Syracruse at the time of the Pyrrhic and Punic wars

[DeCoucy]

First post here with a question.

I'm painting up a Syracusan army with a view to using it either for the Pyrrhic or Punic wars. The general consensus seems to be that the core of the Syracusan army remained hoplites over this period even though the city states on Greece itself had moved over to armies based around either Thureophoroi or Macedonian style pikes. So far, so good, and this makes sense in a western Mediterranean military context alongside the Libyan spearmen used by Carthage and Roman use of heavy spearmen reflected in the Triari (and, in earlier periods, in the Hastati). The hoplite core would be supplemented by Spanish, Gallic, and Itallian mercenary foot.

However, Syracuse also made good use of cavalry for a greek city state. In earlier periods (e.g. the Peloponnesian war) these would appear to be typical Greek cavalry of the time - shieldless, armed with light spears and/or javelins, and possibly armoured.

By the time of Pyrrhus greek cavalry had changed. Pyrrhus, Macedonia, the Selucids, and Ptolemys used sarissa armed lancers. Italian cavalry at this time seems to have been shielded, as does gallic and spanish cavalry. What I'm looking for is information on Syracusan cavalry at the time of Pyrrhus or the Punic wars. Syracusan light cavalry is presumably Tarantine (shielded, unarmoured, javelins) but what about the heavier horse. Would it be expected to follow the traditional greek model (armoured, shieldless, javelins/light spear) or a more western Mediterranean model (armoured, shielded, light spear)?  I presume the latter is more likely, but am having trouble tracking down any  clear evidence.

Help?

Cheers,
C.

[Triarius]

By the Punic war period Greek cavalry were certainly shielded. The Roman cavalry during the Punic wars rearmed to fight in the Greek manner according to Polybius. The Greek manner being the “barley corn” shield, javelins and corselet. So one could assume Syracuse cavalry armed in that manner as they don’t have a history of lancer cavalry as far as I can tell. On the flip side maybe they did have some lance cavalry as some mainland Greek cities copied the Macedonians and raised some of their own lancers.

[bluewillow]

Search Diodorus of Sicily, he should cover it as he lists troops as I based my invasion force on his numbers.

Cheers
Matt

[VonAkers]

DeCoucy
I am also building an army for such .in 28mm , and am across such.
The Greek Punic Wars ( Carthage vs Greeks on Sicily ) is especially interesting but not looked at much .
The Pre eminant Troop type of this Period was the Greek Hoplite , who had a notable advantage over the Punic Armies , with a few exceptions .
The many notorious Greek Tyrants also used a lot of Mercenary Hoplites  , Campanians Spanish and Gauls.
The effectivness of Cavalry was very similar to Pelopenisian war Cavalry , it seems that being a Very Rich City that Syracusan Cavalry may have been a notch higher then Standard  .
So 400BC no cav really had shields yet , except maybe Tarentine Mercenaries .
However the Figs look way better with Shields , so mine all have them , no one really knows anyway .
I highly recommend the Books Tyrants of Syracuse ( Vol1 and 2 )
I wouldnt use that much from Diodorus , he is Very
Cheers
 

[VonAkers]

oops ..Fat fingers pressed the button ..
I was going to say somewhat PRO Greek ...
Instead please look at the GBOH module ":TYRANT for a far more balanced info , it even does Detailed Orbats for a lot t of battles you probabley never heard of ..
Inspirational ..
Cheers