A MYCENAEAN CONUNDRUM

In the last post I took the first steps towards composing an army list for the Achaean army of the Trojan War. At that time I thought that I had a rough idea of what an Achaean army may look like; now, after a bit more digging around, I’m not so sure.

In this post I want to examine some of the available evidence but first I need to define some dates. However, it is worth pointing out that dates in this era can only be very approximate; not only that but dates quoted in different sources can also vary considerably.

In an earlier post I introduced the ‘Helladic’ system of dating; the Mycenaean era (c. 1600–1100 BC) more or less corresponds to the Late Helladic phase of the Bronze Age in Greece. Another dating system for the Mycenaean era divides the period into 3 parts by reference to the period of palace building, i.e. Pre Palatial, Palace and Post Palatial periods. The accompanying table shows how these periods are related to some important events of the era.

Period		Approx. Date	Places & Events
MH		2000 – 1550 BC	Destruction of Thera
LHI	Pre Palatial period 1550 – 1350 BC	1550 – 1500 BC	Mycenaean Grave Circle A Mycenaeans at Knossos
LHIIA		1500 – 1450 BC
LHIIB		1450 – 1400 BC
LHIIIA1		1400 – 1350 BC	Destruction of Knossos
LHIIIA2	Palace period 1350 – 1200 BC	1350 – 1300 BC
LHIIIB1		1300 – 1230 BC	Battle of Kadesh Destruction of Troy VIh Lion Gate at Mycenae
LHIIIB2		1230 – 1190 BC	Mycenaean Warrior Vase Destruction Mycenaean palaces Destruction Troy VIIa Ramesses III defeats Sea People
LHIIIC (Early)	Post palatial or sub Mycenaean Post 1200 BC	1190 – 1130 BC
LHIIIC (Middle)		1130 – 1090 BC
LHIIIC (Late)		1090 – 1060 BC

For this project I will be largely concerned with the end of the Mycenaean era; the Trojan War is typically dated somewhere in the region of c. 1260 – 1180 BC and the so called Bronze Age collapse c. 1200 – 1150 BC.

So now that I have defined the time period involved let’s have a look at how others have interpreted the available evidence.

For this I have relied on the following sources:

‘Armies of the Ancient Near East’ (Stillman and Tallis)

‘The Mycenaeans c. 1650-1100 BC’ (Grguric).

‘Henchmen of Ares’ (Brouwers)

‘Palace warriors: the end of Mycenaean civilisation in Greece’ (Brouwers; http://www.academia.edu/6940826/Palace_warriors_the_end_of_Mycenaean_civilisation_in_Greece)

For this post I’m going to restrict the discussion to a description of ‘heavy’ infantry; by which I mean those infantry expected to engage in hand to hand combat.

Theran Fresco

Mycenaean Rhyton

Mycenaean 'Lion Hunt' dagger

The aforementioned authors appear to be in agreement that the early Mycenaean army was Minoan influenced and that the bulk of the infantry were spearmen, wielding long two-handed spears and equipped with large body-shields, of both the so-called ‘Tower’ and ‘Figure of Eight’ type. These are nicely represented on frescoes from Thera (modern Santorini) and artefacts from Mycenaean grave circle A, dating to early in the Pre-Palatial period.

Pylos 'Tarzan' fresco

Grguric postulates a dramatic change in armament to infantry armed with small shields and short spears in about 1300 BC. Brouwers also points to a change in armament in the Palatial period to much more lightly equipped troops, based on the C13th frescoes from the palaces of Mycenae, Pylos and Tiryns. He also points out that no shields (bar one dubious example) are shown on the later frescoes which instead show helmeted warriors armed primarily with swords. This is exemplified by the so-called ‘Tarzan fresco’ from Pylos. In addition, Grguric uses the Pylos frescoes to propose the existence of light swordsmen as a distinct troop type.

Mycenaean 'Warrior Vase'

From the Post Palatial era there are images of Mycenaean infantry wearing horned helmets and carrying short spears and crescent shaped shields, most famously depicted on the ‘Warrior vase’ from Mycenae.

