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SELEUCID AND

PTOLEMAIC

REFORMED

ARMIES 168 145 BC VOLUME

T PTOLEM I RMY

Nick Sekunda

Colour plates by

Angus McBride



SELEUCID ND PTOLEMAIC REFORMED

ARMIES 68 45

C

VOLUME 2: THE PTOLEMAIC ARMY

UN R PTOL MY

VI PlllLOM TOR

Nick

Sekunda

olour

Plates

by

ngus

Mc ride

Line Drawings by

d rg

Published by ontvert

Publications



Published in 1995 by Montvert Publications

CCopyright 1995 Montvert Publications

All rights reserYed. No pan of this publication may be

reproduced

or

transmitted in any form

or

by any means

electronic or

mechanical

induding photocopying,

recording or any infonnationstorage and

retrieval

system

without the prior written consent of the publishcrs.

Montvcrt Publications, 2 Kingswood Grove, Reddish.

Stockport SK

6SP

Montvert Publications Distribution), PO Box 25,

Stockport SK 6RU

ISBN I 874101 03 5

A C IP c at al ogu e record for this book

is

available from

the British Library.

A note t o t he reader:

This

is one of a series

of

Montvert

titles wh ic h a im to present so me of the st

up

t o dale

analyses of the history, dress, equipment and organization

of various ancient an d medieval armies.

lypeset

by

Legend DTP

Stockport, Cheshire

Printed by Joseph Ward Colourprint Lld.

Dewsbwy, Yorkshire

AUTBOR S DEDICATION,

wonderful um

PREFACE.

Th e history of the Hellenistic kingdoms during the pe

under examination is oomplicated.

Th e

ancient histor

narratives which oore dealt with this period are preser

only in fragments, and thepublicationofnew inscript

or

papyri requires a process of oonstant revision

of

chronological framework. Limited space permits on

condensed ac:c:ount of

rapidly



CHAPTER 6

MllJTARY

REFORM

IN

THE

PTOLEMAIC ARMY.

In Egypt the triple monarchy of Philometor. Cleopatra

and

Euergetes had not lasted long.

An

embassy was, of

course, immediately despatched

to Rome to offer thanks

under the command

of

onc of the Friends , one

Nomenios. The dual reign ofPhiJometor and Euergetes

lasted five years, against a background

of

Egyptian

nationalist discontent, the intrigue of eunuchs and ex

slaves at Court, and family strife.

The Native Revolts.

s has already been mentioned. we are told (Diod. 30.14)

that at the Battle afMouRt Casios Antiochus Epiphanes

had

taken

great pains to spare the lives of the Egyptians .

and

that

this act of generosity contributed greatly

to

his

seizure

ofPclusiwn

and the

subsequent

conquest ofEgypl

Although it is possible that Diodems is callingthe Greek

military settlers in Egypt, who had presumably been

mobilized for the campaign, Egyptians . it would be

more straightforward to interpret his words as referring

to the native Egyptian soldiery,

themachimoi,

who would

also have been mobilized for the campaign. this is

correct. and

it

is true that Antiochus

won

great support

in Egypt for this act of mercy, it

may

be that this is at

least one factor lying behind the Egyptian nationalist

activity of the next decade or mort.

Soon

after Antiochus withdrawal one of the Friends

ofPhilometor, anEgyptian named Dionysios Petosarapis

Gift of Sarapis ) attempted to seize the throne (Diod.

31.15 a). We are told that Petosarapis was p r e ~ m i n e n t

ofall thenative Egyptians on the battlefield, and

wc

may

perhaps assume from these words that he had

commanded the Egyptian

machimoi

at the Battle of

Mount Casios.

He

pretended that Philometor had urged

him to kill Euergetes, and appealed

to

the Alexandrian

mob assembled in the stadium, for justice. The

mob,

w h i ~ p into a

fury,

threatened to kill Philometor. but

the two brothers appeared together in amity before the

crowds and managed to keep their joint throne as well

as thei;lives. Petosarapiswithdrew to Eleusis, appealing

to the discontented soldiery of the Alexandrian garrison

to throw their lot inwith him, and managed to assemble

a force numbering some 4,000 men there.

He

was,

however, defeated in battle, and

was forced

to swim

naked

across the Nile to the open

COWltry

beyond. Many natives

joined this charismatic man

of

action, and soon large

area ofEgypt 'ere thrown inlo revolt.

By about

165

the revolt had spread to the ThebaId

in

Upper Egypt. It seems that Philometor moved agains

the rebels peoona1ly (Died. 31.17 bj, thougll still aged

only 19 or so, and soon regained control of that remot

province, all

except

for the city of Panopolis.

standin

high

and

inaccessible on an ancient mound, where the

most

active of the rebels

had

gathered. udgingthat a

frontal

assault was out

of the question,

both

on

ac oxm

ofthe strengthof theposition

and

the

ua.l of

its

dd enders

Philometor

senled

down to a siege, which proved to

b

both lengthy and arduous. Eventually the city fell

and

the ringleaders were punished, following which Ptolemy

returned

to

Alexandria.

The invasion

of

Antiochus, the dynastic strife and th

native disturbances had led to considerable economi

dislocation

in

the countly. Many fled from the trouble

south

to

the north. Large numbers of native Egyptian

hadbecn killedorwerestill in hiding. there was ascarcity

of labour throughout Egypt, the land lay untilled an

famine threatened. The government tried to ensure tha

everyone should participate in the cultivation of th

abandoned land, and the royal officials. naturally, 'er

overzealous in their orders. The native

machimo

petitioned the king, and he was forced to ease

th

ordinances. The revolt officiallyended in 164, it seems

but Philometor

was

forced 10 proclaim a general

amnest

in

163

in order to pacify the countly. Even so, bandiU

was widespread throughout the

150 ,

and the countl

took many years to settle down again (M.Rostovtzefl

The Social

nd

Economic Hislory

r Hellenisti

,0,1d 1/ 1953 pp 718-724).

The Dispute between Philometor and Euergeles.

Whilst Philometor had been away with the army

Euergetes had been

intriguing

with the mob

o

Alexandria, at that time a very mongrel city (Mahaffey

p. 239).

In

164 Philometorwas

forced

to

flee

Alexandria

and went

to

Rome to petition for his kingdom back.

A

Rome Philometor was met by his first cousin, the exile

Seleucid prince Demetrius, who greeted him with

roya

pomp. Philometor avoided this acclaim, however, as h

wished to

use

hisapparent poverty to arouse the sympath

of the Senate. He asked Demetrius to leave him

be

and

bid his companion

An::hias

and the others who bad

accompanied him to stay with the Seleucid prince.

H

himselffound lodgings with an Alexandrian landscape

painter

( r o 7 l O ) ~

kleriusMaximus

5.1

calls him

pie/or AJexondrinus)

called Demetrius, living frugall

in the upstairs attic. This crumb of information is o



considerable interest for two reasons. It

first

demonstrates

the high level ofcullure of the young king, for

he

would

hardly have chosen Demetrius to lodge with ifhe hadn t

known the painter, and there is

no

perticular reason why

a king should know a painterifhe were not interested in

art. Diodorus 31.18.2) in fact lells

us

that Philometor

h d frequently entertained Demetrius when

he

was

resident in Alexandria. The passage is also important in

informing us of the fact that an Alexandrian landscape

painter was active in Rome in the 16Os. It was through

Demetrius,

and the others who

came

after that knowledge

of Alexandrian art was transferred to Italy, and copies of

Alexandrian originals come to be preserved in the

frescoes

ofPompeii see Figures 2 and 3 .

Following this imaginitive display of amateurdramatics,

the Senate, their sympathies engaged y the plight of

Philometor, divided the Pt olemaic state into two,

assigning

yprus

and

Egypt

to Philometor, and

yrenaica

to Euergetes, upon which Philometor sailed to Cyprus.

Meanwhile in Alexandria the regime of Euergetes was

becoming increasingly unpopular on account of its

cruelly. The reign of terror in the capital was presided

overby one Timotheus, who even subjecled AskJepiades,

the administrator of the city,

to

torture. The city mob

eventually rose against Euergetes. Timotheus was

assassinated, and by

May

163 Philometor again ruled in

Alexandria.

Euergetes travelled to Rome 10 appeal against the tenns

of the partition, and begged the Senate to assign Cyprus

to him. Despile the efforts of Menyllus of Alabanda,

Phi lomet or s envoy in Rome, the Senale agreed

to

Euergetes request, and assigned Titus Torquatus and

Gnaeus Merula 10 accomplish his installation on the

island peacefully. Euergetes landed in Greece, collected

a force of mercenaries, and then sailed to the Rhodian

Peraia and then to Side

n rout

for Cyprus. At Side the

Roman legates persuaded Euergetes to dismiss his

mercenaries, as their instructions were that his return

was tobe achieved without

war.

