Warfare: Royal Stalemate: Hellenistic Kingdoms at War [PDF]

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A N C I E N T

WARFARE VOL IV, ISSUE 6

Royal stalemate: Hellenistic kingdoms at war With:

• Military costume • The battle of Raphia Also:

• ‘Low tech’ and improvised weaponry • Debate: women in Roman forts And much more! www.ancient-warfare.com AW nr6 nov-dec2010.indd 1

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A N C I E N T

WARFARE Publisher: Rolof van Hövell tot Westerflier Editorial staff: Jasper Oorthuys (editor), Eugene Harding (copy), Dirk van Gorp Website design: Christianne C. Beall Contributors: David Balfour, Bob Bennett, Guy Bowers, Duncan B.Campbell, Ross Cowan, Duncan Head, Mateusz Lobacz, Paul McDonnell-Staff, Michael Park, Ruben Post, Mike Roberts, Michael J. Taylor, Christopher Webber, Ivo van de Wijdeven. Illustrations: Andrew Brozyna, Igor Dzis, Angel García Pinto, Brendan Keeley, Carlos de la Rocha, Johnny Shumate.

CONTENTS 4

NEWS and letters

THEME Royal stalemate

6 INTRODUCTION 10 THE SOURCE

33 MACEDON’S LAST HURRAH

The Third Macedonian War and Pydna

38 FIGHTING ON ALL SIDES Thracian mercenaries of the Hellenistic era

The Amphipolis regulation

Design & layout: © MeSa Design.www.mesadesign.nl e-mail: [email protected] Print: PublisherPartners. www.publisherpartners.com Editorial office PO Box 4082, 7200 BB Zutphen, The Netherlands. Phone: +44-20-88168281 (Europe) +1-740-994-0091 (US). E-mail: [email protected] Skype: ancient_warfare Website: www.ancient-warfare.com Contributions in the form of articles, letters and queries from readers are welcomed. Please send to the above address or use the contact form on our website. Subscription Subscription price is 33.50 euros plus postage surcharge where applicable. Subscriptions: www.ancient-warfare.com or Ancient Warfare PO Box 4082, 7200 BB Zutphen, The Netherlands. Distribution Ancient Warfare is sold through selected retailers, museums, the internet and by subscription. If you wish to become a sales outlet, please contact the editorial office or e-mail us: [email protected] Copyright Karwansaray BV, all rights reserved. Nothing in this publication may be reproduced in any form without prior written consent of the publishers. Any individual providing material for publication must ensure they have obtained the correct permissions before submission to us. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders, but in a few cases this proves impossible. The editor and publishers apologize for any unwitting cases of copyright transgression and would like to hear from any copyright holders not acknowledged. Articles and the opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the editor and or publishers. Advertising in Ancient Warfare does not necessarily imply endorsement.

44 STICKS AND STONES 14

‘Low tech’ and improvised weapons

BRIGHT COLORS AND UNIFORMITY

Hellenistic military costume

48 THE DEBATE Women in Roman forts

20 AT THE EDGE OF HELLENISM

Armies of the Greeks in Bactria and India

54 REVIEWS

Books, games and models

25 CLIMAX OF THE

SYRIAN WARS

The battle of Raphia, 217 BC

58 ON THE COVER

Ancient Warfare is published every two months by Karwansaray BV, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. PO Box 1110, 3000 BC Rotterdam, The Netherlands. ISSN: 1874-7019 Printed in the European Union Ancient Warfare

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NEWS

The Othismos Debate Dear Editor, I found the Othismos article by Murray Dahm (IV.2) to be quite interesting and I very much appreciate the author’s thorough presentation of the debate, however I am much disappointed by scholarly attempts thus far to explain the phenomenon. It strikes me as obvious that the othismos was a battle tactic, to be employed by the strategos at the time of his choosing and signaled – as with most instructions – via instrument. When the othismos is considered with this in mind, there should be no surprise that it would be used early in some battles and later in others. For example, it would be most reasonable for a strategos to use the othismos early on if his opponent were lightly armored (e.g. against a Persian force) so long as such a move did not expose the flanks of either his army as a whole or of individual units. In this case, he would have to wait until the lines were ‘set’ and he felt the enemy was committed entirely. Regarding the issue of individual combat, it seems many historians have had difficulty reconciling the lack of individual maneuverability within the phalanx with the historical accounts detailing an individual’s combat prowess. To unravel a solution, we first acknowledge (as most historians do) that most of a battle’s casualties occurred once an army began to route. Since this is when most of the killing took place, is it not also obvious that this is when most individual prowess would be displayed? It would be difficult for hoplites to chase a broken enemy if they maintained the close order and formation of the phalanx (and if this were the case, casualties for defeated armies would have been quite low in the warfare of Ancient Greece.) The only way to effectively pursue a broken enemy would be to unleash the hoplites like a pack of hounds. Bear in mind, while many of the enemy would be cut down from behind, there would no doubt be individuals or even small groups who would turn and attempt to defend themselves… and this is when the individual hoplite could display his prowess. Best Regards, Robert C. Bowden III Friendswood, Texas

Murray Dahm responds Dear Editor, I agree that scholarly attempts to explain are dissatisfying - if only it was still used in battle we would be much better off! Those scholars who hold to a battle phase model for would probably argue that they have answered the idea of being a specific tactic to be introduced at a time of the commander's choosing. That being said, the mechanics of command within actual battle for most of ancient warfare are little understood. Individual combats could occur after battle and renown could be won in them - Socrates' actions after Delium spring to mind, but, as described, most appear to take place (and are expected to take place) during battle and before the rout. Hoplomachia was considered useful by some for individual combat outside a phalanx-combat situation but this issue too requires a more satisfactory analysis. Kind regards Murray Dahm

Medieval Warfare Ancient Warfare is about to become a big brother! Medieval Warfare Magazine will bring you coverage of the next 1000 years of warfare, in the same great style you've come to expect from Ancient Warfare: that means more beautiful, original artwork and insightful articles by a host of knowledgeable authors. Medieval Warfare is expected to be available in the spring of 2011. Until that time, you can visit the website at www.medieval-warfare.com. Editor Dirk van Gorp will be happy to hear your ideas, suggestions and proposals via [email protected]. The postal and visiting address is the same as for Ancient Warfare, mentioned elsewhere on this page.

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NEWS

New office Readers please note that we have moved to more spacious accommodations in the beautiful town of Zutphen. Our new visiting address is Waterstraat 5, 7201 HM Zutphen, The Netherlands and our new postal address is PO Box 4082, 7200 BB Zutphen, The Netherlands. Please update your address book.

Themes and deadlines The upcoming themes are as follows: - V.1 Gaius Marius in foreign and civil war (October 20th) - V.2 Bodyguards of kings and emperors (December 20th) - V.3 Rome’s wars with the Sassanids (February 20th) - V.4 The Assyrian army at war (April 20th) - V.5 The fleets of Imperial Rome (June 20th)

© Brendan Keeley

If you have a proposal that fits our themes, we’d be interested to hear from you to discuss the possibility of publishing an article. Send your proposal – including the angle you propose to take, ideas for illustrations and artwork and your qualifications – to [email protected]. Do make sure you send them before the proposal deadlines mentioned above.

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THEME: ROYAL STALEMATE

Royal stalemate Historical introduction IN 300 BC THE WORLD THAT LAY EAST OF A LINE DRAWN FROM THE ADRIATIC TO CYRENE, AND AS FAR EAST AS INDIA, WAS THE REALM OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT’S HEIRS. IN THIS WORLD THREE REAL METHUSELAHS SAW TO THE BEDDING IN OF THEIR DYNASTIES.

By Bob Bennett and Mike Roberts As the Diadochi Wars that had raged almost forty years from Alexander’s death, petered out, Antigonus Gonatas, grandson of Antigonus the One-eyed and Craterus (Alexander’s greatest marshal) and son of Demetrius the Besieger, started to establish a reign in Macedonia that lasted to 239. The diadem had not come easy, involving wars with the renowned warrior Pyrrhus of Epirus and rampaging Galatians amongst others, but once installed he left a legacy that would run down his family line to the very extinction of the state. In Egypt, Ptolemy II inherited the throne his father had scooped at Babylon, rode roughshod over the rights of some half brothers and after ruling jointly with Ptolemy I in 283, he came into a sole tenancy that lasted until 246. Lastly there was Antiochus I, son of Seleucus I, who had been high in power since leading a wing of the coalition army at the battle of Ipsus in 301. Years as sub-king of the Seleucid East, from where his own mother hailed, prepared him for the gruelling work of holding the huge Seleucid empire together after his old father was despatched with an assassin’s blade by the waters of the Hellespont in 281. He lasted to 261. Each of these long-lived rulers gave a real stability to their kingdoms. This meant while each was frequently tested both internally and externally, there was always real sinew in the body

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politic. These Successor states were great polities with the divided wealth of the Persian Empire to sustain them and inheriting state bureaucracies that could mobilise taxes and assets that would have dazzled the eyes of the puny city states of Classical Greece. The Athenian Empire at its height only disposed of 1,000 talents annually, while Antigonus the One-eyed, when just in control of the Anatolian and Levantine portion of the Macedonian world, is recorded as raising 11,000 talents a year to fund his wars. Such resources and the conflicts between these powers led to an arms race already begun in the Diadochi Wars.

Old and new weapons

Each of the kingdoms was able to field large phalanxes of Macedonians and others equipped with sarissa and pelte. Indeed the Macedonian phalanx became such an orthodoxy that by the end of the second century even tradition-bound Spartans rearmed in that fashion and ten years later they were followed by their great rival the Achaeans. And while this was the core, places like Aetolia, Crete, Arcadia, Illyria, Thrace and the Anatolian lands produced large numbers of effective mercenaries as both soldiers and officers. Aetolian generals, in particular, seemed to monopolise the top ranking slots in many Hellenistic armies while

Spartan condottiere commanded as far away as Carthage. A new sort of mercenary emerged as well, the thureophoroi - medium infantry carrying javelins, a sword and Celtic style body shield. There were Cretan bowmen and Celtic long swordsmen and, originally from a Greek colony in south Italy, came the Tarentine light horse equipped with javelin and shield. A further development occurred post 280 BC when large numbers of Galatian peoples invaded, setting up states in Thrace and Asia Minor. These Celts provided a new pool of mercenaries for all the great kingdoms besides other belligerents as well. They were readily assembled, cheap and ferocious and they remained as military stalwarts for hire during these years. These were the sort of arrays that were typical during these times. Even after the arrival of the legions they remained the default military types right into the next century. So in the Mithridatic Wars the Romans again found themselves facing a classic Macedonian phalanx as the centre of their enemies’ battle line. These years also saw the introduction of new types of weapon. Elephants, first mentioned at Gaugamela in 331 BC but discovered as an awful threat at the battle of Hydaspes in 326 had, since Polyperchon’s siege of Megalopolis in 318 and Eumenes’ and Antigonus’ great contest in Iran in 317 and 316, become a well integrated feature of the armies of those rulers who had access to them. Famously Pyrrhus of Epirus took them west to give Rome its first taste of the fearsome beasts in the 270s. Cataphracts, armoured lancers on armoured horses, had also been first encountered by Alexander in their Bactrian and Sogdian homes but over the years were brought west, particularly by Antiochus the Great

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© Carlos de la Rocha

THEME: ROYAL STALEMATE

after his own anabasis to the upper satrapies (Persian provinces) in the last years of the third century.

Trends in gigantism

As well as these new troop types, developments in the art of siege warfare were significant. Huge siege towers became the order of the day; engineers surpassed themselves in building monster bolt-throwing machines. Gigantism became systematic of the times. The grand imaginative besieging exhibited by Demetrius Poliorcetes did not disappear after his death. Hellenistic siege craft remained an art that appealed to many of these dynasts. Philip V of Macedon was renowned as a digger in his sieges. There is a story that such was his reputation that when he was attacking Prinassus, built on solid rock, he set up a pretend mineshaft outside the walls and brought in earth from elsewhere and piled it up outside

the entrance. After this had gone on for some time he told the besieged his mine was under their walls and they agreed to surrender! Epic sieges were played out at Gaza, Balkh and Sardis that Polybius tells us about and though we don’t have details he certainly indicates they were well known and remembered by contemporaries and those who came soon after. Yet it is noticeable how often these sieges were unsuccessful. For concomitant with the improvement and increase in siege weaponry came an increasing sophistication and innovation in defensive technology. Deep moats were dug in front of defended positions; walls became higher and stronger with towers becoming more intricate and complex with artillery batteries. Such seminal figures as Archimedes (287-212 BC) became involved in these military arm races. But the net result of all this was that sieges became more and more

protracted and the developments in siege craft and defence appear to have cancelled each other out. And not just on land but on water too where the trend towards gigantism was, if anything, even more pronounced. Great armoured battleships became the lynchpins of all the navies; Macedonian, Seleucid, Egyptian and Rhodian, the last a people who gained the reputation of being the best seafarers of the age. These mammoth dreadnoughts were still monarchs of the sea at the end of the third century when Polybius gives us a wonderful description of the naval battle at Chios off the coast of Asia Minor, where the navy of Philip V of Macedonia fought it out against an alliance of Pergamene, Rhodian and Byzantine ships. Vessels took part that are described as deceres (“tens”), enneres (“nines”), octeres (“eights”), septiremes (“sevens”), sexiremes (“sixes”) and most frequently quinqueremes (“fives”) and

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quadriremes (“fours”) as against the trireme that had been the standard warship not long before. Even larger ships were built. Demetrius Poliorcetes eventually fielded elevens, thirteens, fourteens, fifteens and sixteens while Ptolemy II’s navy included, at one point, twenties and thirties. The process reached its logical and absurd apogee when Ptolemy IV manufactured a forty allegedly capable of carrying over 7,000 men, bigger than the crew of a aircraft carrier! Not surprisingly there are no reports of these monsters actually participating in battle. Differences remained between the armed forces of the three great kingdoms. The Seleucids fielded a very mixed force recruited from across their vast domains. Anatolians, Arabs, Carmanians, Cadusians, Babylonian charioteers, and mercenaries from all over built around the royal guard of settler phalangites and Companion horse. While the Antigonids led a less exotic line-up, but still with a pool of belligerents from Thrace and Illyria and Greek mercenaries to flesh out the national phalanx and cavalry. The Ptolemies also had their pike-men as well as Thracian and Galatians as settler soldiers and, famously at Raphia in 217 BC, armed the indigenous people. But the general impression over the second century is of military almost completely brought in mainly from Greece and Anatolia. One great thread in these centuries saw its gestation after the battle of Ipsus in 301 BC. Seleucus was given Coele Syria as part of his reward for victory. But, before he could take possession, Ptolemy, who had contributed little, had taken over the region. In the next two centuries these warmongering kingdoms fought six wars over the territory. Extraordinary fluctuations were the order of the day: from when Ptolemy III made inroads into Seleucid territory that reached Bactria and India and included the capture of Antioch and Babylon to a time when Antiochus IV in the 160s was on the brink of completely conquering Egypt itself. Some of the greatest battles between the kings were fought in these wars like Raphia and Panion in 200 BC where intelligent

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and well-organised forces tested each other with all the latest troop types at their disposal. All three of the great kingdoms had to constantly contend in these years against barbarian incursions, rebellious underlings or popular revolts. Parthians, Galatians, Thracians and Illyrians were a constant test. The Seleucids particularly faced repeated insurgencies in Anatolia, Media, Persia, Bactria and elsewhere where family members, provincial governors or popular generals frequently set up as rulers in their own right. Popular revolts were the particular bane of the Ptolemies who always remained an alien power to the Egyptian people. And the Antigonids’ greatest trials tended to be with the belligerent states of Greece they wanted control over, be it the Achaean or Aetolian Leagues or Spartans and Athenians pining for past glories. But the key event of these two centuries is often taken to be the coming of Rome to the world of Hellenistic monarchs, Greek cities and Leagues. However, this intrusion is almost a strictly a second century phenomena and to impress it too much into the century before is to force too much from hindsight. In reality in the third century anything relating to these Italians was hardly heard but in a distant whisper. It is really only after 200 BC that the legions arrive in force. After that the seminal campaigns occur: Cynoscephalae, Thermopylae, Magnesia and Pydna that provide the fuel for the debate on legion versus phalanx. Each time they met the result was the same, but this should not suggest all was a foregone conclusion. Militarily most of these were close-run things that could have gone against the Romans. It is other factors that suggest their triumph as fairly inevitable. In terms of manpower Macedonia would never have been able to compete when the resources of Italy, after the conclusion of the second Punic War, could be concentrated across the Adriatic. The problem for Antiochus III, when defending his Anatolian lands, was that he always had neighbours disposing of considerable military power who joined

forces with the Romans to ensure the balance was tipped against him. The Rhodians would keep the sea lanes clear despite the efforts of Hannibal, recruited as a Seleucid admiral, and Eumenes of Pergamum gave backing on the battlefield at Magnesia in 190 BC that turned the tide just as much as any intrinsic quality of the Roman army. As for pilum against pike, it is a perennial debate. Though the weakness of the phalanx on the wings and rear and its tendency to become disrupted and vulnerable to the agile swordsmen of the Roman maniples is clear, it should not be forgotten that the victor of Pydna in 168 BC was left shaking in his boots at his first real sight of a phalanx in anger. But, in the end, a people capable of crushing to dust two great and ancient cities like Carthage and Corinth within a year of each other were not going to lack the bloody determination to conquer. Interestingly, after the first half of the second century the Romans did not come east militarily in great numbers. It was traders and moneylenders rather than soldiers who carried out the exploitation. But it did not matter, the job was done. No one gainsaid them now, it was the threat that counted. Why keep legions there when an envoy with a stick drawing in the sand kept a Seleucid king from the appealing prospect of dismembering his Ptolemaic neighbour? It was not until later in the early first century that real contestants would emerge to fight their corner against the Italian intruders and these would be the successor states of the Seleucids, like Mithridates of Pontus or Tigranes of Armenia and, of course, the Parthians on their way in from central Asia and encountering the Romans coming the other way. n

Mike Roberts and Bob Bennett have published a two volume set of books on the Successor Wars, the chronological precursor to this theme. They have just completed another book, The Twilight of the Hellenistic World 230-200 BC, set in just this period, which is to be published by Pen & Sword in 2011.

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Disciplinary measures The Amphipolis regulation AS MUCH AS HE ADMIRED THE ROMAN ARMY, THE HISTORIAN POLYBIUS (C. 150 BC) DEPICTED MACEDONIAN SOLDIERS AS HIGHLY DISCIPLINED AND EXCEEDINGLY EFFECTIVE: “THEY ARE NOT ONLY INTREPID IN GROUND COMBAT, BUT READILY UNDERTAKE TEMPORARY SERVICE AT SEA, AND ARE ALSO INDUSTRIOUS IN DIGGING TRENCHES, ERECTING PALISADES AND ALL SUCH HARD WORK, JUST AS HESIOD REPRESENTS THE SONS OF AEACUS TO BE ‘REJOICING IN WAR AS IF IT WERE A FEAST.’” (5.2.5-6, LOEB TRANSLATION)

By Michael J. Taylor Unfortunately, Polybius does not delve into the standard operating procedures of the Macedonian army. Indeed, he implies that many Roman military habits are unique: their construction of camps, their meticulous division of booty, and their ruthless punishment of petty infractions. In 1934, however, a badly damaged inscription was dredged from the Strymon riverbed near Amphipolis, a strategic city occupied for much of its history by a Macedonian garrison. Commonly referred to today as the Amphipolis Regulation, it reveals the strict code of discipline which governed Macedonian soldiers. Based on the style of lettering, which provides a crude method for dating inscriptions, the stone was inscribed during the reign of either Philip V (r. 221-179 BC) or his son Perseus (r. 179-168 BC). The actual promulgation of the regulation likely occurred under Philip, in response to a mutiny in the Macedonian army in 218 BC. Soldiers stationed in Corinth were incited by the slogan that “they were dealt with unjustly and did not get their customary share.” Rioting soldiers pillaged the tents of royal friends and even attempted to pilfer the king’s quarters. (Polybius 5.25) Protocols concerning the deposition of loot loom large in the Amphipolis Regulation, which suggests that it was a direct response to these disturbances. 10

While the only example of the regulation was posted at the garrison at Amphipolis, there is every reason to believe that that the regulation applied to the entire Macedonian army, and was displayed in multiple locations throughout the kingdom and its foreign possessions. Frequent references to marching camps, captured loot and the physical presence of the king reveal that the regulation was primarily targeted towards royal field armies on active campaign.

Sentries “They [the sentries] must not reply to the patrols, but must keep quiet and show that they are present and on their feet. Concerning Patrols: In each strategia the tetrarchs must go the rounds in turn / without any light and anyone who is sitting down or [sleeping] while on guard duty the tetrarchs shall fine one drachma for every offence and the grammateis [secretaries] shall obtain the payment... [should they fail to report] offenders [to the king] they shall be fined three-twelfths of a drachma, which shall be given to the hypaspists in the event of their being first to submit a written denunciation of the offenders.” (all translations modified from Austin, 2006 # 90)

Keeping sentries from falling asleep is a universal problem for junior officers. The Romans used their cavalrymen to supervise watches and ensure vigilance. In the Macedonian army, this task fell to the tetrarchs, commanders of four files (lochoi), some 64 men altogether. The regulation suggests that careless or even corrupt tetrarchs might overlook infractions, and therefore assigns the hypaspists the task of watching the watchers. The fine for sitting down or falling asleep, one drachma, was roughly equivalent to one day’s wage for a common soldier. The Macedonian punishments are dramatically less severe than those meted out in Roman camps, where a sentry who fell asleep was liable to be beaten to death (Polybius 6.37). However, we should not take the archaic severity of Roman regulations to imply that Roman soldiers were somehow more disciplined. Indeed, archaic severity often developed in response to chronically ill-disciplined troops who required dire penalties to keep them in line. A more professional force generally does not require draconian punishments. Thus, the relatively light punishments in the regulation speak well of the self-discipline of the Macedonian soldier. The Amphipolis Regulation reveals that the hypaspists have evolved significantly from their function as a crack brigade of elite troops in Alexander’s day to the king’s personal bodyguard in the time of Philip V. The regulation further indicates that the hypaspists also doubled as military police or provost marshals, and provided an important check on the conduct of officers. The Macedonian army was recruited regionally, and the officer corps consisted of local aristocrats. Such local big men might prove more loyal to their clients in the ranks than to the needs of the monarchy. The Royal regiment of hypapsists, however, were loyal exclusively to the king.

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© Karwansaray Publishers

Tombstone of Molossos. The deceased is pictured in the centre with Hermes, in his role as guide of the dead, on the right. On the left a servant with two lances, suggesting that Molossos used to be a soldier. 2nd Century BC, now in the Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

The marching camp “On the Construction of the Camp: When they have completed the enclosure for the king and the rest of his quarters and an interval has been left, they shall straight away build barracks for the hypaspists [the rest is lost]” This is the only surviving fragment of a text section which proscribes the procedure for building a Macedonian marching camp. Just as Roman soldiers labored to construct a praetorium and quaestorium for their consul and quaestor, so Macedonian soldiers first labored to build headquarters facilities for the king and his bodyguard. Presumably, the rest of the camp was organized around the royal quarters, just as the Roman camp was organized around the praetorium. The fragment on camps should serve as warning against any assumption of Roman exceptionalism concerning camps. Although numerous references to non-Roman military camps survive, we are forced to assume from Polybius that the organized Roman method of camp construction is somehow unique in the ancient world. It is a pity that a longer portion of this text does not survive. What we do know is that the construction of a Macedonian camp was governed by explicit written regulations, of a kind that proscribed some sort of systematic camp plan.

