Thureophoroi, now with more vowels!

Ok, that was a fib but I do like how the word just rolls off of the tongue...Thur-Re-o-Pho-Ronii. I'm pretty sure whenever I speak it out loud, I add, drop or mangle a vowel.  Luckily, I think I've gotten away with it.

Thureophoroi were an all-purpose troop armed with a long thrusting spear, javelins and a sword.  They could form up in loose or close formation and thus, operate in rough terrain.  According to Plutarch, they could fight as skirmishers and then fall back, assume spears and tighten the ranks.

In Impetus, their javelin missile fire is key as is their ability to go into rough terrain.  When pressed, they'll stand and fight in melee as well.  Is there anything these fellows cannot do?

You gotta love the the panache of soldiers who took to the battlefield and fought in capes. Were they the inspiration for a modern Superhero? You be the judge!  

At this point, you're probably asking yourself, when oh when will the Pontic Project end?  Or maybe I'm just projecting.  Well, I've finished the army but I'm taking my sweet time posting the last bits to my blog.  I've got Javelinmen, Roxolani and Xystophoroi queued up and ready to bring it home.  Then it's on to my Gallic army, V 2.0.  

Uh oh, Galatians calling!

The Galatians were a Celtic people who settled south of the Pontic kingdom on an upland plateau.  They forced their way into the region, fighting a series of campaigns against the armies of the local states who all stubbornly refused to be driven from their lands. As a result, the Galatians were forced to settle on a poor stretch of land where none of their neighbors considered it worthwhile to force them off.  The difficulty of their situation meant the Galatians were eager to work as mercenaries.  Philip Mastyszak's "Mithridates the Great" describes the Galatians as follows:

 "A special class of mercenaries were the Galatians. Thanks to their warrior culture, they were usually happy to fight against anyone and between themselves when no one else was available. The wealth of Pontus meant that the Galatians could combine business with pleasure and large numbers of them were usually available to fight under the Mithridatic standard. Though skilled metalworkers, all but tribal leaders generally fought naked. The Gauls made excellent shock troops, and it took experienced opponents to stand firm against a headlong charge by hundreds of large sword wielding warriors who wore nothing but spiky lime hairstyles and ferocious expressions. The bad news was that the Galatians had only a rudimentary grasp of military discipline and tended to regard setbacks as an invitation to go home."

The other bad news is I didn't find this nugget regarding the Galatians fighting naked until I'd already bought and painted this crew from Xyston. Don't cry for me, historical purists, as I have a batch of naked Gauls on the painting table to address my error!

I enjoyed painting these figures well enough that I put in an order with Brookhurst for 150 more Xyston Gallic figures.  Roman versus Gaul is a great matchup in Impetus so I'll be replacing the Gallic army I sold with an Impetus based army.

For our final Galatian tidbit, The Dying Gaul is an ancient Roman copy of a lost Hellenistic sculpture originally commissioned by Attalus I of Pergamon to celebrate his victory over the Galatians in Anatolia. Poor lad!

Bastarnae

Who were the Bastarnae?  For me, that was a good question as I hadn't seen them at our club and I didn't recognize this troop type on the Pontic army list.   I did a little reading to figure it out for myself.  Understand that while some of you have been reading ancient history for 10, 20 or more years, I'm relatively new to this field on account of spending my life reading up on the American Civil War, Napoleonics and WW II, especially the East Front.  

The Greek historian Appian thought the Bastarnae were a Thracian tribe but the current line of thinking is  they were a Germanic people.  A little more reading taught me that they were one of the tribes that made up the Dacians, who themselves were a part of the Thracians.   Appian described the Bastarnae as the bravest of Mithridates allies.  He makes a brief mention of them regarding a sortie but after that, I can't find a specific account of them in the Pontic campaigns.  Because the Bastarnae didn't utilize the written word, what we know of them is limited to other historians and the gaps in our knowledge are filled via speculation and argumentation.  There is a line of thought which says they fought in skullcap, loose pants and no shirt.  A second line of thought says this is all wrong! They appear to have been renown falxmen but another line of thought is that they weren't falxmen at all or that only nobles had falxs due to the difficulty of smithing such a large curved blade.  

Into this gap springs the ancient hobbyist's imagination. Xyston makes beautiful rhomphaia armed figures so I used them as Bastarnae.  I chose to kit them in colorful clothes in the Gallic tradition.  In Impetus, these fellows are Impetuous and get 5 extra Impetus dice in melee, basically doubling their effectiveness when they go in fresh.  

Lastly is a relief from the Tropaeum Traiani that gives a nice visual of the Roman vs. Faxlman showdown.  This one shows an imbecilic falxman who allowed a legionnaire to walk up and stick him in the ribs.  I'm hoping my Bastarnae do just a bit better against the Romans!