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Short description

These Achaian Thorakitai are a flexible, heavier version of the Thureophoroi made up of foreign mercenaries.

Description

The Achaian Thorakitai are a flexible, heavier version of the Thureophoroi, made up of foreign mercenaries. Carrying a Thureos shield and javelins like the Thureophoroi, as well as swords for melee, this unit represents a powerful main line infantry force. The Thorakitai are protected by a combination of chainmail and reinforced linothorax armour.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Not much is known about the Thorakitai, but what we do know chiefly comes from the Histories of the Achaian cavalry officer Polybios of Megalopolis (ca. 200-118 BC). They appear at the end of the third century BC and are first mentioned in Polyb. IV, 12 among the forces of the Achaian League for 220 BC. How exactly they were armed and, in particular, armoured, has been the subject of a long debate. Frank W. Walbank, the greatest historian of Polybios, generally spoke of medium troops between the phalanx and the light infantry (Walbank, Commentary II, p. 239; 285), but refrained from speculating on their equipment. Anthony Snodgrass, another leading historian of antiquity, simply called them heavy troops (Snodgrass, Arms 1999, p. 121) and he is as much right as Walbank, because what we do know is that they were a heavier armed version of the Thureophoroi who fought alongside the phalanx, but as melee infantry.

Most scholars agree that they wore at least a metal breastplate (Bar-Kochva, Seleucid Army 1976, p. 146 only speaks of those). Some go as far as to claim that they were protected by a kind of Galatian chainmail shirt (Elliott, Romans at War 2020, p. 271), while yet others think they were lighter skirmishers, only distinguished by their breastplates (Anson, Hellenistic Land Warfare 2021, p. 52). It is impossible to find a conclusive answer to this problem, but we can try and analyse the passages in Polybios to see what the Achaian officer, who must have served together with soldiers designed as Thorakitai, tells us about them.

In Polyb. IV, 12, the Thorakitai are described as part of the Achaian army under Aratos of Sikyon (271-213 BC) that faced the Aitolians at Kaphyai in Arcadia in 220 BC. The Achaians were camped in the plain so that the Aitolian army decided to ascend a hill nearby to gain the advantage for a possible battle. While the Aitolians were still moving uphill, Aratos ordered his cavalry and light infantry to harass the troops on the back of the Aitolian army. It seemed as if they were successful in driving back the Aitolian Cavalry, so that Aratos ordered the Thorakitai from his wings to charge the enemy. However, the Aitolian horsemen had actually joined up with their remaining infantry on the slope and started a counter attack from above that routed the Achaian horsemen and skirmishers. The Thorakitai “kept arriving in no order and batches”, met their fleeing companions and began running away themselves. The Aitolians pushed on, and the disaster was complete.

Thus, we learn two things: 1) The Thorakitai were stationed on the wings, which makes sense as they were not part of the phalanx, and 2) they arrived in no order and in smaller units. Both together could be interpreted as them being skirmishers, as Anson 2021, 52 has done, but it could also mean flexible infantry units protecting the flanks of the phalanx like the Hypaspists had done for Alexander. Therefore, we shall move on to the next case.

Thirteen years later, the new Achaian long-term Strategos, Philopoimen of Megalopolis (253-183/182 BC), faced a Spartan army under the tyrant Machanidas at Mantineia and grouped the Thorakitai in his army together with his Illyrian mercenaries (Polyb. XI, 11, 4-5). During the battle, both together are overcome by the mercenaries of Machanidas (Polyb. XI, 14, 1). Later (15, 5), some of them reassembled and helped Philopoimen to win the battle. Finally, in an attack on a Parthian mountain fortress in Hyrcania, Antiochos III used Thorakitai together with Thureophoroi to assault the enemy’s position (Polyb. X, 29, 6; 30).

In my opinion, the Thorakitai here appear as a flexible infantry force that could operate in a variety of roles. It is impossible to say how exactly they were armed aside from obviously carrying a Thureos shield, javelins like the Thureophoroi, and probably swords for melee. The funerary steles for soldiers of the Seleucid garrison at Sidon from the end of the 3rd century, however, depict a few soldiers in heavy armour, probably chainmail, and from Ptolemaic Egypt we know a Cretan who served in the Thorakitai Epilektoi, by name an elite unit, from a Papyrus (P. Mich. inv. 6947). We should thus imagine the equipment of the Thorakitai as mixed: some will have only worn breastplates, others scale armour, and others chainmail shirts. The 8,000 standing mercenaries mentioned in the Achaian decree of 217 BC (Polyb. V, 91, 6) will have encompassed both the Thureophoroi and these Thorakitai.