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View Full Version : Suggestions for Ptolemaioi



Kralizec
04-27-2006, 22:58
2 issues.

One is that Machimachoi units are available from the very beginning. IIRC the Ptolemies didn't start equiping natives until the Seleucids conquered their colonies in Asia Minor, cutting them off from a major source of Greek manpower. Establishing the Machimachoi was an act of desperation.
So personally I think that Machimachoi should become available after a sort of military reform. Say, if you lose a major battle or losing settlements to the enemy.
This would unlock the Machimachoi units, and make Hellenic units more expensive (because they're harder to come by)

Two is: Pezhetairoi. My understanding was that Pezhetairoi were a poleis product, like the hoplites of archaic Greece. The Ptolemaic society was organised along different lines then the other Successors, Egypt was almost entirely devoid of real poleis except Alexandria and later Ptolemais in the south. As such they didn't base their military might on poleis like the Antigonids or the Seleucids, but on the Kleroi. Shouldn't they be called Kleruchoi Phalangatai or something along those lines?

VandalCarthage
04-27-2006, 23:33
The Machimoi were introduced at a variety of different stages, in a variety of ways - (not all at once or even out of desperation) which we just didn't have the time to originally impliment.

The Pezhetairoi were not the product of the poleis; the whole Hetairoi and Pezhetairoi organization was a product of the Makedonian military reformers like Archalaos. At this point, they were really just the same old Makedonian citizen levies, in many ways.

In any case, the kleruchies and poleis were just a different way of doing the same thing. Since the population of resettled soldiers the Ptolemies depended on was much more varied than that under the Seleucids, they were able to organize the system a little more conservatively. The Seleucid poleis were in most cases of a fairly traditional foundation; with assemblies, constitutions, etc; laid down by the founder (traditionally only the king could found a true polis, but that was rarely the case; in many cases, older Greek constitutions were just carbon copied for the occassion). So, settling poleis and divying up land was in all instances just a manner of depositing the king's Pezhetairoi. The levying of Pezhetairoi was in no way associated with the exclusive policies of a basic polis - the Seleucid poleis and the Ptolemaic klerouchies were just outgrowths of the need to offer the independent 'Pezhetairoi Insitution' attractive settlement.