Unit Browser for RTR: Imperium Surrectum

Short description

These men used to be slaves, but they have been given a sniff of freedom and will grasp that chance with both hands - as much as their pike.

Description

Very much like other kings and generals who faced Rome, Mithridates VI of Pontos suffered from a shortage of manpower compared with the seemingly endless resources of his enemy. Hence, during his first war against Rome, in 86 BC, he resorted to a well-known strategy: to free slaves and recruit them as additional men, promising them permanent freedom and possibly land if they contributed to a victory. They made up for their lack of experience with their fervour, as Plutarch claims in his account of the Battle of Chaironeia in 86 BC: "Thereupon the infantry forces engaged, the Barbarians (Pontic troops) holding their pikes before them at full length, and endeavouring, by locking their shields together, to keep their line of battle intact; while the Romans threw down their javelins, drew their swords, and sought to dash the pikes aside, that they might get at their enemies as soon as possible, in the fury that possessed them. For they saw drawn up in front of the enemy fifteen thousand slaves, whom the king's generals had set free by proclamation in the cities and enrolled among the phalanx. And a certain Roman centurion is reported to have said that it was only at the Saturnalia, so far as he knew, that slaves participated in the general license. These men, however, owing to the depth and density of their array, and the unnatural courage with which they held their ground, were only slowly repulsed by the Roman legionaries; but at last the fiery bolts and the javelins which the Romans in the rear ranks plied unsparingly, threw them into confusion and drove them back." Plutarch, Life of Sulla, 18, 4-6

Armed as Macedonian phalangites, these freedmen decisively enlarge the Pontic army as to make it a force to be reckoned with.