Counter-insurgency, Then and Now

We're getting good news today out of Diyala province in Iraq. An operation involving around 50,000 soldiers (mainly Iraqi) began a couple of days ago, aimed at establishing security and crushing the insurgency in the last truly unruly province in Iraq. Attempts to drive Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of Baquba and Diyala have been made at multiple times in the past, but have yet to bring a tolerable level of law and order.

But in this operation, senior commanders have noted on the welcoming attitude of civilians, and their helpfulness in locating weapons caches and their toleration of the hardships (roadblocks, etc.) imposed on them in the course of the security operation. What has changed to bring this about? First, the population of Diyala know that life has gotten appreciably better in most other provinces, and while they may be very wary of the Shia and may hate the U.S.-led occupation, there comes a time when a people don't want to be the only ones left behind. Second, the vast majority of those 50,000 soldiers, and nearly all of the "front-line" troops, are Iraqi soldiers. Being liberated by other Iraqis (even with American air support, etc.) is a conceivable image for the population of Diyala. Being liberated by Americans is perceived as replacing one oppressor with another. These more open and more successful operations by the Iraqi Army allow the Sunnis of Diyala to buy into a national story and start to believe in a hope of Iraqi sovereignty. Precisely how accurate their perceptions are does not really matter. But its possible for Iraqis to believe they can regain a strong and independent nation without needing to do so by means of a violent, bloody struggle against the Americans.

In Egypt, the Ptolemies focused most of their Hellenizing project and the core of their administration in the northern provinces of Lower Egypt. Through the leading Egyptian clergy, the High Priests of Ptah, who resided in Memphis, they exerted an acceptable form of limited sovereignty into Upper Egypt. That began changing late in the 3rd century. Insurgencies, called times of "tarache," or troubles, plagued parts of Egypt off and on throughout the 2nd century. Some of these rebellions had started, so the Polybian story goes, because Ptolemy IV and his ministers raised 20,000 native Egyptian soldiers to fight in a Macedonian-style phalanx at Raphia. Their success against the Seleukid Macedonian phalanx then encouraged them to revolt. But as we saw in the examination of logistics, even those 20,000 soldiers were only a small fraction of the machimoi class (as few as 1 in 20) and a drop in the bucket compared to the adult male native Egyptian population, which likely numbered over 2 million. Still, trained soldiers, then and now, are frequently the leaders in an insurgency, and many machimoi joined or even led the various native revolts. The revolt likely started because the Ptolemies, pleased with the performance of their machimoi phalangitai, sought to expand their social and economic control in Upper Egypt, so that they could better monitor the tens of thousands of machimoi in those regions.

So how did the Ptolemies respond to the native rebellion? Cutting back on recruitment of machimoi seemed like an obvious decision, and they may have done so (especially after so many of their machimoi soldiers deserted to join the rebel Haronnophris). But they eventually learned several lessons about dealing with counter-insurgency in Egypt. By using native machimoi soldiers, they could occupy places more successfully--that is, with less loss of life and material property, and for longer periods of time--than with their Hellenic troops or foreign mercenaries.
It seemingly took them quite some time to learn this method. But they did learn it, by the late 2nd century at the latest. When a new round of "troubles" started around Thebes, the largest city in Upper Egypt, economic records for the military settlement of Tebtynis, in the Fayum of Lower Egypt, indicate that there was a nearly universal machimoi call-up for the purpose of suppressing the revolt.

This increased use of machimoi by the Ptolemies has often been perceived as a sign of Ptolemaic weakness: because their Hellenic forces were so weakened by defeats, largess, and in-fighting, the Ptolemies were forced to rely on their machimoi to hold on to power. But if we look at how the U.S. is using native Iraqi forces in Diyala, are they doing so because the U.S. forces are inadequate or unprepared? We know, this close to the conflict, that the problem with using U.S. forces wouldn't be fighting effectiveness, it would be their reception by the native population. In the same way, the Ptolemies found that strategic decisions like deploying machimoi into counter-insurgency zones and showing clemency to captured officers and rebels from key families helped bring the rebellions to a close.

