Agelarakis, Anagnostis P.

Zafeiropoulou, Foteini

English

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Anthropology Faculty Publications Anthropology
1-1-2005
Warriors of Paros: Soldiers’ Burials Offer Clues to
the Rise of Classical Greek City-States
Foteini Zafeiropoulou
Anagnostis P. Agelarakis
Adelphi University
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Repository Citation
Zafeiropoulou, Foteini and Agelarakis, Anagnostis P., "Warriors of Paros: Soldiers’ Burials Offer Clues to the Rise of Classical Greek
City-States" (2005). Anthropology Faculty Publications. 22.
https://digitalcommons.adelphi.edu/ant_pubs/22
 S
oldiers’ bones in urns—evidence of a forgotten battle fought 
around 730 b.c. Did these men perish on their island home of 
Paros, at the center of the Aegean Sea, or in some distant land? 
The loss of so many, at least 120 men, was certainly a catastro-
phe for the community, but their families and compatriots hon-
ored them, putting their cremated remains into large vases, two 
of which were decorated with scenes of mourning and war. Grief-stricken 
relatives then carried the urns to the cemetery in Paroikia, the island’s chief 
city, and placed them in two monumental tombs.
Excavation of the ancient cemetery began after its discovery during con-
struction of a cultural center in the mid-1980s. It proved to be a veritable 
guidebook to changing funeral practices, yielding seventh- and sixth-century 
b.c. burials in large jars, fifth-century marble urns and grave stelae, and Hel-
lenistic and Roman marble sarcophagi on elaborate pedestals. But the two 
collective burials of soldiers from the late eighth century are the most impor-
tant of the finds—as the earliest such burials ever found in Greece, their very 
existence offers evidence for the development of city-states at this time.
By about 1050 b.c. the Late Bronze Age civilization of Greece had col-
lapsed, its great palace sites destroyed or abandoned. None of the many pro-
posed explanations for this—invasion, internecine war, earthquake, drought, 
economic disruption—can be proved. Regardless, the old social system was 
gone. Kings, supported by a warrior caste and administrative officials, had 
ruled over a larger class of serfs. Now that was all swept aside.
The Late Bronze Age center on a hilltop near the shore at Paroikia 
was destroyed and then reoccupied in the tenth century, but it was soon 
surpassed by the growing town around the harbor. The people prospered, 
for Paros is ringed with fertile coastal plains, and its marble, of the highest 
quality, was famed throughout antiquity. But its real wealth came after Paros 
colonized the northern Aegean island of Thasos circa 680 b.c., seizing its 
abundant timber and productive gold mines.
Archaeology • January/February 200530
 Warriors 
of Paros
Soldiers’ burials offer clues to the rise 
of Classical Greek city-states.
by Foteini Zafeiropoulou and Anagnostis Agelarakis
Facing page: A late 
8th-century B.C. group 
burial on the island of Paros 
with cremated remains of 
soldiers in large vases.
Il
ia
s 
Il
ia
di
s,
 c
ou
rt
es
y 
F.
 Z
af
ei
ro
po
u
lo
u

