Alexander : a history of the origin and growth of the art of war from ...

64 RELATIVE STRENGTH OF HEAVY AND LIGHT FOOT.tated by the other Greek cities.Scarlet or crimson were thefavorite colors ofthe warrior.The Greek cavalry was eitherheavy, — cataphracti, bearinglong double-ended lances, sword and axe, small shield,and fully armored, aswas also the horse ; orlight, — acrobolisti,farshooters,— who weremerely light-armed ridersand like nomads intheir methods. The forceof cavalry had beensomewhat increased bythe time ofthe PersianCataphractos.invasion to about onetenth the foot. Agesilaus,in Asia Minor,made it for a time one fourth the foot. But the Greekcavalry was essentially poor, though certain leaders, likeEpaminondas, managed to get good work out of it. TheGreeks were not a nation of horsemen.The relative numbers of heavy and light foot and cavalrywere very various.At Marathon (Herodotus) were ten thousandhoplites, a few psiloi, no cavalry. At Plataea servedthirty-eight thousand seven hundred heavy, seventy-one thousandthree hundred light foot, and no cavalry. At theopening of the Peloponnesian war Athens had (Thucydides)thirteen thousand heavy, sixteen hundred light foot, andtwelve hundred horse, not counting sixteen thousand hoplitesto defend the city.Epaminondas had at Leuctra (Diodorus)six thousand heavy foot, fifteen hundred light foot, five hundredhorse ; at Mantinaea thirty thousand heavy and light,and three thousand horse.