Gabriele Esposito

Armies of the Hellenistic States 323 BC- AD 30

(Pen & Sword, 2019) 155 pp. $34.95

This book is one of the recent additions to the series “Armies of the Past,” authored by Gabriele Esposito. Esposito is a prolific author who has published many books, booklets and articles on different subjects in military history, from antiquity to the 19th century. In the current series “Armies of the Past,” each volume is dedicated to a certain army from a different period in antiquity, and includes multiple maps taken from Wikimedia and pictures of reenactors for the relevant period and their equipment. In the current volume, we have just 150 pages split into 15 chapters, while some 80 of these pages are dedicated to photos and maps, leaving very little room for each chapter and subject, especially when each of them is supposed to cover a kingdom, or kingdoms, and their armies through a very long period of time.

The first chapter deals with Philip of Macedonia’s kingdom and army and there are a few problems here. Firstly, Philip is described as having a plan to conquer mainland Greece from the moment he had sat on the throne, and that all his reforms were due to this plan. This is puzzling as the reforms were actually due to Macedonia’s military failure in combat against neighbouring cities and kingdoms. Philip was an opportunistic king who used his enemies’ weaknesses in order to gain greater power and domination. It is not at all certain that he had such a grand plan from day one. Furthermore, the entire chapter is a mishmash of all sorts of terms in Greek, alongside numbers corresponding to unit sizes. It is especially puzzling that in this chapter, as well as in the following ones, Esposito does not explain even once the term phalanx, nor what were the infantry or cavalry tactics used by the Greeks and the Hellenistic Kingdoms. Moreover, there is no description of any battle or any military formation in the entire book.

The second chapter is no better. The first part of this chapter should have been included in the first chapter because it deals with armies of an era prior to the one the chapter’s title suggests (Alexander’s armies), while the second part is no more than a list of the numbers of mercenaries Alexander recruited from each region. It is also enigmatic why there is no explanation of the reform and improvements that Alexander made in the Macedonian army. Chapters 3 and 4, describing the wars of Alexander’s heirs, are much better. Chapter 5, titled “The Armies of the Early Successors”, is no more than a list of cavalry and infantry, from each type and origin, each leader had during the previous periods. It would have been much better if this chapter had been erased and the relevant numbers would have been inserted in the earlier two chapters.

Chapter 6 claims to depict the Antigonid army, but, at best, depicts only the early Antigonid army. The seventh chapter deals with the Ptolemaic army and is problematic for several reasons. For example, on page 67, Esposito says that the Ptolemaic dynasty avoided recruiting local Egyptians due to the fear that enlisting them would create political unrest and a base for rebellion. He uses a similar claim on every occasion he talks about an army which did not draft the locals. Unfortunately, this was not the main reason as to why Ptolemy refrained from recruiting Egyptians. There was a simple reason: the Egyptians were considered by the Greeks inferior and with a bad reputation for warfare. Another problem in this chapter is the constant generalization – a too common theme in this book. A further example is the terms used to describe Jewish and Arab auxiliaries, mentioned on pages 76-77. Firstly, the author defines them as policemen, while they were a garrison force i.e. soldiers. Secondly, the Arabs he mentions are actually Idomeans, and Idomeans are not Arabs. Thirdly, Esposito states that the “Arabs” guarded the border of Sinai, while the Jews were those stationed along Egypt’s southern border. This is puzzling, as some historical texts mention some of the Jewish garrison forces as being positioned on the routes into Egypt from Judaea, i.e. Egypt’s northern border.

Chapter 8 deals with the Seleucid army. This is a decent chapter which is evidently inspired by Bar Kochva’s PhD, which was published in Cambridge University Press. Yet, there are still a few mistakes in it, such as the use of the term Palestine (p. 91), a term which was not coined until the 2nd century A.D., for the geographical area of the Land of Israel. The ninth chapter is a good chapter that talks about the Attalid army. Unfortunately, it is short. Chapter 10, titled “Hellenistic Anatolia” is short, with only a paragraph for each kingdom in the area, whereas chapter 11 is the best and longest chapter in the book. It deals with the Kingdoms of Pontus, Armenia and Bosphorus. It is well written and interesting, and explains events which are not widely known, in a very clear and concise way. Chapters 12 and 13 are about the Epirote army and the Greek cities, mainly Athens, Sparta, the Achaian League and Syracuse, while chapter 14 talks about “Hellenistic Israel.” This is an extraordinary term encompassing the Hasmonean Revolt, the Hasmonean Kingdom and the Kingdom of Herod the Great. This chapter is prone to mistakes, as for example the one on page 135 attributing the initiation of the Hasmonean Revolt to Judah and not to his father, Mattathias. Another example is the assertion on page 137: “Until the ascendancy of Herod the Great, foreign allies or mercenaries were rarely employed due to nationalistic and religious issues.” We know for certain that mercenaries were employed and large contingents of them were being used much earlier by Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 B.C.). The fifteenth chapter is a short but decent chapter about the Greco-Bactrian and the Indo-Greek Kingdoms which, as the author himself says, we know relatively little about.

The book contains many photographs of reenactors which, although each of them is presented with no relation to the text, are a nice touch and very informative regarding the equipment used by the troops of the period. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the text itself, which at times is incoherent, and has too many factual mistakes in it, albeit, some chapters are indeed satisfactory and provide valuable information, such as the one on the Kingdoms of Pontus, Armenia and the Bosphorus. Even though this book can raise awareness to the Hellenistic armies, and most subjects in it have not received enough attention till today, it is not the publication that these subjects deserve.

Haggai Olshanetsky
Bar Ilan University