The evidence from either end of the period seems clear enough: either long spears and body shield or short spears and small shield. However, the Pylos frescoes create something of a conundrum. Frankly, I don’t buy the concept of unshielded swordsmen. We don’t really know the meaning of the Pylos frescoes and some scholars even argue that these are not true representations of everyday life being more decorative in nature. That aside, assuming the frescoes are illustrative of reality, what other interpretation could we put upon them? Well it strikes me that they illustrate a form of irregular warfare against ‘barbarians’ in inhospitable terrain; notice the river running through the scene. Could it not be that they have discarded their shields in favour of greater mobility? Of course this would suggest our hypothetical shields were on the large side. If equipped with a body shield then the Pylos warriors would look little different from those of the Pre-Palatial era.

Delos ivory

Tiryns fragment

In fact there is evidence to suggest that body shield were still used in the Palace period. An ivory plate from Delos (LH IIIA/B) shows a warrior with a boar’s tusk helmet and figure-of-eight shield.

Similarly, a pottery fragment from Tiryns (LH IIIB) shows both a tower shield and a figure- of- eight shield. Again the warrior is equipped with a boar’s tusk helmet but is wielding a short spear or javelin, rather than the earlier long spear.

Even if this seems a tad speculative there is also a slight suggestion that small round shields were in use during the Palace Period.

Tiryns krater

Pylos fresco

A possible early representation of a round shield is from a fresco fragment from Pylos (LH IIIB). However, it has been suggested that this is a hunting scene and the fragment is too small to be certain that there is a shield present. Nevertheless, 2 warriors with small round shields are shown on a krater from Tiryns (LH IIIB2).

Luckily, all of the above may be a red herring in any case. The Pylos frescoes are unlikely to show the most up to date images at the point that the palace was destroyed. Similarly, the ‘Warrior Vase’ is likely to show images of troop equipment in use before the vase was made. This by my reckoning easily puts it into the potential time of the Trojan War.

LISTS

‘But how to get there, Mr Sharpe? Lists.

And how to be noted ye were there? Lists.

And what do they send home but lists of

dead, dying, sick, honoured and gazetted, Captain?’

(Sharpe’s Company)

 I’m sure that the Gentlemen of the club will excuse the blatant use of mixed metaphor but, in my defence, whilst I have been reading the Iliad, I have also been painting for Sharpe Practice 2. The point is though, I feel that it is time to look at some Bronze Age army lists; and as Uriah has so rightly pointed out we all like a good army list. At this stage, I’m not going to attempt a full blown army composition but simply want to get an idea of the different troop types involved. Ultimately, this will influence any future figure purchases, so I want to at least give it a bit of thought.

It will probably come as no surprise that I’m going to start with the Iliad. Unfortunately, this brings us face to face with the ‘Homeric Question’. This is actually a whole series of questions going back as far as classical antiquity and still debated today. Most of the pertinent themes can be encompassed by ‘who was Homer and when did he write?’ For our purposes this can be expressed as, ‘how much of the Iliad truly reflects the Bronze Age?’ It would be naïve to expect that the Iliad has survived intact and unaltered from the Bronze Age but the million dollar question is ‘how much of the poem is actually from a later date?’ Certainly scholars have spotted anachronisms in the poem, in its current form, but does that mean we should dismiss the whole work? Strauss has argued, in his ‘The Trojan War. A New History’, that ‘…overly sceptical scholars have thrown out the baby with the bathwater’, and I tend to agree. Or perhaps, in a completely cavalier fashion, I just want it to be true; it’s such a good story after all! Either way, for this exercise, I’m going to assume that there is a large kernel of truth to the story. In any case, as this is a war gaming project, does it really matter; think of it as a Bronze Age ImagiNations project and we’re sorted.

My first port of call (no pun intended – honest) was the so-called catalogue of ships. This appears in Book 2 and is an astonishing section of the Iliad, in which Homer lists the contingents of the Achaean army that sailed to Troy. The list is so long and detailed (more than 250 lines long) that some have proposed an origin in something akin to the Linear B tablets, so beloved of Mycenaean bureaucracy. The list details which towns and cities sent troops, the number of ships and the names of their leaders. This tells us that the Achaean army consisted of 29 contingents, from 190 locations, under 46 captains commanding 1186 ships. This is a huge number of ships and I’m not sure I believe this; however, one of the really interesting things about this list is that it apparently contains many places that no longer existed at the time the poem was written. Hence, this could well be a snapshot of the geopolitical situation in Late Bronze Age Greece.

