04-24-2007, 02:41 AM
Quote:There are a number of sources on Pontic armies in the first century BC, probably including Appian and Plutarch (I haven't read much on Mithridates' army though). They seem to have been of mixed pattern, with Hellenistic, Persian, Anatolian, and (towards the end) Roman influences.
Appian's Mithridatic Wars is the best for, well, the Mithridatic wars, while Polybius has some good coverage of the fighting of the minor kingdoms in Asia Minor from the 2nd century BC onwards.
The reason I asked Stefanos for a source on the Bithynians is that I'm just finishing up an article on the Bithynian army in the Hellenistic period which will hopefully be published in Slingshot soon and from my research, I've seen absolutely no evidence whatsoever for Bithynians ever using pikemen or operating in a phalanx, so I'd be really curious to see what evidence he is drawing from.
Quote:Regarding the dress of pikemen, don't some of our ancient sources on Alexander mention his men adopting foreign clothes en masse somewhere in Bactria, Sogodia, or India? In any case, I expect that men would have adopted foreign garments piecemeal as ones in the Greek style became harder to find, so there was probably also gradual change over his campaign. I doubt Alexander's men could have gotten an adequate supply of clothing and shoes from Greece after they crossed the Euphrates, and most of their camp followers were barbaroi. In Hellenistic times, I expect most regular pikemen would have dressed in Hellenic styles.
I don't see why it would be hard for Greeks to easily modify eastern clothing to fit a more Greek style. It's not hard, for instance, to change a typical long-sleeved Persian tunic into a chiton. They probably used eastern material but kept Greek cuts of clothing.
Ruben
He had with him the selfsame rifle you see with him now, all mounted in german silver and the name that he\'d give it set with silver wire under the checkpiece in latin: Et In Arcadia Ego. Common enough for a man to name his gun. His is the first and only ever I seen with an inscription from the classics. - Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
He had with him the selfsame rifle you see with him now, all mounted in german silver and the name that he\'d give it set with silver wire under the checkpiece in latin: Et In Arcadia Ego. Common enough for a man to name his gun. His is the first and only ever I seen with an inscription from the classics. - Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian