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Short description

These Pamphylians can fight both as Hoplites and Peltasts, and serve as mercenaries or locally recruited auxiliaries in many armies.

Description

These skirmishers have been recruited in Pamphylia, a major region in southern Anatolia. Situated around the city of Side, Pamphylia was a fertile alluvial plain, dominated by a humid heat in which plants and animals alike flourished. Pamphylia is first mentioned in the 13th century BC as part of the Hittite Empire, but after the first Rhodian colonists arrived in the 7th century, the area was quickly and thoroughly Hellenised, culminating in the Ptolemaic and Seleucid era when new cities were founded and the existing infrastructure expanded. It will thus come as no surprise that the Pamphylians would fight for various Hellenistic kings. Even though these men go to war as skirmishers, bearing javelins and spears, they are well protected by Linothorakes with pteryges, greaves, Pilos helmets and small, round Pelte shields. An able general will find many usages for such a unit, and may thus recruit them into his army as mercenaries.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Pamphylia was the ancient name for the alluvial plain around the modern metropolis Antalya (Attaleia). Low and gentle hills, wide rivers and a hot and humid climate dominated this region that was bounded by mountains in the interior. Yet, some of its most prominent cities, Aspendos, Perge and Sillyon, lay on flat mountain tops on its northern fringes. The fertile region was first settled in the fourth millennium BC, but its inhabitants are first mentioned as part of the Hittite Empire in the 13th century BC (on the so called bronze table of Boğazköy; cf. Otten, Bronzetafel, 1988). In the 7th century BC, the first Greek settlers arrived from Rhodes (Abbasoğlu/Martini, Perge, 1998). The name itself, Pamphylia, probably refers to the Pamphyloi, one of the three original tribes of these Doric Greeks. Little is known about the Pamphylian language, but its speakers seem to have lived from Attaleia in the west to Side in the East (Mela 1, 78; Plin. nat. hist. 5, 96). In any case, they were quickly Hellenised. Despite Lydian (Hdt. 1, 28) and then Persian rule - from 547 BC - (Hdt. 3, 90), Greek culture came to influence every part of Pamphylian society. This development was further accelerated by Perge's membership in Athens’ Delian League between 465 and 415 BC (Brandt, Pamphylien (1990), 30 seq.), but it would take until Alexander the Great for Pamphylia to largely fall under Greek rule.

In the late 4th century BC, the Ptolemies established a foothold in the region. Most of the major cities like Side or Aspendos either became allies of the pharaoh or received garrisons. The new lords of Pamphylia founded Ptolemais (Strab. 14, 4, 2) an Arsinoe (Strab. 14, 5, 3), while the Seleucids increasingly gained ground in the region and founded a city named Seleukeia, which has not yet been located. After the defeat of the Seleucids at Magnesia in 190/189 BC, Pamphylia fell into Attalid hands, and in 150 BC king Attalos II of Pergamon decided to establish a new capital, which the moderate king named after himself: Attaleia, modern day Antalya - now capital of all of Anatolia and more.

While most Pamphylians were farmers, merchants or manufacturers, the Pamphylians were also known as mercenaries and pirates (Holm, History of Greece (1898), p. 118). Writing in the mid 5th century BC, Herodotos, however, wrote that the Pamphylians in the Achaemenid Persian army were armed “like Greeks” (Hdt. 7.91). This obviously implies Hoplite gear, and hence they wear greaves, Pilos helmets, a dory (spear) and Linothorakes with the typical pteryges. Since the popular mercenaries were often mentioned separately from Hoplites, however, some historians have postulated they may have been more mobile spearmen with javelins (Ray, Land Battles (2012), p. 193). Hence, their panoply is completed with javelins and Pelte shields, making them a hybrid Hoplite/Peltast unit.

Pamphylians are often mentioned as mercenaries or regional contingents in Hellenistic armies. In 310 BC, Antigonos Monophtalmos, the most ambitious of the diadochoi, had Pamphylians in his army (Diod. 20.113.3), but already two years before that, they first appear on the Ptolemaic payroll (Diod. 19.69.1; 82.4). Only a few years later (301-298 BC), they form a large part of the local Ptolemaic garrison in Aspendos (SEG17.39), and Bagnall (Ptolemaic Administration (1976), pp. 127-128) shows that they appear in the inscriptions of the Ptolemaic garrison at Thera, modern Santorini, in the 3rd century BC (id., 264-266 for the garrisons on Cyprus). After the loss of most Ptolemaic possessions in the North in the late 3rd century BC, the Pamphylians primarily served the Seleucids and logically feature in the army of Antiochos III the Great at Magnesia (Liv. 37.40.13-14). This well recorded history of the deployment of Pamphylians implies that they were brave and reliable troops, and their hybrid equipment makes them a useful addition to many Hellenistic armies.