#Peltast

[okaydrawboy]

Bylazstibian Empire - Soldier, Imperial Peltast

[whencyclopedfr]

L'Armée d'Alexandre le Grand

Aucun commandant militaire dans l'histoire n'a jamais gagné une bataille à lui tout seul. Pour réussir, il avait besoin du soutien d'une armée bien entraînée qui le suivrait coûte que coûte dans les victoires éclatantes aussi bien que dans les défaites sans appel. Il suffit de lire l'histoire de Léonidas, qui mena courageusement ses 300 Spartiates vers une défaite inévitable aux Thermopyles. L'histoire a connu son lot de dirigeants compétents - Jules César, Hannibal et, plus tard, Napoléon. Cependant, ces trois hommes doivent rendre hommage à un seul individu et à son armée. Alexandre le Grand conquit la majeure partie du monde connu à son époque. De son père, le roi Philippe de Macédoine, il hérita d'une armée polyvalente et bien entraînée comme il n'en avait jamais existé. Unis dans un seul but, ils se battaient comme un seul homme. Alexandre en était conscient et aurait dit : "Souvenez-vous que de la conduite de chacun dépend le sort de tous."

Lire la suite...

[classicstober]

#ClassicsTober24 Day 17. Iphikrates

Picked by Dr Roel Konijnendijk, Historian

[whencyclopedes]

El ejército de Alejandro Magno

Ningún comandante militar de la historia ha ganado una batalla por sí solo. Para tener éxito necesita el apoyo de un ejército bien entrenado que lo siga cueste lo que cueste, ya sea una victoria impresionante o una derrota desesperada. Basta con leer la historia de Leónidas, que condujo con valentía a sus 300 espartanos hasta la inevitable derrota en las Termópilas. La historia ha tenido su cuota de líderes hábiles: Julio César, Aníbal y, más tarde, Napoleón. Sin embargo, estos tres hombres deben rendir homenaje a un solo individuo y a su ejército. Alejandro Magno conquistó la mayor parte del mundo conocido de su época. De su padre, el rey Filipo de Macedonia, heredó un ejército versátil y bien entrenado como nunca antes había existido. Unidos en un único propósito, luchaban como uno solo. Alejandro lo reconoció y se lo cita diciendo: "Recordad que de la conducta de cada uno depende el destino de todos".

Lire la suite...

[noneun]

"Ci sono talmente tante testuggini di terra su questa isola, che a volte se ne vedono dei branchi di 2-3000 individui; così si possono fare più di cento passi camminando sulle loro schiene e senza mai toccare a terra con i piedi. Si radunano di sera in luoghi abbastanza oscuri e stanno così vicine che uno potrebbe credere che il posto sia pavimentato con i loro gusci"

—François Leguat, riguardo le testuggini giganti di Rodrigues (dal dorso a sella e a cupola), Voyage et avantures de François Leguat, 1708.

Dopo la pubblicazione delle sue memorie, l'isola di Rodriguez iniziò ad essere considerata una riserva di carne per le flotte francesi e inglesi. Le ultime due testuggini giganti di Rodrigues di quel luogo furono avvistate nel 1795 in fondo ad un burrone. Entrambe le specie sono ufficialmente considerate estinte dal 1800.

[kultofathena]

🗡️ This short and more compact Kopis with its forward sloping blade delivers fierce chopping power beyond what is typical of a sidearm dagger. The blade is crafted from sharpened 420 stainless steel. The spine is robust and thick; the blade and its grip tang are crafted from a single steel billet to ensure it has the most durable construction possible.

🗡️ The grip is completed with steel-riveted plates of polished bone and included is a sheath of thick leather with an integrated belt loop and brass-buttoned retaining strap.

Available to Order Now

[dgorringeart]

A ghoulish peltast of Pickman and Carter's legion from the battle against the Moon-Beasts at Jagged Rock and after.

Having familiarised herself with javelins, this adult female wields a gnawed-at femur as a spear thrower for improved range. The types used at the time were improvised; afterwards they were ornamented with filigree in dental gold and locks of dead bride's hair.

Note that she has urinated upon the ground to make it soft enough to stand spare missiles in, to identify herself to other ghouls by scent, and to clog the tips up with noxious filth.

A weapon used sparingly at the time used a mummified arm to assist in the hurling of urn bombs - a weapon that spreads thick clouds of toxic, choking gas derived from extremely vile substances harmless to ghouls. This would, in time, gain prominence as a crucial means of screening the advance of ghoulish war and raiding parties.

[bromios]

Hello dears ! I am asking you to support my campaign to help me to reach my goal. I am now in bad need to your support to help me stay alive and safe. Gaza is a very dangerous place either on the level of livelihood or on the level of souls. I need your monetary support to ensble me to get the basic needs for my family till Rafah crossing point reopens to move my family to safety and peace.Pleasd help a family be alive through your small donations or througn your shares to others.Thank you so much for your stand beside people in need .

