In this passage, Plutarch is either stating that citizen soldiers were of far greater worth than mere mercenaries, or at the very least that that was the contemporary perception (although the Spartans would have felt their citizens more worthy than any other, in any case); this is another view that seems prevalent throughout the Greek world. Many of Plutarch’s biographies are a valuable source, but especially for supporting material for more historically biased writers. Always bear in mind, however, that writers like Plutarch (first century AD) and Diodorus (first century BC) were not contemporary with the events they describe. Other historians like Thucydides and Xenophon were contemporary, a fact that may colour your views as regards their reliability, as a contemporary is more likely to be able to garner first-hand information from participants in any given event.
Diodorus is also an important source for the employment of mercenaries in the fifth century, before the period covered by Thucydides. The latter historian produced one of the great works on ancient warfare, and it is surprising that he places very little importance on the significance or relevance of mercenaries throughout that war, and although he does make a relatively large number of references to them, most are only passing mentions.16 For Thucydides, mercenaries were a peripheral issue in the Peloponnesian War (the war fought primarily between Athens and Sparta between 431 and 404).
Athenian political speeches are a further rich source of information, particularly those that survive from the fourth century. Isocrates wrote pamphlets and Demosthenes made speeches in which they expressed deep concerns about the growing use of, and reliance upon, mercenary soldiers. Demosthenes was concerned about the potential for mercenaries upsetting the natural order of the city-state, as they were not inherently loyal (only when monies were regularly paid), whilst Isocrates was heavily critical of the Phocians’ employment of mercenaries during the Sacred War.
Two of the titans of Greek philosophy, Plato and Aristotle, were not silent on the subject of mercenary service either. Interestingly, Plato was critical of the individuals themselves, rather than of mercenary service per se:17
Cyrnus, find a man you can trust in deadly feuding: he is worth his weight in gold and silver. Such a man, in our view, who fights in a tough war, is far superior to the others–to just about the same degree as the combination of justice, self-control and good judgement, reinforced by courage, is superior to courage alone. In civil war a man will never prove sound and loyal unless he has every virtue; but in the war Tyrtaeus mentions there are hordes of mercenaries who are ready to dig their heels in and die fighting, most of whom, apart from a small minority, are reckless and insolent rogues, and just about the most witless people you could find.
To compare, Aristotle believed that citizen hoplites were inherently braver because they had more to lose in battle; they were fighting to defend their homes and therefore felt death preferable to flight and safety, unlike the mercenary:18
Stratiôtai turn cowards, however, when the danger puts too great a strain on them, and they are inferior in numbers and equipment; for they are the first to fly, while citizen-forces die at their posts, as in fact happened at the temple of Hermes. For to the latter flight is disgraceful and death is preferable to safety on those terms; while the former from the very beginning faced the danger on the assumption that they were stronger, and when they know the facts they fly, fearing death more than disgrace; but the brave man is not that sort of person.
The fourth-century writer, Aeneas Tacticus, also gives us some very interesting snippets of material from the many historical illustrations he gives in his under-read work How to Survive under Siege. He, like many of the other sources we have mentioned, is critical of the practice of a besieged city employing mercenaries. He was concerned that their loyalties would be to themselves first and foremost, rather than to the city, as would be the case with citizen soldiers, much the same argument that was employed by Plato and Aristotle. His concern was that there was always the possibility of betrayal because of bribery or some other act of self-preservation, although there are in reality few examples of mercenaries swapping sides at a crucial moment of a battle or siege. Perhaps the most famous example is the defection of the mercenaries commanded by Eumenes at Gabiene in 316.19 This was probably rare because of the impact it had on the reputation of the mercenary soldier; if this occurred too frequently then the employment opportunities for all mercenaries as a group would decline because of a lack of trust on the part of prospective employers. Knowledge of this fact may well have made an individual mercenary, keeping an eye on his long-term employment, wary of defection unless circumstances were dire.
The Eumenes incident is also an indication of the importance of Diodorus as a source because of the vast time period he covered, down to the later Roman Republican period. His ability as a historian is often criticized, as is the quality and reliability of the material he left behind, but there appears to be a slowly increasing appreciation that he can add a great deal to our knowledge of this subject, and of history more broadly. Whilst he does not always present a negative picture of mercenaries, he does link them with tyrants; a standard criticism that perhaps means little, given the influences that Roman thought would have had on him (and indeed other writers of the Roman period).
