Mercenaries in the Classical World- To the Death of Alexander

by Stephen English

  The Greek Resistance to Alexander

  Mercenary employment during the reign of Alexander was not limited to the two competing kings; there were still employment opportunities on the mainland for soldiers of fortune to seek a living. These mercenaries can be divided into three categories: those employed by Antipater (Alexander’s regent); those employed by people opposing the Macedonians; and those that remained unemployed. The largest single body of anti-Macedonian mercenaries was those that escaped after the Persian defeat at Issus. These mercenaries left Persian soil via Tripolis, and destroyed every ship they could find–other than those they used to transport themselves–to prevent Alexander following them (which he showed no inclination of doing).37 Arrian records 8,000 mercenaries escaping via this route, and that may not be too bad an estimate out of the (probably exaggerated) 30,000 that were at Issus. These mercenaries were organized along similar lines to the 10,000 of Xenophon, in that they had four separate commanders of seemingly equal status: Amyntas, Thymondas, Bianor and Aristomedes. This could indicate, as it did with the 10,000, that they were originally recruited as separate armies and then brought together, but we have no evidence on exactly how they were recruited.

  Once these mercenaries were free from the immediate threat of reprisals from Alexander, they broke up into four separate armies and went their separate ways. Amyntas and Aristomedes travelled to Cyprus, where they won over a number of cities. Of Amyntas and his 4,000 mercenaries, Diodorus tells us:38

  He sailed over to Cyprus, took on additional soldiers and ships, and continued on down to Pelusium. Becoming master of that city, he proclaimed that he had been sent by King Darius as military commander because the satrap of Egypt had been killed fighting at Issus in Cilicia.

  We do not know about Aristomedes, but if he was prepared to accompany Amyntas to Cyprus then he may well have been prepared to accompany him to Egypt. Amyntas’ plan to take control of Egypt was unsuccessful, as the Persian nobility stationed in Egypt managed to muster enough local support to defeat him, even after an initial setback. If Amyntas wished to avoid Alexander, one wonders why he would have travelled to Egypt with the intention of making himself at least satrap; he must have known Alexander was marching in a southerly direction. This seems a curious choice, unless he was still acting as if in the employ of Darius and hoping for reinforcements once he had occupied the province.

  Whilst Alexander was besieging Tyre and Amyntas was failing in Egypt, there were general rumblings of discontent on the mainland and a developing sentiment towards revolt from Macedonian rule. Those proponents of this policy would have been encouraged by the presence of a large Persian fleet in the Aegean (the fleet was ultimately captured by Alexander towards the end of the siege of Tyre, an act which was the turning point of the siege) and the ever-present possibility of Persian gold.39 The majority of the states of Greece had been enrolled (not all willingly) into the League of Corinth after the battle of Chaeronea in 338, an alliance that was affirmed upon Alexander’s accession in 336. The exception was Sparta, who neither Philip nor Alexander (nor Antipater) had taken the time to subdue and force into membership. It is not always easy to understand why Sparta was allowed to remain free, but she was militarily weak after the Peloponnesian War and the continuous warfare of the fourth century, and especially after Mantinea and Leuctra. Sparta had not actively, or passively, opposed either Philip or Alexander either, and this neutrality did not bring them to the attention of the Macedonians. Sparta’s absence from the League of Corinth treaty, however, meant that she was not bound by its edicts and was free to seek alliance with Persia, or anyone else, if she felt it beneficial.40 The status of the Peloponnese as a ‘free state’ led to Taenarum becoming the central meeting and recruitment point for anti-Macedonian mercenaries, especially from the period after Agis III’s unsuccessfull revolt against Macedonia until shortly after the death of Alexander. Taenarum was a perfectly located city on the major sea routes to Africa, Asia and the Western Mediterranean, and therefore an ideal meeting place for mercenaries awaiting recruitment.

