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The Practical and Economic Background to the Greek Mercenary Explosion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Harvey F. Miller
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Extract

For all its swashbuckling image, classical mercenary soldiering was, on the whole, as subject to the discipline of practical economics as less glamorous-sounding pursuits. Current economic and political considerations dictated whether and why a citizen would become a mercenary; what and how he would be paid; what negotiating power he possessed; whether a ruler would use mercenaries or his own citizenry to fight his wars, and the necessity for a recruiting centre or ‘mercenary market’ where prospective employers and employees could meet and strike a bargain.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , October 1984 , pp. 153 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1984

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References

1. Quoted by Parke, H. W., Greek Mercenary Soldiers (Oxford, 1933), p. 232Google Scholar. The quotation concerns two brothers who, when orphaned, sold most of their property to provide marriage portions for each of their two sisters, then.… ‘We ourselves…’.

2. While the information we have mainly concerns Attica, there is no indication that conditions elsewhere were greatly different.

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