Diodorus preserves a wealth of evidence, particularly of the fourth century, which saw a very significant increase in the use of mercenary forces. Diodorus makes only two references to mercenaries in his pre-fifth-century material, but from the fifth century they are quite common in his history, indeed they are mentioned in every book, from book 11 onwards, with the high point when his narrative enters the fourth century. He also pays great attention to the career of Cyrus the Younger and of Dionysius I of Syracuse, both of whom were great employers of mercenaries. 20
The mention of Cyrus the Younger brings us to Xenophon and his great works on mercenary service. His work detailing the march of the 10,000 to Cunaxa, their defeat (despite being the superior troops) and their return to Greece, with all of the privations and deprivations that brought, is invaluable. The picture Xenophon paints of mercenary service is largely positive; but we must always remember that he was employed as a mercenary himself and was present during the march of the 10,000, and is therefore likely to have had a rather coloured view of their activities.
Regarding the sources, it is interesting that many present a relatively negative picture of mercenaries and of mercenary service, certainly when compared with citizen soldiers. The views of these aristocratic authors were not necessarily in tune with the views of the individual Greek citizens. Whilst the historians were generally suspicious of mercenaries and of mercenary service, individual Greeks do not seem to have had the same issues, given the numbers that regularly volunteered for service both inside Greece and beyond.
The approximate route of the March of the Ten Thousand, arguably the most famous exploit of Greek mercenaries in the Classical period
Chapter 1
Payment and Remuneration
The most fundamental aspect of mercenary service, as we have already noted, was that of the provision of service in return for some form of payment or remuneration. In this chapter we will explore the payment systems and methods that existed.1
Employing mercenaries was not a decision that was taken lightly, because of the costs involved. Outside the Persian Empire, no employer could easily afford an open-ended agreement on terms of service, and thus most mercenaries were employed for a specific campaign, after which they would need to seek other opportunities. Therefore, it was often not in the financial interests of the mercenaries for wars to end quickly, or for one side to be comprehensively defeated, as their future employment opportunities would be limited as a consequence.
Although the employment of mercenaries was an expensive way of waging war, their professionalism led to their increasing usage throughout the Classical period and into the Hellenistic period. The cost, therefore, became a necessary burden of the state, and a means had
to be found to bear that greater expense during times of war. States and individual commanders came up with a number of mechanisms to provide their mercenaries with the payment they required, and we will begin this chapter by examining some of those methods.
Methods of Payment
Direct payment in the form of coinage is the most obvious method of payment that we might imagine today, especially considering our modern market economies. Ancient societies, however, did not have the same relationship with money that we do in the modern world; the ancient economy was not as heavily monetarized as is ours. Even citizens in the richest of ancient societies, the Persian Empire, often conducted their business in the form of trade and barter, rather than direct purchase. It it also probably true to say that the Persian Empire did not make much use of coinage except for the payment of mercenaries.
This being said, however, payment in coin was often made, especially after the Athenian Empire had spread coinage over a wide area and made its use more common than it had been before the fifth century.2 At the end of that century the Peloponnesian War continued the increasing trend towards payment in coin, and by the end of that war it was relatively commonplace for mercenaries to receive at least some of their remuneration in the form of hard currency. In the mid-fourth century, Diodorus tells us of an incident during the Third Sacred War (356–346, of which we will hear more later) where coins were struck specifically in order to pay mercenaries for their service:3
After the death of Onomarchus his brother, Phayllus succeeded to the command of the Phocians. In an attempt to retrieve the disaster, he began to gather a multitude of mercenaries, offering double the customary pay, and summoned help from his allies. He got ready also a large supply of arms and coined gold and silver money.
He goes on to tell us more of the same incident:
. . . Phayllus, the brother of Onomarchus, when he became general, struck into coin a large number of dedications in order to pay the mercenaries.
Some of these coins manufactured from melted-down dedications survive, carrying the names of the Phocian generals Phayllus and Onomarchus, demonstrating that this minting did occur and suggesting that the payment in hard currency was not unusual by this time.
Therefore, the spread of coinage as a means of exchange and the spread of mercenary service appear to be linked. The spread of coinage did facilitate the hiring of large mercenary armies, which changed the nature of Greek warfare. It has even been argued that the minting of coinage and the subsequent payment of mercenaries in coin was detrimental to Greek society as a whole and was in itself a significant cause of the downfall of the polis system.4
Although coinage is the most obvious form of direct payment, and for many mercenaries this would have been the most important and desirable form of pay, it was by no means the only mechanism that was at the disposal of the paymasters. In order to understand the next form of payment fully, we need to understand something of the motivation for mercenary service. Some mercenaries were undoubtedly motivated by the prospect of a reasonable steady wage, and for these men service away from the front line would have been considered a choice assignment. Consider, for example, the mercenaries employed by Philip II of Macedon. He stationed mercenaries throughout Greece at strategically important locations, a policy adopted and greatly expanded upon by his son, Alexander the Great.5 These men would have received a regular wage (not just in coin, as we shall see) and were in very little danger as long as there was no rebellion. For some, these postings would have been highly sought after, less so for others.
