In a seminal 1986 article, Michel Austin argued for the need to combine the military and economic developments of the Hellenistic period into a single explanatory framework.Footnote ¹ His argument goes that because the Hellenistic kings’ legitimacy was based on military prowess and armies were composed of paid soldiers, numerous and frequent campaigns were fought to justify the current balance of power and to keep intact the military funds required to retain the soldiers’ loyalty. In this regard, military and economic developments consistently fed into each other.

This study builds on the arguments first advanced by Austin. It aims to provide an analysis of the intersection between early Hellenistic military and economic developments and does so from a labour history perspective. The research is thus firmly placed within the ‘new military history’, which advocates for the inseparability of military and societal developments.Footnote ² The use of the paradigms developed in labour history leads the research to focus on questions such as the nature of the relations between soldiers and commanders, as well as the ways in which soldiers had a role to play as agents of socio-economic change. It is the conceptualization of soldiers as labourers – specifically as wage labourers – that allows for the transition from military into economic history.

This chapter introduces both the historical and scholarly context of the present research. To that end, it will first offer a brief historical background, focused on the military and economic developments that took place during the late Classical and early Hellenistic periods. In the military sphere, the most prominent developments are the continued expansion of both military participation and professionalization, while the economies, too, appear to have advanced significantly across these years, showing increased performance, integration, and sophistication. Subsequently, the chapter will give an overview of the debate on the ancient economy and how this has informed discussion of the Hellenistic economies; it will emphasize the need to study the existence and types of markets, especially labour markets, to enhance understanding of the economic changes witnessed. Finally, the chapter will argue that the conceptualization of the soldiers of the royal armies as mercenaries requires revision, before presenting the alternative view of soldiers as wage labourers.

1.1 Towards the Hellenistic World: A Brief Military and Economic History

The Hellenistic world has long been seen as socially, politically, and economically distinct from preceding epochs. Although recent scholarship has stressed the continuities between the Classical and Hellenistic periods,Footnote ³ the changes that engulfed the ancient Mediterranean and beyond, roughly from the conquests of Alexander onwards, should not be downplayed. In this period, the vast area that had long been populated by independent polis communities, scattered across the Aegean, with the Achaemenid Empire to the east, largely fell under the control of a handful of kingdoms. The Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt had formed a stable power-bloc from Ptolemy’s appointment as governor in 323. To the east, the Seleucid kingdom was established when Seleucus ousted Antigonid control of the region in c. 312. The Antigonid kingdom controlling Macedonia and a large part of the Greek mainland emerged as a stable territory in c. 275, when Demetrius’ son Antigonus II Gonatas managed to solidify the dynasty’s hold of the region. The Attalids in Pergamon formed another important power-bloc but did not act independently until 261, when the Attalid ruler Eumenes cut ties with the Seleucids, and it was not formally a kingdom until 238, when Attalus I took the title of king. These powers were headed by kings whose rule can best be characterized as a form of stable authoritarianism. Indeed, the subjugation of Greece under Philip II of Macedonia in 338, and, a few years later, the conquest of the Achaemenid Empire by Alexander, had for the first time united this vast stretch of territory under single rule, leading the way to the emergence of a globalized Mediterranean, in which contacts between people in widely distant localities intensified.Footnote ⁴

The prevalence of military conflict immediately stands out: war itself became one of the period’s dominant characteristics and one that is said to have permeated the Hellenistic world in all its facets; it was on an unparalleled scale and occurred with unrivalled frequency.Footnote ⁵ The apparent need for incessant war-making has been explained by the role it had to play in legitimizing the kings’ rule. A king, it is argued, was firstly a military leader, whose authority thus depended on his military prowess – as best illustrated by the fact that the various Successors who took the title of king were generals who did so only after a significant military victory.Footnote ⁶ This pattern of royal legitimacy and military success endured across the following generations and thus remained a crucial driving force behind the military activity of the period.Footnote ⁷

The need for military superiority to ensure political survival was, however, not a feature reserved for the Hellenistic period, but instead finds its roots in the rise of Philip II of Macedonia. Philip came to power in 359,Footnote ⁸ when his brother, Perdikkas, fell in battle against the Illyrian king Bardylis, alongside 4,000 of his forces.Footnote ⁹ The kingdom inherited by Philip was in a precarious state, beset on all directions of the compass by hostile neighbours – most notably the Illyrians – who were intent on expansion. Philip’s position and life were likewise in danger, and rivals to the Macedonian throne soon appeared on the horizon.Footnote ¹⁰ By Philip’s death in 336, however, all hostile neighbouring areas had been incorporated into the Macedonian kingdom, and Philip was de facto king of the wider Greek mainland.Footnote ¹¹ Much of his success has been attributed to diplomatic skills, but his military reforms were crucial and indeed marked a turning-point in the kingdom’s military capacities.

