Mercenaries in the Classical World- To the Death of Alexander

by Stephen English

  At the end of the fourth century, the democratic faction in Syracuse was in the ascendancy, having won much kudos for the victory over the Athenians. They acted against some of their anti-democratic opponents by exiling them, the most notable being Hermocrates. At the time of his exile, he was commanding the Syracusan fleet in Asia Minor, and those he commanded did not take kindly to the news.3 In 410/09 a second Carthaginian invasion of Sicily began. Upon hearing the news of the invasion, Hermocrates did not immediately return home, but:4

  He now went to visit Pharnabazus; and since he had once brought an accusation against Tissaphernes at Lacedaemon, in which Astyochus supported him as witness, and had been adjudged to speak the truth, he received money from Pharnabazus before he asked for it, and busied himself with collecting mercenaries and triremes with a view to his restoration to Syracuse. Meanwhile the Syracusans who succeeded the banished generals arrived at Miletus and took over the ships and the troops.

  Once his mercenary army had been gathered, he sailed for Sicily and landed at Messana, where his force was bolstered by 100 fugitives from Himera, which the Carthaginians, under the command of Hannibal, had sacked. Hermocrates appears to have wanted the tyranny of Syracuse as his first priority, the defeat of Carthage as second. His first action was a raid into Carthaginian-controlled territory with the aim of gathering plunder, which he used to bolster the size of his mercenary force. When it reached a strength of around 6,000, he marched on Syracuse and attempted to besiege the city and to force entry. His attempt failed and he withdrew to occupy Selinus, which had previously fallen into Carthaginian hands.

  Hermocrates attempted to ingratiate himself into the hearts of the Syracusans by marching to Himera, recovering the bones of the Syracusan dead, and returning them in specially decorated wagons.5 Hermocrates intended to follow up this act by arriving at the city with 3,000 of his mercenaries, at which point he had arranged for his local supporters to betray the city to him. After some kind of miscommunication (there is no reason to suspect treachery), the mercenaries did not arrive, and he entered the city with only a small contingent of friends. When the citizens realized what was happening, they surrounded his party and slew the would-be ruler and most of his followers.6 The most important of the small number who escaped the attempt to snatch power was Dionysius, the future tyrant, who was himself a Syracusan citizen with wealthy and powerful friends.

  In 406, the Carthaginians made another attempt to invade Sicily, this time in far greater numbers and with the conquest of the whole island as their goal. They first began a siege of Acragas, a city which had remained neutral during previous invasions. This time, however, she both requested help from Syracuse, and hired a number of Campanian mercenaries. The city’s defence was conducted by the elected generals, and a mercenary general from the Peloponnese called Dexippus. The defenders fought stoically as they awaited the hoped-for assistance from Syracuse, but before that could arrive the Carthaginians were overtaken by a plague and many were killed, including their leader, Hannibal.7 The plague left the defenders in the ascendancy, and, although food within the city was running short, the inhabitants were receiving regular shipments from Syracuse. Probably by luck rather than good judgement, the Carthaginians intercepted a grain shipment to the city, which turned the tables against the defenders. Food shortages began almost immediately amongst the populace, the soldiers and mercenaries alike. For mercenary troops, food or a stipend provided to purchase food (and its availability) were key elements of mercenary service. Once the food started to run out, the loyalty of the Campanian mercenaries similarly expired. They deserted to the Carthaginian side and, since they were the backbone of the defensive forces, the city quickly fell to the invaders.

  The Carthaginians had aided the defenders of Acragas by providing provisions to allow them to withstand the siege, but had given limited actual military aid. In the spring of 405, the year following the fall of Acragas, Syracuse elected ten new generals, including Dionysius himself.8

  Having become elated, therefore, in his hopes, he tried every device to become tyrant of his country. For example, after assuming office he neither participated in the meetings of the generals nor associated with them in any way; and while acting in this manner he spread the report that they were carrying on negotiations with the enemy. For in this way he hoped that he could most effectively strip them of their power and clothe himself alone with the office of general. While Dionysius was acting in this fashion, the most respectable citizens suspected what was taking place and in every gathering spoke disparagingly of him, but the common crowd, being ignorant of his scheme, gave him their approbation and declared that at long last the city had found a steadfast leader.

  Dionysius believed that a mercenary bodyguard would be his surest route to the tyranny, and so he set about tricking the populace by faking an assassination attempt upon himself, after which he was voted a bodyguard of 600 foreign mercenaries, a force he later increased to 1,000. Gradually, Dionysius established himself as a military dictator, and eventually tyrant. He replaced the leaders of the citizen militia with his own men, and also sent Dexippus back to the Peloponnese. After this, he set about trying to win over the mercenaries formally employed by Dexippus, and with some success. This did not prove difficult, as the pay of Dexippus’ mercenaries was in arrears and he won them over by simply paying off that debt. The mechanism for doing so is interesting, however. Dionysius did this by confiscating the property of the wealthiest citizens of Gela:9

  And when Dionysius on arrival found the wealthiest citizens engaged in strife with the people, he accused them in an assembly and secured their condemnation, whereupon he put them to death and confiscated their possessions. With the money thus gained he paid the guards of the city under the command of Dexippus the wages which were owing them, while to his own troops who had come with him from Syracuse he promised he would pay double the wages which the city had determined.

