Athens and Inaros\'s Rebellion

[P. Lilius Frugius Simius]

Khairete!

While I'm working on my incoming novel (about the Goths) that I will start writing in November, I'm planning into retaking an old project of mine (mainly to get rid of my researching obsession).

This is an episode from old, Pericles's Athens, circa 460BCE, when help was sent to Egypt to assist a certain Inaros in a rebellion to liberate Egypt from Artaxerxes's rule, and, after six tough years, they were finally defeated by a Megabyzus... One of the first major blows to a growing unstoppable Athens, and an interesting, drammatical episode of our beloved first democracy...

I know of Thucidides's account of this episode (about a paragraph! it surely hurt too much to mention it one too many times), there must be other primary and secondary sources I can check...

By the looks of it, it will be, nevertheless, mostly historical fiction, but I can try to make it a good one!

So, please, I accept recommendations for historical events regarding Inaros's rebellion and the destiny of those Athenians trapped into the desert towards Cyrene, or trapped by Megabyzus and conductus before Artaxerxes himself (dependng on the version).

thanks!

P. Lilius a.k.a. Argyros

[hoplite14gr]

Some lines of thought:

Comparing Mummy Dockets and Their Chronological Value
Revised View: In revised view Ramses XI was Inaros of the Greek authors.
Inaros became famous because he led out in a rebellion against the Persians in ...
www.specialtyinterests.net/mummy_dockets.html

some info on the death of Charitidimos the Greek Ally Geneal
http://www.sikyon.com/Athens/ahist_eg03.html

Not all mercs were Athenians possibly. So other troop types except hoplites apply. Given time the egyptian armors might appear among the Greeks as it is typical for mercenaries to mix armor and styles from the dawn of time.
Tough buggers managed to escape to Kyrene! (A bit Bau Zest dessert marching!)
If you want to know what soldiering in the marshes and bogs is like ask me! I was unfortunate enough to have experience!

2 months ago in the Cairo museum the guide showed me "bumerang like" thinks that the Egyptians used to hunt water birds. Interesting thought on Egzptian psiloi!!

Regards

[P. Lilius Frugius Simius]

Khairete, Hoplite!

Some lines of thought:

Comparing Mummy Dockets and Their Chronological Value
Revised View: In revised view Ramses XI was Inaros of the Greek authors.
Inaros became famous because he led out in a rebellion against the Persians in ...
www.specialtyinterests.net/mummy_dockets.html

some info on the death of Charitidimos the Greek Ally Geneal
http://www.sikyon.com/Athens/ahist_eg03.html

Thanks for the links. I have found the Inaros = Ramses XI before. How accepted is, academically speaking, this revised chronology of Egypt History? Not that it's reall important, but some reason must exist for Thucidides (and other greeks?) for calling him 'Inaros' instead of "Armasis" or other possible readings of "RMS(S)" (not sure if this i sthe right semitic root that "Ramses" comes from)? I mean, arriving from "RMS(S)" to "I-na-ros" is pretty contorted (isn't it?) Linguistic reasons are sometimes weak, but it's surprising, to say the least.

Not all mercs were Athenians possibly. So other troop types except hoplites apply. Given time the egyptian armors might appear among the Greeks as it is typical for mercenaries to mix armor and styles from the dawn of time.

Well, I think greek historians would call "hoplites" any heavy infantry, independently if their equipment was like the VI Century hoplite or not. Centuries later, Hannibal Barca used libyan holpites as one of this main infantry forces against Rome, and I seem to recall reading some (translated) classical author talking about egyptian hoplites by those times, but cannot be sure right now.

Any link to contemporary egyptian military info would be welcome as well :-) )

Tough buggers managed to escape to Kyrene! (A bit Bau Zest dessert marching!)
If you want to know what soldiering in the marshes and bogs is like ask me! I was unfortunate enough to have experience!

It must have been really tough indeed... Reminds me of later Alexander returnig to Babylon from the Indos through the desert of Gedrosia, only worse (I mean, they went to Kyrene after fleeing from a lost battle, therefore no food or water or...)!!! One of the reasons I want to write this, actually... Tough Athenians, indeed!

2 months ago in the Cairo museum the guide showed me "bumerang like" thinks that the Egyptians used to hunt water birds. Interesting thought on Egzptian psiloi!!

Regards

actually very interesting! it gives me some ideas, indeed... shame greek historians preferred not to talk in depth about this episode of their History... I guess it was too painful and "unpatriotic" to mention by the time... Kind of Vietnam for USA, but who knows, probably worse in its context!

please share with us/me your experiences in the African desert, I have never been able to be in the desert (coming from fertile Gallaecia myself) and I will certainly benefit from first hand experience!

thanks a lot!
a.k.a Argyros

PS- Zeus sotir niki? Zeus leads to victory? May Zeus bing victory? Definitely I gotta finally learn greek!

[hoplite14gr]

The idea of Inaros-Ramesis might give idea for tragic drama if you do not want to go to absolute historical-accurasy! You know these heroes and their paramoures staff!

For Saitic Egyptian troops www.dbaol.com - follow the link "explore armies "
and click on Saitic Egyptian Army. Art work not great, but gives a possible impression of Egyptian spearmen.

Mathew Amt's page on hoplite www.larp.com/hoplite has a link "Bronze age"
You will go to a page with photoes of reconstructed Egyptian linen Armor, shields, maces among other stuff.

Bronze Age Center :
http://s8.invisionfree.com/Bronze_Age_C ... owforum=10

There Todd Fineman has done super reproduction of Egyptian staff (scale helmets!!)

I mentioned soldiering in the masrhes-bogs not desserts!
Facts: You need 45 days to teach troops close order drill. Motivation is another thing. Good Skirmishers are hard to be created. Most ancient generals hired them from peoples and areas with a reputation in this type of bussiness In your case Nile west-bank Egyptian , Lybians, Greek peltasts, Syrian Hillmen, Medianite Arabs, Nubians, Sudnese, Athiopeans!
Greeks are possibly available only to Inaros, the others on any one who pays!
Bogs and marshes in tropical heat stink because of gasses trapped in the mad. They are infested with leeches who drink everybody's blood equally!
Every body plays hide and seek among the papyroi or other river-plants and jump on each other with daggers. Drowning you opponet in the swamp is not a bad idea! Patience is more important than blade use!
Did I mentioned poisonous river snakes and crocodiles?!!!!
How about shores and infections of germs and mocrobes relishing in humidity. Think old dyentery and other nice deseaces! Wellcome to Memphis swamps the Vietnam of Antiquity!
Some rest on the dessert you say away from the liquid hell!
Well tell that to the scorpions and the cobras and poisonous lizards!
They are not patriotic enough to bite only the Persians!
Egyptian might have adpted to this place but what about foreigners!
Enlist they say......
A few good men wanted to aid the noble Prince Inaros!
Transportation provided and the chance to meet beautiful Egyptian women!
Well with the farm back home wrecked by the Persian invasion might not be a bad idea!
In Greece we say: success boasts of may fathers, failure is an unwanted orfan!

Kind regards

[P. Lilius Frugius Simius]

The idea of Inaros-Ramesis might give idea for tragic drama if you do not want to go to absolute historical-accurasy! You know these heroes and their paramoures staff!

Heh... :-) ) I am researching the subject from the Egyptian-Persian side of sources (if any) and see what I get. Another member of the old GAT is going to send me his findings as well, he has done a comparative study of the primary and secondary sources related to this episode. My expectatives are high for this, considering the lack of sources!.

thanks for the links you provided me, they will prove very useful...

I mentioned soldiering in the masrhes-bogs not desserts!

Ops!

OK, I guess Memphis was that way, indeed.

I wonder how the Athenian phalanx would have progresssed in such a battle. There must have been good plain for a massive battle, anyway. Sources speak about hundreds of thousands of Persian soldiers... I am very exceptic about most numbers given, specially since logistics are the key in here, and bigger isn't necessarily better, as we know very well. But 400,000 for Achaemenes and 600,000 for Megabyzus seem a bit too high. Also, while Thukidides mentions 40 tieres, Ctesias (or was it Diodorus) mentions 200. What a big difference!

How many ships could Athens by the time allow herself to divert to help Inaros, anyway? They were having operations throughout the whole of Hellas, and there was Chiprus as well. I'd love to have some realistic/reliable numbers about the possibilities of the Delian League by the time. While 40 or 200 ships wouldn't have been a big difference in the numbers of hoplites/epibatai, the difference in rowers is staggering!