Briefly stated, Philip’s reforms in terms of military hardware consisted of the introduction of a lighter cuirass and shield, and the replacement of the short hoplite sword and spear with the long spear known as the sarissa.Footnote ¹² These changes in equipment allowed for an altogether more mobile army that could fight at long range. In this regard, his reforms marked the death of the hoplite phalanx, whose members had been weighed down by heavy armour and had been forced to fight at close range. Furthermore, unlike the forces of the Greek poleis, the Macedonian army made extensive use of cavalry, whose skills had quickly fostered their reputation as a deadly force. More importantly, perhaps, Philip is said to have subjected his soldiers to a continuous and intensive training regime,Footnote ¹³ because of which the quality of his army stood in marked contrast to that of the ‘amateur’ forces of the Greek poleis. Philip also heavily invested in the development of technology, of which improvements in siege warfare are the best example.Footnote ¹⁴

The demands of Alexander’s extensive and long-term campaign arguably left little time for such large-scale technological reconsiderations; yet we see innovation when circumstances required strategically savvy solutions, such as the building of a mole for the siege of Tyre in 332. The Successors, who were equally under constant pressure from competitors for power, displayed a renewed interest in military technology, and this process continued under the Hellenistic kings in later generations. Thus, the already lethal Macedonian cavalry was supplemented with elephants; ship sizes were ever amplified; and siege equipment, including artillery, became more sophisticated.Footnote ¹⁵

The technological and strategic advancements that began with the reforms of Philip have been much discussed, and are generally seen as the critical factor behind early Macedonian military dominance.Footnote ¹⁶ However, as argued by Ellis, Philip’s principal military innovation was simply expansion,Footnote ¹⁷ and the continuous enlargement of armies, underpinned by expansion of Macedonian-controlled territory and integration of its sub-regions, persisted well into the Hellenistic period: indeed, the rate of military participation in the Classical period pales in the face of the numbers fielded after the death of Alexander, even for small battles. Although the reliability of numbers of military participants reported in ancient authors is sometimes questioned, those found in relation to the battles of the Hellenistic world are seen as acceptable,Footnote ¹⁸ as are the numbers for Greek troops in the Archaic and Classical periods.Footnote ¹⁹ A cursory overview of forces recruited by the various poleis from among the citizens shows that, despite the many grand narratives of war stemming from the Classical period, battle was then a relatively small-scale affair.Footnote ²⁰ The extent of Athenian forces as enumerated by the Thucydidean Pericles, for instance, consisted of 13,000 hoplites, 1,200 cavalry, and 1,600 archers, in addition to the 16,000 young and veteran soldiers deployed as garrisons.Footnote ²¹ Whether these numbers are a deliberate exaggeration is difficult to tell, but they certainly seem to represent an absolute maximum. In fact, Beloch has argued that Athens could not deploy more than 6,000 men.Footnote ²² The accounts of various military engagements of the fifth century seem to indicate as much: the number of soldiers deployed ranges typically between 1,000 and 2,000.Footnote ²³ Even at the outset of the Sicilian expedition in 415, Thucydides, in praise of the magnitude of the assembled army, reports a mere 4,000 hoplites and 300 cavalry.Footnote ²⁴ The same range of numbers is attested for other poleis: at Delion in 424, the Boeotian League mustered 8,000 men, to whom 10,500 auxiliary forces were added;Footnote ²⁵ and in the Boeotian War in 378, Sparta and its Peloponnesian allies had a total of 18,000 men at their disposal.Footnote ²⁶ Even during the Hellenistic period, polis-based military participation did not significantly expand:Footnote ²⁷ in 217, for instance, the Achaean League managed to raise a standing army of 8,000 mercenary infantry and 500 cavalry, in addition to 3,000 picked citizen infantry and 300 cavalry.Footnote ²⁸

In contrast, at the battle of Chaeronea in 338, Philip II of Macedonia brought a force of 32,000 men, made up of Macedonians and allies.Footnote ²⁹ From this moment onwards, the size of Macedonian armies grew rapidly: Alexander set out with 32,000 infantry, and 4,500 cavalry,Footnote ³⁰ to which the expeditionary force under the command of Parmenion, which set out in 336, and the 13,500 men left under arms in Macedonia should be added.Footnote ³¹ The trend towards increasingly larger armies continued under the Successors and Hellenistic kings. In 317, for instance, Antigonus fielded 36,500 men against Eumenes’ 35,000.Footnote ³² These numbers, however, do not come close to the forces reportedly mustered in later generations, when Ptolemy IV’s army is said to have comprised 75,000 soldiers, against Antiochus III’s army of 62,000 at the battle of Raphia in 217.Footnote ³³ As we shall see, this expansion in numbers can be attributed to an apparent shift in attitudes towards military service, and the increased acceptance of non-citizen forces to fill the ranks of the respective armies allowed rulers to recruit from unprecedented pools of manpower.

