Rhomphaia

[Paullus Scipio]

....to which it should be pointed out that a 'Hoplites' pay was meant to cover himself and his servant , while, AFIK, tribal Thracian peltasts did not come with, nor need, a servant/ baggage carrier/'skouraphos'

No, that rate I posted does not include payment for skeuophoroi - another drachma a day was thrown it to cover their costs, so that in reality the hoplites received 2 drachmas a day.

Ah, OK, I see.....you are quoting the 'citizen' pay rate, at the time of Potidaea. In 5C Athens , a hoplite, rower, and laborer (free or slave) all received a daily wage, of 1 Attic drachma - more a 'maintenance allowance' for a Hoplite. In 400-320 B.C. this daily wage rose to 1.5 Attic drachmae.

Of course, taken in isolation, this figure means little, so for comparison.....

In Athens 6,000 jurors received each a daily wage (opsonion) sufficient to purchase the minimum subsistence. In 460 B.C. this was 2 obols (1/3 drachma); in 408 B.C. it was raised to 3 obols (1/2 drachma). Craftsmen and masons working on public projects in 447-408 B.C. received daily wages from 2 to 2.5 drachmae.

At the siege of Potidaea (432-429 B.C.), each hoplite received 2 drachmae per day (one for himself, one for his servant); each cavalryman received double this rate (Thuc. III. 17. 4). An Athenian trireme, manned by 170 rowers and 30 officers and marines, cost 200 drachmae per day in wages or 1 talent per month.

But Athens paid her citizens well. In 420 B.C. Athens agreed to a treaty whereby Argos agreed to pay each Athenian hoplite, archer, or peltast 3 Aeginetic obols per day and each cavalryman 1 Aeginetic drachma, which was equivalent to only two-thirds of their usual pay, and was perhaps more typical for other Cities' Hoplites.(Thuc.V.47.6)

Notice that the 'pay' was the same for the lowest (psiloi) and the highest (hoplites) indicating that this was considered 'subsistence level' for all ( unlike the more generous citizen's pay of a drachma a day.)

Pay for mercenaries, however, was generally lower than for citizens - generally always around subsistence level. Indeed the word 'mistophoroi' for mercenaries, often translated as 'wage -earners' is slightly misleading', for it derives from the term for the 'State Dole' which indicates its minimal level.
Mercenaries were expected to 'pay' themselves from loot.

Xenophon (Hellenica V.ii.21) tells us the wage in the Peloponnese for a mercenary Hoplite was 4.5 obols a day - roughly the same as 40 years before (Thuc.V.47.6 - referred to above) for a citizen hoplite's subsistence, but since prices/cost of living had risen significantly, in real terms it was much less even than the wage the allies agreed to pay Athenian troops in 420 BC.

At Thuc VII.27.2, Athens hired 1,300 'Dii' tribesmen, "...one of the Thracian tribes who are armed with machaira..." and this is how I illustrated one on P.51 of "Warfare in the Classical World", taking the term literally. That a drachma a day WAS considered expensive can be gathered from the above, and also the fact that "...the Athenians resolved to send them back to Thrace, where they came from, since it seemed too expensive - each man was paid a drachma a day - to retain their services for dealing with the attacks made on them from Decelea." ( a border fortress held by the Pelponnesians).

In the action Paul B. describes/refers to above (Thuc VII.27.2), these same tribesmen carry out a massacre and sacking the small city of Mycalessus, on their way home (under Athenian command...obviously looking to get some 'value' from their expensive hirelings!), and retribution in the form of Theban cavalry and hoplites follows.

The description of them of them 'discomfiting' the cavalry "....the Thracians did very creditably against the Theban cavalry, which attacked them first and put up a good defence by adopting the tactics of their country, that is to say by charging out in detachments and then falling back again......Of the Thebans and others who were in the relief force, about 20 cavalry and hoplites were killed, including Scirphondas, who was one of the Boetarchs...."
does not sound as if they achieved this with merely javelins, and as secondary armament, a 'kopis/machaira', and I think there is a distinct possibility that these 'swords/machaira' as Thucydides calls them could well be a reference to 'rhomphaia' - a word not used 'til much later....