All the riches from Egypt and Cyrene, which I won without a fight, come to you; Coele-Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia are your possessions, and Babylon, Bactria, and Susa belong to you, and the wealth of the Lydians, the treasures of Persia, and the wealth of India and the outer sea: you are satraps, you are generals, and you are taxiarchs.
Rewards for enlistment, as opposed to ‘shared glory’ stemming from coerced military service, are very much hinted at in Arrian’s account of the speech delivered by Alexander to his mutinous army at Opis in the summer of 324.Footnote 1 The focus of the speech lies on the wealth amassed by the soldiers and the increased status they enjoyed. Unlike Achilles, who had to confront his superiors to have a share in the spoils he thought due to him, or the citizen soldier, who, as pointed out by Demosthenes, earned less than the politicians who sent him into battle,Footnote 2 the soldiers of Alexander can be viewed as having been among the primary beneficiaries from the cumulative conquests. Meanwhile, Alexander himself is presented in the sources as reluctant to take his share of the wealth acquired through conquest.Footnote 3
Alexander’s alleged speech was certainly rooted in reality – his soldiers, as well as those of the Successors and of the Hellenistic kings, were enriched through conquest. As will be demonstrated in this chapter, soldiers’ rewards went beyond spoils and rations, and remuneration took various forms, ranging from initial incentives, comprising the provision of armour and the grant of land, to monetary wages, paid out as bonuses for enlistment and during service, and to additional benefits and privileges awarded to the soldiers. Together, such rewards afforded soldiers in the royal armies a heightened standard of living over that of their predecessors serving as misthophoroi in the armies of the Classical period, and indeed well above that of their contemporaries serving in the armies of the poleis.
4.1 Problems and Terminology
A chief characteristic of the wage labourer is that he receives remuneration for the sale of his labour power, the price of which is to be determined on the market. For payments to constitute a wage, they need to be rendered in exchange for labour power – nothing more, nothing less. As identified earlier, the sources’ recurrent reference to the provision of a misthos, a payment awarded for a variety of services and under different conditions, is not a sufficient indication of the presence of wage labour: not only is it often unclear whether the misthos referred solely to the remuneration for labour power (instead of, for instance, the reimbursement of expenses), it is also difficult to ascertain whether the level of pay was determined on the market or whether it constituted an arbitrary number.
Of course, the provision of a misthos is not an exclusively Hellenistic phenomenon, as is evident from the many attestations of such remuneration.Footnote 4 We ought to note also that the provision of a misthos was not limited to military contexts: the word misthophoros, for instance, while commonly denoting a mercenary soldier from the late fifth century onwards, could in fact apply to any worker who received some form of payment.Footnote 5 However, despite the long-standing presence of the misthos and its ubiquity in the sources, scholarship is divided as to what exactly constituted a misthos, with potential meanings ranging from a payment which included the remuneration of labour power, to simply expenses in the form of rations paid out in coin. In the Classical period, the picture is further complicated by diverse terminology applied to payments rendered for (military) labour – thus, alongside the misthos, we also find trophē (τροφή) and sitos (σῖτος), and derivatives.Footnote 6
Although this variety of terminology perhaps implies different types of payment – with trophē and sitos, literally ‘food’ and ‘grain’, referring to rations – in practice, we find that the terminology is applied inconsistently and interchangeably.Footnote 7 Distinguishing between reimbursement and potential wages purely on the basis of terminology is therefore difficult at best, and scholarly debates on the matter remain inconclusive. Thus, for some, such as Loomis, both misthos and trophē refer to soldiers’ ‘gross pay’; that is to say, the payment comprised both wages for service and money for rations.Footnote 8 Claiming that there is no ‘affirmative reason’ why these terms should only refer to rations rather than a more general form of maintenance, Loomis’ argument further hinges on the fact that Thucydides uses the word misthos in relation to mercenary pay, which must have constituted more than rations only,Footnote 9 and on the fact that other per diem figures for rations were lower than those accorded to soldiers – for example, Athenian jurors known as dikasts were paid 2–3 obols, or one-third to one half of a drachma per day,Footnote 10 in strong contrast to the 1 drachma a day for soldiers towards the end of the Peloponnesian War, as attested by Thucydides and Xenophon.Footnote 11 However, if the lower figures paid for non-military tasks only constituted rations, we need to explain why these payments, too, are known as a misthos.Footnote 12 The difference in level of pay can also be explained by the additional costs military men may have incurred: it is known that markets could increase prices, sometimes deliberately, as demand increased due to an army’s presence.Footnote 13 In practice, even where mention of a misthos for military service is made, this could be a provision in theory only: Pritchett cites the seventeen-month Athenian campaign in the Hellespont between 362 and 360, during which soldiers received their misthos for only two months in the entire campaign.Footnote 14 Furthermore, perhaps, the demands of a campaign far away from home, requiring full-time commitment and risking one’s life, ought not to be uncritically compared to one-off instances of public service, for which pay was, in any case, deemed far too low.Footnote 15
The opposing view, professed by, for example, Pritchett and Psoma, holds that vocabulary from the Classical period refers to rations alone, with no additional wages paid out to the troops for their service (aside from, perhaps, a share in potential spoils),Footnote 16 revealing that a clear-cut and indeed established system of remuneration may not yet have been in place. This is supported by later sources, which imply that in the Classical period payment concerned compensation only. First, we can observe how Demosthenes explicitly argues for the introduction of wages for citizen military service,Footnote 17 and to set military service on a par with other forms of public service, thereby implying that wages were not available to citizen soldiers previously. Second, it is around this time in the late Classical period that a distinction between the two develops,Footnote 18 as is evident in Ps.-Xenophon’s Athenaion Politeia,Footnote 19 as well as in Ps.-Aristotle’s Oeconomica, where Didales the Persian is said to have had no money to pay the soldiers’ wages but did have a ready supply of rations. He also cites how Memnon of Rhodes asked his misthophoroi to forgo six days of rations and pay.Footnote 20 Aineias Taktikos likewise argues that misthophoroi should receive their pay and maintenance from those who hire them.Footnote 21 From Demosthenes, we learn that a clear distinction between maintenance and wages was established in the Athenian navy by c. 359.Footnote 22
The distinction becomes fully prevalent in the Hellenistic period, when the words trophē, sitos, and misthos fell out of use and were replaced with opsōnion (ὀψώνιον) to refer explicitly to wages, and sitarchia (σιταρχία), sitēresion (σιτηρέσιον), or their cognates, came to describe rations.Footnote 23 The emergence of this precise and distinct terminology indicates that in the Hellenistic period remuneration for military service was certainly available on top of reimbursement. Moreover, this more precise terminology strongly suggests that the provision of wages as distinct from mere reimbursement was now a fixed feature. It should, however, be noted that the extant historiographical sources on the period, none of which is contemporary, prefer to use the Classical Greek terminology for payments; thus, in Arrian and Diodorus we continue to find misthos in reference to remuneration for service.Footnote 24
In sum, in the Hellenistic period, opsōnion refers to the monetary payments which the soldiers received in exchange for their labour power. As will be shown, in addition to these monetary wages, rewards came to be offered at the start of soldiers’ service, providing initial incentives, while the evidence also attests awards of privileges, which will have enhanced their social and economic status.
4.2 Initial Incentives
In the Archaic and Classical periods, military service in the hoplite phalanx or cavalry was, at least ideologically, restricted to those who could provide their own equipment. Such requirements meant that, unless the state intervened, the pool of soldiers from which to recruit for these contingents was limited by the citizens’ ability to procure the necessities, while their financial position dictated the role in which they might serve: the richest formed the cavalry and hoplite phalanx, while the rest served in the light-armed divisions or the fleet.
When Philip came to power in Macedonia, however, his survival depended on the rapid mustering of an army. As highlighted in Chapter 3, Philip by necessity accepted non-Macedonians into his army, and incentives were offered to entice individuals to enlist. For the common soldiers, this meant the provision of equipment, while those accepted into the elite divisions were awarded land to satisfy the traditional requirements for their service. Such incentives, therefore, meant that a military career was no longer open only to those who could afford to serve, but rather to all those who wanted to. The provision of equipment and land would be offered throughout the Hellenistic period; this section will discuss each in turn.
4.2.1 The Provision of Equipment
The citizens of the Classical poleis were theoretically required to provide their own equipment, but the question of whether this was also required of the voluntary forces who began to populate the Greek battlefield from the late fourth century has been the topic of much debate.Footnote 25 In his discussion of fourth-century misthophoroi, McKechnie concludes that both persons and states willing to raise a non-citizen army would often start by collecting up arms and armour.Footnote 26 Whitehead sees such incidences providing equipment to misthophoroi as highly circumstantial,Footnote 27 but he appears to argue from the assumption that the equipment was to be returned.Footnote 28 The latter construction seems both improbable and impractical, and, as contended by McKechnie, it is likely that the armour was either offered as a gift or paid for in instalments via the soldier’s salary, or at the end of a campaign by the recipient.Footnote 29 Moreover, by providing equipment, the potential employer could significantly enlarge the pool of potential recruits, while maintaining internal technological and infrastructural coherence. The rise of military participation from the mid-fourth century onwards, especially in armies formed outside the polis structure, such as the cited ‘mercenary’ troops, certainly supports the view that armour was made available for those in need of it.
