Mora (military)

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Mora (plural: Morai, German: Moren) is the name for the largest tactical unit in the civil army of the ancient Greek state of Sparta . It is for the end of the 5th and the first third of the 4th century BC. Chr. Attested. According to Xenophon's contemporary report, a mora was divided into four holes , each with two pentecostia , each with two enomotia , each corresponding to an age class suite of citizens who were obliged to use weapons, i.e. ideally (and apparently never reached) 40 men. The Mora has a crew of 640 men. Ancient sources also give 500, 600 or 900 men. Modern authors calculate e.g. T. also 1024 or 1280 men nominal strength (Lazenby, 1985).

The big differences in the size calculation or estimation can partly be explained by the fact that the Morai was mostly neither fully excavated, nor was the excavated part fully filled. In addition, the size of an enomotie seems to have been assumed to be more than 36 men full, which leads to the target strength of 576 men.

Before the introduction of the Morai, the Lochoi were the largest tactical units in the Spartan army . It is not entirely clear whether Thucydides's calculation as a Spartan army at the first battle of Mantineia in 418 already reflects the Morai order. He writes of Lochoi as the largest tactical unit and comes to a real strength of 512 men per Lochos. It is possible that Thucydides simply does not use the Spartan term here because he was not familiar with it as an Athenian and so he withdrew to the usual term of the largest tactical unit.

In use, the largest tactical units were considered Morai regardless of real strength. Usually not all vintages went into the field. From the players selected vintages officials, the sick, the Messenger of missing etc. The series were at least partially with minor beneficiaries and Perioikoi filled, but usually not up to full cruising speed. The commander of a mora was usually an officer with the rank of Polemarch .

The Lacedaemonian civil army consisted of six morai as regular, heavily armed units. In addition, from approx. 422 further units of heavily armed citizens came: the Brasidas people , Neodamodeis and heavily armed helots . The units of mercenaries , allies and lightly armed men were not referred to as mora. Each mora of the civil army was assigned a rider division, which was also called a mora and consisted of 50, 60, 100 or 120 riders. The equestrian morai did not form independent tactical bodies, but were assigned to their respective hoplite morai.

After the devastating defeat of the Spartan civil army against the Thebans in the Battle of Leuctra in 371, the Lochoi seem to have formed the largest tactical unit and the Mora as a higher-level unit disappears from the sources.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Xenophon , Constitution of the Spartans 11.4.
  2. ↑ Xenophon: Constitution of the Spartans 11.4; Hellenika 6,4,12.
  3. ↑ First mentioned in Xenophon: Hellenika 2,4,31.
  4. ↑ Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War , 5,68,2

literature

  • JF Lazenby: The Spartan Army . Warminster 1985.
  • Lukas Thommen: Sparta . Stuttgart 2003.