thats true for hoplites indeed (but nothing like roleplaying royal grants of land to the best experienced troops)
as for roman´s i believe the wealth diference was beteween the rorari leves etc and the hastati princeps and triarii where the later had to go up in this type of lather (?) the triarii where the most experienced troops in a legion (older) and the hastati the youngest one´s (youngest)
anyway this sistem could put a cap on the "true" elites (trully nobles by making it a % of the total population) and a way to make it harder for someone to drill up an army of pure hardened quasi elite troops (trokithai)
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