"Seleucid Pants?" Topic

So I'm building a 15mm Late Seleucid army, primarily of Essex Miniatures (I got a good deal on a starter set) with a few other brands thrown in. Many of the Essex figures are clearly based upon the drawings from the Duncan Head "Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars" book, thus the Seleucid phalangites are depicted as wearing Persian/Mede style trousers.

How do you all think these trousers should be painted? I doubt there is a definite historical answer, so what do you think would look the best? Solid colors or patterns such as we see with some Persian troops of the era? Uniform or varied? How did you paint your trouser wearing Seleucids?

And yes, I am aware that the word "pants" means something completely different to speakers of British English. The thread title was chosen for humor value.

Stripes alternating with a vertical flower pattern as an alternative stripe.

Mine are in pants, or trousers, with patterns. No uniforms.

what a coincidence I'm just getting ready to paint up some 20mm Newline Seleucid pike in trousers. My take is the dress isn't really much different to the late era Persians, they replaced, so anything that works there would work on the Seleucids to.

That's what I'm leaning toward for the line units, Prince Rupert. (the Argyraspides are in more traditional Macedonian style dress) It certainly would add some color to the units. But I was curious what others thought or had previously done.

By the second half of the Seleucid Empire and until the end, the army was made of more and more non-Greeks. Persian dress would have been adopted by many units and the images above would be a good starting point.

tartan

Pants are probably rare-- early militia phalangites were called pantodapoi and came form areas where Persian style dress was worn. Many of these could be Persian epigonoi raised by Alexander late in his regime. No telling if they wore trousers-- but it is certainly possible. These kinds of troops were used by the early diadochoi.

Later trouser wearing phalangites are commonly assigned by miniature makers as Bactrian, Seleucid frontier militia, and Pontic phalangites as norms.

This is not really corroborated by archaeological sources. Seleucid art depicts phalangites wearing tunics since uniforms were provided in Hellenistic armies.

But, as I always write in this discussion, in wargame armies sometimes a visual difference promotes a quick reference point for separating the elites from the hoi poloi. Trousers often are good at separating the troops.

The trouser wearing pikemen go back to Duncan Head's use of IIRC a drawing of a terracotta. He thought the Seleucids would be the most likely to have trousered pikemen. Other candidates may be Pontic, though I have my doubts there.

I wonder if he'd interpret it differently now – he's very open to changing his ideas with new evidence or reinterpretation of older evidence.

OTOH, I have some nice trousered phalangites from Xth legion and they get used as pantodapoi for the same reason JJ gives.

The phalangites of the Seleucid army would have been Macedonian or Greek, most likely you wouldn't be able to spot a difference between a Seleucid or Antigonid phalangite. But you can always just look at Persian pants for inspiration.