Thank you very much for the answers....

Quote Originally Posted by Moros View Post
- Usually it goes the other way around. When a nation gets stronger and richer it tends to use mercenaries more. The best example of this are the Carthagenians. You could also say that the Romans started to use more mercenaries as they grew in time. Though most foreigners (Germans), in Roman armies would serve the same way as the other legionaries.
I wonder whether the tendency to use mercenaries is driven by pressures which mean that the citizen manpower is no longer enough, or whether the citizens are no longer willing to serve (e.g. the Roman equites giving up their cavalry role because they were too rich to fight!)

Thinking about the Carthaginians - I hear a lot about mercenaries from Hispania. Did these troops account for the bulk of the increase in Carthaginian mercenary use; and do you think there would have been Iberian mercenaries on the market if there were no Carthaginian colonies in the area?

And the Romans - did they start using mercenaries more after the Marian reforms took place, or before?

Quote Originally Posted by QuintusSertorius
There weren't any in Rome itself, even the notion of there being distinct groupings around the "best men" and populists is an oversimplification to aid the modern reader. There were no parties, no causes that united groups of senators in any kind of overarching way. Each and every politician was out for himself and himself alone, working to further his career and behave in a manner that honoured his ancestors. There were certain familial loyalties through intermarriage and relations, but they were influences not factions.
Indeed, it is an oversimplification.

I don't think it's too Marxist to say that there were pressures between the senators and the plebians, and that this produced a series of controversial issues (which individual politicians arranged themselves around in the manner you describe).

I am mainly wondering what the equivalent fundamental pressures and issues in other nations were (well I mainly care about Macedon, Egypt, Carthage and the Seleucids but ideas about others would be useful too :) )