Equipment “They shall punish according to the written rules those who are not bearing arms appropriate to them: two obols for the kotthybos, the same for a konos [helmet], three obols for a sarissa [pike], the same amount for the machaira [dagger], two obols for knemides [greaves], a drachma for the aspis [shield]. In the case of officers, double the fine for the weapons mentioned, and two drachmas for the thorax [cuirass] and one drachma for the hemithorakion [half-cuirass].” This list is an official enumeration of the equipment of a Macedonian phalangite, and shows that the king mandated and enforced a certain standardization in equipment. Unfortunately, philological problems abound. The most problematic term is kotthybos. This term is what classical scholars refer to as a hapax legomenon, an ancient word only attested once and therefore without verifiable meaning. A common solution was that kotthybos is the Macedonian variation of the Greek word kossymbos, an “apron” or “girdle.” There is almost universal agreement that kotthybos refers to a form of nonmetallic armor. Beyond that, suggestions for what a kotthybos might have looked like range from some form of cummerbund to the type of elaborate linen armor known to modern schol-

ars as linothorax. As Macedonian militiamen seem to have provided their own equipment, it is likely that there was also modest variation. This regulation would suggest that Macedonian soldiers were required to have some sort of heavy protective garment, with materials theoretically ranging from leather, to padded or quilted cloth, to glued linen (see also The Debate in Ancient Warfare IV.3). Some officers, presumably lower ranking ones, were only required to purchase a “half-cuirass” (hemithorakion). This presumably refers to metallic armor that covers only the front of the body, akin to a breastplate. The thorax, the traditional full metal cuirass, seems to have only been worn by the highest ranking officers in the army. The rates of pay follow an easily detectable logic: defensive armor (greaves, kotthybos, helmet) are fined at a rate of two obols, offensive weapons (pike, dagger) at a rate of three obols, and the shield is in a class of its own, at six obols (one drachma). As officers were paid at double the rate of common soldiers, their fines were appropriately doubled. The average daily rate of pay in the Macedonian army was roughly five or six obols. Thus, failing to have an appropriate piece of equipment was a punishable offense, but the punishment was not draconian.

Booty “Discipline in respect to spoils: If anyone brings booty into the camp, the strategoi taking with them the speirarchs and tetrarchs and other officers shall go an meet them at a distance of three stades [550 m] in front of the camp. They shall not allow those who captured the booty to keep it. And should any insubAncient Warfare

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THE SOURCE

ordination take place, the strategoi, speirarchs, tetrarchs and chief attendants shall pay a sum equivalent [to whatever they have not duly sent]” Juhel’s restoration. The collection of booty lay at the heart of the regulation. Loot played a central role in financing ancient warfare, and in sustaining ancient state economies as a whole. According to Plutarch, the annual tax revenue paid by the Macedonian population was a mere 200 talents (Aemilius Paulus 28.3). Mines yielded significantly more, although probably less than the 1000 talent peak output attested under Philip II (r. 359-336 BC). The combined annual income of the Macedonian king from taxes, tribute, mines and forests probably did not exceed 2000 talents. These regular revenue streams were important to the kingdom’s finances, but they were not enough to cover the staggering cost of maintaining large armies during periods of intense fighting. It cost roughly 1800 talents to keep a 20,000-man army in the field for a year, so that maintaining such an army year-round could completely consume the normal revenues of the Macedonian treasury. While Macedonian kings might reduce costs by dismissing their armies for the winter months, they nonetheless relied heavily on loot to finance expensive military operations. War needed to pay for itself. The returns from looted property could be spectacular. Antiognus Doson (r. 231-221), Philip V’s uncle and predecessor, looted 300 talents from the city of Mantinea (Polybius 2.62.12). Control of looted property was therefore essential to the functioning of the state. The king must ensure that loot captured by his army went into the chronically depleted royal coffers, and not directly into the purses of individual soldiers or officers. Hence booty was not to even be brought into camp, where it could easily be hidden away, but accounted for openly outside. Officers at all levels were mobilized to confiscate captured property, and could be punished for looking the other way. The regulation does suggest that some booty, once it had been processed 12

by royal officials, filtered down to the soldiers as a reward: “[anyone awarded] a crown shall receive a double share [of the] booty, but nothing shall be given to the cheiristes [as a bribe?]...”. Nonetheless, soldiers were only to receive their share of booty allotted them by the king. They were not to appropriate private loot for themselves. The regulation also offers a glimpse at the Macedonian chain of command: strategoi commanded divisions called strategia, whose number is ultimately uncertain but certainly included over a thousand soldiers. Speirarchs commanded a speiria, a square of 256 soldiers, arrayed sixteen by sixteen. Tetrarchs led a platoon of four files of sixteen men, 64 men total. The “other officers” may refer to lochagoi, the leaders of individual files of sixteen men, or to various administrative staff such as the cheiristes.

Foraging “Concerning [Foraging]: If anyone [forages] in [enemy] territory, [a reward for denunciation?] shall be promised and given. [If anyone] burns crops or [cuts] vines [or] is guilty.....a reward for his denunciation.” This section reveals the frustration of using badly damaged inscriptions as historical sources. Bracketed words represent unrecoverable sections in the text, which have been filled in by the educated guesses of modern epigraphers. Still, in its reconstructed state, the Amphipolis regulation seems to explicitly forbid foraging in enemy territory, particularly the cutting of vines or the burning of crops. At first glance, this prohibition stands at odds with common practice in ancient warfare, where ravaging enemy territory was a standard terror tactic. While the text is quite sketchy here, it must refer to unauthorized foraging, widely considered a serious disciplinary issue in ancient armies. There was always concern that soldiers busy grubbing about for food and drink would lose discipline and become vulnerable to ambush. The king also took a far-sighted interest in the preservation

of crops. Ruined enemy crops were of no use to the Macedonian commissary on campaign. Devastated orchards or vineyards reduced the economic value of territory that soon might become tributary to the king.

Conclusion

Alexander the Great controlled his officers and men through a heady mix of intense personal charisma, reckless displays of courage, and intense cruelty. There was a price to be paid for Alexander’s heroic leadership style: the frequent murder of senior officers and ruthless suppression of several mutinies in the ranks. The staid Amphipolis Regulation represents an important evolution in Macedonian military discipline. Good order is maintained by posted regulations, and enforcement is effected through a double layer of supervision, first by officers who directly regulate the troops and subsequently by hypaspists who provide a check on the officers. The rationalized discipline of the Amphipolis Regulation helps to explain the professionalism and efficiency demonstrated by the Macedonian armies of Philip V and Perseus. n Michael J. Taylor is a regular contributor.

Further reading:

Text in translation can be found in: M.M. Austin. The Hellenistic World from Alexander to Roman Conquest (2nd Edition, Cambridge 2006) # 90. - P. Juhel, “On Orderliness with Respect to the Prizes of War: The Amphipolis Regulation and the Management of Booty in the Army of the Late Antigonids.”, Annals of the British School of Athens. 2002. - M.B. Haztopoulos, Macedonian Institutions Under the Kings. Athens 1996. - M.B. Haztopoulos, L’Organisation de L’Armee Macedonienne sous les Antiognides: Problemes Anciens et Documents Nouveaux. Athens 2001.

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Bright colours and uniformity Hellenistic military costume THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD WAS A TIME OF WIDESPREAD, INCREASINGLY PROFESSIONALIZED WARFARE IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN. BEGINNING WITH PHILIP II, MACEDONIAN KINGS ASSEMBLED POWERFUL ARMIES OF MIXED TROOPS, COMPOSED OF MASSED CAVALRY, MOBILE SKIRMISHERS AND A BACKBONE OF WELL-TRAINED HEAVY INFANTRYMEN WHO FORMED UP IN THE ‘MACEDONIAN’ PIKE-ARMED PHALANX. THE GRADUAL EXPANSIONISM OF THE LATTER HALF OF THE FOURTH CENTURY BC ERUPTED WITH ALEXANDER THE GREAT, WHO INCORPORATED HUGE SWATHES OF THE WESTERN HALF OF THE OLD WORLD INTO HIS EMPIRE, BUT CAME TO AN END WITH HIS DEATH AND HIS DOMAIN’S FRAGMENTATION INTO SMALLER WARRING STATES.

The course of history in this period brought about two important changes: firstly, the Macedonian way of war became predominant; secondly, soldiers of all sorts began circulating throughout the Hellenistic world as mercenaries and settlers. Because it was, of course, Macedonians who dominated the Hellenistic world for much of its history, their costume came to be fashionable among soldiers during that time. The Macedonians were noted in the ancient world for their distinctive military dress which consisted of four elements: the kausia, a circular cap, often small and flat; the chiton (pl. chitones) or chitoniskos, a simple knee-length short-sleeved tunic; the chlamys (pl. chlamydes), which was a long cloak; and krepides, or sandalboots. It was this costume which became ubiquitous throughout the eastern Mediterranean among GraecoMacedonian and Hellenised peoples, and which may generally be called Hellenistic military costume. We can get some idea of the importance of military costume to soldiers from the fact that Philopoemen is said in a speech to have told the young men of Achaea that they ought to devote more of their resources to their greaves than their “footwear [hypodesmon] and krepides, more to their shields, cuirasses, and helmets than to their chlamydes and chitones” (Polybius 11.9.4-5). This speech 14

© Ruben Post

By Ruben Post

This image of the boots worn by a figure on the Telephus frieze, from early second century BC Pergamum, illustrates well the krepides, the standard footwear of the Hellenistic soldier. Note the fine netting around the heel extending into longer laces, which cross over the bridge of the foot. is intended to show how luxurious and effeminate the Achaean troops had become, but it probably reflected a real interest in fashion among soldiers.

Archaeological evidence

One of the most important bodies of evidence testifying to the fashions of Hellenistic soldiers is the corpus of painted funerary stelae found in the burial grounds of various garrisons in the Hellenistic world. Chief among these are the examples from Alexandria in

Egypt, Demetrias in Greece, and Sidon in Phoenicia. These stelae provide us with an interesting spread of representations, dating from the early third century BC to the middle of the second century BC, and include various peoples, chief among them Macedonians, Greeks, Celts, and Anatolians. These stelae were commissioned either by the deceased soldier himself, his family or his comrades in arms, and thus whoever ordered them would have been familiar with the appearance of the deceased as

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a soldier. They are largely concerned with portraying the deceased in simple vignettes: shaking hands with his children, wife, or comrades in a scene of departure; standing at arms with his attendant; riding his horse triumphantly; or sometimes simply standing facing the viewer. We are also fortunate to have several vivid sources of information for the early Hellenistic costume of elite units in the form of paintings from Macedonian tombs. Most notable among these is the recently discovered tomb of Agios Athanasios, the monumental façade of which was decorated with exceptionally well-preserved paintings still displaying vibrant colours. The painter(s) of this tomb took particular care in depicting the costume of two guardsmen, about half life-size, painted one on either side of the doorway entering into the tomb, as well as a series of smaller soldiers and their attendants in a frieze above the doorway. Finally, we have terracotta figurines of soldiers, which were commonplace in the Hellenistic world. These figurines, varying greatly in quality and subject matter, were often painted, but are much more problematic sources of information on colours than paintings; because artisans often employed limited palettes and only crudely painted these mass-produced figurines, they are less likely to be representative of an actual soldier’s apparel. Nonetheless, they give us an idea of what sorts of colours soldiers would likely have worn.

Chiton, Exomis, and long-sleeved tunic

The most basic piece of costume for any Greek soldier was the chiton or chitoniskos, a short-sleeved tunic. This garment was normally made of wool; it usually reached down to the mid-thigh, and the front and back portions, sewn together below the opening for each arm, were pinned together at either shoulder. The chiton was sometimes worn by soldiers unpinned at one side, leaving a shoulder bare. For instance, King Cleomenes III of Sparta is said to have “put on his chiton and let lose the seam on his right shoulder” (Plutarch, Cleomenes 37.2) before going out to fight his last battle. This type of garment came to be called an exomis (literally

“open at the shoulder”), and it became increasingly popular from the fourth century BC onwards. This would have kept the soldier cool and also would have allowed more range of movement. These tunics were worn gathered at the waist by a simple belt, usually made of leather. Beginning already in the Classical period, Greek cavalrymen are shown wearing long-sleeved tunics. This style of garment seems to have been introduced under Persian influence, and was perhaps associated with elite costume, as it is only ever seen being worn by cavalrymen. This type of tunic became very popular in Alexander’s lifetime, and he is shown wearing it in combat both on the Alexander mosaic and on the Alexander sarcophagus. When depictions represent the tunic with nothing over it, it is shown worn double belted with a generous overhang of fabric between belts. A painting from the Kinch tomb, a wellknown Macedonian tomb of the late fourth century BC, shows a Macedonian cavalryman wearing multi-coloured clothing which may be a long-sleeved tunic covered by a sleeveless overtunic. This painting shows just how colourful Hellenistic clothing could be: portions of the body are alternately light blue and pink, while the sleeves are yellow.

Chlamydes

While the tunic was the most basic piece of clothing a soldier would wear, the cloak was the all-purpose garment of the ancient world. Pinning one’s cloak at the right shoulder was distinctive of soldiers in the Hellenistic period: Theocritus relates that in the third century BC one man tells another that he should go to the Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt to serve as a mercenary “if you are satisfied to pin the edge of your mantle at the right shoulder” (Idylls 14.65-66). With the opening of the cloak at the right, the soldier could easily wrap it around himself and be well protected head-on from the elements. There were two particular types of military cloaks in ancient Greece, both made of wool and called chlamydes. The first was the traditional cloak of the Classical period, the Thessalian cloak. This was a large rectangular mantle, which was distinguished by

its pointed corners weighed down with small weights to prevent it from being lifted up by the wind. The Macedonian chlamys on the other hand was semicircular in shape rather than rectangular, and was distinguished from the Thessalian cloak by having two points when hanging down rather than four. While it is commonly accepted that the Macedonian chlamys came to be the most popular cloak in the Hellenistic period, we do find examples of Hellenistic soldiers – including Macedonians – wearing the Thessalian cloak in art.

Kausia And Petasos

In the Hellenistic period, as in earlier periods of Greek history, soldiers regularly wore hats. A Hellenistic inscription from the Letoon at Xanthus in Lycia (SEG 36.1221) listing items which it was forbidden to wear into the temple includes “any weapons, the petasos and the kausia,” among other items. The petasos was a Greek sunhat popular in the Classical period which was broad-brimmed and secured to the head by straps running either under the chin or behind the head. It is seen on several stelae from Alexandria and Demetrias depicting soldiers or men in military dress. In the Hellenistic period however, there also appears to be a different version of the petasos, usually referred to as the ‘Bactrian’ hat because of its appearance on a famous bust of Euthydemus of Bactria. This featured a smaller but thicker brim. The other item of headgear mentioned in the above inscription, the kausia, was the most distinctively Macedonian item of Hellenistic costume. There has been much discussion in scholarship over what form exactly the kausia took, but it is generally agreed now that it ranged in shape from having a rounded bowl not much wider than the rolled band which held it to the head and looking much like the chitrali worn by Afghans today, to having a wider bowl shaped similarly to a mushroom’s cap. While references to the material from which it was made are scarce, it was very likely leather (one papyrus fragment mentions lambskin) lined with felt. The literary sources available only ever refer to the kausia being worn by prominent Macedonian Ancient Warfare

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or Hellenistic figures, including the king, his inner circle, bodyguards, officers and royal pages. While this does not disprove that the kausia may have been worn by a larger group including the average Hellenistic soldier, it implies that it was probably a key indicator of status. Antipater and Eustathius, both Greek poets writing later than the Hellenistic period, describe it in similar terms as protection from the elements and a helmet in war, implying that it was occasionally worn in combat. This is borne out by the now fragmentary depiction of a soldier wearing a kausia on foot behind Alexander in the famous Alexander mosaic. Nonetheless, it was clearly an item of costume primarily worn outside of combat.

Krepides

Krepides (singular krepis) were a type of footwear which first appeared in Greek art around the beginning of the Classical period. The krepis was a sandal with a thick sole, distinguished from other sandals by its complex latticework lacing. Pliny the Elder tells us that krepides were well suited to marching and riding (Natural History 36.1.27), and thus were obviously the ideal footwear for a soldier. These often reached up to the ankles or the lower calf, and much like later Roman caligae were studded with hobnails to lessen wear and improve grip. The lacing of krepides, which was often brown, usually took the form of a net around the heel and sides of the feet which extended to longer laces that criss-crossed along the bridge of the foot; these laces were tied together at the lower shin in one or more loops. Considering the complexity of the lacing systems seen on some krepides in Classical and Hellenistic art, it is no surprise that one of the main innovations of the famed fourth century BC Athenian general Iphicrates was in changing the footwear of his soldiers to make it easier to tie and untie (Diodorus Siculus 15.44.4). We also know from sculpture that cavalry krepideshad special straps to which spurs could be attached. A pellytron, or a sock covering the whole foot save for the tips of the first two toes, was generally worn beneath the laces. While these socks are commonly depicted in lighter colours, krepides with lighter 16

This image shows a Hellenistic figurine of a boy with a ball, wearing the standard Hellenistic military costume: kausia, chiton, and chlamys. Figurines similar to this are commonly found throughout the Hellenistic world, testifying to the ubiquity of such clothing. lacing but dark pellytra are occasionally seen in paintings of soldiers.

© Karwansaray Publishers

THEME: ROYAL STALEMATE

Colours

The Hellenistic soldier thus had a fairly standard repertoire of clothing, with some variation between commanders and the rank and file,cavalry and infantry. But how was this clothing decorated? The predominant fashion among men in the Hellenistic period was to wear solid-colour garments with little in the way of pattern or ornamentation. Tunics were almost always a single solid colour, and the only embellishments seen are pairs of minimal vertical strips or simple decorative hemming. Cloaks were likewise decorated with solid colours, but their bottom edges were often decorated with thick bands of contrasting colour. A survey conducted by the author of several dozen colour representations of Hellenistic soldiers from the fourth to second centuries BC, including painted stelae, terracotta figurines, wall paintings and painted glass, has been compiled to give a rough idea of the popularity of individual colours. For the purposes of this survey I have specifically excluded figures represented in typical military dress but without weapons, as well as depictions of royal or elite figures, which are predominantly dressed in purple, and thus skew its representation among the other colour categories. I have also excluded sources in which paint colours are too badly deteriorated

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© Public Domain

THEME: ROYAL STALEMATE

This colour reconstruction of the painting from the so-called ‘Kinch tomb’, a monumental tomb found in Niausta in Macedonia dating to the late fourth century BC, shows the colourful dress of a xystophoros, or lancer. He wears a long-sleeved double-belted tunic, as was the norm for cavalrymen in the late fourth to early third century BC, perhaps with an overtunic, and also a Macedonian chlamys. to accurately represent their original appearance. Where a tunic or cloak featured stripes or hem decoration in a different colour, I have simply listed the predominant colour of the garment. I have only included Graeco-Macedonian or hellenized soldiers in this list. For tunics (46 in total), the predominant colours were shades of red and pink, with over 40% of examples being some shade of these colours. The Greek term phoinix, referring to a spectrum of reddish colours with a blue tint rather than any one colour, could be used to describe this category. Xenophon comments that Spartan soldiers wore clothing which was phoinix, as “this was the

least effeminate and most warlike” colour (On the constitution of Sparta 11.3). This colour is often employed in Homer and in later poetry to describe the appearance of blood; it thus could have had a practical purpose in that it would not easily have been stained by spilled blood and could have disguised wounds, which would further explain its appeal to soldiers. The next most popular colour for tunics is white, which made up almost 18% of examples. Blue and yellow were about equally popular, each comprising about 12% of tunics surveyed. Other colours, including brown, pink, green, grey and purple, are less common, all being represented by one or two examples each. For cloaks (28 in total), no single colour predominates, though red, brown, yellow, and pink were popular, each making up about 20% of all examples. Blue, white, green, grey, and black or dark blue were each represented by one or two instances. Vertical stripes and hem decoration on tunics and edge stripes on cloaks were often of strongly contrasting colours. This is by no means an exhaustive survey, but it gives a good impression of the spread of colours which were

favoured during these centuries by military men. Hellenistic soldiers thus wore clothing in a wide spectrum of colours, though certain ones, such as red, white, yellow, and blue, were certainly favoured over others.

Uniforms

It has long been supposed that the Hellenistic period saw the introduction of uniformity in Greek militaries, both in weaponry and in dress (see, for instance, the Cambridge Ancient History, Plates to Volumes V and VI, 194: “In the new age of the centralized state, the issue of uniform dress and equipment perforce became general”). Recently, Pierre Juhel has perpetuated this notion, arguing that under Alexander the Great appeared “a historical context consistent with the appearance of a uniform within the Macedonian army” (“The Regulation Helmet of the Phalanx and the Introduction of the Concept of Uniform in the Macedonian Army at the End of the Reign of Alexander the Great,” Klio 91 (2009), 352). He points to an obscure passage from Athenaeus (FGrH 81 F 41, ll. 17-27), drawing on the Hellenistic historian Phylarchus, which relates the appearance of some of the Ancient Warfare

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was in use at least among these two units. But what other evidence do we have for Hellenistic soldiers wearing uniforms? Firstly, we might make note of most of the few instances in the literature in which units were stated to be wearing uniformly-coloured clothing. A passage of Diodorus Siculus mentions that, after having conquered the remnants of the Persian empire, Alexander effected changes in costume, and alongside adopting many elements of Persian dress himself, we are told that he “distributed to the Companion Cavalry [the Hetairoi, the elite cavalry

© Ruben Post

units of Alexander’s army, probably during a military review on the occasion of his marriage to two Persian princesses at Susa in 325 BC.This passage mentions “Persians, Applebearers… decked out with purple [porphyrais] and quince yellow [melinais] clothing” and “archers… some wearing flamecoloured [phlogina] clothing, others in dark blue [hysginobaphes, literally “woad dyed”] clothing and many also had blue-black [kyanea] mantles (peribolaia).” This passage seems to indicate that some sort of standardized clothing

This painted funerary stele dating to the second century BC from Sidon shows three mercenaries of the local garrison who are identically armed. The painting is no longer well-preserved, but it is clear that while two of the men wear identical white , each wears a differently coloured tunic: they are, from left to right, red, mauve, and light green. 18

regiment] garments [stolas] with purple borders [periporphyrous]” (17.77.5). Similarly, Plutarch relates that Eumenes of Cardia, one of the Successors of Alexander the Great, distributed to his bodyguards purple (halourgeis) kausiai and chlamydes (Eumenes 6.1-2). Plutarch (Aemilius Paullus 18.3), relates the testimony of Scipio Nasica, who was an eyewitness to the battle of Pydna in 168 BC, that in the Macedonian ranks at that battle were Thracians “with black tunics on under their armament,” as well as the Agema (elite infantry regiment), “flashing with newly-made crimson [phoinikisin] clothing.” Polybius also makes mention of cataphract cavalrymen during Antiochus IV’s procession at Daphne in 167 BC wearing ephaptides (cloaks) of purple (porphyras) embroidered with gold (30.25.10-11). These snippets hardly present a solid and unified body of evidence however, and they range in date from the late fourth to the second century BC. Three distinct trends are found in these few anecdotes: almost all relate to troops who were elite; some relate to soldiers marching in processions or reviews and most mentions of specific garments refer to cloaks. In order to investigate further whether Hellenistic soldiers would have worn uniforms, we must balance this testimony with archaeological evidence. There is archaeological evidence testifying to the use of uniformlycoloured cloaks from a handful of colour representations of groups of Hellenistic warriors, and there are even several late fourth century BC Macedonian paintings depicting elite troops wearing yellow or brownishyellow cloaks with purple borders, much like the garments described by Diodorus. This evidence suggests that most Hellenistic soldiers, whether lowly mercenaries or elite warriors, were issued with uniform cloaks, and there is evidence that the elite wore uniform caps as well. However, neither the cloak nor the cap was regularly worn in battle; only the tunic was normally worn, since the cap was usually replaced by a helmet and a soldier may have been hindered by wearing a cloak in combat. Xenophon notes, for instance, that the Spartan hoplite Cheirisophus prepared

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at least his own tunic(s), and the state’s contribution was simply providing him with enough money to purchase one or two a year. It could hardly have been expected, then, that the members of a unit would have worn uniform tunics. Those instances in the literature in which we find mention of tunics of the same colour are probably exceptional circumstances where special units were issued uniforms either prior to reviews (i.e. Alexander’s Persians and archers) or prior to an important campaign (i.e. the Agema and Thracians at Pydna). A lack of uniformity is also likely since the tunic was the garment most often worn, and thus most likely to be worn out, making it likely that troops would have possessed multiple tunics on campaign. On the other hand, a soldier would only have needed a single, allpurpose cloak when on campaign, and so these were probably issued by the state in uniform colours. While some semblance of uniformity would therefore have been evident while an army was at ease or marching on account of the uniform cloaks and perhaps also headgear of soldiers, troops arrayed for battle would have presented a motley sight. Only the cavalry, who regularly wore their cloaks into combat, would have presented a uniform appearance in battle. This would have been in direct contrast to their arms and armour, which we know from literary and archaeological evidence were normally provided by the state. Nonetheless, due to the ubiquity of specific types of clothing, Hellenistic troops would have appeared relatively homogeneous: almost every soldier would have worn a regular chiton, a Macedonian chlamys and krepides. The spectrum of colour visible on tunics even within the same unit, however, would have been dazzling, and we can only imagine what a remarkable sight a fully-arrayed Hellenistic army would have presented. n Ruben Post is a university student from British Columbia, Canada who has been researching ancient militaries from Greece to Central Asia for four years. The primary focus of his research is the Hellenistic militaries and the spread of arms and armour as cultural transfer in the last centuries BC.

