The Lochagoi of Iphicrates: Forming a Mercenary Army in the Fourth Century BC

The lochagoi of Iphicrates: Forming a Mercenary Army in the Fourth Century BC

Nicholas V. Sekunda*

To a volume concerned, at least in part, with the conception of ‘warlordism’, the figure of Iphicrates should be of supreme interest. He is the first individual whom Pritchett considered in his list of Athenian ‘condottieri’ generals. In my personal view, neither the title ‘warlord’ nor ‘condottiero’ would be appropriate in the case of Iphicrates. One is hard put to find an example when Iphicrates was serving other than in the interests of the Athenian state. Even when he was in the service of the Persian King, it seems that he was an elected stratēgos of the Athenian state. This is not a matter I want to go into in any depth here, suffice to say that according to Diodorus and other sources,1 in 377/6 BC when Kalleas was archon at Athens, the Athenians to gain favour with the Persian King dispatched Iphicrates as stratēgos to act in alliance with the Persians. When the invasion failed in the year 374/3 BC (when Socratides was archon at Athens) he fled to Athens having fallen out with Pharnabazus. Pharnabazus sent ambassadors to Athens and accused Iphicrates of being responsible for the failure to capture Egypt. According to Diodorus (15.43.5–6) the Athenians replied to the Persians that if they detected him in any wrongdoing they would punish him as he deserved, and shortly afterward appointed Iphicrates as stratēgos in charge of their fleet. According to Develin ‘it is unclear whether he [Iphicrates] was one of the other regularly elected generals of the year [sc. 374/3 BC]’.2 To me the simplest resolution to this problem is to suppose that Iphicrates was not only serving as a regularly elected Athenian stratēgos when he was sent out to Egypt, and a regularly elected Athenian stratēgos when he returned, he also was a regularly elected Athenian stratēgos on loan to the Persian King for the intervening three years also. The second reason why I have decided to concentrate on the career of Iphicrates in this article is the survival of more literary sources dealing with his career than is the case with any other general, Athenian at least. For example, by whatever chance Polyaenus preserves no less than 63 Stratēgēmata

* The author would like to acknowledge the financial support received from the Narodowe Centrum Nauki through the grant entitled ‘Ancient Greek Fortifications at Phalasarna, Crete’ no. UMO-2011/01//B/HS3/05931. 1 Diod. 15.29.4. The other relevant sources are gathered by Traill 2000: 584. 2 Develin 1989: 245; see also Tuplin 1984: 539 n. 14 on this problem.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��8 | doi ��.��63/9789004354050_006 The lochagoi of Iphicrates 65 attached to the name of Iphicrates, several of which are cited below. This com- pares with 33 for his nearest rivals Caesar (8.23) and Agesilaus (2.1) and 32 for Alexander (4.3). A third reason for looking at the career of Iphicrates is because his career was truly a case of a meteoric rise out of humble origins. I can do no better than to cite Pritchett:

Iphikrates, the son of a shoemaker of the deme Rhamnous, won distinc- tion, first, presumably as an epibates in boarding a ship of the enemy (Plutarch Mor. 187a), possibly at Knidos in 394, then as a young man of twenty in aiding the Boiotians in 393, if we can trust Justin 6.5.2 (xx quidem annos natum). We next find him in command of mercenaries (οἱ περὶ Ἰφικράατη μισθοφόροι) at the battle of the long walls at Lechaion (Xenophon Hellenica 4.4.9) during the Corinthian War, and later with his peltasts (μετὰ τῶν πελταστῶν) at Phleious and Sikyon. At Lechaion in 390, Iphikrates made his fame by cutting down a Lakedaimonian mora.3

The humble origins of Iphicrates would mean that at the start of his career he could not count on the support of any influential friends.

The Role of the lochagoi in Mercenary Armies

We know from the opening chapter of Xenophon’s Anabasis how Cyrus the Younger assembled his force of Greek mercenaries. He first of all bade Xenias the Parrhasian, an Arcadian, his existing commander of mercenaries, and the commanders of the existing garrisons placed in the cities in his possession, to enlist Peloponnesian soldiers ‘as many and as good’ as they could. Then he gave money to Clearchus the Lakadaimonian exile and had him collect an army in the Chersonese. He also gave money to Aristippus the Thessalian to raise an army in Thessaly, directed Proxenus the Boeotian to come to him with as many men as he could, and bade Sophaenetus the Stymphalian and Sokrates the Achaean to come with as many men as they could raise. Xenophon stresses that all the individuals mentioned above were existing friends (xenoi) of Cyrus, except Xenias the Arcadian, his existing subordinate, and Clearchus. It is altogether more uncertain at a lower level how these generals assembled their armies.4 In later times, especially during the Hellenistic pe- riod, the officer responsible for recruiting mercenaries was called a xenologos.

3 Pritchett 1974 (vol. 2): 62. 4 Though see the remarks of Griffith 1935: 256–7; Trundle 2004: 104–117.