ACHAEAN AND TROJAN ALLIES FROM THE ILIAD
By Pinpin - Inspiré de la carte "ACHAEANS and TROJANS" du site de Carlos Parada, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2830268

For the geographers out there (yes I’m looking at you Uriah), there is even an interesting academic research project that digitally maps the catalogue of ships; which is nice!

http://ships.lib.virginia.edu/

The Iliad also contains a corresponding list of Trojan allies but for now I’m going to focus on the Achaeans.

Looking at this list, my first thought was ‘here is a ready-made army list’. However, in retrospect, it doesn’t really help as it only tells us the names of the different contingents. We do learn something about the relative size of the contingents and the capacity of the ships but nothing about how the different contingents were equipped. The sole exception is the contingent led by Philoctetes, which consisted of 7 ships, each with 50 oarsmen who were also archers.

So it’s back to the main body of the text for further details. From this we can see that the leaders and heroes usually come equipped with chariots. As for the masses, they fight on foot and seem to be predominately equipped with spear and shield. Thrown weapons feature very heavily and warriors often appear to carry two spears. Swords are mentioned fairly frequently but nowhere near as often as spears and they are definitely seen as secondary weapons. There are also a couple of rare instances of axes. Bronze abounds in heaps throughout the poem; spearheads, arrow heads, swords, helmets, corselets and shield facings are all bronze. The leading fighters of both sides appear to be armoured but there may also be a hint of lesser equipped troops, although I’m not too sure on the latter. Missile troops appear on both sides and seem to be unarmoured. The Locrian contingent, led by the Lesser Ajax, was unarmoured, lacking helmets and fought with bow and sling.

So now we have a description of our Bronze Age troop types, according to the Iliad, how does this compare to depictions in popular rule systems?

For this I’m going to take a leaf from Uriah’s book and start with the industry standard, i.e. DBA (I also had a quick peak at DBM and FoG but I suspect they all hark back to some original WRG list anyway).

Achaean: General (LCh // 4Bd), 3 Heroic charioteers (LCh // 4Bd), 4 Spearmen (Sp), 2 Spearmen (Sp) or Pylians (4Pk), 1 Myrmidons (4Wb) or javelinmen (Ps), 1 javelinmen, archers or slingers (Ps)

Trojan: General (LCh // 4Bd), 3 Heroic charioteers (LCh // 4Bd), 4 Spearmen (Sp), 1 Spearmen (Sp) or Lukka (3Bd), 1 archers (3Bw or Ps), 2 javelinmen, archers or slingers (Ps)

Both the Achaean and Trojan lists are very similar; which is fine as there is little to distinguish the two sides in the Iliad. Both seem to consist of chariots, spearmen, light infantry and one or two ‘special’ units. The chariots comprise a quarter of the army which seems a tad high and something that I will probably explore at a later date. On the plus side the charioteers can dismount as an element of ‘blades’; in DBA terms these are solid close fighting infantry primarily skilled in fighting with swords, better armoured than other foot and often adding supplementary missile weapons. Half the Achaean army (slightly less for the Trojans) consists of spearmen; representing solid close formation infantry fighting with spears in a rigid shield wall. A quarter of the Trojan army (slightly less for the Achaeans) comprise light infantry (psiloi); javelin men, archers or slingers. The Trojans may field one of these as bows; ‘fast’ foot formed in bodies and shooting at longer range than psiloi.

This only leaves the ‘special’ units. For the Trojans a unit of spearmen may be replaced by Lukka, fielded as ‘fast’ Blades. By contrast the Achaeans may swap a couple of units of spearmen for Pylian pikemen and a unit of javelin men for Myrmidons, fielded as solid warband. Apparently the latter represent wild irregular foot relying on a ferocious impetuous charge but keeping a shield wall in adversity.

So now we have two portrayals of the armies of the Trojan wars, the next step will be to look at the archaeology and see how that fits in with the above descriptions. However, that is for another day.

Uriah recruits a second Bronze Age host.

The second tranche of my Bronze Age project has been a compromise.  I was torn between building the Sea Peoples or the Canaanites.   In the end I sort of did both and neither.  A third tranche will obviously be necessary… but  won't need to be as large.  Once again I went for Wargames Foundry.  They meet my requirements exactly, and in terms of 28mm (25mm really) figures are something special.  I will replace the pictures with those of my own figures as soon as I can.