However grim the picture painted by the predominance of near-constant and more efficient warfare may seem, the Hellenistic age was not all tumult and disruption. Quite the contrary: as argued by Davies, ‘the world which the Romans overran had advanced economically well beyond that which Alexander knew’.Footnote ³⁴

The chief economic development was heightened monetization, as indicated by the elevated output of coins of various denominations.Footnote ³⁵ The general adoption of the Athenian weight standard under the Successors – except for Ptolemy in Egypt – had at least the hallmarks of a single monetary system.Footnote ³⁶ This push, supported by the establishment of mints across the territories in which the armies of Alexander and his Successors were active, has rightly been associated with the need to pay troops; this was made possible initially through the acquisition of immense amounts of bullion from the Achaemenid treasuries.Footnote ³⁷

While military needs were the crucial factor in the drive towards monetization and thereby the extraction of resources from conquered areas, the wealth generated also allowed for the cultivation of specialists of a non-military kind. The Hellenistic kingdoms especially made considerable investment in human capital. Ptolemaic cultivation of intellectuals in Alexandria is particularly conspicuous, but similar royal investments are seen in the call on other specialists, such as the artists and architects in the service of the Attalids of Pergamon;Footnote ³⁸ the engineers responsible for the increasingly large and more effective warships;Footnote ³⁹ and even professional diplomats cited on the royal payrolls.Footnote ⁴⁰

The scale of economic activity – and not only that of the royal economies – is shown by growth in trade, and thus in goods produced and transported, apparent, as so often, from proxy evidence. An oft-cited piece of data is the increase in the number of shipwrecks dated to the Hellenistic period, predominantly found off the coast of south-east Turkey,Footnote ⁴¹ which, as it happened, was also one of the leading regions for the production of amphorae.Footnote ⁴² As argued by Gibbins, the preponderance of shipwrecks dated to this era ‘suggests this was a period of intensified maritime trade in general’.Footnote ⁴³ The number and types of commodities traded across the geographical extent of the Hellenistic world were substantial and ranged from necessities such as timber and salt to spices and other luxuries, and even to elephants.Footnote ⁴⁴

These economic developments went hand in hand with increased standards of living, for which the size of city dwellings and the sophistication of construction are an oft-used proxy. While such growth is already seen from c. 800 onwards,Footnote ⁴⁵ significant improvements come in the Hellenistic period. Davies has highlighted the importance of large-scale construction projects in the period, notably palaces and temples.Footnote ⁴⁶ Similarly, non-elite housing displays dwellings of higher quality.Footnote ⁴⁷ Such proxies for growth are not without problems, and the improvement in and enlargement of accommodation, of course, need not imply improved standards of life. Yet it is nonetheless clear that the (early) Hellenistic period reveals multiple signs of economic well-being for at least some people outside the royal economies. This is evidenced also, for instance, by individuals’ generous gifts to poleis or to temples.Footnote ⁴⁸ At the same time, as will be argued, the royal money paid to soldiers, private contractors, or merchants must have found its way into civic economies.Footnote ⁴⁹

However, the boom in the Hellenistic economy was not universal. Despite the sweeping developments on the grand scale, Reger stresses the need to consider regional differences,Footnote ⁵⁰ arguing that most local economies remained small-scale, subsistence economies.Footnote ⁵¹ Chaniotis shares this view in the context of Hellenistic Crete: although some increase in trade is witnessed, the island nonetheless retained a subsistence economy; that is to say, it remained a ‘traditional’ economy based on agriculture, pastoralism, and primary extraction combined with relatively short-distance exchange networks. Thus, with the exception of timber, few to no goods appear to have been produced for export, and Crete was seemingly not integrated into the wider economic networks of the Hellenistic world.Footnote ⁵² The period’s military vicissitudes must likewise have negatively affected regional economies to varying degrees,Footnote ⁵³ while also serving as a driving force behind the (positive) economic developments witnessed.Footnote ⁵⁴ However, although these regional economic continuities should be acknowledged, other scholars, such as Davies, prefer to stress macro-economic developments, and indeed observe a general move towards more integrated economies across the Hellenistic world: they thereby postulate significant economic development,Footnote ⁵⁵ leading to the characterization of these economies as proto-capitalist in nature.Footnote ⁵⁶

Recent studies on the Hellenistic period, therefore, reveal a world that had many continuities with the world of the Classical polis, but also significant differences. Politically, it saw the rise of the Hellenistic monarchies within an increasingly globalizing Mediterranean; militarily, vast technological improvements and changes in the nature of military service led to the most effective and largest armies the ancient world had seen thus far; economically, we see good evidence for the rise of increasingly integrated economies and improved economic conditions. These developments should be seen as two sides of the same coin; they should, however, be analysed in terms of economic structures, and for the role that the changing military institutions, so intimately connected to royal policy, played in them.