© Ruben Post

for battle by “stripping down (to just his tunic) and taking up his arms” (Anabasis 4.3.17). The one exception is cavalrymen, who did wear cloaks in combat, since they were probably not nearly as hindered wearing a cloak on horseback as infantry were on foot. But because cavalrymen were relatively few in number in most armies, their cloaks would not have contributed greatly to the overall appearance of the army in battle formation. Infantrymen, although they usually wore their caps and sometimes their cloaks when not in combat, did not wear them when in battle. Therefore, two of the only elements of clothing which contributed to a uniform appearance among soldiers were not normally worn in combat. But what of that most common piece of military costume, the chiton? In all the extant Hellenistic colour representations of groups of soldiers, they are depicted wearing differentlycoloured tunics, even when their cloaks are uniform. We may find a hint as to why this is from an Egyptian source. In the Ptolemaic kingdom, for which we are lucky to have plenty of evidence for everyday life in the form of papyri, it is well known that the government was directly involved in several areas of production. Though there were royal workshops in Alexandria that produced textiles, what little evidence we have suggests that they primarily fulfilled the demands of the royal court. Most individuals would have obtained their clothing either through home production or from small shops, as was the norm throughout the Classical period in Greece. A papyrus discussed by Dorothy Thompson in her book Memphis under the Ptolemies records a clothing stipend of 10 drachmas a year for soldiers serving in the Ptolemaic army. According to Thompson’s calculations, in Hellenistic Egypt modest woolen tunics could be purchased brand new for 10 drachmas or used for 5 drachmas, and cheap felt cloaks for 20 drachmas a piece. If the raw materials, however, were bought at market and woven at home, a woolen tunic could be made for around a drachma and a felt cloak for about 10 drachmas. It thus seems that the soldier was responsible for procuring

Perhaps the most well-preserved of the painted stelae from Sidon, the monument for Salma, son of Moles, from Adada in Pisidia is certainly one of the most interesting. This man, one of the only examples of a Hellenistic soldier represented wearing mail, wears an average tunic which the Greeks would probably have described as phoinix in colour. Also note his unusual boots, distinct from the krepides worn by all other soldiers on the Sidon stelae.

Further reading:

- E.A. Fredricksmeyer, “Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Kausia”, in: Transactions of the American Philological Association 116 (1986), 215-227. - P. Juhel, “The Regulation Helmet of the Phalanx and the Introduction of the Concept of Uniform in the Macedonian Army at the End of the Reign of Alexander the Great”, in: Klio 91.2 (2009), 342-355. - K. Dohan Morrow, Greek Footwear and the Dating of Sculpture. Madison 1985. - M. Platnauer, “Greek ColourPerception”, in: The Classical Quarterly 15.3/4 (1921), 153-162. - Ch. Saatsoglou-Paliadeli, “Aspects of Ancient Macedonian Costume”, in: The Journal of Hellenic Studies 113 (1993), 122-147. - D. Thompson, Memphis under the Ptolemies. Princeton 1988.

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At the edge of Hellenism Armies of the Greeks in Bactria and India AFTER THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT, HIS SPEAR-WON EMPIRE SHATTERED INTO PIECES. ONE PART OF HIS EMPIRE WAS KNOWN AS BACTRIA, A LAND PREVIOUSLY KNOWN ONLY FROM TALES AND MYTHS. AS A RESULT OF THE POPULATING EFFORTS OF MACEDONIAN SOLDIERS, THIS LAND BECAME A THRIVING HELLENIC COMMUNITY. MOUNTAINOUS TERRITORIES OF MODERN-DAY AFGHANISTAN AND SOUTHERN TAJIKISTAN FORMED A BARRIER BETWEEN THE TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT WORLDS OF ‘CIVILIZED’ SEDENTARY PEOPLES AND IN THE VAST STEPPE WASTELANDS WANDERED NOMAD TRIBES OF IRANIAN STOCK. By Mateusz Lobacz The history of Hellenistic Bactria is surrounded by a veil of mysteries and curiosities. Apart from the few, short mentions in historical texts, the land is known almost exclusively from coins and artifacts. Despite this, it was by no means not a part of the oikumene, as Greeks called the civilized world. Descendants of colonists from the Macedonian army settled in these almost mythical lands, turning it into a prosperous country described perhaps with a slight exaggeration as a “land of a thousand cities”.

Beginnings

Most scholars agree that the beginning of Bactria as an independent state should be dated to ca. 250 BC, when a local Seleucid satrap called ‘Diodotus’ revolted and started to mint his own coins. Communication problems with these outlying regions had already forced the Seleucid empire to equip its satraps (governors) with extensive powers. The threat of nomadic invaders from beyond the river Oxus became an additional problem. Loose bands of robbers known as dahae constantly penetrated the border between inhabited areas and the steppes, but now a part of these gathered around an energetic and ambitious leader named Arsaces from the Parni tribe. He invaded the province of Parthia, killed the 20

local satrap and declared himself ruler of a newly created state, which in the future was to become Rome’s most prominent foe. Diodotus fought off the attacks, which earned him the title of Soter (“Saviour”), but he died while mounting a large expedition to retake lost territories. His son and successor of the same name did not hesitate to make peace and even concluded an alliance with Arsacids, probably considering them a lesser evil than the Seleucids. His domain now seemed prosperous and well protected. Theoretically, Bactria was politically cut off from the rest of the Hellenistic world. In reality however, cultural and commercial contacts remained surprisingly intact until the next century. Not only did luxury goods such as gems, spices or jewelry make their way to the Bactria, but also more common wares such as oil were bought and sold. Pottery and architecture were based on classical patterns and were at par with their Mediterranean equivalents. The best testimony for the vitality of Hellenism in these lands was at Ai Khanoum itself, situated in the foothills of the Badakhshan Mountains. French excavations conducted there before the Soviet-Afghan war revealed a flourishing community, something much like a ‘small Greece’ in the heart of Asia. Founded at a strategic place where the rivers Oxus and Kokcha meet, it

possessed all the hallmarks of a wellplanned Hellenistic city. Public buildings stretched along the main street, including a gymnasium, theatre (one of the largest from this period), the royal palace, treasury and arsenal. There were marble sculptures, fountains and a mausoleum belonging to one of the first settlers. A longer Delphic maxim was inscribed on it by a Klearchos; perhaps identical with Klearchos of Soli, a student of Aristotle. In the northeast, most exposed corner, the city was well protected by massive walls over 6m thick, strengthened by a chain of rectangular towers. The defenders certainly possessed some artillery, as stone balls weighting up to 20 kilograms were discovered within the citadel.

The empire strikes back

Around 230 BC Euthydemus, previously an unknown native of Magnesia in Asia Minor, somehow rose to power, overthrew Diodotus II and declared himself king. His bust shows a cunning, rather grumpy old man, though he certainly possessed a strong will and impressive skills necessary to survive in a world of Hellenistic politics. He became a powerful monarch who stretched his rule over Ariana and possibly also Sogdiana. Dark clouds started to gather over him when the new Seleucid king Antiochus III (later called Megas, “The Great”) started his epic anabasis to re-conquer the upper satrapies. This amounted to a combination of hard political necessity and a desire to emulate Alexander, which had nurtured so many Hellenistic rulers. A large Seleucid army fought its way along the Elburz Mountains, subdued Parthia and marched into Bactria. Euthydemus blocked the ford at the border river Arius (today’s Hari) with an impressive corps of ten thousand horsemen, apparently installing the rest of his army far behind, into Bactrian territory. Since these cavalrymen returned

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This picture shows the battle at the Arius River. King Antiochus III is shown unhorsed, defending himself against two Bactrian cavalrymen. The horse-archer is based on later Indo-Greek coinage, while the second figure represents an soldier belonging to an alleged ‘Macedonian’ regiment.

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for the night at a nearby village twenty stades (about 4 km) away, he advanced at a fast pace with cavalry, light infantry and ten thousand peltasts. Using the element of surprise the attackers crossed an undefended ford. “The cavalry of the Bactrians, when alerted by their scouts, sallied forth and engaged the enemy. Antiochus considered it vital to withstand the first charge of the enemy, so he summoned two thousand cavalrymen accustomed to facing danger around him; the rest he ordered to deploy by squads and troops and there to hold each of their usual positions. He himself with the aforementioned cavalry met and engaged the first of the Bactrians to charge. Antiochus seems in this particular engagement to have fought the most conspicuously of those with him. Accordingly, although many were killed on both sides, the king’s forces defeated the first regiment. When, however, the second and third came up they were in difficulties and had the worst of it.” Polybius, Histories 10.49l (Holt’s translation, slightly modified) At the head of his royal guard, and perhaps joined by the elite regiments of the Agema and the Hetairoi, he fought a bloody melee. Battle took the form of a chaotic cavalry clash with heavy losses, in which both sides tried to drive the other back. At some point the king’s life was endangered, when his horse was speared and he, himself received a wound in the mouth. Sacrificing some of his soldiers, Antiochus bought time for his infantry to form ranks and engage the enemy. Under the command of a certain Panataelous they charged, and broke the confused Bactrians, turning them into a fleeing, panic-stricken mass. Still, this hard-fought victory remained inconclusive as Euthydemus withstood the siege of Zariaspa-Bactra (today’s Balkh), which modern scholars believe lasted two years, from 208 to 206 BC. This is, in fact, the time 22

between two other major events, the battle of Arius and peace negotiations. We should not automatically assume that Antiochus had spent this entire time besieging one fortified place. Presumably, his initially swift campaign deteriorated to a frustrating series of enemy raids and small sieges, resembling those of Alexander himself one century earlier. Unable to cope with the existing stalemate, the great king decided to reconcile with Euthydemus. After long negotiations, both monarchs agreed to terms of peace. Antiochus recognized Euthydemus as the sole ruler of the independent kingdom, in exchange for a sworn alliance and something we could call an ancient version of disarmament. He took possession of all Bactrian war-elephants. Not only did the treaty establish the position of a former satrapy as a fully legitimate, sovereign state, it also restricted the future expansion of an aggressive kingdom to the Indian subcontinent, thereby shaping the next chapter of its history.

Bactrian armies

As with all issues regarding Bactria, we know almost nothing about the organization of the kingdom and its armed forces. It was probably divided into small satrapies, although equally possible is that they were later transformed into semi-dependent provinces, ruled by a royal family member as a sub-king. The titles of strategos and meridarch passed to the Indo-Scythian conquerors of Bactria, where they referred to local administrative / military posts held by nobles, and it is certain that they were Greek innovations. Any given number should be treated with careful skepticism. We hear of a 60,000-man army of Demetrius II (Iustinus 41.6.4), though this seems to be highly exaggerated. The 300 guardsmen of Eucratides were obviously only part of his forces. Earlier in the course of history, when Alexander left Bactria, some newly settled colonists revolted as a result of being discontented with politics that threw them to such distant lands (by comparison Bactria and Sogdia fulfilled a role similar to Siberia in Imperial Russia). For the first period their forces numbered three thousand. The second rebellion in 323 BC was

more serious as the number of the forces involved came to 23,000 troops, including some natives. Despite the fact that most of them were mercilessly slaughtered, Greek elements remained strong in these areas, and later kings could probably muster forces of a similar size, if not larger. The ten thousand horsemen mentioned at the battle of the Arius is a number that speaks for itself, and this was only the vanguard of the main army. Most soldiers of Hellenic and Macedonian stock would serve as kleruchoi or allotment-holders receiving their piece of land from the king in exchange for military service. This duty usually extended to the next generation, thus creating a reserve of trained, part-time soldiers, ready to take up their arms. Such a system could have been easily weakened by numerous exemptions from service, and depended heavily upon a high frequency of musters and military actions, though in those turbulent lands the settlers would probably have remained in a state of constant readiness. The existence of kleruchoi should not be called into question, bearing in mind that all Greek cities in Bactria were founded as military colonies, designed to protect the upper satrapies. Although the kleruchs are usually associated with the traditional Macedonian phalanx equipment of the long sarissae, the usefulness of this weapon and deployment remains dubious to say the least. Even though such a formation was the backbone of almost any Hellenistic army, it had many drawbacks, making it a particularly clumsy tool of war. Sixteen deep blocks of pike men were ideally suited for a pitched battle on flat terrain, but the main enemies of the Greco-Bactrians would have been Eastern cavalry and light infantry, unwilling to stand against such a formidable wall of spears. Broken ground could prove to be disastrous for closely-packed ranks, as battles at Cynoscephalae and Beneventum clearly showed. Considering the ubiquitous nature of the mountains, hills and rivers, a better solution would be to arm them as thureophoroi. This new class of soldiers appeared as the result of an adoption of Celtic oval-shaped shields (called thureos, liter-

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ally “doors” in Greek) and became more and more widespread in the Hellenistic world from about the middle of the 3rd century. Bactrians certainly knew them, as fragments of figurines from Bagram and terracotta plaques from KampyrTepe show soldiers carrying large, flat shields. Of great interest in this respect is a rare find from Ai Khanoum, dated to about 150 BC. It’s a print of a leather cover for a thureos shield with an unidentified human figure painted on it. Its very large dimensions (1.30 x 0.64 m) make it unusual, though it is possible the cover folded over both sides of shield proper. Armed with a helmet, javelins and sword, the versatile thureophoroi were ideally suited for local conditions; they could perform duties of both the medium infantry and garrison troops, operating in the mountainous landscape of Bactria more freely than heavy phalangites. It is reported that Antiochus took with him an entire corps of such troops, and perhaps their appearance in Bactria should be connected with this event (Polybius 10.49). They would have been supported by light infantry using bows, javelins and slings (lead sling bullets of the Greek pattern were found at Ai Khanoum). One of the most disputed issues regarding Hellenistic Bactria is the question to what degree the natives participated in its political and military efforts. W.W. Tarn in his epic vision used the above-mentioned fragment about horsemen of Bactrian origin (ton Baktrianon hippikes) as an example of a fusion of cultures, an idea widespread among some older historians. Although modern historiography mercilessly devastated his hypothesis, it contained some sensible elements. Even considering the separation of Greeks from ‘barbarians’ in Ai Khanoum (an archeologically based presumption rather than indisputable fact), the constant threat from nomadic incursions was strong enough to become a major argument in negotiations with Antiochus about independence of the kingdom (Polybius 11.34). It probably also affected the loyalty of local nobles, gathering them around the king, who was the only person to guarantee stability. Local peoples of Iranian stock had their own traditions of foot archers and light infantry (Herodotus 6.64, 66),

but their most famous tradition lay in their heavy cavalry. It is a reasonable assumption that they also provided the bulk of the cavalry forces that fought at the Arius, as it seems dubious the Greeks alone could muster ten thousand horsemen. The only certain information is that they formed at least three hipparchies, a term usually reserved for a medium cavalry squadron of some 500 troopers. Following the Hellenistic pattern, there also existed something resembling a hetairoi / philoi, a valuable corps of cadets, candidates for higher offices and an elite cavalry regiment in one. 300 Men reported (Iustinus 41.6.4; Milindapañha mentions 500 advisors of the king) seems perfectly suitable for such a unit, considering earlier examples from history (the Spartan hippeis, Theban Sacred Band and Alexandrian ile basilike being only the most famous). Apart from cavalry there also existed an elephant corps. Commonly considered as indigenous to Bactria, in reality these beasts came from beyond the Hindu Kush and were therefore imported. A Babylonian cuneiform fragment dated to 276-274 BC reports the Bactrian satrap sent twenty animals to the Seleucid king. Their role in the army of Euthydemus was mentioned earlier. The proximity of areas inhabited by elephants encouraged large-scale hunting practices. Once caught, animals would be put through a long process of training and taming. Two famous silver phalerae from the Hermitage depict them equipped for battle, towered and crewed by a mahout and two soldiers. These ‘tanks of the ancient world’, though extremely expensive and often double-edged weapons, were nonetheless highly valued as symbols of military power and royal prestige. Perhaps it was not only the conquest of India that led Demetrius I to portray himself wearing a curious elephant scalp known from Latin as proboscis. We know something more about the equipment of this period. Greek traditions of dress and armament were continued, though with some changes. The Boeotian helmet evolved into a specific Bactrian form with a broad rim. With its popularity being almost a phenomenon, we find it on coins, seals, buckles and even small cameos. The

harsh local climate presumably also forced the Hellenes to adopt such a barbarian item as trousers. Characteristic skirts of pteryges were still used, though some took an oriental-looking form of two rows of rectangular plates. Because of artistic habits, it is hard to say with absolute certainty if any other types of armor beside the most commonly depicted muscular type existed. Fragments of a bronze cuirass with two plates riveted together, discovered at Kampyr-Tepe, could hardly be identified as a Greek thorax. Larger fragments of scale armour from an arsenal in Ai Khanoum, including a scale corselet, tube arm-protectors and parameridia (horse flank guard for rider’s legs) brought some confusion. Being typical cataphract panoplies, they were discovered in the context of nomadic conquerors of Bactria. Yet, we find kataphractoi in the Seleucid army from at least the expedition of Antiochus (it is believed that he copied them from Eastern nomads), and it would certainly be strange if GrecoBactrians never made use of them. Offensive equipment included various types of javelins, spears (almost certainly also long kontoi) and local reflex bows. Beside the straight xiphos, the curved kopis / machaira seems to have been the most popular sword among the Greeks in these areas. Its inward curvature made it an ideal cavalry weapon, as it concentrated energy for deep, downward cuts. This was the type needed to pierce the armor of Eastern adversaries (some believe it to be the predecessor of the famous kukri, although this theory is rather far-fetched). Several examples of such artifacts have been found, most with elaborately shaped ivory hilts.

Indo-Greeks

The second century BC was a period of violent internal struggles that divided the Greek world into several smaller kingdoms or territories. Successive kings such as Demetrius I or Eucratides extended their rule to neighboring territories or lost them, fighting with rivals and external enemies. About 150 BC, waves of nomadic people known to Chinese sources as Yueh-Chih poured through undefended borders and captured Hellenic settlements one by one. Ancient Warfare

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Ai Khanoum was burned and temporarily occupied by these invaders. At the same time, the political and cultural center shifted eastward. During the reign of Demetrius I, the Greeks crossed the Hindu Kush, thereby commencing their expansion on the Indian subcontinent. They subdued the modern Punjab, and their armies reached as far as Pataliputra in the lower Ganges Valley (Strabo 15.698). This was about 800km further to the east than Alexander’s most distant point. Through coinage we know the names of over thirty rulers from this period, with the most famous of them being Menander I (155-130). He was a powerful and successful king, probably the last to rule over both sides of the Hindu Kush. His reign brought a cultural diffusion and exchange with local traditions: Greek, Indian and Iranian trends intermingled, thus giving birth to the sophisticated Gandharan School of art. This also joined the Indo-Greek monetary system, common philosophical and, perhaps most curious of all, religious ideas. Menander (known in pali as Milinda) became the title character of Milindapañha, the Buddhist philosophical treatise. He and his successors appeared as benefactors and keen propagators of the Buddha’s teachings. Of all the Indo-Greek armies, we know even less than about the Bactrian. Milindapañha is not a historical text, and though it mentions a four-fold division of the army (cavalry, infantry, elephants and chariots), it reflects Indian rather than Hellenistic practices. Elephants were certainly used to a large extent, and Indian infantry levies fielded excellent archers. Reliefs from Butkara Stupa and the so-called ‘hero stones’ show native warriors armed with scale shirts, spears and circular shields that may reflect some Hellenic influences. Perhaps some of them are even fighting in a formation resembling a phalanx. Still, the most prestigious branch of the army seems to have been the cavalry, with its importance being more and more visible. Yavana horsemen (Greeks in Sanskrit, though there are other meanings of this word) appear in the Mahabharata and a play entitled Malavika and Agnimitra by the ancient Indian dramatist Kalidasa. 24

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In the play they form a vanguard of an Indo-Greek army that fought at the Sindhu river ca. 150 BC. Soon, Hellenic rulers (seven in all, including Antimachus, Philoxenus, Hermaios and Hippostratus) started issuing coins with a king depicted as a rider, wearing a Bactrian helmet, armor with pteryges and cavalry boots. Most unusual are his weapons. On some coins, a reflex bow is shown in a leather case, suspended on his belt. Some series of Hermaios coins also have the spear attached to his back. Assuming that it was a standard armament and the person carrying it was of Greek origin, we would have unprecedented evidence for a native Hellene equipped as a horse-archer. It is hard to imagine a fighting technique more atypical to the descendants of hoplites. Mounted archers are known from other Hellenistic armies, although they were always foreigners, accustomed to such combat. Shooting from horseback was a complicated art which could not be mastered instantaneously, as it required long traditions deeply rooted in the society. Being clearly a response to fast-moving nomads, such developments can be perceived also in non-military categories as a symbol of flexibility and an ability to change, which characterized the Greeks who settled in an environment so different from their own. In spite of such achievements, IndoGreeks turned to only one other cultural stratum in the rich melting-pot of the Indian subcontinent. Pursued by successive nomadic invasions, which periodically flooded across the Hindu Kush, around the beginning of the Christian era, the last Indo-Greek kings

Tillya-Tepe gold buckle showing two warriors, probably deities, armed in Greek fashion. Note the trousers with straps and characteristic skirt made from plates instead of the traditional pteryges. stopped minting their own coins. Any material traits of their existence finally disappeared, which does not change the fact that they probably ruled the longest occupied Hellenistic state of all. n

Mateusz Lobacz wrote his undergraduate thesis on the tactics of the Late Roman army at the university of Lublin, Poland. As a member of the ‘Hellas et Roma’ reenactment group, he is responsible for its hoplite and gladiatorial branch.

