Mercenaries in the Classical World- To the Death of Alexander

by Stephen English

  This movement by Mardonius demonstrated tremendous tactical awareness. His army was superior in total numbers, and massively superior in cavalry, but he did not seek the first battle that he was offered as a lesser general may have done. He sought to increase his chances of victory by luring the Greeks into terrain of his choosing. The Greeks, however, regained the initiative by moving to a location that was flat enough to tempt the Persians into attacking, but not so flat as to give them the advantage their numbers could have brought. The Greeks then withdrew from that position and the Persians followed them, and the battle ensued.

  When the battle came, the disorganized Greeks proved the better soldiers, and the Persians were defeated. Mardonius simply did not have enough good quality infantry to oppose the Spartans in particular, and he was unable to make his cavalry the decisive weapon that he hoped they would be. The Persian defeat was complete and included the death of Mardonius himself. After the battle, the remnants of the Persian army marched back towards Asia Minor via the land route through Thrace, harried all the way by the Greeks.

  When considering mercenaries, the Persian Wars are very interesting. There appear to have been very few mercenaries fighting on the Greek side, and not huge numbers on the Persian side either, perhaps the Saka marines being the most numerous. Athens was perhaps the only city-state in the Greek alliance to employ mercenaries, and even then perhaps only 1,000 Cretan and Scythian archers, the latter of which were employed in a quasi-police role in Athens when not at war.11 The Scythians were obviously mercenaries, since there was no requirement for the nomads to send troops to Athens, but it seems the Cretans were too, given their official refusal to support resistance to Persia. Cretan archers were to become a major part of mercenary recruitment; Alexander consistently employed around 1,000 and they were to become common in the mercenary armies of the Hellenistic period.

  On the Persian side, we know of the Saka mercenaries who fought as marines at Salamis and presumably Artemisium, although this does seem a strange choice given that their homeland did not afford them opportunities to learn how to swim, with the fatal consequences that brought when their ships were sunk by the Greeks. We know of the central Asian mercenaries that were dismissed by Mardonius as soon as he was able, suggesting their lack of quality. The Persians did have numbers of Greek mercenaries from the mainland, but exactly how many is unknown, and they were not decisive in the battle and perhaps not significant in number. They also commanded contingents from the Ionian Greek cities of Asia Minor, although strictly these would have been fighting as allied troops supplied under duress by their home city-states rather than as mercenaries. The most important lesson we can learn from the Persian Wars, and it was a lesson not lost on successive Great Kings, was the primacy of Greek hoplites on the battlefield. It was evident that they were superior in quality to anything the Persians could put in the field, save for their own Greek mercenaries who were equipped with the same weapons and armour. At this time in history, heavy infantry were simply superior to the more lightly armed infantry of the Persians, and they were better able to withstand an infantry battle as a result. This is a trend that was eventually reversed by Alexander the Great, whose pezhetairoi were equipped rather like lightly armed peltasts and were more than capable of defeating more heavily armed infantry. Xerxes, however, saw the superiority of Greek heavy infantry, and future Persian kings sought to employ them as mercenaries in ever-increasing numbers.

  After Salamis and Plataea, it was far from certain that the Persians would not simply withdraw to friendly territory, rebuild their army and particularly their navy, and attempt another invasion when they were ready. There was great debate amongst the Greeks regarding what to do next, but ultimately it seems that the coalition sailed to Mycale, where they inflicted another crushing defeat on the surviving Persian forces.12 In 479, the Athenians were leading the counter-offensive against the Persians, and they were joined by the Spartans in the form of Pausanias in 478. Not long after this, however, the Spartans encountered significant problems in Asia Minor and they adopted a more insular posture, withdrawing from the coalition and into the Peloponnese. Athens, on the other hand, decided to carry on the war with Persia and formed a new alliance, the Delian League, an organization that was ultimately to become the Athenian Empire. The Athenians followed up the success at Plataea and Mycale with a major victory at Eurymedon in 469, although they suffered a major defeat while supporting an Egyptian revolt against Persia between 460 and 454.13