Supply in Hellenistic armies

The main question I've been asked pertaining to this blog concerns the logistical problems underlying the numbers of troops at battles like Raphia. Regardless of source credibility or textual criticism, the sheer numbers involved in major battles beg questions concerning supply. This problem will come up again in my TWAW entry this week, which will concern the Battle of Cannae.

There are several logistical sorts of questions we can ask about ancient armies. I'll answer each of these in relation to the Raphia campaign.

1) Population - could the states involved have actually committed the numbers of soldiers described in the account?

Both the Ptolemaic and Seleukid armies were stretched to raise their forces for Raphia, but the numbers were not beyond the ability of what were, at that point in time, the largest states west of India. Population estimates put the population of Ptolemaic Egypt at between 5 and 7 million at this time, which means that we might expect a military-eligible population in the range of 1 to 2 million. But this number is actually more complicated. The vast majority of those men would have been Egyptians, of whom the machimoi (warrior class) only numbered several hundred thousand. So only a small number of the machimoi class were mobilized for the Raphia campaign, roughly 1 in 20. The mobilization would have heavily stressed the non-Egyptian population of Egypt. For example, P.Count establishes that the number of cavalrymen settled in the Fayum, one of the most important sites of military settlement, was in the neighborhood of 3,500 during the latter 3rd century. These settlers would have provided many of the non-mercenary cavalry raised for Raphia, and if the P.Count and Polybian numbers are both right, most of them served at Raphia. The other settlers, accounting for just over 30,000 soldiers, would have similarly stressed the Ptolemaic Hellenistic or Hellenizing population. It over-extended the military settler system, forcing the Ptolemies to recruit from their non-military population (the "epigonoi," or descendants) in order to reach their full complement. It is possible that there were as few as 100,000 military age, able-bodied men in the non-Egyptian population. If that is the case, as many as 1 in 3 went to Raphia, which would put a considerable stress on the expedition. For this and other reasons each side sought out the decisive battle, and even the victorious Ptolemies did not seek to carry their advantage very far after the battle.

2) Food Quantity - how much food would each soldier, horse, attendant, and elephant eat?

While a modern American soldier might consume 3,000 or more calories in a day, the ancient soldier likely ate considerably less, and attrition was much higher (estimated to be as high as 15% in Roman Republican armies over the course of a major overseas campaign). Engel's study of Macedonian logistics concluded that a well-supplied army would provide 1.5 pounds of bread for every soldier every day. With 70,000 soldiers, we're dealing with 105,000 lbs. of bread per day, or 52.5 tons. That's 367.5 tons per week. Only a powerful economy could sustain that sort of supply for more than a few days. And Egypt was indeed the breadbasket of the Mediterranean, producing tens of thousands of tons of grain every year.

3) Food Transport - how did the armies get the required foodstuffs to their destination, and how did they continually resupply these troops?

Individual soldiers, and occasional attendants, could carry some of their food themselves. But within a few days the army would be dependent on supply trains. For the Ptolemies, even this was not a major problem. They left their military camp at Pelusion, with its large store-houses, which had been in existence since Pharoanic times, to head east. They traveled about 115 miles before coming into contact with the Seleukid army. For most of that trip, which may have been made in a week, the Ptolemaic army would have been in direct contact with naval resupply ships. The Ptolemaic navy controlled the sea, especially that close to Egypt, and could protect large supply ships bringing additional grain, if such a need arose.

The Seleukid army faced greater problems. They too used the coastal roads in that campaign, and could be resupplied by ship or supply train. But their supply situation was not simple. They encamped first at Gaza, where Nabataian Arab trade routes terminated, and where they therefore could have gotten access to needed foodstuffs. But this source of supply would not have been as reliable as a royal resupply via ship or land. Ship resupply would have been difficult once the armies drew up near one another, since the Ptolemaic navy could threaten the Seleukid ships. And large supply convoys would have faced a harrowing journey through the coastland of Palestine. For that reason, we can look at one aspect of the battle and revise the traditional narrative.

