Mercenaries in the Classical World- To the Death of Alexander

by Stephen English

  Brasidas’ willingness and ability to use diplomacy as his main strategy was paying dividends for Sparta. Thucydides tells us:28

  When the cities subject to Athens heard of his taking of Amphipolis, of the offer he had made, and of the mild disposition of the man himself, they were more than ever excited by the prospect of revolt, and began secret negotiations with him, inviting him to come and help them, each of them keen to be the first to defect.

  While Brasidas was extending the reach of the Spartans, Athens sent extra garrisons to those cities that remained loyal (or were wavering), as best they could in the winter anyway. Brasidas also sent messengers to Sparta asking for reinforcements; this request was refused because of:29

  . . . jealousy of their leading men, and also the greater desire to recover their men taken prisoner on the island and to bring an end to the war.

  The Spartan rejection did not dim Brasidas’ desire for territorial expansion, and in the winter of 424/3 he first began constructing a fleet at the mouth of the Strymon. When work was underway on this he began a minor campaign in the Acte peninsula (the location of Mount Athos), where most towns came over to him willingly; those that did not had their land ravaged by his mercenaries. Brasidas also campaigned against Torone, where there were again dissidents inside who were prepared to surrender the city to him. They were few in number and evidently incapable of achieving this goal themselves, however. Brasidas sent seven volunteers, lightly armed and in disguise, into the city to help break open one of the postern gates. At this, some of the mercenary peltasts entered the city and forced yet more gates open. This led to a general assault on the populace and apparently the Athenian garrison of fifty hoplites, both of whom were taken completely by surprise. Some of the Athenians were killed in the confusion, but the majority, along with some civilians, escaped in two triremes to the nearby fortress of Lecythus, located on a headland connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. 30 Brasidas then offered the civilians safe passage and the restoration of their positions if they returned, and demanded the surrender of the Athenians, who refused. Two days later, after a brief truce for the Athenians to recover their dead, Brasidas began his assault. With the aid of some kind of flame-throwing device, Brasidas captured the citadel quickly and many of the defending Athenians were killed. After an active winter campaign, he spent what remained consolidating his gains and awaiting spring.

  When the spring of 423 arrived, Brasidas was prepared to continue his activities in winning over former Athenian territory, but he was prevented from doing so by a one-year treaty signed by Athens and Sparta. Thucydides tells us: 31

  The Athenian thinking was that this would prevent Brasidas securing any further defections among their allies before they had time for counter-measures: and, if the circumstances were right, they could make a more general agreement. The Spartans had accurately identified the Athenians’ fears, and thought that a period of relief from setbacks and pressure would make them more inclined to try for reconciliation and, with the return of the Spartan captives, a longer-lasting peace.

  This is the first indication we have that the Athenians were really interested in a long-term peace, although we do have earlier references that the Spartans were.32 Although this peace was now in Brasidas’ interests, it does appear to have been in the interests of both Athens and Sparta and may well have been the beginnings of what could have been a genuine attempt to end the war.

  Brasidas’ efforts in the Thraceward region demonstrated that even a small mercenary army of less than 2,000 troops could be very effective when backed by sound diplomacy. He also demonstrated that it need not necessarily cost the home state anything at all, given that the cost was borne by local allies and through the acquisition of booty at various points. It would have been interesting to see how Brasidas’ mercenaries would have fared if seriously opposed by a body of Athenian hoplites.

  On the Athenian side, the first evidence we have for the use of mercenaries during the Peloponnesian War is on the ill-fated Sicilian expedition of 415. Along with the contingent from Athens, there were ‘250 Mantinean and other mercenaries’ as well as allied units from Argos, Crete, Rhodes, Megara and other allied states. 33 Reinforcements of allied and mercenary troops were sent to the Sicilians from Corinth in 413. These mercenaries were again from Arcadia, but their numbers were unspecified. 34 Thucydides admits that some of the allied troops were motivated by the prospect of gain alongside their obligations under the alliance with Athens, but it was the mercenaries alone who fought only for financial gain; for example, at the outset of the Sicilian expedition: 35

  The older men looked forward to conquest at their destination, or at least no reversal for such a large armament; the young men of military age longed for foreign travel and the sights abroad, quite confident of a safe return; and the general mass of troops saw immediate pay and the prospect of further resources to fund a lifetime of public benefits.

