Quote Originally Posted by Maion Maroneios View Post
Actually, it's far from a myth. Historically, after the Roman expansions, almost every nation (at least every nation that got in contact with the Roman military juggernaut) copied Roman tactics. There are numerous sources which indicate at least the existence of a body of 'soldiers armed in the Roman fashion' as they are called. The Seleucid reformed army had about 5,000 of them.
They probably had more of them, as those were just the Silver Shield brigade. The EB team is not denying the influence of the Romans on the Hellenic militaries, but rather saying it's overstated. Ancient sources do mention "troops armed in the Roman manner". Modern-day historians and wargamers equated this to "imitation legionaries", but it need not have been direct copies. After all, these sources are always Romans or writing for a Roman audience, so possibly they used this phrase merely to easily convey the troop type to their readers. After all, soldiers equipped like legionaries (thureos shield, Celtic helmet, sword, (throwing) spear and later on chainmail) were already used by Hellenic states while Rome was still struggling to get out of Italy. That's not to say there was no Roman influence, because IIRC there is evidence that later thureophoroi unit were organized in ways similar to the legion, but clearly the Greeks were already developing along the same lines as Romans.