  During the period between the foundation of the Delian League and the Peloponnesian War, we have very few references to mercenary activity. The main evidence we have for their activity in this period is as hired supporters in rebellions against either Athenian rule or Athenian-backed governments. The rebellion on Samos is a prime example of this. 14 In 440/39 Samos and Miletus were both laying claim to Priene, and when Samos gained the upper hand, Miletus, with the help of some dissident Samians, appealed to Athens. Athens intervened directly on Samos, taking hostages, installing a garrison and setting up a democracy. The deposed Samians gained the support of Pissuthnes, satrap of Sardis, and gathered together a force of 700 mercenaries, overthrowing the democracy that had been recently installed by Athens, as well as capturing the leading democrats and the Athenian garrison. 15 Mercenaries were perfect for this kind of action, as they could be raised in appropriate numbers relatively quickly, and dismissed easily after the action was successful, or perhaps retained as a bodyguard to the reinstated oligarchs. We also have, scattered throughout the surviving sources, minor references to mercenary service in the Near East, and in the employ of native tyrants in the Crimea, but the turning point in terms of mercenary activity in the fifth century was the Peloponnesian War.

  Peloponnesian War

  In the fifth century, the mercenaries used by the Greek states were mostly specialists, e.g. Cretan archers, while for hoplites Athens and other states automatically relied on their own citizens. One feature of the Peloponnesian War, as we will see, was the growing realization that hoplites were not the best or most appropriate type of infantry in every situation.

  There is no question that the Peloponnesian War represented a shift in the nature of warfare in the ancient world. It was not only far longer than any previous conflict; it was also constant and more violent, and it ultimately changed the reliance among the Greeks upon the heavily armed hoplite. Not only did the Peloponnesian War represent a change in style but also a change in the use of mercenaries on the mainland. We saw during the early part of this chapter that the allied Greeks employed very few mercenaries during the Persian Wars. Before the Peloponnesian War, Greek mercenaries were largely employed outside of Greece, notably by Persia, Egypt and the Sicilian tyrants, but that quickly changed after the outbreak of hostilities.

  Sparta was the first amongst the protagonists to hire mercenary hoplites in any quantity. The Athenians did not do so in great numbers until the Sicilian expedition (the attempt by Athens and her allies to conquer Sicily, from 415 to 413), although they did hire mercenaries to sail in the fleet. There were three main reasons for this: strategy, finances and location.16 At the start of the war the Athenians realized that the Spartans were the stronger on land (how could they not?), and thus Pericles’ strategy during the opening years of the war was to avoid a land battle that they were far from certain to win, and to try to exploit their naval superiority. In some ways this was a sound strategy as it meant Athens was unlikely to lose the war, but was it a strategy that would bring victory? Perhaps so, but only by attrition.

  The second reason why Athens did not hire Greek mercenaries in numbers was the cost. Athens was wealthy, with a major annual income from the Athenian Empire, but its resources were not limitless.17 In the years since the end of the Persian Wars and the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, Pericles had undertaken a massive building programme, which resulted in the Parthenon and many other now famous buildings. Athens’ chosen strategy was also expensive. Manning, for exampl
e, 200 ships for a few months was remarkably expensive, and if they had attempted to do this for several years and still hired a mercenary land army it would have bankrupted them.

  The third reason was location. Due to the relative geographical positions of Athens and Sparta, Athens did not have easy or obvious access to the major recruiting grounds of Arcadia or Achaea, and thus recruiting large numbers of mercenary hoplites would have been difficult, even if it had been desirable. This point could also help explain the increasing reliance upon lightly armed Thracian peltasts later in the war.

  Pericles, quite reasonably given the strategy adopted by Athens, reasoned that any land forces that would be required could be supplied by citizen hoplites, or perhaps allied troops supplied by subject states, but given the reluctance to offer battle the numbers required would likely be small. For the Spartans, however, mercenary hoplites were vital. For some time the Spartans were reluctant to have large numbers of Spartiates campaigning a great distance from the Peloponnese, partly because of an innate reluctance and partly for fear of a helot revolt. Mercenaries could be employed for long periods on foreign campaigns, which Spartan citizens were not capable of undertaking themselves, for fear that the helots might revolt if they were away from the Peloponnese for too long.

