Mercenaries in the Classical World- To the Death of Alexander

by Stephen English

  Wandering bands of mercenaries were starting to have an unpredictable and destabilizing effect upon the Greek world.

  Between 346, when the Peace of Philocrates was ratified, and 341 when it finally broke down, there was a great deal of political manoeuvring in Greece between Philip, Athens and other leading powers. These included an attempt by Philip to turn the narrow peace between himself and Athens (and her allies) into a broader common peace, which failed, as well as continuous attempts by Demosthenes in particular to have the Athenian assembly throw out the peace and declare war on the Macedonians.

  The peace officially came to an end in 341 when Demosthenes travelled to Byzantium to make a treaty of peace with that city, as well as with Abydos, actions that were partly designed to maintain Athens’ food supplies through the Black Sea. This triggered Philip’s anger, and he complained to Athens, who responded by formally denouncing the terms of the treaty, an act that was essentially a declaration of war.

  Philip responded by besieging Byzantium and other cities in the Thraceward region, in direct opposition to Athens. The conflict came to a head in 338; Philip was done with Thrace and the north and he marched through the pass of Thermopylae and into central Greece to take part in another Sacred War that started in 340. His army attacked Amphissa, entered Phocis and seized Elateia, where the army camped for some time. As Philip marched south, the Athenians sent Demosthenes to negotiate an anti-Macedonian alliance with the Thebans. This was very much a marriage of convenience, as both feared the rising power of Macedonia and both realized that they were too weak individually to defeat Philip; together they had a chance.4

  Now that they had doubled their existing armed forces by the Boeotian alliance, the Athenians recovered their confidence. At once they designated Chares and Lysicles as generals and sent forth their entire army under arms into Boeotia. All their youth reported eager for battle and advanced with forced marches as far as Chaeroneia in Boeotia. Impressed by the promptness of the Athenian arrival and themselves no less ready to act decisively, the Boeotians joined them with their weapons and, brigaded together, all awaited the approach of the enemy.

  The Athenians had managed to gather together a force of 10,000 mercenaries; the only reason they could afford this was likely the expectation that it would be a short campaign. Along with the mercenary forces was the whole of the citizen muster; this really was a major undertaking on the part of the Athenians and speaks volumes as to their concerns. The Thebans were heartened by this action of the Athenians and also raised a significant mercenary army, as well as mustering their militia. Troops, mainly mercenaries, also came from Corinth, Megara, Achaea and Boeotia to join the anti-Macedonian coalition.5

  He waited for the last of his laggard confederates to arrive, and then marched into Boeotia. His forces came to more than thirty thousand infantry and no less than two thousand cavalry. Both sides were on edge for the battle, high-spirited and eager, and were well matched in courage, but the king had the advantage in numbers and in generalship. He had fought many battles of different sorts and had been victorious in most cases, so that he had a wide experience in military operations. On the Athenian side, the best of their generals were dead–Iphicrates, Chabrias, and Timotheus too–and the best of those who were left, Chares, was no better than any average soldier in the energy and discretion required of a commander.

  We might add to Diodorus’ bleak assessment of the coalition leadership that the Theban’s two greatest generals, Pelopidas and Epaminondas, were also long dead.

  On or around 4 August, the two sides took to the field of battle at Chaeronea. For the Macedonians, Alexander was given command of the Companion Cavalry on one wing. He was only 18 years old and had little military experience, but what little he did have had helped him demonstrate his bravery and swiftness of action. Apparently also stationed on Alexander’s wing were a number of more senior generals, no doubt there to keep an eye on the future king. Philip ‘at the head of picked men’ stationed himself on the opposite wing to Alexander. We know nothing of who these picked men were, but they may well have been the hypaspists, 3,000 strong.6 In the centre was presumably placed the pezhetairoi. This became the standard model, and certainly was what Alexander did in every one of his set-piece battles once he became king.