Further reading

- O. Bopearachchi, Monnaies Gréco-Bactriennes et IndoGrecques. Paris 1991. - F. Holt, Thundering Zeus. The Making of Hellenistic Bactria. Berkeley California and London 1999. - A.K. Narain, The Indo-Greeks. Oxford 1957. - V. Nikonorov, The Armies of Bactria. Stockport 1997 (2 vols.), must-read about the subject. - W.W. Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria & India. Cambridge 1938 (reprint Chicago 1997), epic and well written, but too ‘romantic’ for modern scholarly debate.

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Climax of the Syrian Wars The battle of Raphia, 217 BC ON THE AFTERNOON OF JUNE 22, 217 (ALL DATES ARE BC) PTOLEMY IV PHILOPATER, LIKELY AT THE INSISTENCE OF HIS GENERALS, RESOLVED TO BRING ANTIOCHUS III TO BATTLE. THE TWO ARMIES HAD BEEN CAMPED OPPOSITE EACH OTHER FOR ALMOST FIVE DAYS AND THE BOTCHED ATTEMPT ON PTOLEMY’S LIFE BY THEODOTUS, HIS ERSTWHILE GOVERNOR OF COELE SYRIA NOW IN SELEUCID SERVICE, WAS A PRODUCT OF THIS PROCRASTINATION (POLYBIUS 5. 82.1; 81.1-6 – ALL REFERENCES TO THIS AUTHOR UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED). TWO DAYS PREVIOUS, ANTIOCHUS HAD CLOSED THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE TWO CAMPS FROM 1.8 KILOMETRES TO A LITTLE LESS THAN ONE KILOMETRE. AS A RESULT THERE “WERE FREQUENT STRUGGLES AT THE WATERING-PLACES” AS WELL AS “INFANTRY AND CAVALRY SKIRMISHES IN THE SPACE BETWEEN THE CAMPS” (5.80.5-7).

Ptolemy, who had force-marched his army “through the waterless region” from Pelusium to “the spot he was bound for” (5.80.2-3) some nine kilometres southwest of Raphia (near to modern Dikla, Egypt) in five days – a distance of near 180 kilometres at 36 kilometres per day – had chosen his ground with a clear purpose. The Ptolemaic army, unlike the Seleucid, had not fought a major set-piece engagement in a generation with much of its work in the intervening years having been carried out by mercenaries. At the head of this largely untried host, Ptolemy’s general staff chose to adopt a largely defensive strategy and block the Jiradi Pass. The chosen ground, inside the eastern end of the pass, was some four and a half kilometres in width. Sea dunes guarded the northwestern side whilst desert dunes from the Sinai and limestone knolls hemmed the southeast. To the southwest, the wells of Sheik-Zuwayid would provide water as would the sea dune wells. Although

much preparation and drill had been invested in the Lagid (Ptolemaic) force (see below), there remained the fact that its reliability was open to question and so the narrower field of the pass would be to its advantage. In the wider world, Ptolemy and his generals almost certainly encouraged the revolt and dynastic pretensions of Achaeus – Antiochus’ satrap of Asia Minor – in the Seleucid rear (5.42.7; 57.2; 66.3; 67.1). On this battlefield, they would settle for stopping Antiochus in his tracks. His dispositions would reflect this strategy. Antiochus had never really expected Ptolemy to fight – indeed he was encouraged in that belief (5.66.6-8). Having arrived the same night as Ptolemy, his surprise at the size of the army that had taken the field against him is evidenced by both his cautious final advance from Gaza and his movement into the pass a few days after his arrival. Reports of the army advancing

© Livius.org

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Bust of Antiochus III the Great (242-187 BC), now in the Louvre, Paris. from Pelusium and a lack of concise information regarding its whereabouts likely occasioned the former. As for the latter, Polybius (5.80.4-6) says this was “to remove to more advantageous ground and to inspire confidence in his troops”. Antiochus, finding himself outnumbered in phalanx infantry and roughly even in cavalry, had no desire to encourage Ptolemy from his defensive posture. Advancing into the more Ancient Warfare

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restricted field of the pass he would “inspire confidence” in his troops by accepting battle on the “more advantageous ground” where he would not have to stretch the lines of his phalanx to match Ptolemy’s. Given Ptolemy’s intentions, Antiochus was compelled to adopt a more aggressive posture. Not that he would likely have chosen otherwise. With Achaeus having assumed the diadem at Sardis, Antiochus could ill afford to wait. Having advanced into the pass he could now deploy his line to match Ptolemy’s with his experienced phalanx holding the centre of the field. With a combined arms assault from a stacked right wing, Antiochus hoped to blast the Ptolemaic left flank from its position, crush its left wing infantry and force Ptolemy back into the waterless region he’d recently crossed. Antiochus, controlling the water of Raphia and Sheik-Zuwayid, would thus have a natural border and free himself to deal with Achaeus.

The Syrian Wars

The fourth “Syrian War” in sixty years would be decided by the greatest clash of arms since the battle of Ipsus in 301. Great armies would fight and kill – yet again – to press the claims of rival kings over the possession of Coele Syria. The one, Ptolemy, “absorbed in unworthy intrigues and senseless and continuous drunkenness”, who treated the “branches of government with equal indifference” (5.34.10); the other, Antiochus, young and aggressive scion of the Seleucid house with an empire to set in order, if not reclaim. The conflict was the latest manifestation of a long running sore of Hellenistic politics, whose roots lay in the events of the Diadoch Wars. Coele Syria was “unjustly occupied by Ptolemy” (Diod.18.73.2) after Triparadeisos (320) and again after the battle of Gaza in 312. Later, as his allies fought at Ipsus in 301, Ptolemy Soter’s contribution to the grand alliance of kings against Antigonus Monophthalmus was to reoccupy Coele-Syria. In the aftermath Seleucus, a key member of the alliance, marched into Syria “where in accordance with the terms of the agreement, he endeavoured to appropriate Coele Syria”. Ptolemy refused to give it up, 26

claiming that his allies were “giving him no part of the conquered territory, even though he had been a partner in the war”. Seleucus, on the basis of friendship, decided “he would not for the present interfere, but would consider later how best to deal with friends who chose to encroach” (Diod. 21.5). In the decades following, successive monarchs engaged in repeated attempts to establish lasting control of the strategic region, resulting in what are termed the “Syrian Wars”. The third and most recent of these, lasting from 246 to 241, saw Ptolemy III Euergetes march as far as Babylon. After its settlement, Ptolemy was left in control of Coele Syria and the ports of Syria. Amongst these latter was the city of Seleuceia-in Pieria “the capital, and so to speak, the very inner shrine of the king’s realm” (5.58.4). Antiochus III, within a year of his accession, was embroiled in a rebellion in Media and the upper satrapies. This, plus the determined resistance of Ptolemy’s general Theodotus, forestalled his attempt (221) on Seleuceia and Coele Syria (5.43-46.5). Within two years (219), though, Antiochus was back. Advised to reclaim Seleuceia before any other action was taken (5.58.4-8) he did exactly that and might, for the moment have been satisfied, but for the arrival of a letter “from Theodotus offering to put Coele-Syria into his hands, and inviting him to come thither with all speed”. At this Antiochus abandoned “his expedition against Achaeus, and regarding everything else as of secondary importance” and set about claiming Coele Syria (5.61.6). Ptolemy’s senior advisor, Sosibius, and co-minister Agathocles immediately set in play the only game in town attempting “by embassies to try to retard the advance of Antiochus: pretending to confirm him in the opinion he originally entertained about Ptolemy, namely, that he would not venture to fight” (5.63.2-3). The diplomatic delaying tactics – involving Rhodes, Byzantium, Cyzicus, and Aetolia – are illuminating in as much as they illustrate the entire 84 years of dispute. The real purpose though, “was delay and time to make their preparations for war” (5.63.5-6). And preparations there most certainly were.

The Raphia campaign

Taking the court to Memphis, Sosibius and his co-conspirator, Agathocles, received the ongoing embassies from Antiochus “with every mark of courtesy and kindness.” What Antiochus’ ambassadors – or those sent by Sosibius (5.66.9) signally did not receive was any knowledge of what was transpiring at Alexandria. Here the two ministers of the crown had collected “the mercenaries whom they had on service in towns outside Egypt”. As well, they had dispatched officers “to recruit foreign soldiers and were collecting provisions both for the troops they already possessed, and for those that were coming in.” The recruiting did not stop at soldiers: the Ptolemaic army required seasoned officers and these too, came from Greece. Echecrates of Thessaly, Phoxidas of Melita, Cnopias of Allaria and Socrates of Boeotia all came to Alexandria and all, importantly, had seen service under Demetrius II and Antigonus Doson. They were swiftly put in charge of the training of the army (5.63.7-14). As the interminable embassies travelled back and forth, Antiochus interested himself with the odd siege and eventually agreed to a four month truce over the winter of 219/18 (5.66.12). Meanwhile the Lagid army trained apace. The soldiers were divided by age and nationality, after which they were assigned to divisions and armed “taking no account of what they had borne before” (5.64.1). Here the Greek mercenaries were armed as phalangites and, under Phoxidas and Andromachus, drilled with the phalanx as one unit “on the same ground” (see Ancient Warfare I.1 “Alexandria’s Colourful Funeral Stelae”). Here also Echectrates “splendidly trained” the Greek mercenary cavalry and Polycrates the cleruchic cavalry (“that which was obtained from Libya or enlisted in the country” 5.65.5) and the guard. Convinced that Ptolemy would not leave Egypt to fight, Antiochus left his winter quarters in Seleuceia (218) and stormed the Porphyrion Pass. Subsequent resistance – aside from Sidon – was sporadic and typified by the desertion of Ptolemy’s commanders (Theodotus had earlier given over Tyre and Ptolemais). After consolidating his

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© Karwansaray Publishers

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Bust of Ptolemy IV Philopater (“Father loving”, 244-205 BC), now in the Louvre, Paris.

hold on Coele Syria Antiochus retired to Ptolemais for the winter. In the following spring of 217 Ptolemy finally mobilized his retrained army and ventured to make a contest of the province. Antiochus, informed of his approach, gathered his army and marched for Raphia where he would “deal with friends who chose to encroach”.

Deployment for battle

Marching out from camp and forming into line, the phalanx divisions of Sosibius and Andromachus filled the centre of the field; around these troops the rest of the army would be arrayed. The near 20,000 Egyptians under Sosibius held the right of this block. The “Greco-Macedonian phalanx” of 25,000 stood to their left. Both these formations adopted a depth of 24 ranks allowing the deployment of the rest of the infantry thus plugging the pass,

whilst allowing some room for the cavalry to maneuver. To the immediate right of the Egyptian phalanx Phoxidas led the 8,000 mercenary Greek phalangites into position sixteen deep. Alongside the Greeks the Gauls and Thracians, 6,000 of them, took their station under Dionysius. Rounding out the right was the Greek mercenary cavalry under Echecrates who commanded the right wing. To his front was posted a 33 strong elephant corps. Next to the Greco-Macedonian phalanx Ptolemy arranged the 3,000 Libyans armed and trained in the Macedonian fashion and these were abutted by Socrates’ 2,000 sarissa-armed peltasts. Anchoring the Lagid infantry on the far left were the phalanx infantry elite: the 3,000 guard troops of the royal agema (basilikon agema) under Eurylochus. These last three divisions were also arrayed sixteen deep. The extremity of the Ptolemaic left wing was held by Polycrates and the cleruchic cavalry: 2,300 strong along with Ptolemy himself and his cavalry guard of 700 (5.82.3-7). Forty of Ptolemy’s elephants guarded this wing and 3,000 Cretans stood behind them and alongside the cavalry they would support. The Lagid battle line ran slightly northwest to southeast, from the ancient road near to the sea dunes to somewhat south of the modern El-Arish-Rafa road, occupying the available ground afforded by the pass. Antiochus’ phalanx, at the ‘regular’ depth of sixteen (18.30.1), was deployed opposite Ptolemy’s in the centre of the field. The phalanx of GrecoMacedonians, almost 20,000 in number under Nicarchus and Theodotus Hermiolius, stood opposite Ptolemy’s virgin native phalanx. To its right, “under Theodotus, the Aetolian who had deserted from Ptolemy”, were “ten thousand picked men from the whole kingdom, armed in the Macedonian fashion, most of whom had silver shields” (5.79.4-5). These elite ‘Syrian’ troops, the argyraspides, likely formed

8,000 of this corps and the remaining 2,000, the nature of whom can really only be guessed at, may well have been hypaspists (peltasts). To the left of the phalanx was Antiochus’ ‘make do’ infantry of the defensive left wing. Abutting the phalanx were 10,000 Arabs, likely javelin men, at a similar depth to the phalanx. Alongside these were 5,000 light armed Medes, Cissians and Carmanians and they were joined by 3,000 Agrianians, Thracians and Persians with 1,500 Lydian and Kardouchoi (“Cardaces”, likely modern Kurds) javelin men at the end. Themison, with 2,000 cavalry, commanded the wing and 33 elephants stood across its front (5.82.11-13). The Seleucid right wing, which would lead the offensive, Antiochus would command in person. Alongside the argyraspides, he posted the 5,000 mercenary thureophoroi from Greece under the command of Hippolochus (cf 5.84.9). These troops would confront Ptolemy’s infantry agema and his peltasts: their role would be crucial to the battle plan. Byttacus, with 5,000 light troops (Daae, Carmanians and Cilicians) under his command, provided both extra width for the infantry line as well as support for the sixty elephants posted in front of the wing. Alongside these lights stood 2,500 Cretans and Antipater’s 2,000 strong cavalry corps rounded out the main line. The royal ile (regiment) and cavalry agema, of 1,000 each and which he would lead, Antiochus placed “at an angle” to his main line. This angle, given his attacking posture, was near certainly echeloned rearwards in deep column and would be somewhat difficult to discern from the Ptolemaic lines (5.82.8-10). Both kings rode the lines with their officers and, in the case of Ptolemy, his sister Arsinoe addressing “words of encouragement and exhortation to their officers and friends”. Neither having been on the throne long enough to point to “any glorious or famous achievement of his own” instead reminded them “of the glory of their ancestors, and the great deeds performed by them”. These words were directed particularly to the officers and men of the phalanx on both sides for it was these that “they both rested their strongest hopes on” (5.83.1-6). This Ancient Warfare

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© Carlos de la Rocha

done, both returned to their chosen stations opposite each other on the north-western side of the field.

Battle begins

Antiochus signaled for the attack to begin and the elephants lumbered off at the run with Byttacus’ light infantry following in support. Across the field Ptolemy ordered his own elephants forward. Polycrates’ cavalry, along with the Cretans, began an advance left and forward behind them. Immediately matters went astray as “only some few of Ptolemy’s elephants came to close quarters with the foe”. These few, very likely Indian rather than African given they were towered, engaged fiercely as they butted heads and swung tusks at and into each other. In the towers atop the elephants, amid the arrows and missiles from the light armed, the soldiers “maintained a brilliant fight lunging at and striking each other” with sarissae. Too few to make any appreciable difference, Ptolemy’s elephants were forced back and onto their own lines. Here, as Polycrates advanced, elephants 28

careered back onto his troops throwing horse, rider and Cretans into panic As the Seleucid elephants gained the ascendancy Antipater’s cavalry corps, launched at the Ptolemaic left close behind them, charged into the dust covered melee. Antiochus, skirting the outer edge of the elephants, led his column at the charge whilst the Greek thureophoroi, on the other side of the elephants, advanced toward the Lagid elite units of foot at the double. Echecrates, away on the Ptolemaic right wing, “waited first to see the result of the struggle between the other wings of the two armies” (5.85.1). Looking towards the north-west he can have made out little of what was unfolding. Heat haze combined with over three and a half kilometres of intervening distance obscured all detail other than the immense cloud of dust that was now the Ptolemaic left: a cloud that appeared to be moving, inexorably, rearwards. Beyond the light troops of his own wing and the phalanx of Greeks, the Egyptian phalanx, flanking their ‘Macedonian’ counterparts,

stood with sarissae raised and waited. Across the sand and dust, flashes could be made out as the enemy’s shields caught the sun: the Seleucid infantry were drawing shields from their shoulders. Leading his royal ile and the cavalry agema at the gallop, Antiochus swung out and around the elephant battle. Polycrates’ cavalry – rent by elephants retreating onto and through his position – was now a mass of terrified and rearing horses. Ptolemy’s Cretans, increasingly confined by the cavalry they were to assist and taking any opening for retreat available to them, added to the escalating disarray. At this point Antiochus, appearing from behind the cloud and noise that was the elephant disaster to Polycrates’ front, drove violently into the latter’s defenceless flank (5.84.8). Troop after troop of Seleucid cavalry charged into Polycrates’ men who, unable to cope with the elephants and the flank attack, died as spears drove into both horse and rider. Under impossible pressure Ptolemy’s left wing cavalry gave ground falling back and

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onto its own infantry. The confusion and dislocation amongst the Ptolemaic cavalry eventually turned to rout. Antiochus, envisioning a crushing victory as Polycrates’ cavalry eventually fled, pressed the rout and the pursuit. His object, more likely than not, was Ptolemy himself who, along with what remained of his cavalry guard, had used the dust and din of the tumult to circle back and away towards the safety of his phalanx which was unengaged (5.85.7).

Charge of the Lagid wing

Opposite Echecrates’ position the trumpeting of the Seleucid elephants quickly drowned whatever sounds drifted across from the Ptolemaic left wing. Looking forward Echecrates “saw the dust coming his way” and, worse, “that the elephants opposite his division were afraid even to approach the hostile elephants” (5.85.1) and had either remained stationary or began to back away. The disaster of the left now portended for the right and Echectrates could wait no longer. In a move that was doubtless planned, Echecrates sent a rider to Phoxidas ordering an advance and for Phoxidas himself to “charge the part of the enemy opposite him with his Greek mercenaries” along with the Gauls. Then, ordering the Thracian infantry (“the division behind the elephants”) to follow him, he led them and the mercenary cavalry out to the right – off the field and around the limestone ridge – so as to get outside the elephant scrimmage and out of view of the Seleucid cavalry behind its elephants. The Greeks lowered their sarissae and set off at the ‘charge’. The Gauls, as the Greeks stepped off, advanced into and around the elephants to engage the Seleucid light troops advancing in support of them (5.85.1-3). On the Ptolemaic left, the infantry agema was in the ineluctable process of disintegration. Panicked elephants, showing no respect for man or sarissa, trampled the former and splintered the latter. Phalangites, not already crushed, were thrown into in a state of utter terror as fleeing elephants caught protruding sarissae skittling their wielders and any near to them. To their right, “the elephants having already thrown

their ranks also into confusion” (5.84.9), Ptolemy’s peltasts also came under attack. Antiochus’ Greek mercenaries assaulted the Lagid phalangites as they struggled for cohesion. Gaps in the peltasts’ ranks – the inevitable result of their own elephants falling back into them – opened invitingly. Into these gaps streamed the Seleucid Greeks whilst the agema – shattered and lacking any formation – broke and gave way (5.84.7). Byttacus’ men, meanwhile, were taking “targets of opportunity” with impunity from the peltasts’ flank as well as the remnants the Ptolemaic left wing. Ptolemy, sheltered by his phalanx, was watching the disintegration of his entire left wing. Whilst his phalanx was still intact in the centre of the field, both it and his camp might well be overrun shortly. To his right his Greek phalanx, along with the right wing infantry, had advanced to the “charge”. Urged on by his officers, Ptolemy came around the right flank of his Egyptian phalanx and riding along its front “showing himself in the view of both armies struck terror in the hearts of the enemy, but inspired great spirit and enthusiasm in his own men”. At this Andromachus and Sosibius gave orders for sarissae to be couched and for the 45,000 strong backbone of the army to follow the right wing and advance upon the enemy phalanx. (5.85.9) Antiochus’ Greek mercenaries, shoving sarissae aside with their thureoi, attacked Ptolemy’s disorganised phalangites with spear and sword in hand to hand combat. With the Lagid infantry agema largely destroyed, its corps of peltasts was now in danger of being cut to pieces. As casualties mounted alarmingly the peltasts gave ground. Stepping over and around the dead or dying, the Greeks stabbed and hacked at Ptolemy’s peltasts pushing them backwards, with ever increasing ease, until they were driven out of the line (5.84.9). Ptolemy’s camp, being close to the battle line like that of Antiochus (cf 5.80.6), now presented a strategic obstacle. Antiochus’ troops could not execute a turn to their left in an attempt to roll up Ptolemy’s line as they would be exposed on their right sides to any missile fire or defenders sallying

from the camp including the survivors of the peltasts and infantry agema. The Seleucid cavalry of the left, advancing in concert with their elephants, were taken completely by surprise in their flank and rear by Echectrates’ assault column appearing from around the limestone knolls. The mercenary cavalry charged into Themison’s troops and “quickly drove them from their ground” (5.85.3) across and onto their light troops. The Seleucid lights – the Persians, Cardaces, Lydians and Agrianians – found themselves corralled by the cavalry they were ostensibly supporting. Order quickly turned to shambles as Echectrates’ Thracian troops, having loosed javelins, created mayhem with their romphaia – ‘pole weapons’ with a blade some seventy or more centimetres long. Horses and riders fell indiscriminately as the blades were swung and thrust.

Seleucid collapse

The Seleucid phalanx, having watched their elephants and light troops move off, readied for the advance. As they were about to step off the Arab tribal levies, protecting their left flank, were taken in a vicious assault by Phoxidas and his Greek phalangites. The Arabs, light javelin men, failed to withstand the initial charge and those not immediately run through or crushed in the contact, began to look for any method of escape. As the cavalry fled the Cissians, Medes, and Carmanians, taken frontally by the Gauls, also came under attack from Echectrates’ Thracians. Ptolemy’s phalanx brigades, advancing at the double, left behind the carnage of their left wing and closed on their Seleucid counterparts. In the initial collision the “picked Syrian troops stood their ground” for a time. Alongside them the ‘Greco-Macedonian’ phalanx came under severe pressure. The ‘lights’ of the Seleucid left wing, led by their defeated cavalry, were falling back towards and behind them in the direction of the camp and, eventually, Raphia. Echectrates did not bother with a headlong pursuit but drove across into what remained of the light infantry. The Thracians and Gauls followed and carnage was wrought by Galatian swords and Thracian romphaia. As their light infantry fled the field the Ancient Warfare

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Seleucid Greco-Macedonian phalanx found itself denuded of support and under flank attack. With Ptolemy’s Egyptians driving them back they buckled and fled. The argyraspides, aware of the imminent danger of envelopment, also retreated towards camp. Now Echectrates pursued “killing large numbers of the enemy […] by means of his cavalry and mercenaries on his right wing” (5.86.1). On the far side of the field Antiochus, confident that the success of his Greek mercenaries inside of his cavalry and elephants was reflected across the line, continued his pursuit. At the warning of one of his older officers he called a halt to collect his forces and assess the state of battle. Looking back across the field to his centre he realised “that the cloud of dust raised by the phalanx was moving towards their own camp”. Antiochus and his cavalry returned to the field at the full gallop to find “his whole line in full retreat” and his campaign in tatters (5.85.13). Antiochus had lost some 10,000 infantry and 300 cavalry killed as well as 4,000 men taken prisoner. He retired to Raphia with “such of his men as had fled in compact bodies”. Ptolemy, seemingly taken aback by the victory (5.87.3), “retired to his own camp and there spent the night” having lost 1,500 infantry killed and seven hundred cavalry. These, almost to a man, fell during the debacle on the left of his line. Whilst Polybius says that “sixteen of his elephants were killed, and most of the others captured”, it is difficult to see an army in flight capturing some fifty elephants (5.86.3-6). Ptolemy, having buried his dead and despoiled the enemy’s, marched on Raphia the next day. Antiochus, like Antigonus Monophthalmus at Paraetecene, had decamped before sunrise and found refuge at Gaza (5.86.4).

Aftermath

The towns and cities came over to Ptolemy and within three months he’d re-established control over the region. Before concluding a one year truce with Antiochus Ptolemy, in a display of pharaonic propaganda, made a “show invasion” of Phoenicia. He then returned to Egypt and, according to Polybius, lost 32

all interest in matters of interstate relations – “resuming his habitual effeminacy and corruption of his manner of life” (5.87.3) one suspects. The military victory, though quite emphatic, would not settle the issue. Antiochus returned to his kingdom and busied himself disposing of Achaeus. His loss here actually facilitated the stabilising of his own kingdom and his following campaign to restore the upper satrapies. Ptolemy took little active part in interstate politics again. The evidence (Egypt coining less in silver and eventually ceasing such) suggests economic trouble and an inability to pay for mercenaries on a continuing basis. The lasting result, for Egypt, was the sudden spike in nationalism brought on by the training of Egyptian troops for the battle. Taken with their success at Raphia “they refused any longer to receive orders from the king; but looked out for a leader to represent them, on the ground that they were quite able to maintain their indepen-

dence”. When they did the Ptolemies would lose Upper Egypt for decades. The struggle for Coele Syria, too, did not end at Raphia. Antiochus would take it back after the battle of Panion in 200. Thirty two years later the interminable dispute would have an end when the final arbiter of all the Hellenistic kingdoms, Rome, in the form of Gaius Popilius Laenas literally drew a circle around it (29.27.1-9). n Michael Park trained as a teacher in English, history and science back in the seventies. When not working at his day job, he pursues his real interests: decent red wine and collecting classics and works on ancient history as well as writing. Income not already disposed of supports something of a mini Library of Congress on the subject. He would like to thank Christopher Webber and Paul McDonnel-Staff for the answers to some questions. They should not be blamed for how those answers were utilised.

Further reading:

- Polybius (Shuckburgh translation) is the literary source for Antiochus’ invasion and the campaign (5.58-71 and 79-87). The trilingual Raphia Inscription provides confirmation of dating and the period of the campaign. Polybius battle narrative, though, is very Diodorus-like and suffers from summarising and cherry picking. As J.P. Mahaffy wrote “his description, as we have it, is incoherent”. Thus, for example, one has to work out the probabilities of troop placement from the garbled 82.10 and I have placed the medium infantry (Greeks) alongside the phalanx with Byttacus’ lights supporting the elephants. Modern works are not plentiful outside of general treatises. The exhaustive – and exhausting to find – Raphia, 217 BCE, Revisited by E Galili (Scripta Classica Israelica, 3, 1976-77) is a treasure trove and well worth the tracking down. Bar Kochva, Seleucid Army Organisation and the Great Campaigns provides a shorter analysis. - J.P. Mahaffey, The Army of Ptolemy at Raphia. Hermathena 13 (1898), 140-5 provides some discussion of the textual problems. - G.T. Griffith’s, The Mercenaries of the Hellenistic World. Chicago 1975 (reprint) deals with both armies - mainly from the mercenary point of view and Bevan The House of Ptolemy (Chicago 1985, reprint) – chapter VII for a general overview. - F. Walbank, Historical Commentary on Polybius. I (Oxford 1957), 585-616 and III (Oxford 1979), 773-4. For the possibility of Indian elephants in Ptolemy’s array see M. Charles, ‘Elephants at Raphia: Reinterpreting Polybius 5.84–5’, The Classical Quarterly 57.1 (2007), 306-311 .

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Macedon’s last hurrah The Third Macedonian War and Pydna “WHEN HE SAW THIS, AND OBSERVED THAT THE REST OF THE MACEDONIANS TOOK THE PELTAI THAT HUNG ON THEIR LEFT SHOULDERS, AND BROUGHT THEM ROUND BEFORE THEM, AND ALL AT ONCE STOOPED THEIR PIKES AGAINST THEIR ENEMIES’ SHIELDS, AND CONSIDERED THE GREAT STRENGTH OF THIS WALL OF SHIELDS, AND THE FORMIDABLE APPEARANCE OF A FRONT THUS BRISTLING WITH ARMS, HE WAS SEIZED WITH AMAZEMENT AND ALARM; NOTHING HE HAD EVER SEEN BEFORE HAD BEEN EQUAL TO IT; AND IN AFTER TIMES HE FREQUENTLY USED TO SPEAK BOTH OF THE SIGHT AND OF HIS OWN SENSATIONS.” (PLUTARCH, LIFE OF AEMILIUS PAULLUS 19.1)

By Paul McDonnell-Staff Readers may recall that in a previous article I described Sparta’s demise as a military power at the hands of Macedon during the battle of Sellasia in 222 BC (Ancient Warfare II.2). This article provides a sequel by describing Macedon’s demise in turn. Rome’s first brush with Macedon occurred between 214 and 205, when news of Hannibal’s victory at Lake Trasimene (217) reached Philip V of Macedon. The king, a youngster during Antigonus’ reign, had come to the throne at age 17 when his predecessor died shortly after Sellasia. His ally Demetrius of Pharos (who had served at Sellasia) was in exile at Philip’s court after Rome had driven him out in the Second Illyrian War (219). Demetrius hoped to regain his throne in Illyria and urged Philip to take advantage and become Hannibal’s ally, and thereby make great gains at Rome’s expense. The young and inexperienced Philip readily agreed and made a treaty with Carthage. Rome, it’s hands full against Hannibal, allied with Philip’s enemy Aetolia. Aided by Roman naval action, Philip was kept busy in a desultory war,which ended with the Peace of Phoinike in 205. When the Romans brought the war against Hannibal to an end in 201, they

had not forgotten Philip’s attempted ‘stab in the back’. Pergamum and Rhodes also urged Rome to ‘deal with’ Macedon for their own reasons. In July 200 the Second Macedonian War broke out and a Roman army invaded Greece. The war ended in 197, when the Romans met the Macedonian phalanx at Cynoscephalae and defeated it in battle. With the barbarian Dardanians also harassing his borders, Philip was forced to make peace, and his younger son Demetrius became a Roman hostage. Philip had to surrender his navy, but the army was left intact, and he had to pay a war indemnity. Roman garrisons occupied the strategic fortresses at Corinth, Chalcis and Demetrias until 194. With his son in Roman hands, Philip played the part of loyal ally against his rival, when the Seleucid Antiochus III the Great intervened in Greece, a war which ended with the latter’s defeat at Magnesia in 191 BC (see Ancient Warfare I.2). As a reward for his loyalty Rome curtailed the war indemnity, and returned Demetrius to his father. Demetrius (born 208) had spent most of his 17 years under the influence of Rome.

Third Macedonian War

Like the Germans after the First World War, Philip V had ‘unfinished business’ with Rome. The gold mines that had fuelled Philip II’s rise to domination of

Greece, had now given out, so Philip V increased silver, iron and lead mining. He also encouraged large families, to replace manpower losses, along with immigration from Thrace. Agriculture too was intensified. At first all was well in the family and Demetrius was entrusted with an important embassy in 184. Rome’s apparent favour for Demetrius, however, aroused the jealousy of Perseus, his elder half-brother by 5 years. He accused his younger brother of plotting, with the help of the hated Romans, to become king. Eventually Philip was persuaded and ordered Demetrius’ execution in 180 BC, which he afterward much regretted. The king died in 179 BC and was succeeded by Perseus, who continued strengthening and expanding Macedonia. The new king immediately sent embassies to Rome, but unfortunately there were just too many factors against him. Firstly, the Romans did not like the fact that ‘their’ favoured candidate Demetrius had been murdered. Secondly Perseus’ neighbour Eumenes of Pergamum constantly agitated his friends in Rome – warning that Macedon’s expansion would not only impinge on his territory, but make Macedon a powerful and dangerous rival to Rome itself (which was nonsense). Perseus had also allied himself by marriage to the Seleucids. An assassination attempt on Eumenes by persons unknown whilst he was on pilgrimage to Delphi, did not help matters. Naturally Eumenes blamed Perseus. Finally, in Rome the previous ventures east had brought in much loot and wealth, and the prospects of another eastern war excited Roman greed. These and other factors led to hostilities. Eumenes himself went to Rome in 172 to urge war. The actual excuse was that Perseus had made war on an ally of Rome: some years previously, the Thracian Sapaei had opportunistically Ancient Warfare

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tried to seize the Pangaeum mines, and been repelled by Perseus. Now, years later, Rome suddenly remembered they were her Allies. Roman embassies to all the other powers and neighbours ensured Perseus stood almost alone.

Preparations for war

To gain an idea of the strategic situation, it is now opportune to examine the resources of the two powers, for these would dictate the strategies of the contestants in the war. It should be emphasised that while much of this information is gleaned from our sources, in some cases deductions and estimates have been made.

Rome – Financial resources

Tax from Roman citizens: 170 talents Harbour dues or import tax: approx. 170 talents Government income, mine leases, etc: approx. 100 talents Tithes on ager publicus in Campania: approx. 200 talents (should have been more but wasn’t due to corruption and inefficiency of tax-farmers) Tithes on ager publicus in southern Italy : approx. 170 talents Tithe from Sicily: approx. 160 talents Tithe from Sardinia and Corsica: approx. 55 talents (all these ‘tithes’ coming from land captured during Punic Wars) Tribute from Spain : approx. 1,000 talents (mostly from silver mines) Tribute from Sparta: approx. 50 talents Tribute from Carthage: approx. 200 talents Tribute from Seleucid Syria: approx. 1,000 talents (last instalment of twelve paid in 173 BC) Total: approximately 3,275 talents In addition to this annual income, the treasury held around 50-60% of the gold and silver treasure brought home by successful generals, which by looking at Livy and other sources can be estimated as a total of at least 8,000 talents (3,000 from Antiochus III alone after Magnesia) – the remaining 40-50% of 34

this total going to the soldiers. Virtually all this income was used to pay and provide for the army and fleet, with public works such as aqueducts, roads, temples and so on being largely paid for by ‘windfall’ tribute from successful wars. For comparison, the revenue of the Seleucid Empire – which stretched from Asia minor to the Persian gulf can be estimated at 9,000 talents, and that of Egypt, by common consent the richest Mediterranean power, at 12,500 talents.

Mobilisation and manpower

In 171 BC, two legions (a consular army) were raised for the forthcoming war, together with a similar number of Socii – Latin and other close allies. To these were added the forces of Eumenes of Pergamum, and a promised force from the Numidian Masinissa (who had been instrumental in defeating Hannibal at Zama). Each consul vied for command of this expeditionary force – totalling around 37,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry. Roman commitments elsewhere were two legions in northern Italy (Cisalpine Gaul), four in Spain, two in the Levant and two in Rome – a total of around 65,000 troops plus a similar number of Socii. In manpower reserves the Romans had a further 100,000 potential infantry and 8,000 cavalry approximately, while the rest of Italy could provide a further 200,000 infantry or more and close to 30,000 cavalry – not to mention foreign allies. Livy claims that these men were fairly raw recruits, contrasting them with Macedon’s experienced professionals, schooled in endless northern border wars. This sounds like an excuse for what occurred later, since many experienced soldiers are likely to have volunteered for the chance to enrich themselves, and they were led by experienced centurions, such as the famous Spurius Ligustinus.

Macedonian resources

Figures are much harder to come by for Macedon, but from indirect information, a series of deductions and estimates can be made to give very approximate figures. As with Rome, almost all this revenue was used to fund the Military forces of Macedon.

Macedonia – Financial resources

Revenue from land tax, copper and iron mines: approx. 200 talents Revenue from gold and silver mines: 130 talents Import and export duty at 2%: approx. 20 talents Revenue from Royal tithes on agriculture: approx. 67 talents Revenue from Royal forests: approx. 30 talents Total: 450 talents approx.

Macedonia – Manpower

Guard / Agema / picked troops: 2,000 Remaining peltasts / elite infantry: 3,000 Chalkaspides (“Bronze shields”, likely younger full-time soldiers) and Leukaspides (“White shields”, probably older reservists): 21,000 Macedonian phalanx total: 26,000 Paeonians / Agrianians / Thracian settlers (light infantry): 3,000 Gallic mercenaries: 2,000 ‘Free’ Thracians, (infantry and perhaps some cavalry): 3,000 Cretan mercenaries: 3,000 Peloponnesian mercenaries: 500 Aetolian / Boeotian allies not siding against Perseus: 500 Macedonian heavy cavalry: 3,000 (including 500 Guard / Agema) Odrysian Thracians, led by Cotys, son of King Seuthes (1,000 ‘picked cavalry and 1,000 Infantry – hired for 200 talents): 2,000 Total infantry: 39,000 Total cavalry: 4,000 Plus garrisons, perhaps 15-20,000 troops, mainly mercenaries. Total manpower: approx. 60,000 By a prodiguous effort, Philip V and his son Perseus had rebuilt Macedon’s army, despite their relative lack of resources, to a size larger than Alexander the Great’s expeditionary force, larger than Antigonus Doson’s army at Sellasia (27,600 infantry and 1200 cavalry), or Philip’s own force at Cynoscephalae (24,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry). The Macedonian phalanx had expanded from Alexander’s 12,000, through

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The aftermath to the battle of Kallinikos. Thracian tribesmen show off their grisly trophies, mounted on their rhomphaia, to King Perseus. Scipio Nasica described their terrible appearance as: “Tall men, clad in black tunics which showed beneath the white and gleaming shields, and greaves, and tossing high on their right shoulders rhomphaia with heavy iron heads.” Note the three variations of hilt loose carrying ring, solid ring bent back from tang, and no ring at all.King Perseus, his likeness from a coin, wears armour typical of a Hellenistic general, his high rank indicated by his knotted girdle and the eagle headed sword-hilt. His clothing is of the deepest ‘royal’ purple hue. All these symbols would later be adopted in Imperial Rome. The king is attended by two Royal Guard cavalrymen, wearing a paler hue of purple, armed with shield and a short dual purpose spear. They also wear the high-waisted cavalry tube-and-yoke corselet. The man to Perseus’ right wears a high crowned version of a Boeotian helmet, a common cavalry type often portrayed on Macedonian coins, while the man to his left wears the typical Antigonid type, of which a number of examples survive.Note that both helmets are painted, as depicted in the contemporary ‘Tomb of Lyson and Kallikles’. © Johnny Shumate Ancient Warfare

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Doson’s 13,000, and Philip’s 16,000 to Perseus’ 26,000. Despite these increases, it can be readily seen that the war would be a ‘David versus Goliath’ affair . Although, perhaps thanks to Roman over-confidence and Perseus’ superlative efforts, the Romans were initially outnumbered, it is clear that a war of attrition was out of the question due to Rome’s massive money and manpower reserves, and a decisive loss of a single pitched battle would ruin Macedon’s cause. Against these huge disadvantages, Macedon had geography in its favour, for it was surrounded by mountains with few passes, and an invader had few ways of entering. It will be recalled that Rome’s navy had mastery, due to the abolition of the Macedonian navy, but the long route right around Greece made invasion by sea from Rome impractical. These factors would govern the strategy of each side, with Perseus adopting a ‘fortress Macedon’ approach, only willing to risk pitched battle if he could be certain of victory, and the Romans just the opposite, each commander looking for the quick ‘knockout blow’ before his annual command was over.

The campaign

The Consul Publius Licinius Crassus led the Roman expeditionary force across the Adriatic sea, landing at Apollonia and commencing a gruelling march across the mountains to Gomphi where he rested before approaching Larissa. Perseus took the initiative and marched rapidly into northern Thessaly, seizing the pass of Tempe and securing his position. Both armies refused battle, remaining in their camps with desultory skirmishes between respective cavalry and light troops for days. At dawn one day, Perseus suddenly advanced in force to a hill called Kallinikos less than half a mile from the Roman camp. Cotys and his Thracian Odrysians held the left wing, then other contingents of light troops; on the right were the Macedonian cavalry, with Cretan light infantry interspersed acting as Hamippoi. In the centre was Perseus, surrounded by his Guard cavalry, with the rest of his light troops in front. The Romans in some consterna36

tion manned the ramparts with their heavy infantry, and after a while sent out all their cavalry and light troops to drive off the Macedonians. On the Roman right was G. Licinius Crassus, brother of the consul, with all the Italian cavalry, and velites of the Legions intermingled. The left was held by M. Valerius Laevinus with all the Greek allied cavalry and light troops, and in the centre Mucius led the elite extraordinarii / picked cavalry, 200 Gallic noble cavalry and Eumenes Kurdish cavalry. The rest of Eumenes army acted as a reserve. The Thracian Odrysians charged with great elan into the Italian cavalry, probably using the rhomphaia to slash at horses’ legs, and as spears against infantry. Perseus and his Guard threw back the Aetolian and other Greek cavalry, together with the Extraodinarii. These were rescued by a reserve of Thessalian cavalry, and all fell back though Eumenes ordered troops, who held off the disordered pursuers while retirement to the camp ocurred. Meanwhile, unbidden, the Macedonian phalanx had come up. Perseus wavered over whether to continue and attack the camp, but prudence dictated otherwise. The Romans lost 200 cavalry, and nearly 2,000 light infantry, with 600 captured. Much booty was also taken – horses, over 1,500 shields, 1,000 mail and chest protectors, even more helmets swords and other weapons which Perseus distributed as rewards to his successful troops. The exultant Thracians sang victory songs and impaled trophy heads on their weapons. Meanwhile, overnight, the defeated Romans retired back across the Peneus river, where they were fortunate to receive re-inforcements in the form of the Numidian contingent – 1,000 light cavalry, 1,000 light infantry and 22 elephants. Often called a skirmish the Kallinikos battle was just that, with over 12,000 men on each side engaged, and had important results. Perseus generously offered to end the war with no demands on the Romans, and offered to pay an indemnity to them as well. But Rome never negotiated from defeat, and responded by demanding unconditional surrender! No more engagements took place that year. Meanwhile

the Roman fleet, unopposed, with its Rhodian and Pergamene allies, savagely harried those southern Greek states sympathetic to Macedon, concentrating in piratical fashion on booty. We must pass over the next two years quickly, for after Perseus’ early victory, the next two consular commanders acted more circumspectly while trying to break into Macedonia. Perseus too, did not venture out into Thessaly again but was content to guard the passes and not risk pitched battle. Meanwhile, he sent envoys to Rhodes, to Pergamum, and to Antiochus, desperately seeking allies. His one success was to persuade his neighbour, the Illyrian king Genthius, to join him – opening a new front in Illyria. In 168, the new consul, Aemilius Paullus, brought reinforcements and the sick and unfit were replaced. The Praetor L. Anicius was sent with a separate army to Illyria. Paullus lost no time in taking the field, and outmanouevred Perseus by pretending a force of 8,000 or so under Scipio Nasica was to be embarked on the fleet, when in fact it marched over the mountains and into Perseus’ rear. The king promptly withdrew to a stronger mountain position, and again neither commander was eager to offer battle, though their juniors on each side urged it.

The decisive battle

In this short article, it is not possible to give a detailed account of the battle of Pydna, which is well covered elsewhere. Suffice to say that the battle seems to have begun by accident, with a skirmish between watering parties over an escaped horse or mule escalating into full scale battle, but as we have seen battle could not be forced unless one side offered it, and the other took it up. It seems the Macedonians brought on this battle, for Perseus’ full force splashed across the river, driving in the Roman skirmishers. Greeks and Macedonians, including Polybius, believed the phalanx invincible on a level battlefield, and evidently Perseus believed he could win this pitched battle on good terrain. Certain Roman allied cohorts bravely sacrificed themselves to win time for the Roman army to form up, for the bravery of the Paeligni, Marrucini and other cohorts

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of the outposts are singled out. The massed advance of the Macedonian phalanx as it swung into action, pikes thudding into shields, sent chills down the spine of the Roman commander (as described in the quote preceding this article), and at first the phalanx rolled ponderously on across the battlefield, pushing back the legions. At last they began to approach the Roman camp in the foothills with disaster looming for the Romans. When they were within a quarter of a mile of the camp, the ground, rising as it did and broken by gullies and suchlike, caused difficulties for the phalanx. Gaps began to appear in the line. Paullus immediately made the most of this and ordered the maniples and cohorts to act independently and exploit the gaps (not maintaining a continuous line). Once past the serried array of pikes, the Macedonians suffered severely at the hands of the legions. Within an hour, the phalanx was destroyed utterly, with the majority dying where they stood, while the cavalry and king escaped.

and the cutting of timber (previously a major export) were forbidden. The loot was such that a year later the Roman tributum tax on citizens was abolished. The surviving Macedonians in their provinces were reduced to bare

subsistence level. Macedon was utterly destroyed, never to exist again to this day. n Paul McDonnell-Staff is a regular contributor.

The aftermath

With Macedon’s last army destroyed in the decisive battle, resistance collapsed. Illyria too was quickly subdued, all gold and silver was surrendered, over seventy towns were razed, and 150,000 people enslaved. Illyria became “for the most part a wilderness with here and there a decaying village”. The booty sufficed to distribute 400 denarii per man to the cavalry, and 200 denarii each to infantry soldiers. Perseus, his family and the cream of the Macedonian nobility, plus Cotys the Thracian graced Paullus’ triumph, along with the spoils of Macedonia. There were 2,250 talents of silver alone, plus golden statues, priceless artworks, rich fabrics, thousands of bronze shields and panoplies and much more. He and his two sons were not ritually strangled, and survived to die as comfortable prisoners. Macedon ceased to exist and was divided into four provinces, and allowed to retain arms to fend off the ever threatening northern barbarians. So thoroughly was Macedon ravaged that the four provinces could only produce half the tribute it had formerly paid the king in land tax, etc – a mere 100 talents. Mining of gold and silver,

© Johnny Shumate

An officer of the ‘bronze shields’ takes an interest in the newly invented kestrosphendone (as described by Polybius 27.9; Livy 42.65). The officer has the typical bronze faced shield shown on contemporary iconography which gave this unit its name, together with the pike, and wears the common Antigonid helmet. His sword shows Celtic influences on its hilt, and his greaves are an unusual shape with ‘wings’ (depicted in the ‘Lyson and Kallikles tomb’). He wears a tube-and-yoke corselet over his scarlet uniform tunic. The slinger wears the simple dress of the peasant. The dart-sling has been successfully re-created and packs a hard punch, as Livy describes;”...and if it hit someone, he was seriously wounded..” The weapon does not seem to have continued in use after the Third Macedonian War, perhaps, as modern tests imply, because it had a relatively short range. Ancient Warfare

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Fighting on all sides Thracian mercenaries of the Hellenistic Era THE THRACIANS WERE ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR PEO© Karwansaray Publishers

PLES TO BE EMPLOYED AS MERCENARIES OR ALLIES BY THE HELLENISTIC STATES: THEY WERE EVEN USED BY THE ROMANS. THRACIANS WERE EMPLOYED AS LIGHT INFANTRY (ARMED WITH BOWS, SLINGS OR JAVELINS), AS MEDIUM INFANTRY, AND AS LIGHT CAVALRY. THEIR UNIQUE FIGHTING CAPABILITIES AND THE STRATEGIC LOCATION OF THEIR HOMELAND MEANT THAT THEY WERE INVOLVED IN ALL CONFLICTS IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN REGION. THE ROMANS DEVELOPED A HIGH REGARD FOR THE THRACIANS, OWING TO THEIR FEROCITY AND PHYSICAL STRENGTH. THRACE LATER BECAME ROME’S THIRD MOST IMPORTANT RECRUITING GROUND.

