Did the Ancient Greeks Really Think Archers Were Cowards?

There is a popular misconception that the ancient Greeks believed that archers were all cowards because they attacked from a distance rather than from up close. What is often ignored is that some of the most revered heroes in Greek mythology, including Herakles, Philoktetes, Odysseus, and Teukros, were archers and so were the deities Artemis and Apollon. The Greeks also used archers extensively in warfare.

While there are a couple passages from surviving works of ancient Greek literature in which certain characters do condemn archers as cowards, these passages are usually taken out of context. One of these passages comes from a character who has just been shot in the foot by an archer. The other passage comes from a villain in a tragedy who is immediately refuted by one of the good characters. When read in context, it becomes clear that these passages do not demonstrate a general disdain for archers in ancient Greek culture.

A review of the misconception

In response to the question “Why didn’t Spartans use bows and arrows?” on r/AskHistorians, a user by the name of laertes78 writes:

“I think it’s worth noting that the Greeks did had [sic] kind of cultural disdain for archers. In Ilias, it’s quite clear that anyone who had a bow was somewhat of a coward. (That doesn’t apply to the gods, or Odysseus, by the way. Why, I don’t know). Given that ‘no real man’ uses a bow, and that ‘real man’ were hoplites, it doesn’t surprise that aforementioned Herodot and Thukydides kind of expected the reader to know how that there were lighter troops in the battles as well.”

This misconception even shows up in Madeline Miller’s otherwise excellent 2012 novel The Song of Achilles. In chapter two, the narrator Patroklos goes to Sparta for the courting of Helen. One of the suitors he sees there is the archer Philoktetes. Here is how Philoktetes is introduced on pages 7–8:

“Heracles was the greatest of our heroes, and Philoctetes had been the closest of his companions, the only one still living. His hair was gray, and his thick fingers were all tendon, the sinewy dexterity that marked an archer. And indeed, a moment later he held up the largest bow I had ever seen, polished yew wood with a lionskin grip. ‘The bow of Heracles,’ Philoctetes named it, ‘given to me at his death.’ In our lands a bow was mocked as the weapon of cowards. But no one could say such a thing about this bow; the strength it would have taken to draw it humbled us all.”

In reality, there is remarkably little evidence to support this idea that the ancient Greeks thought all archers were cowards. Furthermore, there is so much evidence against this idea that, if you pay attention, both of the authors quoted above are forced to make rationalizations just to accommodate this idea.

The arrows of Herakles in Greek mythology

As Madeline Miller herself acknowledges in the passage I just quoted, the bow and arrow was one the main weapons used by Herakles, who was one of the most revered of all the Greek heroes. I doubt that anyone in ancient Greece ever seriously thought that Herakles was a coward because he preferred to use a bow.

Herakles’s bow and arrows are among the most significant artifacts in Greek mythology and they play an important role in many myths. According to a popular myth recorded in the Bibliotheke of Pseudo-Apollodoros, a Greek mythographic composition that was probably written in around the second century AD or thereabouts, after Herakles slew the Lernaian Hydra, he dipped his arrows in its poisonous bile to make them deadlier. He later used his those same arrows to drive off the Stymphalian birds and to slay the giant, hundred-headed serpent Ladon.

Later, when the centaur Nessos attempted to rape Herakles’s wife Deianeira, Herakles shot him from across the river with one of his poisoned arrows that he had dipped in the bile of the Lernaian Hydra. The bile was so deadly that Nessos was dead in a matter of minutes, but, as he lay dying, he secretly told Deianeira that his blood was a love potion and that she should take some of it in a vial.

Nessos told her that, if she ever felt that Herakles’s affection for her was fading, she should pour the centaur blood on his tunic and give it to him to wear. He told her that the potion would make Herakles love her more than ever. Unbeknownst to Deianeira, however, Nessos was lying. His blood wasn’t a love potion, but, because it was infected with the bile from the Hydra that had been on Herakles’s arrow, it was an extremely deadly poison.