Euergetes agreedto

meet

the Roman legates on the border of Cyrene, while they

themselves would go to Alexandria in order to induce

Philometor to submit to the Senate s request. Euergetes

sailed for Crete, along with his mercenary officer

Damasippos the Macedonian, where

he

raised a personal

guard ofa thousand Cretan mercenaries. and then landed

at Apis

on

the African coast. It was

by now

the summer

of

162.

The Roman legates, however, did not arrive, with or

without Philometor, for the lalter detained them in

Alexandria against their will. Even worse news reach

Euergetes from Cyrene, for the city

of

Cyrene bad revol

against him, his governor Ptolemy Sympetesis,

Egyptian, had gone over to the rebels, and it seemed t

the other cities were on the verge ofjoining in the rev

too.

TIv: Cyreneans

took

the field and Euergeies march

on the city, only to find anadvanced guard ofCyrenaea

and Libyans occupying

the

passes

leading

into

Cyrenai

He divided his forces into two, embarked one

lf

a

ordered them

to

sail round the pass and take the ene

in the rear while

he

himself successfully attacked

pass frontalJy. After six days march. the ships saili

alongside him under the conunand of MochIynus.

met the Cyrenaican army, consisting of 8,000

foot

a

5 cavalry, and was eventually defeated. in batt

Nevertheless, Euergetes somehow managed to return

Cyrene, perhaps through the intervention oftbe Rom

legates.

Both Ptolemies sent embassies to Rome to plead th

cause, Euergetes being led by Komanos and his broth

and Philometor s once again by Menyllus of AJaban

The Roman legales Torquatus and Merola suppor

Euergetes, and the senate declared that the envoys

Philometor must leave Italy within five days, and t

Rome s alliance with Philometor was at an end..lt seem

however, that Rome took

no

concrete

steps

to implem

their allocation of Cyprus to Euergetes. Philome

refused

to

bow

to

Rome s empty

threats

and retain

control of both Egypt and yprusfor the rest of his rei

Military Reform in the Ptolemaie Army.

We now come across evidence for reform in the Ptolem

Army.

The earliest reference 10 the new Romaniz

military structures is dated 163 BC which provides

with a

t rminus nt qu m

for the refonns, but it is

possible, given our current state of knowledge, to gu

at a more precise date within the turbulent tableau

Egyptian history of the earlier 160s when the chan

may have taken place. Research into the milit

structures of the Ptolemaic state is somewhat hampe

by

the complex nature of the evidence. The Ptolem

army was essentially divided into two components,

standing army and the c1eruch army. The standing ar

comprised the regiments of guards which protected

person of the king and the court, and the regiments

mercenaries stationed in garrisons throughout

Empire.

The cleruchic army

was

a territorial anny. From

reign of Ptolemy I Soter onwards, and especially fr



the r eign

of

Ptolemy

Philadelphos, ex-soldiers were

allotted plots

kl2l Oi

- hence the appellation

kMl Ouehoi

given to the settlen;), in return for the liability toperfonn

military service in time

of

war ifcalled upon Crawford,

Kerkeosiris

pp. 55-85). n individual c1eruch held a

par ticular r ank, and belonged to a par ticular regiment

in this ter ritorial army,

an d

upon mobilization a fully

f onned army should,

in

theory, have constituted itself.

At first, for example dur ing the Third Syrian War, the

system seems to have worked reasonablywell but by the

end o the third century the system was already beginning

to malfunction. As well as

t he ir ra nk a nd

regiment,

individual cleruchs have all sorts

of

o th er titles i n the

papyri,

which

are, as yet,

no t

understood

with

any

certainty. Consequently, it is difficult to be certain how

much military practices

in

t he s tan di ng a rm y a nd i n the

c1eruc:hic: army would havebeen identical. t is probable,

however, that the two forces were id entical in

their

regimental structures

an d

ranks. From papyrological

material which is in the main relevant to the c1eruchic

army, t he following roug h o ut li ne c an b e gi ven for the

organization of t he P to le ma ic a rm y during t he t hir d

century.

Th e

military ranks held y individuals appearing

in the Ptolemaic papyri have been collated in the work

Pl'Osopogrophio Pto/emoteo. In the text below

have

given the numbers as they appear in this work in brackets

after each rank.

The Ptolemaic Army During th e Third Century.

As

with all the ear ly Hellenistic annies, the Ptolemaic

army largely followed the organizational structures

of

the Macedonian army as they stood at the

en d of

the

reign o f

Alexander

th e

Great. Th e

cavalry

under

Alexander was organized into h ip p ar ch i es a nd

squadrons ,or

itai. Each hipparchyhad at least two itoi,

an d each i numbered at

least

25 The Ptolemaic cavalry

was also divided inlo number ed hippar chics, and then

into itoi..Ten hipparchies are attested as things stand at

t he m omen t, m in us numbers six a nd n in e Van t D ac k,

Ptolemoica Seteeta

p

53).

A cavalry

tochos

may also

h ve existed,

an d

a dekania commanded by a dekanikos

Lesquier pp. 90-1).

Th e

cavalry was it seems largely

unaffected by th e military reforms carried ou t during the

reign of Ph il om et or , for t he ca val ry c on ti nu ed to be

organized into hipparchies and ;Ioi, though the r nk of

dekanikos is not attested after 165.

Chi iarehoi commanders o f a thousand , an d

pentekosiarcho; commanders

of

five hundred are both

attested in the infantry

of

the l at er a rm y of Alexander

Arr.,

Anab.

7.25.6; Plut., Vit

Aler

76.6). T hey were

p re su ma bl y i n

command o f i nf an tr y u ni ts

with

establishment strengths, sed on a file

of 16 m n o

1,024 an d

51 2 men respectively.

Th e

third-



who had been sent on embassy

to

Rome late in

168. He

is known to have served earl ier as

srrattgos

of the

ThebaId, but

was

summoned to Alexandria late in 170,

probably in preparation for the war. Nownenios left the

military service (W. Peremans E. Van't Dack,

Prosopographica (1953) p. 50

n.

6) late in

168

to preside

over the embassy to Rome, and he eventually

rose

to the

rank of

epistoJagraphos, or head

of

chancellery under

Ptolemy

vm

Euergetes

1I

(Walbank, Commentary

l

pp. 439, 453). It is extremely interesting

to

note that the

regiment formerly commanded

by

Nownenios remained

without an officially appointed successor to the

eponymouscommand for ar least two years. Unfortunately

wedo not knowwhether this regiment

was

one

of

cavalry

or infantry, and therefore

we

cannot take the date

of 165

as a terminus

post

quem for the military refonns.

KaJlikJes son

of

Kallikles the Alexandrian.

Despite Euergetes' short-lived seizure of power in the

years 164-3, it is hardly to be doubted that the

administration

of

PhiJometor instituted these military

refonns. What part,

we may

ask, did Philometorplay on

a personal level in the process? Polybius (39.7) thought

that Philometor

was

a gentle and good king.

He

never

put

to death any of his friends

nor

any of tlte

Alexandrians. In fact this wasperhaps a mistake: he

was

certainly too lenient with his brother. We do know

that

in Rome Philometor found

an

ardent supporter in Cato

the

Censor, who spoke against Thermus on his behalf

cf. Jan

E.

Astin,

Cato the Censor

(1978) p. 270). Cato

may havemet Philometorduring the king's visit to

Rome

in 164, and may have been impressed

by

the young

monarch's character.

Polybius also tells us that despite his sensitive nature,

Philometor

s \\

courage and presence ofmind

in

both

political crises and

on the battlefield.

He

was extremely

popular with his troops; a decree set up by his Cretan

auxiliaries at Delos calls him scrupulous, pious and of

all men the most humane .... showing a great spirit in all

his dealings (Walbank, omment ry JII p. 738).

Nevertheless, in view of the age and lack of experience

of

Philometor, even though he had personally visited

Rome in 164 when aged about 20, it is hard

to

believe

that Philometor himself instituted the 'Roman' reform

of

the

Ptolemaic army. Fortunately there

is some

evidence

to hand giving

us

the name

of

the person who may have

been responsible for implementing these changes.

Kallikles son

of

KallikJes of Alexandria is only attested

in a couple of honorific inscriptions

from

Cyprus which

6

give

us

a list

of his

military titles. He held the post

rchisom tophyl x or headbodyguard', which

converted into modem parlance might be uanslated a

the equivalent

of

'senior staffofficer'.

He

is also name

as a squadroncommander iJarchls) in thepalacecavalr

he

other two military titles he holds arc qui

extraordinary.

He

is called 'instructor in tactics

of

th

King (S\ xoxaAol;

t O O t OV

WoICT\KCIlV).