1.2 Debating the Ancient Economy: The Relevance of the Labour Market

The long and extended debate on the nature of ‘the ancient economy’, and thus on the economic structures that governed the ancient world, has been characterized as ‘an academic battleground’, in which ‘no new weapon is lethal, and none of the battles is decisive’.Footnote ⁵⁷ This debate has taken on several forms but essentially revolves around the question of whether the economies of the ancient world operated in the same way as those of the modern world, and, if so, whether they can or should be studied along the same parameters.Footnote ⁵⁸ Despite much scholarly engagement with the question, which gained momentum in the 1970s when the so-called Finley Orthodoxy took the fort by storm, consensus was hard to come by; subsequently, scholarship sought refuge in new paradigms – predominantly, but by no means universally – by employing the framework and methods of the New Institutional Economics (NIE). However, as argued by Mattingly and Salmon, the original debate ‘has refused to die, because both sides are right’,Footnote ⁵⁹ and it appears that no entirely different theoretical paradigm, but rather a more flexible approach to the role of the market is the direction in which to make progress.

The debate had originally commenced during the turn of the nineteenth century when Karl Bücher and Eduard Meyer clashed head-on: Bücher proposed that the ancient economy formed an example of a primitive economy,Footnote ⁶⁰ whereas Meyer argued that ancient Greece showed all the characteristics of modern developed economies.Footnote ⁶¹ Thus the schism emerged between ‘primitivists’ and ‘modernists’, who in essence debated whether the ancient economy lagged in its development or else had developed to the same level as that of the modern world, with the same kinds of institutions. The discussion gained sophistication in the later emergence of the opposing camps of ‘formalists’ and ‘substantivists’.Footnote ⁶² While formalists assume the universality of economic laws and behaviour and therefore apply the theory and methods of neo-classical economics to all known economies, substantivists argue that those are features of the industrialized world and that the economies of previous periods accordingly need to be studied in quite different ways.

Among ancient historians, the predominant proponent of the substantivist view has been Moses Finley, whose The Ancient Economy, first published in 1973, long dominated the study of and approaches to ancient economic behaviour.Footnote ⁶³ Finley’s central hypothesis is that the structures of ancient economies differed significantly from our modern ones, that the ancients lacked economic consciousness and therefore rationalism, and that consequently the application of modern economic theories to the ancient world is bound to fail since they are anachronistic. While there was an economy of sorts, manifested by, for instance, trade or by the presence of production of goods and services, there were no ‘economics’; that is to say, economic behaviour was aimed at and governed by the acquisition of necessities, not by a desire for profit. Features of modern economies such as markets, business cycles, mass production, or credit effectively did not exist in the ancient world, and it is spurious to look for them.

The substantivist view as exposed by Finley has, of course, not been without its critics. Economic principles were undoubtedly discovered in the ancient world,Footnote ⁶⁴ and there was at least an awareness of profit-making behaviour.Footnote ⁶⁵ Recent work, exploiting especially the growing body of archaeological data, has also questioned Finley’s alleged lack of growth in the ancient world.Footnote ⁶⁶ In fact, Finley’s use, and at times suppression of evidence, in which he appears to be guided by almost dogmatic adherence to the theory, caused unease from the moment of The Ancient Economy ’s publication.Footnote ⁶⁷ Criticism appears to have come predominantly from the Roman side of the spectrum,Footnote ⁶⁸ while scholars of the Archaic and Classical Greek worlds seem more sympathetic to the substantivist model.Footnote ⁶⁹ This divergence of opinion might be attributed to the available sources for the respective periods and to scholars’ core interests, but hard data such as the variations in lead pollution levels found in the Greenland icecaps indicate that the Greek and Roman economies were conducted on significantly different scales, implying a different structure.Footnote ⁷⁰

Perhaps worn down by the continuous yet inconclusive debate along these lines, more recent scholarship advocates an allegedly new approach altogether, and studies the ancient economy from the viewpoint of the New Institutional Economics (NIE).Footnote ⁷¹ North, one of the approach’s leading theorists, argues that ‘the task of economic history is to explain the structure and performance of economies through time’.Footnote ⁷² Acknowledging that different societies in history saw different economic structures, the NIE contends that the study of a given economy should be the study of the said economy’s accompanying institutions, defined as the formal or informal ‘rules’ that govern behaviour.Footnote ⁷³ The predominant institutions that emerge as requisite for the successful allocation of goods and services, therefore, dictate the structure of the economy.

For many, the NIE appears to have provided a safe escape route from the debate. Offering an alternative vocabulary and methodologies, it certainly would seem to be a novel approach; however, while it is often presented as a solution to the deadlock in which the debate has found itself,Footnote ⁷⁴ it nonetheless assumes the universality of economic behaviour. The institutions come into play in so far as they curtail the market, and they do so in different ways. Adherence to the neo-classical paradigm reveals itself in the NIE’s focus: rather than studying economic structure, it studies performance, making full use of neo-classical concepts and, at times, vocabulary. Of these, the focus on growth stands out. While the NIE studies how institutions either curbed or facilitated the market and growth, it does not in fact question whether growth could exist in the first place.Footnote ⁷⁵

Rather than addressing the debate’s central question, namely whether the ancient economy was market-based or not, arguably the NIE has jettisoned the question from the discussion altogether.Footnote ⁷⁶ Instead, it assumes that the market always existed but was curtailed in different ways and to varying degrees. While this approach incorporates the societal aspect through an analysis of institutions and their impact on economic processes, the acceptance of the universality of economic behaviour as postulated under market society nonetheless means that the NIE merely masquerades as a synthesis of the substantivist and formalist theories.

