WAR CEREMONIAL
The presence of the equipment, however, does not necessarily imply the existence of large armies fighting in regular formations. First, the range of forms for shields, helmets, weapons, and body armor seems too wide and too variable for the degree of standardization often associated with the hoplite phalanx. Moreover, grave goods, votive deposits, and new artistic representations provide very uncertain evidence for changes in tactics. Objects deposited in graves or in sanctuaries are the relics of rites whose relationship to other aspects of communal life must remain somewhat problematic.
Proclamations of status were integral to aristocratic funerals, and for a long time warfare of one kind or another held an important place in the self image and self-representation of Italian elites. Some shields, helmets, and corselets seem too ornate and too fragile ever to have been used in combat; objects such as these probably had more to do with ceremonial displays than with the actual conduct of war. Even the presence of serviceable equipment on the hoplite pattern need not imply that the original owner fought in a phalanx, because the prominent exhibition of foreign, and especially Greek, objects (or local copies of these items) was a notable feature of aristocratic self-presentation. The significance of the dense groups of marching warriors represented on vases or friezes may also be disputed: Some experts view them as depictions of phalanxes marching into battle, while to others they are processions and armed ritual dances. Nevertheless, it is certain that some cities did slowly adopt more regular and larger scale ways of making war.
Perhaps the most obscure aspect of these changes is the matter of leadership and recruitment. Early in the history of the Greek city-state, aristocratic families and factions dominated the life and the decision making of their communities. Fighting forces consist¬ed of members of the elite and their retinues and dependents, while military leadership was largely a function of the ability to raise and lead a personal armed following. Among the developed Greek city-states of the fifth century, communal institutions such as citizen assemblies and election of officeholders had superseded the earlier aristocratic leadership in many areas of
civic life, and communal norms and institutions had come to be central to war¬fare. To a large degree, equipment was standardized across the army, and military service had become a function of citizenship and wealth rather than merely the result of birth or dependence on a leading family. In the larger cities, at least, adult males were ranked according to wealth in a way that determined eligibility for military service along with a range of other political rights and duties.