  We cannot tell what these mercenaries did to aid the Athenian cause, as they are not mentioned in any of the battle narratives or sieges of the whole expedition. We can reasonably infer, therefore, that they were of little military importance to Athens. This would be supported by their small numbers. The important thing about these mercenaries, as already noted, is that they were the first of what was to become an increasing trend in mercenary usage by Athens.

  After the disaster of the Sicilian expedition, Athens was on the back foot. If Sparta truly wanted to end the war that would have been an opportune moment, but, as so often when one side believes it has the upper hand, they chose that moment, in 413, to declare war again on the Athenians and to press their advantage. So began the Ionian War, essentially the second phase of the Peloponnesian War.

  Although this phase of the war began with a Spartan invasion of Attica and occupation of Decelea, the Ionian War was characterized largely by naval action and the employment of mercenaries in that sphere. Mercenaries do not appear at all on the Athenian side on land for the remainder of the war; their overall usage of land-based mercenaries for the whole of the Peloponnesian War was surprisingly limited to those employed on the Sicilian expedition, and the reinforcements to that expedition. We do have an interesting passage of Thucydides here about some mercenaries that arrived too late to go to Sicily:36

  In this same summer thirteen hundred Thracian Peltasts arrived at Athens from the dagger-carrying tribe known as the Dians. They had been due to sail with Demosthenes to Sicily, but had come too late, and the Athenians decided to send them back to where they came from in Thrace. They thought it too expensive to retain them (each earned a drachma a day) in view of the hostilities from Decelea.

  During this phase of the war, the Athenians relied heavily on their fleet, but they did not have the manpower, either in citizens or slaves, to fully man the ships. Mercenaries were employed in significant numbers to make up the shortfall.

  Athens was not as wealthy in 413 as she had been in 431, at the start of the war. Both the length and the cost of the war could not have been predicted by Pericles or anyone else when hostilities began. This meant that she could pay no more than the going rate for her mercenary sailors. Sparta was backed by Persian gold by this point and spent several years hiring mercenary sailors at a higher rate of pay than the Athenians were capable of paying, in an attempt to ferment rebellion amongst the Athenian fleet.

  As mentioned, mercenaries switching allegiance from one side to another was a rare occurrence. If they were to engage in such treachery on a regular basis, employers would lose trust in them and their employment prospects would decline rapidly. One of the few instances of this occurring was in 412 when a Peloponnesian fleet assisted with the suppression of a rebellion from Persian rule in Asia Minor. Amorges, an opponent of Tissaphernes, the Persian satrap, had taken up a position at Iasus, aided by the citizens and an unspecified number of Peloponnesian mercenaries. The Peloponnesian fleet was mistaken for their Athenian counterparts and was allowed to land. Immediately upon doing so
, the Spartans attacked, captured Amorges and handed him (and the town) over to Tissaphernes. The Spartans then plundered the town and appropriated large quantities of booty, as the area was traditionally wealthy. Of Amorges’ mercenaries, the Spartans:

  . . . did no harm to the mercenaries of Amorges, but took them over and conscripted them into their own ranks, since most of them came from the Peloponnese. 37

