Unit Browser for RTR: Imperium Surrectum

Short description

Equipped with the simplest of missile weapons, the Akontistai are used to harrass the flanks and rear of enemy infantry formations.

Description

Akontistai were recruited from both the poorer, hilly areas of Greece, the poorer classes of the more advanced Greek poleis, and sometimes from among the servants of the Greek hoplites. These men lacked any specialist training, and were armed only with a simple missile weapon, the Akontia or throwing javelin. They normally wore the everyday dress of Greek farmers and shepherds: a woollen, undyed tunic, and simple boots. The Akontistai had neither helmet, nor shield, and so entirely relied upon distance and speed to avoid both enemy missiles and hand-to-hand combat. They also carried a long knife as a secondary weapon for when forced to engage in close fighting.

The Akontistai were used for foraging, ambushes, the pursuit of a broken enemy, and the plundering and ravaging of enemy lands. On the battlefield, they provided hoplites with a screen, and often opened the battle by attacking other light-armed troops. They were unable to combat unbroken infantry or cavalry effectively and would suffer heavy losses if they tried to do so, but effectively harassed enemy skirmishers and the flanks and rear of enemy infantry formations.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Ancient Greek armies consisted of a combination of armoured heavy infantry, such as hoplites, and a broad variety of light infantry from the classes of society too poor to equip themselves in that fashion. They are generally known as psiloi, from the Greek term for ‘bare, stripped’, and could fight as archers, slingers, javelinmen or even stone throwers. This unit represents one of such variants, named after their use of javelins. The Ephebarchic Law of Amphipolis from 24/23 BC mentions that Ephebes should, among other things, be trained in javelin throwing by an Akontistes. This indicates that every Ephebe learned javelin throwing, and supports our assertion that the Akontistai were often men either too young or too poor to fight as Hoplites or Phalangites (Gauthier-Hatzopoulos 1993, pp. 69 and 161-3).

Ray (Landbattles 2011, p. 15) states that Akontistai were often the only missile units in Greek armies before the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC), when skirmishing was not yet as popular. Javelins throwing was easy to learn, which is why Akontistai were more common than archers or slingers. This does not, however, mean that the Akontistai should be underestimated. The Battle of Sphakteria is a famous example of an engagement in which Athenian missile troops helped defeat a force of Spartan hoplites. As Thucydides [Hist. IV.33.2/34.3] describes:

‘But they could neither come to join with them nor any way make use of their skill. For both the light-armed soldiers kept them off with shot from either side, and the men of arms advanced not. Where the light-armed soldiers approached nearest, they were driven back; but returning, they charged them afresh, being men armed lightly, and that easily got out of their reach by running, especially the ground being uneasy and rough by having been formerly desert, so that the Lakedaimonians in their armour could not follow them. […] Then the battle grew sore on the Lakedaimonians' side, for their jacks now gave way to the arrows, and the darts that were thrown stuck broken in them, so as they could not handle themselves, as neither seeing before them, nor hearing any direction given them for the greater noise of the enemy, but danger being on all sides, were hopeless to save themselves upon any side by fighting.’