However, there is another route out. As recently advocated by Harris and Lewis, the terms of the debate ought to be restated: rather than question whether the market existed or not – which sets up a stark dichotomy which is ultimately unhelpful – the question that needs asking is what types of price-setting markets existed and where.Footnote ⁷⁷ This approach is indeed more flexible and will cover differences in economic behaviour as well as patterns of market exchange within potentially substantivist economies, while not succumbing to a formalist view altogether.Footnote ⁷⁸

Such an approach to the role, extent, and presence of the market is reminiscent of the substantivist attitude as advocated by Karl Polanyi, who envisaged three models of exchange, namely reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange. Only in the third form is the economy a separate sphere of activity to which formalist views and neo-classical economics apply.Footnote ⁷⁹ The other two forms are instead examples of ‘embedded economies’, which form the predominant modes of exchange to varying degrees in pre-industrial societies. Reciprocity refers to a system of multiple obligations in which the exchange of goods and services or the transfer of wealth occurs in concord with existing social bonds. In a redistributive economy, on the other hand, goods and services are acquired by a centre of some sort – usually of a political or religious nature – and redistributed among the members of the society. Market economies, then, are characterized by exchanges of goods and services occurring solely on the market, with both social and personal obligations no longer informing the nature of the transactions.

Nonetheless, despite this distinction between market societies and others, it is important to bear in mind that in Polanyi’s model markets can exist in otherwise substantivist economies.Footnote ⁸⁰ For just as there are different types of exchange, there are also different types of market, not all of which will affect wider socio-economic structures.Footnote ⁸¹ For instance, markets known as ‘peripheral’, such as those dealing in luxury goods; ‘controlled’ markets, where goods are sold for fixed prices; or limited markets, which cater only to specific members of a community, are all unlikely to affect a community’s entire socio-economic structure.Footnote ⁸² It is only so-called ‘dominant’ markets that are associated with the disembedded economies. The markets are dominant when communities are reliant on them for the acquisition of goods and services. These markets ought to be seen as ‘self-regulating’, in so far as they inherently respond to the laws of supply and demand, which means that ‘the quantity of all goods supplied at a specific price will equal the demand at that price’.Footnote ⁸³ Exchanges that occur on this market are negotiated between parties, and are, in principle, voluntary. At the moment of exchange, the transaction ends and thus creates no further social obligations.Footnote ⁸⁴ Thus, market economies are characterized by the dominance of market exchange, manifested by individuals’ dependence on it for the provision of goods and services. In embedded economies, market-based exchange, as well as profit-driven behaviour, may therefore very well exist, but the scale and extent of these processes determine whether it can be characterized as a market economy.

Polanyi’s model therefore allows for the existence of several forms of exchange alongside one another, but one form is always dominant. In his view, ancient Greece was a redistributive economy but contained some markets within that framework – the flexibility of his approach in contrast to that of some more dogmatic substantivists is evident in his acknowledgement of variations within the ancient economies. For instance, despite his assessment of ancient economies as embedded, he also postulated that Classical Athens may have been on the brink of disembedding itself,Footnote ⁸⁵ while the Hellenistic world is presented as the one ancient market-based society.Footnote ⁸⁶ Thus, in Polanyi’s paradigm, markets and their associated behaviour can exist within an embedded economy, but they are not dominant. In this regard, the study of markets in non-market economies relates to their scale, type, and extent, while changes in economic structure are indicated by transformations in the balance between the various forms of exchange.

The process by which self-regulating markets can become dominant is closely related to the types of goods exchanged on such potentially peripheral self-regulating markets. As we shall see, in Polanyi’s model, particularly when the so-called ‘fictitious commodities’ of labour, money, and land are commodified, and therefore exchanged on the self-regulating market, the economy turns itself into a market economy, ushering in ‘the great transformation’.Footnote ⁸⁷ The existence of a labour market is therefore indicative of an economy that is about to disembed itself, or has already done so. Here, therefore, the importance of the study of labour becomes apparent, and especially that of wage labour.Footnote ⁸⁸ As we shall see, wage labourers are at once producers and consumers. In contrast to work performed in subsistence economies within which the household’s work generates its daily necessities, wage labour’s accompanying division of labour warrants a limit on the types of work performed by the individual. In addition, the fruits of a wage labourer’s work are rarely diversified, and usually consist of remuneration paid out in coin. Wage labour therefore results in an acute need for markets, so that workers can obtain the goods and services requisite for their daily upkeep.

Thus, a market for labour is by far the most important one in relation to changing economic structures, not least because of the role it plays in the structuring of patterns of production and subsequent exchange.Footnote ⁸⁹ Its potential existence is therefore a crucial variable to add to the discussion on the changing economic structures of the late Classical and Hellenistic periods. As this study argues, such a market ought to be looked for in the military sphere, where payment and voluntary service became increasingly common.

1.3 Questioning the Mercenary Paradigm

There is no shortage of studies on the military developments of the late Classical and early Hellenistic periods, and the consensus is that, from the rise of Philip onwards, both soldiers and armies became more professional, and military participation increased significantly. These developments can be associated with the widespread introduction of pay for service, which allowed for more trained soldiers and wider pools of manpower from which to recruit. In discussing this, scholarship is virtually unanimous in labelling the soldiers manning the royal armies as ‘mercenaries’.Footnote ⁹⁰

However, the concept of the mercenary soldier is not without problems. As will be highlighted below, definitions are often uncritical and hinder proper identification of paid service in the sources, especially of paid military activity of troops not traditionally considered as mercenary. Simultaneously, as paid service grew more commonplace, the line between mercenary and other soldiers was blurred, and the traditional dichotomy between mercenary and citizen soldiers became untenable. Given that pay and voluntary enlistment are the two key variables in distinguishing troop types, this section argues that we are better served when conceiving of this type of military service as a form of wage labour.

The second quarter of the twentieth century saw a peak in scholarly interest in paid military service in the Hellenistic period, when three monographs on the topic were published in rapid succession.Footnote ⁹¹ These studies set much of the tone in which the narrative would come to develop, in so far as they highlighted the importance of mercenaries and established the criteria through which they are perceived. And so, in his 1933 volume, entitled Greek Mercenary Soldiers, Parke did not overtly question the nature of mercenary service, being content to refer to these soldiers simply as ‘professionals’Footnote ⁹² whose increasing presence on the battlefield gradually ousted more traditional forms of service. In 1935, Griffith similarly equated mercenaries with professionalism,Footnote ⁹³ viewing them as a specialist class that saw its heyday in the late fourth and early third centuries.Footnote ⁹⁴ Launey, whose focus was slightly different in that he was concerned with the Hellenistic armies in general, rather than the mercenaries specifically, nonetheless also argues that the Hellenistic military was the domain of the true professional soldier – one who served as a means of employment.Footnote ⁹⁵ By focusing on professionalism,Footnote ⁹⁶ these studies draw a distinction between the mercenary and the citizen soldier, whose service was based within the polis community and was often unremunerated. These studies also imply, and at times explicitly state, the mercenary soldiers’ foreign status and overriding desire for pay.

Thus, the main criteria established in these studies fit the definition of mercenary service as used in common parlance, in which the mercenary is a professional soldier employed in a foreign army.Footnote ⁹⁷ The term, however, can also be used to describe individuals motivated solely by personal gain,Footnote ⁹⁸ and such negative connotations have found their way into scholarship on the ancient mercenary as well. Griffith, for instance, emphasized that for soldiers to be described as mercenaries, they would have to be motivated by monetary gain and fighting for a cause ‘that means nothing to them’,Footnote ⁹⁹ a characteristic echoed in the more recent definition provided by Aymard.Footnote ¹⁰⁰

And yet while the use of the modern term ‘mercenary’, and its common-sense definition, was long current across disciplines and subjects, it is met with increasing resistance from scholarship, in relation to both modern and ancient manifestations of this type of military service. Thus, in his study on the implications of the modern use of private armies for the current world order, McFate highlights the apparent lack of theoretical analysis in studies on the figure of the mercenary, in particular the uncritical use of common definitions.Footnote ¹⁰¹ The term ‘mercenary’, he argues, is a highly subjective one, and coloured by moralistic overtones. Scholarly interpretations of what constitutes mercenary service, furthermore, are often based on legal definitions, which arguably have no theoretical relevance.Footnote ¹⁰² In his study of military enterprise in early modern Europe, Parrott raises similar concerns, rightly remarking that:

These studies hence share a concern with the definitions applied, citing especially the moralistic and subjective criteria that inform identification, while also emphasizing the potential irrelevance of the identifying characteristics used.

Similar concerns have been raised in relation to studies on the ancient mercenary, too.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ The need for concrete definitions was stressed most emphatically by Trundle, who complicates current approaches to the ancient mercenary and advocates for a broader understanding of the phenomenon so as not to miss potentially mercenary activity in the sources.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ Yet while critical evaluation of the term is an important way forward, that might not be enough. For instance, in his study on Greek soldiers serving in the armies of the Near East, Rop remarks that characterizing these men simply as mercenaries is ‘anachronistic and inaccurate’, and instead that they ought to be seen as political agents, whose service provides strong evidence of Greek political foreign influence.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ The mere use of the term, and the connotations it carries, can therefore hinder analysis of these soldiers’ wider societal role.

