Ptolemaic Armies in the late 3rd century BC

[Araujo]

I'm actually curious in the armies of the Diadochi, the "Successors" of Alexander the Great. I find that Macedon was the only nation which kept on with only "proper" greek armies and the phalanxes. Cavalry was greek or thessalian, infantrymen had to be greek, etc. Cassander, the first king of the Antipatrid Macedonia, was strictly conservative in that point. He hated Alexander's eastern's politics.
On the other hand, his rivals - Antigonus, Seleucus or Ptolemy - adopted those changes. Antigonus died in 301 BC in the Battle of Ipsus. His kingdom passed to Lysimachus, in Thrace, Cassander, in Greece and Macedonia, and Seleucus, in Asia and the Eastern Provinces. As I said, Cassander didn't adopt the eastern way of life nor the "mix" of cultures between west and east. Seleucus, on the other hand, developed it and formed an army of greeks, indians, persians and babylonians. But what about Ptolemy?
Ptolemy made the most powerful kingdom of the Diadochi: the Ptolemaic Egypt. He secured its frontiers and made a series of laws to ensure that his country developed. His army had still some lots of thousands of greek and macedonian hoplites, but great part of Egypt was inhabited by egyptians or persians. How did he put those men to battle and to go to victory against the powerful armies of the Seleucids or the Antigonids (who were now taking power over Greece and Macedonia)? I'm really curious. As what I heard, the persian infantrymen were weak, and probably the egyptian soldiers were almost only peasants. Can someone help me guys?

[Paralus]

I find that Macedon was the only nation which kept on with only "proper" greek armies and the phalanxes. Cavalry was greek or thessalian, infantrymen had to be greek, etc. Cassander, the first king of the Antipatrid Macedonia, was strictly conservative in that point. He hated Alexander's eastern's politics. On the other hand, his rivals - Antigonus, Seleucus or Ptolemy - adopted those changes.

That’s as it may seem but your premise is rather an over-simplification of matters. The Diadochoi recruited troops form where they could. The number of Macedonians on offer after Alexander’s death were strictly limited: the king’s predations having taken their toll on the national forces to the extent that Antipater, at the outbreak of the Lamian war, was embarrassed to within inches of his life.

The truth that keeps staring back at you from the literary accounts we are left with is that the Macedonians of Diadoch arrays in the wars that follow Alexander’s death are the homoioi of a new age. Diodorus is at his most reliable in stressing this (probably thanks to Hieronymus). An example, one of many, Describing Cassander encamping near to Demetrius and his forces (XX 110.3-4 ):

He (Cassander) had in all twenty-nine thousand foot-soldiers and two thousand horsemen. Demetrius was followed by fifteen hundred horsemen, not less than eight thousand Macedonian foot-soldiers, mercenaries to the number of fifteen thousand, twenty-five thousand from the cities throughout Greece, and at least eight thousand of the light armed troops and of the freebooters of all sorts such as gather where there is fighting and plundering; so that there were in all about fifty-six thousand foot-soldiers.

“Not less than 8,000 Macedonians” serves to point up the value of these troops. Elsewhere they are described in terms such as “stout Macedonians”; “twenty thousand foot soldiers, chiefly Macedonians famed for their courage”; “half of whom were Macedonians admirable for their hardihood” to enumerate a few. The meaning is abundantly clear: these are the troops.

Cassander’s “strict conservatism” relates to the fact that he is recruiting in Macedonia and Greece and is attempting to portray himself as a legitimate choice to those Macedonians which are his constituency. Trust me, had the end play not been underway in Anatolia and Demetrius summoned thence by Antigonus, Cassander will have readily enrolled any Pamphylians or Babylonians willing to help him in the battle he did not, in the end, have to fight.

Which leads to old Monophthalmus. The One-Eyed had been ensconced in Phrygia for some ten years by Alexander’s death. He was most used to recruiting soldiers for service in his “policing” role. When, after Alexander’s death, the glint of empire shone from his one good eye he had no hesitation in erolling large numbers of those who’d served him over those years: Pamphylians and Lycians. He also had a large corps of epigoni infantry (some 8,000).

That last is important: the epigoni – often described as “Asians armed and trained in the Macedonian manner of phalanx fighting” or the like – are an important element of these armies. The campaign between Antigonus and Eumenes over 318-316 featured no less than some 13,000 or so of them (16,000 if, as is extremely likely, Eumenes' "hypaspists" are epigoni troops rather than Macedonian). There is no doubt that their brethren filled out the forces of armies such as Perdiccas’ invasion force for Egypt. Both this and the highlighting of Macedonian foot is an eloquent testimony to the importance of sarisa-armed foot for the marshals of Alexander.

Hammond (among others) has reasonably argued that Macedonians and Greeks living abroad – particularly the soldiers – will have seen their male progeny progress into the armies of their successor kingdom. This is quite likely correct. Hammond’s further suggestion that Eumenes’ hypaspists in the above campaign were the “sons of the argyraspids” absolutely fails to flatter.

Ptolemy made the most powerful kingdom of the Diadochi: the Ptolemaic Egypt. He secured its frontiers and made a series of laws to ensure that his country developed. His army had still some lots of thousands of greek and macedonian hoplites, but great part of Egypt was inhabited by egyptians or persians. How did he put those men to battle and to go to victory against the powerful armies of the Seleucids or the Antigonids (who were now taking power over Greece and Macedonia)? I'm really curious. As what I heard, the persian infantrymen were weak, and probably the egyptian soldiers were almost only peasants. Can someone help me guys?