  On the coalition side of the battlefield, the troops were divided according to nationality. The Athenian troops occupied one wing (opposite Philip) and the Thebans the other (opposite Alexander). The centre was occupied by the remainder of the allied contingents. Given the sizes of the Theban and Athenian forces compared to those supplied by the other city-states, we must consider some of the Theban and Athenian troops to have also been stationed in the centre, or the wings would have been enormous relative to the size of the centre of the line.

  The battle was opened by Alexander, who appears to have charged from his flank before Philip moved, presumably under orders to do so.7

  Then Alexander, his heart set on showing his father his prowess and yielding to none in will to win, ably seconded by his men, first succeeded in rupturing the solid front of the enemy line and striking down many he bore heavily on the troops opposite him. As the same success was won by his companions, gaps in the front were constantly opened. Corpses piled up, until finally Alexander forced his way through the line and put his opponents to flight.

  When Alexander was heavily engaged on his flank, Philip chose his moment to attack. Why he delayed the charge from his flank is not recorded, and any attempted explanation would only be speculation, but it may be that he hoped some of the troops opposing his side of the line would be withdrawn by the coalition to support the flank under attack by Alexander. It is perhaps more likely, however, that he hoped that Alexander’s charge would shatter the Thebans on that wing, which would mean that victory was close. His charge would then be the decisive one, the one that ultimately broke the enemy and forced a general retreat.

  More than 1,000 Athenians fell in the battle, and over 2,000 were captured as they tried to flee before Philips forces. The Thebans suffered similar losses in their battle against Alexander, including the annihilation of the whole of the Sacred Band, their elite infantry unit (and the Theban attempt to combine citizen loyalty with the professionalism of the mercenary). Of the coalition troops, those stationed in the centre probably came off least badly. We have no record of fighting in that sector, although there must have been some; the centres probably engaged each other around the time Philip was breaking the wing opposite his position, and therefore would not have been engaged for long.

  The victory at Chaeronea effectively gave Philip the control of Greece, outside of the Peloponnese at least. The armies of both Thebes and Athens were destroyed, and neither had the financial means to raise another army of mercenaries, and Sparta had neither the resources nor the will to resist Macedonia on the field of battle.

  The army that Philip created and used to gain hegemony over the Greek world was largely a professional force. The majority of those present were Macedonian nationals, or allies from areas like Thessaly. It was professional in the sense that they were a permanent standing army with standard equipment and regular training routines. The army that Philip created, and Alexander perfected, felt a tremendous sense of personal loyalty to the king and a remarkable sense of national pride–this loyalty was tested to the limit by Alexander as he marched them to the very edge of the known world in India.

  There were certainly mercenaries present, although their role in set-piece battles was not critical to the victory. Most of the mercenaries that would have been employed by Philip would have been on garrison duties in strategically important cities like Byzantium and Pherae. In terms of numbers, perhaps the most significant use of mercenaries by Philip was on the two main expeditionary missions he sent out. The first of these was to Euboea, where his mercenary army supported one party against another in Porthmus, Oreus, Chalcis and Eretria.8 The second major expeditionary force was commanded by Parmenio and was sent to A
sia Minor in 336, two years after the victory at Chaeronea. Parmenio was sent with 10,000 mercenaries to create a bridgehead, which Philip intended to exploit with a much larger force of Macedonian nationals when he was ready. Parmenio had a fair degree of initial success, but as the Persians became more organized and hired a mercenary army of their own, commanded by Memnon of Rhodes, they began to retake areas they had lost. Memnon’s army was only 5,000 strong, but was commanded brilliantly and fought Parmenio to a standstill before driving him back towards the Hellespont. This demonstrates admirably the advantages of well-led troops over simple superiority in numbers. By the time of Philip’s death, and certainly by the time of Alexander’s invasion in 334, most of Parmenio’s initial gains had been lost.