  As already noted, Sparta was not a threat to Macedonia as long as she was militarily weak and without funds because of the loss of the Peloponnesian League. Within about a year of Alexander’s invasion of Persia, however, we see the Spartan king, Agis, negotiating with Pharnabazus at Siphnos (333) for a loan of money, as well as naval and military support for a proposed revolt against Macedonian rule. During the negotiations, the shattering news arrived of Alexander’s stunning victory at Issus. Pharnabazus immediately broke off the negotiations, gathered together the few mercenaries he had with him, and sailed for Chios to ensure that island remained loyal. Pharnabazus commanded 1,500 mercenaries, and a similar amount were already acting as a garrison within the city.41 The city was controlled by a tyrant, loyal to Darius, but evidently unpopular amongst the citizenry, and indeed with the mercenary garrison. An argument ensued, and the city was betrayed to Alexander, who took control of it willingly. He also employed all of the mercenaries present, destroyed the pirates on the island and enrolled those pirates he had captured into his own fleet. One wonders what he must have done to upset the mercenaries, but the withholding of pay was always a good way to make them question their loyalty, and ultimately switch sides, as here.

  Despite the negotiations between Pharnabazus and Agis being both cut short and unsatisfactory from either perspective, Agis did secure some small level of assistance from the Persian satrap. Agis received the small sum of thirty talents, along with ten triremes for his resistance to Alexander in Greece. Agis sent these to his brother, Agesilaus, with instructions to sail to Crete and stir up a pro-Persian rebellion.42 The news of the disaster at Issus was a crippling blow for the anti-Macedonian forces in Greece and on the islands. Alexander was starting to look more powerful and a more attractive potential paymaster every day. All Agesilaus was able to do was stir up some local difficulties, but there seems never to have been a serious risk of revolt. Agis had little choice in the immediate future but to employ as many of the mercenaries formally in Darius’ service at Issus as he could and wait for the opportune moment to strike at the Macedonians.

  The next real anti-Macedonian act of resistance was in 331/0. The Spartans had been preparing for war for around two years, and had already gathered to their banner a significant body of mercenaries, presumably at least partly funded by Persia. After his victory at Gaugamela, Alexander continued further into the Persian Empire, and it started to look increasingly likely that he either would not return, or that he was so far away that there was little he could do to impact proceedings on the mainland. When Agis finally revolted–although he was not in fact under the nominal control of the League of Corinth–he forced Antipater, Alexander’s regent, into a battle at Corragus, where the Macedonians were defeated. Following this success, the Spartans moved to create a formal anti-Macedonian alliance, as Diodorus describes:43

  There was also an upheaval in Thrace at just this time which seemed to offer the Greeks an opportunity for freeing themselves. Memnon, who had been designated governor-general there, had a military force and was a man of spirit. He stirred up the tribesmen, revolted against Alexander, quickly possessed a large army, and was openly bent on war. While Antipater was occupied with this, the Lacedaemonians thought that the time had come to undertake a war and issued an appeal to the Greeks to unite in defence of their freedom. The Athenians had been favoured beyond all the other Greeks by Alexander and did not move. Most of the Peloponnesians, however, and some of the northern Greeks reached an agreement and signed an undertaking to go to war. According to the capacity of the individual cities they enlisted the best of their youth and enrolled as soldiers not less than twenty thousand infantry and about two thousand cavalry.

  Antipater saw the growing threat and, using the huge resources that Alexander had sent back to Macedonia, raised more mercenaries himself to support the core of the Macedonian home guard.44 Once both sides had prepared their forces, they met at M
egalopolis. For the first time in twenty years, the Spartans were in command of a major army marching to battle. That the army was largely mercenary in origin and to an extent paid for by Persian gold would not have concerned them greatly; overthrowing Macedonian rule in Greece and reasserting their own dominance was at the front of their minds. The battle was hard-fought, but the numerical advantage, as well as the superior discipline, of the Macedonians won the day, and the Spartan alliance was defeated. Agis himself died after distinguishing himself during the height of the fighting. Curtius describes the aftermath of the battle and the tensions that remained:45

  This victory broke the spirit, not alone of Sparta and her allies, but of all those who had awaited the fortune of the war. Antipater did not fail to notice that the expression of those who congratulated him did not correspond with their feelings, but since he desired to end the war, he was constrained to let himself be deceived, and although the success of the affair pleased him, yet he feared envy, for what he had done was more important than suited the limitations of a prefect.