Revising the Initiation of Battle

The Seleukids pushed for the start of battle. They moved their camp forward from Gaza to Raphia, bringing the two camps within sight of one another. They drew out their army first to being the attack. And when the two armies were drawn out, the Seleukids started the battle. Polybius' narrative, and the narrative that has traditionally been most popular, is that Antiochos III desired to start the battle because he was a good general, a zealous warrior, and questioned the quality of the Ptolemaic army. But what we see from looking at logistical concerns is that the Ptolemaic army could have maintained a standoff considerably longer than the Seleukids could. If the Seleukids were to seek decision to the war over Syria, they needed to seek out battle before their supplies ran low. This logistics-driven narrative is an attractive alternative to the personality-driven narrative which has generally held greatest sway.

Hellenistic Armies - Phalangitai

In the Classical period, a rather simple force structure had emerged: a large force of hoplites in a phalanx, supplemented occasionally—and increasingly—with small forces of cavalry and light infantry, such as the javelin-armed peltasts. In the Hellenistic period, force structure became increasingly complex. So in a new series, I'll be taking a look at different elements within the force structure of Hellenistic armies.

Hellenistic armies were built, not upon the hoplite, put upon the pike phalanx. The pike phalanx was a block of men 8-, 16-, or even 32-ranks deep, in which the soldiers carried sarissai, pikes that at times were made more than 20 feet long. These phalangitai (from the word phalanx, meaning “men of the phalanx”), deployed in such a deep and dense formation and protected by rows of spear-points, were a practically impenetrable force on the battlefield. There were several trade-offs to the formation. It was cumbersome and deep, suited for head-on battles on flat plains in narrow valleys. Soldiers carrying 20 ft. pikes in massed formation could not change direction easily, nor could they operate effectively in uneven terrain. So the Hellenistic generals and kings needed various soldiers to protect the phalangitai when moving through mountainous areas, or to handle some or all of the fighting in uneven terrain. But in a pitched battle, the pike phalanx was the primary component in nearly every battle from the late 4^th century well into the 2^nd century BC. Below is a painted depiction of a Macedonian pikeman from the late 4th century.

The phalangitai had a relatively standard set of equipment. The vast majority, and in many cases all, of them in every army carried a smaller version of the hoplite’s aspis, a helmet, and a sarissa in battle. In many cases, they wore various types of body armor: linen, leather, or bronze for the most part, along with greaves. Most carried swords as side-arms. The shield of the phalanx was, in the Hellenstic period, about 75cm in diameter, an increase from the shields of Alexander’s time, which are thought to have been more in the neighborhood of 60cm. Some soldiers covered their shields with leather and painted them with militaristic or ancestral symbols. Other soldiers, especially those who had their weapons supplied by the state, might carry shields with bronze faces. Armorers hammered various designs onto the bronze shields: stars and arcs, the name of the king, or various devices designed to either emphasize the power and legitimacy of the king, or motivate the soldier and intimidate his enemy by making reference to gods and heroes. The shield mold below comes from Memphis in Egypt, and was used to make bronze phalangite shields for the soldiers of the Ptolemies.

When not in the phalanx, either on guard duty with the army, or serving with local militias in their home towns, phalangitai likely carried one or more of a type of shorter spear, called the “lonche,” which could be used as a spear or javelin. This allowed them to operate in smaller numbers or in rough terrain. But the main use of the phalanx and the soldiers that constituted it was as a nearly impenetrable wall of spears on the battlefield. Plutarch says alarm and amazement struck the great Roman general Aemilius Paulus when he looked upon the thick set hedge of shields and spears at the battle of Pydna in 168 BC. That same battle demonstrated the weaknesses of the phalanx:

1) It was rarely decisive – a good commander needed to follow Alexander’s example, using a hammer and anvil tactic. The phalanx was the anvil, and held an enemy army in place, allowing the hammer—usually heavy cavalry—to deliver devastating strikes against the enemy.