I

this context,

of

course,

tactics means the

art.

of

drawin

up an

army

and it is presumably the

art. of

drawing

u

the army in the Roman manner with which Kallikl

was

charged. Theprecise nature

ofhis activities in Cypru

is unknown (Leon MooreD, The AuJic ntuJatul e

Ptolemaic Egypt (1975) p. 21), but he may well hav

visited the island to reform the infantry regiments of th

garrison there. The final title Kallikles is given

commander

of

the troops

of

the left'. It should be note

that the reading is not entirely secure at thispoint Mitfo

BSA

56

(1961) pp. 20-22) conjectured that these wou

have been troops of 'the left wing' e O O v o ~ v KepaQ

which he thought might have

been

somefancy fonnatio

..

devised by this Instructor

Royal

in the

Ar t of

Tactics

I suspect

rather that the 'right wing' may refer to one

the two 'wings' intowhich the phalanx. wasdivided alon

the 'Asclepiodotan' model, for which, as

we have see

there is some evidence in the Seleucid army. Kallikle

then, may have been one of the

two

principal infant

commanders in the army

of

Philometor, and the post

squadron commander in the palace cavalry may hav

been a purely honorific one.

KalJikles is not otherwise known, and we have n

knowledge

of

where

he

mayhaveacquired hisknowledg

of Italian military systems.

He

may have visited Rom

personally as an ambassador, and it

is

even possibl

thoughunlikely, that he may have servedas a mercena

officer in the western Mediterranean.

It

is perhaps mo

likely, though, that he obtained the information h

required to implement the reforms

by

interrogating th

considerable number

of

Italian mercenaries who wou

have been serving in the Ptolemaic army at the tim

The first Egyptian embassy

was

sent to

Rome in

273

and Italians are fOWld in Ptolemaic service from th

middle

of

the third century onwards (Launey I.

pp.

604

8 . The

earliest attested of these is oneDinnius. a

Ro.ma

a dimoiritts

in

the regiment commanded by Automedo

in 252/1 BC. Some of these Romans could reach qui

high rank. Lucius, son ofGaios was commander oftb

Ptolemaic garrison stationed at Itanos in Crete durin

the reign of

Philopator (217-209 BC .



The Ptolemalc Manlple.

The

new

organizational structure is the slmei or

maniple . The

Greek

word used for

maniple.

a

tandard , presumably on account of there being one

standard-bearerto each maniple, is generally

speltslmeia

inPtolemaiccontexts, whereas theword is generallyspelt

sem i

in

Polybius. The ptolemaic maniple i s first

attested in a papyrus which mentions Philippos son of

Sogenes, a private soldier

(straridles)

in the

semeia

of

Pu[

]r6s stationed in Memphis UPZ 18,S in 163 BC.

The official terminology for a private soldier during this

period,

the terminological equivalent of the

Latin

gregarlus,

was

therefore presumably stralJ6res, the tenn

idiores does, however, also occur in military contexts

(Pros. Ptol. 3813,3920). A alternative reading of the

same papyrus has been suggested which would make

Philippos a private soldier in the sixth maniple of

Pu[..]rOs

ZP

52 (1983)

p

271). This seems preferable,

as the maniples were normally referred to by

their

number,

and

the personal name given is that

of

the

regimental officer in charge of a number of maniples.

For example we find one Ptollis standard-bearer of the

second semela (PP 2388). Apart fromdubious readings

or interpretations of an eleventh and a twenty-first

maniple in the

papyri, the

highest number attested for

any maniple in the papyri or inscriptions is six ZPE

5

(l983)

p 270). t seems reasonable to suppose that there

were

normally six slmei i in the regiment; a speculation

which

is

confirmed by

the

}ouget

and

Roeder stelai

discussed in Appendix

H

n battle theywould presumably

fonn up in a

triplex acies

chequerboard fonnation

t

O

maniples wide and

three

deep.

The system of numeration by maniple was not applied

in an entirely regular manner, however, for a group of

papyri

dating to between 158 and 156 BC refer

indiscriminately to the same unit, stationed in Memphis,

to which

an

ouragos named Argaios belonged, as the

semeia

of

Dexilaos or the first semela (Van

t Dack,

Pto/emaieaSeleeta

p. 72

n

34). Van t Dack

(Ptolemajea

Se/eela pp. 65-84) has suggested that the demotic

tenn

stn

is the Egyptian tenn for the Greek

slmeia.

The tenn

stn is certainly

used

as

an

equivalent to slmeio in those

examples given by van t Oack which have a dale after

the introduction of the semeia in the

16Os

but a number

of other examples use the tenn

srn

before this date

(sometimes

of

cavalry units). Therefore it should

be

assumed

that the tenn is

used

with the meaning military

company and is used

of

semeia after the 1605 but is

earlier

used

of

taxis

or

of

some similar term(s) for an

infantry sub-unit.

The Ptolemaic

Century.

The semeia

was

divided into two centuries, presumably

called

hekatontarchial,

commanded by

hekatontarcho

commanders of a hundred . ll hekatontarths attested

in

the papyri

(PP

2321-2287) have dates

in

the second

half of the second centwy. The earliest, one Noumenios

(pP 2326), is attested in

a

papyrus ofabout ISO BC from

Tebtunis in the Fayoum. After his

name

comes

the

paleographic

sign

rho (P), which stands for the numbe

lOO

in the Greek alphabetic

system of

numeration.

t

was

pointed out by WLlcken (UPZ 2

p

S6) that this sign

stands for centurion in documents of the Roman period

and that this is how it must be interpreted

in

this

docwnent. despite the earlydate. An undated papyus from

Tebtunis, which must. however, date to around the 1605

(see

the paragraph below), mentions a soldier from the

troops commanded

by

Polycrates, of the 8th. century o

theMacedonian

Agema (SB

4318, 2).

this documen

is correctly read, it is a unique example

of

numeration

by

centuries rather

than maniples.

Perhaps

the

phenomenon of numberingby centuries

was

confined to

guard units.

Under the centurion

were

two penlekont reho

commanders of fifty , in charge

of

a

unit

which

was

presumably called a pentekontarchia. Prosopographla

Ptolemaica lists a large number

of

holders

of

this

r nk

(2333-2366) dating to bothbefore and after the 1605 If:

however, all

the

examples earlier

th n

the

160s

are

examined, it is found that they are all included because

they have the Greek letters

pen-

after their name in

the

original document, indicating

their

rank. The

early

editorsof these

papyri

restored pen- aspen[takosicudlos]

commander of five hundred , or pen[tekontarchos]

commander

of fifty at will. When

all

examples o

restorations of the letters pen- are removed from the

listing

of

pcntekontarchs

in Pros. Ptol.,

it is found tha

all belong to the middle

of

the second century or later. t

is evident that the letters pen- should be restored. as

pen[takosiarchos] in all cases. When

the r nk of

the

pentekontarch is givenby a paleographic symbol, as with

the hekatontarch, thealphabetic Greek number for 50 is

given, in this case the letternu (v). The earliest example

(Pros. Pto/.

2362) is a pentek:ontareh of the troops unde

Polykrates, a regiment which has just been mentioned

in lhe paragraph above, who is attested in a documen

from Tebtunis in

the

Fayoum dating to 162 BC. No

subordinate officers are attested below pente.kontareh

but it is possible that the penukont rchi

was

divided

into a number

of

tent-parties.



Manipular

Staff.

The Latin term

for

the staff of the maniple was

pl'incipales,

a term which distinguished them from the

gregal'ii, or private soldiers. As we have seen the

Asclepiodotan term for these officers, which may

represent

late

Seleucid practice,

was ek/aktoi.

In

Ptolemaic usage the term

used

for these

st ff

was

hoi

em t a r e ~ n o ~ e . ; C J . ) t ~ v ) o r ..

thoseoutside the

ranks .

Current

explanations of this and related terms are not

entirely satisfactory (Van t'Dack,

Ptolemaica

lec/a pp.

65--84), and they can only be understood

in

the context

of the 'Romanization' of the late Ptolemaic army.

The oUl agos, slmeiophoros, klna and hypire/es are

ll

attested, but not the trumpeter. The Lefebvre Stele from

Hermopolis, which is fully discussed in Appendix H,

informs us that each of the slmeio has a berald, a

standard-bearer, and

an

oUl ogos.

All the

oUl ogoi

listed

inthe papyri are late, except for

Pros.

Ptol. 2369) dating

to

248r

BC, which relies on the interpretation of the

letters \ as signifying Ol. {pa. Ol;J. However, a preferable

interpretation of these two letters would simply be to

regard them as the Greek negative 01.) no (Fritz Uebel,

Die

klel uehen Agyptens

unler den erslen

seehs

Plolemdern (1968) p. 205

n.

4). The earliest of the

standard-bearers

Pros.

