Classical warfare placed a premium on the clash of heavy infantry on the battlefield, however, Greek, Carthaginian, and Roman generals also utilized forms of light infantry for special roles on before, during, and after the battle. Known as skirmishers, these lightly armored soldiers use their expertise with missile weapons, specifically javelins, slings and shot, and bows and arrows, to forage for the army on campaign, set up cordons during encampment, screen heavy infantry while they deployed on the battlefield, and man fortifications as sentries. During the Archaic (c.800-c.500) and Hellenic (c.500-338 BCE) periods, certain Mediterranean peoples became renowned for their specialized skills as skirmishers and were recruited to serve Greek commanders at home and abroad. Chief among them were Thracian peltasts, Balearic and Rhodian slingers, and Cretan archers, however, there were many other specialists using these types of weapons in the Mediterranean basin, and their value as light infantry auxiliaries to larger armies distinguish them as an important element of classical combined arms warfare.

Thracian Peltasts

The use of javelins in hunting and warfare dates to the prehistory, with the earliest identifiable javelins found underground near Schöningen, Germany, dating to 400,000 years ago.  Scholars know javelins were used by both infantry and from chariots dating to the Bronze Age, with javelineers portrayed in the baskets of Sumerian war chariots dating the 2600 BCE and Egyptian chariots from 1500 BCE.  Egypt soldiers also use javelins instead of spears as light infantry. Shorter and lighter than thrusting spears, javelins were often constructed at different lengths and weights depending on the distance and impact desired by the javelineer. But perhaps the most famous of these javelin-wielding skirmishers in Western military history were the peltasts from the ancient region of Thrace and Paeonia in southeast Europe in what is today Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Greece, and Turkey. Homer (eighth century BCE) describes both Thracian and Paeonian javelineers in his Iliad fighting with the Trojans, and the Achaemenid Great Kings used them as valued skirmishers in the Persian Wars (499-449 BCE).    Originally, peltasts were fighters from this region of the Balkans who fought in their native dress, but the term came to encompass all light troops of this type. Originally, the peltast did not wear armor and carried a crescent-shaped wicker shield called the pelta. Their armament comprised of daggers or short thrusting swords (makhairai and akinakes) and a bundle of javelins that gave them missile as well as limited melee capabilities. In fact, fifth century BCE vases depict peltasts with dedicated thrusting spears.

Throughout the Hellenic era, the peltast panoply evolved as did their role as skirmishers or pursuit troops, with the light wicker shield giving way to a more robust round shield. Peltasts proved very effective against heavy infantry, giving them the ability to maneuver around the slow-moving phalanxes and attack their vulnerable flank and rear.  And in an Athenian victory against the Spartans at the battle of Sphacteria (425 BCE) during the Second Peloponnesian War (431-401 BCE), the lightly encumbered native Athenian peltasts easily avoided the Spartan hoplites’ charge on rocky terrain while inflicting serious casualties, including killing the Spartan commander. Later in the war, the Athenians contracted a large contingent of Thracian peltasts to assist in their attack on the Spartan ally, Syracuse during the failed Sicilian Expedition (415-413 BCE), indicating the value of these northern javelin-throwers to their war effort. The Athenian historian Thucydides (c.460-c.398 BCE) remarks in his History of the Peloponnesian War,

“In this same summer thirteen hundred Thracian peltasts arrived at Athens from the dagger-carrying tribe known as the Dians. They had been due to sail with Demosthenes to Sicily, but had come too late, and the Athenians decided to send them back to where they came from in Thrace. They thought it too expensive to retain them (each earned a drachma a day).”

Peltasts continue to evolve after the Peloponnesian wars under the tutelage of the talented Athenian general Iphicrates (418-353 BCE), who began to revolutionize Hellenic warfare through his remodeling of the traditional role of light infantry in Greek combined arms warfare.  During the Corinthian War (396-387 BCE), Iphicrates modified peltast equipment and tactics, extending the javelin length, while decreasing the skirmisher’s armor to produce a more lethal and more maneuverable soldier.  He also taught them to fight in both open order and closed formation as cohesive units.  These changes bore fruit at the battle of Lechaeum in 391 BCE when a force of mercenary peltasts engaged an entire regiment or mora of heavily armored Spartans in a replay of Sphacteria a generation before, but this time on a level battlefield. Using the superior mobility, 250 of the 600 Spartans were killed.  Another Athenian general, Xenophon (c.430-354 BCE), tells us about this engagement in his Hellenica,

“The Lacedaemonians [Spartans] were presently within range of the javelins. Here a man was wounded, and there another dropped, not to rise again. Each time orders were given to the attendant shield-bearers to pick up the men and bear them into Lechaeum; and these indeed were the only members of the mora who were, strictly speaking, saved. Then the polemarch ordered the ten-years-service men to charge and drive off their assailants. Charge, however, as they might, they took nothing by their pains--not a man could they come at within javelin range. Being heavy infantry opposed to light troops, before they could get to close quarters the enemy's word of command sounded ‘Retire!’ whilst as soon as their own ranks fell back, scattered as they were in consequence of a charge where each man's individual speed had told, Iphicrates and his men turned right about and renewed the javelin attack, while others, running alongside, harassed their exposed flank. At the very first charge the assailants had shot down nine or ten, and, encouraged by this success, pressed on with increasing audacity.”

Thracian peltasts continued to serve in the armies of Philip II of Macedon (r.359-336 BCE) and his son Alexander III of Macedon (“the Great,” r.336-323) in their empire building campaigns.  Both kings dealt with these light infantry skirmishers firsthand while campaigning in their homeland, and both employed them as skirmishers in their own campaigns.  Hellenistic commanders continued to use peltasts in their battles against one another, and the Romans.  The Romans also used javelineers in their art of war. During the Middle Republic (264-133 BCE), the poorest class of native Romans made up the legion’s light infantry. Called velites, they served the same purpose as peltasts as skirmishers and screeners for the heavier armed infantry as they formed on the battlefield.  After consul Gaius Marius’ (157-86 BCE) military reforms in 107 BCE created a new model Roman soldier, the velite was replaced by the javelin-carrying legionary who was now armed with both light and heavy pilum for long and short distance casting and close quarter combat.

Rhodian and Balearic Slingers

The use of slings in hunting and warfare predate written history itself and are found in both the Western and Eastern hemispheres. The oldest known example dates to the mid-third millennium BCE in Peru, while the oldest sling found in the Old World was discovered in the tomb of the teenage Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen (r.1332-1323 BCE). Slingers also constitute another type of light infantry employed by the Neo Assyrians, and they are often depicted on stone bas-reliefs standing behind archers. Both ends of the Mediterranean produced excellent slingers. In the west, the Balearic Islands off the eastern coast of Spain, and in the east, the Aegean island of Rhodes off the western coast of Turkey. Both of these island peoples took up the sling as children and spent a lifetime mastering the precise angle and release point needed to strike a target consistently at up to 200 yards, with different types of slings used for different distances and for slinging projectiles of different sizes and weights. Slings were typically constructed from sinew, plant fibers, animal hide, or hair to make the cords and pouch. Flax, hemp, rush, or wool were common materials. Sling ammunition, referred to as shot, stones, bullets or glandes in the literature depending on translation, ranged from carefully selected rocks to purpose-made and shaped shot made of lead. Projectile weights usually ranged from 2 to 10 ounces but could be over a pound, under certain circumstances. The most common shape was biconical, resembling an almond or an American football. Almond-shaped lead glandes were typically about one-and-a half inches long and a little less than an inch wide, capable of casting longer distances and more difficult to see and avoid by the intended target. Round, tear-shaped, or egg shaped glandes have also been recovered by archaeologists. Larger projectiles were also used at closer range to harass enemy infantry and often more importantly, cavalry, while skirmishing or on the battlefield. A veteran slinger could fire more than twelve rounds per minute.

Military prowess with the sling was not limited to island peoples. Thucydides mentions the Acarnanians from northwestern Greece as expert slingers in 429 BCE, and in 424 BCE the Spartan-allied Boeotians sent for slingers from Malis in central Greece before their assault on the Athenian fort at Delion. So valued were these bullet casters to Greek combined arms operations, the Athenian statesman and general, Alcibiades (c.450-404 BCE) recruited 700 Rhodian slingers for his Sicilian campaign. After the end of the Peloponnesian conflicts, Xenophon admired the skill of the Rhodians in his Anabasis (sometimes referred to as The Persian Expedition) describing their use in the march of his 10,000 Greek mercenaries upriver in Mesopotamia back to the safety of friendly territory after their defeat at the battle of Cunaxa in 401 BCE. Here, he calls them forward:

“There are some Rhodians, I hear, in our army, and they say that most of them know how to use a sling.  There weapon has twice the range of the Persian sling.  Persian slings do not carry far because they use stones as big as one’s fist for throwing; but the Rhodians know how to use leaden bullets as well. If we find out who has a sling in his possession, and pay for any there are, and pay more money to anyone who volunteers to make more slings and provide extra privileges to anyone who volunteers to serve as a slinger in the ranks, then perhaps enough will come forward to be of use to us.”

Two hundred Rhodians abandoned their heavier weapons in favor of their sling and proved the importance of the missile weapon in keeping enemy skirmishers at bay for the remainder of the campaign.  Xenophon also noted that lead sling bullets inflicted horrible wounds, and the wide body and tapered tails allowed the tissue of the wound closed behind the missile and make extraction from the body very difficult. Philip II certainly used slingers in his siege of Olynthus in 348 BCE, attested to by the many glandes found their during archaeological excavations, some with the names of Philip or his officers etched into the projectiles, but some with slogans like “take that,” “catch,” or “here is a nasty present.”  Alexander brought slingers on this early campaigns into Thrace against the Triballi and also during his Persian expedition, using them during his daring assault on the Rock of Aornus in the spring of 326 BCE.

In the western Mediterranean Balearic slingers were the premier mercenary glandes casters, famously recruited into in the armies of Carthaginians against the Romans but also serving as hired soldiers for almost six hundred years. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus' (first century BCE) chronicle of the battle of Himera River on Sicily in 311 BCE describes how the Carthaginians used these island slingers against the Greeks.

“But when Hamilcar saw that his men were being overpowered and that the Greeks in constantly increasing number were making their way into the camp, he brought up his slingers, who came from the Balearic Islands and numbered at least a thousand. By hurling a shower of great stones, they wounded many and even killed not a few of those who were attacking, and they shattered the defensive armor of most of them. For these men, who are accustomed to sling stones weighing a mina [21 ounces], contribute a great deal toward victory in battle. In this way they drove the Greeks from the camp and defeated them.”

Hannibal Barca (247-182 BCE) used Balearic skirmishers to good effect in Spain, Italy and North Africa during the Second Punic War (218-201 BCE). The Roman cartographer and historian Strabo (64 BCE-23 CE) remarked on why the Balearic slinger was so good at his craft; "Their training in the use of slings used to be such, from childhood up, that they would not so much as give bread to their children unless they first hit it with the sling." Armed with different kinds of slings made from plants native to the archipelago (pita or sisal, hemp, or esparto), the Balearic slingers had a fast rate of fire and were extremely accurate even at long range. The heavy sling could fire a shaped projectile nearly the size of a tennis ball over a hundred yards. Once the Romans conquered this small island chain, Balearic slingers were incorporated into the Roman art of war, serving both Republic and Empire for the next six centuries. The Roman consul, triumvir, and general Gaius Julius Caesar (100-44 BCE) made use of Balearic slingers, as well as Cretan archers, in his Gallic campaigns between 58 and 50 BCE. This trend continued into the Empire with slingers shown accompanying Roman legions on campaign on the early second century CE war memorial, Trajan’s Column. Publius Vegetius Renatus (c.365-450 CE) remarked in his De Re Militari (alternatively known as Epitoma Rei Militaris) that the Roman standard for the combat qualified slinger was his ability to hit a man sized target at 600 feet.  He also commented on the striking power of the sling’s projectile:

“Soldiers, despite their defensive armor, are often more aggravated by the round stones from the sling than by all the arrows of the enemy. Stones kill without mangling the body, and the contusion is mortal without loss of blood.” 

During the medieval era (.500-c.1500 CE), slinger units mostly fell out of favor as combatants became increasingly better armored throughout the millennium, however, the sling continued to be used by individual soldiers across Europe for foraging and in siege warfare where the sling was increasingly replaced by a staff sling. The Byzantines continued to employ specialized slinging units, most notably mounted slingers (psiloi hippeutes), while all forms of infantry were required to carry a sling as a weapon of last resort, reflecting the long tradition of this weapon in Greek warfare. 