What sort of society did the late eighth- and early seventh-
century inhabitants of Paros and contemporary Greek cities 
have? The soldiers’ burials in Paroikia offer some clues. Two out 
of the 140 vases, most of which can be dated to circa 730 b.c., 
show scenes with people. The rest of the vases are like ones 
decorated with geometric motifs found in individual graves in 
the Kerameikos, Athens’ early cemetery. 
One of the two vases 
depicting people is dated to 
approximately 750 b.c. (per-
haps it was an heirloom). It 
shows a skirmish, with a war-
rior fighting from a chariot with dead combatants lying next to 
him, cavalry men in action (one of whom holds a small round 
shield), and foot warriors with swords. One carries a large fig-
ure-eight–shaped shield, a type used in the Late Bronze Age 
but another carries a large round shield. Called the hoplon, it 
is the same basic shield type that would be used throughout 
the Classical period and would give its name to the citizen 
soldier, the hoplite.
The other vase with people, which dates to approximately 
730 b.c., shows war and mourning, following in a continuous 
narration the killing of a warrior in battle, fellow soldiers fight-
A ca. 580 B.C. statue of the 
Gorgon flying (right) was 
discovered near the ancient 
cemetery on Paros (below).
Circa 730 B.C. soldiers’ 
tombs
Pedestal for sculpture, 
perhaps Gorgon statue
Classical tombs
Paros
Athens
Naxos
Euboia
Thasos
Tombs of eighth to sixth centuries Tombs of fifth and early     fourth centuries
Il
ia
s 
Il
ia
di
s,
 c
ou
rt
es
y 
F.
 Z
af
ei
ro
po
u
lo
u
; A
. A
ge
la
ra
ki
s
ing for his body, and the laying out of the corpse 
before cremation. The body is placed on a high 
bed or bier. Mourners stand alongside, women 
with both hands raised (perhaps tearing their 
hair) and men with one hand uplifted (possibly in 
grief or as a salute to the dead). The battle scene 
depicts the fight for the body of a fallen warrior. 
On one side of the corpse are cavalry with helmet, 
shield, and spear, supported by archers whose 
arrows fly toward the enemy. Facing them are 
lightly armed slingers, loading and throwing their 
stones (the earliest known instance of such sol-
diers depicted in Greek vase paintings), followed 
by a formation of heavily armed foot warriors, 
each carrying two spears and a hoplon.
In the Late Bronze Age, elite members of 
society fought on foot or from a chariot, using 
a throwing spear, sword, and large figure-eight or rectangular “tower” shields. 
Hoplites, by contrast, were heavily armed infantry, equipped with a thrusting 
spear and sword, breastplate, greaves, closed helmet, and hoplon. But the dif-
ference was in more than just their equipment. It was also how they fought. 
War in the Late Bronze Age Aegean was carried out as individual duels rather 
than combat in organized formations; with hoplites came the tactic of fighting 
pitched battles in close-packed lines several men deep, known as the phalanx. 
The two vases from the Paroikia tombs show both older and newer fighting 
methods, recording an important change in society.
Scholars have long debated the role hoplite warfare played in the rise of social 
institutions that supported Classical city-states. It was thought that hoplite 
gear and phalanx were adopted around 700 b.c. The new style of warfare, the 
argument went, involved farmers, tradesmen, and other common people rather 
than an elite warrior class. Subsequently these new soldiers claimed a voice in 
the affairs of their cities, diluting the power of the aristocracy and laying the 
ground for citizen assemblies—in effect, a social revolution.
This interpretation, however, was criticized as being far too simplistic. More-
over, close study of depictions on vases from ancient Greece suggested that 
hoplite gear was introduced piecemeal between 750 and 700, and the phalanx 
Classical tomb Hellenistic-Roman 
sarcophagus
Hellenistic-Roman 
sarcophagi
Tombs of fifth and early     fourth centuries Tombs of late fourth centuries and later
Conservators and students 
work on finds from the tombs 
in the field laboratory.
A
. A
ge
la
ra
ki
s
came shortly afterward, which further discredits the 
idea of a quick, revolutionary change. But now, the 
two vases from the Paros tombs offer evidence that 
hoplite warfare was established by about 730, possibly 
supporting the earlier explanation.
The most celebrated of the ancient inhabit-
ants of Paros is the early seventh-century b.c. 
soldier-poet Archilochus, who took part in the 
colonization of Thasos. Many of his lyric poems 
and epigrams deal with his experiences as a 
soldier. Some provide eyewitness testimony of 
tactics of his day, including one alluding to battle 
in a phalanx formation, which we now know was 
pioneered by his forebears:
Psyche, my psyche, perplexed with the immeasur-
able troubles that have found you, stand up. Ward 
off the dreadful assaults that lie in wait, aiming 
toward your chest, by standing resolute close 
to the face of the enemies.
We will likely never know what 
battle claimed the lives of these 
Parian citizen soldiers. There were 