OK, so marshes, swamps, nasty creeplers and other, bigger animals, and lots of work for light infantry, good to know. Thanks! I'll have that in mind!

Enlist they say......
A few good men wanted to aid the noble Prince Inaros!
Transportation provided and the chance to meet beautiful Egyptian women!

LOL. That was funny :-) )

Well with the farm back home wrecked by the Persian invasion might not be a bad idea!
In Greece we say: success boasts of may fathers, failure is an unwanted orfan!

Kind regards

Indeed! Deep wisdom in that saying, specially appropriate for the time period we are discussing...

again, thanks a lot!

PS- OK, another try with my poor greek, no dictionaries, etc: Zeus sotir niki = May Zeus help towards victory (???)

[hoplite14gr]

About Zeys Sotir Niki check page one of "How many Greek reenactors are there?" topic. Paul Allen asked me abd I gave him comprehensive explanation.

40 trirems more likely given the troubles they put themselves into at the time. They would curry more combatants ecxept the usual epivatai complement. Other vessels were not so impressive to catch they eye of the story teller. Remenber even today evryone admires the aircraftcarrier not the supply ship or troop carrier. Another 40 or more odd vessels of all types loaded with adventurers. (The wrecked farms we were talking about!)
Also hoplite training is cheap armor is expensive. There is always the posibility to have more people with the skill than you can equip. The hoplites would force the Persians into Memfis with a brutall allout slog but siege and ground clearnce is lighter infantry work not the fallanx! For the contact of mercenaries Xenophons 10000 offers an insight.
40 to 60000 Persians seem reasonable and Egypt could feed up to 100000.
The numbers exaggerate unless you count the servants of every noble cavalryman! -but they are not combatants.

Meet women funny!-but is used by recruiters from the dawn of time so it must be effective!!! Tercio never talked about Marocan ladies?
Diodorus is a certfied liar and scouondrel who wrote heroic fiction not history-even Herodotus is more credible than him!
Tell me of your progress!
Kind regards

[P. Lilius Frugius Simius]

About Zeys Sotir Niki check page one of "How many Greek reenactors are there?" topic. Paul Allen asked me abd I gave him comprehensive explanation.

OK, now I understand, thanks :-) )

(just a side question: isn't "eta" a long 'eh' (like in latin)? if we allow ourselves the accents for vowel length, would it be "Zeys sotér niké"? mainly asking because I'm starting to rethink about thinking about starting to learn (again) ancient greek (if only irish, esperanto and latin and the Visigoths would let me time) and musical accent is funny enough, I wouldn't want to pronounce the letter badly!)

40 trirems more likely given the troubles they put themselves into at the time. They would curry more combatants ecxept the usual epivatai complement. Other vessels were not so impressive to catch they eye of the story teller. Remenber even today evryone admires the aircraftcarrier not the supply ship or troop carrier. Another 40 or more odd vessels of all types loaded with adventurers. (The wrecked farms we were talking about!)

interesting... would 200 men per ship seem right? I know most of them would be rowers, but many rowers would/should/could be available for ground combat as well. problem with this is that if you are heavy on losses, you won't be able to return home...

would rowers be ground combattants, or would you be feeding the 90% of your army just to wait for the hoplites/psiloi to do their jobs and then row back home? Expensive operations suddenly much., much more expensive!!!

Also hoplite training is cheap armor is expensive. There is always the posibility to have more people with the skill than you can equip. The hoplites would force the Persians into Memfis with a brutall allout slog but siege and ground clearnce is lighter infantry work not the fallanx! For the contact of mercenaries Xenophons 10000 offers an insight.
40 to 60000 Persians seem reasonable and Egypt could feed up to 100000.
The numbers exaggerate unless you count the servants of every noble cavalryman! -but they are not combatants.

Historians talk about 800,000 Persian soldiers put into action, 400,000 first and then other 400,000 (plus some 200,000 survivors of the first wave). So dividing by 10 gets the reasonable numbers... I wonder how many hoplites and epibatai could have deployed Athens to help Inaros. 40 ships would provide some 800 epibatai, therefore I don't think more than 1,500-2,000 hoplites... OTOH primary sources mention 6,000 greeks when Megabyzus has them under siege (after the big battle). Either this means most of them were actually rowers/psiloi/servants, or the Delian League could deploy much bigger numbers than we thought... BTW, 6,000 / 10 = 600, which would mean about 50-60% losses from those ~1,500 hoplites. Those numbers don't look too wrong for a defeated phalanx, if the terrain provides hard for cavalry (as the marshes would be), would they?

