ProjectSeleukid - Elymaian Archers

Project Seleukid's next unit is a group of archers from Elymais. This region in the west of Iran (centered on modern Khuzestan province) nestled against the Tigris and reached up into the Zagros Mountains with Susa as its capital. Herodotus does not distinguish Elymais from the rest of Persia when discussing the dress or equipment of the Achaemenid army, so Persian style dress can be suggested. The bashlyk (Persian tiara) appears on the early coinage of both Parthia and Kappadokia, as well as neighbouring Persis, so it is not too much of a stretch to suggest that the Elymaians may have continued to wear it under the Seleukids.

Elymais was one of the first satrapies added to Babylon after Seleukos I's return in 312 BC and remained a part of the empire until its secession (under Kamnaskires I) during the Seleukid dynastic troubles of the early 140s BC. Following the Peace of Apameia in 188 BC, Antiochos III, on the hunt for liquid assets to start paying the indemnity enforced by Rome, was killed while looting an Elymaian temple of Bel (in Susa?).  

Livy tells us that the Elymaians at Magnesia were archers, brigaded together with Kyrtian slingers (from further northwest along the Zagros Mountains). The bow in gorytos is an enduring image on the Seleukid bronze coinage from Susa, so that again ties in well with conventional Achaemenid-style archers. Being from a mainly mountainous region, it makes sense for them to be fielded as light infantry rather than massed archers.

These are 28mm Victrix unarmoured Persians, with a Macedonian head on the unit commander. The unit banner is based on the star and crescent iconography that occurs on behind the head of the king on some Elymaian royal coinage following their secession from the Seleukid empire.