Plol. 2379-89) is Korax son

of

Dionysios slmlophoros

of

those

troops.

under Pasinos.

attested in a papyrus from Hermoupolis

Magna

dating

to 7143n BC Pros.

Ptol.

2385; r Winnicki p.

13).

The military ranks of

klrux (Pros. Ptol.

2390-2399) or

stratolferur army-herald and hypere/es (Pros. Ptol.

2435-1452) both existed before the army reform

of

the

16Os.

Higher Formations,

From information supplied by the Lefebvre stele, which

is fully discussed in Appendix H we can reconstruct the

organization

ofan infantry regiment, which is seemingly

called a syntaxis in that document. The regiment was

commanded by an officer called a hegemon ep 'ondron,

and

the

regimental

headquarters

included a clerk

(gramma/eus) who was perhaps the eqivalent of the

Regimental Sergeant-Major ,

two

other

Warrant

Officers' M g e m o n e s e r ~ l x e ~ n and a 'Staff-Sergeant'

(er6 rare6n), who was perhaps properly called the

hypere/es.

We

have no firm knowledge

of

any

military

formation

higher

than

thesynlaxis. Van t'Dack (Prolemoico

lecla

p. 55) has noted that a single reference to the word

phalanx comes in a papyrus dated to 29th. July

which mentionsa

gramma/eus (secretary)

of thepha

over which Polianthes holds command . He has

noted that there is a grammatical inconsistency

n

document, for which is in the plural. He notes th

Asclepiodotus (2.10) the ideal army consists of

phalangarchiai, the equivalent of

the

legion,

grou

into two

diphalangiai

or

wings ,

and

a

then si

phalanx,

but

both Aelian and

Arrian

(9.10)

g

telraphanangarchia

as

an alternative term for the w

infantry force insteadofphalanx. Presumably the rea

for this was

that

in common usage

the te

phalangarchia and

phalanx

were interchangeable.

'Dack has suggested that

the papyrus should

perh

be

read with the number 4 in front ofPhalanx. whic

to be understood as shorthand for saying that Polina

commanded a unit called a

'rerraphalanx'.

Perhaps, notwithstanding the

grammar,

it

might be

to understand the information in the papyrus as

ei

suggesting that the term phalanx could be

used

as

alternative to syntaxis, or that a number

of

synla

formed a phalanx. The Ptolemaic phalanx is thus

equivalent of the Asclepiodotan phalangarchia an

the Roman legion.

my interpretation

of

the titula

ofKallikJes son ofKallikJes is colTCC t a number

of

th

phalanxes, officially

two

would

then

constitute on

the two wings of the heavy infantry

as

a whole. L

on

in the same papyrus the term

hegemonia

is

use

the unit which is commanded by Polianthes. The t

literally

means command ,

and is probablya termw

was

used loosely for a number of levels of comman

is possible, however, that t was somet imes u

specifically for the regiment, cal led a syn/aris in

Lefebvre Stele (cf.

Van

t'Dack, P/olemaico lec/a p

n.21).

Other

Reforms of Philometor.

Other refonns in the administration of the Empire

also havebeen carried out during

the

reign ofPhilome

but

if so

we are poorly

informed

about

th

Papyrological evidence from the village

of

Kerkeo

in the Fayoum indicates that it was only around 150

that c1eruchic settlement picked up again after

an

alm

completebreak of thirty years. Crawford (Kerkeosiri

61) has noted that during the troubled early year

Philometor s reign the army

would

have

been

continual call for service

and

the authorities would h

been

too occupied

to

concern themselveswith the

peac

settlement of troops. Many of the mercenaries f

contracted for service during the Sixth Syrian Wa



the late 1705, and further contingents of mercenaries

contracted subsequently during the civil wars of the 160s

would now have been in continuous service for twenty

years or more, and would

be

eager candidates for

demobilization into the cleruchic reserve this involved

the

douceur

o an allottment.

The native revolts of Upper Egypt during the early part

ofPhilometor s reign had demonstrated the importance

o consolidating

military

control over this

part

o the

kingdom. A new office,

th t o

epistrat gos or

generalissimo o the Thebai d was created during

Philometor s

reign

Lesquier

p.

76), and completecontro

o the Upper Nile

was

placed in his

hands.

Philomcto

also attempted

to

extend the southern border down t

Nile. Boethus, son ofNicostratos, a Carian, who s know

to have held the office of episrrat2gos

o

the Thebaid i

the last year ofPhilometor s reign,

was

given the tasko

founding two new towns

on

the border name

Philometoris and Cleopatra. Herodes, son

o

Demophon

held the post o

g r r i s o n ~ m m n e r

at Syene on th

First

Cataract,

and was governor o this border regio

Bevan, Egypt

p.

294).

Diag.

6.

Comparison of Military Terms

Roman Term Polybian Term

Asclepiodotan Term Ptolemaic Term

tribune

chiliarches 6.19.7

chi/iarches

legion meros 6.19.7 phalangarchia phalanx?

cchort speira 11.23.1 chiliarchia syntaxis?

maniple smaia 6.24.8 syntagma semeia

cenllJrion taxiarchos

6.24)

hekatontarchesltaxiarchos hekatontarches

century

taxis 6.24 taxis hekatontarchia7

optio

ouragos 6.24.2 ouragos ouragos

standard-bearer

semaiaphoros 6.24.6 semeiophoros semeiophoros

pentekontarchia

Diag. 7. Probable Organization of a ptolemaic Infantry Regiment

pentekontarehes

641

hekatontarchia

hekatontarches

1st

semeia

128?

pcntekontarchia

pcntekontarches

2nd semeia

641

3rd si:meia

syntaxis?

256

7officers

Mgemon ep andron

4 staff

1,536?

43 officers

22 staff

t

4th semeia

t

pentekontarchia

hoi exo taxe6n

grammateus

pentekontarches

k ~ 5th semeia

hegemon ex6 taxe6n

641

semeiophoros

hegemon

ex6 taxe6n

(hypSretes) eX< taxeon

ouragos

hekatontarehia

Sons ofOfficers

hekatontarchcs

6th semeia

1281

pentekontarchia

pentekontarchh

641



APPENDIXH

THE HERMOPOLIS STELAI.

The information which is supplied on the late Ptolemaic

army from the papyri can

be

supplemented

by

a number

ofinscriptions listing military units, mostlycoming from

Ashmunein

the ancient cityofHennopolisMagna.

which

were depositedby the local garrison. The earliest ofLhese

~ n ~ r i p t i o n s is

known as Hennopolis Slele

L

taking the

Initial letter of its first publisher Gustave Lefebvre

( Inscription Grecque d Ashmounein Bulletin de la

eWe

roya/e d ArcMologie d A/exandrie10

(1908)

pp.

187-195).

The lLefebvre

Stele (rom Hermopolis.

The inscription, broken al the top and bouom,

lists

at

some o the military contingents

of

the Hennopolis

gamson. Dlag.

HI

shows a

simplified

version

of

the

list.

Thedate

aCthe

inscription is uncertain, but the reference

in I

6

seems to be 10 persons who have received an

amnesty. As

has

been

mentioned

above a papyrus dating

to 143 BC,

and

probably

coming

from Hermopolis

Magna, mentions onc Korax, son

of Dionysios , a

standard-bearerof those under Pasines. This Pasines

can

possibly be identified with the eponymous officer who is

mentioned

as

commanding a unit along with onc Dryton

in

m

19

Pros. Plo/

1972-3). In such case the grant of

amnesty, or

phifanthropa,

seemingly referred

to in

the

inscriptioncould be thal made by Ptolemy vm Euergetcs

in

145/4

BC (Marie-ThCrese Lenger. Corpus des

Ordonnanees des Plotemees

(1964)

41-3)

and

SO

the

inscription could, therefore, dale to around 144.

If

so

however, we would have to assume that the regiment

of

Cyrenaicans under Andronikos mentioned in col.

had been sent to Hennopolis

by

Euergetes when

he

took

the throne latc in

145,

for it is difficult to see how

Philomctor could have recruited

in

Cyrene, given the

hostility

of

the

two

brothers. Numerous other grants

of

amnesty were made subsequently during the reign of

Euergetes,

for

example those made during theyears

121

118

BC to those who had supported Queen Cleopaua

and had sided against him in the civil

war

(Lenger,

op

eft. 53), and the inscription could be subsequent to any

of

these in date.

Little can

be

madeoftheother eponymous officers named

in the inscription. ThoughDryton is not a common name

there is no particular reason

to

think that the

0 1 1 0 ~

mentioned in col. m

19 is

the same individual as the

1

Ol)1on mentioned in col.

