Hellenistic warfare

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 29. Chapters: Battles of the Hellenistic era, Hellenistic armies, Hellenistic-era warships, Gallic invasion of the Balkans, Seleucid army, Antigonid Macedonian army, Syrian Wars, Roman-Syrian War, Battle of Thermopylae, Macedonian Wars, Babylonian War, Ptolemaic army. Excerpt: The Hellenistic armies is the term applied to the armies of the successor kingdoms which emerged after the death of Alexander the Great. After his death, Alexander's huge empire was torn between his successors, the Diadochi. During the Wars of the Diadochi the Macedonian army, as developed by Alexander and Philip II, gradually adopted new units and tactics, further developing Macedonian warfare. The armies of the Diadochi bear few differences from that of Alexander but during the era of the Epigonoi (Successors), the differences were obvious, favoring numbers over quality and weight over maneuverability. The limited availability of Greek conscripts in the east led to increasing dependence on mercenary forces, whereas in the west, Hellenistic armies were continuously involved in wars, which soon exhausted local manpower, paving the way to Roman supremacy. The major Hellenistic states were Seleucid Empire, Ptolemaic Egypt, the Antigonid kingdom (Macedonia), smaller states: Attalid Pergamum, Pontus, Epirus, the Achaean League, the Aetolian League, Syracuse, and other states (like Athens, Sparta etc.). Hellenic soldiers The Diadochi were capable of deploying some of the largest armies of their day, and could easily outmatch the numerical strength of either Phillip II or Alexander's Macedonian full strength contingents. However, the size of the armies participating in different campaigns could vary extremely, from a few thousand to over 70.000. Of these armies, outside Greece, only a fraction would have been of Greek origin, the rest being allied contingents and conscripts from the local population. The lack of manpower was a serious concern for many Hellenistic rulers. In fact 'the disparity between manpower reserves available to Rome and to any Hellenistic monarch had profound influence on the way in which the opponents made war'. Roman generals could more easily risk defeat in battle, while for Hellenistic generals a defeat might cripple their manpower base for nearly