In his description of the military reforms and the training to which Philip’s soldiers were subjected, Diodorus reports him as ‘having improved the organisation of his forces and equipped the men suitably with weapons of war’.Footnote 30 Alexander’s reference to the fact that Philip found his men in sheepskins and gave each of them a chlamys – a cloak which would become a notable part of the Macedonian military uniform – as reported by Arrian,Footnote 31 is adduced by Karunanithy as further evidence for the provision of equipment.Footnote 32
References to the provision of equipment also occur in the sources related to Alexander’s campaign. Diodorus describes the distribution of clothing to the army after the death of Darius,Footnote 33 and he writes that the troops who arrived in Asia in 330 brought with them ‘elegant suits of armour for 25,000 infantry and medical supplies’, which Alexander distributed among the ranks.Footnote 34 Curtius likewise mentions the provision of arms and armour: for instance, he reports how Alexander promised to replace the arms and armour lost crossing the Tigris,Footnote 35 as well as after the journey through the Makran.Footnote 36 Similarly, Alexander is credited with having supplied silver armour for the horses.Footnote 37 The provision of Macedonian armour to the newly enlisted Persian recruits is likewise attested.Footnote 38 It should be observed that equipping all soldiers during the campaign will have been greatly facilitated through the acquisition of the armour stores of the Achaemenid Empire,Footnote 39 where the mass production, and perhaps the provision, of armour had been commonplace.Footnote 40
The uniformity of armour in the Macedonian army, which has been seen as a ‘manifestation of Macedonian military and national character’, also hints at the centralized production and subsequent distribution of armour by the state.Footnote 41 Macedonia was a region wealthy in raw materials, and these were extensively exploited from Philip onwards.Footnote 42 The state, furthermore, had a royal monopoly on the exploitation of timber,Footnote 43 which has led Billows to speculate that the sarissa too was provided to the soldier by the state.Footnote 44 Similarly, on the basis of a passage in Julius Africanus’ Kestoi,Footnote 45 an encyclopaedic work of the early third century ad, and the sudden appearance of the later ubiquitous conical shaped pilos-helmet,Footnote 46 Juhel has argued that Alexander (re-)equipped his army from head to toe between 330/329 and 325, thereby introducing the official military uniform.Footnote 47
This provision of equipment continued under the Successors. According to Plutarch, for instance, Eumenes of Cardia distributed caps and cloaks and provided horses to his troops.Footnote 48 Literary testimonies to the practice become scarcer in the Successor period, yet material evidence hints at the continued centralized production and distribution of armour and equipment. This is indicated most notably in depictions of equipment, the features of which return in the iconography of contemporary coinage. Thus, a stele from Demetrias, dated to c. 293, depicts a Cretan soldier holding a shield featuring the same image of the ‘striding Poseidon’ found on the coinage of Demetrius Poliorcetes.Footnote 49 Similarly, we find iconographic echoes between depictions of shields featured on coinage and in sculpture, most notably the joint adoption of kings’ monograms.Footnote 50 Most telling, perhaps, is the Macedonian Hellenistic evidence. For example, royal portraiture on coins of Philip V is mirrored on Macedonian shields known from sculpture.Footnote 51 On the basis of these iconographic links, Sekunda concludes that shields with new blazons would have been issued upon the accession of a new monarch; in preparation for war; or after significant events, but always concomitant with issues of new coinage.Footnote 52 The centralized nature of this process makes continued provision of uniform equipment under the Successors and early Hellenistic kings a likelihood.
The practice was apparently maintained in the Hellenistic kingdoms. Thus, in Egypt the cavalry’s horses were obtained through the state.Footnote 53 State provisioning in Macedonia likewise endured under the Antigonids, as well as in the other kingdoms.Footnote 54 In rebuilding Lysimacheia, for example, Antiochus III made sure it hosted an arsenal, in which arms and ammunition, as well as provisions were stored.Footnote 55 Archaeologically, we can observe such vast military storehouses in Athens,Footnote 56 and in Pergamon.Footnote 57 While the simple accumulation of large stocks of armour is not proof that the equipment was awarded to the soldiers, the evident centralized production and distribution make it very likely that this tradition persisted.
The sources remain silent on whether the armour was on loan or had to be paid off in instalments, neither of which seems feasible in practice. Given the wealth acquired in both Philip’s and Alexander’s campaigns, and the royal generosity generally shown to the soldiers, the provision of armour surely constituted a gift that acted as an initial inducement into military service. Accordingly, the provision of core equipment was an essential element of the military’s incentive structure: it removed financial limitations for service and thereby greatly enlarged the pool from which soldiers could be mustered.
4.2.2 The Grant of Land
While the provision of equipment encouraged enlistment from those who would have been ineligible without assistance, the offer of land opened positions within the Macedonian cavalry and other elite positions to those who were considered deserving but lacked the means. The tradition of land grants to high-ranking military personnel is securely attested from the time of Philip and under Alexander.Footnote 58 It remained a prominent feature of the military incentive structure under the Successors and early Hellenistic kings, under whom it was further extended to lower-ranking soldiers in the form of cleruchs.
From Hegesippos, an Athenian orator who shared Demosthenes’ anti-Macedonian views, we learn that a Cardian of the name of Apollonides received land from the territory Philip conquered on the Chersonese,Footnote 59 ‘part of which he held himself and part of which he bestowed on others’.Footnote 60 Diodorus likewise reports that, after the conquest of Methone in 355–354,Footnote 61 the land was distributed among ‘the Macedonians’.Footnote 62 In this instance it is unclear whether the latter term refers to the military division of ‘Macedonians’ or to the Macedonian people in general, since the vocabulary is identical,Footnote 63 but ‘spear-won land’Footnote 64 awarded explicitly to military personnel is also attested.Footnote 65
Land awarded explicitly to military personnel is also attested. From Theopompus we learn that Philip’s Companions received sizeable allotments:Footnote 66
τοὺς ἑταίρους οὐ πλείονας ὄντας κατ᾽ ἐκεῖνον τὸν χρόνον ὀκτακοσίων οὐκ ἐλάττω καρπίζεσθαι γῆν ἢ μυρίους τῶν ῾Ελλήνων τοὺς τὴν ἀρίστην καὶ πλείστην χώραν κεκτημένους.
The Companions, who at that time numbered no more than 800, enjoyed the fruits of no less land than the 10,000 Greeks who possessed the best and most territory.
The size of the allotted land is probably an exaggeration,Footnote 67 but the fragment at least confirms the existence of such, probably generous, grants of land to military men.
An inscribed decree found near Cassandreia sheds light on this process.Footnote 68 In this decree, Cassander, the Successor king in control of Macedonia and parts of Greece between c. 306 and 297, confirms land grants formerly given by Philip and Alexander to a member of the military; the document thus provides evidence of this practice before 334.Footnote 69
ἐφ’ ἱερέως Κυδία, βασιλε-
ὺς Μακεδόνων Κάσσαν-
δρος δίδωσι Περδίκκαι
Κοίνου τὸν ἀγρὸν τὸν
5ἐν τῆι Σιναίαι καὶ τὸν ἐ-
πὶ Τραπεζοῦντι, οὓς ἐ-
κληρούχησεν Πολεμο-
κράτης ὁ πάππος αὐτοῦ
καὶ ὃν ὁ πατὴρ ἐπὶ Φιλίππου, κα-
10θάπερ καὶ Φίλιππος ἔδ[ω]-
κεν ἐμ πατρικοῖς καὶ αὐτ̣-
οῖς καὶ ἐκγόνοις κυρίοι-
ς οὖσι κεκτῆσθαι καὶ
ἀλλάσσεσθαι καὶ ἀ-
15ποδόσθαι, καὶ τὸν ἐμ Σ-
παρτώλωι ὃμ̣ παρὰ Π-
τολεμαίου ἔλαβεν
ἐν ἀργυρίωι, δίδωσι κα̣[ὶ]
τοῦτον ἐμ πα̣τρικοῖς
20καὶ αὐτῶι καὶ ἐκγόνοις
κυρίοις οὖσι κ̣α̣ὶ κεκτῆσ-
θαι καὶ ἀλλάσσεσθα-
ι καὶ ἀποδόσθαι, καθά-
περ καὶ Ἀλέξανδρος
25ἔδωκεν Πτολεμαί-
ωι τῶι πατρὶ τῶι Πτολε-
μαίου· δίδωσι δὲ καὶ ἀ-
τέλειαν αὐτῶι καὶ ἐ-
κγόνοις καὶ εἰσάγον-
30τι καὶ ἐξάγοντι τῶν
ἐπὶ κτήσει.
When Kydias was priest: the King of the Macedonians, Cassander, gives to Perdikkas son of Koinos the land at Sinaia and that at Trapezous, which Polemokrates, his grandfather, was allotted, (9) as well as that which his father was allotted during the reign of Philip, on the same terms as Philip had given it – as hereditary possession – to them and their descendants, who have the authority to possess and exchange and alienate it; (15) and also the land at Spartolos, which he (sc. Perdikkas) bought with silver off Ptolemaios, (Cassander) gives this too as hereditary possession, to both him (sc. Perdikkas) and his descendants, who have the authority to possess and exchange and alienate it, on the same terms as Alexander gave it to Ptolemaios, the father of Ptolemaios. He (sc. Cassander) also gives him (sc. Perdikkas) and his descendants fiscal immunity to both import and export things on the property.
In the decree, Cassander ‘gives’ (δίδωσι, l. 3) two portions of land to a certain Perdikkas, one of which Philip had previously allotted (ll. 6–7) to his father, Koinos, a commander in the army of Alexander,Footnote 70 and the other to his grandfather, Polemokrates (ll. 10–11). He also ‘gives’ (δίδωσι, ll. 3 and 20) the land Perdikkas had bought from a certain Ptolemaios, who had inherited it from his father, to whom it had been given directly by Alexander (ll. 24–6). In addition, Cassander grants Perdikkas freedom from taxation on imports and exports from these lands (ll. 27–31).
The interpretation of the text has received much attention, not least owing to the apparent contradiction in the terms on which the land was granted. For while the decree records a donation of land from Cassander to Perdikkas, it also specifies that the land is currently already in Perdikkas’ possession. On the surface, Cassander is therefore seen as granting land to Perdikkas that the latter may already have owned; debate therefore revolves around the question whether the land became private property of the recipient or whether it would eventually revert back to the king.Footnote 71
In a recent discussion of this problem, Bresson rightly points out that Cassander’s ‘donation’ of the land would not make sense ‘if Perdikkas’ land had been his “full property” and if the king had lost any right to it’.Footnote 72 He therefore chooses to interpret the grants made by Philip and Alexander as an early instance of a military klērouchia, or cleruchy, that is, land allotted on the basis of an agreement or contract, usually continued service in the army; in this instance, it would mean that ownership of the land reverted to the king on the death of the holder.