I

36. From other evidence

can reconstruct the

career of one

Dryton son

Pamphilos, who

was

born

around 195

BC

in the

city

Ptolemais in Upper Egypt (Naphtali Lew:is Greeks

Plolemaic Egypl (1986) pp. 88-103). This Dryton w

however

a

cavalry officer, who

was

transferred to

eity

of

Pathyris in Upper Egypt, over a hundred mi

away from Hermopolis

in

]53 BC,

so

any connecti

seems most unlikely. There seem to have been at le

three individual military officers called Ol)1on servi

in thePtolemaic rmy

in

themiddle

of

the

secondcentw

They are quite possibly related. Lesquier Rev Phi

(1908)

p.

215)

thought that theDrytons

of

the inscripti

wereto

be

identifiedwith the Cretan known

from

papy

He also thought that the Komanos mentioned as

eponymous unit conunander in the inscription could

identified with Komanos

of

Alabanda. an individual w

is otherwise attested (Pms. Pial.

8559) in

a papyrus

around

148

BC

as

a deruch farming more

than

a hundr

aumurai, and

so

presumably an officer. Komanos is

quite common name in Ptolemaic Egypt however.

an

there seems

to be no particular reason

to associate

th

regimental conunander in the regu1arannywith a farm

in the army reserve.

Manipular

Strengths and

Organization.

Columns

T

and

III

seem to list maniples in series, on

after another. It would

be

tempting

to suggest

that

th

eponymous officers named there, frequently

in

pairs,

a

the one, two or more officers conunanding the variou

maniples of the regiment. However in colunm

ll

19

s

after the title Under Pasines and Oryton , we wou

expect

the

first name to be listed tobe that of theprincip

hekatontarch of the maniple, either Pasines or Dryton

but the first hekatontareh to

be

listed is,

in

fact, calle

Ptolemaios son

of

Tryphon. We

can

therefore conclud

that all the ePonymous officers mentioned

in

th

inscription, whether appearing singly, in pairs, o

whatever, are regimental commanders.

Our

understanding

of

the inscription is

h mpered by

th

fact that the stele (and the lists

of

names it contains) i

broken al the top and at the bottom. However the orde

in

which

the

membersof

the

maniple

are

listed is st nd r

and can be reconstructed

as

in

Diag. H2.

Each maniple

has

a herald Una the equivalent

of

th

Roman tesserarius) and a standard-bearer, whoare liste

at the top

of

each maniple as the manipular staf

principafes). Ifwe regard the maniplc

as

the equivalen

of

the modem infantry company, it would be appropriat



COLUMNL

l I i la 1-3)

(Ihnoc:

I\I IlICII

of uneeN.in inlcfprctltion)

(li la4-IIJ

Witla KonIatu and the ocben.

Ull MmocloroIlIIII

of

Mcnodorw,

sbrwtiopltotw. Thood

ofHenk.lcitol,

hc:b1OnUl'Ch,Dc:mctri0l1llll of ApolloNOI,

(there follows

lisl

ora

NmcI .

[ l i la 19-211

Witla Al:Ihani.Iphu and Sthmclao.,

~

[1ine12z..23]

W 1lh and Ihc otben,

I

ANIIC)

[line 24-34)

W 1lh AnlwLiaphu and

Slhmcboa,

dlMlopJloros,

Andremoa

II1II of

Ba1alclu,

pcntekonLlrch, DionysiOl_

of Plolem..io ,

(6 1\lIlICI)

[lineI3s-41l)

And of tboec formerly witla IJr)1on.

Mtl-.p N11 (11f md

T.mokk._oITllllOkka,

Ofru:en ad

tau6II. (2

IUmeI),

Of'thcw.4U l,(I Nmc)

SoN of ofl' tun Dioo),jOl II1II of Dion)

. . . . .

PanaclQ II1II afDioa)'Sioa,

Dioscncs _ ol'Dion)'Sioa,

,rommolau

oIthc syntaxiJ, EudOJCOl_

oITunoldca.

(linel SO-H

W i t l a ~

Artcmidoroe I Il of

Antipatrol.

(lincl S2SS

From the Thebald,

DemctriOlIOll

of

AnlipaltOl,

MenophilOl,

HCTllklciclcf

lOll

ofLconidu.

[linll*

S6S7J

Ofthc

CrctlIlII

witla

AriftOUr1Cf

ofGort)'ll,

B.I.1croI fOIl ofDion)'liOl.

[li1lCl

SSSIlI

Of the CyreNiC'N witla

AndronikOl,

Apolloplwlca I0Il

of bfOl\.

[Ime.

(jO-6l1j

OftbOlc

who 'vc

roccivcd the .ltUlWY.

Archyptretl.l oIlhc mcrcCTllry cot1tingcnl, Sopalrol fOIl of

Kuliodonl ,

f ix

other IUmea),

(linea 69-72]

Of the poIj.1koI(- Cilixenalcivili'lII)

(lhrec

1\lIlICI).

COLUMN

[Ime.

I-6S1

(13

1IIfIICI)

Ho2mippot_ ofLoon,

4_

pc:ntckonl rch, topiwdot _ ofJ. . . .

COLUMNUL

(linea

1-18]

(1l1llfTa)

pen1cktlnWeh,

W - _ ofMdrodon:.,

(S

namca)

OOITQ OI

Apollodorot _

of

(lineI I9-S7]

Witla P i l a and IJr)1on.

..l:lnu. DnkOl l II1II of

He

u-iophon:JtI.

MikkoI_ ofPlol



(Regimental Title)

herald,

standard.bearer,

centurion.

firsl pcntekontarch,

soldicn oflhe first pmkkonuuchia oflhe

fil it century

second pcntekontarch.

soldiers

of

the second pentekotllarchia of

the first century.

Secont

cmhlry

?

ccnturion.

first ptntekontarch.

soldicn

of

the firsl J1DIleJwnlan:hia

of

the

second century

second pcntekontarch,

soIdicn

of

the second pmtekont uchi

of

the

second

century.

ouragos.

Dlag. H2 ROCOIlStruc1k:ln of the orderlnwblcb

the

memben

of the manfpM

listfd

on the Lefebvre Stelt.

to

regard these

two

principales

as

the equivalentof Staff

Sergeants ,

and, although theirprecisemilitary functions

are unknown, it would be reasonable

to

suppose that one

\\ OuI4 be in charge of payor persormel and the other

\\ Ould be in charge of the distribution of stores and

rations.

At

any rate they would somehow divide the

administration of the slmeia between them. At the end

of each list comes the ouragos or fiIe-eloser of the

semeia. He is to be regarded as the equivalent

of

the

Roman optio. Like the oplio he

would

stand behind the

semeia duringbattle so as

to

ensure no-cne left the ranks,

and for this reason. he is listed at the end

of

the semeia.

He

is

best considered

as

the equivalent

of

the modern

Company SergeantMajor. These staff are,

as

has

been

stated previously. the equivalent of the Asclepiodotan

eklakloi, so-called

because

theywere drawn up outside

the ranks

of

the private soldiers (s/ratidtai) and officers

(hlgemones)

of

the semeia. In Ptolemaic terminology,

as hasbeenmentioned before, they are known ashoi x

taxedn (Ol m

~ C O v ,

which has exactly the same

meaning as theAsclepiodotan ektakloi.These em laxedn

were not considered as officers by the ancient Greeks

and

Macedonians, but

as

with the non-commissioned and

warrant officers in a modern anny they lay in between

the private soldiers and the officers.

One

would

expect the slmeio to have two centurio

but

al

col.

n,

20 instead of the second centurion

\V

w

expect, the

third

pentekontarch appears. It could be

case that this particular slmeia was missing one o

centurions. On the other hand it could be argued th

had becomefrequent practice to haveonlyone centu

to the semela by the time the inscription was c:arved

dossier

of

papyri

has

been preserved concerning

Egyptian semeia which took

part

in the Palestinian

ofl03-101 BC (E. \ an t Dock, W.C1aryssc, G.Cohe

Quaegebeur J.K. Winnicki, The Judeon-Syr

Egyptian Conflicl 0/103 IOJ B.G.. A MuJtlltng

Dossier Concerning a War o/Sceptres (Coffecta

HefJenistica I, 1989) pp. 37-81). Although

correspondence is sometimes addressed to Pates al

who is presumably the senior hekatontarchoftheslm

more usually the correspondence is addressed to P

and Pachrates the Mgemones of

the

slmeio. We

assume from this,

I

believe, that it

remained

nor

prcctice

down

to thisdate to have theslmela comman

by two hekatontarchs. We also have references in

correspondence to Horos son of Portis the stand

bearer, and to Hores son of

Nechoutes,

the

man

has been elected . This second Hores is known to h

been an older man probably in his 40s, and so the

he

is

given

may

be the demotic Egyptian equivalen

the Greek oUI'agos. Pentekontarchs are now

mentioned in these documents, as they are

in

the

Lefc

Stele. There are four pentekontarehs to each

slmeia,

to each hekatonlorchia, and it would be logica

conclude, I think, that these pentekontarchs w

considered as officers (hlgemones) rather

than

taxe6n.