  Dionysius’ first major internal difficulty was in 403, when his newly constructed fortress within the city was besieged by citizens who were opposed to tyranny, and more specifically to his tyranny. Dionysius had very few mercenaries with him at that point, and he was not prepared for a lengthy siege. For a time, the situation looked bleak indeed; some of his mercenaries had been seduced by offers of citizenship and had deserted, but despite the blockade he managed to smuggle a letter to his Campanian mercenaries, those who had deserted Acragas, and summoned them to his aid. The citizen rebels felt victory was within their grasp, and some began to disperse. As they did, the Campanian mercenaries arrived, forced their way into the city and broke the siege. It is an interesting side note that we see many more examples of mercenaries deserting their paymasters in the west than we do on the mainland or in the east.

  Once Dionysius broke the siege, he had the opportunity to suppress the rebels brutally if he so chose, but he enhanced his reputation amongst the Syracusans by not doing so. In fact, he treated the rebels with a great deal of respect and exacted no punishments that we are aware of for the rebellion. Perhaps Dionysius realized that to treat the citizens harshly was to store up trouble for the future. He did not, however, do nothing. Whilst the citizen farmers were in the fields by day, his mercenaries were searching their homes and confiscating any weapons they found, to reduce the chances of another armed uprising. The citizens seem to have accepted this as being considerably milder punishment than they might have expected.

  Dionysius made further moves to increase the size of his mercenary forces. At this time, the Peloponnesian War had just ended in Greece and there were large numbers of unemployed former mercenaries adding to the tension and political unrest on the mainland. Dionysius also had an alliance with Sparta, the victor in that war and therefore the most powerful city-state in Greece, at least for the time being. The Spartans were happy for Dionysius to recruit as many mercenaries as he required from Greece and specifically from the Peloponnese. There were also fertile recruiting grounds in Italy and Spain, as
well as the availability of Sicels and Greeks from Sicily itself. In short, Dionysius was in the privileged position of being able to create as large an army as he had money to pay for. On top of these mercenaries, Dionysius could, of course, call upon the citizenry of his various subject states to bolster his forces. He even recruited a citizen force from Syracuse, although he took the precaution of only arming them when they were outside of the city, and of disarming them before they returned, in order to prevent an ugly reoccurrence of the disturbances he had already experienced.

  The army Dionysius gathered was huge by any standards, and certainly by the standards of the ancient world:10

  He had eighty thousand infantry, well over three thousand cavalry, and a little less than two hundred warships, and he was accompanied by not less than five hundred merchantmen loaded with great numbers of engines of war and all the other supplies needed.

  How many of these 83,000 troops were mercenaries is not recorded, and any estimate would be nothing more than a guess. At the same time as he was gathering together this enormous army, Dionysius also hired huge numbers of craftsmen from both the Greek world and the dominions controlled by Carthage by offering larger wages than were available elsewhere. We usually do not hear of this occurring during warfare, or in the build up to it, but craftsmen were just as important as the soldiers themselves in terms of the provision of weapons and armour.11

  . . . there were made one hundred and forty thousand shields and a like number of daggers and helmets; and in addition corselets were made ready, of every design and wrought with utmost art, more than fourteen thousand in number.

  We can reasonably assume that mercenary soldiers would be expected to bring their own weapons and armour, and perhaps be expected to purchase their own replacements. The numbers of helmets, shields and daggers may indicate that many of the 83,000 were citizen soldiers, and the lack of corselets produced may imply that many of those were perhaps equipped as peltasts rather than hoplites. The mercenaries hired may have been equipped as the heavily armed hoplites, much as was the practice of the Persians. Greeks on the mainland, by contrast, typically hired peltast mercenaries rather than hoplites. These manufacturing figures may imply that, in the hiring of mercenaries, the Syracusans acted more like the Persians than the mainland Greeks.

  Dionysius’ military effort was on an enormous scale, particularly given such a short timescale. These preparations, personally supervised by Dionysius himself, along with the liberal application of bonuses, included two significant military innovations. These were the quinquereme and, perhaps more importantly, the catapult.12 Diodorus’ mention of catapults is the first certain mention of them in history.

  Dionysius must have had vast funds in order to make this manufacturing effort happen, and to pay for the huge army. Having said this, he was not profligate with his money. We are told that he ensured that he had the weapons and armour produced before he hired any mercenaries or gathered the citizen soldiers together, which was obviously financially astute. Why hire mercenaries before he was ready to use them, after all?