Hello. I am a powerful hegemon in the Ionian colonies and will be sending a considerable force of citizen levies to your aid, including:

-5,000 well-equipped hoplite infantry in full panoply

-800 citizen cavalry armed with lance and sword, on swift and sure-footed Thessalian mounts

-500 peltast from among the lower classes

We will discuss payment after your safe crossing through Tyre into Lydia

[skitariiposting]

Even if secutarii don't get points I'm still gonna run peltasts as rangers bc their guns are fresh as hell

I can't fault you

Those guns are rad as hell.

I may be a galvanic rifle guy personally, but even I melt over the Secutarii's loadouts.

Oough, they just scream Fallout 1/2 10mm pistol, and if ever there was a pinical of fictional gun design...

They were certainly treading close to perfection...

[whencyclopedfr]

Bataille de Gaugamèles, 331 avant J.-C.

Une fois la côte méditerranéenne orientale et l'Égypte sécurisées, Alexandre le Grand décida de pénétrer en Mésopotamie avec l'intention de contraindre Darius à livrer bataille. Ayant traversé l'Euphrate sans rencontrer la moindre opposition, il fit marcher son armée vers l'est, le long des contreforts des montagnes arméniennes, avant de franchir le Tigre. Une fois le Tigre traversé, les éclaireurs macédoniens montés signalèrent qu'ils avaient aperçu des éléments de cavalerie perse à l'horizon. Ne souhaitant prendre aucun risque, Alexandre rangea son armée en ordre de bataille et, tandis que le gros de ses troupes avançait prudemment, il se mit personnellement à la tête d'un contingent de cavalerie et d'infanterie légère, attaqua les Perses, les mit en fuite et captura de nombreux prisonniers. Il apprit de ses captifs que Darius l'attendait à Gaugamèles, un petit village sis sur les rives de la Bumodus.

Lire la suite...

[aidenofneil]

Workbench update!

Up first, some Gallic cavalry I’ve been working on to ally with the Carthaginians, the Romans, or the Greeks. (Really anyone… there were a lot of Gaelic people at that time in A LOT of places.

Im happy with their color scheme, being quite bright but not too vibrant (except maybe the yellow)

Up next are Greek Peltasts:

I love how quickly these guys paint up! I’ve elected to use various earth tones for their clothing on accounts of light infantry being of a (typically) poorer economic class at this time, and to my mind brown and grey will help hide you better in rocky terrain than bright blue.

You can also spot some phalangite shields in working on. I’ve been sitting on em for a long time and it’s about time I finished them.

All these models I’ve been working on are from Warlord and Victrix. Overall like the warlord Macedonians better, but victrix just does plastic so well. I don’t think I’ll go back to warlord for anything other than Macedonians.

[thefirstempress]

Campfire

The following excerpt from The First Empress: Book I is from one of my therapist's favorite scenes. He particularly liked the description of Lochagos Vola in the campfire light. Vola is Queen Viarra's Lochagos Hippeis (Master of Horse) in the hegemonic army. Nora is a young farm girl who volunteers for the army as a peltast (javelin skirmisher) in the wake of the deaths of her father, brothers, and fiance at the hands of barbarian raiders.

************

“[Queen Viarra] sounds too good to be true,” Nora admitted, cutting another hunk of mutton.

“Maybe I can introduce you some time,” Vola offered. “You’re cute enough, who knows, maybe she’ll make you part of her harem.”

“She has—” Nora paused to swallow a bite, “she has a harem?”

Vola cackled at her surprise. “Not that I know of, but she only takes women as bedfellows, so I’d be surprised if she doesn’t end up with a following of willing women to screw senseless every night. From what I’ve heard, she’s pretty spectacular at it.”

“So you’re not one of those women?” Nora asked, kind of aroused at the thought of bumping cunnies with a giant warrior queen.

“Nah, Viarra’s practically a daughter to me,” Vola laughed again. “She even came to me for advice the first time she and her handmaid Elissa decided to fuck. It must’ve worked out, since Elissa’s the royal concubine now.”

“I know I’ve been attracted to women in the past, but I’ve never actually been with one,” Nora admitted before finishing the last couple bites of dinner.

“I can show ya what it’s like if ya want, sweet-tits,” Vola offered, setting her knife and plate aside as she finished eating. 

Nora raised her brows at the proposition, looking over at Vola. The firelight danced off Vola’s tattoos, wiry muscles, and weathered brown skin, somehow making her look perversely alluring against the surrounding darkness. Leathery, mostly grey-haired, and easily old enough to be Nora’s grandmother, the lochagos wasn’t a beautiful woman—or really even a handsome one. But Nora had to admit there was an animalistic charisma about her. Something told Nora that despite Vola’s fearsomeness and savagery, she had a deep understanding of sexuality and intimacy.

“I’ll… think about it,” Nora murmured, chewing her lower lip.

