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Even the Athenians have to admit, after all, that the Macedonian way of wars has its advantages, and thus arm their noble citizens as deadly lancers.

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Even the Athenians have to admit, after all, that the Macedonian way of wars has its advantages, and thus arm their noble citizens as deadly lancers. The Hippeis, reformed into Xystophoroi, thrusting underarm with a long spear or lance called xystos, fulfilled a variety of roles. Even when counting only 500 men, as they likely did in 270 BC, they were a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:

In the classical period, Athens kept a permanent cavalry force of around 1000 men (for the evidence see: Bugh, Horsemen of Athens 1988, p. 39 seq.). After the defeat at Chaironeia in 338 BC and the final end of the city’s imperial ambitions, this large force could not be supported anymore as the grain supply for the horses alone cost 40 talents a year, equivalent to the upkeep of 40 trieres. Hence, under the rule of Demetrios Poliorketes and in the first years after the expulsion of the Macedonian garrison with Ptolemaic help in 287 BC, the Athenian cavalry numbered only 200 men.

For a long time, historians assumed that from the end of the 4th century, military service ceased to be mandatory. The Athenians would have relied solely on voluntary fighters during the Hellenistic period, for instance the Epilektoi Hoplites who called themselves ethelontai (=volunteers) on an inscription from 302 BC (Inv. EM 12749). However, this was definitely not true for the cavalry, as an inscription as late as 188/187 BC mentions the katalogeis, the officers responsible for selecting those who had to fight in the cavalry ((SEG XXI, 435). While Bugh 1988, p. 186 notes that some Hippeis were the sons of propertied families with legitimate equestrian traditions who would sign up for cavalry service on their own, others apparently had to be drafted. As the inscription shows, they were picked tribe by tribe, though by 188/187 BC their number had been increased from 10 to 12, with the Ptolemais and the Attalis sponsored by the respective Eastern kings.

In the year 282/281 BC, the rulers of Athens passed a reform of their mounted forces, thereby enlarging the Hippeis regiment from 200 to 300 men (Threpsiades-Vanderpool, p. 104, line 7-10). This decision was probably a reaction to ongoing Macedonian threats after the liberation of the city in 287 BC, with the Peiraeus remaining in Antigonid hands. Only three years later, at the Battle of Thermopylai against Brennus' Celts who were invading Greece, we find 1500 Athenians (Paus. X, 20, 5). While the 1000 Hoplites will have been the Epilektoi as per IG II² 680, it is significant to note that the size of the Athenian cavalry seems to have increased from 300 to 500 men. Was this an emergency levy in the face of a 'Barbarian' force that was plotting the "destruction of Greece", as the Alexandrinian poet Kallimachos of Kyrene put it in his work Galateia? There is no conclusive answer to this, but Bugh 1988, p. 188/189 rightly points out that the Athenians had reclaimed Lemnos after the defeat of Lysimachos in 281 and probably recruited new cavalrymen to assist the re-establishment of Athenian rule on the island. Some of the 200 additional horsemen, then, will have been Athenian cleruchs now stationed on Lemnos, while others may even have been pro-Athenian Lemnians.

It is highly unlikely that Athens reduced this number before or during the Chremonidean War it waged against Macedonian dominance in Hellas during the years 267-261 BC. After its defeat, however, it had to accept the harsh conditions imposed by the victor Antigonos II Gonatas and after 261 BC, we never find more than 200 Athenian horsemen mentioned anywhere (Bugh 1988, p. 189 seq.). As in earlier periods, when it was discussed by Xenophon (Xen. Hipparchikos I, 22-23), the Hippeis will have been members of the nobility and armed themselves accordingly – different from the Prodromoi, who received their equipment from the state. This just leaves the question how the Athenian Hippeis were equipped during the Hellenistic period. The written and epigraphic sources are completely silent in this regard, but luckily a relief from this time period (Head 236) shows a rider with a Boiotian helmet, thrusting underarm with a long spear or lance, probably a xystos. Just like many other Greek states, the Athenians must thus have copied the Xystophoroi of Alexander the Great after the stunning victories of the Macedonian king and his successors.

A force of, for most of the period, not more than 200 horsemen was obviously not big enough to play a decisive role in a large scale pitched battle. Instead, the xystos armed Hippeis were primarily used to patrol and defend the long borders of Attica and to keep a watchful eye on the slaves in the silver mines of Laureion who even started a slave rebellion in 98/97 BC. Since they were trusted citizens, they were furthermore not only responsible for keeping communication and supply lines between the big forts at Eleusis, Panakton, Phyle, Sounion, Rhamnous and the Peiraeus open, but also observed the loyalty of the mercenaries who were stationed in these fortresses alongside ephebes and citizen soldiers. The Hippeis thus fulfilled a variety of roles and when counting 500 men, as they likely did in 270 BC, they were even a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.