Bresson’s conclusion that this land was a cleruchy and thus an early precursor of the military cleruchies of the Hellenistic kingdoms is based in part on the presence of the verb eklērouchēsen (ἐκληρούχησεν, ll. 6–7), used in the text to denote the award of land by Philip.Footnote 73 When used in the passive voice, this word is indeed known specifically in relation to the allotment of cleruchies in Ptolemaic Egypt; however, it is here used in the active voice and can therefore simply mean ‘to divide’ or ‘to allot’ the land.Footnote 74 If this land was indeed a cleruchy in the Hellenistic sense of the word, it is striking that the specific terminology is not repeated in reference to the land granted by Alexander, which was simply ‘given’ (l. 25) to Ptolemaios and his descendants ‘to own, exchange, and give away’ (ll. 21–3), or indeed in relation to the latest allotment of these lands by Cassander. While the allotment of these plots should undoubtedly be seen as an early incarnation of later Hellenistic cleruchies, it may not yet have been subject to similar conditions, such as continued service; Cassander’s act of regifting land previously allotted in perpetuity may need a different explanation.
In Errington’s view, the land granted by Philip and Alexander was indeed inalienable and therefore in the full possession of the beneficiaries and their descendants, but the decree and apparent regifting of the land should be seen as the result of the peculiar political situation Macedonia was in at the time: the Argead line, on whose authority Perdikkas had held his land, was now extinct. The new king, Cassander, had founded the city of Cassandreia in the vicinity of Perdikkas’ estate. Perdikkas may thus have sought confirmation of the grant considering the turbulent political situation, and an assurance that his land would not become part of the civic land of Cassandreia. Here, the decree is the record of the king’s confirmation of the status of Perdikkas’ land, to which fiscal immunity was added (ll. 27–31).Footnote 75 On this basis, Cassander’s reconfirmation of the grant and the addition of fiscal immunity should perhaps be read as another attempt at aligning himself with the Argead dynasty, and at increasing support among the Macedonians for his position on the throne, to which he had no traditional claim, while it simultaneously safeguarded the owner’s position.
The decree thus provides us with contemporary evidence in support of the literary sources’ indications that Philip had indeed granted land, and that it was at times offered to members of the military. Although the decree appears to indicate that such land grants were conditional, that is not the case: the land donated by Philip and Alexander was given in full possession. As stipulated here, its recipients could own, sell, or donate it as they wished.
Alexander’s land grants to the military follow the same pattern. One key record is Plutarch’s report that, before setting out on the Asian expedition, Alexander enquired into the financial status of the Companions, and subsequently handed out land, or the revenues thereof: ‘to one a farm, to another a village, to yet another the revenue of some hamlet or harbour’.Footnote 76 Here, a difference between the types and scale of land and property grants to different recipients can be observed. These different categories of allotment, either the land itself or the right to income, shows that such grants were first and foremost a financial incentive. Like his father, Alexander allotted land to supporters in Greek cities, such as to the Athenian statesman Phocion, who received a village in Asia Minor.Footnote 77 Similarly, while Cassander’s confirmation concerns land grants given to Macedonian military men, from Arrian we learn that non-Macedonians could also be settled. Thus, in his description of the appointments of commanding positions in the fleet at the Hydaspes in 326, Nearchus, originally from Lete in Crete, and the Mytilenaean Laomedon are both referred to as ‘from Amphipolis’.Footnote 78
As conquest continued and more ‘spear-won land’ was accumulated, we also find land offered to non-elite troops. Plutarch, for example, describes a boxing match between two soldiers re-enacting a fight between Alexander and Darius, with Alexander rewarding his victorious counterpart with ‘twelve villages’.Footnote 79 Likewise, Curtius relates how the bodyguard Eurylochos,Footnote 80 who informed Alexander about a developing conspiracy, was rewarded with 50 talents, along with the lavish estate of a Persian named Tiridates.Footnote 81
Alexander’s award of former Achaemenid estates to soldiers is further confirmed by an inscription that records the bestowal of the usufruct of a small estate in the Kaikos valley by a Macedonian of the name Krateuas to one Aristomenes.Footnote 82 The latter is unknown, whereas Krateuas was a high-ranking military man who was one of Alexander’s bodyguards, later satrap of Upper Media, and eventually general of the Upper Satrapies.Footnote 83 Thus, Krateuas, a Macedonian, is seen to be leasing a small, former Achaemenid estate, or a part thereof. As Alexander’s conquest of the east continued, more and more of the plentiful estates belonging to Achaemenid beneficiaries must have fallen vacant, ready to be redistributed by Alexander and his officials. Unlike land awarded in full possession, the land given to Krateuas remained part of the territory of the nearby city of Gambreion – the occupier was therefore expected to pay tribute.Footnote 84 The recipient of the grant, however, could monetize his gift by leasing it.Footnote 85 In this way, the grant of land provided both men with an additional source of income:Footnote 86 Krateuas from the rent obtained from Aristomenes, and Aristomenes from the produce of the land, minus the tax levied on it.Footnote 87 Land grants, albeit in a different form, therefore continued to be bestowed by Alexander as the Macedonian conquest continued.
Cassander’s confirmation of land grants indicates that the practice endured under the Successors. The decree of a grant by Lysimachus, dated to 285–284, in fact, shows that it did so unaltered.
ἐφ᾽ ἱερέως τοῦ Λυσιμάχου
Τιμησίου, βασιλεὺς
Λυσίμαχος δέδωκεν
Λιμναίωι ῾Αρπάλου ἐμ
5πατρικοῖς τοὺς ἀγρούς,
τόν τε ἐν τῆι Σερμυλιαί-
αι, γῆς ἐνδένδρου πλέθρα
χίλια διακόσια, ὧι γείτο-
νες Ἀγαθοκλῆς Λυσι-
10μάχου, Βίθυς Κλέωνος,
καὶ τὸν ἐν τῆι Ὀλυνθίαι
ἐπὶ Τραπεζοῦντι, γῆς
ἐνδένδρου πλέθτρα τρι-
ακόσια ἑξήκοντα, ὧι γεί-
15τονες Μένων Σωσικλέους,
Πύλων Ἐπιτέλους, καὶ
τὸν ἐν τῆι Στρεψαίαι,
γῆς ἐνδένδρου πλέθρα
ἐνακόσια καὶ ἀμπέλων
20εἴκοσι, ὧι γείτονες Γού-
ρας Ἀννύθεος, Χιωνίδης,
Εὐάλκης Δημητρίου, καὶ
αὐτῶι καὶ ἐγκόνοις κε-vac
κτῆσθαι κυρίοις οὖσι κα[ὶ]
25πωλεῖν καὶ ἀλλάσσεσθα[ι]
καὶ διδόναι οἷς ἂν βού-vac
λωνται. vacat.
When Timesios was priest of Lysimachus: King Lysimachus has given Limnaios son of Harpalos as hereditary possession the (following) estates: (6) in the territory of Sermylia, 1,200 plethra of forest land, to which Agathokles son of Lysimachus and Bithys son of Kleon are neighbours; (11) and in the territory of Olynthos, by Trapezous, 360 plethra of forest land, to which Menon son of Sosikles and Pylon son of Epiteles are neighbours; (16) and in the territory of Strepsa, 900 plethra of forest land and 20 (plethra of ) vines, to which Gouras son of Annythes and Chionides and Eualkes sons of Demetrius are neighbours (22) and (he has given these lands) to him (sc. Limnaios) and his descendants, who have the authority to possess them, to sell them, to exchange them, or to give them to whomever they want.
The beneficiary, named as Limnaios, son of Harpalos, is otherwise unknown, but the Macedonian name and patronymic, as well as the evident importance and wealth of the lands granted, have led Hatzopoulos to conclude that he must have been one of the king’s philoi, and a military man.Footnote 88 Like the grants bestowed by Philip and Alexander, this land is given (l. 3) as a hereditary possession (ll. 4–5), for Limnaios and his descendants to do with as they wish (ll. 22–7). The land is apparently donated in the exact same way as the earlier examples; it can therefore be surmised that, like Ptolemaios and Polemokrates, Limnaios received this land in full possession.
According to Diodorus, Antigonus promised to award land to Macedonian soldiers as early as 316.Footnote 89 Epigraphic evidence of a land grant from Antigonus comes in a decree from Sardis, in which a loan by the temple of Artemis is awarded on the security of an estate in c. 200.Footnote 90 According to the decree, the otherwise unknown debtor, Mnesimachos, was awarded an estate by Antigonus.Footnote 91 The text shows that Mnesimachos had no funds to repay his loan, and thus offered up the estate, which he had previously offered as a deposit.Footnote 92 After a description of the estate’s size, revenue, and other assets, it is further specified that Mnesimachos and his descendants will not be able to lay any subsequent claim on the estate.Footnote 93 Were Antigonus to reclaim the land, Mnesimachos was to repay the worth of the estate regardless.Footnote 94 Here, in contrast to the grants of Philip and Alexander, the interpretation suggested by Bresson and Funck appears correct: the use of the land and its revenues was granted on a hereditary basis, but the king retained the right to re-appropriate the land at will.Footnote 95
The ongoing practice of granting land to high-ranking members of the military in the early Hellenistic period is affirmed by a set of inscriptions dated to c. 275, which record the correspondence between Antiochus I and Meleager, satrap of the Hellespont, concerning the gift of land to a Greek of Assos, called Aristodikides.Footnote 96 The documents are of interest on various levels, but what concerns us here is that the gift of land emerges once more as a standard procedure. Antiochus instructs Meleager to donate a portion of the royal land to the Greek Aristodikides, referred to as a philos and therefore presumably part of the military nobility.Footnote 97 Antiochus further instructs Meleager to ensure that the land reserved for Aristodikides was not yet given to someone else, but should be attached to a city of Aristodikides’ own choice,Footnote 98 where he would likely be liable for taxation.Footnote 99
We have already touched on the conditions of military settlement under the first Hellenistic kings, the patterns of which were broadly comparable across the various kingdoms. Such grants of land were usually bestowed as the usufruct of the said land, and thus formed part of the military remuneration package, either in kind in the form of the produce of or the income from such land, or in coin acquired from the leasing of the land. This practice, best attested in the Ptolemaic and Attalid kingdoms, will next be discussed.
