Aetolian and Achaean armies

[Paullus Scipio]

An interesting post from your paper, Ruben, and clearly an emendation is warranted - though hordes of light troops were hardly ideal to defend a pass, or even the "back route"..... 7,000 Hoplites and 9,000 psiloi/peltasts would be in keeping with G.T. Griffith's estimate of total Aetolian manpower of 20,000, and the proportions sound right too.

Ruben wrote:

What evidence is there that the Boeotians adopted the thureos between 277-275 BC, and furthermore what evidence is there that they were the first Greeks to adopt it? There are two military catalogues that refer to thureophoroi: IG VII, 2716, which is inscribed with the name of the federal archon Dorkylos, whose archonship Feyel dates to "probably 250-245 BC" (Feyel, 196), and SEG III, 351, which cannot be dated more accurately than "prior to 245 BC." We only really have solidly datable evidence for thureophoroi from Boeotia before the last quarter of the third century BC, but that doesn't mean that they were the first to adopt them - in fact, I suspect that the Aetolians were the first.

Clearly, from your own post, the Boeotians/Thebans adopted the 'thureos' sometime prior to 250 BC thus making them the first city-state to do so, but not the first Greeks - like you I believe that was likely to be the Aetolian League,( who I wouldn't classify as a 'Poleis'/city-state, being a loose tribal confederation) in the aftermath of the Gallic defeat, and that they were then followed by their neighbours and relations, the Boeotians/Thebans. An adoption/change to an enemy weapon is always likely to be in the immediate aftermath of a war, rather than 20 years or more later, so knowing the change happened between 279 BC and 250 BC, I plumped for an approximate date nearer the beginning than the end ( hence circa 277-275 BC ), allowing them to follow their Aetolian neighbours .

The reform of the military could not have been due to an alliance with the Antigonids either way the historians see it. The alliance with Demetrius II didn't occur until 239 BC, and the reform was in place already before then.

Quite right.......I can only claim slightly faulty memory lapse. After their defeat by Aetolia at Chaeronea in 245 BC, the Boetians became forced "allies" of Aetolia. In 238 BC when Aetolia and Demetrius of Macedon came to blows, both Boeotia and Eastern Locris threw off the "alliance" with Aetolia, and Boeotia became an ally of Macedon against Aetolia. (Until the death of Antigonus in 239 BC, Aetolia had been an ally of Macedon too.)

On the same principle given above, the likely time for the Boeotians to arm 'Macedonian fashion' will have been shortly after their defeat at Aetolian hands in 245 BC.