Questions about Seleukid units.

I always figured the pantopodai are EBs version of vanilla peasants. Slightly less prone to instant death, but pretty shoddy none the less... Essentially the kind of unit you would get if you round up a bunch of unwilling peasants and give them a shield and a spear, and tell them to stand in lines and hold off the approaching armies until someone can come and deal with them (or until they break, run and get slaughtered...). In this role, its unlikely that even poorer higher class citizens would be pantopodai.

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Originally Posted by Urnamma

As far as the linothorax, they decay over time. It's a relatively easy form of armor to fabricate, and provides a good deal of protection. We find many, many waistbands from such suits of armor, because they're made out of scales (generally, at least the more expensive ones probably have this feature), but no full suits. Must we find a full suit of linen armor for you to believe they were there?

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This debate has some merit in it - that is: it provides people like me, (those who are interested, perhaps have some basic "knowledge", or may have a stronger tie with the era, but who sadly don't have sources on hand), with more info on the time period.

Sad though that it apparently must go the way it does now... (Which is no comment on the quote above.)

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Originally Posted by MeinPanzer

If they were poor, then I would agree. However, as I've posted before, I disagree with the basic principle that they were so.

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Considerable parts of the Iranian inhabitants of AS would not have been poor indeed... but wouldn't they have served as the native cavalry? (Mada Asabara in this case.) I mean, in those areas footsoldiers, notwithstanding the new "moral order" of the Seleukids, - one might even say particularly in those areas, since the local "Persian" culture appears to be somewhat incorporated into the new system (the king's 'clan' are heterogenos after all) - , were regarded as inferior and unreliable. Exactly the arocratistic attitude (that of the cavalrymen and his close followers) towards the humble peasants (the foot soldiers).

Herodotos is not always a reliable source, and in this debate he may be considered plainly outdated, but what the following quote indicates is clear enough to me: "and the Persians educate their childeren in these three things only: in riding, in shooting, and in speaking the thruth."

I'd say much of this old attitude would have remained, especially since the conquests of Alexandros were relatively recent, and thus the native inhabitants of the former Persian empire wouldn't have been converted all that much. Something which is also indicated by the fact that the Seleukids appear to somewhat mistrust their Persian subjects.

So it's altogether possible that the pantodapoi were made up of the (lower) middle class. (And not just the Iranian (lower) middle class.) You know, those people just like those who would have to make do with "one drachme a day" in 5th century Athens. People who might not have had much time to practice with their new gear, and neither would have had much spare money to buy it. People who would rather keep it simple, and keep from costly equipment. An axe is simple: strike hard enough and it will hurt enough (as it is able to shatter shields easily enough). A short sword is not that simple: especially when your opponent has brought a shield with him (opponents like the pantodapoi would have to face).

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Originally Posted by hoom

This is I think the point MeinPanzer is trying to make.

There were plenty of wealthy Iranian etc natives who were put into the cavalry but there would also have been plenty that were not rich enough to be cavalry but wealthy enough to afford the standard phalanx gear.
The Greeks wouldn't allow them into the Pezhateroi so the mixed, empire wide levy Pantodapoi Phalangitai would be where they would surely end up.

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Or maybe they'd end up in the Phalangitai unit we have between the Pezhateroi and the Pantodapoi. They're in the next build. :2thumbsup:

They bloody well should have swords, or we'll have a riot in this forum.

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They're in the next build.

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Heh :balloon2: