Unit Browser for RTR: Imperium Surrectum

Short description

The agema are the very best among the Klerouchoi. Their excellence in training, morale, and equipment make them the elite infantry of the Ptolemaic army.

Description

These phalangites are the ‘agema’, the best of the katoikoi. As an elite regiment stationed close to the royal court, they have access to a higher degree of training, to the royal armouries, as well as to the best weapon smiths. The klerouchoi agema wear equipment similar to the Macedonian agema and the Seleucid argyraspides. They wear crested Phrygian and Konos helmets; sturdy muscle cuirasses and linothoraces; as well as greaves (knemides). On the battlefield they are equipped with a sarissa (a long pike of 22-24 ft./ 7 metres) and a large, richly decorated pelte shield with Ptolemaic designs, displaying their status as important members of the royal guard.

Since those settlers serving in the klerouchoi agema have achieved vast success in their own settlements, they are able devote ample time to perfecting their deadly craft, drilling their regiments into a well-organised, tight-knit and deadly force. They often form the professional core of the Ptolemaic standing army, along with the mercenaries, the cavalry, and the epilektoi. No matter what action they are called for in battle or where they are stationed, these men make excellent troops to have at your disposal. These phalangites have the best morale of all Ptolemaic infantry and, when necessary, will be the last to hold the line on their own. However, like any other phalanx unit, they should not be sent into battle unprotected, as their flanks and backs remain vulnerable to an enemy charge.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

From the days of Alexander the Great, the agema had been an elite unit within the hypaspists. Their elite status carried over into the diadochi armies of the Hellenistic period (Johnsto, The Army of Ptolemaic Egypt (2020), p. 8). In Ptolemaic Egypt, they had the status of royal guard of the Ptolemaic court, and made up the elite part of the phalanx. In the battle of Raphia (217 BC), Eurylochus of Magnesia commanded a force of 3,000 agema, which was deployed next to the 2,000 Ptolemaic peltophoroi (Polyb. V. 65.2; V.82.4).

While many of the kleruchoi agema were Macedonians and Greeks, some descended from one of the other nationalities in the empire, such as Persians and Libyans (Fischer-Bovet, Army and Society (2014), p. 247). In almost all of the surviving Ptolemaic papyri in which the agema appear, they are mentioned as kleruchs, although these are mostly Macedonians and officers or cavalrymen (Fischer-Bovet (2014), p. 153). Since 3,000 soldiers are attested in Polybios’ histories, the main body of the agema force was either settled in central Egypt, where the documentary records are poor, or most of the men were full-time soldiers, with only the officers receiving large kleroi. Four non-Macedonians are attested; however, three of them were settled close to an infantry officer and received a substantial 100-aroura kleroi. The size of the kleroi suggests they might have served as cavalrymen who happen to have been settled close to an infantry officer, however, they could have been infantrymen as well (Johnsto (2020), p. 9).

The size of the kleroi would have made the agema into one of the biggest property-owning classes of the Ptolemaic Egyptian population. Though usually the commanders of an infantry-force provided their troops with state-funded equipment (Polyb. V. 63.11), the incredible wealth of the agema would have allowed them access to the highest quality of arms and armour out of their private means. A petition from 222 BC reports an infantry officer from the agema who loaned 150 bronze drachmas to help a 100-aroura cavalryman to afford “kataphrakta” and “cheirida” (Johnsto (2020), p. 242).