When Athenian conscripts appeared for hoplite service and went out on campaign, they fulfilled a fundamental obligation of their citizenship. This duty carried with it, however, a further one, namely, to serve honorably and above all to refrain from cowardly behavior. While Athenian hoplites were probably as courageous as any in the Greek world to judge from their military successes, the relatively abundant source material from Athens allows us to probe anxieties and tensions there concerning citizen deportment on campaign. This chapter seeks to break new ground by studying this neglected aspect of the Athenian experience and, in particular, by exploring the interplay between actual behaviors on military campaign – including those that might invite the charge of cowardice – and their representation both on location and after the fact in Athens. Only by considering Athenian concerns about cowardice within this broad framework can we fully appreciate their historical and cultural significance.

Although Athenians often linked draft evasion and cowardice on campaign as kindred breaches of good citizenship (e.g., Lys. 14.5–7; Aeschin. 3.175–6; cf. Lyc. 1.77), these differed from one another in fundamental respects.