  Although the Peloponnesian War represented a major change in the nature of warfare in Greece, and it certainly represented a rise in the use of mercenary forces on the mainland, their overall use was still very limited. We have seen that the Athenians only employed mercenary land forces for the Sicilian expedition, and even there, only as a very small percentage of the total troops assigned to that campaign. Proposals were made, as noted in an earlier chapter, to employ a mercenary land army paid for from pillage, but these were never more than proposals, ultimately unpopular ones at that. The Spartans did make greater use of land-based mercenaries, particularly on campaigns such as the one commanded by Brasidas in Thrace. This was ultimately very successful and cost Sparta little in terms of financial outlay. But even given this success, the Peloponnesians preferred to rely largely on allied troops to accompany the Spartan land armies. The reason was probably nothing more sinister than the Spartans having access to enough allied troops to man their armies without resorting to mercenaries. The only area where mercenaries were indispensible during the war was in the Athenian fleet, and even here they proved ultimately unsuccessful, given Athens’ defeat in the war. However small an impact they had in the Peloponnesian War, their usage did increase rapidly into the fourth century and beyond.

  The end of the Peloponnesian War saw large numbers of men released onto the streets of the various city-states with no other way to make a living than through force of arms. Although very few of these men would have served as mercenaries, we must not forget that large numbers of allied troops fought for both Athens and Sparta. Some of these men would have served for long periods, with the result that they were simply accustomed to earning their living in exactly the same way a mercenary would, through force of arms. The war was long enough that some may not have known any other life.

  Some of these unemployed soldiers found work in 403 with both the oligarchs and democrats in Athens. During the rule of the Thirty in Athens, an appeal was made to Sparta by these tyrants for protection from the Athenian citizens. Lysander arranged for a loan of 100 talents, which were to be used to hire Peloponnesian hoplites.38 The democrats in Athens were also supported with around 300 mercenaries. The democracy was finally permanently restored in 401 as news arrived that the oligarchs were again trying to raise mercenary soldiers in Eleusis. Although the details of the restoration of the democracy are not important here, it should be noted that at the very end of the fifth century Athens’ internal political difficulties were an opportunity for employment to some of the mercenaries who survived the Peloponnesian War.39

  Chapter 4

  The Ten Thousand

  There is no question that when Cyrus resolved to raise a mercenary army at the end of the fifth century to challenge his brother, Artaxerxes II, for the Persian throne, he changed the face of mercenary service until the Roman conquest. Mercenary activity had existed both during the Archaic period and throughout the fifth century, but mercenary armies and their activities tended to be limited in scope and size. Cyrus’ army was the largest of its type, perhaps around the same size as the total force Athens had sent to Sicily, although of course only a very small proportion of the latter forces were mercenaries. The 10,000 were hired for a specific purpose, even though the individual mercenaries were unaware of what that was when they were hired. After the death of their paymaster and the loss of many of their commanders, they were also to become the first roving band of mercenaries.

  The creation of the army was not a simple process, and was complicated by the fact that Cyrus did not want anyone–specifically anyone in Persia–to know its true purpose. In order to maintain the charade, the mercenaries themselves were also not told the truth about the overall strategic objective of the planned campaign. In order to maintain the secrecy, the army was recruited in different locations as a number of smaller armies, with none of them being told about the others.

  The mercenary army of Cyrus did not come out of nothing, of course. Cyrus already commanded a number of mercenaries on garrison duty in the cities for which he was satrap in Asia Minor. He also had with him a personal bodyguard of 300 Arcadian hoplites since at least the year 405.1

  The first contingent of any significant size was raised in the Chersonese. Xenophon tells us:

  Clearchus was a Lacedaemonian exile; Cyrus, making his acquaintance, came to admire him, and gave him ten thousand darics. And Clearchus, taking the gold, collected an army by means of this money, and using the Chersonese as a base of operations, proceeded to make war upon the Thracians who dwell beyond the Hellespont, thereby aiding the Greeks. Consequently, the Hellespontine cities of their own free will sent Clearchus contributions of money for the support of his troops. So it was that this army also was being secretly maintained for Cyrus.

  The sum of 10,000 darics would equate to around six months’ salary for the 2,000 troops that Clearchus raised. Campaigning against the Thracians with these mercenaries was more than likely an attempt to hide the true goal of these mercenaries, rather than a real and concerted effort to conquer this region.