2) It floundered on uneven terrain – the Macedonian phalanx pushed the Roman legions back at the start of the battle of Pydna, but as the phalanx reached the uneven terrain leading up the Roman encampment, it lost cohesion.

3) It suffered in hand-to-hand combat – the phalangitai at Pydna used their sarissai to keep the Roman soldiers at a distance. When, in the course of the battle, the Romans fought their way into the phalanx formation, they slaughtered the closely-packed phalangitai. If a soldier in the phalanx dropped his sarissa to pull his sidearm to defend himself, he contributed further to the loss of cohesion in the phalanx. But even if he drew his sidearm, he was generally outmatched by a Roman legionary, who carried a more effective sword and larger shield, was trained for hand-to-hand combat, and also frequently wore more armor.

This Week in Ancient Warfare - Battle of Allia, 18 July 387 BC

A civilization's first battlefield encounter with the Gauls tended to be a memorable one. We only know a few such examples, the invasion of Greece in 280-279 BC, the present TWAW topic, some vague references to a devastating attack by Gauls on the Etruscans of North Italy, and some even more vague references to their attacks on the Thracians and Getai.

In 387 BC (often given as 390 BC following the Varronian calendar), a large group of Gauls, the tribe of the Senones, under the leadership of Brennos invaded Etruria, to the north of Latium. Their attack on Etruria coincided with other attacks being launched against the crumbling Etrurian state--at that same moment a large Roman army had invested the major Etrurian city of Veii. The Gauls under Brennos hoped to seize a piece of the Etruscan pie. They attacked Clusium, a city that lacked any major allies, and so seemed a wise target.

The people of Clusium, though they had no friendly relationship with Rome, sent envoys to Rome begging for help. The Romans, already engaged in a project of seizing parts of Etruria for themselves, seized on this opportunity and sent a delegation to negotiate between the two parties. In the negotiation, it is said that a haughty Roman slew a Gallic chieftain. At that sign of disrespect, the Senones lifted the seige of Clusium and marched on Rome. This parallels nicely with the stories of the Gallic invasion of Greece, where the haughty Ptolemy Keraunos, king of Makedonia, treated the negotiation-minded Gallic chieftains like fools, and in so doing invited a devastating invasion of Makedonia. Both stories likely contain a bit of moralizing invention "if you're haughty with your power, young prince, the Gallic bogey-monsters will descend on and devour you."

The Senones pushed toward Rome, and the city quickly mustered its fighting force to face the invading army. They met on the banks of the stream Allia, on the banks of the Tiber, about 10 miles from Rome. The invaders were estimated at either 30 or 70 thousand, the former number being remotely possible if we include non-combatants, but both--and especially the latter--likely contain exaggeration. The Romans mobilized several legions (depending on the sources there could have been 2 or 4 mustered for the battle), and likely numbered between 10 and 20 thousand fighting men. In the early 4th century, we should not imagine these Roman soldiers looking like the uniformly equipped and heavily armored legionaries of the Imperial age. The core of the Roman army, and the center of its battle-line at Allia, were the hoplites of the lower nobility and middle class. They formed a dense formation (the phalanx) in the Greek style, and carried the round aspis rather than the Roman scutum. The rest of the army, which likely accounted for more than 50 percent of its total, were the lower land-holding classes, armed as skirmishers and light spearmen.

The Romans extended their line from the banks of either the Allia or the Tiber, across to a small hillock, hoping that by laying their wings against those topographical features they would prevent attempts by the Gauls to outflank them. The downside to this stratagem was that it thinned the line, and according to Livy, the Romans actually had to use their reserves to be able to secure the hillock. So, with their hoplite phalanx likely as little as 4 ranks deep, they went to battle, awaiting the Gallic attack.

