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Short description

These Lycian Marines are a special unit for a special player: use them wisely and they will pay you back with a nice body count!

Description

These sea soldiers hail from Lycia, a fertile, yet mountainous area of south western Anatolia. Lycians have been popular as mercenaries since the Bronze Age and often served on ships. In the past, on the fleets of the Achaemenid Empire and the Delian League, now, on those of the Ptolemaic Empire and its rivals. Armed with javelins and drepana (“war sickles”) they would be used as assault infantry in landing operations or when boarding enemy ships. Though they do not carry shields, these Lycian Marines are protected by metal or linen cuirasses, a goatskin hung above their shoulders, thick Lycian caps with feathers on their heads, and greaves around their knees. As experienced warriors, they are full value for your money.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Lycia was a region to the east of Caria in south western Anatolia, between the Indos river in the West and the coast north of the Rhodian colony of Phaselis in the East. It was a land of high, rough mountains and fertile alluvial plains, of fortified cities and flourishing rural settlements. The region is now famous for the graves of its nobles which were often carved into rocks, especially in Myra, and attract scores of tourists. In antiquity, its inhabitants called themselves trm̃mili (Termilai, e.g. TAM 1, 88; cf. Hdt. 7,92) and spoke a language related to Luwian, the dominant language of Anatolia in the 2nd millennium BC. Homer called them Λύκιοι (Lykioi). During the Trojan War, Sarpedon, the proud and renowned king of Lycia, marched to the aid of Troy and fought alongside Hektor. He was eventually cut down by Patroklos, who, in turn, was killed by Hektor (Hom. Il. 16.419-683). According to Homer, the Rhodians founded the colonies of Rhodiapolis, Gagai, Phaselis and Korydalla on their coast (Il. 13.310-314). In any case, there were connections with the Greek world from the earliest times. Although the Persians conquered Lycia in the late 6th century BC (Hdt. 1.176), its local dynasts took advantage of the Greek victory during the Graeco-Persian Wars and became allies of the Athenians (Bryce/Zahle, Lycians (1986), pp. 103-107). The rulers of Xanthos dominated the region and their monumental graves can nowadays be seen in the British Museum (surprise, surprise).

In the 370s BC, Perikles of Limyra challenged the supremacy of the Xanthians and declared himself king of Lycia, thereby causing the Great Lycian War. After besieging Telmessos and Phaselis, Perikles was able to secure half of the Lycian Peninsula. However, there is always a bigger fish! During the Great Satrap Revolt against the Great King of Persia (366-360 BC), both Perikles and the Xanthians failed to realise their goals and, when the revolt collapsed, were forced to accept the overlordship of Mausolos of Caria (r. 377-353 BC). The Oeconomica (Oikonomika), a work often ascribed to Aristotle, preserves a rather hilarious anecdote from this period: ‘Noticing that the Lycians were fond of wearing their hair long, Kondalos, a governor under Mausolos, pretended that a dispatch had come from the king of Persia ordering him to send hair to make false fringes and that he was therefore commanded by Mausolos to cut off their hair. He therefore said that, if they would pay him a fixed poll tax, he would send for hair to Greece. They gladly gave him what he asked, and a large sum of money was collected from a great number of them.’ (Ps.-Aristot. Oec. 1348a, l. 28-34)

After the end of the Hekatomnid dynasty in the late 4th century BC, Lycia passed first into the hands of Alexander and then those of the Ptolemaic kings, before it was conquered by the Seleucid king Antiochos III the Great in 197 BC (Keen, Dynastic Lycia (2018), p. 180). In the treaty of Apameia (188 BC), the Seleucids had to cede Lycia to Rhodes, but the Lycians violently resisted their new overlords (Polyb. XXIV, 14, 13; XXV, 5, 3). Already in the 180s BC, the Lycian Poleis formed a league with its own laws, council and assembly (Strab. 14.3.3.; SEG 18.570), which remained autonomous until 43 AD, at which point it was incorporated into the province of Lycia by emperor Claudius. Yet, the Lycian League continued to exercise political, religious, economic and ceremonial functions until at least the 3rd century AD, possibly the 7th (Zimmermann, Martin, s.v. Lykioi, Lykia, in: DNP online).

Lycians often used as marines in the navies of foreign powers. During the Greco-Persian Wars, they supplied fifty ships to the Achaemenid navy that was heading for Greece. Herodotos, himself born in Halikarnassos in neighbouring Caria and thus familiar with the Lycians, describes their equipment as follows:

"They were thorekophoroi ['cuirassiers'] wearing greaves and carried bows made of cornel-wood, unfeathered arrows made of cane and javelins. They wore skins of goats hung about the shoulders, and felt caps encircled with feathers on their heads. They also carried hand-daggers and drepana [scimitars or 'war-sickles']."

The word thorekophoroi is rare and vague. It certainly designs heavy infantry (in Hdt. 7.89 it refers to Egyptian marines, and in Hdt. 8.13 as well as Xen. Cyr. 5.3.36 to armoured Persian infantry), but the exact nature of the armour is unclear. Hdt. IX, 22, 2 suggests the Thorax was a scale mail breastplate, but in Hellenistic times it could be a Linothorax or a full metal plate as on the reconstruction of Giorgio Albertini (available online). A metal cuirass is also worn by Payava, the ruler of Xanthos around 360 BC, on the eponymously named Tomb of Payava which is now in the British Museum. The primary weapon of the Lycians is even more spectacular: the sickle-like drepanon is otherwise only known from Caria (Hdt. 7.93) and must have been a very effective weapon in open combat. No description of the Lycian equipment in the period after Alexander has survived and hence the RIS team has decided to portray their marines just like Herodotus has depicted them (without the bows - we have an extra unit for that). Since Greek marines also used very diverse equipment at all times (according to Plato, Laches, p. 183 D, some even used a dorydrepanon, a spear sickle!), there is no reason the Lycians should have stopped doing so.

As the Ptolemaic dynasty controlled Lycia for most of the Hellenistic period, Lycian soldiers naturally appear in their service. Lycian mercenaries formed part of the garrison in Aspendos in Pisidia (or Pamphylia, whomever you ask) in 301-298 BC (SEG 17.39) and some of them later settled in other parts of the kingdom. Under Ptolemy VIII Physkon (“the fatso”, 184-116 BC), clubs of Lycian soldiers are attested on Cyprus (OGIS I, 146; 147; 162). In fact, they had been popular mercenaries since the Bronze Age when Lukka appear in the Hittite army at the famous Battle of Kadesh (Kuhrt, Amélie, The Ancient Near East (1995), p. 388) and were deployed by Eumenes of Kardia (Diod. XVIII, 61, 4-5), Antigonos Monophtalmos (Diod. XIX, 29, 3; 69, 1; 82, 4) and Lysimachos (Diod. XX, 113, 3; Polyaen. 4.12.1; cf. Griffith, Mercenaries of the Hellenistic World (1935), p. 334). Therefore, Lycians may have been used as garrison troops in many Ptolemaic settlements across Asia Minor and the Aegean.