February Preview!

[Labrat]

It'll be hard to find the thread again, but there is an old post explaining why thureophoroi are depicted as heavy infantry. IIRC it was because at least one chronicler mentioned thureophoroi being singled out with "other heavy infantry". Off course, it should be kept in mind that "unit types" are not as well-defined in history as in EB: thureophoroi may have meant different things depending on time and place. The team has also decided to go with the "heaviest" possible interpretation of each unit.

[MeinPanzer]

It'll be hard to find the thread again, but there is an old post explaining why thureophoroi are depicted as heavy infantry. IIRC it was because at least one chronicler mentioned thureophoroi being singled out with "other heavy infantry". Off course, it should be kept in mind that "unit types" are not as well-defined in history as in EB: thureophoroi may have meant different things depending on time and place. The team has also decided to go with the "heaviest" possible interpretation of each unit.

I'd be curious to hear which source groups thureophoroi with heavy infantry, because one of the only sources that I know in which a specific categorical mention of thureophoroi is made is Polybius' account of the crossing of the Elburz range, in which he classes both thureophoroi and thorakitai in with the light infantrymen.

[Lovejoy]

Great preview. Just downloaded M2TW demo to see if my computer could handle it, it did! So now I'm really looking forward to EB2.

[Ibrahim]

I'd be curious to hear which source groups thureophoroi with heavy infantry, because one of the only sources that I know in which a specific categorical mention of thureophoroi is made is Polybius' account of the crossing of the Elburz range, in which he classes both thureophoroi and thorakitai in with the light infantrymen.

didn't you mention, IIRC, in a thread a long time ago that all/almost all thureophoroi were without body armor?

well, look on the bright side: the units are still WIP, so if you can bring all your evidence together in a focused post, maybe they will see about it.

[MeinPanzer]

First and foremost, literary sources, good as they may be for getting a picture of the people at that time can't be considered 100% accurate, as writers of that time would call things with one name, whereas they would be called something different by another. This must not be the case with Polybios, as he was Hipparchos of the Achaike Sympoliteia (Achaian League) from 170-169 BCE.

And, it should be noted, both the Achaean military, with which Polybius was intimately familiar, and its neighbours (as in, e.g., the Aitolians) employed both thureophoroi and thorakitai, so there is good reason to think that his testimony is accurate.

This is further complicated when one takes into account that when a "barbarian" faction would assault, it would sometimes incorporate in its host heavy infantry, lighter infantry, gaesetae (naked men with just a thureos), spearmen and swordsmen, all of them combined. How do you call them? I guess one would have to pick by either percentage of each composing element, or their role in the battlefield. This would have been a challenge to the historian back then, that is for sure.

This is irrelevant because only Greek troops are referred to as thorakitai in the literary sources. We are dealing with a clear description of a battle group composed of homogeneous units, and not a mixed rabble.

Then, something unimaginably simple comes along... Archaeological finds.
When you have thureos (meaning literally door in ancient greek) carrying troops who are clad in muscle cuirass like the following...it is difficult to classify them (found in present day Anatolia IIRC) as NOT heavy. The fact that they carry the thureos and are armored (thorax in greek) would deffinitely mean that they are thorakitai.

And yet we, for instance, have a representation of a javelineer, clearly a light soldier, who wears a metal muscled cuirass on an Alexandrian funerary stele. His only armament is a handful of javelins and a cuirass, so would he be a heavy soldier?

didn't you mention, IIRC, in a thread a long time ago that all/almost all thureophoroi were without body armor?

I did, but I must explain why I think this whole debate is fundamentally flawed. Thorakitai and thureophoroi are just terms from the literary sources. We clearly have archaeological evidence that shows units carrying thureoi, and so we somehow have to attempt to match these up with the archaeological record. We do not have any sources, such as funerary stelae, which directly link up any representation of a soldier with either of these titles, as far as I am aware.

In the aforementioned passage in Polybius (10.29), he mentions a unit composed of thorakitai and thureophoroi. Now, we must deduce from this that though these soldiers were similarly armed, there was a distinction between them that warranted giving them different names. Since, presumably, being armed with a thorax and a hoplite's shield would make you a hoplite, and being armed with a thorax and a pelte would make you a peltast (as in Iphicrates' peltasts, or the definition of the peltast described by Asclepiodotus), it follows that the reason these men are called thorakitai is because they were armed with a thorax and a thureos, a new combination of arms that required a distinct name. Therefore, we can deduce from the literary evidence that what distinguished the thureophoros from the thorakites was a cuirass. Some authors may have used thureophoros as a blanket term to describe unarmoured and armoured men carrying thureoi, but if you are employing both terms, as the EB does, it only makes sense to keep them as mutually exclusive, or else the entire sense of the word thorakites is lost.