By Christopher Webber Most Thracian mercenaries of this period looked much like their Greek and Macedonian counterparts, but others looked like Celts. It is possible that Thracians living in remote mountain villages carried on wearing the same clothes and using the same weapons as their ancestors. In 279 the Celts founded the Thracian kingdom of Tylis. It lasted until 214/213 (less than seventy years), when the Thracians overthrew their conquerors. Especially in northern and western Thrace, significant Celtic influence is apparent afterwards in Thracian dress, weapons, armour, and burial practices. For instance, people from this region started to ritually destroy weapons before placing them in graves, and were found to wear torcs and arm rings. Metalwork from this time also shows that beards were back in fashion, as were trousers and long cloaks for horse riders.

Supporting both sides

This switch to a Celtic style was by no means universal, and a great variety 38

of dress continued to be worn. This included Roman clothing after the Romans arrived in Thrace. Depictions of the mounted Thracian hero usually show him dressed in Greek or Roman style with bare arms, feet, and legs, but wearing a cloak. During Roman times the appearance of the Thracian hero changed only slightly, with the acquisition of boots and long hair. Some images also depict trousers. Typical depictions have curly hair, and a tunic or cloak held on by a single circular brooch on the left shoulder. The tunic is in some cases folded and pleated many times vertically and tucked in around the waist. The folds almost conceal a belt that is worn together with a baldric. In this case, the length of the tunic is adjusted by pulling it up through the belt. Thracian mercenaries were often on both sides in a battle, but this was already quite common on their home soil and they were happy enough to fight with one another. Besides this, they were even known to switch sides. At the siege of Kypsela, the defending Thracians threw down their arms and joined the besiegers. They had seen the rich dress of their compatriots in

The Thracian or Phrygian helmet is the most common type of helmet found in Hellenistic Thracian sites. It was sometimes decorated with a stylised beard, side-burns and moustache in relief. It gave good visibility and hearing without sacrificing protection. Now in the National Museum of Antiquities, Munich, Germany. Antiochus’s besieging army. Thracian cavalry also switched sides in 109, when two mercenary squadrons were bribed to let Jugurtha into a Roman camp. At the Battle of Raphia in 217, there were 6,000 Thracians and Gauls in Ptolemy IV’s army, and another 1,500 Agrianian and Persian archers and slingers in the opposing Seleucid army. Ptolemy’s army also included a ‘Thracian’ cavalry regiment. In fact, the right-flank Ptolemaic Thracians contributed to the Ptolemaic victory by defeating the 2,000 left-flank Seleucid Thracians opposing them. At the battle of Cynoscephalae in 197 Philip V of Macedon had 2,000 Thracian infantry in his army (plus oth-

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ers amongst the 1,500 “auxiliaries of many races”). Given the composition of other Macedonian armies, there were also probably 200 - 500 Thracian cavalrymen present amongst the 2,000 horsemen in the army. However, Livy does not mention them in his account of the action. The battle started with light troops stumbling into one another in the mist along the top of a range of steep hills. The location of the Thracians in the battle line is not described, so possibly they were amongst the troops away foraging or were included in the vanguard involved in the initial skirmishing. Most authors seem to think the latter, as Philip ordered his victorious right wing to be reinforced by all the cavalry, mercenaries, and light troops except the Thracians. Subsequently, when he realised the battle was lost he collected as many Macedonians and Thracians as he could and fled with them. At that stage the troops of his left flank were already fleeing, so the Thracians must have been on the right flank. If so, they had previously assisted in driving the Roman left wing troops back to their camp.

Tactics and armor

The battles of Raphia and Cynoscephalae illustrate how Thracian mercenary foot was used in this period: their task was to dominate difficult terrain, to form the link between cavalry and phalanx or to operate as an advance guard. The last use is described at the battle of Pydna, when Plutarch says: “First marched the Thracians... Next the Greek mercenaries...Third... the Agema.” They were very valuable as flank protection to the phalanx as they could quickly change face to meet an outflanking manoeuvre. Further, if they could close up their formation in time, they stood more of a chance against cavalry attack than the lighter infantry. When fighting on the flanks of an army or contesting difficult terrain, Thracians faced opponents who were now better armed and armoured

than traditional peltasts. These could be Gauls, Romans, Thureophoroi or Thorakitai. In response, Thracian infantry started to wear metal helmets and greaves, carry a thureos and use the rhomphaia as well as javelins. Some may have used Celtic long swords instead, as these have been found in many parts of Bulgaria and on Thracian sites, particularly on former Triballi land. Such equipment would explain why the Thracians were brigaded with the Gauls at Raphia and implies that they preferred to charge into combat rather than skirmish like their ancestors. Body armour was confined to Thracian commanders and nobles until the introduction of mail vests for the Roman client-kingdom’s infantry. The nobility aped Macedonian and Greek styles, but there was also a uniquely Thracian protective collar. Scale armour with leather backing and an armoured collar was also popular. The fittings were often gilded and richly decorated. Heavy cavalry wore a linothorax just like others cavalrymen of the time. Armour styles persisted in Thrace after they were out of fashion elsewhere. Helmets were made mostly from bronze (often in a single piece), but the inclusion of iron became more common in this period – firstly in sections such as cheek pieces, and finally for the whole helmet. The most popular helmets worn by infantry in this period were of the Phrygian or Thracian style. Chalkidian helmets and their local variations were also popular with the nobility – the later style is almost indistinguishable from the Attic style at this time. Some Thracian helmets were full face, decorated with a stylised beard and moustache in relief. Over time, the metal crest on top of the helmet became longer, more decorative and bent further forwards. Horsehair crests were worn, but Italian style limp plumes were also used. Some helmets had extra crests or feathers as sideornaments. Fittings for feathers on such helmets probably indicated officer

status, as they did in the Macedonian army. Originally, only Thracian cavalry officers wore greaves. They were custom made, and covered the knees. In Hellenistic times, the aristocracy continued to wear this type, but the infantry now also used a cheaper kind of greaves. These greaves came in standard sizes, covered just the shins, and had straps wrapped around the knee and ankle to compensate for a less secure fit. This was probably the type worn by the Thracian infantry at Pydna. The custom-made greaves worn by nobles are found in two forms: ceremonial and functional. The ceremonial type (observed only in Thrace) was embossed with images of the mother goddess and possibly gilded. It may have been too large to use except for ceremonial purposes. The functional type was normally just plain bronze, but some full-length bronze cavalry greaves were ornamented with the embossed heads of goddesses over the knee section. Others had engraved royal symbols such as the two-headed axe. The most important piece of protective gear carried by the Thracian mercenary infantryman was his shield, which grew larger and heavier over time. The Kazanluk friezes, which were painted just before the Celtic invasion, present several examples of Thracian warriors using long flat oval shields. One of these has the central rib of the thureos, but the others do not and may represent a flat ribless shield. After the Celtic invasion, only the ribbed shield is shown (on tombstones in Bithynia and Iron sword of Celtic origin from Bulgaria, where Celtic swords are commonly found. The Celts ruled Thrace for 70 years, and afterwards some Thracians adpoted Celtic customs such as wearing torcs and arm-rings, and ritually destroying buried weapons. Graves from Triballi territory contain a mixture of Thracian and Celtic weapons, spawning a debate that still continues.

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Thracian warriors were famous for their use of curved swords and knives. They came in all shapes and sizes and could be up to 70 cm long. The better swords had gilt ivory handles and could be highly decorated. Alexandria). It seems that the thureos was then adopted by all the peltasts. Lighter armed troops continued to use wicker shields, as they were found among the booty from the battle of Pydna.

Thracians at Magnesia

The next great battle in which Thracian mercenaries fought was Magnesia in 190, when the Seleucid king Antiochus III broke through the Roman left flank. Instead of immediately turning on the Roman army, he pursued the fleeing forces back to their camp. There he was held up by 2,000 Thracian and Macedonian infantry. The Thracians, armed with rhomphaias, stopped the rout by attacking fleeing Romans who refused to turn back and fight. They held up Antiochus long enough for the remainder of the Seleucid army (which included 1,500 Trallians) to be wiped out by the successful Roman right wing and centre. Using Thracian mercenaries to cut down men from their own army was a common practice, as was using them for execution squads. In 198, Thracians from Philip V’s army executed the Achaean commander of Argos and his retainers when he refused to surrender.

These Thracians were at least in part armed like their forebears as they hurled javelins at the stubborn foe. A year after the battle of Magnesia, the Thracians who had fought there lead the Roman army up a steep slope against the Galatians, who occupied two mountains near Ankara. The battle was a Roman victory thanks to the variety of weapons and the hail of missiles they were able to throw at the Galatians. The Thracians’ armament in this fight is not described. However, they were listed separately from skirmishers, archers, and Trallians (who were slingers). The skirmishers were said to have been armed with a large ‘Spanish’ sword, javelins, and a large shield. Presumably, the Thracians were different. The prolonged exchange of missiles (including javelins, which are specifically mentioned) and the Thracian position relative to the other skirmishers means that the Thracians were likely armed with javelins. The fact that they are not lumped in with the others means that they were also armed with something different (i.e. the rhomphaias with which they were equipped at Magnesia). As a result of the battle of Magnesia, the Seleucid kings were forbidden from recruiting west of the Taurus Mountains. Nonetheless, they still had Thracians in their army afterwards. These may have come from military colonies within the Seleucid realm (this is also one of the possible explanations for the Ptolemaic Thracian cavalry). In 163, Gorgias, Seleucid general of Idumaea, had command of 3,000 infantry and 400 cavalry during the Battle of Marissa. At least some of the cavalrymen (and possibly all the infantry) were Thracian. There were 3,000 Thracian infantry at the Daphnae parade in 165, though that could have been a coincidence: they may have come from the 3,000 Thracian military settlers in Persis. In 166, a Seleucid officer named Scron launched an attack against Jewish rebels. It has been suggested that Scron may have been a Thracian like his troops.

Fighting for Perseus

In Macedonia, Perseus succeeded Philip and in 171 was joined by Kotys, king 40

of the Odrysai with 1,000 picked cavalry and about 1,000 infantry. Perseus already had 3,000 “free Thracians under their own commander” plus 3,000 Paeonians, Agrianians and Thracians in his forces. He had 43,000 men in total, so a quarter of his cavalry and a fifth of the infantry was likely Thracian. They met the Romans on the Kallinikos River near Larissa. The battle began with a charge by the Macedonian left wing. There the Thracians fought “like wild beasts who had long been kept caged,” defeating the Italian allied cavalry. The Thracians used their rhomphaias to cut off the horses’ legs, and to pierce their loins. The whole Roman right wing was thrown into confusion. Meanwhile, Perseus, supported by a royal infantry battalion, forced back the elite Roman cavalry and the Aetolian cavalry in the centre with his first charge and routed them. The Romans were only saved by 400 Thessalian cavalry, which kept formation and enabled most of the defeated riders to escape. The Romans only avoided complete disaster when Perseus observed the legions advancing from their camp, and called off the pusuit. The Thracians returned to camp swaggering and singing, with severed heads stuck to their rhomphaias as trophies. A force of light infantry (hamippoi) was attached to early 2nd century Thracian noble cavalry. The text describing the battle of Kallinikos in 171 can alternatively be interpreted to mean that Thracian hamippoi were present amongst the cavalry, trying to hamstring their opponents’ horses. These may have been trained to fight alongside the cavalry, charging with them, pulling their enemies out of the saddle, fighting dismounted opponents and injuring the enemy horses. Bithynian cavalry too seem to have been closely supported by attached infantry. This tactic dated back to the fourth century as the Agrianians acted this way at the battle of the Granicus River. In 168, Perseus’ riverbank guard of 800 Thracians started the battle of Pydna in a typically Thracian fashion: an argument began midstream over a Roman baggage animal, which escalated into full-scale combat. Thracian infantry also led the Macedonian army

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A Thracian cavalryman (probably from the king’s bodyguard) from the southern end of the eastern frieze of the entrance passage of the Kazanluk tomb. He is wearing a Thracian helmet and is armed with a lance, but seems otherwise unarmoured. out of camp and 200 Thracian and Cretan archers fought on the Roman side. The Thracian infantry were probably deployed on the Macedonian left flank, where they faced a charge by elephants and Latin allies. They wore black tunics and glittering greaves, while carrying white shields and rhomphaias over their right shoulders. Their appearance particularly impressed the Roman commander as being the most terrifying of all the troops. A second century Bithynian warrior’s tombstone from Alexandria shows a (yellowish or white) oval thureos with a spine boss. The Thracian infantry at Pydna probably carried one of these shields. In a skirmish before the main battle, the Roman commander Nasica fought a Thracian mercenary and killed him by striking him through the breast with a javelin. This might be an indication that the man was unarmoured. Had he been armoured, his death would have been the subject of more bragging. Also, an armoured man would have likely been attacked in a more vulnerable spot. As the Thracian infantry were uniformly dressed and equipped in this account, some authors take this to

mean that they were regular troops. At the same battle, Perseus’ personal guard, the Agema, were uniformly dressed in newly made crimson. This is the only known instance of Thracian troops wearing the same colour. Black may have been chosen because it was best for one of their preferred tactics, the night attack. The behaviour of the Thracians (e.g. starting the battle without orders to do so) does not indicate the disciplined behaviour expected of regular troops. Black is one of the three colours prominent in Thracian tombs (the others being red and white, usually painted in three bands of red, black and white from top to bottom). There is also a lot of warrior symbolism associated with this colour amongst the Thracians. The colour black’s sacred nature might explain why the Thracians all wore this colour without regular training and equipment being necessary.

Thracian cavalry

In extant accounts of the battle, the Thracian cavalry at Pydna are only men-

Detail of an early fourth century marble sarcophagus showing either Phrygians, Bithynians or mercenary Greeks. It was found in north-western Turkey, close to Bithynian Thrace, and is now in the Çanakkale museum. The standing figure wears long red trousers and white shoes, carries two spears, and brandishes a kopis in his right hand. He is thought to be a mercenary carrying replacement spears for the rider. However he looks so similar to another, invisible figure that he could be attacking the rider from behind.

© Christopher Webber

© Christopher Webber

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The central figures of the eastern frieze of the Kazanluk tomb. The man on the left is a general or Macedonian. Though they seem to be holding the same spear, the man on the right holds a romphaia, while the one on the left holds the spear behind his shield. tioned when fleeing the battlefield. They were probably deployed on the Macedonian right with the Agema and survived the battle virtually unscathed, which means that they were held back in reserve and ran away without a fight. Either that, or they were very successful warriors (as they were outnumbered and probably had to face elephants and the more heavily armoured Pergamene cavalry). The third century saw Thracian heavy cavalry, after a brief flirtation with lances, switch back to the use of javelins, though this time with a shield. The light cavalry also took to using larger and stronger shields. Additional armour of new types was worn, and saddles and spurs came into use. Thracian cavalry appear to have followed the Greeks or Celts (probably the latter) in adopting stronger and larger shields around 275. They were able to do this because of the introduction 42

of saddles and more severe horse bits with side-bars. Cavalry shields could be round with a central boss (shown on 1st century carvings of the Thracian hero), oval like the thureos (shown on the Abdera tombstone) or very large and circular with a spine boss (the style on the Pydna monument). Thracian light cavalry may have had their own fighting style: they were willing to charge in wedge formation and fight hand to hand, despite their lack of armour. The three surviving Hellenistic military manuals say there were two types of light javelin-throwing cavalry. The first - the elaphroi - threw javelins and then closed in for close combat, while the second, the Tarantines, threw javelins without engaging in close combat. These different classifications give a clue to the value of Thracian light cavalry to their employers. If the Tarantines were pure skirmishers, while

the Thracians were elaphroi, it would explain why there were Tarantines as well as a permanent ‘Thracian’ regular cavalry regiment in the Ptolemaic army, even when the Ptolemies had no direct access to Thrace. Herod (the Hellenistic monarch of Judea) also had a Thracian mercenary cavalry regiment. The name indicated a fighting style, rather than the nationality of the troops. The southern Thracians learned of the basic Scythian saddle through their northern cousins, the Getai. The new saddles were provided with rigid supports in the form of front and rear arches or in the form of four horn-like projections. The first known depiction of the Celtic horned saddle is on the late second / early first century Gundestrüp (Denmark) Cauldron, which is believed to have been made by Thracian metalworkers. The kopis was mostly replaced in Thracian cavalry service by a long sword near the end of the fourth century, usually the xiphos. This change may have been reversed in the late Hellenistic period as mercenary Thracian cavalry then also used the sica, a large curved

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sword. This seems to be the Roman name for any curved sword or knife, as it was also used for the sword of the Thracian style of gladiator, and for Celtic knives. The cavalry sica was probably like the kopis or traditional Thracian curved swords. In 163 at the battle of Marissa, a Thracian cavalryman (probably using a sica) chopped an arm off a Jewish rebel with a single blow. In 130, a Thracian cavalryman fighting for a Pergamene pretender cut off the head of the Roman consul Crassus, also with a single blow from his sica. These exploits are similar to that of Cleitus at the Granicus River. Using a curved sword, Cleitus cut off the shoulder of a Persian nobleman with a single blow, thus saving Alexander’s life. These actions therefore do not require the use of a rhomphaia, which in any case was probably too big and unwieldy for use on horseback. The sica and the

Infantryman with rhomphaia from the southern end of the eastern frieze of the Kazanluk tomb. He wears a blue tunic and a helmet. He has a rimmed oval shield with a horizontal boss, probably a thureos. Behind the shield he carries a spear.

rhomphaia were more probably two different weapons.

For Pontus and Rome

One of the last Hellenistic monarchs to employ Thracians was Mithridates VI of Pontus, who was greatly esteemed by the Thracians. The Thracian cities allied with him, and he had many Thracians in his army. When Mithridates made a surprise attack on the Roman army, Thracian mercenaries that had served him but were now in the service of Marcus Fabius, switched sides. The Roman army only survived because Mithridates was wounded. Besides this incident, the Thracians otherwise did good service for the Romans, as when Lucullus was campaigning in Pontus. There he used Thracian cavalry to successfully charge Armenian cataphracts in the flank. The deployment of Thracian mercenaries ended in 46 AD with the annexation of Thrace as a Roman province. However, the Romans continued heavy conscriptions of troops from the region and 38 auxilia regiments, alae and cohortes were recruited there. This means 21,000 men from Thrace were in Roman service at any one time. From this article it would seem

that Thracian mercenaries met with very mixed success, and the reader may wonder why they were employed. Examples of more successful actions where the Thracians acted in defence of their homeland rather than as mercenaries have not been included. In the actions described above, the Thracians were generally not responsible for the outcome of the battle if it went badly. There is even an instance of a Thracian guard defending a Roman camp when the rest of the army had taken to flight. Generally though, Thracians were known as ferocious and reliable fighters who did not run away from a fight, and this is how they are remembered, even by the Romans who named one of their gladiator types after them. n

Christopher Webber has always been interested in military history and wargaming. He has studied the Thracians for twenty years and has visited and assisted at digs on Thracian archaeological sites in Bulgaria. Having published a previous book with Osprey, his second book about the Thracians, The Gods of Battle is due for publication by Pen & Sword Books soon.

Further reading

© Christopher Webber

- A. Zofia, The Odrysian Kingdom of Thrace. Oxford 1997. - N.G.L. Hammond and F. Walbank, History of Macedonia III. Oxford 1988. - I. Marazov (ed.), Ancient Gold. The Wealth of the Thracians. Treasures from the Republic of Bulgaria. New York 1998. - N Sekunda, ‘The Rhomphaia: A Thracian weapon of the Hellenistic Period’, in: A.G. Poulter (ed.), Ancient Bulgaria 1 (1983), 275-288. - C. Webber, ‘Odrysian Cavalry Arms, Equipment, and Tactics’, in: L. Nikolova (ed.), Early Symbolic Systems for Communication. BAR International Series 1139.2 (2003), 530-554. - C. Webber, The Thracians 700 BC-46 AD. Oxford 2001.

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Christopher Webber’s website has more information at : http://home.exetel.com.au/thrace/images/ welcome.htm

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Sticks and stones ‘Low-tech’ and improvised weapons NOT ALL GREEK AND ROMAN SOLDIERS WENT INTO BATTLE EQUIPPED WITH HELMET AND CUIRASS, SWORD, SPEAR AND SHIELD. MANY HAD NO ARMOUR AT ALL AND WERE ARMED WITH THE MOST BASIC OF WEAPONS – SHARPENED STICKS OR CLUBS, AND STONES THEY PICKED FROM THE GROUND OR COLLECTED FROM STREAM BEDS.

In the Origo Gentis Romanae (The Origin of the Roman Race), the Aborigines of King Latinus, who united with Aeneas’ Trojan exiles to form the Latin people, went into battle armed with stones and clubs. They did not have shields, but wrapped clothing and animal skins around their arms to act as protection (13.1). According to Virgil, the legendary prehistoric Italians could turn just about anything into a weapon:“whatever they find, their fury makes an instrument of war” (Aeneid 7.508). Virgil could have been describing his own era (70-19 BC). Let us consider the use of hand thrown stones. At the battles of Pharsalus (48 BC) and Philippi (42 BC), the opposing Roman forces showered each other with hand thrown stones as well as arrows and javelins, while at the sea battle of Naulochus (36 BC), stones “were thrown by machines and by hand” (Appian, Civil Wars 2.78, 4.128, 5.119). During the Dyrrhachium campaign (48 BC), the poet Lucan asserts that Scaeva, the famous centurion of Julius Caesar, crushed the skull of a Pompeian legionary with a stone he grabbed from the ground. He 44

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A stone thrower and a bare-chested warrior fight alongside regular legionaries and auxiliaries in an attack on a Dacian fortress. Trajan’s Column scene 72.

also used varied debris from a collapsed gate tower, including timbers and even corpses (which he rolled down the rampart!), to fend off the enemy (Civil War 5.174-179). Octavian, the future emperor Augustus, has a rather mixed reputation as a fighting general, but at the siege of Setovia (34 BC) he must have been close to the action:

“A force of barbarians came to the assistance of Setovia, which Caesar [i.e. Octavian] intercepted and prevented from entering the town. In this battle he was struck on the knee by a stone and was forced to recuperate for several days.” Appian, Illyrian Wars 27

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Suetonius informs us that Octavian was struck on his right knee (Divine Augustus 20). Being hit on the knee by a stone in combat seems to have been a common injury. For instance, in an attack on an enemy fortification in the Jewish War, Vespasian “had his knee hurt by the stroke of a stone, and received several arrows in his shield” (Suetonius, Divine Vespasian 4.6). In 68 BC, Mithridates VI of Pontus had to be carried off the field when “he was struck by a stone on the knee and wounded under the eye by a light javelin” (Appian, Mithridatic Wars 88). Stones could inflict serious wounds and cause permanent disfiguring scars (ibid. 6). In the seventh century BC, stone throwers and javelin men fought alongside Spartan hoplites, raining down missiles on the foemen and stinging them “like hordes of wasps” (Tyrtaeus fragments 11, 19). However, by the fifth century BC the Spartans had dispensed with their stone throwers. At Sphacteria (425 BC), the seemingly invincible Spartan hoplite was forced into submission by men “who fought at long range with arrows, javelins, stones and slings” (Thucydides 4.32.4). In 389 BC, the Spartan king Agesilaus was forced to abandon his camp in Acarnania when it was assaulted from afar by peltasts: “Many peltasts of the Acarnanians came up and, as Agesilaus was encamped on the mountainside, by throwing stones and discharging their slings from the ridge of the mountain they succeeded, without suffering any harm themselves, in forcing the enemy to descend to the plain.”

to smash a target (Tactica 43; compare Caesar, Gallic War 1.46, for Ariovistus’ cavalry throwing stones and other missiles). The gravestone of Flavius Mocianus, a member of the equites singulares Augusti (Imperial horse guard) in the late third century AD, shows his two young sons performing military training: one about to loose an arrow from his bow; the other about to throw a stone by hand (Speidel 1993, plate 14). When a Roman field army was mustered for a campaign, the troops were drilled daily and this included practice in throwing stones (Vegetius 3.4). Xenophon advised that turves be used in place of stones in mock battles (Education of Cyrus 2.3.17-18, followed by Onasander 10.4). Scene 114 of Trajan’s Column could suggest turf was used as a weapon in real combat. The scene shows Roman auxiliaries defending what appears to be a turf and timber fort from a Dacian attack. The blocks that the auxiliaries hurl down on the Dacians look just like the blocks the fort is built from – presumably turves of regulation size (cf. Vegetius 3.8). Roman stone throwers appear on Trajan’s column. They are not armoured and carry missiles in the folds of their cloaks. Sometimes they fight alone, and sometimes in conjunction with slingers in open battle and in assaults on Dacian fortifications (scenes 66, 70, 72, 113). During the Idistaviso campaign (AD 16), when assaults by regular infantry failed to capture a German fieldwork, Germanicus employed a corps of stone

throwers (referred to as libratores) and slingers (funditores) to clear its ramparts of defenders (Tacitus, Annals 2.20.2). Stone throwers again proved their worth in AD 69, when reinforcing Othonian troops in a land battle, they attacked a Vitellian force in the flank and helped put it to flight. Interestingly, these stone throwers were not regulars or allied troops, but “peasants skilled in hurling” (Tacitus, Histories 2.14). At the battle of Issus (AD 194), Severan legionaries had to form testudines (‘tortoises’, defensive formations with roofs and wall formed by shields) when bombarded by Pescennius Niger’s mass of missile troops. Niger’s army was arrayed on a slope in a static formation, with heavy infantry in the leading ranks, followed by javelin men, then stone throwers – whose stones could therefore outrange the light javelins, and behind them were archers (Dio 74.7).