Meet women funny!-but is used by recruiters from the dawn of time so it must be effective!!! Tercio never talked about Marocan ladies?
Diodorus is a certfied liar and scouondrel who wrote heroic fiction not history-even Herodotus is more credible than him!
Tell me of your progress!
Kind regards

Well, I think it's not effective for the bounty itself, but just because Humans were greedy then and Humans are greedy nowadays. The Flandes Tercios talked about... mmm... gold, actually (even when they never saw it!) I think it was something between them, their pride and their God. I'm still trying to understand it, if I manage, I'll let you know... (for the record, I am sure many thought about Dutch, French, Maroccan and, basically, everywhereelse women).

If Diodorus is less reliable than Herodotus, we are in deep trouble, indeed! Thanks for the advice, help and support! This will probably get written in spanish, but if I'm lucky, or patient, I may even get it published and translated. Very lucky, I guess/am afraid. We'll see.

Thanks for all!

Kallisti!

[hoplite14gr]

1500 hoplites with 1000 more only shield and spear Ekdromoi type from rowers seems reasonable. Most rowers would be psiloi-peltast when fighting on land. Do not forget Cretan archers. Possibly Inaros might used the Greek veterans like Cyrus did Xenophon's Myrrioi and used the Egyptian rebels to fill the gaps if he did not expected them to be of good quality.
Possibly the ships were loaded more than usual with troops and remeber the possible number of other vessels acompanying the triremes. 200 seem right for trirem more than 200 for merchant ships. Psiloi would love to get loot to establish themselves as middle class hoplites.
Rich persian cavlry in marshe infested with marroudinf psiloi-NO WAY-if they could help it.
The casualties that you discuss seem reasonable to me.
I agree with your Tercio commends.

The so called "erasmian pronounciation" has some logical base.
Ancient Greeks pronounced differently. H and Y were longer than I.
Ancient Greek teachers thought Music important to teaching and stressed ARMONIA (harmony). Ancient Greek were quite musical language until Alexandrian scholars murdered it! More on that in future posts on the Greek language topic.

[Pacal]

My personal opinion is that Inaro's rebellion was in fact supported by large Athenian fleet most of which was destroyed at in 454 B.C.E.

Issues you might want explore in your novel are such things as just how did the Persians dryout the canal so they could storm the island. This is quite a forminable engineering feat. The other issue is that on the island were Egyptians. What did they feel about all this and did they "betray" the Greeks?

Diodorus dresses up the disaster with, in my opinion, patriotic touches. The comparison with Thermopolye is a dead give away. Athough in fairness to Diodorus this was probably originally in Diodorus' sources, Ephorus and/or Hellanicus. It reads like spin.

It all seems to me like a effort to explain away the disaster, or dress it up as more than a disasterous failure.

In c. 449 B.C.E., the Athenians negotiated the Peace of Kallias with Persia. I find it fasinating that later Greek accounts give great emphasis on the Athenian victory at Salamis (in Cyprus) c. 450 B.C.E. Perhaps to distract attention from the disaster. These later writers talked about Athens imposing its terms on Persia and other such jingoism. Its all very dubious. I frankly think that since the Fleet withdrew after Salamis from Cyprus and its aim was apparently to conquer Cyprus, the Fleet failed. Salamis enabled the Fleet to withdraw unmolested hardly a overwhelming, crushing victory. But then Salamis had a fortuitous name oh so similar to the decisive victory at Salamis off Athens during the second Persian invasion of Greece. So it was easy to transmorgify it into a "crowning mercy".

Just some more thoughts.

Pierre

[hoplite14gr]

Pierre's thought worths concideration but also it could be that you load some ships with "undisireables" and you rid yourself from them by sending them to some obscure mission to aid an unknown rebel.
It would create a nice divesrion denying the Egyptian fleet to the Persians, while you do your staff in Cyprus where the Greek city hoplites are considered(?) more reliable help than some "barbarian" allies and you face only Phoinicians not Phoinician and Egyptian marines combined.
Kind regards
Stefanos