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Short description

Phrygian spearmen are a levy from the ancient land of Phrygia. They suck in attack and defence, but at least their shoes are decent.

Description

These men are warriors from Phrygia, the largest region of Asia Minor. Once a mighty kingdom with famous kings such as Gordios, who gave his name to the Gordian knot, and Midas, who turned everything he touched into gold, it has long since fallen from grace. Its cities are deserted, its population scattered over the wide land, its political authorities long forgotten. The kings of Syria from the family of Seleukos rule some of its towns, while the alien Galatians have occupied large areas in the west. The Phrygians themselves have become slaves, and with their freedom they have lost their military traditions and their courage. These spearmen are all that is left. Clad in long-sleeved tunics and trousers, and poorly equipped with small round and crescent wicker shields as well as spears, they can scarcely mount an effective attack. Since most only wear Phrygian hats of leather or fur, with actual Phrygian helmets being the exception, they can also not hold out very long against an enemy attack. The only thing of quality on them are their high shoes, which befit a dinner rather than a fight, however.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

At the beginning of the 1st millenium BC, Phrygia was one of the most developed regions in the world, with an ancient and sophisticated civilisation. The early Greeks located great kings such as Gordios or Midas in this region and saw its inhabitants as rich, wise, and mighty (cf. Hdt. 1.14.2-3). They had probably immigrated from Thrace in the 9th century BC and founded a kingdom around Gordion on the Sangarios, which had rapidly expanded. By the 8th century, it stretched from Daskyleion on the Hellespont in the west to Tyana in Cappadocia in the east (Olshausen, s.v. Phryges, Phrygia, in: DNP). Yet, by the Hellenistic period, this Phrygia had all but disappeared, leaving a post-literate, post-urban society behind (Thonemann, Phrygia: an anarchist history, in: id. (ed.), Roman Phrygia (2013, p. 8). What had happened?

Phrygia's downfall began in the early 7th century BC, when the nomad Kimmerians overran the kingdom (Strab. 1.3.21). The demise of central power initially did not undermine the strength of Phrygian culture, society and religion, however. Their veneration of the mother goddess Kybele even spread to neighbouring peoples, with the temple of Pessinous becoming a popular destination for pilgrims from all over the world. The Kimmerians soon dispersed again and the Lydians, eventually ruled by the famous king Kroisos, took over. The Phrygians profited from his rule, as the findings of ivory and bronze pieces, gigantic buildings and musical instruments prove (Olshausen, Phryges). But when Kroisos was defeated by Kyros the Great of Persia in 547 BC, things began to change. Some settlements were abandoned almost immediately after the Achaemenid invasion, and the monumental culture of Phrygian cities disappeared under the Persians (Thonemann (2013), p. 11). The decline continued after Alexander the Great conquered the now separated provinces of northern and southern Phrygia in 333 BC. Like many other languages in Western Anatolia, Phrygian stood no chance against the new lingua franca, Greek, and the remaining cities shrunk even further (Thonemann (2013), p. 13). Other local cultures seemingly fared much better, though. The Carians and Lycians did not only survive the Persian and Macedonian conquest, but their societies even became more stratified and more monumental (Thonemann (2013), p. 14). Furthermore, both peoples eventually formed new leagues in the Hellenistic period, which were built on common roots, beliefs and language and could mobilise substantial military forces (Lycian League: Strab. 14,3,3; Jameson, The Lycian League, in: ANRW 7,2 (1980); Mastrocinque, La Caria e la Ionia meridionale in epoca ellenistica, 1979).

How can we explain this discrepancy? The only possible explanation seems to be tax evasion. The Phrygians intentionally retreated from the cities and simplified their societies in order to escape Achaemenid tax collectors, who would always prefer visiting one major town over dozens of scattered villages. The Seleucids especially planted katoikiai, military colonies, in Phrygia to re-urbanised the area, but by differentiating urban Greeks and Macedonians and non-urban Phrygians, they did little to bring back the Phrygians themselves (Thonemann (2013), pp. 14-15). Their cultural identity, through the temple state of Pessinous and the cult of Kybele, remained, and it would take until ca. 150 BC for the first Galatian to be admitted into the brotherhood of Pessinous (IPessin. 2). But aside from the priests, the political power of Phrygia, its urban economy, and its military prowess had disappeared forever.

How the Phrygians fought we know from a few sources. We shall start with a quote by Herodotus, in the early Persian period of Phrygian history:

"The Paphlagonians went to the war with plaited helmets upon their heads, and carrying small shields and spears of no great size. They had also javelins and daggers, and wore on their feet the buskin of their country, which reached half way up the shank. (...) The dress of the Phrygians closely resembled the Paphlagonian, only in a very few points differing from it." (Hdt. 7.72-73)

Our Phrygian spearmen thus resemble the Paphlagonian units in some aspects. The small, pelte-like wicker shields, plaited helmets (here interpreted as Phrygian caps and Phrygian helmets, since we are talking about Phrygia, after all) and the long buskins on their feet are all being represented, with the clothes also being fairly similar. A 3rd-1st century statue of a Phrygian found on Cyprus (Louvre AM 175bis) has a long-sleeved, quilted tunic, which completes the attire. After the loss of Phrygian independence, these warriors, already rather poorly equipped, apparently became pretty useless. In the summer of 90 BC, Lucius Cassius, governor of the province of Asia, was tasked by the senate to restore Nikomedes IV of Bithynia to his throne. For this purpose, he levied a force of Galatians and Phrygians, which shows how closely connected they had become by this time (App. Mithr. 11). It is likely that Phrygians will have been enlisted as local levies in the Galatian armies ever since the arrival of the Celts in Asia, since they were far more numerous than the newcomers, but lacked political organisation. To keep them disjointed, the Galatians would not have given them better weapons than what they had, and the Romans later seemingly did the same. As we learn from Appian's account (Mithr. 19), Cassius' Phrygian levy achieved nothing in the first confrontations with Mithridates VI of Pontos and the Romans (or the Alexandrine author) judged the Phrygians to be "unwarlike" and "worthless". Yet, due to their great numbers, Phrygians continued to be recruited, and they appear in the Pontic army of the general Archelaos in Boiotia (App. Mithr. 41) and in Pompey's army at Pharsalos (as allies, App. Bell. Civ. 2.71). No one ever claimed they were brave or useful, though. Even their slaves had a reputation for being lazy, hence the saying: "A beaten Phrygian man is better and more serviceable" (Corpus paroemiographorum graecorum 1:376). So, if the Phrygians are all you have access to, or all you can afford, recruit them. But if you have any other options, by any means avoid them. Their time is over – there are better soldiers out there.