ABOVE: Roman mosaic from Spain depicting Herakles driving off the Stymphalian birds with his bow and arrows

Years later, Deianeira thought that Herakles was losing interest in her, so she anointed a splendid tunic with Nessos’s blood and gave it to him. Herakles put on the tunic and began to perform a sacrifice. The bile from the Hydra that was Nessos’s blood immediately began to burn his skin.

Herakles tried to tear off the poisoned tunic, but it stuck to his flesh and, in tearing off the tunic, he tore off his own skin. With his skin flayed off, Herakles travelled to Mount Oita and, in unimaginable pain, he built an enormous funeral pyre for himself and climbed on top of it. Herakles ordered his friends to light the pyre and burn him alive, but they all refused. Fortunately, King Poias of Meliboia happened to be passing by and he agreed to light the pyre to burn Herakles alive. As a reward for this service, Herakles gave Poias the magnificent bow that he had used on all his adventures and all his remaining arrows.

Poias gave the bow and arrows of Herakles to his son, the great archer Philoktetes. When the Greeks set out for the Trojan War, Philoktetes was among the most honored heroes in their company. Unfortunately, as the Greeks were making a sacrifice to the god Apollon, Philoktetes was bitten on the heel by a water snake that came out of the altar. The wound wouldn’t heal and it stunk so horribly that the warriors couldn’t bear it, so, acting under Agamemnon’s orders, Odysseus abandoned Philoktetes on the island of Lemnos with Herakles’s bow and arrows.

In the last year of the Trojan War, an oracle told the Greeks that they would never take Troy unless they had Philoktetes and the bow of Herakles, so Odysseus and Diomedes had to go to Lemnos to fetch him and bring him to Troy. (This myth is most famously dramatized in Sophokles’s tragedy Philoktetes, which was first performed at the Theater of Dionysos Eleuthereus in Athens for the City Dionysia in 409 BC. In Sophokles’s version, though, Odysseus goes to Lemnos with Neoptolemos, not Diomedes.)

The story goes that Philoktetes was miraculously healed of his injury and he used the bow of Herakles to kill Paris of Troy, thus avenging the death of Achilleus, whom Paris had killed with one of his arrows.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a marble slab dated to before the second century AD depicting Odysseus and Diomedes trying to get the great archer Philoktetes, who had the bow and arrows of Herakles, to come back to Troy with them so they would be able to win the war.

Other great archers in Greek mythology

The Greek deities Apollon and Artemis were portrayed as archers in Greek literature and were often depicted carrying bows in ancient Greek art. I don’t think the ancient Greeks saw Artemis and Apollon as cowardly, though.

In the Iliad, the Greek hero Teukros, the half-brother of the Telamonian Aias, is portrayed as a great archer. In Book Fifteen, Teukros gets an aristeia (i.e. a “best moment” or a “moment of glory”) where he shoots Kleitos, son of Peisenor, Hektor’s own charioteer. Here are lines 513–527 of Fitzgerald’s translation:

“Teukros took it all in, and on the run
he came to join his brother [i.e. the Telamonian Aias]. In his hand
he held the strung bow and a quiver of arrows.
Shooting, he made them flash upon the Trojans,
and hit Kleitos, Peisenor’s brilliant son,
companion of Polydamas Panthoïdes,
as he held hard his reins
in trouble with his horses, trying to hold them
close in where the wheeling lines were packed,
to do his best for Hektor and the Trojans.
Now in a flash his evil moment came,
and no one by his strength of will could stop it:
a quill of groaning pierced his neck behind.
He dropped out of the car. The horses reared,
then jerked the empty chariot backward rattling.”

Immediately after this, Teukros almost shoots Hektor himself, but Apollon confounds his arrows, causing him to miss. Teukros is not portrayed as a coward because he uses a bow; on the contrary, he is portrayed as brave because of his success in battle.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a modern bronze statue by the English sculptor Sir William Hamo Thornycroft (lived 1850 – 1925) depicting the Greek hero Teukros as an archer

Odysseus, the hero of the Odyssey, was also known for his outstanding skill in archery. When he is in the hall of the Phaiakians in Book Eight of the Odyssey, Odysseus proudly boasts of his mastery with a bow. He says, in lines 227–237 of Robert Fitzgerald’s translation:

“Give me a smooth bow; I can handle it,
and I might well be first to hit my man
amid a swarm of enemies, though archers
in company around me drew together.
Philoktetes alone, at Troy, when we
Akhaians took the bow, used to outshoot me.
Of men who now eat bread upon the earth
I hold myself the best hand with a bow—
conceding mastery to the men of old,
Herakles, or Eurytos of Oikhalia,
heroes who vied with gods in bowmanship.”