Many were motivated by mercenary service because they had no other way to make a living; there was no welfare state after all. Individuals needed to be able to feed themselves, and in many cases their families, and therein lies the second mechanism that commanders had at their disposal; some of the payment received by mercenaries was in the form of food and drink. Mercenaries, like everyone else, needed to eat more than they needed hard currency, and employers found a number of ways to make this happen. Some employers would pay the food bills for their mercenaries (a payment called sitêresion or sitarchia) or provide them with enough coinage to pay those bills themselves. This payment would have been separate from their wage, which sometimes fluctuated depending on employer, but this sitêresion payment appears to have been more stable.
Some employers paid something akin to travelling expenses (ephodia). Employers could also make payments in kind and simply provide food and sustenance for the mercenaries (trophê or sitos). For many commanders, this latter option would have been the simplest, and perhaps the cheapest solution, as they would be feeding their regular army anyway; a few more mouths would make little difference, and it would save potentially a significant amount of money, especially as the numbers of mercenaries employed increased. Misthos was also paid to mercenaries, and hence the common fourth-century name for a mercenary soldier misthophoroi. Misthos was akin to a regular wage or salary. This terminology developed as the employment of mercenaries developed and as terminology was required; because of this the terminology did not really evolve until it was needed in the mid-fourth century, along with the rise of the mercenary army.6
The extent to which these terms are specific or synonymous and interchangeable can be (and has been) debated, but the important thing to note here is that the provision of food, or a payment specifically for the purpose of purchasing provisions, was an important pay structure at the disposal of a mercenary commander.
Mercenaries could also be paid a form of bonus for either length of service, or for particularly distinguished service, although this was relatively rare. The Syracusans gave Dion’s mercenaries a bonus payment of 100 minae for success against Dionysius in 357, and we also know that Cyrus offered his mercenary army five minae each once victory had been assured. Xenophon tells us:7
So the generals called an assembly and made this announcement; and the soldiers were angry with the generals, and said that they had known about this for a long time, but had been keeping it from the troops; furthermore, they refused to go on unless they were given money, as were the men who made the journey with Cyrus before, when he went to visit his father; they had received the donation, even though they marched, not to battle, but merely because Cyrus’ father summoned him. All these things the generals reported back to Cyrus, and he promised that he would give every man five minas in silver when they reached Babylon and their pay in full until he brought the Greeks back to Ionia again. By these promises the greater part of the Greek army was persuaded.
As we can see, this was not an act of largess on the part of Cyrus but the promise of a bonus payment in order to keep the mercenary army intact after a period where their pay was evidently in arrears.
Alexander the Great also gave a bonus equivalent to two months’ pay to his mercenaries (and everyone else in the army) after the Battle of Gaugamela in 331. This would not have acted as a motivation in the same way the Cyrus incident did before Cunaxa, because this was unexpected and was a bonus for services already rendered. Diodorus tells us of these bonus payments:8
From the money which was captured he distributed to each of the cavalrymen six minas, to each of the allied cavalrymen five, and to the Macedonians of the phalanx two, and he gave to all the mercenaries two months’ pay.
It is difficult to appreciate at first glance how generous these bonus payments were, but to put these figures in a context, in terms of ancient currency:
100 drachma = 1 mina
1 talent = 60 minae
We do not know with absolute certainty how much a cavalryman in Alexander’s army would have earned as a daily rate (or what that payment consisted of), but around two drachmae a day is a typical estimate. Therefore, six minae, or 600 drachma, as a bonus payment (300 days’ pay) seems a significant amount. The bonus paid to mercenaries, two months’ pay, thus seems considerably less generous by comparison to that paid to the regular divisions of the army, but with Alexander this was to be expected. He was a significant employ
er of mercenaries, as we shall see later, but they were never the main component of his army, always being on the periphery.
The least frequently used and therefore probably the least important method of payment of mercenaries was in the form of land. The practice of allotting land for military service became commonplace in the Roman Empire, for both legionaries and auxiliaries, but it was rather less common in Greece, and certainly as a method of payment for mercenaries. One of the very few incidents of this form of payment was by Dionysius in 396. Diodorus again:9
Dionysius . . . offered the mercenaries, who numbered about ten thousand, in lieu of their pay the city and territory of the Leontines. To this they gladly agreed because the territory was good land, and after portioning it out in allotments, they made their home in Leontini.
The rarity of this form of payment is indicated by the circumstances of this incident. It was evidently a lack of funds that forced Dionysius to create this novel method. It is further interesting to note that once the mercenaries had accepted their allotment of land they seemingly settled down and no longer pursued the life of the mercenary, making this form of payment undesirable if the tyrant wished to maintain his mercenary army. Mercenary settlers were often not popular amongst the natives either, of course.
Mercenaries in the Classical World- To the Death of Alexander Page 2
