Most Greek hoplites were not trained in any systematic sense. They were farmers who owned armour, and the formation's requirements were simple enough to work without drill: stay closed, keep the shield up, move forward. Sparta was the exception that proves the point, and Thucydides notes the effect of Spartan manoeuvre on opponents who could not do the same.
Athens institutionalised training for young citizens in the ephebeia, a period of state-supervised military service; the fullest description belongs to the fourth century and later, and how far it existed earlier is disputed.
Rome trained systematically. The sources describe drill at the post with weighted weapons, route marches under load at set paces, swimming, and repeated practice at camp construction. Vegetius gives the fullest account and is a late compiler; the specific regime he describes cannot be dated confidently, though its general character is corroborated elsewhere.
What the evidence supports
Roman training included weighted weapons practice.
Described in the sources and consistent with the finds of practice weapons; the underlying principle, that the real weapon should feel light, is explicit.
Most Greek hoplites received no formal training.
Follows from the militia character of the armies and from the surprise Spartan drill regularly caused.
Vegetius's training regime cannot be securely dated.
He compiles material from several periods without distinguishing them, which makes him a poor source for any particular century.
Primary sources
Vegetius, Epitome of Military Science 1
The fullest account of Roman recruit training, from a late compiler.
Josephus, The Jewish War 3.72-76
An outsider's description of Roman drill: their drills are bloodless battles, their battles bloody drills.
Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians 42
The Athenian ephebeia.
Battles
371 BCE
Leuctra
A Theban army under Epaminondas broke the Spartan phalanx in open battle, and with it the assumption that Spartan infantry could not be beaten.
48 BCE
Pharsalus
Caesar defeated a larger Pompeian army in Thessaly with a fourth line held back specifically to defeat the cavalry manoeuvre he had predicted, and effectively ended the Republic.
How to read the evidence labels
- Evidence level: Documented
- Supported by a named primary text or by excavated material evidence.
- Evidence level: Probable
- Supported by strong inference that most specialists accept.
- Evidence level: Disputed
- Substantial specialist disagreement exists; competing readings are stated.
- Evidence level: Literary
- Belongs to poetic or mythological construction rather than to history.
- Evidence level: Mythological
- Belongs to shared religious or mythic tradition rather than to any single text.
- Evidence level: Unknown
- The available evidence is insufficient to decide.
These labels describe the status of the evidence, not our confidence in a conclusion. A claim marked Literary is not a claim we doubt; it is a claim about what kind of thing a poem is.