Mercenary Dii Swordsmen

Description

The Dii Swordsmen are an elite assault infantry unit, famed as the best swordsmen throughout Greece and Thrace. They are armed with a variety of swords (machairas, rhomphaias, as well as sicas), javelins, and are also unusually heavily armoured for Thracians, wearing iron scale or muscle cuirasses, Phrygian helmets, and pelte shields. They are most effective as a flanking force where they have space to manoeuvre and the opportunity to attack enemy formations from the sides or back. Though they are not ineffective against cavalry per se, thanks to their heavy armour and deadly weapons, their small shields are not made for receiving head-on charges or barrages of missiles. As assault infantry, they are best used aggressively by making their enemies afraid with war cries, disrupting their formations with javelins, and then charging home to put them to flight.

Historical background

The tribe of the Dioi (latinised: Dii) lives on Mount Rhodope and was an independent people in Classical times, though they became (at least partially) subject to the Bessoi during the Hellenistic or Roman period (Diobessi in Plin. Nat. 4.18.1). By the time of the Peloponnesian War, they were known as the best infantry in the army of King Sitalkes, the Odrysian ruler of most of Thrace at the time. On multiple occasions, Thukydides refers to them as ‘machairophoroi’ or ‘peltasts’ (Thuc. II.96.2; 98.4; VII.27.1). They were additionally recruited as mercenaries by Athens during the same war, but arrived too late, to be sent back home over the land route through Boiotia. There, they massacred the inhabitants of Mykalessos, including women and children. Subsequently, the Dioi were intercepted by Boiotian cavalry and mostly destroyed, except for a few who could save themselves by their use of anti-cavalry formations, probably utilising spears, javelins, and swords, displaying their versatility as warriors (Thuk. VII. 27-30). The Dioi are last mentioned in 21 AD, when they revolted against Roman rulership together with the Odrysai and Koilaletai (Tac. Ann. II.67.1-4).

In RIS, their armament includes machairas (‘machairophoroi’, i.e. sword bearers, in this case specifically referring to the curved machaira sword, in Thuc. II.96.2) romphaias (the oldest romphaia, dated ca. 350 BC, was found in their territory at modern Symbola, Greece, now in the Komotini Museum), sicas, and javelins (Thuk. VII.30). Since they are also called ‘peltasts’, they protect themselves with crescent-shaped pelte shields (Thuk. VII.27.1). Their armour includes helmets of the Chalkidian and Phrygian types (Chalkidian helmet in: Peychova Mound (Starosel complex) near Dioi territory; Phrygian helmets became more popular around 350 BC: Webber (2003), p. 547), as well as heavy armour they could most probably afford for themselves with the money they earned as mercenaries. Besides scale-reinforced linothorakes, the other type of armour used by this unit is made of iron scales attached to a leather jerkin (Armour fragments at Peychova, similar to the armours at Zlatinitsa-Malomorivo or in the Goyamata Tumulus: Agre, Tumulus of Goyamata (2011), pp. 72-84).