Sticks

Sticks, clubs and cudgels make frequent appearances in accounts of warfare in the ancient world, often as the weapons of primitive and poor peoples. Thus Tacitus highlights those German peoples who used simple clubs rather The demi-god Heracles battles the Lernaean Hydra with his club. This simple weapon was brutally effective at close quarters and was even used as a missile. Etruscan water pot in the Getty Villa, Malibu, California.

Xenophon, Hellenica 4.6.7

The Romans recognised the worth of stone throwers and, according to Vegetius, all new recruits were trained to launch stones by hand and from a sling. The stones thrown by hand weighed one Roman pound (Epitome 1.16, 2.28). Arrian notes that Roman cavalry trained in discharging stones from horseback, using slings and hurling them by hand with such force as

© Wolfgang Sauber

Training and battle

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Roman clubmen fight in the front rank in an encounter with Decebalus’ Dacians. Trajan’s Column. than the framea, a dual-purpose short spear used for throwing and stabbing (Tacitus, Germania 6, 45). In his account of the battle of Pistoria (62 BC), Sallust emphasises how the bulk of Catilina’s rag-tag army of shepherds and peasants were armed with sharpened sticks; only the Sullan veterans who had rallied to his cause bore the traditional Roman panoply of pilum, gladius and scutum. Catilina’s rural recruits were posted behind the veterans and played no real part in the fighting (Sallust, War With Catilina 56.3). On Trajan’s Column, however, barechested warriors armed with clubs are depicted in the front ranks of the Roman battle lines. They fight alongside regular auxiliary and legionary infantry in close and open formations (e.g. scenes 24, 38, 70, 78). In the third and fourth centuries AD we find Roman clubmen deployed to deal with full armoured heavy cavalry. At the battles of Edessa in AD 272 and Turin in AD 312, infantry armed with clubs were most effective in bludgeoning Palmyrene and Maxentian clibanarii – ‘oven men’ 46

(Zosimus 1.52-53; Latin Panegyrics 4.224, 12.6.2-7.2). Similarly, at Singara in AD 343, Roman infantrymen faced down charging Persian cataphracts, only stepping aside at the last moment to swing their clubs and batter the riders from their mounts (Libanius, Orations 59.110). In a previous article I suggested that some of Caracalla’s Spartans were armed with clubs to counter cataphracts in the Parthian War of AD 216-217 (Ancient Warfare III.5). The club was not just an effective striking weapon. It could be thrown as well. Among various missile weapons employed by the Goths at the battle of Ad Salices (AD 377) were “huge clubs, hardened by fire” and these unusual projectiles helped to fracture the left wing of the Roman army (Ammianus Marcellinus 31.7.12). Arrian describes an ‘axe’“with spikes all around” that was carried by Roman cavalry (Tactica 4.9).The weapon was clearly not an axe, but a small spiked mace. A possible example is known from Dura Europos and it may be that this weapon was suitable for throwing at close range.

Picks and axes

The battle axe was certainly employed in ancient peninsular Italy during

the Archaic era, for example by the Etruscans and the Picentes (the latter also used true maces with metal heads, rather than simple clubs). However, the battle axe was never a standard part of the Italic armoury. Thus, when later Roman legionaries required a weapon with more cutting power and penetration than could be achieved with their swords, they turned to tools normally used for pioneer work on the march and for the construction of the camp, namely the axe (securis or ascia) and pick-axe (dolabra). Tacitus describes how legionaries used their tools to deal with Gallic crupellarii – gladiators in full plate armour – during Sacrovir’s revolt in AD 21: “The iron-clads’ armour was proof against pila and swords, but the legionaries brought up their axes and pick-axes and hacked at armour and flesh as if demolishing a wall.” Tacitus, Annals 3.46 Tacitus also notes the use of axes by legionaries in close combat at the First Battle of Cremona: “they threw no pila but crashed swords and axes through helmets and armour” (Histories 2.42). Picks and axes were essential for

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effective assaults on camps and fortress, to smash or pull down obstacles and to cut through gates (e.g. Tacitus, Histories 3.27). The unruly but heroic Gallic legionaries who burst into Shapur II’s siege camp at Amida (AD 359) and attempted to reach the Persian king’s tent, were armed with swords and axes (Ammianus Marcellinus 19.6.7). Scene 96 of Trajan’s Column illustrates the usefulness of the dolabra in the defence of a Roman fort.

Improvised protection

In 69 BC, Lucullus won his famous victory outside Tigranocerta, but the city itself remained uncaptured until a band of Greek mercenaries created an opportunity for Lucullus’ legionaries to enter the Armenian capital. The Greeks had been employed to garrison Tigranocerta, but they had fallen foul of Mancaeus, the governor of the city, and were disarmed. Fearing arrest and execution, the Greeks equipped themselves with clubs. When set upon by the city’s garrison:

Appian, Mithridatic Wars 86 The tunic or cloak, rolled around the forearm to absorb the forced of blows, was also employed by the troops and sailors of Petillius Cerialis in AD 70. Although surprised at night by Civilis’ Germans, the bulk of Cerialis’ men seem not to have panicked and, instead of scrabbling around in the dark for their shields and other armour, improvised defences with their clothes and fought the Germans as best they could (Tacitus, Histories 5.22).

Tooth and claw

The Roman soldier was susceptible to fear and panic, but he was usually steadfast. Sometimes he found himself

© Melanie Bateman.

The Greeks wound their clothing around their forearms, to serve as shields, courageously charged their assailants, and immediately shared out the arms of all those they had killed. When they were as far as possible provided with weapons, they seized some of the towers, called to the Romans outside and admitted them when they came up. In this way was Tigranocerta taken.

Detail from a Lucanian tomb showing a bloodied warrior, probably a participant in a funeral games. Lacking a shield, he drapes his cloak before him to catch his opponent’s missiles, but a javelin has struck his right thigh. National Museum, Paestum, Italy. completely unarmed, with not even a stick or stone to strike the enemy. And when his limbs were maimed, and he could no longer grapple, or kick or punch to deliver a blow, he could still bite! According to Livy, at the battle of Cannae (216 BC), an anonymous Roman with broken arms used his teeth to tear the face off of one of Hannibal’s Numidians (22.51). Compare Silius Italicus’ gruesome tale of the Roman centurion Laevinus, whose “teeth did the work of iron” when he gnawed

the face and ears from a soldier in the Carthaginian army (Punica 6.41-54). n Ross Cowan is a regular contributor

Further reading

- Michael P. Speidel, Riding for Caesar: The Horse Guards of the Roman Emperors. London 1994.

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Women in Roman forts Residents, visitors or barred from entry? TWENTY YEARS AGO, MARGARET ROXAN, WELL KNOWN FOR HER STUDIES IN THE ROMAN AUXILIA, RAISED THE SUBJECT OF WOMEN ON THE FRONTIERS. OF COURSE, IT WAS NEVER DOUBTED THAT WOMEN AND CHILDREN WERE PART OF THE COMMUNITIES THAT OFTEN GREW UP OUTSIDE ROMAN FORTS, BUT THERE HAS BEEN A RECENT TREND TOWARDS POSTULATING THEIR EXISTENCE WITHIN THE FORTS AS WELL. CRITICISM HAS BEEN LEVELLED AT TRADITIONALISTS, WHO VIEW MILITARY GARRISONS AS MALE-ORIENTATED ENVIRONMENTS IN WHICH THE FORT DITCHES FORMED A SYMBOLIC BARRIER BETWEEN MILITARY AND CIVILIAN. BUT IS THERE ANY FIRM EVIDENCE TO DISPROVE THIS? DID WOMEN EVER LIVE IN ROMAN FORTS?

By Duncan B Campbell

The Roman army had a very clear policy regarding marriage. The rank and file were forbidden to take a wife, by the terms of a ruling that probably dated back to the time of the emperor Augustus. Later, Claudius felt moved to mitigate the harshness of this marriage ban. He granted the soldiers those privileges which they should have enjoyed as married civilians. (It is not clear what these privileges were, but Claudius perhaps waived the penalties imposed by the Julian marriage laws, which penalised men who lacked legitimate offspring.) Whatever the details, the historian Cassius Dio was perfectly clear on the fact that “the soldiers were not able to have wives according to the laws” (Roman History 60.24.3). The ban was not lifted until AD 197: “Severus was the first emperor … to permit the soldiers to live with their wives, which was considered discretionary for soldiers and harmful both to battle readiness and to good behaviour.” Herodian, Roman History 3.8.5. Naturally, the equestrian officers who commanded the various cohortes and alae across the length and breadth of 48

the Roman empire were not bound by the same restriction. The large, even luxurious, Mediterranean-style house that served as the praetorium (“commander’s house”) in every fort was designed with family life in mind. And the well-known correspondence of Flavius Cerialis, who commanded the Batavians at Vindolanda (England) during the reign of Trajan, shows that he was accompanied by his wife, Sulpicia Lepidina. The archaeological discovery of children’s shoes in the area of the Vindolanda praetorium surely indicates that they had a family. Aelius Brocchus, the commander of a neighbouring garrison (perhaps Kirkbride), certainly did. A pair of inscriptions from the Roman fort of Bremenium (High Rochester, England) paints a particularly poignant picture of family life in the praetorium there. One inscription is an altar, erected to Silvanus Pantheus, the god of material things, by the freedman Eutychus, “for the health of the tribune Rufinus and his wife Lucilla” (pro salute Rufini tribuni et Lucillae eius: RIB 1271). The other is a tombstone, set up outside the fort (the deceased man’s name has disappeared with weathering, but was surely the same Rufinus) by “Julia Lucilla, illustrious woman, for her well-deserving husband who lived 48 years, 6 months and 25 days” (RIB 1288).

Space in a Roman fort

Daily life is defined through mundane, routine activity. Unfortunately, we have only a vague impression of the Roman soldier’s routine, so it is difficult to decide whether processes that appear in the archaeological record are “military” (and thus masculine), or whether they might be evidence of female activity. (Sewing, as proven by finds of needles, for example, is a ‘gender neutral’ activity, which is quite likely to have been performed by the soldiers themselves.) However, if there were women in Roman forts, they must have been accommodated somewhere. The use of space within Roman forts has been well studied. Most sites follow a basic blueprint, to a greater or lesser degree, and it seems that it was customary to position certain buildings in particular locations. The principia (“headquarters building”) would invariably be found at the centre of the fort, where the two main roadways met. The praetorium lay behind or alongside, no doubt for the commander’s convenience, although tradition can be a powerful motivating factor, particularly for the Romans. Granaries or store buildings were always present, and archaeologists occasionally interpret any building that incorporates cubicles and a supply of running water as a valetudinarium (“hospital”). The soldiers’ barracks occupied the remaining spaces. Any understanding of the activities within Roman forts must be firmly based on identifying the functions of the various buildings. At a very basic level, the garrison of any given fort is usually calculated from an analysis of the barrack accommodation. But, in the numerous forts that have only been partially excavated, this process relies heavily upon conjecture. We must first identify which buildings are likely to have been barracks (for some may have served other purposes, such as store buildings), before deciding on the likely

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Only the lower part of the tombstone of Romanus Dardanus survives, showing the inscription (CIL XIII 8305) and the trooper’s horse with his calo behind it, carrying extra javelins. Dardanus served in the Ala Afrorum in the first century AD. Now in the Römisch-Germanisches Museum, Cologne, Germany. density of occupation in such buildings, and whether women might have lived there.

Who lived in the barracks?

In recent years, there has been a realisation that it might be poor methodology simply to assign one centuria of infantrymen (or two turmae of cavalrymen) to a barrack building, when no ancient source actually prescribes this density of occupation. It is even less defensible to impose eight men per doubleroom, based on Hyginus’ description of legionary tented accommodation: “One tent occupies 10 feet, it takes another 2 feet for pitching, and it covers eight men. A full century has eighty men: there are 10 tents which extend 120 feet in length. However, as the half-row [hemistrigium] is 30 feet wide, 10 feet are given to the tent, 5 feet to the equipment, 9 feet to the pack-animals, giving 24 feet, which doubled makes 48; since they pitch opposite one another, a 60-foot wide row (striga) is created, and the remaining 12 feet (i.e., in the middle) provides space for moving about.” Hyginus, On fortifying a camp §1 Hyginus goes on to explain that, although the centuria has ten tents, only eight are actually pitched in the

marching camp, because the remaining tent-parties are always on sentry duty. However, this leaves a generous 24-foot space for the centurion’s tent at the end of the row. Archaeologists quickly realised that a similar arrangement could be discerned in some fort plans. Long, narrow buildings are frequently found in facing pairs, like Hyginus’ striga. Equally often, each building is found to be divided longitudinally into double-rooms, in such a way that the rear rooms resemble Hyginus’ line of tents, and the front rooms resemble the smaller area for storing equipment; a larger suite of rooms at one end corresponds to the centurion’s tent. Of course, it does not automatically follow that each doubleroom accommodated an eight-man tent party, but it is generally agreed that these were segregated, male-only barracks. More recently, the discovery of urine pits in the front rooms of many barracks has led to the realisation that cavalry horses were accommodated alongside the troopers in the same building. With space for only three horses in each front room, the three corresponding cavalry troopers probably lived in the rear room, giving a very different density of accommodation from that of their infantry counterparts. But again, even given the presence of the calones (“servants”) that some cavalrymen are known to have possessed, this was a

segregated male zone. The glaring exception to this maleonly rule was the fort commander’s family. As we have seen, this high-status representative of Rome’s equestrian elite was not expected to abide by the same rules of celibacy that governed the rank and file. And one glance at his praetorium, typically built on the Mediterranean peristyle model with its generous provision of rooms arranged around a central atrium (“courtyard”), confirms that it was designed to accommodate family members and domestic staff. It is conceivable that the picture was different in the big legionary fortresses, where the senatorial commander’s house was often more like a palace, and the houses of the highest-ranking centurions (the so-called primi ordines) were quite as spacious as those of the equestrian tribunes. Here the atmosphere was perhaps more like a garrison town. Indeed, studies of the barrack blocks in fortresses have suggested that even the legionary centurion may have been permitted to share his accommodation with a wife.

Soldiers and their wives

There is abundant evidence that many serving legionary centurions were married, as shown on this tombstone: “To the Spirits of the Dead, and to Gaius Julius Maritimus, son of Gaius, of the Claudian voting tribe, from Cologne, centurion of the Sixth Victrix Legion, centurion of the Twentieth Valeria Victrix Legion, centurion of the Second Augusta Legion, centurion of the Third Augusta Legion, who lived 45 years, 5 months and 13 days. His wife Salviena Metiliana set this up at her own expense to her most affectionate and well-deserving husband, through the agency of their freedman Salvienus Trophimus. When you read this, declare: May the earth lie lightly on you.” CIL VIII, 2907 (Lambaesis, Africa) But legionary centurions like Julius Maritimus were closer in social status to the equestrian prefects and tribunes who commanded the fort garrisons. Ancient Warfare

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with Aelia Comindus or Attius Tertius’ with Cisso, would not have been recognised under Roman law.

Evidence of military diplomas

We know that these unions must have been unofficial, because it was only on the occasion of his honourable discharge that each auxiliary soldier was granted the right of conubium (“legal marriage”) with a woman. This was explicitly stated on the man’s diploma, the double-sided, double-leaved bronze document which recorded the legal grant of Roman citizenship to a timeserved soldier. These documents, over 500 of which are now known, scrupulously followed a standard legal text. Each one stated that the emperor of the day granted Roman citizenship to those men who had completed their twenty-five years’ service. Citizenship was extended ipsis liberis posterisque eorum (“to them and to their children and descendants”). Furthermore, the men were granted conubium cum uxoribus quas tunc habuissent cum est civitas iis data (“the right of legal marriage with the wives whom they had when citizenship was granted to them”). Thus, not only did the emperor

accept the fact that many auxiliaries already had families, but he also recognised that many had unofficial wives. The formula was changed under Antoninus Pius, so that a veteran’s children no longer received citizenship. But the grant of conubium continued. The Roman government clearly expected that serving auxiliaries might have taken illegal wives during their military service. This included the auxiliary decurions and centurions. However, after Antoninus Pius changed the rules, a clause was added continuing to guarantee citizenship liberis decurionum et centurionum quos apud praesidem provinciae ex se procreatos probavissent (“to the children of decurions and centurions whom they certified, in the Diploma from Elst, the Netherlands. Now in the Valkhof Museum, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The diploma lists the regiments of Lower Germany discharging veterans on 20 February AD 98. The inscription on the other side explains that a cavalry trooper of the Ala I Batavorum (his name is illegible, but he was the son of a Batavian named Gaverus) received honourable discharge, along with the grant of citizenship for himself, his wife and his two daughters.

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A social gulf separated them from the common soldiery. Nor did they bear much resemblance to the auxiliary centurions and decurions whom we find in the forts. Nevertheless, it is surprising to learn that even these lower status auxiliary officers seem, on occasion, to have taken a wife. For example, a tombstone from Carrawburgh (England) was erected by a cavalry decurion named Nobilianus to commemorate his beloved wife Aelia Comindus, who died there aged 32 (RIB 1561). Meanwhile, at Stockstadt (Germany), a centurion of cohors II Hispanorum named Attius Tertius dedicated an altar to Jupiter “for his own good health and that of his wife Cisso and his sons” (AE 1967, 335). Of course, there are ample instances of time-served auxiliary veterans taking a wife, such as Marcus Cassius Verecundus, formerly of cohors I Hispanorum at Remagen (Germany), who set up a tombstone “for himself and for his wife Annia Avita and for his son Cassius Verecundinus Firmus, while they were alive” (CIL XIII, 11982). But this was, of course, quite permissible. It was only during his military service that a man could not be legally married. Unofficial unions, such as Nobilianus’

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presence of the provincial governor, as having been fathered by them”). Far from being an additional bonus, this new clause simply meant that auxiliary centurions and decurions did not suffer the same reduced privileges as their men.

Identifying genders

To sum up so far, the traditional picture of the Roman fort would restrict women to the praetorium, where the equestrian commander may have had a wife, a daughter, and some female servants. However, the soldiers and their officers often entered into pseudo-marital relationships that resulted in the creation of families. It has always been assumed that these families were domiciled in the vicus (“village”), found outside many forts. But, as no ancient source is explicit on the point, this remains purely conjectural. If, on the other hand, these soldiers’ families lived within the fort, how would we recognise their presence? How exactly do women make themselves known in the archaeological record? This is a question that has exercised Lindsay Allason-Jones over many years. While earlier researchers had unquestioningly taken brooches, rings and beads as indicators of a woman’s presence, she realised that these items were just as likely (indeed, more likely, in a military context) to belong to men. A similar observation was made by Amsterdam University’s Carol van Driel-Murray, best known for her work on the Roman army’s leatherwork. Glancing around the audience of an archaeological conference in 1992, she noted that there was no gender bias in the wearing of beads, bangles, long hair and ear-rings! But the unique discovery of the soles from almost two dozen “small adult”-sized shoes in an early Hadrianic barrack block at Vindolanda (England) prompted her to suggest that families lived there, although she conceded that “other than their shoes, the women and children have left remarkably little trace of their presence”. In fact, the only “feminine” items were hairpins and wooden combs. More recently, practitioners of “gender archaeology” have turned

their attention to the male-dominated world of the Roman military. Foremost among them is Pim Allison of Leicester University, whose study of the finds from Pompeii enabled her to define “gendered activities” there. She believes that, by applying the same technique to Roman forts, she can prove that “women and children were very probably among the occupants of soldiers’ barracks”. She explains her method like this: “Socio-spatial information is lacking in the written sources but it can be gathered through investigations of the archaeological evidence, particularly through the distribution patterns of artefacts that have indeed been interrogated through the textual and other material-cultural evidence to imbue them with potential social values concerning task and gender.” P.M. Allison, Archaeological Dialogues 13 (2006) p. 40 One of the sites that she chose to study was the legionary fortress of Vetera. However, we have seen that the garrison-town atmosphere of a fortress virtually guarantees the presence of women, so findings from Vetera are unlikely to advance our debate. On the other hand, her analysis of the frontier fort of Oberstimm, where (according to the traditional view) women should not have been present, addresses the problem directly.

