“ Chemical analysis of the bones found that many of the soldiers, otherwise healthy adult men between 18 and 50, originally came from northern Europe, the Steppe, and the Caucasus.” Thats wild, I wasn’t even aware the Ancient Greeks in 480 BC had not only come into contact with Northern Europeans but were already hiring them as mercenaries
>*two third of 62 fallen warriors may have come from abroad… But why did the ancient authors downplay the presence of foreign fighters in the life-or-death defense of Himera?*
maybe because they were less than 0.1% of the headcount ?
It is fascinating to think of war as something that could bring people together.
Is this really startling? I thought it was pretty well-known in the history community that mercenaries were extremely common in the mediterranean?
The Carthaginian army was largely dependent on mercenaries. Greek mercenaries fought all over the place, including in service to the Persians. Xenophon led a large Greek mercenary army in service to the Achaemenids.
A place like Sicily would have an even larger occurrence of mercenary soldiers with its abundance of Greek and Carthaginian colonies.
4 comments
“ Chemical analysis of the bones found that many of the soldiers, otherwise healthy adult men between 18 and 50, originally came from northern Europe, the Steppe, and the Caucasus.” Thats wild, I wasn’t even aware the Ancient Greeks in 480 BC had not only come into contact with Northern Europeans but were already hiring them as mercenaries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Himera_(480_BC)
50,000 infantry
5,000 cavalry
>*two third of 62 fallen warriors may have come from abroad… But why did the ancient authors downplay the presence of foreign fighters in the life-or-death defense of Himera?*
maybe because they were less than 0.1% of the headcount ?
It is fascinating to think of war as something that could bring people together.
Is this really startling? I thought it was pretty well-known in the history community that mercenaries were extremely common in the mediterranean?
The Carthaginian army was largely dependent on mercenaries. Greek mercenaries fought all over the place, including in service to the Persians. Xenophon led a large Greek mercenary army in service to the Achaemenids.
A place like Sicily would have an even larger occurrence of mercenary soldiers with its abundance of Greek and Carthaginian colonies.