[the-good-spartan]

Spartans and their Aversion to Ranged Warfare

Just having thoughts about that whole common knowledge take that "the Spartans were eventually defeated because they couldn't adapt away from phalanx warfare" and how wrong that really is, based on the evidence we have.

This concept really comes down to two assumptions: First, that they were ideologically opposed to, and didn't use, ranged weapons (bows and arrows in particular); and second, that they were entirely married to infantry warfare to the exclusion of cavalry.

I've covered the cavalry question in my other post The Horses of Lakedaimon, but to summarise very briefly, there is explicit reference to mounted troops travelling with the Spartan army in the primary sources, but good reason to suppose they weren't Spartiates in the technical sense.

To reiterate, when ancient writers talked about Spartans, they did so in the technical sense of Spartiates - full Spartan citizens, the homoioi. If we look at the writing of Thucydides, for example, it's reasonable to suppose that he was getting his information on army numbers from the Spartans themselves (possibly deserters), and they certainly wouldn't have counted the non-homoioi.

As I keep banging on about, the three hundred at Thermopylai was what Spartans saw in a force of over three thousand men. We really can't trust the numbers.

We know that at least by the fifth century and the period I study, perioikoi and freed helots had become a fixed element in the Spartan army. None of these groups were citizens and wouldn't be counted as Spartans, but they were definitely there.

Less certainly, but worth considering, is the group of men who were born to Spartan parents but for one reason or another never made it to full citizenship or had lost it - the Hypomeiones. They were almost certainly eligible for some involvement with the army/state service - though how much, and whether on foreign service, we can't say. And consider - this group were only non-Spartan in the most technical of senses and they still weren't counted anywhere.

So, while full Spartan citizens probably were exclusively infantrymen, the Spartan army as a whole certainly wasn't.

The other thing that needs to be pointed out is that Sparta always had allies with them who provided these specialist skills that the homoioi took no part in. Boeotia, for example, regularly supplied them with large cavalry forces; others supplied peltasts and archers. The Spartans were always in charge of these mixed forces - so to say that Spartans didn't engage with these forms of warfare, and use them effectively, is to take a rather one-eyed, narrow view of what constituted a Spartan army.

Again, a true Spartiate probably wasn't a peltast or archer, but a Spartan army definitely contained these elements.

As far as I can recall, and I'm really just thinking out loud here, the basis for believing that they were opposed to ranged warfare comes from Thucydides and the aftermath of the Battle of Sphakteria.

He reports a Spartan's response to being heckled by an Athenian, something to the effect that the dead must've been their bravest (because they didn't surrender); and the Spartan retorted that the 'spindle' (ie. arrow, made effeminate) would be a great weapon if it could pick out the brave. [Thuc. 4.40 - had to look that up :)]

So yeah. As always, the truth is so many shades of grey.

I can't say I've spent a lot of time reading about the decline of Spartan power in the fourth century (in truth, I find it kinda depressing), but my opinion is that their eventual defeat was caused by a complex mix of factors - population 'decline' (aka, poverty), abandonment by allies, and complacency, amongst others - and as always, pinning it to just one failing (if it can be called that) is bound to be wrong.

[upn-the-sky]

Ares's design and other stuff

Okay, I now feel myself very stupid, because I thought that Ares's refusal of the sandals in his GOW1 design is some strange fictional decision.

But seems like it is KINDA CANON??? In mythology Ares has Thracian origin (or at least he keeps favoritism towards this area of the Hellada). Thracia was the most nothern part of the Hellenic Greece, has very cold climat (and a huge influence by the celtic tribes). What i am getting at... Thracian peltasts commonly weared enclosed mid-calf fawn-skin boots named embades.

Ares is not strange, he just absorbs military culture.

(By the way, unlike the other civilized polises, Thracians considered tattooes as a sign of nobility. I wonder if Ares has one... if he has not, he probably absolutely loved Kratos's huge tattoo.)

(Oh, maaaaaybe he has no any tattoos, but that's the reason why he has some "body art" on his armor!).

(I think his mom Hera is just against of it lol)

(Ares is mama's boi, he won't tattoo himself against her wish even if he want to.)

(BTW-2, first Aphrodite's concept art from GOW3 shows that she has AN OMEGA TATTOO RIGHT ON HER FOREHEAD, which was enough to pisses Hera off for all eternity in sum with Ares's and Aphrodite's romance)

[wagglewings]

I think I would rock a peltast fit (tits out, many spears)

[kebriones]

The exact numbers of soldiers in the Sicilian expedition:

5.100 hoplites

700 peltasts

120 light infantry

30 cavalry

That's 6.730 people, in the first wave of ships. And then even higher when reinforcements came from Athens. And almost everyone died 🙂👍

There were also additional people who went along, in 30 cargo ships:

Bakers, masons, builders.

And potentially slaves i guess, though that's not mentioned so I'm just using my imagination here.

There were apparently also merchant ships who freely followed the fleet to sell stuff.