  The first example we have of mercenaries being employed in this way during the war, on campaign at a distance, was not from Sparta, but from Corinth. Potidaea had rebelled from the Athenian league after sending representatives to Athens, Sparta and Corinth. The delegation in Athens entered negotiations with them, but they were protracted and fruitless. The Spartans, on the other hand, had offered to invade Attica if Potidaea rebelled and the Athenians moved against them. By this means, the Spartans hoped to pin the Athenian navy in Athens and allow Potidaea to leave the Athenian Empire without a fight. An Athenian fleet was dispatched to the Macedonia region before news of the Potidaean revolt arrived at Athens. When the fleet of thirty ships arrived, it was deemed too weak to attack Potidaea directly, so they resumed operations in Macedonia as per the original plan. Thucydides tells us: 18

  With Potidaea revolted and the Athenian ships off Macedonia, the Corinthians now feared for the place and saw this as a crisis which struck at their own interests. They therefore sent out a force of volunteers from Corinth itself and mercenaries from the rest of the Peloponnese, a total of sixteen hundred hoplites and four hundred light troops. In command was Aristeus . . .

  The formula ‘volunteers and mercenaries’ was to become common enough for campaigns conducted at a distance from the Peloponnese for the reasons noted above.

  The Athenians reinforced their troops in the north and began a siege of Potidaea. The Spartans, true to their word, invaded Attica (although not until 431), but this was not enough to persuade the Athenians to withdraw, and the siege dragged on. Over the winter of 430/29, the Potidaeans, the Corinthians and the mercenaries hired by that city were exhausted of their ability to resist any further, and sought terms with Athens. After a siege that cost the Athenians 2,000 talents, the generals at Potidaea agreed to terms with the defenders.19 The inhabitants, including the mercenaries, were allowed free passage out of the city with minimal possessions, and the Athenians sent colonists to occupy the city. The mercenary troops were disbanded after their failure to resist the Athenians. Exactly how many of the 2,000 troops sent by Corinth were mercenaries is not recorded, but their employment on these kinds of campaign was to become commonplace, as was their dismissal from service immediately after the campaign was concluded, either successfully or otherwise, as in this case.

  Brasidas’ expedition to the region of Chalcidice in the summer of 424 was recruited along similar lines to that of Aristeus noted above. 20 Brasidas raised a force comprising:21

  Seven hundred helots . . . to serve as hoplites. He hired the rest of his expeditionary force from the Peloponnese.

  Brasidas’ total force was 1,700 strong, 1,000 of which were mercenaries. Even at the start of the war, Sparta had not been wealthy, certainly not when compared to the economic might of Athens, but by 424 she was seriously lacking funds. This expeditionary force was not huge, but it still had to be paid for, and Sparta could not afford it. The cost, therefore, was born half by Perdiccas and half by the Chalcidean League. This was almost bound to lead to a situation in which Brasidas was, to an extent, compromised. He was not fully in a position to act in Spartan interests, but needed to keep his local paymasters happy lest they withdraw their support and his expeditionary force be disbanded through lack of funds. Brasidas needed to be a diplomat as well as a general, something Spartan generals overseas were not famed for.