The stcle also, most fortunately, provides us w

infonnation as to the actual strength (the parade st

of some

of these simeiaiwhilst perfonning garrison

in a relatively remote posting, as opposed to t

theoretical establishment ) strength.

establishment strength

of

the Ptolemaic maniple

is

known, but we compare its organization to that o

Asclcpiodotan hekatOnlarchia oflight-infanuy (Asc

6.3), which was divided into two penlekonatarchia

64 men each, and which may. indeed. reflect Ptolem

practice and terminology at this point rather t

Seleucid, it would be reasonable to assume that

Ptolemaic hekalonlachia also had an establishm

strength of 128. In columnUwe can seepenlekontarc

with actual p ar ad e s ta te s of 13+ fo r the f

pentekontarchio

ofthe first

helwtontarchio

and 5 for

second. In the second hekalontarchia of the semeia

two pentekontarchiai have strengths

of

32 and 7. In



slmeiai listed in column III the one at the top of the

column has a second hekatontarchia with

pentekontarchiai numbering 10+ and 6, while the second

semeia has pentekontarchiai of 25 and 5+ in its first

hekatontarchia. These slmeiai had, therefore, fallen

,-ell

below their establishment strengths of 256 due to

transfers,

death and

disease,

and discharge

upon

tennination of contract. Under these circumstances the

practice seems to have been

to

maintain the

first

pentekontarchia

of

each hekatontarchia at approximately

half its es tablishment s trength, so as to preserve its

operational capacity, but to allow the second to fall to

cadre strength.

The Regimental Head-Quarters.

Although the items i n t he first colwnn are very mixed,

including individuals not belonging to the military

(cC.

Launey

p. 41 n.

7

on

the po/itikol), and odd individuals

from a variety

of

military units who happen to

be

present

atthefort at Hennopolis Magna for various reasons. some

interesting conclusions can

be

drawn from lines 35-49,

which would seem to list the HQ element

of

Those

formerly with Dryton . Eudoxos son ofTimokles is given

the title grammateus

of

the .syntaxis, therefore \\ C can

assume that the correct expanded title of the unit in

question is The Syntaxis fonnerly

with

Dryton . The

tenn syntaxis is rare, but perhaps occurs elsewhere. For

example, a paymaster

of

a { ]taxis

of

the infantry

occuring in a damaged papyrus could be restored to read

{syn]taxis, though a n um be r

of

other restorations are

possible. and the dateof the papyrus is 174 BC, which

is

probably too early for the refonn P GrenJ I 10, 8

tl CilV

ClK tOIUo6ol;;;

cf. Lesquier

p.

92).

The title given to the commander of this syntaxis is

h l g m ~ n

ep

a n d r ~ n .

The

precise meaning of this term

is obscure and much debated.

It

could be argued that the

tenn

was

restricted to regimental commanders. My guess

would be, however, that it is used simply to conlrast

commissioned

officers,

who

commanded the

subordinate

officers, the

heka tonta rchs and

pentekontarehs, and the men s t r a t i ~ t a i )

of

the semeia,

with

the hegemones

x ~

t x ~ n (see below) who

commanded the ex6

taxe6n

of

the semeia. The

heka10ntarchs would report to the regimental commander

to receive their orders. I

don t

know i the

three

sons

of

officers were really attached to th e regimental

headquarters i n a mi lit ary sense, t ha t

is i

they were

officer cadets ,

or

i they are simply listed at this point

for the sake

of

convenience.

A number of explanations for the

tenn

hegemones exi

taxe6n h av e b ee n a dv an ce d b efo re

cf.

Van I Dack

Ptoemaica

Se/ecta pp. 70-71),

but all

of them

unconvincing.

The

two hegemones ex6 taxe wer

presumably reported to by the exiJ

taxe6n. The

herald

may have reported to on e and

the

standard-bearen t

the other. s h s already been mentioned, wedon tknow

precisely how the heralds and standard-bearers divide

up the administration

of

the

s2meiai,

but it would b

reasonable to assume that the two hlgemones taxe6

divided the regimental administration along the sam

lines.

In

other words,

the

hlgemones

taxe6n are

the

equivalent of the

modem

regimental quartennaster

sergeants. The third person laxe6n given in the lis

of regimental staff is not an officier (hegemon). He ma

be a regimental storeman. One should note that

th

hyplretes,

or

attendant is not listed in the Lefebvr

Stele at eilher manipular

or

regimental level. this

ran

is, however, attested in the papyri for this period,

an

also in the later Roeder Stele from Hennopolis discusse

below. It is probable, therefore, that this non-oflicer

t a x e ~ n at re gim ent al level h el d

the

official rank

o

hypiretes, even though

this

is not expressly stated in the

inscription. In Column L

61

an archypiretes xenilwu

or

head

attendant

of

the mercenazy force is listed. H

preswnablyperfonned the same function

as

the hyplrete

ie. distributionof stores) at a level above the syntaxis.

The documentation of

the syntaxis would be th

responsibility

of

the grammateus secretary or clerk

Eudoxos son ofTimokJes.

Just

as the ouragoi arc liste

at the bottom ofeach semeia, thegrammateus is listed a

the bottom of the staff of the syntaxis. Presumably the

ouragol reported to the grammateus with the parad

states etc.

of

the various semeiai.

this

were the case

thegrammateuscould be considered to be the equivalen

of

the Regimental Sergeant Major of a modem infantr

banalion.

The Jougct

and Roeder Stelai from Hermopolis.

Two further inscriptions from Hennopolis Magna giv

us infonnation on the Ptolemaic syntaxis at a later date

Though the

basic

out line remains

unchanged

considerable organizational changes have taken place

The

basic work

on

these two stelai is Friedrich ZUeker

Doppelinschriflsp tpJo/emdischerZeit aus

del

Ga .,ison

van Hermopolis Magna = Abhand/ungen de

Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaflen, Jahrgan

/937, Nr 6, 1938), to which should be added

th

fragments published inAegyptus 18 1938) pp. 279-284

Zuker demonstrated that the two stelai together listed



regiment called The Apolloniate Mercenaries

; VOl

AnoAM>Vla.tCn)

composed

of

mercenaries originally

from the Idumaean city of Apollonia, who were now

resident in Egypt. The stelai are dated to 25th. January

78, and it is possible that the Idumaean community had

originally become displaced by the expansion of the

Jewish state in the last decades of the second century

BC.

The two stelai together list six

semeiai,

numbered from

one

to

six. The regimental commander, one Herakleides

son of Apollonios, one of the First Friends and

hlgem6n, and phrourarchos garrison-eommander), is

in personal command

of

the fifith

slmeia.

The reason

forthis

is,

presumably, that when the regiment

was

drawn

up in es triplex the fifth semeia would be drawn up at

the back on the right-hand side, and when the regiment

was

drawn up in ocies duplex it would be stationed in

the centre

of

the rear line. Despite damage to the surface

of the stone, it is clear that all the other

slmeiai

are

commanded by a simple Mgem6n, they all have an

ouragos

and standard-bearer, and four pentekontarchs,

but the anny -herald and the hekatontarch are both gone.

The sixth

slmeia

also had a

hyplrerls,

listed after the

pentekontarchs, who presumably acted as the

hypiretes

for the whole regiment. The second imeia only has three

pentekonlarchs, but it also has an officer with some title

beginning with the le tte r

gamma. He

may be the

grammateus of the regiment, doubling up as one of the

pentekontarchs of the second

semeia.

he

second

semeia

included.a sacred-flautist and the fourth a sacred

psalmist,

but

these are titles connected with the distinctive

religious practices of this Idumaean unit of religious

exiles, and have no military significance.

Despitethe breaks in the stone, Zucker p. 28) calculated

that the first

semeia

had a strength of96, the second 55,

the third 68, the fourth 64, the fifth 62 and the sixth 61.

In other words, the regiment was at approximately

quarter-strength.

It is

uncertain whether the first

semeia

was maintained

at

a greater strength than the others

deliberately, or whether this was simply chance. These

figures have

to be

treated with some caution, however,

as fragments

found

subsequently could potentially add a

few names onto the tolals for the last three

semeiai,

but

not substantially. One of these fragments Aegyptus 18

1938)

p.

281) lists one Hemolaos son

of

Apollonios, a

military herald a.1J.lCXtucd,; KTlpul;) and high.priest, nd

perh ps

fifteen names below

the founhslmeia.

TheextIa

fifteen names given are Idumaians. but

are

perhaps not

military

persormel.