The order was for 13 packs, and you better start blinking now, because once again the cost was eye watering.

Product #1: Sea People with Tight Turbans (Teresh) - SEA017/1 @ £12.00
Product #2: Sea People in Helmets (Ekwesh, Weshwesh, Lukka) - SEA015/1 @ £12.00
Product #3: Sea People in Crowed Leather Helmets (Peleset, Tjekker, Denven) - SEA013/1 @ £12.00
Product #4: Sea People in Horned Helmets(Sherden) - SEA012/1 @ £12.00
Product #5: Sea People Command - SEA011/1 @ £12.00
Product #6: Canaanite Command - CSM001/1 @ £12.00
Product #7: Canaanite Spearmen 2 - CSM006/1 @ £12.00
Product #8: Canaanite Armoured Chariot 1 - CSM011/1 @ £14.00
Product #9: Canaanite Light Chariot 1 - CSM014/1 @ £14.00
Product #10: Canaanite Light Chariot 2 - CSM015/1 @ £14.00
Product #11: Egyptian Light Chariot 1 - E032/1 @ £14.00
Product #12: Egyptian Command Chariot 1 - E035/1 @ £14.00
Product #13: Egyptian Light Chariot 2 - E034/1 @ £14.00

The last three chariots complete my Egyptians, the biggest of my Bronze Age armies, and will form my second chariot squadron “Ptah,” for Sword and Spear.  I cheated a little and had already boosted my original Foundry Egyptians with some North star ‘Kadesh’ range Sherden Guard, Spearmen and bowmen.  They are significantly taller than my Foundry figures, but will be forming my elite foot units.

The New Kingdom Egyptians will be an impressively large army, pretty much the mainstay of my Bronze Age project.

Old Nestor, drafted into the Sea Peoples.

The Sea Peoples part of the order is for 40 figures, three of the five warbands I will need, plus the command figures and chariot swap-out warriors.  I already have a Sheklesh warband, who will double as (and according to Rohl are obviously the same as….) Shassu Bedouin, as well as Sheklesh skirmishers.  Lastly I can field three chariots, after adding old Nestor and his streakers (a pack of Mycenean skirmishers… tiny tackle out…)   All of that leaves the Sea Peoples pretty close to complete, perhaps with another couple of packs in the third order.  (More Peleset probably.)

For the Canaanites I decided that I really only needed the core starter force.  Three chariots, 8 command and 8 spearmen. From this I can probably fudge together a spear levy unit, some skirmishers and a single chariot squadron.  The Shassu can obviously support the Canaanites, so my next, and hopefully last order for the Bronze Age will be to boost the Canaanites by another six chariots, as well as the finishing bits and pieces I will need, including some cattle, goats and a Nile crocodile.

The Hittites are probably a step too far for my project.  After deep consideration I will rely on their Canaanite allies to battle the Egyptians, possibly with an Anatolian Prince or two (ok so the Sea Peoples) lending support on behalf of the empire.

My big money saver is a box of 1:72 Caesar Miniatures Nubians. Against a standard 28mm figure they look like pygmies.  Beside the essentially 25mm Foundry the 23 mm tall plastics look pretty similar if slightly slimmer, and I will take the trouble to boost the height of the base by a millimeter or so.  The plastic Nubians come 42 to a box, enough to make a reasonable force, warband, bow and skirmishers, for 8 quid.

I have a lot of painting to do before I can get to that first game.

Diet Coke, Chariots and the Divine Julius.

A full Committee meeting of the Marshal Petain Club was recently convened in a local hostelry.  As club Treasurer I was on chariot driving duty, and during a discussion of the Iliad in a moment of diet coke driven clarity, I pointed out that there was actually an account from a reliable (almost) source, of a similar style of chariot warfare to that of old Homer’s verse, but that it gave a different view of those heroics.  It outlines the role of the chariot in battle, not as simply a ceremonial transport for its heroic owner.   Actually it reports the viewpoint of a regular professional army meeting chariot riding heroes of a similar vein to Achilles and his mates.  

