Unit Browser for RTR: Imperium Surrectum

Short description

These Massaliote Thorakitai, equipped with Celtic mail and shield, are a flexible infantry unit, excelling in both attack and defence.

Description

Having drawn inspiration from the foreign lands their city was built in, the Massaliote Thorakitai look similar to the Gallic warriors they are constantly facing in battle. As a heavy infantry unit that is both strong and flexible, it can either hold firm against numerous waves of warriors or attack the flanks of the enemy lines. Apart from their mail and thureos shield, the Thorakitai still retain iconic elements of a Hoplite: wearing a Chalcidian type helmet, a dory (a 2-3m/ 6-9 ft spear) in their hand and a xiphos on their hip, they are ready to strike at any foe who gets too close.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Sources on Thorakitai are sparse. They are mentioned by Plutarch and Polybios as part of the Achaian and Seleucid army, as soldiers equipped with body-armour or a cuirass (Plut. Phil. 9.2.; Plit. Phil. 9.5.; Pol. IV.12.3; X.29.6; XI.11.4-5;14.1;15.5). In both cases they were positioned on the flanks or alongside Illyrians, Cretan archers, Thureophoroi and other light troops and mercenaries. It’s implied that they were armed similarly to the Thureophoroi and served an equally flexible, although better armoured, role. They might have worn mail, which was adopted by various Hellenic states in the early 3rd century BC after encountering the Celtic invasion force led by Brennus.

The city-state of Massalia, however, founded around 600 BC by Phokaian colonisers in Southern Gaul, had encountered Celto-Ligurian tribes much earlier and interacted with them on a much more regular basis. Tensions between Massalia and its neighbours possibly rose around 450 BC, after the replacement of the trade-oriented Hallstatt culture with the more aggressive La-Tène-Culture in Gaul. This might have led Massalia to adopt military tactics and equipment such as mail and the thureos sooner than other poleis in Greece itself. However, Massaliote power did not rely on a particularly strong military force but rather on trade and cultural influence, selling their goods to the local tribes of the Rhône basin and importing much-needed grain. If it ever had ambitions for territorial expansion, Massalia never gained much land on its own beyond the colonies it had founded along the coast of Southern Gaul. At the height of its power in the middle of the first century BC, Massalia’s population is estimated to have been around 20,000 people at most; with a force of at most 6,000 men that could be mobilized for defence, even less for potential offensive military campaigns.

Until the appearance of the Romans in the Rhône basin, Massalia’s focus had been much more naval-oriented and defensive (Dietler, Archaeologies of Colonialism, p. 189). By the second half of the 2nd century BC, Massalia increasingly called the Romans for assistance in its wars against the “Barbarians”, resulting in the establishment of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis in 118 BC (Cic. Font. 5,13; Vell. Pat. I, 15, 5). During the civil war between Pompey and Caesar, Massalia sided with the Senate, thereby provoking a lengthy siege by Caesar in 49 BC (Caes. Civ. 2, 22). The city was overcome after a long fight, yet Caesar acknowledged its autonomy, and it remained a free city well into the imperial period (Strab. IV, 1, 5).