Mercenary Karian Leukaspides Swordsmen

Description

Gleaming white roundshields, impeccable muscle cuirasses, polished bronze greaves, plumed (Phrygian, Sidon, or Chalcidian) helmets, blood-red tunics, cloaks as white as the snow on Mount Olympos – even an amateur can see that these warriors are an elite. These Leukaspides (“White Shields”) are the guards of the Chrysaorion, the sacred home of Chrysaor, the brother of Pegasos and the famous warrior with the golden sword. Therefore, the Leukaspides also fight with swords, either the double-edged, straight Greek xiphos, or the curved Carian drepanon. The Carians have been known as experienced soldiers for centuries, and this white-shielded guard of the Chrysaorion is perhaps the best this rugged landscape on the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea can offer.

Historical background

“[...] Carians — the first to fight for hire[...]” –poet Lykophron of Chalkis, ca. 320-280 BC (Lyc. Alex. 1367)

The reputation of Carians as mercenaries was famous, and they were always in wide demand. And yet, some Carians decided to stay home and defend it. Dearest to them, as to most pre-modern peoples, were their sanctuaries. The two most sacred places of the land were the temple of the Karian Zeus at Labraunda near Mylasa, and the Chrysaorion, the federal shrine of Zeus Chrysaoreus near Stratonikeia (Ma, Antiochos III and the Cities of Western Asia Minor (2000), p. 69). It was allegedly founded by the mythical hero Chrysaor (Steph. Byz. s.v. Chrysaoris). According to the archaic poet Hesiod, Chrysaor, the brother of the flying horse Pegasos, was born from the head of Medusa when it was cut off by Perseus, and the newborn already held a golden sword in his hand – hence his name (Hes. Theog. 280-283). At some point between 270 and 261 BC, Antiochos I (r. 281-261 BC) founded a new polis in this land to control the Chrysaorion and the religious association that administered it, the Chrysaorian League (I.Stratonikeia 1001, I.Stratonikeia 1063; Williamson, ‘Sanctuaries as turning points’, in: Pirson, Manifestationen von Macht (2012), p. 114). Stratonikeia was thus a centre of Seleucid influence in Ptolemaic Caria.

By the time most of Caria became Seleucid in 203 BC, the Chrysaorian League had become an ethnic and political organisation as well. At this stage, its members included Amyzon, Alabanda (then called “Antiocheia of the Chrysaorians”), Alinda, and Mylasa in the Seleucid area, but also Stratonikeia, Keramos, and Thera in the Rhodian peraia (“continental posessions”) (Ma (2000), p. 175). Thus, the League (Greek: Koinon) formed the basis for all Carian actions beyond whichever major power may have controlled its lands. The complex situation is elaborated by the historian and geographer Strabo of Amaseia (ca. 63 BC-25 AD) as follows:

“Stratonikeia is a settlement of Macedonians. And this too was adorned with costly improvements by the kings. There are two temples in the country of the Stratonikeians, of which the most famous, that of Hekatê, is at Lagina; and it draws great festival assemblies every year. And near the city is the temple of Zeus Chrysaoreus,⁠ the common possession of all Carians, whither they gather both to offer sacrifice and to deliberate on their common interests. Their League [...] is called “Chrysaorian”. And those who present the most villages have a preference in the vote,⁠ like, for example, the people of Keramos. The Stratonikeians also have a share in the League, although they are not of the Carian stock, but because they have villages belonging to the Chrysaorian League.” (Strab. 14.2.25C660)

Strabo rightly marks the difference between Stratonikeia, as a Seleucid foundation, and Mylasa, the capital of the Hekatomnid dynasty under the Achaemenids (Williamson, Urban Rituals in Sacred Landscapes in Hellenistic Asia Minor (2021), pp. 242-243). Strabo’s account of Mylasa is both useful for the purposes of our description and highly entertaining:

“[Mylasa] is situated in an exceedingly fertile plain; and above the plain, towering into a peak, rises a mountain, which has a most excellent quarry of white marble. Now this quarry is of no small advantage, since it has stone in abundance and close at hand, for building purposes and in particular for the building of temples and other public works;⁠ accordingly this city, as much as any other, is in every way beautifully adorned with porticoes and temples. But one may well be amazed at those who so absurdly founded the city at the foot of a steep and commanding crag. Accordingly, one of the commanders, amazed at the fact, is said to have exclaimed: “If the man who founded this city was not afraid, was he not even ashamed?” [...] At Labraunda there is an ancient shrine and statue of Zeus Stratios. It is honoured by the people all about and by the Mylasians; and there is a paved road of almost sixty stadia (over 10 km) from the shrine to Mylasa, called the Sacred Way, on which their sacred processions are conducted. The priestly offices are held by the most distinguished of the citizens, always for life. Now these temples belong peculiarly to the city; but there is a third temple, that of the Carian Zeus, which is a common possession of all Carians, and in which, as brothers, both Lydians and Mysians have a share.” (Strab. 14.2.22C659-660)

Ever since the early 3rd century BC, there had in fact been a serious conflict between Mylasa and the (rest of the) Chrysaorian League over the control of the sanctuary of the Labraundian Zeus (I.Labr. 7, 5 & 6). While the Seleucids did not resolve the conflict – not least because many of the Chrysaorian cities were under Ptolemaic control – Mylasa remained free of tributes or garrisons (Ma (2000), p. 162). At the end of the 3rd century BC, Philip V of Macedon (r. 221-179 BC), as a Seleucid ally, conquered much of Ptolemaic Caria. Even Olympichos, a local dynast who served the Seleucids as governor of Caria, changed sides and swore allegiance to Philip (Marek, In the Land of a thousand Gods (2021), p. 218). In 220 BC, the young king intervened in the conflict between Mylasa and the Chrysaorian League and decided that Labraunda should be fully restored to Mylasa (I. Labr. 7, 5 & 6). The Antigonid reign did not last long, however, and after the Seleucid defeat at Magnesia in 190 BC, the Romans bestowed Mylasa on Rhodes. The Mylasans did not accept this dictate and rebelled, eventually crushing the Rhodians together with nearby Alabanda in 167 BC (Ma (2000), p. 251). Only a few years later, Mylasa even attacked the now autonomous Chrysaorian League (I.Mylasa 134).

The dynamic history of Hellenistic Caria shows that the Chrysaorian League was far from united at most times, and yet it persisted well into the Roman period. In its later history, the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Aphrodisias in northeastern Caria rose to new prominence. In the dying stages of the First Mithridatic War (89-85 BC), envoys of Aphrodisias met the Roman proconsul Quintus Oppius at Kos. Oppius had issued an appeal for help to the cities of Southern Anatolia, and Aphrodisias – then a free city with an established connection with Rome including a shared bond with Aphrodite – had dispatched its own troops (Aphrodisias and Rome no. 2 = Axon 422). The Aphrodisians thrived on this link and later managed to receive the personal support of Augustus (Thommen, “The Sebasteion at Aphrodisias", in: Chronika 2 (2012), pp. 82-91). Much earlier, the Chrysaorians had already stressed their genealogical relation to the Greeks in official documents (Ma (2000), p. 307). Therefore, the various members of the League always preserved to forge important bonds with major powers and to keep the Chrysaorian League alive.

Our Leukaspides are conceptualised as the elite troops of the cities of (Chrysaorian) Caria, and based on a remark by Xenophon, in which he noted that experienced Carian troops would often fight with completely white shields (Xen. Hell. 3.2.15). Since Herodotus stressed that it was the Carians who invented crests on helmets and devices on shields (Hdt. 1.171.4), all of the Phrygian, Sidon, and Chalcidian helmets used here are crested, and the white shields are sometimes painted with Carian motifs like the head of the Chrysaorian Zeus. The Sidon helmets are chiefly known from the Ptolemaic garrison at Sidon, which included the Carian mercenary Stomphias, son of Apollodides of Euromos, who wore a blood-red tunic with darker pleats and a round shield (Jalabert, Nouvelles Stèles Peintes de Sidon (1904), fig. 1). The swords are based on the representative of Caria on the tomb of Xerxes I at Naqsh-e Rostam, who carries a Xiphos (McCoskey, A Cultural History of Race in Antiquity (2023), p. 109), and Herodotus’ description of the curved drepanon as THE Carian sword (Hdt. 7.93). Lastly, the shiny muscle cuirasses, greaves, and white cloaks give the Leukaspides the equipment of an elite unit, reflecting the white colour of their shields and the golden colour of Chrysaor.