ProjectSeleukid - 28mm (Trallian) slingers

Sitting down to get started on my Galatian cavalry, I had to wait for some wash to dry on the horses, slipped, and painted up a small unit of slingers. These are Macedonian slingers from Crusader Miniatures; decent if unremarkable figures. Nominally they are sitting in as Trallian slingers for our Magnesia project.

According to Livy, 1,500 Trallians were deployed on each flank at Magnesia. Other Trallians are listed (by Livy and Appian) among the mercenaries fighting for Pergamon and Rome on the otherside of the battlefield. Beyond that, there doesn't seem too much consensus on who they were, or what they may have looked like. 

Duncan Head argues very plausibly that they were armed as slingers. In both armies they were partnered with Cretan archers, and on the Pergamene side, they were also joined by Achaian peltasts. In a later passage, the "the Cretan archers, the slingers and javelinmen" are mentioned facing off against the Seleukid chariots, Presuming the javelinmen are the Achaians, then the Trallians would be suitable candidates as the slingers. As they were also brigaded with Cretans on the Seleukid flanks, perhaps the same argument carries forward. We also see slingers and archers brigaded together in other Hellenistic armies. For the Seleukids, the Elimaiotes and Kyrtians are another example.

They may have been from the city of Tralles in Karia, southern Asia Minor. Geographically that would make sense, however, it would be unusual to have a body of slingers recruited from a Hellenic (or Hellenised) polis. More commonly you might expect an urban area to provide thureophoroi or the like. 

Alternatively, they may have been mercenaries recruited from among the tribal Trallians - sometimes said to be Thracians, otherwise Illyrians. A tribal grouping would make more sense for providing slingers. Strabo through that Tralles had been settled by the Trallians but that may or may not have been an aetiological explanation for the similarity in the names.

Also, given we had our one day of summer today, I also managed to get some spray varnish on the full army to date. Here they are in their multi-coloured glory: 1396 points for a Fantastic Battles army, or 279 points (almost three divisions) for Hail Caesar.