Two categories of settlers are evident in the Ptolemaic cleruchies, namely permanent occupiers liable to conscription, and temporary settlers on voluntary service. In each case, however, settlement came with the land’s usufruct, meaning that one could enjoy its produce and income but did not own it. It also implied that the state could confiscate it, or that it would return to the status of ‘royal land’ if abandoned. If the occupier died, the land would likewise revert to the state and would be redistributed; in practice, the occupier’s male heir would receive it, if he agreed to the military duties associated with it. Importantly, the latter condition ensured the survival of the settlements’ military character.Footnote 100
Remuneration from settlement, of course, consisted of the land’s income through produce, minus the taxes normally levied upon it.Footnote 101 Settlers could also choose to derive solely monetary income from their land by leasing it, and could act as absentee landlords. Fischer-Bovet cites a number of contracts that attest to this practice,Footnote 102 such as the third-century lease contracts from Tholthis, which show the allotment being leased to middlemen, or mid-second-century documents from Tebtunis and Kerkeosiris, revealing leases being taken on by Egyptian farmers.Footnote 103 This has given rise to the view that military settlers were city-dwellers who leased out their land.Footnote 104 Yet this argument should not be pushed too far, since leases tend to concern large allotments,Footnote 105 and soldiers working their own land are also known.Footnote 106 Accordingly, it should be concluded that soldiers drew income from their allotments in a variety of ways, with the larger plots awarded to high-ranking soldiers more likely to have been leased out in order to extract resources in coin. Despite this mixed form of revenue extraction, land grants clearly provided soldiers of all ranks with additional income in either coin or kind.
Similar constructions are found in a document detailing negotiations between Eumenes II and the inhabitants of the military settlement of Apollonioucharax, dated to the mid-first century, discussed at Section 3.3.4.Footnote 107 The text reveals the settlers’ usufruct of the land, and shows that they derived their income both in kind and in coin. Eumenes’ exemption of the soldiers’ taxation on the produce for the current year implies that the untaxed part of the produce belonged to the settlers. Similarly, these royal letters also indicate that these settlers had sold the usufruct of part of their allotment to a certain Meleagros, who would return it for the same price once they acquired the capital.Footnote 108 This inscription is the only known attestation of such a sale and is indicative of the relative autonomy the settlers had as well as evidence of how they might have further exploited the land for their economic gain.
In sum, both military equipment and land thus appear to have been part of the incentive structure for military service from the reign of Philip II onwards. The provision of such rewards was part of older Macedonian royal tradition but probably gained in prevalence under Philip. Both continued to be awarded under Alexander and the Successors, as well as under the early Hellenistic kings. As an incentive for military service, the purpose of the provision of equipment and land was twofold: on one level, it allowed and encouraged individuals to take up service; those lacking the traditionally required financial means to do so were now able to enlist; others may have seen these rewards as an extra incentive to enlist. For rulers, meanwhile, giving equipment and land could instil loyalty in the recipients; in particular, the later Hellenistic settlement of soldiers in cleruchies ensured their return home, and, for a time, created a ready supply of still-active veterans.
4.3 Monetary Wages
Naturally, the crucial element in the assessment of military service of wage labour is the availability of monetary wages, which facilitated military service and lay at the heart of the increased professionalization of the military. Due to Philip’s intense emphasis on military training and his incessant campaigning, soldiers in the Macedonian army had to be available year-round, thus marking a notable break with the seasonal nature of war-making in the Archaic and Classical periods.Footnote 109 This requirement for continuous availability necessitated the provision of funds for soldiers’ upkeep. The ongoing nature of service, of course, continued under Alexander, who relied on having men at hand for over a decade. This trend persisted under the Successors, and, by the time of the early Hellenistic kings, service for the voluntary forces in the royal armies essentially constituted year-round employment.
The written sources – contemporary and later – regularly comment on the importance of money to Philip’s military and political successes. Diodorus, in fact, claims that the Macedonian kingdom’s tremendous expansion under Philip was achieved ‘far more by the use of gold, than of arms’.Footnote 110 Philip’s contemporary Demosthenes likewise reports his reliance on a ready cash flow, whether to pay his ‘mercenaries’ or to acquire supporters outside Macedonia.Footnote 111
References to monetary wages in the army of Philip usually occur in connection to his voluntary forces. Thus, Diodorus directly connects Philip’s acquisition of the territory of Crenides and its gold mines to the recruitment of voluntary troops.Footnote 112 Yet pay for service is also associated with conscript troops. For instance, in the Stratagems, Polyaenus describes an incident in which a group of Macedonian soldiers demanded their pay.Footnote 113 Similarly, a passage in Justin relates an encounter between Philip and the Scythian king Atheas, who had borrowed Macedonian soldiers but was reprimanded for having paid them neither rations nor wages.Footnote 114
Military nomenclature provides an additional indication of the provision of pay for all troop types. In Arrian, for instance, we hear of Macedonians whose ranks are referred to in terms of the wages they receive: thus, we hear of the Double-Pay Man, or the Ten-Stater Man.Footnote 115 During the campaign of Alexander, we see the entire army receiving wages at various times, as at the dismissal of the allied forces in 330, when Alexander paid the wages still owed to the soldiers;Footnote 116 similar events are described by Arrian in relation to the dismissal of weakened forces at Opis in 324.Footnote 117 Greeks who previously served in the Macedonian army appear likewise accepted among Alexander’s troops and were allowed to serve under the same pay scales.Footnote 118 The wages paid out at Opis were given in part to those troops who were deemed too old or too weak to continue their military service; that these included Macedonians can be ascertained from the fact that they were sent home to Macedonia under the command of Craterus.Footnote 119
Beyond wages for service, additional monetary rewards existed in the form of bonuses. The dismissed allied troops were offered the chance to stay on in Alexander’s army and incentivized to do so with a cash reward – the huge sum of 3 talents each.Footnote 120 Apart from bonuses to boost and retain employment, rewards were also offered for specific actions. As an incentive to climb the Sogdian rock, Arrian reports that Alexander awarded 12 talents to the first man to scale it and 300 darics to the last, with rewards in proportion to each man’s arrival time.Footnote 121
The conditions that led to the introduction of monetary wages under Philip and Alexander were amplified under the Successors. The conquest of the old Achaemenid Empire provided enough funds that military spending reached an all-time high: ‘Asia could provide pay without end’,Footnote 122 and the Successors duly drew soldiers from across the Greek world. The Macedonians behaved increasingly like the hired volunteers, and similarly received monetary wages as part of the incentive structures in place to win their loyalty and service.
Monetary expenditure and the collection of forces are usually mentioned in the same breath: the 8,000 talents Ptolemy found in the Egyptian treasury was immediately spent on gathering up misthophoroi.Footnote 123 When Eumenes gained access to the treasury at Cyinda in 318 through the support of Polyperchon and Olympias,Footnote 124 he too set out to collect troops. And so, having received this large sum of money from the treasury, he sent out mercenary recruiters across the Mediterranean:Footnote 125 reportedly establishing a ‘high rate of pay’, he managed to enlist a large number of troops, including many from Greece.Footnote 126 In similar vein, Antigonus raised large groups of volunteer forces, paid from the enormous treasures of the east.Footnote 127 The noted decree of Iasos concerned with the soldiers of Antigonus or Ptolemy also attests to both rations and wages.Footnote 128 The Macedonians’ option to join the army of the Successor of their choice, furthermore, ensured that the same incentive structures were in place for them. While mentions of the Macedonians’ wages are less frequent in the historiographical sources, they are attested,Footnote 129 which would suggest that Macedonians seemingly served under the same regulations as hired volunteers.
The epigraphic record reveals wages for service in the armies of the early Hellenistic kings. A particularly clear example is the record of a negotiation between Eumenes I of Pergamon and his soldiers regarding the conditions for their service,Footnote 130 which tells us that soldiers expected to receive their rations in cash in addition to their wages.Footnote 131
The textual sources can be supplemented by numismatic evidence.Footnote 132 Minting efforts have long been connected to military activity, with warfare being the primary reason for coinage to be produced.Footnote 133 While some hold that it was state expenditure in general that gave impetus to minting, alongside the replacement of worn coins to ensure liquidity or to facilitate the payment of taxes,Footnote 134 the majority of large payments by the state have been shown to have been military in nature.Footnote 135 Indeed, the relation between the production of coinage and military expenditure can be illustrated by the few coinages that bear dates, and whose production can be seen to peak at times of military preparation or activity.Footnote 136 The latter process implies an important correlation, especially in the early Hellenistic period, when both increased minting and military activity are witnessed.Footnote 137
Most of the military expenses involved the costs of keeping men in the field, and thus the payment of ration-money and wages. The distinction between the two is to an extent reflected in the denominations and types of coinage issued from the late fourth century onwards, when bronze coinages came to be used for the payment of rations.Footnote 138 The growing reliance on waged soldiers for ever more frequent and larger battles during the period, with the cost of military labour ostensibly increasing,Footnote 139 certainly seems echoed in the fervent activity of the royal mints.Footnote 140
The high wages reported in the texts are reflected in coin hoards found across the area in which the soldiers of the royal armies were active. The so-called Sinanpaşa hoard,Footnote 141 found in central Turkey in the early twentieth century, can serve as an example. Although the various coins contained in the hoard were immediately put up for sale, 670 coins that can certainly be attributed to this hoard have been identified.Footnote 142 Its estimated burial date is 317/316,Footnote 143 and the known coins are all Alexander-type drachms, almost exclusively minted at one of Alexander’s mints in western Asia Minor.Footnote 144 The uniformity in the hoard’s coinage and the date and location of its burial make it probable that it belonged to one of Alexander’s veterans; according to Thonemann’s reconstruction of potential events, a veteran soldier of Alexander collected his outstanding pay in the 320s or early 310s, before returning inland, where he was based and eventually buried the hoard,Footnote 145 which contained the (significant) funds saved from the payments received for his service.