According to Livy's account, it seems that the Gauls advanced their soldiers within charging distance from the Roman line, but then paused. Brennos had seen the reserve soldiers gathered on the higher ground. Fearing that they might charge onto his flank or rear when he committed his leading companies against the Roman phalanx, he halted the rest of his army within range of the Romans and concentrated an assault on the reserves. So across most of the battle line, soldiers likely skirmished at distance with one another, and brazen Celtic warriors may have stepped forward to challenge Roman warriors to ritualistic single combat. That situation could have lasted for some time.

It didn't. The Gallic attack on the hill proved successful, their ferocity overwhelmed the Roman reserves and the Gauls gained the elevated position overlooking the whole Roman line of battle. with this tactical advantage, the whole Gallic army began its surge forward. Up to that time, most Roman combat had been against other hoplite armies, like those of the Etruscans, or armies of light and medium spearmen, like those of other states in Latium. The Gauls charged the Roman lines with brightly painted shields, fierce war cries, raised swords, and many a disconcertingly nude body. Their wild charge, size, and fierceness quickly overwhelmed the morale of the Roman wings, which are said to have faltered at contact. It is possible that they never even came to blows, but set immediately to flight.

The Roman phalanx seems to have held its ground, though. With stronger armor and better morale--many of the soldiers would have been veterans of a number of other wars, for Rome went to war on a yearly basis then, and lacked the manpower for the men who constituted the cream of the army to have much chance of avoiding eventual service. Hoping in their heavy armor and Roman virtue, or despising the disorder and light equipment of the Gauls, they fought. But with the wings in flight, the thinned and outflanked phalanx was pushed back, and eventually surrounded. Many were killed, and others took to flight or fought their way to safety.

In the aftermath of this disastrous defeat, the Gauls chased the fleeing Romans right into the city of Rome herself. They encamped in the city for seven months, and forced the Romans to pay a heavy tribute. Their eventual departure was assured by the help of the Roman forces from around Veii, and their leader, Camillus, in the wake of the defeat, reformed the army. In addition to organizational reforms, soldiers began carrying new equipment, tall and narrow or smaller oval shields like those carried by many of the Gauls, and which eventually developed into the large Roman scutum we know from the middle Republic and the Empire.

The Gauls, though they withdrew, were not gone. They would continue to harass parts of Etruria and Latium over the next 150 years from their cities in Cisalpine Gaul, along the Po valley. But they were not only marauders. A painted sarcophagus from late 4th century Etruria depicts a Celtic mercenary, partially armed in the Etruscan manner, fighting alongside Etruscan warriors in a mythological combat scene. The presence of this incorporated Gaul, who carries the round aspis and wears a Hellenic helmet, but who is clothed only in the light blue robe of Celtic warriors and wears his sword on a chain link belt, shows the slow integration of these Gauls, and reminds us that they were not always only enemies, and were not always only barbarians beyond the pale of civilization.

This Week in Ancient Warfare – Battle of Raphia, 22 June 217 BC

One of the largest battles of antiquity was fought a few miles south of Gaza on the Mediterranean coast. Credible sources give us around 150,000 combatants, which makes Raphia the biggest of the Hellenistic age. It pitted the young Antiochos III of Syria, later called Antiochos the Great, against the young Ptolemy IV of Egypt, called Philopater. Since I’m already actually past the week of Raphia, I’ll just play catch up a little bit by highlighting one aspect of the battle.

The two huge armies encamped within sight of each other for several days before fighting. During those several days, the soldiers from each army went out to skirmish with one another. Scholars have generally viewed this as a minor occurrence, something practiced by the skirmishers of the army involved, and not really worth comment. This is due to a tendency to imagine that in the Hellenistic period, characterized by powerful kingdoms, ever-developing bureaucracies, and a new cosmopolitan world, the Greeks would have been too practical to risk their best and brightest in pointless skirmishes. It sounds like the stuff of David and Goliath, not Ptolemy and Antiochos. We could actually identify several types of skirmish:

1) Between foraging parties (mentioned by Polybius at Raphia)

2) Between pickets and screens (mentioned in other situations, but not expressly mentioned at Raphia.