If archers were so despised in ancient Greece, why is it that Odysseus spends so much time boasting of his outstanding skill at archery?

Later, in Book Twenty-One of the epic, the contest to win the hand of Penelope is an archery contest. Penelope brings out Odysseus’s old bow and she declares that she will marry the man who can string the bow and use it to shoot an arrow through a row of twelve ax heads.

The bow is so huge, though, that none of Penelope’s suitors are even strong enough to string it. After the suitors have all given up, Odysseus (who is disguised as a beggar) asks if he can have a try. The suitors try to tell him that he can’t, but Penelope intervenes, insisting that they should give the beggar a chance.

Upon taking up the bow, Odysseus not only proves himself strong enough to string it, but shoots an arrow straight through the ax heads, proving himself superior to all the suitors. Then he turns on the suitors and begins to slaughter them all with his arrows.

Clearly, Odysseus’s use of a bow is not portrayed as any kind of fault; on the contrary, his skill with a bow is portrayed as something good.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of Side A of a Campanian red-figure bell-krater dating to c. 330 BC depicting Odysseus, Telemachos, and Eumaios slaughtering the suitors of Penelope

Greek use of archers in battle

The Greeks didn’t just respect archers; they also used them extensively in battle. During the Classical Period (lasted c. 510 – c. 323 BC), archers were considered ψιλοί (psiloí), or “light troops,” and they would fight alongside hoplites. It is true that fighting as a hoplite was generally considered more prestigious than fighting with the light troops, because the light troops generally came from the lower classes, while the hoplites generally came from the upper classes.

Any disdain the Greeks may have had for light troops, though, was invariably tempered by two important realizations. The first realization was that fighting as an archer or a peltast (i.e. spear-thrower) took real skill. Shooting arrows, slinging stones, and throwing spears all required extensive training and not just anyone could do these things.

The second realization was that archers and peltasts were extraordinarily effective at what they did. In the Battle of Spartolos in 429 BC, Athenian hoplites were easily overcome by Thrakian light troops and cavalry. In the Battle of Sphakteria in 425 BC, a group of stranded Spartan hoplites were forced to surrender to a much larger force composed mainly of Athenian peltasts and archers.

The Athenian general Iphikrates (lived c. 418 BC – c. 353 BC) did much to popularize the use of light troops. In the Battle of Lechaion in 391 BC, an Athenian force under his command composed almost entirely of peltasts utterly vanquished a force of around six hundred Spartan hoplites.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a sarcophagus dated to the early fourth century BC depicting an Achaemenid horseback-mounted fighter attacking a Greek psilos

The scene with Diomedes and Paris in the Iliad

The impression that archery was widely regarded as shameful in ancient Greece is largely a misconception. It does appear to be true that there were some people who considered archery shameful, but this does not seem to have been a particularly common opinion.

Supporters of the idea that the ancient Greeks thought archers were cowards often try to cite a passage from Book Eleven of the Iliad, in which the Greek hero Diomedes gets shot in the right foot with an arrow fired by Paris and mocks Paris’s archery. Diomedes says, in lines 438–444 of Robert Fitzgerald’s translation:

“You bow-and-arrow boy, you curly-head,
all eyes for little girls, I wish you’d try me
face to face with pike and shield: your archery
would do you no good then. You brag this way
for having scratched my instep. It is nothing,
a woman’s shot, or a silly boy’s.
A weak-kneed half-wit’s arrow has no point!
By heaven, arrows of mine [i.e. a spear] are whetted differently.
One that grazes a man will stretch him dead.
His women’s cheeks are torn with grief,
his children orphaned. He must soak the earth
and rot, with kites for company, not women!”

