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Short description

These Lycian Pseudo-Hoplites are renowned warriors, who have been using the Aspis shield since before the Trojan War.

Description

These men hail from Lycia, a landscape of stunning contrasts in south western Anatolia. Since the days of the Trojan War, they have been fighting with the Aspis shield, and at least since the early 4th century BC, they have been using the Hoplite formation. Experienced in battle and more mobile than traditional Hoplites, these Lycian foot soldiers are a useful asset for any Ptolemaic army. They can also be recruited as mercenaries by other factions.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Lycia was a region to the east of Caria in south western Anatolia, between the Indos river in the West and the coast north of the Rhodian colony of Phaselis in the East. It was a land of high, rough mountains and fertile alluvial plains, of fortified cities and flourishing rural settlements. The region is now famous for the graves of its nobles which were often carved into rocks, especially in Myra, and attract scores of tourists. In antiquity, its inhabitants called themselves trm̃mili (Termilai, e.g. TAM 1, 88; cf. Hdt. 7,92) and spoke a language related to Luwian, the dominant language of Anatolia in the 2nd millennium BC. Homer called them Λύκιοι (Lykioi). During the Trojan War, Sarpedon, the proud and renowned king of Lycia, marched to the aid of Troy and fought alongside Hektor. He was eventually cut down by Patroklos, who, in turn, was killed by Hektor (Hom. Il. 16.419-683). According to Homer, the Rhodians founded the colonies of Rhodiapolis, Gagai, Phaselis and Korydalla on their coast (Il. 13.310-314). In any case, there were connections with the Greek world from the earliest times. Although the Persians conquered Lycia in the late 6th century BC (Hdt. 1.176), its local dynasts took advantage of the Greek victory during the Graeco-Persian Wars and became allies of the Athenians (Bryce/Zahle, Lycians (1986), pp. 103-107). The rulers of Xanthos dominated the region and their monumental graves can nowadays be seen in the British Museum (surprise, surprise).

In the 370s BC, Perikles of Limyra challenged the supremacy of the Xanthians and declared himself king of Lycia, thereby causing the Great Lycian War. After besieging Telmessos and Phaselis, Perikles was able to secure half of the Lycian Peninsula. However, there is always a bigger fish! During the Great Satrap Revolt against the Great King of Persia (366-360 BC), both Perikles and the Xanthians failed to realise their goals and, when the revolt collapsed, were forced to accept the overlordship of Mausolos of Caria (r. 377-353 BC). The Oeconomica (Oikonomika), a work often ascribed to Aristotle, preserves a rather hilarious anecdote from this period: ‘Noticing that the Lycians were fond of wearing their hair long, Kondalos, a governor under Mausolos, pretended that a dispatch had come from the king of Persia ordering him to send hair to make false fringes and that he was therefore commanded by Mausolos to cut off their hair. He therefore said that, if they would pay him a fixed poll tax, he would send for hair to Greece. They gladly gave him what he asked, and a large sum of money was collected from a great number of them.’ (Ps.-Aristot. Oec. 1348a, l. 28-34)

After the end of the Hekatomnid dynasty in the late 4th century BC, Lycia passed first into the hands of Alexander and then those of the Ptolemaic kings, before it was conquered by the Seleucid king Antiochos III the Great in 197 BC (Keen, Dynastic Lycia (2018), p. 180). In the treaty of Apameia (188 BC), the Seleucids had to cede Lycia to Rhodes, but the Lycians violently resisted their new overlords (Polyb. XXIV, 14, 13; XXV, 5, 3). Already in the 180s BC, the Lycian Poleis formed a league with its own laws, council and assembly (Strab. 14.3.3.; SEG 18.570), which remained autonomous until 43 AD, at which point it was incorporated into the province of Lycia by emperor Claudius. Yet, the Lycian League continued to exercise political, religious, economic and ceremonial functions until at least the 3rd century AD, possibly the 7th (Zimmermann, Martin, s.v. Lykioi, Lykia, in: DNP online).

Homer already describes the Lycians as Aspistai, 'shield-fighters' (Il. 16.490) and they do indeed appear as wearing the Aspis shields of the Greek Hoplites on their own monuments. Both on the Nereid monument of Arbinas (Lycian: Erbbina) of Xanthos (erected ca. 390 BC, now in the British Museum) as well as on the Mausoleum of Perikles of Limyra (built ca. 370-350 BC, now in the Antalya Museum) the Lycian infantry wears the round Aspis shields, crested Phrygian and Chalcidian helmets, as well as short sleeved chiton tunics. Most of them are fitted with light Linothorakes and it is implied that they fought with the dory, the Hoplite spear, since they are portrayed in a phalanx. Finally, their secondary weapon would have been the Xiphos sword. Some of these soldiers may have been Greeks who had started emigrating to Lycia in sizeable numbers in the late 5th century BC (though the Hellenic cultural impact in Lycia never quite reached the levels it hit in neighbouring Caria; cf. Vlassopoulos, Greeks and Barbarians (2013), pp. 256-257), but the reference in the Iliad shows that many Lycians already fought as Pseudo-Hoplites well before the Greeks had invented the phalanx.

Since the Ptolemaic dynasty controlled Lycia for most of the Hellenistic period, Lycian soldiers naturally appear in their service. Lycian mercenaries formed part of the garrison in Aspendos in Pisidia (or Pamphylia, whomever you ask) in 301-298 BC (SEG 17.39) and some of them later settled in other parts of the kingdom: under Ptolemy VIII Physkon (“the fatso”, 184-116 BC), clubs of Lycian soldiers are attested on Cyprus (OGIS I, 146; 147; 162). In fact, they had been popular mercenaries since the Bronze Age when Lukka appear in the Hittite army at the famous Battle of Kadesh (Kuhrt, Amélie, The Ancient Near East (1995), p. 388) and were deployed by Eumenes of Kardia (Diod. XVIII, 61, 4-5), Antigonos Monophtalmos (Diod. XIX, 29, 3; 69, 1; 82, 4) and Lysimachos (Diod. XX, 113, 3; Polyaen. 4.12.1; cf. Griffith, Mercenaries of the Hellenistic World (1935), p. 334). Therefore, Lycians may have been used as garrison troops in many Ptolemaic settlements across Asia Minor and the Aegean.