n the army and the increase in importance of the common foot soldier lead to the common man being increasingly treated better by the ruling classes.Eventually this may have led to the invention of democracy. The most noticeable difference between ancient Greek and modern warfare is the amount of "intelligence" information. Today our military maneuvers are almost exclusively reliant on information we get from satellites, scouts, or spies in the opposition. The ancient Greeks totally ignored this area of military strategy. Countless tales of armies meeting each other by chance or armies passing within miles of each other without knowledge of the other. Intelligence information seemed to have come by chance for the ancient Greeks rather then by conscious effort.Surprise is also an element of war which in modern times is taken very seriously and which was taken very lightly in ancient Greece. In fact there is evidence that ancient Greek soldiers raised their voices in the form of a marching song when they were told that an enemy was near and may be caught unprepared. This war song, called a paian, was also used to promote organization in the marching army so that all soldiers would march with an even step. In addition, the paian was used to promote courage and bravery. A paian was also used on ships to announce the nearness of the enemy. When the actual battle was joined the paian turned into a war cry. The Spartans often accompanied the paian with a flute or several flutes. The Spartan King would lead the paian as well. The use of the paian for attack appears to have Dorian roots. The Spartans are usually the ones associated with the use of a paian. Thucydides mentions that when the Dorians, from other city-states, started a paian when they were serving in an Athenian army, fear was struck into the hearts of the Athenians.Finally the sizes of the armies were very different from what we are accustomed to today. We are familiar with armies o...
