Macedonian Phalanx Illustration

[Sean Manning]

Regarding the dress of pikemen, don't some of our ancient sources on Alexander mention his men adopting foreign clothes en masse somewhere in Bactria, Sogodia, or India? In any case, I expect that men would have adopted foreign garments piecemeal as ones in the Greek style became harder to find, so there was probably also gradual change over his campaign. I doubt Alexander's men could have gotten an adequate supply of clothing and shoes from Greece after they crossed the Euphrates, and most of their camp followers were barbaroi. In Hellenistic times, I expect most regular pikemen would have dressed in Hellenic styles.

I don't see why it would be hard for Greeks to easily modify eastern clothing to fit a more Greek style. It's not hard, for instance, to change a typical long-sleeved Persian tunic into a chiton. They probably used eastern material but kept Greek cuts of clothing.

Very possible. However, wasn't tailoring women's work like weaving? If so, I expect there would have been growing problems between troops and camp followers ("You're not in Greece now and I don't know these foreign styles! That's a nice, stylish tunic and you want me to spoil it.").

Good luck on the Bithynia article. I don't get Slingshot, but will consider subscribing once I start work this summer.

Where was Bithynia, by the way? Just east of the kingdom of Pergamon on the north Black Sea coast?