Description
These Rhodian youngsters have been training to defend their polis with spear and sword. Wearing an exomis as well as a cloak, the chlamys, about half of these boys have been able to equip themselves with Attic or Pilos helmets for some additional protection. Their classic woollen or linen exomis tunics (literally: ‘outside’ - ‘shoulder’) allow for the rapid movements required of flexible light infantry, while the chlamys, which could be wrapped over the left arm, potentially serves as a form of light shield in combat. In case of emergency, these boys will be eager to serve their city as agile light infantry.
Historical background
Throughout the Hellenistic world, cities knew an institution called ‘ephebeia’, which entailed the general education of elite and upper middle-class youngsters in gymnasia. The word ‘ephēboi’ originally referred to boys who had reached the age of puberty, and was one of several terms for age classes; in 4th century BC Athens, however, it came to have a special paramilitary sense: boys who in their eighteenth year had entered a two-year period of military training (Hornblower and Spawforth, Oxford Classical Dictionary, s.v. ephēboi). While during the Roman era, the original military aspect of many such institutions dwindled or transformed into para-military ceremonies, the academic consensus is that in the third century BC the focus of ephebes’ training was clearly athletic and military. Intellectual pursuits seem to have been present, but of comparatively minor importance (Pleket, Ephebes and Horses (2012), pp. 324-325).
According to some authors Rhodes, too, possessed an ephebeia at least from the third century BC onwards (Kennell, ‘The Greek Ephebate’ (2009), p. 338). This is disputed by Chankowski (‘L'éphébie hellénistique’ (2010) pp. 198-206), who points at the divergent Rhodian practice of using the term ‘neoteroi’ for young citizens rather than ‘ephebes’, suggesting the lack of such a formal institution. A contemporary fragmentary dedication refers to the polis’ two ‘gymnasiarchoi’: magistrates tasked with training the older (presbyteroi) and younger men (neoteroi), respectively, the boundary likely being set at the age of thirty (Kah, ‘The Gymnasiarchia’, in: Mania and Trümper, Development of Gymnasia (2018) pp. 276-280). The existence of a gymnasium, as well a magistrate dedicated to training young citizens, suggests that this might in part be a semantic discussion, which does not prevent RIS from including a Rhodian unit similar to the ephebes found elsewhere in the Greek world. This is supported by our direct inspiration for this unit: a Rhodian stele from the third century BC, which depicts a nude youth who wears a chlamys over his left shoulder, carrying sword and spear as weapons (Rhodes Archaeological Museum inv. nr. 1436; described in: Grossman, Funerary Sculpture (2014), p. 169).
