10-03-2007, 01:32 AM
Giannis K. Hoplite
I’m not sure I follow your reasoning…
If you don’t think the Scythians supplied the archers as mercenaries (and I would agree I don’t see how Athens could have paided for such a force either as mercenaries or public slaves), and you also think I’m incorrect in assuming the Athenians used citizens as archers; who was shooting arrows from some 200 Athenian ships at Salamis?
Why not citizen archers – the Athenian made up democracy and a navy out of whole cloth why not archers as well? Sure a certain minority class of avidly literate aristocratic Athenians despised archers and believed in a world of small hoplite only polis fantasy – but they generally despised democracy and navies as well. The majority of the Athenians went ahead and built both a navy and a lasting democracy anyway, so why not also archers.
I’m not sure I follow your reasoning…
If you don’t think the Scythians supplied the archers as mercenaries (and I would agree I don’t see how Athens could have paided for such a force either as mercenaries or public slaves), and you also think I’m incorrect in assuming the Athenians used citizens as archers; who was shooting arrows from some 200 Athenian ships at Salamis?
Why not citizen archers – the Athenian made up democracy and a navy out of whole cloth why not archers as well? Sure a certain minority class of avidly literate aristocratic Athenians despised archers and believed in a world of small hoplite only polis fantasy – but they generally despised democracy and navies as well. The majority of the Athenians went ahead and built both a navy and a lasting democracy anyway, so why not also archers.
Paul Klos
\'One day when I fly with my hands -
up down the sky,
like a bird\'
\'One day when I fly with my hands -
up down the sky,
like a bird\'