Ancient Greece. The history of mercenaries

Mercenaries became an integral part of the Late Greek world, serving in the ranks of both Greek and non-Greek states. Originally, they appear to have made their major contributions under the tyrants. The Greeks originally used the word misthophoros, which meant someone who received payment for work done and was used later to mean a soldier for hire. An individual mercenary being misthios and the plural or group of mercenaries being misthophoroi. The rise of the mercenaries probably began with the tyrant Pheidon of Argos, who needed protection. It was he who probably reformed the military to create the hoplite soldiers. It is possible that his mercenaries formed part of the new body.

After Pheidon’s death, the tyrants Cypselus of Corinth and his son, Periander, used mercenaries as well. A contemporary of Periander was Thrasybulus of Miletus, a tyrant who fought against the kingdom of Lydia and also used mercenaries. These mercenaries were crucial to the tyrants since their loyalty was not to the city or state, but to the individual who paid them. While it was possible that they could be corrupted through bribery, most mercenaries served their masters diligently. Mercenaries were common during the Archaic Age, as they helped secure the tyrants in their powerful positions. During the Classical Age, mercenaries moved from the Greek world to the non-Greek world almost exclusively until the Peloponnesian War.

Greek mercenaries were employed in the Egyptian army under the pharaoh Psammeticus I from 664-610. Although they probably came to Egypt as raiders, the Egyptian pharaoh made a truce with them, and they entered into his service as mercenaries. Under Xerxes I, Greeks from Arcadia went to Persia and fought for them as mercenaries. In the period after the Persian Wars, Greeks continued to fight in the service of the Persians. During the Peloponnesian War, mercenaries were employed by both Sparta and Athens; they were often used as peltasts.

The most famous mercenary expedition concerned Greeks who were in the service of Cyrus the Younger of Persia and the aftermath of the Battle of Cunaxa in 401. Xenophon wrote his Anabasis several years after the battle, and he related the story of the invasion, battle, and retreat from Persia. According to Xenophon, the young Cyrus assembled an army that included Greek mercenaries, supposedly to battle the Pisidians.

The real intent was to fight King Artaxerxes II of Persia, with his larger army. Cyrus was defeated in the Battle of Cunaxa, and after the battle, the Spartan general, Clearchus, and four other generals were killed in an ambush by the Persian Tissaphernes, who had invited Clearchus to a feast. They were executed, leaving the Greek army without a leader. The Greek army, deep inside Mesopotamia and away from the sea, elected new leaders, including Xenophon, who had to deal with the Persian cavalry archers first. His first action was to allow them to approach closer each day, and finally, after about a week, Xenophon assembled a force of cavalry and archers. When the Persians arrived the next day, the Greeks attacked the Persians from only a few yards away, routing them.

Tissaphernes pursued them, and when Xenophon reached the Zab River, he was surrounded, with the river in front of him. Xenophon then had all of the cattle slain and their bodies stuffed with hay and straw; then he floated them in the river to create a bridge so the Greeks could escape the Persians before they reached the river. Xenophon and his men lived off the land, taking from the Persian inland supplies, which allowed his men to survive, although it harmed the inhabitants. His army then moved farther north to southeastern Turkey, the land of the Carduchians, who attacked them with arrows and stones. Xenophon had 8,000 men continue moving along, while 2,000 men went behind the enemy under the cover of darkness and during a rainstorm. When the small force had bypassed the Carduchians, they now appeared and blew their horns to announce their arrival, which now signaled for the return of the 8,000 who put them to flight.

Moving north and followed by the Carduchians, they faced a Persian army in front of them at the Centrites River. The Greeks moved from one ford to another to find it blocked as well, so Xenophon sent a small force back to the first crossing, which forced the Persians to detach a sizable force back to the first ford, while Xenophon and his major force stormed the second ford using the deep profile of the phalanx employed at Leuctra thirty years later. Xenophon now moved his army through Armenia during the winter, which they were not prepared to handle. While the winter caused extensive casualties, Xenophon continued his march north, reaching the city of Trapezus on the Black Sea.

They fought the nearby Cholcians, the allies and vassals of Persia, in the mountains. Xenophon again used a new tactic, where he kept a strong reserve while deploying his men across the enemy line to outflank them. The Cholcians, thinking the Greeks had a larger force, divided their army into two groups so that each one could face the flanks, thus opening up a gap in the middle that allowed Xenophon to rush in. His reserve force split up the Cholcians, allowing the troops to deal with each side with superior numbers. The army then made its way west, arriving in Thrace and helping Seuthes II become king. The army was then hired as part of the Spartan force, which was fighting Tissaphernes.

The use of mercenaries by competing Persians and Greeks became more common during this time. Mercenaries would also fight in the Third Sacred War, when the Phocians seized the Delphic treasury and used the money to hire 10,000 mercenaries. Ultimately, the Phocians were defeated.

