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Short description

These mobile, javelin-wielding cavalry are protected by a classic Galatian thureos shield.

Description

These mobile, javelin-wielding cavalry are protected by a classic Galatian thureos shield, while some additionally wear light armour and helmets. The Thureophoroi Cavalry were skilled riders, who could pepper the enemy from a distance or charge at unarmoured infantry with their spears.

This versatile cavalry made up of Greeks and Galatians offers a new alternative for the commanders of Seleucid, Antigonid and Bosporan armies. They were also popular mercenaries, because they are well protected from missiles with their big shields, and can fight in melee with their spears after throwing their javelins.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The broad, oval shield of the Celts was called θυρεός (thyreos or thureos) by the ancient Greeks. When the Celts started moving into Italy and on to the Balkans, the victims of their raids saw the advantages of the design, and thus it had become gradually adopted by Italics, Northern Illyrians and Thracians by the early 3rd century BC (StipĊević, Illyrians 1977, p. 174). The various polities on the Greek peninsula also quickly appreciated its use when they faced the thureos in combat against Thracians or Illyrians and, from the 280s, the Galatians themselves. They later called light Hoplites armed with this shield Thureophoroi – ‘thureos bearers’. Despite this integration into the Greek military, the thureos remained one of the defining symbols of Celts: both in Pergamene art and on the grave stelae of common men, who had fallen in battle against the invaders, the Galatians were always portrayed wearing a thureos. Even if they were depicted completely naked, they would still carry a thureos (Kistler, Keltenbilder 2009)!

The most famous depiction of a Galatian thureos rider appears on a now lost bronze plate from Pergamon that arguably portrays the Battle of Magnesia (it can be found in the corresponding Wikipedia article). In the centre of the battlefield, a Galatian horseman rushes out of the Seleucid line, protecting his left flank with his thureos and raising his right hand to throw a javelin towards his Roman, Pergamene and Achaian enemies. It shows that these cavalrymen were skilled riders who could pepper the enemy from a distance or charge at unarmoured infantry with their spears.

Thureophoroi Cavalry first appears in Greek service in 277/276 BC under Ptolemaios, son of (the diadoch?) Lysimachos (361/360-281 BC), who seems to have been on the Macedonian throne for a few months or weeks after the Galatian invasion of the kingdom that had cost the earlier usurper king Ptolemaios Keraunos (320/319 - 279 BC), the murderer of Seleukos I (358-281 BC), his life. The horsemen dedicated a small treasure to their king in the sanctuary of Apollo on Delos and called themselves Thureos bearers (ID, 1417, face A, col. I, ll. 24–25; Juhel at Hellenistic Warfare Conference, Valencia 2005). They probably included Galatian mercenaries, but over time, more and more Greek cavalrymen fought with the oval shield, especially in the Seleucid Empire (Nefedkin, Cavalry shields 2005, p. 10). Some former Seleucid cities or neighbouring Poleis also followed the role model. Thus, Livy reports that Alabanda in Caria sent 300 Thureophoroi Hippeis to its ally Rome in 170 BC (Liv. XIII, 6, 6). In the Bosporan Kingdom, they are attested on the Stela of Straton, son of Protomachos (second century BC, fig. 688 Kieseritzky) and on the Stela of Charixenos, son of Apphos (first century BC, fig. 591 Kieseritzky) and were therefore probably introduced a bit later than in the Seleucid Kingdom.

Last but not least, two gems show Thureophoroi horsemen as mercenaries in Roman service. The Roman carnelian gem from the Kestner Museum in Hannover (Inv. K 1646) dates to the early 1st century BC, while a gem from Munich is from the Augustan period (Sekunda, Thureophoroi Cavalry 2006, pp. 16-17). Sekunda thinks the riders are Thracians, because these generally used Thureos shields, as is shown by a second century stela from Abdera. However, this is mere speculation: they can just as well have been Galatians or Greeks.

Thureophoroi Cavalry in Greek service is depicted on two cameos, one in Florence and one in the British Museum, and on terracotta figurines from Palestine and Tarsos in Cilicia (Nefedkin 2005, 9). The Palestine rider (From El Bine, now in the Musée Historique de Berne under No. 26491) is wearing a cucullus, a long, Celtic coat; the Tarsos horsemen (Bienkowski, Celtes 1928, Fig. 192) had pink trousers – this shows that Galatians still fought in their own equipment in these units in the 2nd century BC – both probably served the Seleucids. The Florence gem, on the other hand, clearly depicts a Greek in a coat, armed with a spear and without helmet or armour. Other riders were probably equipped with lighter body armour such as the versatile Linothorakes, and various helmets.";