  Brasidas campaigned in the Thraceward region from the summer of 424, and he almost immediately upset one of his paymasters. As soon as Brasidas arrived he was asked to accompany Perdiccas’ forces on a campaign against Arrhabaeus of Lyncestis. Brasidas agreed at first, but as the combined forces approached Lyncestis, Brasidas informed Perdiccas that he wished to proceed alone in the hope of bringing Arrhabaeus into independent alliance with Sparta. This was, of course, utterly unacceptable to Perdiccas as he had been eyeing territorial expansion rather than having another Spartan ally as a neighbour. Perdiccas refused to countenance such a proposal, although Brasidas went ahead and contacted Arrhabaeus anyway via envoys, and eventually came to some form of agreement that averted an invasion of Arrhabaeus territory. Perdiccas was less than happy and immediately reduced the maintenance payments he was making from half of the total cost of Brasidas’ mercenary army to one third.22 This did not have the feared consequence on Brasidas of having to disband parts of the army, although it is unclear how he made up the shortfall; perhaps payments from Arrhabaeus were part of the deal he struck. Brasidas’ actions on this occasion did, however, expand Sparta’s sphere of influence to Lyncestis without alienating Perdiccas too badly (i.e. without forcing him to withdraw support completely), and without any need for battle.

  Brasidas again proved the value of diplomacy, backed up by the threat of a mercenary army, later that summer at Acanthus. The city had made an alliance with Athens at some point before Brasidas’ arrival .23 The Spartan arrived in late summer 424 to find the gates barred against him. He was able to persuade the ruling council to allow him to speak to them and put forward the Spartan case. Thucydides records a lengthy and impassioned speech and noted that he ‘was not a bad speaker, for a Spartan.’24 The Acanthians listened intently to Brasidas and then debated his proposal. Their main fear, it seems, was the potentially hostile mercenary army outside of their gates and the potential damage they could do to the crops that were due for harvest. The debate likely came down to which was the bigger threat, the army outside the walls or the one some distance to the south in Attica. In a secret vote they elected to secede from the Athenian Empire and save their crops.

  In the winter of 424/3, after Brasidas had demonstrated that diplomacy backed by the threat of force could be just as effective as actual military action, the Spartan general moved to Amphipolis, the Athenian colony on the River Strymon. Brasidas’ diplomatic efforts preceded him here too. Not all of the inhabitants of Amphipolis were Athenian settlers; some were from the nearby town of Argilus, and these had resolved to betray the city to Brasidas. Historically, winter campaigns in Greece, particularly northern Greece, were not common, but that is one of the things the Peloponnesian War changed; not everyone was prepared for them, however. Brasidas advanced upon the city and caught them unawares and unprepared. The countryside fell into his hands with little loss of life, but the defenders inside the walls recovered fast enough to prevent the traitors from betraying the city to the Spartan. 25 Thucydides notes the possibility that the inner city could potentially have been taken too, but Brasidas preferred to allow his troops to plunder the surrounding area rather than push his advantage. Perhaps this was necessary to make up the deficit in wages once Pausanias cut his contributions.

  Eucles, the Athenian general, was stationed in Amphipolis at the time, and Thucyd
ides was in command of a small fleet of seven ships, and was stationed around half a day’s sail from Amphipolis at Thasos. 26 According to Thucydides, Brasidas feared his arrival, not because of the seven ships he commanded, but because of the many friends and the great influence he exerted in the region. Brasidas apparently believed that Thucydides had the ability to raise a significant force against him in a relatively short time, and that he therefore did not have the opportunity that time would have afforded him to besiege Amphipolis and attempt to take it by force.

  Brasidas again resolved, therefore, to attempt to capture the city by diplomatic means, and he sent messengers to the defenders inside the walls offering them terms. His offer was that: 27

  . . . any of the Amphipolitans or Athenians in the city who wished to stay could do so in possession of their property and retention of fair and equal rights; any who did not wish to stay could take their effects with them, but must leave within five days.

  The defenders, who had been initially resolved to resist Brasidas, were shaken by the generosity of this offer. Many of the defenders inside the walls had relatives who had been captured by Brasidas in the surrounding countryside, and they feared for their safety. They also feared the potential consequence to themselves of resistance, and the Athenians in particular were drawn by the opportunity to return to Athens safely with all of their possessions. During the public debate, those who had attempted to betray the city to Brasidas spoke up in his favour. One can only imagine how heated the debate would have been on both sides, but eventually a consensus was reached and the inhabitants agreed to Brasidas’ terms; thus Amphipolis became another city that fell by diplomacy to Brasidas’ mercenary army.