"Athenian Archers" Topic
9 Posts
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Tango01  | 09 Jul 2018 2:47 p.m. PST |
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| ZULUPAUL | 09 Jul 2018 3:06 p.m. PST |
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| Pictors Studio | 09 Jul 2018 3:11 p.m. PST |
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| Frederick | 09 Jul 2018 5:20 p.m. PST |
They have terrible aim – it doesn't matter |
| bsrlee | 09 Jul 2018 8:47 p.m. PST |
The Athenians hired Scythian archers and used them as the local Police Force. Any 'native' archers would have been too poor to afford a helmet, being of the same economic class as the rest of the psiloi and finding better employment as rowers in the fleet. |
| GurKhan | 10 Jul 2018 1:23 a.m. PST |
The Athenian archer corps that fought with the army and the fleet was an entirely separate force from the Scythian archer-police, and was partly recruited from Athenian citizens. There's an inscription that refers to "both the astoi and the xenoi archers", that is, both citizens and foreigners. See link for a good recent study: "Two of the three citizen toxotai on this naval catalogue were actually quite prosperous men, because they had each brought a slave on board.It seems that archer corps membership had given them a good livelihood. … This surely is the answer to Trundle's question: some Athenians chose to serve as archers for the sake of full-time employment." That status may explain why vase-paintings and so forth do show occasional archers in helmets or cuirasses. |
| GurKhan | 10 Jul 2018 5:33 a.m. PST |
Oh, and for the "Scythian archers", see PDF link – "From this [references by Aeschines and Andocides] it would seem that the three hundred Scythian archers and the twelve hundred (unspecified) archers were two distinct bodies". |
| Tango01 | 10 Jul 2018 11:11 a.m. PST |
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| Uesugi Kenshin | 13 Jul 2018 8:28 a.m. PST |
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