  The use of mercenaries by Philip can be divided into two distinct periods: before and after the year 346. Before this date, only three references are made to mercenaries in the Macedonian army: the first against Chares; the second in the capture of Pharcedon in 353–2; the third instance was when he loaned a contingent of mercenaries to Phocion in 348. During the early part of Philip’s reign, his Macedonian national army was in an evolutionary stage of development, during which it was still being trained and organized. I believe it likely that mercenaries played a far greater role in military operations during this period than these sparse references would seem to indicate, because the Macedonian army was not yet the force it was to become. After 346, when Philip had gained control of much of Greece, mercenaries were used to form garrisons at strategic points throughout the Greek world, as already noted. This was a policy that Alexander continued and greatly expanded upon, as we shall see. They also continued to be used in some combat roles, as evidenced by the composition of the expeditionary force sent to Asia Minor by Philip in 336.

  Alexander

  The majority of the mercenaries employed by Alexander at the beginning of his reign would have accompanied Alexander into Asia, or were already there, having been sent by Philip with the expeditionary force in 336.9 It is highly unlikely that any would have been left behind with the defensive army left with his regent, Antipater, in Macedonia. If Antipater had need for mercenaries, he could have recruited them as necessary. The example of the Phocians and others rather suggests that, if an employer could pay, finding the requisite troops was not a difficult task. It was also the case that the Macedonian treasury was bare and mercenaries left at home would have been an unnecessary expense. Regarding Macedonian funds, at the outset of the campaign, money was at a premium. We know that Alexander left himself with a huge amount of personal debt before 334, relying upon the conquest of Persia to restore Macedonia’s fortunes. Having said this, Alexander had left garrisons at strategic points throughout Greece, and these would have been mercenaries, although Alexander may well have demanded that the city-states pay for their upkeep.10

  Diodorus gives us a detailed order of battle for the Macedonian army as it crossed the Hellespont and entered Asia in 334.11

  There were found to be, of infantry, twelve thousand Macedonians, seven thousand allies, and five thousand mercenaries, all of whom were under the command of Parmenion. Odrysians, Triballians, and Illyrians accompanied him to the number of seven thousand; and of archers and the so-called Agrianians one thousand, making up a total of thirty-two thousand foot soldiers. Of cavalry there were eighteen hundred Macedonians, commanded by Philotas son of Parmenion; eighteen hundred Thessalians, commanded by Callas son of Harpalus; six hundred from the rest of Greece under the command of Erigyius; and nine hundred Thracian and Paeonian scouts with Cassander in command, making a total of forty-five hundred cavalry. These were the men who crossed with Alexander to Asia.

  This account makes it clear that there were 32,000 infantry in the army of invasion, of which 5,000 were mercenaries. Other sources do give slightly different figures, but Diodorus’ account seems reasonable. Five thousand mercenaries seems to be a remarkably small number as a percentage of the total, certainly when compared to other armies of the fourth century and into the Hellenistic period. The mercenaries amounted to only 15.6 per cent.

  There are probably four main reasons for this. Firstly, mercenaries had historically not been a major part of Macedonian armies, a trend that Philip did not wholly reverse. The second reason has already been mentioned, and is the almost complete lack of available funds with which to hire or pay mercenaries, although it is worthy of note that we don’t really see the type of wanton pillage that had become relatively common in Greece. The third reason is that, in 334, Darius was a competing paymaster. The Great Kings had always been large employers of Greek mercenaries, and 334 was no different. To a mercenary with a choice of employer, Darius probably looked like the better bet; he had wealth almost without limit and a substantially larger army than that commanded by Alexander. The final reason, and this should not be underestimated, is that Alexander simply had very little reason to employ large numbers of mercenaries. His Macedonian army would prove itself to be the most efficient and effective army the Greek world had yet seen; a large force of mercenaries was not a strategic or tactical necessity at the outset of the campaign.

