"Lightly armed Daae, Carmanians, and Cilicians at Raphia?" Topic
4 Posts
All members in good standing are free to post here. Opinions expressed here are solely those of the posters, and have not been cleared with nor are they endorsed by The Miniatures Page.
Please do not post offers to buy and sell on the main forum.
For more information, see the TMP FAQ.
Back to the Ancients Discussion Message Board
Areas of InterestAncients
Featured Hobby News Article
Featured Link
Featured Ruleset
Featured Workbench ArticleDervel returns from Mexico with a new vision for making palm trees from scratch.
Featured Book Review
|
Uesugi Kenshin | 10 Jan 2020 2:06 a.m. PST |
What 28mm miniatures would you use for this not-insignificant unit at Raphia? |
GurKhan | 10 Jan 2020 3:25 a.m. PST |
First of all, you'd need to decide how you think they were equipped. Polybios calls them "euzonoi"; Luke Ueda-Sarson at link suggested that this was a technical term, in Polybios at least, for troops with thureos shield and javelins (as opposed to more conventional thureophoroi with spears). Others would see it as a more general term for "light infantry"- Livy has the Cilicians in the same army at Magnesia armed in the same way as the NeoCretans, which probably means as archers; and the Dahae are of course a Scythian people, and archers might be the most likely armament for their infantry. So you need to make your mind up, on fairly scanty evidence, what you want them to be armed with. As for appearance of the figures, well, Dahae are eastern Scythians as I said, Carmanians are probably indistinguishable from their Persian neighbours, and Cilians most likely wore the usual Mediterranean tunic and bare legs. That should give you plenty of choice… |
Uesugi Kenshin | 13 Jan 2020 11:55 a.m. PST |
|
JJartist | 13 Jan 2020 2:41 p.m. PST |
Duncan gives you the basics of the problem. We don't know, and the troops themselves were ineffective no matter how equipped. Their deployment seems to indicate they were formed troops- despite their equipment. Thureos and javelins makes sense to me. Large numbers of Dahae archers on foot seem impossible because they were ineffective- although the Sacae archers on foot at Marathon seem to prove that it 'can be done.' Usually in rules massed archers have a bigger say in the results than they often should. OTOH we don't know how heavily armored the Greeks mercenaries, and Thracians opposite were. If they were wearing linothorax and thureos then they may have easily dashed across the 'beaten zone.' So I can only deduce that if missile armed they did not halt their opposites advance, and apparently they had little appetite to be solid flank guards. Antiochus seems to have forgotten he had a left wing, at least that is how it is depicted. Maybe he really felt he would win on the right wing and the rest- who cares? That kind of explains packing in untrustworthy light troops into a battleline role. But they seem to have slipped away rather than even act as a speed bump. |
|