WAR IN THE HELLENISTIC WORLD

BETWEEN CIVIC DUTIES AND OLIGARCHIC ASPIRATIONS
were registered as light-armed soldiers and in the cavalry (ca. 245–167 BC),
show the care given to this institution by the authorities. Unlike Athens,
where the military training of the ephebes had become voluntary by the end
of the fourth century, in Boiotia all the young men of citizen status seem to
have been enrolled (Étienne and Knoepfler 1976: 202). The importance
of military service can be seen, for example, in the fact that in the federal
Boiotian festival of the Panboiotia, military teams of the various cities competed
in “good maintenance and use of arms” (euhoplia; SEG III 355) and
in “discipline” (eutaxia; SEG XXVI 551).
In other areas, the existence of citizen militias depended on several factors
– for example, the demographical evolution and the existence of manpower,
institutional developments, the control by a king and the presence of a
garrison, or the financial situation. Hellenistic kings did not generally discourage
the existence of citizen armies in allied cities, since they could rely
on their support in case of war. In addition to this, they could be relieved of
the obligation to protect the cities with their own troops. Of course, too
large a citizen army could become a problem, especially when royal power
was on the wane. Literary sources and inscriptions alike mention citizen
military units in passing. We know, for example, that in Thessaly the forts of
Mopsion, Gonnoi, and Atrax were manned by citizens, and the same observation
can be made in Asia Minor – for example, the citadel of Teloneia in
Priene, the Teian fort of Kyrbissos, and the forts of Kolophon and Miletos.
In larger cities and cities often exposed to the danger of a siege, the inhabitants
were sometimes assigned to the defense of a particular section of
the city wall, according to their residence. In Smyrna and Stratonikeia, for
example, the town was divided into wards (amphoda), each assigned to the
defense of a section of the wall, thus linking citizenship and residence with
the fortification of the city. Each unit had its own recognition sign, an
episemon (Garlan 1973: 20–2; Ma 2000c: 340). Service in the same military
unit was an important factor of social life and created a feeling of solidarity
(see chapter 5, section 5). In Tanagra (Boiotia), for example, the corps of
archers (pharetritai) paid the expenses for the burial of Sosikles, a member
or officer of the unit (SEG XXXII 487, ca. 150–100 BC). In Rhodes, military
and naval divisions existed within private clubs (Gabrielsen 1997: 123–30).
Unfortunately, our sources often raise questions that cannot be answered.
Do the contingents sent by Boiotia (10,500 men), Phokis (3,500), Aitolia
(7,000), Lokroi (700), and Megara (400 men) to Thermopylai in order to
stop the Galatian invasion in 279 BC represent the maximum traditional
Greek states could mobilize in critical times (Launey 1987: 12)? Were the
cavalrymen of Tabai in Karia, who attacked Roman troops in 189 BC (Ma
2000c: 339), a unit that had always existed, or were they a troop newly
built, as soon as Tabai felt that Antiochos’ III control of that region was
over and aspirations of autonomy were revived?
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