  The next army to be raised was commanded by Aristippus in Larissa. Aristippus appears to have been attempting some kind of oligarchic coup and requested assistance from Cyrus of 2,000 troops and three months’ pay. Cyrus, seeing an opportunity, instead sent 4,000 mercenaries and six months’ pay to Aristippus. A significant mercenary army in Thessaly at this time would not have raised any eyebrows in Persia and was an excellent place to ‘hide’ 4,000 troops. When the time came to send the troops to Persia, Aristippus only sent 1,000 hoplites and 500 peltasts under the command of Menon.2 What happened to the rest of the troops, and to Cyrus’ money, is unknown. Perhaps Aristippus, knowing that Cyrus’ attentions would not be on him, decided to retain the greater part of the army he was sent in order to strengthen his own position in Thessaly.3

  Cyrus also sent enough money to the Theban, Proxenus, to raise an army of 2,000, mostly hoplites. These were stationed in southwest Asia Minor with the stated intention of launching an offensive against Pisidia, in southwest Asia Minor, a region the Persians never fully controlled and an area that Cyrus quite reasonably might wish to conquer. They also had the advantage of already being in Asia, and so were easy to divert to a given location at a specified time.

  The final two armies were both also raised in Asia Minor, but were small and thus would avoid attention. Socrates the Achaean raised 500 hoplites and Sophaenetus raised a body of 1,000 hoplites. Both forces were raised with the intention of ensuring Tissaphernes did not regain his former satrapy, which would have meant a loss of territory for Cyrus. This was again, of course, another perfectly plausible reason to raise a force of mercenaries.

  Along with these major areas of recruitment, Cyrus gathered together small numbers of mercenaries from other sources as and where he could, including 400 deserters from Artaxerxes’ army. The final–and one of the most intriguing–elements of the mercenary army, was a force of 700 hoplites commanded by a Spartan named Cheirisophus. Xenophon gives little indication of why the Peloponnesians would send a valuable body of 700 hoplites to the Near East, saying only that they were ‘sent for by Cyrus.’4 Diodorus, however, sheds more light on them; he tells us that Cyrus essentially activated an alliance with Sparta, and these men, along with twenty-five triremes, were put at his disposal as a result.5 These Peloponnesians were not, therefore, mercenaries, but allies. For the purposes of the campaign, the distinction would hardly have mattered to those involved.

  The campaign culminating at Cunaxa (in 401) will forever be remembered for the 10,000 Greek mercenaries, but we must not forg
et that they were not the only troops commanded by Cyrus; they were not even the majority of troops at his disposal. While the recruiting was underway in various parts of Greece and Asia Minor, Cyrus had mustered his own native troops, as well as some of the mercenaries he had at his command. He had taken up a position at Sardis, ideally suited to maintain the pretence of being about to launch a campaign against the Pisidians, and to keep Tissaphernes in check. He had at his disposal something in the region of 35,000 oriental infantry under the command of a Persian general, Ariaeus. On top of the infantry were 3,200 cavalry, of which 600 can be considered to have been of superior quality, comprising, as they did, Cyrus’ personal guard. Before mustering his own forces, he sent a summons to his mercenary commanders for them to meet him at various prearranged rendezvous along his proposed route. Some of them were instructed to meet Cyrus at Sardis, and Xenias, Proxenus, Sophaenetus, Socrates and Pasion met him over a period of some days. The last of these mercenary commanders is something of a mystery; we know little about where he had been stationed, and only that he brought 300 hoplites and 300 peltasts.6

  Once the mercenary contingents had gathered at Sardis, they maintained the organizational structures that they previously had. Their commanders remained in position and would have become the senior commanders on the expedition, along with selected Persian generals. The mercenary divisions were divided into lochoi of varying sizes. Menon’s troops, for example, were divided into lochoi of 50 troops, whilst most of the other mercenary contingents were divided into lochoi of 100 men each.7 With regard to the light troops, they were divided into taxeis and commanded by a taxiarch, but we have little other detail than that.