Greek Mercenaries Research Articles

Xenophon and the Wall of Media

In February of 401 B.C., Xenophon, the Athenian, set out in a contingent often thousand Greek mercenaries in the army of Cyrus, the Pretender to the throne of Persia. Cyrus, in fact, was leading the army against his brother Artaxerxes, the Great King of Persia, though the real object of the expedition was not revealed officially until the army reached Thapsacus on the Euphrates in July and crossed the river from Syria into Mesopotamia. Xenophon joined the expedition more or less as a diplomatic attaché, not a soldier. But he became an observer and critic, and, since he was a man of talents, he was driven by self-preservation and by disasters which befell them in the end, virtually to take command. His account of these events was not published or written till many years had elapsed: but it is clear that it must have been based on a regularly kept log or diary.The geographical problems which Xenophon's report of their itinerary raises have occupied scholars and travellers for nearly two hundred years, the earliest attempt to identify the sites mentioned by him being that of d'Anville in 1779. For this long history of an unsettled problem, the reasons are that, firstly, we still know little from cuneiform sources about the ancient geography of Central Mesopotamia, and as yet no monograph exists which studies Babylonia in this period; secondly, that the record of Xenophon, though invaluable, is bedevilled occasionally by false reports or inadequate or misunderstood data, or possibly by errors in transmission of the text; and in our own time, progress has been held up by insufficient study of the ground, in particular of the ancient courses of the Euphrates and Tigris and the canals that fed them—and finally, by the inadequate use of aerial photography.

Aleksander den Stores visitkort

Aleksander den Stores visitkort

The Amasis Painter

In JHS lxviii (1948), p. 148, Mr. R. M. Cook drew attention to a problem concerning the name of the potter or painter Amasis and the chronology of Attic black-figure vase painting. So far as I know it has remained unanswered and discreetly ignored. Mme. Karouzou's fine study of the Amasis Painter prompts a further discussion of the problem which seems a very real one. It may be briefly restated as follows. Amasis, potter or painter, was named after the philhellene Egyptian king Amasis (A-ahmes) whose reign began in 569–568 B.C. As a citizen of Athens he would have received his name at his birth, which cannot therefore be earlier than 569–568. Cook thought it could hardly be before 565, and certainly the nationalist A-ahmes would not have made much of a mark as a philhellene early in his reign, as he had to seize the throne from Apries who was supported by Greek mercenaries. Yet by the current chronology of Attic black-figure the Amasis Painter had begun to work by about 555. If the signature Αμασιςμεποιεσεν means that Amasis was the potter, not the painter, we have to face the fact that his work too may go back at least as early because he made vases for the painter Lydos. If it means that he was the pottery-owner, the terminus is given by the earliest vase bearing his signature, and this is still around 550. The last explanation is the least satisfactory both for the interpretation of the signature and for the fact that it is easier to believe in a child artist than in a child industrialist. Unless Amasis was a prodigy, something is wrong somewhere in the argument. The fault must lie either in the accepted chronology for Attic black-figure or in the arguments about the name Amasis.

A Greek Vase from Egypt

Apart from the important Greek trading-town at Naukratis and the shorter-lived settlement at Tell Defenneh (Daphnai) there is little to show in Egypt for the early years of renewed relations between Greece and the kingdom of the Nile valley. Yet already in the eighth century B.C. a few Egyptian objects were reaching Greek lands; in the seventh Egyptians were employing Ionian Greek mercenaries and apparently themselves influencing Greece's first steps in monumental sculpture. Only slight finds of Greek pottery earlier than 500 B.C. have been made on Egyptian sites other than the two named above, notably at Memphis and at Egyptian Thebes, comprising the sanctuaries of Luxor and Karnak as well as the Theban Necropolis. The last-named complex was well known to the Greeks as Thebes of the Hundred Gates, mentioned in the Iliad (ix. 381–4). It is thence that the vase which forms the subject of this paper is said to come. The few fragments which are all that is preserved from it are in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (1924. 264: Plate I), the gift of Professor Sayce, having been bought by him in Luxor and said to have been found in Karnak. They have already been published by Miss E. R. Price in CVA Oxford ii. IId pl. 10 (401), 24, and associated with the Clazomenian class of Ionian black-figured vases. They seem to merit further attention because the scene figured on one side of the vase has not hitherto been identified, and because its identification may in turn throw a little light on the Greeks who lived in the heart of the Egyptian kingdom. Stylistically the vase can be dated to the decade 550–540 B.C.

Notes on Alexander's Campaigns, 332–330

The following five notes deal with some neglected or controversial points concerning Alexander's operations in the two decisive years January, 332, to January, 330. Though independent of each other, they have a certain external unity, since all concern the crucial ‘third act’ of Alexander's career. Early in 332, the Persians, in spite of Issos, still hoped to recover Asia Minor, raise trouble in Greece, and transfer the seat of war back to the Aegean. Two years later, after Alexander's dash to Persepolis, Darius was no longer King of Persia; he was left indeed with virtually no forces except his Greek mercenaries and the troops of the Bactrian barons, who had ideas of their own.I have found myself at certain points in disagreement with the views of Sir William Tarn. Tarn has indeed left little to be said about Alexander, except where one disagrees; and I would not wish to end this prefatory note without an expression of admiration for his great work.

Amasis and the Greeks in Egypt

The excuse for this article is that the accepted reconstruction of the Hellenic policy of Amasis misinterprets statements of Herodotus and ignores the archaeological evidence. Most historians seem to agree that Amasis was put on the throne as the nominee of a fervid nationalist party; that about 565, to please this party, he concentrated the Greeks in Naucratis, reorganised, if not founded, at this time, and only permitted them access to Egypt by the Canopic branch of the Nile; that at the same time he brought to Memphis from Stratopeda, usually equated with Daphnae and Tell Defenneh, the Greek and Carian mercenaries—either to have them more securely under control or from latent philhellenism; and that later he began more openly to favour the Greeks. Further, the date of the foundation of Naucratis needs further discussion: the view most widely held puts it back to the middle of the seventh century.

Greek Mercenaries - Greek Mercenary Soldiers, from the earliest times to the battle of Ipsus. By H. W. Parke. Pp. viii+243, and 2 tables. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933. Cloth, 12s. 6d.

Greek Mercenaries - Greek Mercenary Soldiers, from the earliest times to the battle of Ipsus. By H. W. Parke. Pp. viii+243, and 2 tables. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933. Cloth, 12s. 6d.