  Neither Antipater nor Alexander would have been overly concerned by the underlying hostility to Macedonian rule, as long as the city-states remained loyal. Antipater had smashed Greek resistance completely, and there was no further organized armed resistance to Macedonian rule until after the death of Alexander in 323.

  The loyalty (or obedience) of the city-states was severely tested when the deserter Harpalus arrived in Greece with a large sum of money and a mercenary army of 6,000. He at first made for Athens, where he received a frosty reception, after which he retired with his army to Taenarum, which was still not under Macedonian rule, even after Megalopolis.46 Harpalus left his army there and returned to Athens, but after Antipater complained he was forcibly removed from that city, and he returned again to Taenarum. His second spell there saw him murdered by one of his subordinates, a Spartan called Thibron. Thibron took control of the financial reserves that Harpalus had stolen from Alexander, as well as the 6,000 mercenaries Harpalus had hired, and set off for a life of piracy and pillage.47 The army’s first stop was Cyrene, where they pillaged the land and blackmailed the populace. As was so often the case, however, an internal struggle arose over the distribution of the plunder, and one of Thibron’s subordinates, Mnasicles of Crete, deserted the army along with an unspecified number of mercenaries. Thibron summoned reinforcements from Taenarum and continued his campaign against Cyrene. He was ultimately defeated and killed by troops sent from Egypt to support the Macedonian governor.

  During his career, Alexander would have required ever more troops to act as garrisons in his newly won empire. This does not appear, however, to have reduced the numbers available at Taenarum. As already noted, this kind of garrison service was probably highly prized amongst some mercenaries, as it represented a regular income with little likelihood of being killed or of having to engage in any real combat. The opportunities for plunder were virtually nil, however.

  The death of Alexander in 323 led to two serious rebellions against Macedonian rule, one in the east and one in the west, both of which had mercenaries at their core. In the north-eastern satrapies, as soon as news arrived of Alexander’s death, the mercenaries that had been left in those provinces or settled there against their will rose up against the Macedonian authority with the intention of marching back to Greece. This was the second such attempted rebellion by these mercenaries, the first taking place during Alexander’s lifetime when inaccurate rumours spread of the king’s death. That rebellion was put down ruthlessly. Diodorus tells us there were 20,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry involved in this second rebellion, although this is certainly an exaggeration.48 When Alexander died, Perdiccas assumed, for a time at least, the leadership of the empire and he dispatched Peithon with a number of Macedonians to rectify the situation. Peithon, however, had his own agenda and wished to recruit these mercenaries to his own banner and set himself up as ruler of an independent state with the military backing of these disaffected mercenaries. He found a willing partner in Letodorus, the commander of 3,000 of these mercenaries. The matter was not simply resolved, however, as the mercenaries were prepared to fight to gain their freedom and made a stand on the field of battle against the numerically inferior force commanded by Peithon. At the key moment, however, the desertion of Letodorus’ troops caused the mercenaries’ resolve to crumble and they fled the field. Peithon persuaded these mercenaries to surrender their arms as an act of submission, which they did. The Macedonians, however, had been promised by Perdiccas, unknown to Peithon, that they could take possession of all of the enemy’s belongings as plunder. With this at the forefront of their minds, and unhappy with the leniency shown by Peithon, the Macedonians slaughtered the unarmed prisoners and took their possessions. This was more like the act of a mercenary army than one commensurate with the Macedonians that Alexander had commanded, and demonstrates a further decline in Greek warfare into a period of much greater violence where plunder was a way of life. The revolt, however, was crushed, as were Peithon’s dreams of being ruler of his own kingdom.49

  At virtually the same time, a general revolt began in Greece under the leadership of the Athenian, Leosthenes. Diodorus blamed the rebellion on the unemployed mercenaries that were roaming Greece and Asia as a direct result of Alexander’s mercenaries’ decree disbanding the mercenary armies of the satraps.50

  During this period Greece was the scene of disturbances and revolutionary movements from which arose the war called Lamian. The reason was this. The king had ordered all his satraps to dissolve their armies of mercenaries, and as they obeyed his instructions, all Asia was overrun with soldiers released from service and supporting themselves by plunder. Presently they began assembling from all directions at Taenarum in Laconia, whither came also such of the Persian satraps and generals as had survived, bringing their funds and their soldiers, so that they constituted a joint force.