The dangers of uncritical application of the concept emerge in the way in which mercenary soldiers of the Archaic and Classical periods are identified in the ancient sources. Often, this is done solely based on ancient terminology that fits the criteria of mercenary service outlined above. Ancient Greek, however, had no term to specifically denote mercenary soldiers, and soldiers designated as such by modern scholarship are the troops referred to in the primary sources first as epikouroi (ἐπίκουροι), then as xenoi (ξένοι), and finally as misthophoroi (μισθοφόροι).Footnote ¹⁰⁷ Literally translated, these ‘helpers’, ‘foreigners’, and ‘wage earners’ fit the core criteria of mercenary service, yet the sources are flexible in their use of the terms, and troops’ mercenary status often has to be deduced from context. This can be seen in the use of epikouros, which was used in the sense of ‘ally’ in the Homeric epics,Footnote ¹⁰⁸ as well as in Herodotus.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ The mercenary connotation only comes into play when it can be confirmed by soldiers’ background and terms of service, as is the case for Greeks who enlisted as epikouroi with Psammetichus I, whose mercenary status was dependent on the fact that they did so in exchange for remuneration.Footnote ¹¹⁰ Likewise, xenos, while often translated as mercenary when used in a military context, continued to also carry the connotation of ‘guest friend’.Footnote ¹¹¹ The term misthophoros was not reserved for paid soldiers alone, but used to describe anyone who received payment for services rendered.Footnote ¹¹² Trundle remarks that these terms had a certain euphemistic quality,Footnote ¹¹³ which would reveal a negative attitude towards this type of service. However, the increasingly specific terminology, crystallizing in specific reference to these soldiers’ employment, might simply indicate more specific understanding and usage of the mercenary soldier. The flexibility in terminology and its varied usage in the primary sources should, in any case, alert us to the fluidity of the concept in the Greek mind.

Of course, that is not to say that these troops did not constitute a somehow different category in the ancient military landscape. Indeed, the aforementioned contrast drawn by Parke, Griffith, and Launey between citizen and mercenary soldiers appears to have applied to the military organization of the Classical polis, in which the so-called mercenary troops existed in stark opposition to the citizen hoplite, around whom an extensive ideology was built,Footnote ¹¹⁴ and whose societal presence was akin to that of the ‘status warrior’ of old. In the case of the citizen hoplite, military service was at once a duty and a reward, insofar as it was enforced through conscription and restricted on the basis of legal and financial parameters – soldiers were expected to have citizenship, and to be able to provide their own armour and upkeep;Footnote ¹¹⁵ in Sparta, military service was dependent on the ability to afford the citizen tax.Footnote ¹¹⁶ At least in Athens, these conditions also meant that hoplite soldiers did not continuously engage in military training, and hoplites’ martial activity appears to have been limited to the campaigning season.Footnote ¹¹⁷ Although it is now agreed that other categories of soldiers actually took part in battle,Footnote ¹¹⁸ ideologically speaking, access to hoplite service was restricted on both the political and the economic level. Military service was thus the domain of the citizen who could foot the bill.

Troops considered mercenary in the ancient sources are usually discussed in contrast to this ideal of the citizen hoplite. Often, such depictions are unfavourable, and the idea that the citizen hoplite was a more reliable soldier, first expressed by Herodotus in his account of the Athenian victory at Marathon, found its way into assessments of ancient non-citizen forces. Aristotle, for instance, readily praised the mercenary soldiers’ skill, but presumed their cowardice,Footnote ¹¹⁹ a view echoed by Plato.Footnote ¹²⁰ These concerns feature in the military advice given by Demosthenes as well: in discussing how to face the Macedonian threat, he recommends interspersing mercenary contingents among the citizen soldiers, with the latter overseeing conduct in the field,Footnote ¹²¹ and he warns against a propensity of hired troops to desert when offered better prospects elsewhere.Footnote ¹²² Such anxieties are also echoed in the view that poverty inspired mercenary service; Isocrates, for instance, characterizes the Ten Thousand who accompanied Cyrus in 401 as individuals no longer deemed worthy of living in society,Footnote ¹²³ and whose alleged poverty-struck condition made them resort to banditry and lawlessness.Footnote ¹²⁴ However, negative characterizations of non-citizen troops went hand in hand with the polis’s increased reliance on such troops: Demosthenes, in fact, emphasizes that he is not blaming the mercenary soldiers, but rather those Athenians who are shirking their citizen duties.Footnote ¹²⁵ Ancient depictions that fit modern conceptions of the mercenary soldier, therefore, seem to serve a rhetorical purpose within the context of the polis, and are used specifically to contrast with the ideal of the citizen soldier.

