The Mountain Looks on Marathon...

Here's something I wrote for another purpose a few years back (long story, tell you another time): The author is Robert Eisner, a man who knows how to shape a research program. Like many before him, Eisner remarks on the ambiguities on the Greek revolution of the 1820's, where Philhellenes from Northern Europe found themselves fighting along side (or in lieu of) Greeks who were -- well, not quite what they expected. Here is Eisner:

It was a wonder the war was won. Unlike the Greeks, the Turks had some tactics, albeit old-fashioned -- firing around standard-bearers without regard to casualties. The Greek fighters remained what they had been for centuries before the war, klephts who raided a village or ambushed travelers, snatched some plunder, inflicted a few casualties, and wisely withdrew at the first sign of opposition. Instead of lining up and fiing on order at an enemy similarly disposed, they would hide behind rocks and pop up to hurl insults and moon the Turks so as to taunt them within range. Buttock wounds were not uncommon.

--Robert Eisner, Travelers to an Antique Land
(U. Michigan Press, 1993)