LE SYMPOSIUM INTERNATIONAL LE LIVRE. LA ROUMANIE. L ...

Mithradates’ foot soldiers at the Battle of chaeronea 381
As these soldiers were expelled from their lightly fortified position,
the main battle was about to be joined. Sulla had advanced from his camp
towards Chaeronea, leaving the command of the rearguard to Murena.
Archelaos crossed the Kephisos and launched his attack, forcing Sulla to
turn around and face him. thus, his vanguard became the roman right wing
and Murena’s rearguard became the roman left. hortensius and Galba
were given command over the reserves on either side, which may imply
that the roman line of battle on that day comprised not of three, but of two
lines. on the pontic side, Archelaos took full advantage of his superiority in
numbers and arranged his phalanx in the centre, with substantial contingents
of cavalry and light infantry on the wings, whose purpose was to envelop the
shorter roman line. In the beginning, things seem to go well for the pontic
soldiers of the right wing, who, under Archelaos’ direct command, manage
to put great pressure on hortensius’ detachment, forcing Sulla to come
personally to his aid, diverting at the same time some troops from his own
wing to help him. either following a premeditated plan or acting on the spur
of the moment, Archelaos disengaged his cavalry, went behind his centre
line and crossed the whole length of the field, attacking this time the roman
right, which had just been abandoned by Sulla, its commander. however,
even without their general, the romans held their own (possibly with the
aid of reinforcements from Galba – on this detail plutarch remains silent),
and when Sulla did return, they were thus emboldened that they managed to
break the will of their attackers and chase them from the field. At much the
same time, the phalanx in the centre gave way under the constant barrage
of artillery, and the pontic right could no longer hold. the battle, which had
started so well for the pontic army, ended in complete disaster.
having completed the description of the battle, it is time to proceed
with the analysis of the two main components of the pontic infantry, the
lightly armed and the heavily armed, trying to discover as much as possible
about their equipment, their origin and their traditions.
3. Light infantry
All ancient armies had contingents of lightly armed soldiers. During
the Classical Age, for example, they were simply the poorest men in
the community, those who did not possess the wealth to purchase more
sophisticated weaponry, but by the time of the hellenistic era, they had
become a professionalised corps in their own right, highly specialised and
much appreciated for their mobility. In the context of the battle of Chaeronea,
they were, for example, tasked with occupying this city for Archelaos.