Philip II of Macedon also used mercenaries. When he crossed over to Asia, Alexander the Great faced not only native Persians and their conscripts, but also Greek mercenaries, many of whom had fled after the defeat of Thebes. These men were Alexander’s most feared enemies, but his troops were able to defeat them. The use of mercenaries in the Greek world would continue during the successive ages.

Merchant Ships

The following discussion refers to water craft primarily used in commercial adventures, not in military combat; that said, many of the crafts could be used in naval campaigns as noncombatant ships, or even occasionally as warships. Just as warships could be used for nonmilitary action, these ships could be deployed if necessary in a struggle from time to time. These merchant ships could be used in a variety of settings: rivers, lakes, near the shore, and seagoing. An important consideration was their size or capacity, which often limited their places of operation.

Since the Mediterranean is generally calm all summer during the height of the maritime season, the early merchant ships were oar propelled. They remained a crucial part of commercial life since oar-propelled ships continued to offer speed and reliability even after the introduction of sailing vessels. In addition, due to their ability to maneuver in narrow straits and confined inlets, small oar-propelled merchant ships became the norm in many regions.

Terra-cotta model of a ship ca. 600–480. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/The Cesnola Collection, Purchased by subscription, 1874–76)

The merchant galley differed from the early man-of-war, in that it was roomier and heavier. It had a sturdier mast, which carried a larger sail, and its hull was wider than the warship’s. Since this was a time before the ram, merchant ships and warships were similar. With the advent of the ram, though, warships began to develop in a different path so as to withstand the force while merchant ships continued to advance in a different direction, one of increased volume and load.

The early Phoenician ships tended to be bowl-shaped, while the warships were slender and beak-shaped. These early galley ships would look like later sailing ships, but with oar holes. The hull would be deep and rounded, with a towerlike superstructure aft for the steering oars or rudders. Greek ships also had round sterns, but their prows were straight, which had been a tradition in the Aegean for nearly a millennium. These oar-propelled ships could not carry as heavy a load as the great sailing vessels.

Sailing ships, with their increased volume and load capacity, were the important cargo ships of antiquity. The round hull, originating in Crete and the Levant, spread throughout the Mediterranean. There were variations, however, in its design. The Phoenicians used hulls that were rounded and beamy, named gaulos (tub). They would have simple stem and sternposts of equal height.

The Greeks meanwhile used the same rounded hull, but their end posts were more ornately decorated. Often, their posts were both curved inward, while in others, the sternpost pointed inward and the stem post outward. The earlier Aegean ship, with straight lines and angled ends, which existed during the Minoan period, would reappear in Greek sailing ships and merchant galleys in the sixth century.

Merchant galleys, often termed ploion (meaning “ship”), referred to galleys and sailing craft for mercantile or light combat use. These ships could carry messages, passengers, or cargo t often required quick transport. Smaller galleys used oars, with sails as an only ancillary mode. The larger merchant galleys used sails on the open sea, and then oars only for entering and leaving harbors or sheltered places. On these ships, the mast was probably not retractable and had one broad sail. Unlike warships, which had slight beam sizes and a length-to-width ratio of 10:1, merchant ships had a length-to-width ratio of 5.5:1 or 6.5:1.

There seems to have been only two types of hull forms: a rounded or straight prow or a concave prow with a cutwater jutting out like a ram, but above the waterline. The Greeks often termed the size of these ships on the number of tholes meaning oarports or oar- holes on a side so a three-tholed was manned by six oars. The names of merchant galleys are better known than their larger seagoing vessels, probably due to their more common usage in military affairs.

The types of merchant vessels mentioned included the keles, built for speed and having a single bank. It was small, carrying only a modest cargo, and had few rowers. They appear to have been straight-prow. It could also be used for naval warfare due to its speed. A slightly larger vessel, the akatos (whose name could mean just “boat,” but it could also mean a more specific type of merchant galley), was always propelled by oars, which allowed it to be used in times of emergencies as a man-of-war. It was of a fair size, with anywhere from thirty to fifty rowers arranged in one bank. Its hull had the pointed cutwater, and it contained one sail.

They could be used on rivers and the open sea. One was the lembos, which originally meant a “skiff’ and was used as a harbor craft, fishing boat, or rivercraft. The lembos was a large, oar-powered vessel that could also be used in the military operations. It had as many as fifty rowers, occasionally in two banks. It could carry cargo on the open sea as well as in rivers. It too may have had a concave prow and pointed cutwater. The lembos was the largest, followed by the akatos, with the keles the smallest, but the swiftest.

The next class included larger merchant galleys, which carried cargo and passengers. The kerkouros came from the Assyrian word qurqurru, which was a Mesopotamian rivercraft. The Persians used these as transport carriers in their invasion of Greece in 480. It was also the standard ship used in the transport of grain in Egypt, and probably on coastal missions as well. Those used on the open sea were probably fairly large, 150 feet long and holding 450 tons of cargo.