conflicts between Paros and the 
nearby island of Naxos. Archilo-
chus fought in these, but we know 
little about them. Ancient authors 
also speak of a long-running war 
between Chalkis and Eretria, the 
two largest cities on the island of 
Euboia, between the mid-eighth 
and mid-seventh centuries b.c. It was 
known as the Lelantine War, after the 
name of a plain that both cities claimed. 
“On this occasion the rest of the Hellenic 
world did join in with one side or the other,” 
wrote Thucydides in the fifth century. Much 
later, in the first century a.d., Strabo recorded 
an inscription that told of an agreement between 
the belligerents to ban missile weapons such as sling 
stones, arrows, and throwing spears. These were consid-
ered inferior and less courageous ways of fighting compared 
to the phalanx, with its discipline and organization. Archilo-
chus’ verses about the war suggest Paros was involved in it:
Archaeology • January/February 200534
This vase 
from ca. 750 
B.C. shows a 
chariot fighter, and 
soldiers with a figure-
eight shield  type (far left 
on vase) and a round shield 
(far right on vase). Ili
as
 I
li
ad
is
, 
co
u
rt
es
y 
F.
 Z
af
ei
ro
po
u
lo
u
Not even the bows will be repeatedly stretched, not even the 
teeming slings when Ares gathers the toil and moil of war in the 
plain, there grievous swords will start the job of causing many 
sighs, for the lords of Euboia are the demons of this battle, famed 
for their spears.
Do the bones from the Paroikia tombs reflect such savage 
warfare? Study of the cremated bones is only beginning, but 
some preliminary observations can be made. The remains of 
the majority of the 120 individuals were deposited as mul-
tiple interments in the funerary vases. They are all males, 
and of those for whom we could determine an approximate 
age at death, most were between 18 and 45 years. Some of 
the remains do show trauma from battle, such as cut marks 
on fragments of cranial bones, limb bones, and breastbone. 
More dramatic is a fragment of an iron spear point to which 
bone still adheres.
This grim evidence brings to mind the words of Aeschylus, 
the fifth-century b.c. playwright, who wrote, “Men go to war 
and in their place urns and ashes return to their home.” Archi-
lochus was probably speaking for many of his fellow soldiers 
when he mocked in the following verses the do-or-die approach 
espoused by the Spartans, who admonished their men to bring 
back their shields or be carried home dead on them: 
One of the Saians [Thracians] is thrilled with that unblemished 
shield I left unwillingly behind in the bushes. But I saved myself, 
so what do I care about the shield, the hell with it; I’ll obtain an 
equally good one.
That the dead were interred as a group rather than in indi-
vidual family graves suggests a state-supported funeral of the 
sort described by Thucydides in Athens 300 years later. Such 
a burial indicates their status as citizens and inclusion in the 
workings of the city. Clearly, the people of Paros were acting 
as an organized state by 730 b.c. And this may explain their 
ability to colonize Thasos a few decades later, overpowering 
the local Thracian tribes after many battles. The community 
identity and centralized decision-making processes necessary 
to undertake such an ambitious expedition already existed. 
Today, the cemetery is both an ongoing excavation and an 
archaeological park, with interpretive panels overlooking the 
site, which is visited day and night by large numbers of people. 
Contemplating the lives of those memorialized here, we may 
be reminded of Archilochus’ bitter comment:
Once dead one has no more claim to respect and fame among 
the people of the city, whereas we that are alive rather seek grace 
and kind feelings from the living, therefore it will for ever be the 
worst for the dead.
Although we will never know the names of those whose 
bones we have the privilege of studying, through our work we 
are trying to learn about their lives and heroic deeds. ■
Foteini Zafeiropoulou is ephor emerita of antiquities in 
the Greek Archaeological Service. Anagnostis Agelarakis 
is a professor of physical anthropology at Adelphi University; 
the translations of Archilochus’ poems in this article are by 
the latter. Agelarakis wishes to thank Dr. Zafeiropoulou, the 
Greek Archaeological Service, the personnel of the Paros 
archaeological museum, and the team of Adelphi students for 
their sensitivity and respect to the antiquities, and their com-
mitment to science.
www.archaeology.org 35
Ilias Iliadis, courtesy F. Zafeiropoulou
Detail of a vase dated to ca. 730 B.C. 
(above) shows cavalry, archers, 
slingers, and hoplites. An iron 
spearhead fragment found in one 
burial vase still has pieces of bone 
adhering to it.
A
. A
ge
rl
ar
ak
is


Warriors of Paros: Soldiers’ Burials Offer Clues to the Rise of Classical Greek City-States

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Warriors of Paros: Soldiers’ Burials Offer Clues to the Rise of Classical Greek City-States

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