Objects from Oberstimm

Forty years ago, the fort at Oberstimm in Raetia (broadly present-day Bavaria) was excavated by the German archaeologist Hans Schönberger. During the course of four seasons, he was able to strip a third of the area, exposing the praetorium and principia, as well as several other buildings, including a sizeable fabrica (“workshop”). Dating evidence demonstrated that an originally Claudian foundation had been repaired and refurbished throughout the Flavian period, before its final evacuation under Hadrian. A vicus (“village”) clustered around the south side of the fort, and a balneum (bath-

house) is thought to have lain to the north-west, down towards the River Brautlach. Pim Allison’s study of the distribution of small finds led her to believe that “women and families were prominent in a number of areas of the fort”. She drew encouragement from Schönberger’s interpretation of Oberstimm as a supply base, stating that “it is perhaps unsurprising to find that women seem to be as integrated into this community as they might have been in a civilian community”. Allison’s theory has been wellreceived in some quarters, as “usefully refuting the notion that Roman military camps were populated by men only”; or for “giving us a glimpse into the greater social complexity of life in the forts”; or, indeed, for “succeeding in establishing the residency of numbers of women within the walls” of Roman forts. (The comments are those of Silvia Tomásková, Marie Louise Stig Sørensen and Simon James in issue 13 of Archaeological Dialogues.) With such ringing endorsements, it is worth investigating the details that led to this ground-breaking revelation. In fact, Allison rests her case on the presence of 48 items within the fort (see illustration). Firstly, she classifies five of the 40 fibulae (“brooches”) as having belonged to females. And secondly, she classifies a small (four cm) square bronze buckle (and the snapped-off corner of a second one) as unquestionably feminine. It is true that the late Jochen Garbsch’s study of finds from Pannonia (broadly present-day Hungary) suggested that similar distinctive buckles were worn by women there, so we may tentatively assume that the same applied in Raetia. (Incidentally, the fact that these buckles are found on military sites all along the frontier from Britain to Dacia means that this gender correlation may have far-ranging implications.) And Allison’s five selected brooches bear similarities to others found in female graves. So, even if neither item seems to offer cast-iron proof that women lived within the fort, they are at least suggestive. Other items possibly indicating a female presence were a 6 cm-long bone hairpin and four copper alloy pins, Ancient Warfare

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although the latter need not have been for pinning hair, and the unknown fort garrison may have included longhaired soldiers, in any case. Six tubular glass flasks variously known as unguentaria (“unguent containers”) or balsamaria (“balsam containers”) are more problematic. Similar flasks found in civilian contexts often held waxy ointments, balms or unguents normally classified as cosmetics, but they could equally well have been medicinal. It is worth remembering that Schönberger identified Building 2 as a possible hospital, for a similar long-necked flask was found in a physician’s grave in Cologne. So Allison’s classification of these unguentaria amongst the “female” artefacts is fragile. Even more questionable are the 28 so-called “melon beads” that she includes as evidence of women or children. (Worryingly, they represent over 50 per cent of her ‘female’ evidence.) She astutely heads off criticism by acknowledging that these have firm military associations (they are known 52

to have been used as decorative elements, particularly in cavalry horse harness), but she pleads that they are also found as items of jewellery in civilian contexts. But as they are known ‘military’ items discovered in a military context, isn’t their inclusion as “female” indicators rather misleading? And all the more, when there is other evidence of a cavalry presence in Oberstimm. The peculiar plan of Building 6 led Schönberger to locate the men of two cavalry turmae there, with a decurion housed at either end; he reasoned that their mounts were stabled in the unexcavated Buildings 16 and 17. But by 1988 it had become clear that the vestiges of urine pits in several of the front rooms marked Building 6 out as a bona fide cavalry barrack, in which the men of a single turma lived alongside their horses and, presumably, their calones (“servants”). Several other examples are now known.

Artefacts in forts

However, there might be a more fun-

damental problem with the ‘gender archaeology’ approach. It is unquestionable that Pim Allison’s spatial analysis of houses at Pompeii was a great success. This was an environment frozen in time by the catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius. The distribution of artefacts accurately reflected the domestic processes that had suddenly been halted in August AD 79 (although subsequent looting has disturbed many of the contexts). We can be sure, for example, that furniture discovered in, say, Room 15 of the ‘Insula of the Menander’ at Pompeii was actually being used in that room prior to the disaster. But can the same assumption be made concerning the artefacts from Oberstimm? Roman fort excavations reveal a far more complex picture. Rather than the indicators of daily life found in Pompeii, the artefacts excavated from Roman fort sites are the remains of demolition and abandonment. Mike Bishop, best known for his work on Roman arms and armour, has studied the processes of deposition in Roman forts. Over twenty years ago, he warned against “the supposition that the distribution of equipment actually reflects the original location of different types of troops” within a fort. Clearly, for Bishop, the findspot did not necessarily indicate the original location of the owner. Fortuitously, one of the sites that he chose to study was Oberstimm, where he noted clusters of military equipment, as if it had been deliberately gathered for disposal. And he was quite right. It is nowadays accepted, from the evidence of several excavations, that the Roman army routinely demolished their forts prior to abandonment. Timber buildings were dismantled, to enable the salvaging of reusable components and the controlled burning of the rest. Any material that was surplus to requirements was dropped into wells, buried in pits, or slung into the ditches. This kind of behaviour can be seen at Oberstimm, where the site plan is peppered with pits of different sizes. Three of the brooches and three of the glass flasks, for example, came from rubbish pits, while the buckle and the bone hairpin had been swept into separate pits dug into the demolished fabrica.

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Beads from a military context illustrate the difficulty of assigning archaeological finds to a ‘male’ or ‘female’ sphere. A dolabra sheath decorated with so-called melon beads, now in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn, Germany.

It should thus be abundantly clear that the findspots of artefacts in a Roman fort cannot possibly “imbue them with potential social values concerning task and gender”, as Pim Allison would like. Of course, some of these items might have originated from the vicinity of their final resting place. There is no reason why the buckle and bone hairpin, for example, which were found in the area of the fabrica, could not have belonged to the (female) inhabitants of the nearby praetorium. But this can only be supposition. Other items may tell different stories. The significance of the tiny (3 cm high) bronze bell, discovered in the environs of the fabrica, is not clear, although Allison believes that it probably belonged to a woman or a child. On the other hand, the loss of the bronze ring recovered from the fort’s defensive ditch is most easily explained if it had fallen from the finger of a soldier, either on sentry duty on the rampart above, or on ditch cleaning duty. But Allison classifies it as evidence of a woman or child, presumably because of its small size (inner diameter, 1.4 cm). Small size, let us remember, was the criterion for women’s shoes in Hadrianic Vindolanda. But the soldiers’ servants, like the cavalrymen’s calones, presumably required “small adult”-sized shoes.

Could it be these youths who are represented in the archaeological record? Were their shoes abandoned, once they were outgrown?

Women in forts?

It is difficult to agree with Pim Allison’s conclusion, that her “artefact distribution studies indicate that women probably constituted some 5-15% of the fort population”. Her ‘gender archaeology’ approach seems flawed on two levels: first, archaeologists have always accepted the possibility of women in the fort praetorium, so finds of ‘female’ artefacts are bound to occur from time to time. But, more importantly, the distribution of finds across a Roman fort site does not necessarily reflect the original distribution of artefacts during the working life of the fort. The archaeological site plan shows only the remains of the carcass after it has been picked clean, rather than the living, breathing beast in the midst of its daily routine. Pim Allison has now extended her research to encompass the Numeruskastelle (“small forts”) of Ellingen and Hesselbach and the supply base at Rödgen, so the debate is still very much alive. n Duncan B. Campbell is a regular contributor

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Further reading

- L. Allason-Jones, “Women and the Roman army in Britain”, in: A. Goldsworthy and I. Haynes (eds.), The Roman Army as a Community. Portsmouth, RI 1999, p. 41-51. - P. Allison, “Mapping for gender. Interpreting artefact distribution inside 1st and 2nd century AD forts in Roman Germany”, Archaeological Dialogues 13 (2006), p. 1-20 and 38-42, with responses on pp. 20-25 (Tomásková), 27-31 (Sørensen), 31-36 (James). - M.C. Bishop. “The distribution of military equipment within Roman forts of the first century AD”, in: C. Unz (ed.), Studien zu den Militärgrenzen Roms III. Stuttgart 1986, p. 717-723. - C. van Driel-Murray, “A question of gender in a military context”, Helinium 34 (1994), p. 342-362. - M.M. Roxan, “Women on the frontiers”, in: V.A. Maxfield and M.J. Dobson (eds.), Roman Frontier Studies 1989. Exeter 1991, p. 462467. For Roman forts in general: Duncan B. Campbell, Roman Auxiliary Forts 27 BC-AD 378. Oxford, 2009.

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Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome A ‘prequel’ to the well-known Makers of Modern Strategy, first published in 1943, this book focuses on the relevance of ancient warfare to the modern world. In his introduction, Hanson asserts, “The study of military history schools us in lessons that are surprisingly apt to contemporary dilemmas... all the more so as radically evolving technology fools many into thinking that war itself is reinvented with the novel tools of each age,” and concludes, “the study of history, not recent understanding of technological innovation, remains the better guide to the nature of contemporary warfare” (p. 2). In a very engaging first chapter, Tom Holland establishes this theme immediately, recounting a certain superpower’s “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq (p. 11). By the time he closes his opening paragraph with, “So it was on October 12, 539 BC” (p. 11), most readers will have discerned that he is describing the 6th-century BC invasion of Iraq by the expanding Persian Empire, rather than events of the early 21st century. Holland goes on to sprinkle his account of the rise of the Persian Empire and the Greco-Persian Wars with contemporary neologisms. The Persians engage in “psychological profiling” of the enemy (p. 16), and Darius raises a disparate “coalition if not of the willing then of the submissively dutiful” (p. 26) to wage a “war on terror” against the Greeks (p. 23). Similar allusions run through the remaining chapters. Although some of the analogies may occasionally seem somewhat glib, they are, for the most part, pertinent and appropriately qualified. In her chapter on counterinsurgency in the Roman Empire for instance, Susan Mattern effectively delineates some “significant parallels” (p. 170) between ancient banditry and modern terrorism, though judiciously concludes that the analogy between the two is “loose” (p. 169). Even if some of the analogies might be debated, they are, at the very least, provocative, and they will provide food for thought and a stimulus for further discussion and investigation. Collectively, the authors succeed admirably in establishing the relevance of ancient warfare to contemporary military and strategic situations. Some chapters, such as Donald Kagan’s examination of the rise of the Athenian Empire and Ian Worthington’s assessment of the career of Alexander the Great, cover fairly well-turned ground. Still, even when dealing with familiar topics, the authors invariably provide fresh perspectives and new insights. For example, in his “Holding the Line: Frontier Defense and the later Roman Empire,” Peter J. Heather mounts a vigorous challenge to Edward Luttwak’s influential thesis that at the beginning of the 3rd century the Roman Empire consciously abandoned a policy of expansion and adopted a policy of defense. Heather argues instead that any transformation in frontier strategy was more “ad hoc” (p. 228) and that, rather than being entirely passive or reactionary along its frontiers, during its last centuries the Western empire made periodic diplomatic and military excursions beyond its borders. Further, Heather argues persuasively that extended contact with the empire helped to transform 54

ISBN: 9780691137902 Pages: X + 265 Author/editor: Victor Davis Hanson (ed.) Publisher: Princeton University Press Address of Publisher: press.princeton.edu Reviewer: David Balfour the peoples beyond the borders in several ways which made them more formidable opponents, a factor that the author sees as particularly relevant to the contemporary West in its relations with the rest of the world. Other chapters, such as David Berkey’s on the fortifications of Athens, explore areas that have heretofore received less attention. These chapters serve as excellent introductions to their topics and establish a framework for future research. In his study of urban warfare in Classical Greece for instance, John W.I. Lee categorizes types of ancient urban combat and combatants, provides an analysis of the polis as “urban battleground” (p. 143), and assesses urban warfare in the context of Classical military thought. Similarly, Mattern

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categorizes the different types of insurgents who threatened the Roman Empire - and while not at all discounting the role of military force - emphasizes the importance of cultivating social relationships while dealing with insurgents and maintaining the security of the empire in general. Aside from the chapters cited above, Victor David Hanson assesses the campaigns of the Theban general Epaminondas in the context of pre-emptive and preventive war, Barry Strauss uses the slave wars of the ancient world to point out the daunting challenges that face insurrectionists in confronting the formidable resources of an established state, and Adrian Goldsworthy considers what the career of Julius Caesar teaches us about the translation of military success into political power.

Each chapter includes suggestions for further reading and endnotes. There is a comprehensive index as well as notes on the contributors. The writing is of a uniformly high quality: lively, absorbing and of a remarkable clarity. Likewise, the level of scholarship is impressive throughout. There are no weak chapters. One of the more sobering lessons that history teaches is that we rarely learn as much as we should from the past, but this book has much to offer both to professional historians and the general reader with an interest in military history. At the very least, it will deepen the reader’s appreciation and understanding of our military past. This book takes a place beside its worthy predecessors as a significant contribution to the history of warfare. It deserves a wide readership.

Julius Caesar Julius Caesar brings the drama of the Roman Civil War (49 45 BC) to life. Players take control of the legions of Caesar or Pompey and fight to determine the future of Rome – republic or empire. The game is the latest offering from Columbia Games, a company renowned for its games with blocks. The blocks, depicting army and naval units, stand upright facing the player (like the classic Stratego), which promotes bluffing and introduces a fog of war effect. Columbia Games is also renowned for its excellent production values and Julius Caesar is no exception. In the beautifully illustrated box you’ll find 63 blocks (including a Cleopatra block), a label sheet, a large game map, an eight-page rule booklet, four dice, twenty Command cards and seven Event cards. There are some problems with the unmounted map board. It tends to curl up when put on the table (easily solved by adding a slab of Perspex to your game collection), and some cities are too close to each other, which can lead to blocks cluttering up the map. The rules are deliciously simple. They are also featured on the company’s website, so I will keep my summary short. Players battle for Victory Points, awarded for conquering certain cities and killing enemy leaders. The first player to reach 10 Victory Points wins. Cards direct the game flow. The Command cards offer opportunities to move groups of blocks (more often than not resulting in combat), or levy new (steps of) blocks. It’s your choice to move or levy and certain blocks can only be levied in certain cities, which must first be under your control. A remarkable aspect of Julius Caesar is the game’s ‘move-then-levy’ mechanism. This requires you to really have to plan ahead with your strategy. The Event cards are named after a major Roman deity and allow special actions to occur that break the normal rules, e.g. granting an extra surprise attack. The importance of the card deck makes it clear that Julius Caesar is not an accurate strategic simulation of the era. However, Julius Caesar is a lot of fun from a gaming perspective. Despite the simple rules, the game is extremely well

Order code: 3121 Type: strategic boardgame Publisher: Columbia Games Publisher website: www.columbiagames.com Reviewer: Ivo van de Wijdeven balanced, even considering the Event cards. Both players have an equal chance of winning the game, even though they start from a very different position. Pompey has a powerful navy and starts the game with 7 Victory Points, while Caesar has the advantage on land. However, there are no set strategies. Of course, most people playing Caesar won’t be able to resist crossing the Rubicon and taking Rome, but with a little help from the gods you can also try and conquer Athens with the fabled 13th Legion in the first game turn. Pompey isn’t condemned to the only taking the defensive either. The strategic possibilities are endless. The real charm in this game is that it keeps things simple, smooth and fast. Experienced players will need no more than two hours for a full game and it’s an excellent introduction to block games for beginners. Julius Caesar is an entertaining game that will show more depth and possibilities with every play. Very heartily recommended! Ancient Warfare

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Reinstating the hoplite This book is the latest instalment in the lengthy scholarly debate about the nature of hoplite combat. It comes as a response to Hans van Wees’ Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities (2004), among other recent works. Schwartz seeks, as his title suggests, to restore the hoplite and the ‘traditional’ view of hoplite combat to its place at the centre of archaic and classical Greek warfare. Schwartz’s first chapter summarizes the history of past research into hoplite warfare, and discusses sources and methods. He is unapologetic about his use of evidence from across the period of hoplite warfare, rather than applying each piece of evidence strictly to the date in which it occurs: “I maintain that it is possible to regard literary sources from any point within these 400 years as valid for an understanding of hoplite tactics and fighting”. This might seem to beg questions about continuity and change within this long period, but to be fair, Schwartz does differentiate between evidence from different periods when necessary. Chapter two deals with the arms and armour of the hoplite, and their use in battle. Most space is devoted to the distinctive hoplite shield. Schwartz emphasises the shield’s weight and the need to rest the rim on the shoulder. He also stresses the need to hold the shield at half an arm’s length with the upper arm extended and the elbow bent. This position greatly limits the freedom of the shield-arm. Similarly, he stresses the restricted vision and hearing imposed by the Corinthian helmet. The armour and weapons were therefore unsuitable for any form of mobile combat: hoplite equipment, therefore, must have been intended from the start for a relatively static form of combat in close-packed phalanxes. The third chapter, moving the emphasis from the hoplite to the phalanx, is really the core of the book. Schwartz discusses the vexing question of which came first – hoplite weapons or phalanx tactics. He argues that the origin of the phalanx itself can be pushed back to the mid-eighth century. He cites and supports Hanson’s argument that weapons are usually developed to fit a tactical need, not the other way around. Therefore, the existence of close combat in something similar to a phalanx as early as the eighth century prompted the development of the hoplite’s double-grip shield and the rest of the panoply to meet the needs of combat. One source of information that Schwartz uses to support this argument is representations of the phalanx in art. He observes that there are remarkably few clear representations of a phalanx in later Classical art: it must have been a difficult subject for a painter or sculptor to depict convincingly. In any case, Schwartz argues quite strongly, in opposition to van Wees, that the Chigi olpe and the aryballoi by the Macmillan painter do in fact represent seventh-century phalanxes formed in close ranks. He considers not only Greek art but adds to the list of early phalanxes a scene on the Cypro-Phoenician silver bowl from Amathus in the British Museum (see http:// tinyurl.com/3xq9ep3). Taking this iconographical evidence into account, and suggesting that seventh-century poetry such as that of Tyrtaios describes the same hoplite warfare as 56

ISBN: 9783515093309 Pages: 340 Author/editor: Adam Schwartz Publisher: Franz Steiner Verlag Address of Publisher: www.steiner-verlag.de Reviewer: Duncan Head later on (and not, as others have suggested, some earlier style of fighting), Schwartz rejects van Wees’ suggestion: namely that the phalanx through the Archaic period and even as late as the Persian Wars was a looser formation than the Classical phalanx. Discussing the deployment of the phalanx, Schwartz argues for the traditional view that the width allotted to each file was roughly that of the shield (that is, about a metre or slightly less. He rejects the view of Peter Krenz that a hoplite was ‘safe’ on a two-metre frontage as unrealistic partly because of the limitations of the hoplite panoply. Cawkwell’s idea that the phalanx advanced in close order but opened its ranks to the fight is also rejected: when and how would such opening take place? From here, Schwartz goes on to consider the othismos, “the shoving”. (For the controversy about what this entails, see Murray Dahm’s article on the othismos debate in Ancient Warfare IV.2.) Schwartz is very much on the side of a literal othismos. He cites several literary sources that

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seem to be describing a literal ‘pushing back’ of the enemy, and argues against those who have opposed this physical shoving. He states that the physical pressure would not be too great to be borne, but similar to that experienced in any tight crowd and that while the pressure of the shove would restrict the hoplite’s use of his weapons, it would not necessarily prevent it. Schwartz’s contribution to the othismos debate is clear and impressive, if hardly likely to be decisive in a discussion that has gone on for so long. Chapter four deals with the length of hoplite battles. The main significance of this to Schwartz’s argument is in how it pertains to the case against a literal othismos, and against close order hoplite fighting in general. The standard claim is that battles often lasted several hours, or indeed all day, and that hoplites would be too exhausted to keep up this style of fighting for long. Schwartz questions this opinion about the length of battles. He casts doubt on many of the references in literary sources to hoplite battles that lasted “a long time” or “until nightfall”. Further, we are often not told how long “a long time” is, nor, when fighting went on very long, when it actually started. Finally, Schwartz stresses that ‘battle’ involved a lot more than the time spent in hand to hand fighting. It is rarely clear in the literary sources whether a reference to the duration of a battle means the time taken by the whole process from sighting the enemy until the end

of pursuit, the shorter period from the first hoplite charge to one phalanx breaking in flight, or something in between. Other writers have stressed the physical limitations of fighting in hoplite equipment, claiming that it was too heavy and unwieldy to fight in for much more than half an hour. They use this to argue for a less intensive form of combat than the “traditional” picture of close-order and a physical othismos. Schwartz sees the same limitations as simply arguing for short, intense battles. A useful ‘Battle Inventory’ lists 41 selected hoplite battles from Marathon in 490 to Chaironeia in 338. It is limited to those for which a useful amount of information survives in the sources. For each battle it lists, among other things, the armies, commanders and numbers involved. Also given is the terrain and weather (if known), a description of the battle, what is known of the decisive factors in its outcome and finally a section concerning casualties, pursuit and prisoners. This inventory alone could be a valuable collection of information for further research, though I did feel that at times Schwartz went beyond what is in the ancient. Overall, this is an excellent book, well written and well argued, and likely to be influential in future debates on Greek warfare. At a cost of e64,00 (or a rather heftier £ 65,00 in the UK), it is not inexpensive, but it would proudly grace any ancient military bookshelf.

Republican Roman Triarii Aventine have over the last year released an excellent range of Republican Romans, adding to their existing range of Italian tribes and Etruscans. The miniatures reviewed are from their range of Triarii, the spear armed veterans of the Republican legions who formed the third line of the maniple. The miniatures are designed for the late 4th century to the late third century BC, an important part of the rise and expansion of the Roman Republic. Aventine have provided a great variety in their range of Triarii miniatures – there being nine separate packs offering different variations in armour (from the earlier bronze cuirass and linothorax to the later chainmail) and helmet. All the helmets have the distinctive plumes of the Triarii. Each pack has four individual figures with variations. Two differently posed command sets are offered, one with Bronze cuirass the other in chainmail. The musician is available helmeted or unhelmeted. Impressive! Casting is good – mould lines are near nonexistent. There was some flash on the base but this was easily cleaned up. All the Triarii apart from the command are in the same ‘at ready’ pose but this you’d expect from the Triarii. Each is armed with a gladius and is ready to hold a spear; no spears are supplied, but metal ones are available through the Aventine shop. Overall the models are well posed and realistic. The shields are of the standard scutum type with round shields an option for the command. The plumes on the helmets are

Order code: RR14a and RR10 Scale: 28mm Manufacturer: Aventine Miniatures Address of Manufacturer: www. aventineminiatures.co.uk Reviewer: Guy Bowers pretty robust and so won’t bend or break easily. The models measure 28mm ‘from foot to eye’; 32mm tall with helmet or 38mm to the top of the plume. These should be compatible with most existing ranges. Prices are £4.50 per pack of 4 and £5 for the command. These would be a welcome addition to any 28mm Republican Roman army and all in all these are some nicely sculpted figures. Recommended. Ancient Warfare

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ON THE COVER

Fighting for the kings THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD MAY WELL HAVE BEEN THE ERA WITH THE LARGEST VARIETY OF TROOPS IN THE ENTIRE ANCIENT WORLD. WE HEAR OF ALL MANNER OF HEAVY AND LIGHT CAVALRY, OLD-FASHIONED HOPLITES, PHALANGITES IN MANY FLAVORS, THRACIAN MERCENARIES, ELEPHANTS AND SCYTHED CHARIOTS TO NAME JUST A SMALL SELECTION. FOR THIS ISSUE, JOHNNY SHUMATE HAS RECREATED SOME OF THESE WARRIORS.

Though the heavy cavalry of the Hellenistic era were still the ‘glory boys’ as they had been during the reign of Alexander the Great, the thureophoros rightly takes the foreground on our cover. This ubiquitous mercenary was named after his “door-stop” oval spined shield, which was introduced by Celtic warriors. For the reconstruction of his equipment, we are eminently served by the surviving colorful tomb paintings such as are shown here and printed with the article by Ruben Post elsewhere in this issue. That the thureophoros really was considered

the archetypal warrior of the era is perhaps best proven by the fact that Bes, an Egyptian protecting deity, is often shown equipped as a thureophoros during this period. His wife, Beset, sometimes carried the oval shield and straight sword as well, as shown on this statuette from Alexandria, now in the Allard Pierson museum, Amsterdam. The Celtic, or perhaps in this case, Galatian warriors (see also Ancient Warfare III.1) depicted are fairly easy to reconstruct. The

famous Pergamon friezes, sculpted to commemorate the victory of Attalus I over the Galatians, provide ample visual references for both Galatian and Hellenistic equipment. The particular fragment printed here displays the lamellar arm protection worn by the cavalryman, as well as his helmet. The horse’s chamfron as well as the simple Celtic helmet worn by his opponents can be seen on other parts of the same frieze. The latter has been attested archaeologically as well.

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© Ruben Post

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© Karwansaray Publishers

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