  It has long been understood, however, that Diodorus’ figure of 5,000 mercenaries carries with it some significant problems. During the first year of the campaign in Asia, up to the battle of Issus in 333, Alexander left behind garrisons at Side, Mytilene, and possibly Ephesus and Miletus. Alexander also left a force of 3,000 mercenary infantry to complete the reduction of Halicarnassus as he left the area to continue the conquest of Asia Minor. After the reduction of that city, those troops remained to act as a garrison for the satrapy of Caria. Our sources do not tell us the size of the garrisons left in Side and Mytilene, or the numbers of casualties in combat to this point, although Alexander did not use mercenaries as front line troops and so their casualty figures were probably small. I think we can safely assume, given that 3,000 were left in Caria, that the total left behind on garrison duty before the battle of Issus would have amounted to in excess of 5,000, more than the number with which Alexander had invaded Asia. To the best of our knowledge, the only additional mercenaries that Alexander received were the 300 that defected to him from the Persian garrison at Miletus. This could be explained by Alexander leaving funds behind with his provincial governors with which to recruit mercenary garrisons. This would have made sense as it would reduce the workload on the army itself; recruiting was probably difficult for an army on the march anyway. After the first few months in Asia Minor, Alexander’s financial situation would have improved slightly, and therefore funds would have been available for such an act.

  A problem arises when we look at the Battle of Issus. There clearly seem to be two bodies of mercenaries that, I believe, formed a reserve line behind the Macedonian heavy infantry. Arrian’s description of the dispositions of Alexander’s army is not as detailed as we would like; he does not tell us, for example, the number of mercenaries present.12 It is probable that such a force, forming a second line, would have been fairly considerable. A figure of somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000 seems a reasonable guess given the length of the front line. If we take the lower of these two figures, this leaves us with a significant shortfall. There are only two possible explanations: either we make up the deficit by suggesting that these troops were the remnants of the expeditionary force, of whose fate we otherwise know nothing, or there was a draft of reinforcements from Greece between 334 and 333, upon which our sources are silent. It would seem that the former explanation is the more plausible, as it is unsafe to invent troops just for our own convenience and to fill a gap in our available evidence.

  We can likely assume that with every successful campaign more and more mercenaries would flock to Alexander’s banner. A successful general is always a far more attractive paymaster than an unsuccessful one, as Darius discovered. This is demonstrated by the Persian army’s employment of mercenaries: Darius had 20,000 Greek mercenary hoplites at the Granicus in 334, and only around 2,000 at Gaugamela three years l
ater. This failure to recruit more was not down to a lack of desire, or a lack of funds on the part of the Persians. The two main reasons were that Alexander could effectively control access to the main recruiting grounds in Greece and, secondly, Alexander was wealthy enough to mop up the available mercenaries for garrison duty in his growing empire.

  Given Alexander’s increasing need for mercenaries, and my assumption that he employed them in great numbers, is this actually supported by the evidence of the sources? Our sources only record two batches of mercenary reinforcements received by Alexander before Gaugamela, 4,000 from Sidon and 3,000 from Chios.13 We are also told of a mercenary garrison of 4,000 left behind in Egypt. These must be the reinforcements from Sidon, as they are not mentioned at the Battle of Gaugamela. Although the total number of mercenary troops may have increased slightly during the first three years of the campaign, so did the number of Macedonian troops, so that the proportion of mercenaries to Macedonians would have remained almost constant. Reinforcements were arriving at roughly the same rate as they were required to form garrisons in the newly conquered territory.

  After Gaugamela, when there was essentially no competing paymaster, there seems to have been an explosion in the numbers of mercenaries enrolling with Alexander’s army, to such an extent that both Arrian and Curtius agree that Alexander had 120,000 men with him for the invasion of India. A significant proportion of those would have been mercenaries, given the lack of Macedonian reinforcements and their continuous losses.14 Table 1 shows all of the mercenary reinforcements that our sources record as being received by Alexander throughout his career.15