Belowthe third

simeia

are listed

some

seventeen or so native Egyptian Royal Swordbearers

selected from th e

Companies

E Y s o X l a ~ s

J,La.Xa.lPO.pOPC)l fkwv..lKOl).

We

don t knowexaet1yw

these troops are. Perhaps they could

be

gendarmes

baggage-carriers attached

to

the regiment.

In t he first century, th erefore, t he command

a

administrative staff had been slimmed down somew

The breaking up of the Regimental Headquarters

and

distribution among the

imeiai

may just

be an cxped

practised in

this

regiment, as it was considerably be

strength. One presumes, however, that the reduction

the numbers of military heralds from one per

lmela

one per

reg iment, and

more importantly,

discontinuation of the rank of hekatontarch, ref

changes which had taken place throughout the Ptolem

army as

a

whole.

The Military Refonns ofthe Early First

Ceotury

We

have already mentioned the

semeia

commanded

Pates

and

Pachrates, who were presumably b

hekatontarehs, during the warof103-101 BC. Other th

these two, the latest certain reference to

a

helcatonta

is to Pasion, a hekatontarch in Askepiadcs

Mgemo

of

the soldiers

of

Akoris in documents

of 103

BC

Pr

Ptol. 232S).

The abolition of the post ofbelcatontareb

the Ptolemaic anny, and its replacement by a sin

hegemon in command of

the semeia, may

have co

shortly after.

A prominent figure in Ptolemaic military circles dur

these

years

was one Philostephanos,

who may

poss

have

been a descendant

ofthe

mous

tbird-eentury

re

writer Philostephanos of Cyrene. Phitostephan

commanded the army of Ptolemy IX Soter Lathy

against the Jewish king Alexander Jannaeus in

103 B

His greatest victory was achieved at the battle fough

Asophon, o n the east bank

of

the Jordan, whe

commanding

an

army

of

only 30,000 foot and horse

inflicted a defeat on Alexander s army of 50 or 80,0

troops

by

a skilful manoeuvre on the battlefield. Josep

Ant Jud. 13.340 - I would like to thank Richard Tay

for initially bringing my attention to this passa

describes Philo ste ph ano s as a m il it ar y w ri te r

ta.KtlKoi;), and Pluta.rch has preserved one of

fragments in the

Life

Lycurgus

23.1). Ptole

Lathyrus, then an exile, only re-eonquered Egypt in

9BC and ruled until 81. lfPhitostephanuswas

associa

with these reforms, though there is

no

evidence tha

was, they may have taken place during this period.



The L..efeb\ te Sfele from Hermopolis photo: P.M. Fraser)



The ougetStele from Hermopolis photo: P.M. Fraser).

This stele lists the officers of the seeondsemeia of The Apolloniate Mercenaries . Although almost impossible t

here, there

s

a letter g mm defining the rank of the person named n the sixth line down; this cannot

interp

with any certainlY, but it could possibly stand or gr mm teus



Tbe

ocder

Slele from t-Icrmopolis after Zucker).



Diag. SI Catalogue

of

the Sidon stelai in tabular

fonn

indicatingwhich have

been

pictorially depic

in this volume

and

their whereabouts Some of the stelai were

damaged

to such an

extent

that eve

photographs exist reproduction in this volume is infeasible.

J

Stele without inscription

[2] Stele ofHekataios ofThcatcira

[3] Stele of Salmas ofAdada

[4] Stele ofKartadis the Lycian

[5] Stele

of

Diodotos son ofPatron

a Cretan from

Hyrtakina

[6] Stele ofSaettas

a

Pisidian

of

Tennessos

[ ] Stele ofDioskourides a Pisidian from Balboura

[SJ Second Stele without inscription

Platefigures 9a-c

Platcfigure 9d

Platefigure lOa

Platefigure lOb

Platefigures

IOc d

Platefigurc

lle

Platefigure lib

Platefigurc

lla

Colour Photo 1 Fig. 6

Fig. 6

Colour Photo

2

Fig.

6

Fig.

6

Fig. 6

Fig.

1

Colour Photo 3 Fig. 7

Fig.

9] Stele of Eunostides son of Nikanor a Perrhaibian Platefigures 12a-c Colour Photo 4 Fig. 7

10]

SteIeofa

Warriorfrom [?Oroa]nda.

[11] Stele ofAristeidas a Lakedaimonian from Gythion.

[12] Stele ofStomphias SOD ofApoUonides

a Carian from Euromos.

13] Stcle erected by the oliteum

of

the Kaunians.

[14] Stclc of [?Her]molukos.

15] Stele of Zenon ofRhodiapolis.

[ 6]

Stele of [As]k1epa[-j.

[17]

Third

Uninscribed Stele.

Fig. 7

Fig. 7



APPENDIXS

THE PAINTED TOMBSTONES

FROMSIDON.

n

1897

a number of painted tombstones

had

come to

light in SaIda. the ancient Sidon, as a result of chance

discovery.

number \\ ere moved into the caravan-serai

in

Saida lhc next year. The discoveries had been made

the garden known as

Bostan

elHamoud to the south

ofthetov.n, at the foot

of

the hill dominated by the ancient

fortress. few of the stelai discovered in 1897 ere left

where they

had

been found. TIle discoveries had aroused

quite a substantial amount of curiosity in the scholarly

;\l Orld,

and in

1903

Macridy Bey camed

out

a sondage

on behalf of the Imperial Ottoman Archaeological

Museum

in

the area in order

to recover what he could

of

the material which still remained. Three pits were sunk

in

the garden. From the first came numerous fragments

of stucco belonging to stelai destroyed in lhc course of

the earlier excavations, and from the other two a diverse

selection of material, including some late Hellenistic

pottery and lwo fragments of vases decorated in relief

_ith

represenlations

of

the god Bes. At a depth

of

seven

metres a wall was found, late in

dau;

constroeted

of

re

used

material includinga number of painted tombstones.

l l the tombstones showed deceased warriors, and

Macr:idy

Bey

concluded

tMlthe

material originally came

from a

military

necropolis

established

by

foreign

mercenaries in the vicinity.

t

is reasonably safe to

CXlnclude that these mercenaries all belonged to

units

comprising the garrison of Sidon. Seven of the beuer

preserved Slelai were removed to the Archaeological

Museum in Istanbul. The others, left in Sidon, haven t

W \ived. Photographs

of

a few

of

Ihese tombstones left

Sidon exist. This group

of

material has not been

subjected to the scholarly attention it descrves. Academic

opinion has

been

divided as

10

whether Ihe troops

belonged to the Seleucid or Ptolemaic army, and

OJI lSequentlyas to the date

of

the malerial. The arguments

run

as follows: Essentially,

i f

the stelai are Ptolemaic,

they

should dale to the third century, as Koile-Syria was

lost to the Seleucids after 199 BC.lfthe stelai are Seleucid

they

should belong second century. Current opinion

terns to

be

that the stelai are Ptolemaic, daling

10

the

e third century.

opinion is that the tombstones mustdate to the second

c:entury. Firstly one of the soldiers is dressed in Roman

c:;uipmenl, for which there is noevidence in eilher army

before the lOOs. Secondly, one of the deceased holds the

a nk

of

semeiophoros or standard-bearer, and so too is

unlikely to date any earlier

than

the 16Os. Thus a date in

the

160sorafterscems reasonablycertain,

and Iheyamld

hardly be given a date later than the second century, for

stylistic

and o ther

reasons. Given

the

Ptolemaic

intervention in Koile-Syria in the years

1.50-14.5, the

question

of

whether they are Ptolemaicor Seleucid must

remain

more

open to debate. My opinion is that they

must

be

Ptolemaic, and they must date to

the

years

of

the

intervention.

The

PoliJeumo.

The Cuncrary inscriptions

of

many of the soldiers tell us

that they belonged to politeumata. Politeumata are thus

far only attested for thePtolemaic army, and only for the

second century. t

is, indeed, possible thal they

were

another innovation dating to the reign

of

Philometor.

Politeuma

could be translated as citizen body , but how

the system actually functioned in Egypt is more or less

completely unknown, and do not intend to enter into a

lengthyand inconclusivediscussion

ofthe

institution here

(on the politeumata at Sidon see M. Rostovtzeff, h

Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World

lIP (1953) p. 1401 n. 137; Launey pp. 1081-1084).

Although the

politeumata

are thus far attested

as

existing

only in Ptolemaic Egypt, this may simply be a trick

of

the evidence.

Papyrological

evidence,

of

which a

substantial proponion is concerned with legal matters

such as an individual s membership of a poJileuma

has

only survived for Egypt in any quantity, but

not

for

the

Seleucid or Antigonid Empires. Consequently it would

be extremely hazardous to assert that the

polileumata

ere

an

exclusively Ptolemaic institution, though this

happens to be the case at the moment.

