him. This was not a scenario under which brutal disciplinarians are likely to prosper.

Some of the more notable Athenian strategoi from the 5th century BC:

Pericles the great proponent of Democracy in Athens
Aristides
Themistocles
Cimon
Thucydides the author of The Peloponnesian War
Nicias
Alcibiades
Cleon

See also Archons of Athens for a list of the known strategoi.

The office of Strategos in other Classical Greek states

Other Greek states also possessed the office of Strategos. Notable among these was the Achaean League, whose most famous strategoi were Aratus and Philopoemon.

Hellenistic and later use

In the Hellenistic empires of the Diadochi, notably Lagid Egypt, Strategos became a gubernatorial office.

This use was continued in the Byzantine empire (see Byzantine aristocracy and bureaucracy).

Modern use

In the modern Hellenic Army of Greece, strategos (the spelling remains στρατηγός) is the highest officer rank. Officers holding this rank are addressed as "stratige" (Στρατηγε) (stressed on the last syllable). All but one of the other Greek general officer ranks are derivations of this word: antistrategos and ypostratigos, lieutenant general and major general, respectively; brigadier general, however is taxiarkhos, after a taxis (in modern usage taxiarkhia), which means brigade.

Fictional uses

This position was featured in Orson Scott Card's novel Ender's Game. In the novel, the position of Strategos was charged with overall command of solar system defense. The Strategos, along with the positions of Polemarch (responsible for the International Fleet of space warships), and the Hegemon (the political leader of Earth, rather like a stronger version of the Secretary-General of the United Nations), was one of the three most powerful people alive. Because of a belief in their inherent luck and brilliance, all three positions were filled with Jewish people - an American Jew as Hegemon, an Israeli Jew as Strategos, and a Russian Jew as Polemarch. The defeat of the Formics by half-Māori Mazer Rackham changed this position. Bean was given the title of Strategos by Peter Wiggin after he assumed the Hegemonship.

The dystopian slave-empire of the Draka, in the series of books by S. M. Stirling, also uses "Strategos" together with many other military ranks and terms drawn from Classical Antiquity - though often with only the most loose resemblance to what they originally meant.

The position of 'Strategos' was also featured in the English language version of the Sunrise anime The Vision of Escaflowne; the character Folken occupied the position when he served the Zaibach empire.

References

Hansen M.H. 1987, The Athenian Democracy in the age of Demosthenes. Oxford.
Hamel, Debra 1998, Athenian generals : Military authority in the classical period. Leiden.
Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1996: strategoi.
Pauly-Wissowa