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Short description

These men, equipped with the best weapons and armour Aitolia could provide, as well as an incredible fighting spirit, are its elite, ready to beat any foe who stands in their way.

Description

The Aitolian epilektoi are elite troops, picked from the strongest and wealthiest citizens of the Aitolian poleis, thus representing the best infantry that the Aitolian League is able to field. They are armed in the manner of thureophoroi, carrying a dory and machaira for close combat, as well as the Celtic thureos shield for defence. They are equipped with colourful linothorakes, crested Chalcidian and Konos helmets, boots, and chlamydes, dyed in the most expensive colours they can afford.

As the most capable and best equipped spearmen of Aitolia, the epilektoi will hold the line against any enemy attack, but will also be able to charge their foe more ferociously than most other Greek infantry units.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Generally perceived as a backwards people, better capable of harassing their enemy from afar rather than to engage in decisive close combat, the Aitolians do not have the best reputation when it comes to the quality of their heavy infantry. Polybios and Livy claim that the Aitolian infantry, in contrast to their powerful cavalry, is much inferior in equipment and discipline to the infantry of their Greek neighbours (Polyb. 18, 22, 5; Liv. XXXIII, 7, 12-13). This, however, may also result from an anti-Aitolian bias of the author Polybios, who was a cavalry commander of the Achaian League, a bitter rival of the Aitolian League. During the Social War (220 – 217 BC), Polybios mentions a hundred picked men, selected ad hoc by the Aitolian strategos Agetas, who are lured into a trap by the Macedonian commander Alexander, and consequently captured. Polybios sarcastically remarks that the Aitolians fell for the same trick they had often played on others (Polyb. V, 96, 6; 8).

The actual truth behind this bias is doubted by Jacek Rzepka (The Aetolian Elite Warriors (2009), p. 23) who posits that the Aitolians maintained a permanent elite infantry force, the epilektoi, paid by financial officials from each Aitolian district. In a war between Elis and Sparta, Aitolia sent a thousand of them to the Elians for support, probably as hoplites (Rzepka, Aetolian Elite Warriors (2009), p. 19). When Pausanias of Sparta tried to besiege Elis, the Aitolian epilektoi and many Elian citizen soldiers charged out of the city, killing several Spartans, and successfully routing the rest (Diod. XIV, 17, 9-10).

That the epilektoi were a permanent military contingent is proven by a short-lived alliance agreement between the Aitolian League and Akarnania, inscribed on both sides of a hollow bronze stele, found at Thermon (either dated to 271/270 BC (Grainger), or late 260s to early 250s BC (Scholten); *IG IX 12 1.3A; Syll.3 421). Besides promising the Akarnanians a support force of one thousand infantrymen and a hundred cavalrymen (and another three thousand troops if additional help would be required) in case of an attack, it also mentions seven epilektarches, the commanders of epilektoi. Rzepka (2009, p. 23f) suggests that these were Hoplites, as probably were the 7,000 Aitolians who joined the Greek forces at Thermopylai in 322 BC (Diod. Sic. XVIII, 9, 5). In another instance, 7,000 Aitolians, “acting as hoplites” (implying that they did not operate like regular hoplites), are mentioned by Pausanias (X, 20, 4) when the Aitolian League sent “every class of fighting men” to Thermopylai in 279/278 BC to stop the Galatian invasion under Brennos. As the professional soldiers of the League were recruited from seven districts, this would indicate that every district provided 1,000 epilektoi each. Rzepka comes to this conclusion, as the League was able to levy 10,000 men “flourishing by youth” (Diod. 18, 24, 2) against the Macedonian invasion of Aitolia in 322 BC, meaning the 7,000 men are a picked contingent of that manpower, i.e. the epilektoi (Rzepka (2009) p. 24f).

That the institution of the epilektoi remained intact for a long time is demonstrated by Livy (XXXI, 43, 5-7), who recounts the Aitolian general Skopas sending 6,000 infantry (of fighting-age) and 500 cavalry to the Ptolemies in exchange for a lot of gold. A number of Aitolian infantry stayed home, however, due to the intervention of Damokritos, who warned Skopas to not drain the Aitolian manpower. The 6,000 infantry are classified as “iuventus”, which refers to young men of fighting-age, in this case possibly equivalent to the Aitolian epilektoi, which would fit well with the reconstruction of the Aitolian manpower and epilektoi force (Rzepka (2009), p. 29).