We see similar instances in Thrace, where many a hired soldier originated and royal coinage was extensively hoarded.Footnote 146 Take, for instance, the so-called Rezhanci hoard with a burial date of 316/315.Footnote 147 Among the hoard’s 3,825 coins, we find several high-denomination coins struck at eastern mints, such as the staters from the mint of Abydos, suggesting that this money may have belonged to a Thracian soldier who returned home after collecting his wages, potentially in 324.Footnote 148
In terms of coin types, Philip initially only minted bronzes,Footnote 149 in order to provide his troops with a coinage that could be exchanged for rations. This use of bronze has been explained by a possible lack of immediate funds,Footnote 150 and we can recall that hired soldiers appear after acquisition of the mines.Footnote 151 Alexander’s minting practices follow a similar pattern. Perhaps on account of a lack of resources,Footnote 152 the young king likewise minted bronzes to pay his men their rations.Footnote 153 This bronze coinage is found in all areas of his early military activity, and in much higher quantities than his father’s bronzes.Footnote 154 In fact, while Alexander may have introduced a small silver issue soon after his accession,Footnote 155 major monetary reforms and large-scale production of silver and gold coinage in his own name did not happen until 332, two years into the Asiatic campaign,Footnote 156 presumably when extensive funds began to be acquired and in response to troops demanding their back pay. While in Philip’s army the provision of wages may have been restricted to troops serving full-time, the campaign of Alexander demanded such an extreme form of military commitment from all his men that the provision of wages was essential for their maintenance. Key, therefore, was the rapid conquest of the lands and treasuries of the Achaemenid Empire, which then provided plenty of funds and metals to fulfil this requirement. In fact, by 323, at least twenty-five mints across Alexander’s empire were producing the same coinage,Footnote 157 which went to the soldiers, and eventually found its way into hoards such as those cited above.
It ought to be noted that, for both Philip and Alexander, posthumous coinage was issued in large quantities.Footnote 158 Naturally, coinage struck in the name of these deceased rulers may have inspired loyalty,Footnote 159 but crucially it guaranteed continuation of a trusted coinage, as has been argued for the long-lasting preference for coins bearing Philip’s name in the Balkans, from where many hired troops were recruited.Footnote 160 This would also explain why the early Successors resumed minting Philip’s coinage,Footnote 161 alongside posthumous issues of the coinage of Alexander,Footnote 162 only slowly adding personal badges and names, before introducing coinages of their own.Footnote 163 In the case of the Successors, a political explanation for the preservation of the Alexander-type seems important, in so far as it avoided blatant claims of legitimacy of rule or royal pretence.
However, quantity, rather than types, of coinage produced reveals most about military expenditure. The total number of coins produced can be calculated by multiplying the known number of dies with the number of coins a single die could produce.Footnote 164 There is some discussion over the latter number, with estimates ranging from 10,000 coins to 47,250.Footnote 165 De Callataÿ’s estimate of c. 20,000 coinings,Footnote 166 based on medieval coin production, was long the accepted number; yet recent experiments have lowered the estimate to c. 10,000–15,000 of coins produced per obverse die.Footnote 167
De Callataÿ has combined the evidence for the royal Hellenistic coinages for which enough data are available and has arrived at the quantification of annual output presented in Table 4.1. The number of attested dies, here converted to tetradrachm-equivalent dies, divided by the years of active minting, allows us to establish a yearly average. The table includes the numbers resulting from both the high estimate of 20,000 and the low estimate of 15,000 coins per die.Footnote 168
Table 4.1 Estimates of coins minted from Philip II to Mithridates
| Issuer | Extrapolated number of obverse dies (number adapted to weight of Attic tetradrachms) | Number of years | Average number of dies per year | Average number of tetradrachms produced per year (20,000 coins per die) | Average number of talents produced per year (20,000 coins per die) | Average number of tetradrachms produced per year (15,000 coins per die) | Average number of talents produced per year (15,000 coins per die) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Philip II (c. 356–328) (including posthumous issues) | c. 544 | 28 | c. 19 | 380,000 | 253.4 | 285,000 | 190 |
| Alexander the Great (332–317) | c. 1,800 | 16 | c. 113 | 2,260,000 | 1,506.6 | 1,695,000 | 1,113 |
| Alexander the Great (including posthumous issues until 290) | c. 3,000 | 42 | c. 71 | 1,420,000 | 946.6 | 1,065,000 | 710 |
| Lysimachus (c. 297–281) | c. 450 | 16 | c. 28 | 560,000 | 373.3 | 420,000 | 280 |
| Demetrius Poliorcetes (c. 306–c. 287) | c. 230 | 19 | c. 12 | 240,000 | 160 | 180,000 | 120 |
| Attalids (263–280) | c. 206 | 79 | c. 2.6 | 52,000 | 34.6 | 39,000 | 26 |
| Antiochus III (223–187) | c. 400 | 36.5 | c. 10.9 | 218,000 | 145.3 | 163,500 | 107.5 |
| Seleucus IV (187–175) | c. 100 | 12.5 | c. 8 | 160,000 | 106.6 | 120,000 | 80 |
| Mithridates Eupator (c. 97–64) | c. 190 | 31 | c. 6.1 | 122,000 | 81.3 | 91,500 | 61 |
While certainly nothing more than a rough guide, the amounts minted overall are astonishing; Thonemann cites the annual revenue of the Athenian Empire, estimated at c. 1,000 talents per year, for comparison.Footnote 169 The abundance cited becomes especially clear considering the coin production of (near-)contemporary entities. For instance, the output of the Hekatomnids, the late fourth-century dynasts of Caria, who are known in part for their prolific building works, is estimated at a total of c. 2,400 talents over a period of 60 years, averaging 40 talents per year.Footnote 170 As can be seen from Table 4.2, the average annual production of Rhodes, a wealthy commercial centre in the late Classical and Hellenistic periods, likewise stands in marked contrast to the output of those in possession of a royal army.
Table 4.2 Estimates of coins minted by Rhodes, late 340s–230
| Period | Number of dies (drachma equivalent) | Average number of dies per year | Average number of drachmas produced per year (20,000 coins per die) | Average number of talents produced per year (20,000 coins per die) |
Average number of drachmas produced per year (15,000 coins per die) | Average number of talents produced per year (15,000 coins per die) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Late 340s– 305/304 | 252 | 7 | 140,000 | 23.3 | 105,000 | 17.5 |
| 305/304–c. 250 | 588 | 11 | 220,000 | 36.6 | 165,000 | 27.5 |
| 250–230 | 396 | 19.2 | 384,000 | 64 | 288,000 | 48 |
Note. Ashton warns that these numbers are ‘extremely rough’, but argues they can be used to indicate ‘variation in output between periods’.
Although the high average annual production by those powers in possession of a royal army reflects the necessarily high military expenditure reported in the textual sources,Footnote 171 it is difficult to use these numbers to determine either the exact number of troops or the level of wages: not all payments were made in coin, while the reaccumulated old coin that made up royal treasure may also have been used for military payments. In addition, references to troop numbers as well as exact specifications of the level of wages occur only sporadically in the textual evidence;Footnote 172 variations in wages, and the apparent fluctuation of the price of military labour,Footnote 173 mean that even ballpark figures are difficult to present.
Nonetheless, if the correlation between minting efforts and military expenditure is correct, then we ought to see the same difference in output of coin and number of troops across the various royal armies. Based on average outputs as seen in Table 4.1 and the reported total troop numbers, we can see some agreement between the two. Alexander was responsible for the most prodigious production: his army was vast and he was known for his generosity, at times reportedly donating entire talents to his soldiers while not reusing old coin.Footnote 174 In later years, Demetrius Poliorcetes’ average annual production is estimated at 120 to 160 talents per year; in 302, his army comprised 56,000 men.Footnote 175 Τhe annual average output of Antiochus III is likewise high, estimated at 145.3 to 107.5 talents; his total number of troops at the battle of Raphia consisted of c. 68,000 men.Footnote 176 On the other hand, Attalid production seems significantly lower, between 34.6 and 24 talents per year;Footnote 177 however, as discussed in Chapter 3, the Attalid army was more compact, and is unlikely to have exceeded 12,000 men.Footnote 178
Thus, the numismatic material appears in agreement with the evidence of the textual sources: sometimes it supports the sequence of events reported, such as the parallel development of Philip’s minting habits and the various troop types in his army; more importantly, however, in terms of sheer output, the numismatic evidence reflects the textual sources’ references to military expenses – and thus wages.
4.4 Additional Benefits and Privileges
Soldiers in the royal armies received additional benefits and privileges beyond simple remuneration. In particular, rights to collect booty, tax breaks, price-setting, and guarantees and protections for deceased soldiers’ families stand out. Benefits of a social nature were, of course, not unique to the royal armies: the Athenian democracy, for instance, took care of any war orphans until they reached adulthood.Footnote 179 Yet in the royal armies of the Hellenistic period especially, benefits that may have begun as socially embedded expectations came to be contractually defined, and formed part of soldiers’ demands in return for their enlistment and ongoing service.