While ancient attitudes towards hired troops complicate identification based on terminology alone, ancient vocabulary can also hide other military activity that can arguably be deemed mercenary. The characteristics of pay, foreign status, and professionalism are also found among the crews manning the Athenian navy.Footnote ¹²⁶ Levied from across the various social classes of the polis and beyond, the naval crews comprised not only citizens but also metics and freedmen, slaves, and foreigners,Footnote ¹²⁷ all of whom were professionals engaged in training,Footnote ¹²⁸ while receiving remuneration for their efforts.Footnote ¹²⁹ That the crews display the behaviour commonly associated with mercenaries is indicated by the events detailed in Demosthenes’ oration Against Polykles.Footnote ¹³⁰ Here it is discussed how, at the start of a number of naval operations in 362, the demesmen recruited to man the ship of the trierarch Apollodoros appeared only in small numbers, and that those who did appear were incompetent. These conscript sailors were dismissed by Apollodoros, who instead mustered a group of highly skilled voluntary sailors whom he incentivized with bonuses and advance payments,Footnote ¹³¹ financed from his own private funds.Footnote ¹³² However, when this capital was exhausted, many of the crew abandoned him and either enlisted on land or joined the crews of the opposing ships of the Thasians and Maronites, who likewise offered high pay and substantial advances.Footnote ¹³³ The men’s behaviour was warranted by their particular terms of service, which allowed them to change employer at will, while their skill set turned them into a precious source of military labour. As we shall see, the terms of service in the Athenian navy as well as the crews’ conduct were similar to those of the soldiers in the royal armies.

In summary, while the term ‘mercenary’ might be a useful means of distinguishing between citizen soldiers and others, the concept’s relevance and viability should not be pushed too far. On the one hand, characteristics usually associated with mercenary soldiers are useful in distinguishing them from citizen troops, yet the concept is applied by both ancient sources and modern scholarship to draw a distinction that serves an ideological purpose. The somewhat subjective use of the concept is further illustrated by the case of the Athenian naval crews: although these sailors fit all criteria usually associated with mercenary service, they are rarely described as such. Therefore, the concept of mercenary service does not further our understanding of types of service, while blind adherence to terminology can obfuscate the character of soldiers whose service is characterized by voluntary enlistment, pay, and outsider status.

These problems of categorization and identification are exacerbated in the royal armies of the late Classical and early Hellenistic periods, when a steep increase in documentation of so-called mercenary service can be observed.Footnote ¹³⁴ For although such soldiers serving for remuneration outside their home communities are attested among our earliest sources, they appear to have been active in small numbers, appearing only sporadically in the sources.Footnote ¹³⁵ During the Peloponnesian War,Footnote ¹³⁶ the Greek poleis made infrequent use of these troops in order to strengthen their citizen militia, but professional soldiery becomes especially prominent in the fourth century.Footnote ¹³⁷ Scholarship has sought to explain this rise in paid service in line with contemporary depictions of paid soldiers as destitute and driven into this life by economic needs. For instance, Shipley speculates that overpopulation on the Greek mainland made available masses of men in search of a livelihood who could subsequently be recruited by those in need of manpower.Footnote ¹³⁸ However, the simple availability of willing recruits does not in itself explain why more use was made of them. As argued by Lendon, the fifth century saw its fair share of poverty, too, but it did not directly create a market for military employment in response.Footnote ¹³⁹ There were, after all, few opportunities for employment within the Greek system dominated by citizen soldiers.Footnote ¹⁴⁰ Outside Greece, potential markets were found either among tyrants or in the Near East, but both were likewise problematic. With regard to the armies of the tyrants, such as those in Sicily, it is uncertain whether these soldiers were of Greek provenance.Footnote ¹⁴¹ With the exception of the expedition of Cyrus in 401,Footnote ¹⁴² Persian use of Greek mercenaries was seemingly limited to the western satrapies until Issus in 333,Footnote ¹⁴³ and Near Eastern use of them may not have been based on need, but was rather a way of retaining political influence.Footnote ¹⁴⁴ The crucial factor in the rise of paid military service therefore ought to be looked for in terms of demand, rather than availability of soldiers.

Consistent demand was created by Philip of Macedonia, who, as we shall see, readily accepted and indeed encouraged voluntary enlistment of troops, a process that continued under Alexander. The turbulent years following his death, during which his Successors waged war over his former empire, also led to territorial instability that hindered traditional recruitment through conscription. In addition to increased recruitment of voluntary forces incentivized by pay, this gave rise to a situation in which soldiers had multiple political accountabilities, and loyalty was expected to both polis and king. The traditional distinction between citizen and non-citizen troops was therefore significantly complicated. The erosion of such distinctions is duly reflected in the contemporary terminology, and the Hellenistic evidence refers to all troops simply as stratiōtai (στρατιῶται) – soldiers.Footnote ¹⁴⁵

To avoid the problems associated with the concept of the mercenary soldier, this study analyses troop types in accordance with the nature of soldiers’ initial enlistment and chooses to categorize troops as either conscript or voluntary. Soldiers’ terms of service remain important: although remuneration is granted especially to voluntary soldiers, pay for service is by no means exclusive to the voluntary recruit alone, and characteristics associated with mercenary soldiers are found in relation to conscript troops, too. In doing so, the present analysis aims to avoid the problems encountered through use of the concept of mercenary service: by focusing on enlistment and terms of service, the moralizing connotations inherent in the term ‘mercenary’ can be avoided, while paid, voluntary service is not identified on the basis of terminology alone.