3) Between cavalry forces (mentioned by Polybius at Raphia). These are generally assumed to have been light cavalry, but well-born cavalrymen are probably at least as likely.

4) Between groups of infantry (mentioned by Polybius at Raphia as involving an exchange of missiles). This could be, in reality, very similar to foraging or picket skirmishes, the main differences being a) the greater organization or status of the soldiers, and b) the reason for skirmishing, in this last case being the skirmish itself, while in 1) and 2) the skirmish arises due to detachments attempting to execute particular duties.

But we have good reason to believe that the noblemen in the army actively participated in the skirmishes prior to battle. Polybius tells us that on one day, the skirmishing actually carried rather close to the Ptolemaic camp. Now, what should we imagine this skirmishing to be? From one perspective, it would involve hundreds, up to a few thousands, of light infantry—slingers, archers, and javelineers—scattered across the No Man’s Land, aiming their missiles occasionally at their enemy and yelling the best insults that could come to mind. But based on what follows in Polybius’ narrative, it might be preferable to imagine noblemen and a couple of attendants, sometimes on horseback, challenging their social equals to do battle, at least in some parts of the battlefield. Polybius expressly mentions the participation of the cavalry (5.80), and it is worth noting that neither army had very many specifically “light cavalry.”

It would seem that some of the leaders of the armies involved may have participated in these skirmishes or duels between social equals. Theodotos, an Aitolian officer who had deserted Ptolemy’s side to join Antiochos, had, according to Polybius, come close enough to the Ptolemaic lines during the skirmishes that he had actually seen Ptolemy’s royal tent and noted its position in the encampment. Rather than imagining that he managed this by slipping into a light soldier’s gear, it is preferable to consider that he, rather like a warrior of the heroic age, had ridden out on horseback to challenge an enemy rider, and there exchanged javelin fire aimed at demonstrating virtue, skill and courage, in emulation of the heroes of the Iliad.

By means of the skirmishers Theodotos located the king’s tent, and so one morning, probably a day or two before the battle was fought, Theodotos and two attendants slipped into the Ptolemaic camp. If groups of nobles were going out to the lines to protect foragers and seek out opportunities to challenge their enemies, it would not have been unusual for a few of them to head back to camp together, which means that Theodotos and his associates were able to enter the Ptolemaic lines unopposed. It is also possible that the pickets and lookouts were less than vigilant so soon after dawn. After entering the camp, they made their way to the king’s tent, where they slipped past the watching guards and entered the tent. There, they rushed around, but could not find the king, though they did apparently run into and kill or injure several of the men that they did find, including the king’s physician. The cries of one of these must have alerted the guards, for Theodotos escaped the camp only with some trouble, and we hear no further word of his two attendants. A few days later, Theodotos commanded part of the Seleukid phalanx in the battle, the ten thousand elite argyraspides, or “silver shields.” And to think that a man, who in battle commanded ten thousand pikemen, had only a day or two earlier snuck into the enemy’s camp and attempted to slay the enemy king by his own hand, and the day before had sought—in grand Homeric fashion—to demonstrate his personal virtue by challenging enemy horsemen to single combat.

The Battle of Pelusion, 170 BC

Also referred to on occasion as the Battle of Mount Casios, this battle pitted the army of Ptolemaic Egypt against the army of Seleukid Syria. According to Polybius (27.19), Antiochos IV Epiphanes, having only become king a few years previously, grew concerned that the Egyptians would soon attempt to retake Koile Syria. The Ptolemies had lost control of Phoenicia and Palestine, which together constituted much of the larger region called Koile Syria, in about 200 BC. In that year Antiochos the Great had utterly defeated a Ptolemaic army at Panion in Koile Syria, and the Seleukids had controlled the region ever since.