The divine Julius is one of the only generals from Antiquity who left us his direct account of fighting against chariot warriors.  His analysis of their use is invaluable but bears close scrutiny.  Of course, given that this is Caesar’s military and more importantly political memoir, it must be read with caution.  Caesar is reporting one of his few defeats, yet he was voted twenty days of festivals by the Senate for his exotic fictionalised victory.  Chariots formed part of this exotica, and recalled the days of 150 years before when Celtic armies using chariots had threatened Rome itself.

He describes an ambush on the men of the 7th Legion, out gathering supplies. (By his orders!) who were attacked by a larger force of British chariots and cavalry

… then attacking them suddenly, scattered as they were, and when they had laid aside their arms, and were engaged in reaping, they killed a small number, threw the rest into confusion, and surrounded them with their cavalry and chariots.

The chariots seem to have disordered the Romans, who were disordered anyway, and who had been isolated from the main Roman body.  They inflicted some casualties upon them, before Julius rescues his careless boys from his own mistake.

Caesar breaks off his narrative to supply some analysis of the use of chariots, and it seems to fall into two phases:

[4.33]Their mode of fighting with their chariots is this: firstly, they drive about in all directions and throw their weapons and generally break the ranks of the enemy with the very dread of their horses and the noise of their wheels;

He seems to be describing a swarm of irregular troops.  The emphasis is on speed.  The initial contact has perhaps an emphasis on the throwing of javelins (more literally in translation "firing their darts"), and the use of morale effects of the proximity of chariots and their sound, in an attempt to break the enemy formation.  It seems clear that the “enemy” being referred to here are Roman horsemen, or isolated groups.  Celtic chariots are a weapon to be used against opportunistic targets or enemy horsemen, not formed Roman legionaries.  They also use mounted firepower, at least initially, until they close in for melee:

...and when they have worked themselves in between the troops of horse, leap from their chariots and engage on foot. The charioteers in the meantime withdraw some little distance from the battle, and so place themselves with the chariots that, if their masters are overpowered by the number of the enemy, they may have a ready retreat to their own troops. Thus they display in battle the speed of horse, [together with] the firmness of infantry;

There is an echo perhaps of “heroic” warfare in this.  Dismounting is however mentioned elsewhere by Caesar, as a tactic used by “savage” German cavalry, and by cavalry in these societies we mean nobility.  Aggressive foot getting among disordered cavalry caused real problems.  The speed of the chariots seems to be the factor that allows this.

Caesar also recounts:

and by daily practice and exercise attain to such expertness that they are accustomed, even on a declining and steep place, to check their horses at full speed, and manage and turn them in an instant and run along the pole, and stand on the yoke, and thence betake themselves with the greatest celerity to their chariots again.

This has always confused me, and the Penguin edition I first read years ago translated it in a similar way.   It seems on face value to be claiming that the chariot warriors could remount by running along the chariot pole, ie… from the front of the vehicle.   I'm not sure that makes sense, or even that this is the meaning.   If he is retreating, as Caesar says, then he would surely want the chariot pointing away from the guys chasing him. Looking at a bare translation:

and in a short time and spurred on his horse down the steep place,
and in the run through the pole and the yoke of the bend, and to regulate the speed vehemently, and to depart from it and in the car in the shortest possible accustomed to betake themselves.

Not as clear I think.  Perhaps on a different reading the warrior can dismount from the front, over the yoke incredibly rapidly, after the driver does an emergency stop, even on a steep slope, and that the vehicle can be turned rapidly emphasising the maneuverability of the chariot itself.  It seems to me that the Celts practice these maneuvers, indicating a degree of martial prowess.  Interesting that this is the practice he emphasises rather than throwing the darts.

Another writer, the Greek Historian Diodorus Siculus almost echoes Caesar, or more probably uses Julius account to write:

"In their journeyings and when they go into battle the Gauls use chariots drawn by two horses, which carry the charioteer and the warrior; and when they encounter cavalry in the fighting they first hurl their javelins at the enemy and then step down from their chariots and join battle with their swords.  Certain of them despise death to such a degree that they enter the perils of battle without protective armour and with no more than a girdle about their loins. They bring along to war also their free men to serve them, choosing them out from among the poor, and these attendants they use in battle as charioteers and as shield-bearers

My interest in Julius account stems from my current army building phase.  The Bronze Age Egyptian chariots are being constructed, and I am more than curious to find out their use in battle.  Caesar gives us some clues, but allows us to see some differences.