They had a single sail and sharp bows. Another ship probably of the same size was the kybaia and carried cargo as well. It too was constructed in varying sizes. The phaselus (meaning “bean”) was slender and low. Its size varied from a small skiff to a large, seagoing vessel carrying hundreds of men. They probably used sails, relying on oars only when needed. They carried passengers instead of cargo and were known for their speed. Their shape was probably narrower and they had a prow with a pointed cutwater. They could also be used as a warship. These ships appear to have come into use only in the Late Greek period, during the Hellenistic time.

The true sailing ships in Greece were known as strongyla ploia, round ships, as opposed to the warships, classified as long ships. The ships were often classified according to the type of cargo they carried. Typically, the ancients would classify a ship according to its size, and often on how much it carried. Since each city had its own weights and units of measure, this makes it difficult to classify ships exactly. Grain ships referred to the size of the sack or basket often used, so in Egypt it was the artab, in Athens the medimnus, and in Rome the modius. For wine and oil, it was given in the number of amphoras that could be loaded, but since the sizes and shapes of the jars varied, there was no standard system, so the number given probably just meant the total amount loaded.

Common tonnage for ships included small vessels of 70- to 80-ton capacity. During the Classical Age, ships of 100 to 150 tons were quite common, and those from 350 to 500 tons were not uncommon. There was always a large, broad mainsail amid ship, with a later fore and mizzen added, but they remained secondary to the mainsail. The sail was large, hung over the hull, and required multiple lifts. In the sixth century, a foresail was introduced, which at first was large, nearly half the size of the mainsail.

The large three-mast triple-decker of the later age may have been developed during the late fifth and fourth centuries. These descriptions about ships mainly come from the Roman period, but given conservative shipbuilding in antiquity, it was probably the same in the Greek period. The different prows from the rounded bow or the concave prow with the ramlike cutwater were no difference in function. The ramlike prow had curved figureheads or the like, while the traditional bow had rounded bows at both ends that were nearly crescent shaped. One had a simple prow stem post, but the aft one was more ornate. The second type had heavier and less rounded lines, with a massive, block-shaped stem post cap, and the third type had an unadorned stem and sternposts. The first two were for seagoing ships, while the third was for smaller types of craft.

The larger merchant ships had a hold where the ballast and bilge were on the floor. The floor timbers had limber holes to allow bilge water to pass. Of course, someone was always on hand to watch out to make sure that it did not rise too much; if so, it had to be removed by buckets. Ballast was usually sand and stone, but it could also be amphorae, either kept empty or full to provide stability. Heavy cargo, amphorae, stone, tiles, and the like were loaded on the lining, while grain and other perishable goods were stacked above the bilge line. Additional cargo was then loaded on the deck.

The galley was on the aft side, running the width of the ship, with the roof covered in tiles to prevent fires caused by cooking. The port side held the fire with iron bars fixed in clay above the floor, while the starboard had the workspace and storage space. Although cramped, it was more luxurious than the early modern galleys of Columbus’s period. The latrine was on the stern, often hanging over the water. There was a deckhouse on the stern that housed the quarters for the owner and other first-class passengers, as well as the captain’s quarters. There was also a shrine allowing for worship and prayers for a safe journey.

The traditional sailing season was the summer, with the poet Hesiod, a land lover, urging only the fifty days after the summer solstice or July and August. Later authors suggested that the best period was from May 27 to September 14, with the outside limits being March 10 to November 10. Outside these dates, the seas became too rough, and ships sailed only in emergencies. During these down times, visibility was so poor that it was often difficult to make out landmasses. During the sailing season, the prevailing Aegean Sea winds were northerly, the Etesian winds, especially in the eastern Mediterranean.

This allowed ships sailing from Greece to Africa, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt to move quickly and with the winds. The return trip, however, had them going against these winds, and in August, they become violent. The only tides and currents in the Mediterranean that were crucial were those at the Hellespont and Bosporus. The varying speeds of ships depended on the winds (favorable and unfavorable), the ability of the rowers, the season, and the general seaworthiness of the ship.

The merchant ships of ancient Greece allowed crucial cargo to be brought from great distances to the homeland. During the fifth century, Athens imported a large percentage of its food supply, and the grain fleet sailing from southern Russia on the Black Sea through the Hellespont and Bosporus south to Attica was vital. Having large enough ships that could ply the waters safely and bring in valuable cargo was very important.

Since Athens controlled the sea lanes after 470, it did not need to worry about pirates. Its greatest concern was bad weather, which could sink or incapacitate a ship or fleet. The Athenians made the procurement of grain and its transport one of its chief priorities. When the Spartan commander Lysander at the end of the Peloponnesian War cut off the grain supply from the Black Sea region, causing Athens to become overcrowded with refugees, the lack of food resulted in Athens’s surrender.