Phoenicia and Palestine, which by 170 had been controlled by the Seleucids for 30 years, had been Ptolemaic possessions for the entire third century. From about 175 some of the First Friends and others in the court elite of the Ptolemaic kingdom had begun planning to retake Koile Syria. The leaders in Alexandreia at this time were not the young Ptolemy VI Philometer, but his tutors Eulaios and Lenaios. They were Syrians by descent, and were not normal members of the Alexandreian court aristocracy. They had most likely come to Egypt with Ptolemy VI's mother, Kleopatra, the daughter of the former Seleukid king and the sister of Antiochos IV. They had cared for the young Ptolemy when was a child, and became his regents after his mother died.

Eulaios and Lenaios have long been blamed for instigating the war against the Seleukids. The tradition dates back at least as far as Polybius. While it is true that they commanded the army at the battle of Pelusion, scholars have too quickly vilified them as "easterners” driving a wedge between the fading remnants of Hellenic political-military power. In fact, court intrigue and the Alexandrian mob likely drove their planning, and if they had not begun preparing to lead the army to war, surely one of the many Ptolemaic generals and aristocrats that flooded into Alexandria in 175/4 would have been more than willing.

The Ptolemaic army marshaled at Pelusion, off the eastern edge of the Delta, on the main highway to Syria. Pelusion was and would remain the primary fortification on the eastern boundary of Egypt, and was one of the largest garrison sites in the entire Ptolemaic empire. Historians of the early twentieth century enjoyed styling the forthcoming battle as one between the Seleukid Greeks and the Ptolemaic Egyptians, drawing the ethnicity of the armies from the Hellenizing character of Antiochus implied by ancient sources and by the “eastern” descent of the Ptolemaic tutors-turned-generals. This simply would not have been the case.

The Ptolemaic army preparing to invade Koile Syria would have had a good bit in common with the army that fought at Raphia in 217, and even more with the army that fought at Panion in 200/199. In addition to imported mercenaries, elite units from Alexandreia, and the standing army garrison at Pelusion, the Egyptian commanders would likely have drawn from their forces in the upper Delta region (around Memphis) and from the Fayum and its vicinity. From these areas they could have recruited several thousand Hellenic cavalrymen of varying qualities and several thousands of Hellenes and Egyptians for their respective phalanxes. Additionally, after the end of the major Egyptian rebellion in 186, as many as eight thousand new soldiers had been given medium-infantry land allotments in the Arsinoite and Herakleopolite nomes. These soldiers, who likely fought as thureophoroi or thorakitai, likely faced their first major test against Hellenistic forces in the battle at Pelusion. Altogether, the Ptolemaic army, raised to defeat the Seleukids and recover all or most of Koile Syria, could have reasonably numbered three thousand or more cavalry, as many as forty thousand locally-recruited line infantry, and—counting the mercenaries garrisoned at Pelusion and those who would have accompanied the army to garrison captured strongpoints—ten to twenty thousand mercenaries and newly-recruited local light infantry.

The most significant element in the Ptolemaic army at Pelusion would likely have been the nearly eight thousand soldiers settled after the campaigns in Upper Egypt in the 180’s BC. Given that their land allotments were half the size of those given to phalangites, their armament could not have been particularly heavy, and it is most likely that they fought as thureophoroi of some sort. Now, the Ptolemaic army has been assumed to have developed thureophoroi-type soldiers in the 160’s BC as a reform of Philometer, but the Ptolemies began equipping soldiers in this style, in mimicry of their capable Galatian troops, in the aftermath of the battle of Panion, if not earlier. They were only organized in the Roman manner in the 160’s BC, but their equipment would have looked rather Roman to a modern time-traveler.