  Pausanias lays the blame more firmly at the door of Leosthenes, claiming a great personal enmity between him and Alexander.51

  All the Greeks that were serving as mercenaries in the armies of Darius and his satraps Alexander had wished to deport to Persia, but Leosthenes was too quick for him, and brought them by sea to Europe.

  Whoever was to blame, the result was rebellion in Greece and the so-called Lamian War. Athens had seemingly been preparing for rebellion since 324 and had gathered together a force of 8,000 mercenaries at Taenarum, paid for by the gold they had confiscated from Harpalus (which he in turn had stolen from Alexander). As soon as the news of Alexander’s death reached Athens, they sent Leosthenes to Aetolia, where he was joined by his 8,000 mercenaries and 7,000 local levies. From here they marched to Plataea, where they engaged and defeated a combined Macedonian and Boeotian garrison at Thebes.52

  Whilst the Athenians were strengthening their position in southern and central Greece, Antipater sent for aid from Leonnatus, satrap of Phrygia, and awaited the return of Craterus with the Macedonians discharged from the mobile field army. Antipater needed to act, but he was militarily relatively weak, having only 14,000 Macedonians under arms. He left Sippas in Macedonia with a small force to guard against potential rebellion from Thrace, along with a sum of money to recruit mercenaries as necessary, and marched south. His forces were too small to risk a set-piece battle, however, so when he arrived at Lamia he fortified the city and awaited the arrival of the rebels.

  Leosthenes began the siege with vigour, but with little skill in siegecraft, and it quickly descended into little more than a blockade maintained by the mercenaries over the winter months into 322. There were a number of small-scale engagements as the defenders occasionally sortied from the city, and, during one of these, Leosthenes was killed. Whatever limited vigour the besiegers had before the death of their commander, it virtually disintegrated upon his death.

  When Craterus and Leonattus joined forces with Antipater, the Macedonians felt strong enough to offer battle, and were victorious at the resulting Battle of C
rannon. The battle itself was indecisive, but the political outcome was not. The Athenian forces melted away after the battle and Athens sued for peace, accepting Antipater’s terms. The battle was decisive in the short term, but Greece remained highly unstable for much of the next fifty years, partly due to uncertainty as to who was to be the ruler of Macedonia in the long term.53

  Chapter 7

  The West: Syracuse and Carthage

  The history of conflict between Syracuse and Carthage, the two great western mercenary employers, began in earnest with the Carthaginian invasion of 480. It is possible that this invasion was deliberately timed to coincide with the Persian invasion of Greece, although the details of the question are beyond the scope of this book. A Carthaginian army under Hamilcar landed on Sicily and besieged the city of Himera. The Himerans appealed for help to Syracuce, and Gelon, its tyrant, dispatched an army that was partly citizen and partly mercenary. It has been suggested that he commanded a total of around 15,000 troops, even at this early date.1 When the two armies met outside of Himera, the Carthaginians were decisively defeated and Hamilcar was killed. In 474, the Syracusans again used their mercenary army to defeat an Etruscan force at Cyme in southern Italy. It appears the aim of the Etruscans may have been to ally themselves with Carthage in order to carve up Sicily between themselves.2 The Peloponnesian War saw the ambitious and ultimately failed Sicilian expedition from Athens, and its attempt to capture Syracuse. The invasion was almost successful, as has already been described, but Syracuse emerged victorious. The victory came at a cost, however. Syracuse was seriously weakened militarily and financially, and the Carthaginians were not long in attempting to exploit that weakness.