We might compare the Ptolemaic institution

of

the

p i g o n ~ The bearers of this status seem to be descendants

of

the

original Gracco-Macedonian settlers who

constituted the Ptolemaic bodypolitic. The institution

is

attesled in imrnwnerable papyri fromEgypt, but outside

Egypt only in a single funerary inscription (assuming

Ihe reading to

be

correct from Pagasai Demetrias

olemon 4 1949/50 p.

83-4

no. 256 ,

comrnemmorating Solion

son

of Dionysios, one of the

epigonoi .

Eal tlrov

lUOVOC}lOO

W \I 7tl (O\IC.oV

Noethnic is given in this inscription, which, presumably,

should be taken as

an

indication that the deceased

was

a

citizen ofDemetrias. Whal the institution of

the epigonoi

19



was

in the Antigonid kingdom, and what relationship it

bore to the Ptolemaic institution

of

the epigone are

unknown, but had this single inscription not survived,

we

might have assumed thal the

P10lemaic

institution

of

the epigone

was

an isolated phenomenon.

Many scholm (eg. Morkholm

p.

138

n.12) have simply

asswned

the

politeumata

to have been an institution

common to all the Hellenistic kingdoms. Tarn

BactriQl

p.

18 nt

5) has postulated lhe existence ofa

poJiIeuma

of

Syrians in Seleuceia-on-Tigris from a passage in

Josephus Ant. Jud 18.372), who tells us thatduring the

Parthian period

there

lived in Seleuceia many

Macedonians, even more Greeks, and there were also

not a few Syrians enrolled in the citizen body

(otKOOCJ\V 5aO'tTlv 1 t O A J . . o ~ IJE:v McuC:OOovQ:w

7 t A ~ c r t m

s E:U.T\vs,

sonv

Kal

EuJXOv

OUK O ~ y o v 'to

S I . l . 1 t O A . ~ t E U O J . 1 v o v ) . Tarn argued thal this last word

which

is

the verb

of

1 t O A . ~ t f : U J . l . C X

not

of

1 t O A . ~ / ;

or

1tOA.l'tT\r;'

demonstrated that the

ordpoliIeuma

was not

confined to Egypt But it

is

not the verb

of pofiteuma

it

is

simply

afona of

the

Verbeq>j..L1tOA.l'tE00l 'to

hold citizen

rights', a word found in Thucydides, from which the

noun pofiteuma is alsoderived. ElsewhereJosephus Ant.

Jud 18.378) tells us that whoever

of

the Syrians who

was a citizen (OftOOOV T\V L o P C l J V S J . l . 1 t O A ~ t 8 U O V ) j O i n e d

in the hostility to the Babylonian Jews. What these

passages seem to imply

is

that Seleuceia, and the other

cities which had once been within the Seleucid Empire,

had a single citizen

body,

which

may

have been called a

po/iteuma which included many Macedonians, more

Gret;ks,

and not a few Syrians. Thepassagesdo not seem

to imply that Seleuceia hada

poJiteumaof

Macedonians,

a separate

pollteuma of

Greeks and another

politeuma

of

Syrians, which

is

what Tarn wished to read into the

passage.

The Ptolemaic

politeumata

seem to have been crealed at

a specificdate for a specific purpose, and theyare named

after different ethnic groups: 'the

pofiteuma of

the

Cretans' for example. If

politeuma

did exist as aword or

as

an

institution in the Seleucid Empire, for which there

is as

yet

no fmn evidence, there is no reason why

it

should

have been in exactly the same fonn as thc Ptolemaic

po/fteuma. All thal can be said is that the politeuma

where il is attested in the inscriptions

on

the stelai from

Sidon, is

an

ethnic group

of

exactly the same type as the

Ptolemaic pollteuma Therefore a Ptolemaic

imerpretation would fit this matcrial very well. An

argumentum e silentia is, however, never secure.

2

Other Considerations.

r t

historical considerations can rarelybe

used

to

ass

dates

10

ancient material with a margin of error

anything less than several decades. Nevertheless, wb

art-historians have dcalt with the Sidon steW, they

b a

tended to give them a later, rather than an earlier dat

Blanche

R.

Brown

Ptolemaic Paintings

and

Mosai

and theAlerandrian Slyle

(1957) p. 87) thought th t th

loculus-slabs were all in the 'popular' Style which on

emerged in the second century. The 'popular' Si

marked a drop from the dominant level of

artist

production'toa low,

popular

level which is cbaracterizI

by simplified, conventionalized fonns ndcompositiClllS

She noted that, although the Sidon stelai derive from

different stylistic source than the Alexandrian materi

which she was studying, and they therefore use differe

decorative motifs, they are nevertheless comparable

the tombstones belonging

to

her 'Fourth Style',

whid

date to the secondcenrmy. They isolate, abstract.

and repeat

symbols ',

a phenomenonwhichcan alsobec

seen in the treatment of the hwnan figures.

Peter Callaghan

(8 4

75 (1980)

p.

45) considered tb

theTrefoil Stylewreath, which hangs in thefriezebelo

the pediment on many

of

these loculus slabs. indicates

date in the latter half

of

the period

of

Seleuc

domination (ie. the second

half

of the second century

He

realized that this date caused historical problems,

many of the mercenaries came from west

of

the Tawt

Mountains, and so should not have been recruited f

service in the Seleucid anny according to the terms

the Treaty of Apameia, but affinned his conviction th

..

the style of the stelai demand that they

be

placed

in

th

lattcr period . f the soldiers were in Ptolemaic rath

than Seleucid service, ofcourse, this problemdisappea

The letter-fonns of the inscriptions could be put in th

laiC third century, but would fit a date in the middle

the second century well. The letters are not apicate

that is, the legs do not splay out at the ends, but there

some thickening. The broken-barred

alpha

appears,

feature which

is

rarely found before the second

centur

Likewise the top and bonom strokes

of

the

sigma

parallel, which is another feature characteristic

of

th

second century and beyond. The theta has a stroke in

th

middle, and this feature

is

rarely found before the midd

of the second century. On the other hand there is som

fine cunring in the letters upsi/on and alpha which

not a characteristic feature

of

a date any later than

th

second, or even the third, century.

The

pi

has its rig

leg shorter th n the left

in

most cases, but in some th



legs are equal, and this lengthening is a process which

took

place during the second century. nsome

cases

the

letter

om ron is

equal

to

the other letters in size, but in

others

it is

small and hangs in the middle

of

the line,

which is a late third century feature. For these

reasons

a

date in the middle of the second century would

fit

the

epigraphic style well, but arguments based purely on on

letter-forms can never be regarded as conclusive.

nconclusion, therefore, although complete certainty is

impossible, it

seems

safest

to

conclude that these stelai

must

belong to a Ptolemaic garrison installed in Sidon

during the intervantions of Philometor in 150 or in

147- 145 BC. tis also possible that a Ptolemaic: garrison

was maintained in the

city

between these two

interventions. In the discussion of the individual stelai

which follows, shall assume these dales, but I shall

also discuss in turn the additional dating evidence

supplied by some the individual stelai.

Catalogue.

Seventeen(most

of

them

inscribed)

individual stelai were

recovered either in whole or in part, but

of

these only

seyen survive,

th nks

to the efforts ofMacridy Bey, and

are in the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul. I have

only given a shortened bibliography

to

the principal

referenceswhere each item has been

diS l lSS d

Mendel s

catalogue

of

the sculptures

of

the Istanbul ArchaeologicaJ

Museum, where cited, contains a full bibliography of

earlier publications.

The sequence in which the stelai are labelled is the one

which was found to be most convenient for the

composition of the colour reconstruction plates, and is

of no other particu1ar significance. Diag.

S

onPage 18

catalogues the stelai in tabular fonn, indicating which

have been pictorially depicted in this volume and their

whereabouts.

Stelai [I] and [2] have been

used

for Plate 9:

11

Stde without inscription (Platefigum9a-c).

Mendel

no. 107.

This stele is preserved in the ArchaeologicalMuseum

in

Istanbul

Jnv. 1169).

Three warriors are shown,

the

one

on the left is, presumably,

the

deceased. He shakes the

hand of lIle second warrior. while the thir warrior also

5tretchesout his right hand too. The

shaking

of bands is

symbolic of the departureof the deceased on the journey

to

Hades. All three warriors

wear

helmets of the same

type, and carry the

t ur os

shield and a single spear.

The helmet shown is of a quite distinctive

type,

which

cannot be parallcled precisely by any surviving example

ofaHcllcnistic helmet. t

is remarkable how themajority

of the warriors dcpicted on the Sidon stelai wear this

identical

type of

helmet:

we

might call it Sidon

Documents

Seleucid and Ptolemaic Reformed Armies 168-145 BC (2) Ptolemaic Army.pdf