Ptolemy will have had, after Triparadeisos, a nucleus of Macedonians. The number will not have been great. He will have gained (or lost) Macedonians after victories (or defeats) as did they all. The Macedonians of Alexander’s anabasis were, by the end, extremely mercenary in nature. His efforts to attract “settlers” to Egypt stem, in some part, from wishing to have a decent Greco-Macedonian implant in Alexandria. Even so his successors trained and armed their own forces as required.

In any case, before this becomes an essay, the preparations for Raphia in 217 might help with your question (pardon the length - I edited rather heavily to reduce verbiage):

Pol. V.79:
Now Ptolemy started from Alexandria with an army of seventy thousand foot, five thousand horse, and seventy-three elephants, and Antiochus, on learning of his advance, concentrated his forces. These consisted first of Daae, Carmanians, and Cilicians, light-armed troops about five thousand in number organized and commanded by Byttacus the Macedonian. Under Theodotus the Aetolian, who had played the traitor to Ptolemy, was a force of ten thousand selected from every part of the kingdom and armed in the Macedonian manner, most of them with silver shields. The phalanx was about twenty thousand strong and was under the command of Nicarchus and Theodotus surnamed Hemiolius. There were Agrianian and Persian bowmen and slingers to the number of two thousand, and with them two thousand Thracians, all under the command of Menedemus of Alabanda. Aspasianus the Mede had under him a force of about five thousand Medes, Cissians, Cadusians, and Carmanians. The Arabs and neighbouring tribes numbered about ten thousand and were commanded by Zabdibelus. Hippolochus the Thessalian commanded the mercenaries from Greece, five thousand in number. Antiochus had also fifteen hundred Cretans under Eurylochus and a thousand Neocretans under Zelys of Gortyna. With these were five hundred Lydian javelineers and a thousand Cardaces under Lysimachus the Gaul. The cavalry numbered six thousand in all, four thousand of them being commanded by Antipater the king's nephew and the rest by Themison. The whole army of Antiochus consisted of sixty-two thousand foot, six thousand horse, and a hundred and two elephants.

And for Ptolemy’s preparation of his army is described at V.63-65:

Ptolemy whose obvious duty it was to march to the help of his dominions, attacked as they had been in such flagrant defiance of treaties, was too weak to entertain any such project, so completely had all military preparations been neglected. At length, however, Agathocles and Sosibius, who were then the king's chief ministers, took counsel together and decided on the only course possible under present circumstances. For they resolved to occupy themselves with preparations for war […] Meanwhile they recalled and assembled at Alexandria the mercenaries in their employment in foreign parts, sending out recruiting officers also and getting ready provisions for the troops they already had and for those they were raising […]The task of providing arms, selecting the men and organizing them they entrusted to Echecrates the Thessalian and Phoxidas of Melita, assisted by Eurylochus the Magnesian, Socrates the Boeotian, and Cnopias of Allaria. They were most well advised in availing themselves of the services of these men, who having served under Demetrius and Antigonus had some notion of the reality of war of campaigning in general. Taking the troops in hand they got them into shape by correct military methods. First of all they divided them according to their ages and nationalities, and provided them in each case with suitable arms and accoutrements, paying no attention to the manner in which they had previously been armed; in the next place they organized them as the necessities of the present situation required, breaking up the old regiments and abolishing the existing paymasters' lists, and having effected this, they drilled them, accustoming them not only to the word of command, but to the correct manipulation of their weapons […]All the men I have mentioned held commands suited to their particular attainments. Eurylochus of Magnesia commanded a body of about three thousand men known as the Royal Guard, Socrates the Boeotian had under him two thousand peltasts, Phoxidas the Achaean, Ptolemy the son of Thraseas, and Andromachus of Aspendus exercised together in one body the phalanx and the Greek mercenaries, the phalanx twenty-five thousand strong being under the command of Andromachus and Ptolemy and the mercenaries, numbering eight thousand, under that of Phoxidas. Polycrates undertook the training of the cavalry of the guard, about seven hundred strong, and the Libyan and native Egyptian horse; all of whom, numbering about three thousand, were under his command. It was Echecrates the Thessalian who trained most admirably the cavalry from Greece and all the mercenary cavalry, and thus rendered most signal service in the battle itself, and Cnopias of Allaria too was second to none in the attention he paid to the force under him composed of three thousand Cretans, one thousand being Neocretans whom he placed under the command of Philo of Cnossus. They also armed in the Macedonian fashion three thousand Libyans under the command of Ammonius of Barce. The total native Egyptian force consisted of about twenty thousand heavy-armed men, and was commanded by Sosibius, and they had also collected a force of Thracians and Gauls, about four thousand of them from among settlers in Egypt and their descendants, and two thousand lately raised elsewhere. These were commanded by Dionysius the Thracian.

It worked: Ptolemy won. Unfortunately Agathocles and Sosibius succeeded too well and the Egyptians afterwards proceeded to take matters into their own hands and revolt. The following war was not settled until 186 when upper Egypt was recovered.