  Once Dionysius’ army was ready, equipped and trained, the tyrant lost no further time in his attempt to both conquer Sicily and drive out the Carthaginians. He first captured Aetna, a local rival, before failing to capture the Sicel city of Herbita. From this set-back, he moved onto the Ionian cities of Catane and Naxos.13 Diodorus tells us that these two cities fell to the Syracusans by means of the treachery of some of the citizens, who opened the gates for the promise of a significant payment in gold. Philip of Macedon became famous for capturing cities by treachery, but he was not the first to do so. Polyaenus, on the other hand, presents a different version of the capture of Naxos:14

  After agreeing with certain individuals on the betrayal of Naxos, Dionysius approached the walls with 7,000 soldiers late in the day. The Naxians, realizing the threat of betrayal, rushed to the towers. The betrayers called from the towers, telling Dionysius to attack with his entire force. He in turn threatened the men on the walls that if they did not surrender the city voluntarily, he would kill them all. About the same time, at Dionysius’ command, one of his fifty-oared ships sailed into the Naxians’ harbour, carrying pipers piping and signallers counting time, as if each were directing one trireme. The Naxians, thinking that as many triremes were approaching as the signallers they perceived, became frightened and voluntarily surrendered the city to Dionysius.

  Dionysius was of Dorian Greek descent, and he behaved with considerable savagery towards the Ionian cities which he captured. They were both razed to the ground, and the inhabitants, those that survived, were sold into slavery, although the rebels in each city were spared these excesses. The territory of Naxos was given to the Sicels in an attempt to win greater loyalty, and later Catane was given to some of his Campanian mercenaries.15

  After the sack of these Ionian Greek cities, Dionysius began a siege of Leontini. This city had long been a rival of Syracuse, and this campaign was partly about reducing a rival and partly about expanding his own sphere of influence. The citizens of the city had heard about the fate of the citizens of Catane and Naxos, and they feared what resistance to Dionysius might bring. Their city was fortified, but their citizen numbers were nowhere near what the Syracusans were capable of putting into the field. Dionysius realized that he had an opportunity to capture the city by guile rather than force, seemingly always his prefered option, so he offered the populace of the city citizenship of Syracuse; many accepted and the city fell into his hands. Shortly after this, the city was given to 10,000 of his mercenaries in allotments in lieu of payment. These mercenaries were apparently happy to settle down, which is an interesting statement about their desire to abandon the life of a mercenary when safer, more stable options were presented to them.

  In many ways, Dionysius was acting exactly the same as were the Carthaginians, conquering, annexing and sacking where necessary. It is a sobering thought that Dionysius probably destroyed just as many Sicilian cites as did the Carthaginians.16 Dionysius’ war of expansion went well, and occupied his attentions for probably two years from 403.

  For some years, Dionysius avoided direct confrontation with the Carthaginian army, preferring to expand his own domain by capturing largely neutral cities. He also invested a great deal of time and money into fortifying Syracuse itself. The Athenian had almost succeeded in capturing the city during their great expedition, thus revealing significant weaknesses in its defences. Dionysius had no intention of allowing another foreign invader the opportunity to exploit those weaknesses a second time. Whilst this work was underway, and whilst Dionysius was consolidating his own position, an uneasy peace reigned between the two rival powers. This also gave the Carthaginians the opportunity to consolidate their own gains in the parts of Sicily they had conquered.17

  When Dionysius observed that some of the Greeks were deserting to the Carthaginian domain, taking with them their cities and their estates, he concluded that so long as he was at peace with the Carthaginians many of his subjects would be wanting to join their defection, whereas, if there were war, all who had been enslaved by the Carthaginians would revolt to him. And he also heard that many Carthaginians in Libya had fallen victims to a plague which had raged among them.

  By the end of 398, Dionysius’ preparations were complete. The army was at full strength, the navy was prepared, and there was a multitude of weapons and armour, along with provisions and finances, for the coming campaign against the Carthaginians. Dionysius’ first act was to expel all Phoenicians from the cities under his control and to seize all of their assets, no doubt adding a welcome boost to his treasury. Along with this, he sent a messenger to the Carthaginians offering an ultimatum: free the Greek cities under their control–essentially leave Sicily–or he would declare war.

  The Carthaginians were not in a position to go to war with Dionysius. Their homeland had been suffering from plague, with the consequent reduction in their available manpower. The Carthaginians were also not pre
pared for war logistically. It has been recently noted that it is hard to see how this could have been the case. Dionysius was making open preparations for war for two years, and numerous Phoenician traders must have carried that news back to the Carthaginian hierarchy, yet they had not felt the need to prepare.18 However unprepared they were, they were not willing to sacrifice their gains in Sicily without a fight, so they dispatched recruiters to Europe to hire a mercenary army as a matter of urgency.

  With allies flocking to his banner, Dionysius made first for the Elymian city of Eryx. The city occupied a naturally strong defensive position, but the Syracusans were not required to test their new army quite yet, since the city surrendered at their approach:19