[Ibrahim]

I did, but I must explain why I think this whole debate is fundamentally flawed. Thorakitai and thureophoroi are just terms from the literary sources. We clearly have archaeological evidence that shows units carrying thureoi, and so we somehow have to attempt to match these up with the archaeological record. We do not have any sources, such as funerary stelae, which directly link up any representation of a soldier with either of these titles, as far as I am aware.

In the aforementioned passage in Polybius (10.29), he mentions a unit composed of thorakitai and thureophoroi. Now, we must deduce from this that though these soldiers were similarly armed, there was a distinction between them that warranted giving them different names. Since, presumably, being armed with a thorax and a hoplite's shield would make you a hoplite, and being armed with a thorax and a pelte would make you a peltast (as in Iphicrates' peltasts, or the definition of the peltast described by Asclepiodotus), it follows that the reason these men are called thorakitai is because they were armed with a thorax and a thureos, a new combination of arms that required a distinct name. Therefore, we can deduce from the literary evidence that what distinguished the thureophoros from the thorakites was a cuirass. Some authors may have used thureophoros as a blanket term to describe unarmoured and armoured men carrying thureoi, but if you are employing both terms, as the EB does, it only makes sense to keep them as mutually exclusive, or else the entire sense of the word thorakites is lost.

I see now. thanks.

[paullus]

the plan is actually to have a mix of armored and unarmored men among the thureophoroi, but that adjustment to the unit has not been completed as yet, partly because we never decided on the proper ratio.

as for connections to actual units, a papyrus from 197 BC attests a Kretan hyperetes (junior officer) of the second epilektoi thorakitai. its one of our best, if not only, attestations of units of specifically "thorakitai" in Hellenistic armies.

[Phalanx300]

I'm wondering, does the February Preview means that there will also be a March preview?

And I can't wait to see the Spartans for EB2 .

[MeinPanzer]

the plan is actually to have a mix of armored and unarmored men among the thureophoroi, but that adjustment to the unit has not been completed as yet, partly because we never decided on the proper ratio.

as for connections to actual units, a papyrus from 197 BC attests a Kretan hyperetes (junior officer) of the second epilektoi thorakitai. its one of our best, if not only, attestations of units of specifically "thorakitai" in Hellenistic armies.

That's a papyrus where the Cretan is mentioned as the kurios of a woman, right? I read it a long time ago but I've forgotten the citation for it. Anyway, the unfortunate thing is that we don't have any depictions of soldiers connected with the word thorakit, which would allow us to determine what they were equipped with beyond their thorakes.

Anyway, could you maybe explain briefly why you are going with some armoured thureophoroi? That's one thing I've always been a bit puzzled about in relation to the EB thureophoroi given the nature of the (rather limited) evidence.

[Cybvep]

Actually, a second February preview is a very nice idea ;)

[keravnos]

I'd be curious to hear which source groups thureophoroi with heavy infantry, because one of the only sources that I know in which a specific categorical mention of thureophoroi is made is Polybius' account of the crossing of the Elburz range, in which he classes both thureophoroi and thorakitai in with the light infantrymen.

Mp, I have profound respect for your views and thank you for your continuing presence. Thanks for putting this forth, as I know there are others there who share the same views, on what our sources are.

First and foremost, literary sources, good as they may be for getting a picture of the people at that time can't be considered 100% accurate, as writers of that time would call things with one name, whereas they would be called something different by another. This must not be the case with Polybios, as he was Hipparchos of the Achaike Sympoliteia (Achaian League) from 170-169 BCE.

Having said that, the tactical realities of the day were such that sometimes heavy infantry would be mingled with light infantry, being called light altogether or what have you or mixed with cavalry to achieve victory as Julius Caesar himself did in Greece against Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pharsalus
It would depend on the commander on the ground and how he would use his troops at hand to go against military axioms and win (as the opposing general might be trapped by the "do's" and "dont's") of military doctrine, leaving the hapless historian in a jumbled mess, trying to find who was who, doing what on the battlefield.

This is further complicated when one takes into account that when a "barbarian" faction would assault, it would sometimes incorporate in its host heavy infantry, lighter infantry, gaesetae (naked men with just a thureos), spearmen and swordsmen, all of them combined. How do you call them? I guess one would have to pick by either percentage of each composing element, or their role in the battlefield. This would have been a challenge to the historian back then, that is for sure.

Then, something unimaginably simple comes along... Archaeological finds.
When you have thureos (meaning literally door in ancient greek) carrying troops who are clad in muscle cuirass like the following...

and

it is difficult to classify them (found in present day Anatolia IIRC) as NOT heavy. The fact that they carry the thureos and are armored (thorax in greek) would deffinitely mean that they are thorakitai. There is no doubt in my mind that those are bronze muscle thorakes.

There is also an indirect quote for them. When Philopoemen reformed the Achaian League's army, he had his troops drop his thureos in favor of a small aspis and pike, "in the makedonian manner" in order to beat the Spartans (along with Antigonos Doson's troops at Sellassia). This means that prior to that they mostly used thureoi (plural of thureos) as shields. They would be the thorakitai and thureophoroi of EB.