There are three very important things to bear in mind when reading this passage, though. Firstly, Diomedes has just been shot in the foot with an arrow, so, naturally, he’s pretty upset about it. Secondly, “coward” was the worst insult you call somebody in the Homeric world, so it’s natural for Diomedes to want to call the guy who’s just shot him a coward.

Thirdly, Paris is not the only archer in the Homeric poems. As I have already pointed out, other characters mentioned in the Homeric poems, such as Teukros, Odysseus, Philoktetes, and Herakles, are celebrated for their skill at archery. In fact, immediately after Diomedes says this, Odysseus is the one who comes to help him out.

Diomedes isn’t really saying that all archers are cowards; he’s just saying that Paris is a coward. There’s a difference.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a second-century AD Roman marble statue of Paris

That passage from Euripides’s Herakles

Another passage that supporters of the idea that the ancient Greeks all thought that archers were cowards like to cite is from near the beginning of the tragedy Herakles. This play was written by the Athenian playwright Euripides (lived c. 480 – c. 406 BC) and was first performed sometime around 416 BC. In it, Lykos, the villain of the play, makes fun of Herakles for preferring a bow over a spear. He says, in lines 157–164 of R. Potter’s translation:

“Who, with no merit, held the reputation of daring courage,
that with beasts he fought, in naught besides his prowess proved:
his left hand never knew to raise the shield;
never came near the spear, but held the bow,
a coward’s weapon, and was always ready for flight;
no proof of manhood, none of daring courage is the bow,
best shown by him, who, remaining steadfast, dares to face
the rapid spear and the furrowed wounds it cuts.”

It is clear that Lykos thinks that archers are cowards. There are three important things to keep in mind when reading this passage, though. The first thing is that Lykos is a wicked, power-hungry usurper who has murdered Kreon, the rightful king of Thebes. He has also thrown the Kreon’s family out of the city without food or clothing and he wants to murder Herakles’s sons for no good reason. He is definitely not a character that the audience is expected to agree with or sympathize with in any way.

The second thing is that the person Lykos is making fun of here is Herakles, one of the most beloved and revered of all the Greek heroes, who was widely seen as a paragon of bravery.

The third thing is that, as soon as Lykos finishes speaking, Amphitryon, Herakles’s mother’s husband, who is portrayed as a sympathetic character, comes to Herakles’s defense. Amphitryon argues that the bow is actually an ingenious invention and the noblest of weapons. Here is what he says in lines 188–205 of R. Potter’s translation:

“But wisdom’s prime invention, the arrow-bearing quiver,
you blame: hear me now, and become wise [sophos]:
the man arrayed in arms is to his arms a slave,
and, if stationed near the weak-hearted,
through their cowardice he perishes;
or if he should break his spear, what has he to protect him
from the carnage, his valor thus disarmed?
But he who grasps the skilful-aiming bow
has in his hand the one best thing: even if he sends
a thousand arrows against the breast of others,
himself from death defends; and, his stand held distant,
pours his vengeance on his foes,
Who fall by unseen wounds, himself secure,
nor to their arms exposed: for in the fight
this is especially wise [sophon], to annoy
the enemies, saving [sôzô] your own body.
These are my arguments, in refutation of yours
concerning the points you made.”

It is almost as though the people citing the passage from Euripides’s Herakles as evidence of Greek disdain for archers didn’t even bother to read past the end of Lykos’s speech.

This reminds me a lot of how certain people who haven’t read any part of John Milton’s Paradise Lost other than Satan’s famous speech from Book One honestly think that Milton was a fan of Satan. As I explain in this article from February 2020, though, if you read the whole poem, it becomes abundantly clear that Satan’s speech is just empty rhetoric. Not only does Satan himself not really believe that it is “better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven,” but the angel Abdiel actually gives a specific rebuttal of Satan’s speech in Book Six.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of an ancient Greek marble statue in the “Severe style” dated to between c. 485 and c. 480 BC depicting Herakles as an archer, currently on display in the Glyptothek in Munich