Quote Originally Posted by paullus View Post
Hmm, several points on which to catch up.

1. Alexandrian stele of the thorakites - the soldier, an Epeirote, is shown in a classic dueling style known (perhaps) best from a number of south italian tombs that show duelers in armor with cloaks and javelins, and only rarely with shields. The stele fits far better with the duel theme than with a warfare theme, and I don't think we'd assume that the duelers from the Paestum tombs lacked shields if they wanted them.
I would have to say that I disagree. Were he facing an opponent in a duel, I would agree, but he is simply posed in a combative stance, and I can't think of a single other painted stele depicting a soldier in arms where the man is shown with only partial equipment, whether from Alexandria, Sidon, Cyprus, or Demetrias. There is also the Hellenistic gem Sekunda shows in his Seleucid Montvert title which shows a man identically equipped, with only muscled cuirass and javelin or spear.

2. Light thureophoroi - we're actually showing a sort of continuum, but its still up for some changes. For example, we've already implemented and previewed the euzonoi, an unarmored unit (save for a few helmets) equipped with thureoi and javelins. But we also know that there are a couple of depictions of thureophoroi in tube-and-yoke corselets, several in possible flexible leather garments, others in chain mail, and others in full muscled cuirasses.
What do you mean when you refer to "possible flexible leather garments"?

Now, we've been considering several ways of working through these things. From a Ptolemaic perspective, I see quite a few different outlays of gear, based on the full range of sources at my disposal. The Sidon stelai seem consistent with mercenary troops outfitted for mobile roles, carrying equipment bestowed by the king and packed off for campaign.
Are these not presumed to be the stelae of members of the garrison? They all seem to be light-to-medium infantrymen, mostly thureophoroi and peltasts - exactly the kind of mercenaries that were a dime a dozen and could be used to man garrisons. How is their armament indicative of being packed off for campaign?

We should differentiate these from the standing army troops recruited in Egypt itself (also--confusingly--called misthophoroi some of the time) who were from landed or (for lack of a better term at the moment) "small business" backgrounds, who, by nature of the period of their service and proximity to markets, had greater opportunity to diversify their equipment by purchasing, from their own funds or from their stipend, a different helmet or piece of armor.
But the mercenaries of Sidon, garrisoned near one of the most prominent port cities in the eastern Mediterranean and surely paid a stipend, would have been able to diversify their arms as well, and perhaps even had more disposable income to spend on arms than a clerouch who was tied financially to his life at home in Egypt.

There are also equipment differences--we see 3 types of weapons pretty frequently, but as I'm sure you know, there are only 2 weapons allowed in-game. I have to leave in a minute actually, but it boils down to this: the gap between full thorakitai and euzonoi was too large, and we didn't feel comfortable lumping every type of armor ever shown worn by a soldier carrying a thureos into a single unit, so the thureophoroi are meant to bridge that gap. As I've said, they'll not, at release, wear as much armor. 30-60% (debated) will wear some form of lighter armor, and all will have helmets.
If we look at depictions of soldiers, we can basically establish two classes: those with cuirasses (whether tube-and-yokes, muscled, or mail) and those without. For the rest, these two groups are very similarly equipped, bearing helmets, swords and spears/javelins. We know from Polybius that there were two classes of similarly-classed infantrymen, thureophoroi and thorakitai. The difference in name seems to suggest that the latter wore cuirasses while the former did not. What is the difficulty, then, in making those with helmet, sword, javelins, and thureos a unit called thureophoroi, while those with helmet, sword, javelins, thureos, and cuirass a unit called thorakitai? Variety could be provided for both with different kinds of helmets and cuirasses. As Polybius (and most likely other ancient historians) recognized, the greatest difference was between men with no armour and men with armour. Ordinarily I would agree with you on this point, but in this case the dichotomy in both the archaeological and literary sources seems extremely clear cut.

3. Greaves - That's actually due for change. You'll notice that the bodies of the thureophoroi are the same as those of the hoplitai. The thureophoroi will wear a variety of boots, so bear with us. I think there are actually also a few helmet changes for the thureophoroi that haven't been put into place, even though the model changes have already been prepared. It takes some work, and we've been doing a lot of work on a lot of other cultures. These things will get sorted out when we get back around to the Hellenes.
Good to hear, and I look forward to seeing the results!