The primary weapon of a Maryannu was a bow.  Egyptian chariots carried a good supply of arrows and the prowess of their professional crew was such that unlike the Celts, who emphasise the practice of individual warrior heroes, the Bronze Age Egyptians trained in terms of firepower, and teamwork.

Caesar’s account of the speed and maneuverability of the Briton’s chariots is interesting.  These vehicles, like those of the Egyptians, were light and fast.  A Libyan or Caananite bowman would need to be good, lucky or numerous to hit one of these.  The Hittite’s use of spearmen as chariot crew at Qadesh surprised the Egyptians, yet the Pharaoh was not defeated… quite.  Indeed Egyptian chariot warriors would have a spear as a backup weapon. Running around outside the chariot however… well the Egyptians had a more sophisticated answer than that in their chariot runners.

Like the Celt’s use of chariots to attack Caesar’s horse, I suspect that Egyptian chariots were a weapon used against enemy mounted troops… other chariots, and to ride down isolated groups using their speed.  Skilled horse mounted bowmen can be tremendously accurate, and the trained and professional Maryannu from a more stable platform than a horse's back would have been quite deadly.

If the Celt’s use of chariots echoes the heroic fighting of the Iliad then it seems the Egyptians resemble more the professionalism of the Romans themselves.  Probably...

Now Mr Uriah Sir,  when I slap the rail of the chariot I want you to behave as if a member of the public has stepped out into the chariot’s path, and do an emergency stop.  Ready…

Slap.

Bloody hell man you just ran over him at full speed… ah… you're  a Hittite aren't you!

No sign of Ian Gillan at the Derby World Championships

As the wargaming ambassador to Cyprus I arranged my visit back to the UK to coincide with the Wargames World Championships at Derby.   Since I am the only member of the MPGC visiting the Midlands at the moment I felt that it was my responsibility to have a look into the convention and see what was what.

Firstly it's not actually at Derby.  The venue is the exhibition hall at Castle Donnington race track, right beside the East Midlands airport.  This is not the first time I have ventured into this particular racing track.  In 1982, as a young and be-haired student I went to Monsters of Rock, and I have only the most vague memories of seeing some of my heroes, Gillan and Hawkwind.

I spent the entire weekend intoxicated on Kestrel 3% lager… quite an achievement in itself.

The day of the wargames show was typical Midlands weather, bleedin’ miserable rain.  Having returned from Cyprus yesterday I felt the freezing cold and heavy drizzle acutely.  The exhibition hall is much bigger than the shows I usually attend.  For me Gateshead is large, but this one was significantly larger with a much greater number of traders.  I spent a couple of hours touring the tables, curious as to which rules were being used, and openly checking out the figures being used.   Lots of 15mm games, and Essex were well represented. As for the rules: WRG 6th, WRG 7th, DBMNMNMMN, SAGA, Armati, Impetus. By far the most games were Ancients, but there were some moderns too.

I loved the Napoleonic divisional size display game, first one I saw on going in, and voted for it in the “vote for your favourite game.”  

I had a clear idea of what I wanted in terms of purchases too.  I wanted to add a Sea Peoples chariot and some skirmishers for my Bronze Age project.  What I got was old Nestor in his Mycenaean chariot, and a gang of streakers to back him up.   As well as these I found a couple of the Pendraken 10mm Normandy buildings.

The Toofatlardies were there demo-ing a game, great stuff.  I'm not in any sense a tournament gamer, but I really enjoyed watching some of the games progressing.

Some criticisms: The venue was so big that I lost the Pendraken stall, having seen it on the way in, and it took me an hour to find it again.  My fault I suppose.  I was also disappointed in the stock that Foundry were carrying.  I would have spent more but there were very few Bronze Age packs available.  The sheer quantity of utterly brilliant toys on display left me astonished, and I'm maintaining my resolve to keep my wargaming within the range of the projects I have going.

Rock God Ian Gillan.

All in all an interesting experience.  I'm not sure if I will go again next year, and to be honest I’ll probably be in Cyprus.  Still I really enjoyed it. 

No Ian Gillan there though!