One privilege traditionally bestowed on soldiers was the right to pillage and collect spoils.Footnote 180 As argued by Trundle, for the voluntary forces of the pre-Hellenistic period booty was the major, if not the sole, source of income.Footnote 181 Demosthenes, indeed, suggested commanders provide ‘only rations’, while ‘the force itself was to make up the rest’.Footnote 182 In his discussion of the apparent regulation governing the collection of booty, Pritchett likewise concludes that voluntary forces signed up in the knowledge that their employers would have no immediately available funds, but that due remuneration would come through booty from in a successful campaign.Footnote 183 While there were some limitations in place on the collection of booty, as is evident, for instance, from Cyrus’ prohibition of looting in friendly territories in 401,Footnote 184 voluntary forces of the Classical era may well have anticipated booty as (additional) remuneration to the rations provided.Footnote 185
However, this habit changed from the conquests of Alexander onwards, when warfare targeted the acquisition of ‘spear-won’ land. During the later Hellenistic period, too, control of territory had an economic rationale in most cases,Footnote 186 so that land itself became the ultimate form of booty, and its constant plundering by soldiers would therefore have been counterproductive.Footnote 187 Thus, land and other spoils came to remain in the possession of the king, who redistributed it in more institutionalized ways, such as via land grants and bonuses. It ought also to be noted that the collection of booty during the hectic period of Alexander’s and the Successors’ wars, when large armies were regularly on the move for several years, formed a strategic hindrance: Demetrius, for instance, learned a hard lesson in Gaza, when his men came under attack when returning to collect their possessions. In subsequent episodes, Demetrius therefore instructed his men to leave their possessions behind.Footnote 188
Of course, small-scale collecting of booty by soldiers endured into the Hellenistic period, but it remained on the whole a practice in the hands of non-royal armies, such as those of the poleis or of individual ‘mercenary’ collectors.Footnote 189 One general who abandoned Antigonus and collected his own group of voluntary forces serves as an example: since he had no form of immediate payment, he allowed his men to plunder the sanctuary of Olympia, thereby returning to the traditional patterns of military payment.Footnote 190
The soldiers of the royal armies were allowed to collect booty in exceptional circumstances, thereby elevating it into a special privilege. Alexander is recorded to have given his men special permission to do so before the expedition against the Gandaridae in order to win back their goodwill;Footnote 191 Craterus yielded the plunder of the enemy’s baggage to his men as encouragement before battle;Footnote 192 and Demetrius promised his men all the loot from the battle of Gaza on assuming his command in 312 to secure their loyalty.Footnote 193 The Amphipolis Code, dated to c. 200, likewise specifies that all booty belongs to the king.Footnote 194 In this regard, the collection of booty, while it undoubtedly occurred, does emerge as an expected part of soldiers’ remuneration, but became a benefit that was only occasionally granted. Thus, in each case, the collection of booty by the soldiers is presented as a special reward.
A military privilege of a more institutional nature was that of tax breaks and benefits in the form of, for instance, the upkeep of families. References to this in the armies of Philip and Alexander are scarce but were included in the land grants: if the land was given in full possession, and therefore not attached to the civic territory of a given polis, it was free from tribute. Preferential taxation outside the military is further attested under Alexander: the Greeks in Asia Minor, for example, received immunity from taxation.Footnote 195
Those serving Alexander, however, could be guaranteed some social benefits, which can be seen as precursors to the more clearly stipulated benefits offered by the later Hellenistic kings. Alexander reportedly set aside money for the upkeep and education of the 10,000 children born to Macedonians and captive women during the campaign.Footnote 196 He also provided monthly rations to the (presumably accompanying) wives of the soldiers, as well as a bonus to the children, ‘in accordance with the military record of their fathers’.Footnote 197 It should be noted that the care of orphans and widows could be explained as a pragmatic pursuit for increasing troop numbers.Footnote 198 However, the specification that bonuses were handed out in accordance with military accomplishments shows that it should be seen as part of the military incentive structure, in the same way as the bonuses offered at the Sogdian rock. Unfortunately, evidence for the Successors’ provision of this type of incentive is scanty, but certain benefits in the form of immunity from taxation came with land grants, and Plutarch reports that Eumenes of Cardia offered immunity of taxation to his local recruits to encourage his Macedonian troops to improve their performance.Footnote 199
Privileges and social benefits, then, are best attested in the treaties and contracts between the early Hellenistic kings and their soldiers. Alongside the usual agreements between employer and employee related to the payment of wages and length of service, the agreement between Eumenes I and his men signifies a wide range of alternative benefits.Footnote 200 The first point of order discussed in the treaty concerns the price of food:
[σ]ίτου τιμὴν ἀποτίνειν τοῦ μεδίμνου δραχμὰς τέσσ[α|ρ]ας, οἴνου τοῦ μετρητοῦ δραχμὰς τέσσαρας.
Τhat they will pay four drachmas for a medimnos as the price of grain, and four drachmas for a measure of wine.
This detailing of food prices has generated divisive interpretations, and the crux lies in the subject of apotinein (ἀποτίνειν), ‘to pay’. Griffith believes Eumenes is the subject, and thus that he pays the soldiers the set amount of money for their rations.Footnote 201 Launey, on the other hand, argues that the soldiers ought to be taken as the subject, as they are in all following clauses.Footnote 202 It is thus the price the soldiers are to pay for the provisions specified. The fact that the soldiers were in a static garrison, furthermore, makes the provision of a food market at set prices more probable. Accordingly, we have here an instance in which soldiers were remunerated beyond their wages in the form of preferential treatment on the market.
Privileges concerning taxation are also offered:
ὅπως ἂν ἡ ἀτέλεια ὑπάρχηι ἡ ἐν τῶι τετάρτωι καὶ τεσσαρα-
κοστῶι ἔτει. ἐάν τις ἄπεργος γένηται ἢ παραιτή[σ]ηται, ἀφιέσ̣-
[θ]ω καὶ ἀτελὴς ἔστω ἐξάγων τὰ αὑτοῦ ὑπάρχοντα.
that there will be immunity from taxation in the 44th year. If someone is no longer employed or asks leave, they must be dismissed and be free from taxation when taking their possessions.
Launey interprets the lines as specifying that soldiers leaving service could take their possessions without paying export taxes.Footnote 203 The specifications relating to orphans are more difficult to interpret as a specific benefit.Footnote 204 As argued by Launey, the line should not be read as relating to the provision of money to orphans,Footnote 205 or to their upbringing,Footnote 206 but rather as an assurance that the deceased’s possessions were to go to the next of kin, and not to, for instance, the general.Footnote 207 Military service, therefore, came with some legal protection, alongside indirect social and financial gains.
Overall, the additional benefits and privileges enjoyed by the soldiers are more difficult to pinpoint than their remuneration proper. Nonetheless, some were certainly available, and often took the form of additional gains, alongside benefits of a more social nature.
4.5 Evidence for Living Standards
Precise quantifications of soldiers’ remunerations are impossible to ascertain primarily because of the scarcity of exact figures. The few instances in which precise figures are recorded are problematic in their own right since they occur in a variety of contexts and document single instances across a wide geographical area and a spectrum of labour relations. Nonetheless, the study of real wages is seen as a critical measure of human wellbeing, in so far as it allows for a reconstruction of a labourer’s purchasing power and, by extension, the standards of living.Footnote 208 Scheidel’s study of real wages in ancient and medieval economies crucially shows that, at least in Egypt, real wages peaked in the third and early second centuries.Footnote 209 Although such studies reveal broad trends, they are based on snapshots of a very extensive range of job types over a very lengthy time span. The lack of precise figures for the wages received by the soldiers, as well as for prices of goods beyond a few regions, makes such estimations of real wages unfeasible for the military labourers.
However, standards of living, and thus economic development, can also be gauged by asking ‘whether people were worse off, better off, or in much the same state as before’.Footnote 210 This approach can also be applied to military labour specifically. In order to assess the relative standard of living of those serving in the royal armies, below we compare the levels of wages to those of earlier years, and to those received by soldiers serving in citizen militia. The evidence related to the rates of pay derives from a wide geographical and contextual range and is accordingly varied, but nonetheless indicates that voluntary soldiers of the royal armies were by no means destitute, as appears to have been the case for their pre-Hellenistic counterparts, who received much higher wages than soldiers in contemporary citizen militias.
4.5.1 Military Wages in the Classical Period
The voluntary soldiers of the pre-Hellenistic period, and especially those active in the so-called ‘mercenary boom’ of the late fourth century, are generally viewed as impoverished. Although misthophoroi are often described as ‘soldiers of fortune’, with mercenary service cited as a way out of poverty, paid military service did not automatically provide a high standard of living.Footnote 211 Several figures are available for the mercenary soldiers’ wages, of which an overview is provided by Trundle,Footnote 212 who identifies a range between 7.5 and 2 obols per day.Footnote 213 The higher figure stems from Xenophon’s Anabasis and constitutes the wage promised by Cyrus after the soldiers found out the true nature of the expedition.Footnote 214 The figure of 2 obols, on the other hand, is given in Demosthenes,Footnote 215 but this merely reflects the amount to be paid for the soldiers’ sustenance, while their wages were to be paid out of the booty collected. These widely divergent amounts need to be seen in their appropriate contexts. As argued by Loomis, the high figure was offered under exceptional circumstances, in which the employer had the proverbial wealth of the world to look forward to;Footnote 216 the campaign’s failure, of course, meant that the soldiers never received these wages. Other high figures, such as the wages paid by the Phocians, the rates of which are unknown but which were increased at several junctures, are likewise seen as anomalies.Footnote 217 The figure recorded in Demosthenes, by contrast, did not constitute a wage at all, but rather the bare minimum for sustenance that the increasingly financially pressed Athenians could pay their voluntary forces. Trundle’s range of available wages therefore represents extremes, and perhaps should not be seen as a typical range at all.
Naturally, figures are available for the monies paid to citizen forces, with the standard amount seen as 1 drachma a day.Footnote 218 Trundle argues that it is ‘logical’ that the wages of the voluntary soldiers were linked to those of their citizen counterparts.Footnote 219 Griffith, on the other hand, contends that non-citizen wages must have been lower;Footnote 220 after all, they had incentives beyond remuneration to fight, and were, in fact, partially forced to do so. Two further problems arise in taking citizen wages as equivalent to those of the voluntary soldiers: first, in the pre-Hellenistic period, it is rarely, if at all, clear whether the reported misthoi included rations and wages, or simply covered the soldiers’ foreseen expenses. Second, the citizen soldiers were but seasonal recruits, which may have determined the amount of payments, whatever they may have covered, to be set at the amount required for sustenance while on campaign.
