Parade Uniforms and the Procession of Ptolemy II

[ScipioAsina]

I was looking today at E. E. Rice's The Grand Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus (1983) and noticed something near the end of the account:

'At the very end, the infantry and cavalry forces marched in procession, all of them fully armed in a marvellous fashion. The foot numbered 57,600, and the horse 23,000. All these marched along dressed in the uniform appropriate to each, and having the proper panoply.' Besides the armour worn by all these troops, there were also many other panoplies kept in reserve, whose number is not easy to record, but Kallixeinos gave the full count. (202F-203A)

Here it is in Greek (please bear with me, as I do not understand Greek and simply typed down what I saw):

"???? ?? ????? ?????????? ?? ???????? ?? ??????? ??? ???????, ????? ????????????? ?????????· ????? ??? ??? ????? ???????? ??? ?????????????? ??? ??????????, ?????? ?? ????????? ?????????? ?????????. ?????? ?? ????? ??????????, ??? ?????????? ?????? ??????????? ?????? ??? ??? ??????????? ??????? ?????????." ????? ?? ?? ?????? ????? ????? ????????? ??? ????? ???????? ???? ???????????, ?? ???? ??? ??????? ????????? ??????. ???????? ?? ????? ? ???????????.

Besides the troop numbers (which Rice discusses in his book), what I found interesting in this account was that every soldier was "dressed in the uniform appropriate to each." Does this mean all the soldiers in a unit were dressed exactly the same (down to their helmets and the color of their clothing), or was it just relative uniformity? In addition, that they were "fully armed in marvellous fashion" seemingly implies that this was not their typical appearance. Any thoughts? Thanks.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

As i understand it here with "stole" he means only the clothing. And then they had the appropriate panoply. Their clothing could have actually been uniform,especially for a parade. I don't think it has to mean that all of them were exactly uniform.
Khaire
Giannis

[MeinPanzer]

Funny that you post this thread now, as I just wrote an article on Hellenistic military costume which will appear in the next issue of Ancient Warfare that deals with the question of uniformity in Hellenistic armies. There are many passages in the literature which have been mistranslated giving the impression that ancient troops wore uniform clothing, and the word stole is the cause of a lot of confusion. It just means "apparel" or "garb," and yet it is very often translated "uniform."

A literal translation of ?????? ?? ????? ??????????, ??? ?????????? ?????? ??????????? ?????? ??? ??? ??????????? ??????? ????????? is "and all these men marched in procession, wearing each (or individually) fitting apparel (stole) and possessing befitting panoplies." What is probably being referred to with stole here is the garb of differing ethnic contingents rather than uniforms.