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Short description

These Ptolemaic Peltophoroi are an elite force, and should be utilized to secure the flanks of your phalanx.

Description

The Ptolemaic Peltophoroi, also described as ‘Peltasts’, represent an elite force in the later Ptolemaic army. Armed as phalangites in the Macedonian fashion, these men wear a flexible linen cuirass, the linothorax; bronze pelte shields; as well as plain bronze or colourfully painted konos helmets. The Peltophoroi confront their enemies with a bristling wall of pikes, the 3,6 meter long Iphicratean sarissa, but also carry a sword for man-to-man combat. The Ptolemaic Peltophoroi are an elite force, and should be utilized to secure the flanks of your phalanx.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

From Alexander’s days onwards, the phalanx became a standard element of Hellenistic armies. The Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty employed two variants of such heavy infantrymen. The majority were equipped with classic sarissa pikes, which were over 7 meters long. Some, however, called ‘peltastai’ or ‘peltophoroi’, used half-sized Iphicratean pikes, which must have provided them with greater tactical flexibility in the heat of battle. Peltasts had originally been light infantry, equipped in Thracian fashion, but in the Hellenistic era they developed into heavy infantry. Unlike the regular phalangites, who were only mobilized on a temporary basis, the peltophoroi represent elite troops who were constantly in service. Therefore, they were both better trained and more experienced (Fischer-Bovet, Army and Society (2014), pp. 137-138).

Polybios states that Ptolemaios IV brought 2,000 peltophoroi to the Battle of Raphia against the Seleucid king Antiochos III (217 BC). Deployed on the left wing, next to the Royal Guard and the Libyan phalangites, and commanded by Socrates the Boeotian, they protected the flank of the main phalanx (Polyb. V.65.2; 82.4). While the Agema (guard) is visible in the documentary record a unit called ‘peltast’ is not. This is not entirely surprising, as the records mainly refer to cleruchs and activity on the countryside, rather than in Alexandria, where professionals would have been stationed (Johstono, Army of Ptolemaic Egypt, (2020), ch. 1).

The Ptolemies generally provided their soldiers’ equipment, as testified by Polybios (Polyb. V.63.11) and other authors (Aristeas Judas 13; Athenaeus 5.203a). This means that basic pieces of equipment, such as shields, will have seen a certain degree of standardization (Fischer-Bovet, Army and Society (2014), p135). We have chosen to represent this by providing these peltophoroi with relatively similar variants of embossed bronze pelte shields. In 189 BC, Ptolemaios V sent the Achaian League 6,000 peltast panoplies, which strongly suggests that such equipment must generally have been mass-produced and kept in storage (Polyb. XXII.9.3).