We know very little about the battle. Based on papyri, it has been dated to November 170 BC. This is an odd date, because most campaigns started in the spring, not in winter. It indicates that the Egyptians had planned to attack early in the spring of 169, so Antiochos forced the issue by attacking the Egyptians at Pelusion at the onset of the Middle Eastern winter, which aside from cultural norms would likely have been a better campaigning season anyway. The Seleukid forces likely camped on Mount Kasios, several kilometers east of Pelusion, and the two sides likely joined battle in the plain between Pelusion and the mountain, since later writers could reference the battle as that of Mount Kasios or that of Pelusion.

The limited description of the battle implies that the Seleukids achieved a double envelopment of the Ptolemaic army. This is impressive since, if the Seleukid army was roughly the size of that at the Daphne parade, it would not have outnumbered the Ptolemaic army by a very significant margin, if at all. However, it almost certainly had a decisive advantage in cavalry, which could easily have outnumbered the Ptolemaic cavalry by 3:1. While phalanxes and elephants may have slowly opened an engagement in the center, the textual evidence implies that Seleukid cavalry were successful on both wings, putting their opposition to flight and threatening to cut off the entire Ptolemaic force. Diodorus says (26.77) that at that point Antiochos rode around to his army, telling them to capture prisoners rather than slaughtering the Ptolemaic army. If such orders had only been given to his own wing it would not have been an aspect of the battle worthy of recount in Diodorus’ scanty note. And if the wings had not succeeded in some form of envelopment, riding around to other parts of his army to deliver his order for mercy would have been impossible. So what is most likely is that his cavalry wing achieved a major success, as did the cavalry complement on the other wing. Fearing that his successful forces on the wings might fall on the flanks and rear of the phalanx and kill thousands of Ptolemaic Makedonian soldiers, as apparently happened at Panion, he gave orders to his own wing to show mercy, and, riding across the rear of the out-flanked Ptolemaic phalanx, gave similar orders to cavalry on the opposite flank. The actual success Antiochus had in stopping a massacre is unclear, though the narrative in Daniel (11.26) implies that either the entire Egyptian army, or the royal contingent near the king, suffered heavy casualties.

This order was fed by Antiochos’ desires to gain some form of hegemony over all Egypt. After the decisive battle, he sought to show kindness to the Ptolemaic prince, lavished gifts on the Hellenic citizens of Naukratis, and, judging from a small fragmentary papyrus, gave similar gifts to the klerouchs, or settled reserve soldiers, of the Arsinoite nome in the Fayum. By sparing many soldiers in their defeat, and by showing them greater favors in the following months, he hoped to secure their support for his growing power in Egypt. His plan does not seem to have been spectacularly successful, for his occupation was short-lived and ended in coordinated resistance by considerable elements of the Ptolemaic military, even if there is clear papyrological evidence that some soldiers had joined his side.

Introductions

I have been encouraged by friends to begin a blog, and to publish therein some of the many stories of the ancient world with which I frequently regale them. As long as I am entertaining them with stories of epic battles, failed stratagems, and the quirks of an ancient soldier's daily life, I may as well offer that opportunity to others.

A bit about myself: I am 25 years old, a native of Georgia, and only recently engaged to be married. I am a graduate student in ancient and military history, and now, entering my fourth year of the program, I am planning my dissertation. I am most interested in the Hellenistic period, and much of my work focuses on the Ptolemies of Egypt. Thus their history, and Hellenistic history, are likely to appear most frequently.

As for content, I am planning several components. First, whenever some story I have saved away comes out in conversation, I'll plan to elaborate on it here. That was the original germ for this blog. You may as well think of it as " But I will also be including a few "features" as regularly as I can manage. The first is a "This Day in Ancient Warfare," which is likely self-explanatory, and the second is "Makariamachy," which probably is not. "Makariamachy" means, roughly translated, the battle against foolishness. It will be an opportunity to examine battles, institutions, equipment, and people that are frequently oversimplified, misunderstood, or mistreated. At some point I would also like to add a feature for the "Unheard-of Ancient Battles," and its entirely possible I'll also post-in some of my thoughts on my research as I go along.