When looking for base pay for those in continuous and voluntary military service, the Athenian navy perhaps provides the best prospect for comparison. The sailors’ terms of service were akin to those of the soldiers of the royal armies, since enlistment was often voluntary, year-round, and waged, while the crew could abandon ship in favour of a better offer.Footnote 221 Nonetheless, in stark contrast to the citizen soldiers, their wages are estimated to be 2–3 obols a day.Footnote 222 In certain circumstances, this figure could be augmented, as happened when the Athenian trierarch Apollodoros enlisted a more competent and voluntary crew by offering advance payments and bonuses, paid for from his private funds.Footnote 223 Of course, privately funded increases were limited by the amount of capital privately available. Lack of competition between potential employers – due either to a lack of demand or to a lack of ability to offer competitive wages – is reflected in the wages accorded to the sailors funded by the Persians on the eve of the Peloponnesian War: although a rate of 1 drachma a day per sailor was asked in order to incentivize enlistment, the pay eventually consisted of a mere 4 obols.Footnote 224 Thus, although the voluntary crews needed incentivizing, the Persians did not need to raise the price by much, indicating that competition for these men’s service was limited at this stage.
Overall, therefore, recorded figures in the pre-Hellenistic period largely leave us in the dark regarding the wages of voluntary forces. The instances of high figures are seen as anomalies, which may even be why they were recorded. Other figures, such as those offered to the citizen soldiers or those proposed by Demosthenes, merely link to the payment for the soldiers’ rations. If the wages of the sailors are indeed the best comparison for those of other voluntary recruits, the characterization of the soldiers as destitute does not seem far-fetched – nor then, does Demosthenes’ suggestion of a mere 2 obols per day which was to be supplemented by potential spoils. In the pre-Hellenistic period, therefore, enrichment through voluntary military service may have been entirely dependent on the success of a campaign and any resultant booty; the employer generally provided for sustenance only.Footnote 225
4.5.2 Military Wages in the Royal Armies: Evidence and Comparison
The changing military labour relations from the rise of Philip II onwards are, however, reflected in significantly different levels of pay. Such certainly is the impression given by ancient characterizations of hired soldiers. Thus, Diodorus attributes the Athenian decision to embark on the Lamian War to those men who had become accustomed to make their livelihood through conflict;Footnote 226 the philosopher Theophrastus, who offers an entertaining series of character sketches, describes one Athenian who boasts of the money he made on campaign with Alexander, and the numerous privileges now offered to him by Antipater;Footnote 227 and in an Idyll by Theocritus, a heartbroken man in need of a distraction is encouraged to enlist in the army of Ptolemy II, who is called ‘a good paymaster’.Footnote 228 Similarly, in Menander’s Samia, a self-obsessed young man threatens to head off to Bactria or Caria to live the life of a soldier.Footnote 229
The qualitative evidence indicates the prospect of wealth for soldiers, yet when looking for precise figures, we are faced with many of the same problems as for earlier periods. The development of the distinction between opsōnion and trophē and its cognates, while indicative of different payment structures, is of use only where specific figures are recorded. Exact figures, however, survive in only a handful of cases, and derive from varied contexts, times, and locations. Apparent fluctuations in the amounts paid during the Successor Wars, as will be discussed below, add to the problems of pinpointing the soldiers’ income. Nonetheless, some indications of their standards of living in comparison to those of contemporary citizen soldiers and of mercenary soldiers of previous years can be inferred from the few instances in which amounts are recorded.
The quantitative evidence for wages in the armies of Philip and Alexander is fickle. Table 4.3 records the reported amounts spent on the latter’s army.
Table 4.3 Military expenditure of Alexander
| Reference | Date | Funds and context | Total amount in talents | Total amount in drachmas |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arr. Anab. 1.26.3 | Alexander requests tribute for army upkeep from Aspendians. | 50 | 300,000 | |
| Arr. Anab. 3.16.10 | 331 | Alexander sends funds to Antipater for the upkeep of troops in the war against the Lacedaemonians. | 3,000 | 18,000,000 |
| Arr. Anab. 3.19.5–8 | 330 | Alexander pays Thessalian troops and makes additional donations. | 2,000 + wages | 12,000,000 + wages |
| Plut. Alex. 42.5 | 2,000 + wages | 12,000,000 + wages | ||
| Diod. Sic. 17.74.5 | Diodorus reports donation of 1 talent to each cavalryman, and 10 minas to each foot soldier.Footnote a | 12,000 | 72,000,000 | |
| Curt. 5.1.45 | 330 | In Babylon, awards are made of 600 drachmas to each Macedonian cavalry man; 500 drachmas to each non-Macedonian cavalryman; 200 drachmas for each Macedonian foot soldier; pay for 2 months for the misthophoroi. | 771 or 1,271 + wagesFootnote b | 4,626,000 or 7,626,000 + wages |
| Curt. 7.5.27 | 329 | Discharge of 900 men; 2 talents for each cavalry man, 3,000 ‘denarii’ to each infantry man. | 1,800 + 3,000 ‘denarii’ for each infantry man | 10,800,000 + 3,000 ‘denarii’ for each infantry man |
| Arr. Anab. 7.5.3 | 324 | Alexander pays soldiers’ debts. | 20,000 | 120,000,000 |
| Diod. Sic. 17.109.1 | 10,000 | 60,000,000 | ||
| Curt. 10.2.9 | 9,870 | 58,680,000 | ||
| Arr. Anab. 7.12.1–3 | 324 | Dismissal of 10,000 veterans, who are awarded a bonus of a talent per person, money for the journey, and outstanding wages. | 10,000 + wages + eisodia (travel money) | 60,000,000 + wages + eisodia (travel money) |
Note. Reference HoltHolt 2016, Appendix 3 provides an overview of Alexander’s reported expenditure that includes non-military costs.
a Diodorus’ total is consistent with the number of troops reported at Diod. Sic. 17.17; the amounts cited by Arrian and Plutarch only refer to the allied forces and are consistent with the reported number of troops.
b The total is based on the troop numbers cited in Diod. Sic. 17.17. Due to the apparent manuscript corruption, the Thessalian cavalry is taken as 800 strong (see Reference BosworthBosworth 1980, 98–9; see Arr. Anab. 1.11.5); the lower total includes only the Macedonian infantry, the higher all types of infantry.
While there are plenty of records detailing Alexander’s expenditure on the army, especially towards the end of his life, uncertainties regarding troops’ composition and the different pay grades make it difficult to use these figures to obtain even a ballpark figure for the soldiers’ individual wages. Ingenious, yet inconclusive attempts have nonetheless been made, particularly in reference to an Athenian decree that seemingly records the wages of the hypaspists.Footnote 230
[․․․․․․12․․․․․․]̣⁷[— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —]
[․․․․․10․․․․․]Ε[․]Ε[— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —]
[․․5․․․]αι π[ο]μπη[— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —]
[․․․․ ε]χειν σῖτο[ν το]ὺς̣ [— — — — — — — — — — — — — — —]
5[․․․․]ιν τῶι ἀνδρ̣[ὶ ἑ]κάσ[τ]ω[ι — — — — — — — — — — — — —]
[․․․․]Ε, ὁπόσοι ἂν [․․]σιν· ἐὰν δ[ὲ — — — — — — — — — — — —]
[․․․․]ΣΙ[․․․․]οθεμ μὲν ἔχειν Σ[— — — — — — — — — — — — —]
[․․․]ος π[․․․]ου Ἀλέξανδρον παρ[— — — — — — — — — — — —]
[․․ ὑ]πασπιστῆι δραχμὴν καὶ τοῖ[ς — — — — — — — — — — — —]
10[․․․]Ι ἑκάστης τῆς ἡμέρας· ἀποπέμ[πειν — — — — — — — — — —]
[․․]ς ἂν χ[ρῶ]νται τῆι στρατιᾶι, ἐάν τι̣[— — — — — — — — — — —]
[δέ]κα ἡμερῶν δόντας σῖτον ἀποπέμπ̣[ειν— — — — — — — —τῆι κοινῆι φ]-
[υλ]ακῆι στῆσαι ἐμ Πύτνηι ἐν τῆς Ἀθη[νᾶς— — — — — — — — — —]
[…] (5) escort … the … shall have rations … for each man … as many as there may be; but if … shall have S … Alexander … a drachma for a hypaspist and for the … (10) … each day; … shall dismiss … when they might use the army, if … shall dismiss them, having given ten days’ rations … the common guards … shall place (the stele) in Pydna in the … (sanctuary) of Athena …
For example, Parke has argued that the wage of the hypaspists amounted to 40 drachmas per month.Footnote 231 It should also be noted that the decree lists rations separately; the amount allocated for this purpose is lost, but the total pay would accordingly have been higher. Based on Demosthenes’ aforementioned proposal,Footnote 232 2–3 obols could speculatively be added for soldiers’ rations. If correct, the hypaspists’ wage would have been noticeably higher than the presumed single drachma a day for the citizen soldiers of Athens. The hypaspists’ elite position within the Macedonian army makes this difference probable. From this, it can be inferred that the wages of the cavalry may have been the same, if not higher, to provide for costs of keeping horses, and that of lower-ranking soldiers slightly less. However, the inscription’s worn state and unknown context make it a difficult basis from which to proceed, leaving open questions as to who was paying this wage and in what context.
