Bret Devereaux

I'm pretty bad at twitter but I love to yell at people about Xenophon

You’re excellent at Twitter. You just need more time to build to the following you deserve.

Anyway the harrowing narrative of Lechaion implies that ekdromoi are a *drill* that Spartans can execute when fighting peltasts, rather than a specific body of "snatchers" (to talk like riot police). One thing I gained from teaching vets is that soldiers train for situations

Yeah, I do believe it was a collateral duty. But to be selected for it implies some confidence - not just in age and fitness, but the ability to operate independently without impact to cohesion.

I note the guys don't have a drill for running back to the lines. Couldn't they fall back on an officer-- "On me, lads") and retreat at the double, rather than madly trying to outrun the peltasts who are dashing on their unshielded side and unleashing broadsides of javelins ?

I wouldn’t bet on it. In my experience, with the helmet on and trying to keep one eye on incoming missiles, if you don’t have a plan, you’re going to step on everyone. And that’s in a non-lethal re-enactment with lower adrenaline. Maybe a countermarch where you return 1/2

2/2 rear rank and the epistates becomes the promachos after you take off running on a prearranged signal? Xenophon describes the countermarch, so we know that’s already a thing.

I doubt we should picture the outrunning as a drill. It's just running after individual peltasts, and then turning and running back. The outrunners would probably have scattered, making orderly withdrawal impossible for sheer distance.