Mercenary Syracusan Hoplites

Description

These men are the citizen infantry of Syracuse, the greatest Greek city in the West. The tyrants of Syracuse once dominated the Western Mediterranean, ruling over most of Sicily and southern Italy, founding colonies on either side of the Adriatic and influencing politics in Greece. Yet, they mostly relied on mercenaries to fight their wars, not on their own citizens. Now, Hieron II rules Syracuse not as a tyrant, but as a benign Basileus (king), respected by his neighbours and loved by his people. The citizens readily fight for their rightful king, and in centuries of war, they have learned a trick or two from their Italic enemies and their own Celtic and Iberian mercenaries. Thus, the heavy bronze cuirasses have given way to lighter and cheaper linothorakes, the ancient Corinthian helmets have since long been replaced by the simpler Konos and Pilos variants, and while spear and sword have been retained, the Syracusan footmen have added javelins to their equipment. This makes them a flexible unit on the battlefield which can both defend a line of battle and attack the enemy flank. Though not the best trained Hoplites out there, since Hieron, too, has many mercenaries in his army, they are a very useful unit that can fulfil various roles across the battlefield.

Historical background

Syracuse was the greatest and most beautiful Greek city in the West (Cic. Verres 2.4.52). Founded by Corinthians in the 8th century BC, it quickly became the political epicentre of Magna Graecia, with a string of tyrants trying to expand its rule over all of Sicily or even beyond that, from Gelon and his family in the early 5th century BC to Dionysios I (r. 405-368 BC), who also subjugated southern Italy and the Adriatic coasts, to Hieron II and his dynasty in the 3rd century BC. Its history is too long, too detailed, and simply too fascinating to be cited here in full, and there are many good books on Dionysios alone (Caven, Dionysius I. Warlord of Sicily (1990); Strohecker, Dionysios I. Gestalt und Geschichte des Tyrannen von Syrakus (1958); cf. Pownall, Dionysius I and the Creation of a New-Style Macedonian Monarchy (2017) - an article in the Ancient History Bulletin). Dionysius, who was visited by Plato twice and ejected him twice, became known as the stereotypical tyrant, in works ranging from Plato's Politeia to Schillers Die Bürgschaft and in general educated thought. Like all tyrants, Dionysius relied on mercenaries (Griffith, Mercenaries (1933), pp. 195-196) and citizen infantry only played a marginal role in his army, even though they were called upon in terms of crisis or to bolster the ranks of his more professional army. Later, Agathokles and Hieron II still deployed thousands of mercenaries, including Celts and Iberians, but also Cretans (Polyb. III, 75, 7) or Etruscans (Diod. 20.11; 20.64.2-3; 20.61.6-7). Yet, by the 3rd century BC, the threat of Rome and Carthage was becoming ever more profound, and citizen forces were needed to keep Syracuse safe.

Lumsden (Ante Bella Punica (2016), pp. 87-92) has convincingly argued that the regular contact with Celtic and Iberian mercenaries (as well as the fight against Sicels, Italics, Carthaginians and Illyrians) left an impact on the citizen infantry of Syracuse. Syracuse had always been a place of military innovation: Dionysios I had overseen the invention of the first effective catapult in history (Marsden, Greek and Roman artillery (1971), pp. 5-12) and he also sponsored the development of the pentere (Latin: Quinquereme) (Morrison, Hellenistic Oared Warships (1995), p. 68). He was also the first to deploy Iberian mercenaries in both Italy and Greece ( Xen. Hell. 7.1.20, Diod. 15.70.1). Therefore, it would be almost shocking if its Hoplites had retained traditional equipment into the Hellenistic period. After Lumsden, we have equipped them with the Aspis shield, Celtic or Iberian style cut and thrust Antennae swords (which are currently only visual additions due to game limitations, however), javelins, Linothorakes and Pilos and Konos helmets. The Syracusan Hoplites are also available as factional mercenaries to the Ptolemaic kingdom, because Ptolemy III had settled Syracusan mercenaries in the Arsinoite Nome in Egypt, where they stayed and they and their sons came to form a permanent unit of the Ptolemaic army (Lorber/Wolf, The Galatian Shield (2011), p. 22 says Syracusan mercenaries were settled in the Arsinoite Nome under Ptolemy III).