Better prospects are offered by military nomenclature reflecting pay, such as the Double-Pay Man or the Ten-Stater Man whom we encounter in Arrian’s Anabasis.Footnote 233 Holt uses this passage as a basis from which to calculate Alexander’s total expenses, but he is quick to point out that such calculations are reliant on too many uncertainties.Footnote 234 Yet, even if the soldiers’ exact monthly wages could be established, the ideal of monthly payments rarely occurred in practice. Payment of wages during Alexander’s campaign, in fact, occurred in only a handful of instances, each of which is associated with intensive minting efforts.Footnote 235 The payment of debt may refer to the debts the soldiers incurred due to a lack of available cash. Alexander’s payment of these debts in 324, in addition to the wages, would then have constituted a doubling of his expenses at that point. The many bonuses awarded either army-wide or for individual efforts should also be borne in mind.
The reported expenditure in the armies of the Successors, of which examples are listed in Table 4.4, is likewise substantial.
Table 4.4 Military expenditure of the Successors
| Reference | Date | Context and funds | Employer | Total amount in talents | Total amount in drachmas |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Diod. Sic. 17.108.7 | 323 | Harpalos takes 5,000 talents to enrol 6,000 misthophoroi (has 7,000 troops at Diod. Sic. 18.19.2). | Harpalos/Alexander | 5,000 | 30,000,000 |
| Diod. Sic. 18.4.1 | 323 | Ptolemy collects misthophoroi with money in Egyptian treasury. | Ptolemy | 8,000 | 48,000,000 |
| Diod. Sic. 18.19.4 | 322 | Cyrenians give Ptolemy 500 talents for troops and half their chariots. | Ptolemy | 500 | 3,000,000 |
| Diod. Sic. 18.52.7 | 319 | Antigonus seizes money on the way to Kings in Macedonia for his misthophoroi. | Antigonus | 600 | 3,600,000 |
| Diod. Sic. 18.58.1 | 318 | Eumenes receives funds from Olympias and Polyperchon, and permanent access to the treasury as required to pay his soldiers. | Eumenes | 500 + | 3,000,000+ |
| Diod. Sic. 19.20.5 | 317 | Pithon brings funds from the royal treasury to Antigonus in Media. | Antigonus | 500 | 3,000,000 |
| Diod. Sic. 19.56 | 316 | Antigonus collects 10,000 talents from Cyinda to pay troops; his additional revenue is reported as 11,000 talents. | Antigonus | 21,000 | 126,000,000 |
| Diod. Sic. 19.57.6; 19.60.1 | 315 | Antigonus sends Aristodemos with funds to Peloponnesus to recruit misthophoroi, bringing back 8,000. | Antigonus | 1,000 | 6,000,000 |
| Diod. Sic. 19.61.5 | 315 | Antigonus gives Alexander funds to recruit misthophoroi in the Peloponnese. | Antigonus | 500 | 3,000,000 |
| Diod. Sic. 20.75.1 | 306 | Ptolemy pays 1 talent to each commander, and 10 minas to each common soldier willing to desert Antigonus. | Ptolemy | N/AFootnote a | N/A |
| Diod. Sic. 20.108.1 | 302 | Antigonus compensates athletes for cancellation of games and pays the soldiers their outstanding wages of three months. | Antigonus | 200 + wages | 1,200,000 + wages |
| Diod. Sic. 20.108.3 | 302 | Antigonus carries a 3,000 talent emergency fund. | Antigonus | 3,000 | 18,000,000 |
a According to Ptolemy’s letter to his allies, ‘a larger number’ deserted (Diod. Sic. 20.76.6).
The numbers reported in the latter category, while indicative of the massive amounts spent on recruitment and upkeep, unfortunately reveal little about exact wages: either the number of forces or the length of their service is missing. Apparently significant fluctuations in the price of military labour likewise hinder generalization.Footnote 236 The amount spent on the recruitment of voluntary forces might be given, but it reveals little when the methods, arrears, and scales of payment are unknown – although it does signal again the enormous amounts of money spent by the kings on their military.
The literary record preserves one exact figure related to Hellenistic military wages. According to Polybius, Ptolemy V employed a group of voluntary forces and their commander at a rate of 1 mina per day for the common soldiers, and 10 minas for the their leader, which was paid in addition to their ordinary pay.Footnote 237 The wages reported by Polybius are so high as to be considered improbable, but it should be noted that the Ptolemies did mint mnaieia or 100-drachma coins from Ptolemy II Philadelphus onwards.Footnote 238 Military employers were in reality willing to increase wages as their demand for soldiers rocketed, and this development will have inevitably increased the price of military labour. Indeed, Ptolemy I, for instance, is said to have offered a bonus of up to 1 talent for each commander, and 2 minas for each ordinary soldier, to induce them to defect from Antigonus.Footnote 239
Our best data for wages under the Successors come from an inscribed decree recording the alliance of c. 303–302 between Antigonus and Demetrius and their Greek allies – the so-called League of Corinth.Footnote 240 The decree details the various responsibilities of the League’s members, including the provision of troops. Concerning the latter requirement, however, the decree stipulates that payment, instead of men, could also be sent. These figures, listed in Table 4.5, can be seen as the base cost of a soldier, and would have allowed the Antigonids to make up numbers by hiring volunteers.
Table 4.5 Troop-replacement costs in the Hellenic Alliance, 303/302
| Troop type | Amount to be paid per day per man |
|---|---|
| Cavalry | 50 drachmas (‘hemimnaios’) |
| Hoplites | 20 drachmas |
| Light-armed troops | 10 drachmas |
| Sailors | 10 drachmas |
These figures are high in comparison to those found in earlier periods, when, as we have seen, Cyrus’ promised 1.5 drachmas per day is seen as excessive. Of course, it could be argued that the rates specified were increased in order to deter allies from not sending troops; however, in comparison to other rates reported for the Successor armies, these amounts do not seem excessive. Furthermore, the stipulation according to which capital could be sent instead of troops was fairly common: the conditions of the alliance between Sparta and her neighbours of 382, as preserved in Xenophon’s Hellenica, stipulate that members could avoid supplying troops in exchange for 3 Aeginetan obols (or 4.3 Attic obols) per foot soldier per day, and four times that rate for a cavalryman.Footnote 241 Crucially, a fine for failing to provide either, and thus the mechanism to deter non-compliance, is listed separately as 1 stater (or 2 drachmas) per day for each missing man.Footnote 242
In contrast, wages for citizen soldiers on garrison duty in the third century are recorded in an agreement between the Ionian cities of Teos and Kyrbissos.Footnote 243 Here, the specified amounts are 4 Alexandrian drachmas for a commander, and 1 drachma for ordinary troops.Footnote 244 Furthermore, it should be noted that the commander, whose service was to be continuous for four months, needed to have possessions worth at least 4 talents,Footnote 245 indicating that financial restrictions on military service remained in place and that the wages offered to those in constant service are unlikely to have been high enough to support them in the acquisition of necessities. While the wages at Teos and Kyrbissos may only have covered sustenance, the difference in amount between wages in civic armies and those of the Successors is nonetheless vast.
This difference seems to have persisted in later years, as indicated by two alliances in which the provision of payment in lieu of men is preserved; as shown in Table 4.6, the amounts remain small in comparison to those attested for the royal armies.
Table 4.6 Troop-replacement costs in Crete and Rhodes, early second century
| Reference and date | Poleis | Rank | Daily rateFootnote a |
|---|---|---|---|
| I.Cr. iii.iii.3, ll. 26–30, early second century | Hierapytna and Crete | Commander | 2 (Rhodian?) drachmas |
| Common soldier | 9 Rhodian obols | ||
| SEG 23:547, ll. 39–40, 201/200 | Crete and Olous | Commander | 2 Olountian drachmas |
| Common soldier | 3 Rhodian obols |
Note. See I.Cr. iii.iii.3, ll. 26–30 and SEG 23:547, ll. 39–40, respectively. See Reference CravenCraven 2017, 63–6, 194–219 for discussion of these documents as summachia.
a Based on the weight of a Rhodian drachma post-225 (see Reference Ashton, Meadows and ShiptonAshton 2001, 88; Ashton 2004, 97–8) of 2.5–2.8 gr, that gives the equivalent of c. 1.16–1.3 drachmas on the Attic Standard for a commander, and c. 5.8 for a regular soldier in I.Cr. iii.iii.3, and 1.94 drachmas in SEG 23:547. The standard of Olous is more difficult; see Reference SvoronosSvoronos 1890, 248–50.
While Trundle argues that civic military payments should be seen as equal to those of the voluntary forces, the Hellenistic evidence shows that this is not the case. As discussed, the changing labour relations and thus the need for additional incentives to enlist may have increased the price of a voluntary soldier.
The same holds good for the figures in the Ptolemaic army.Footnote 246 The wages are assumed to have peaked in the third century but generally allowed for a decent standard of living.Footnote 247 In the mid-second century, for instance, a certain Apollonios, brother of Ptolemaios the recluse of Memphis, is said to have received 1,800 copper drachmas a year for his opsōnion, in addition to 12 artabas of wheat and 24 artabas at a subsidized rate of 100 drachmas per artaba.Footnote 248 While this income has been seen as low due to the increased wheat prices in the year 160–159, when an artaba of wheat cost between 250 and 340 drachmas,Footnote 249 this need not mean it was not still desirable. As discussed by Fischer-Bovet, inexperienced soldiers such as Apollonios nonetheless made enough to support an additional person,Footnote 250 and his tenacity in securing the position, as detailed in the document, indicates that this remained a sought-after career.
The available data defy full and precise quantification. However, the rates known, combined with the qualitative evidence, including the emergence of the literary trope of the miles gloriosus and the numerous known examples of individuals willing to enlist in the royal armies, indicate that military service was a career deemed profitable. When addressing his despondent men at Opis 324, Alexander rightly emphasized the increased quality of life they all enjoyed.Footnote 251 While he may have done so simply to appease his troops, this assessment of a soldier’s life was probably not far off the mark in later years, when remuneration for service became the norm. While this should, of course, be related to changes in labour relations, Chapter 5 will show that the significant increase in rates attested should be explained in light of the development of market mechanisms in determining the price of military labour power.
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