Cretan Archers

Although many Mediterranean cultures had long traditions in archery, commanders often hired mercenaries from specific regions of Europe renowned for their skill with bow and arrow.  Foremost among these soldiers-for-hire were archers from the island of Crete who would serve as mercenary bowmen from the Peloponnesian Wars in the fifth century BCE to the fall of the Byzantine capital of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 CE.  And although their overall panoply changed, the Cretan bow remained central to their military success. Cretan archers used composite bows, consisting of a wooden core with laminated layers of sinew and tipped with rigid horn siyahs to create more spring when casting arrows.  This type of bow was common in the Near East dating to the late Bronze Age, and the use of horn in an Aegean bow dates to at least the time of Homer in the eighth century BC, as it is mentioned in his epic poem The Odyssey as the kind of bow only Odysseus could string.  Composite bows were also a common weapon in contemporary Assyrian and later Persian armies. This type of bow construction allowed for increased stability for the initial draw and shot arrows at a greater range and with more impact power than self-bows made from a homogenous piece of wood (self-bow). The Cretans mastery of the composite bow gave them a superior weapon to many of the bows used by the mainland Greeks. But it was not the weapon alone that made Cretan archers special. Strabo describes a formal military education on Crete similar to the Agoge in Sparta, stating that:

“From boyhood they should grow up accustomed to arms and toils, so as to scorn heat, cold, marches over rugged and steep roads, and blows received in gymnasiums or regular battles; and that they should practice, not only archery, but also the war-dance.”

Cretan archers were easily distinguishable on the battlefield, wearing little to no armor and a leather wide-brimmed hat to keep the sun from their eyes while casting arrows. Additional armaments included a small round wicker or leather and bronze shield, dagger and perhaps a sword for defense, although it is safe to assume they were often up armored depending on when and where they served, with some pictorial sources showing archers wearing a Mediterranean-styled linen or padded torso armor (often referred to as linothorax armor) or a leather cuirass and helmet. Cretan archers served several masters during the Hellenic era, including Athens, Sparta, and Eretria, where they served as light infantry on land and at sea. Xenophon mentions 200 Cretan archers among the band of 10,000 Greek mercenaries who fought and lost at Cunaxa. The Cretans joined their fellow Rhodian slingers in keeping Persian skirmishers at bay. The Athenian general also mentions the Cretans were able to reuse spent Persian arrows, indicating that both bows were similar in size and power. During the Hellenistic era, Cretan archers were to become the preferred bowmen of Macedon, with Philip requiring them as tribute and Alexander consistently employing around 1,000 archers in his Persian campaigns where they are recorded fighting at the battles of Issus (333 BCE) and Gaugamela (331 BCE) and accompanying the young king farther east. The Greek historian Polybius (200-118 BCE) mentions Cretan archers in the employment of the Diadochi or Alexander’s successors in their many wars carving up his empire after his death, although by this time, the term Cretan may refer to how they were trained and employed as much as where these archers were from, in a manner similar to how the term peltast changed over time.

However, there is still quite a bit of evidence that authentic Cretan archers remained prominent in Hellenistic warfare until the island’s conquest by the Romans in 67 BCE.  But even before that, Cretan archers were serving Roman commanders. The long-reigned tyrant Hiero II of Syracuse (r.275-215 BCE) sent 500 of these valuable archers, along with 1,000 peltasts, to aid the Roman consuls against the Carthaginians during the Second Punic War. They fought on both sides during the Macedonian Wars between Greece and Rome before Rome’s eventual victory. The Senate made use of a body of Cretan archers against the followers of the reformer Gaius Gracchus during the civil unrest in Rome in 121 BCE, leading to the death of the tribune. And as stated above, Caesar used these island archers in his Gallic Wars and in his Civil War (49-45 BCE) against Pompey. Cretan archers, along with native Numidian bowmen from North Africa, served as auxilia in Rome’s Imperial armies, although Romans increasingly recruited archers from other regions in the eastern Mediterranean including Thrace, Anatolia and Syria. 

Our understanding of the role of Cretan archers in medieval history is less reliable. Crete fell under the control of first Byzantium (330-824 CE), then Islam as a pirate emirate (824-961), and then Byzantium again (961-1204). Whether Cretan archers sought employment with the Muslim corsairs is unknown, but Byzantine generals recruited directly from the island once it became an imperial thema or province in 961. The Catholic Venetians conquered the island during the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204). Byzantine historian George Pachymeres (1242-c.1310) records Cretan refugees settling in western Anatolia in exchange for military service to Byzantium. Another Byzantine chronicler, Doukas (c.1400-after 1462) describes Cretans among Constantinople’s most ardent defenders during the Ottoman siege of 1422, making an impression on the empire’s last ruler. Constantine XI Palaiologos (r.1449-1453) asked the Venetians for Cretan archers to defend Constantinople from Ottoman encroachment on the peninsula, and in 1452 his wish was granted. A year later, a small contingent of Cretan archers are listed as defending the triple walls of the Byzantine capital as the assault began, a fitting end to fifteen hundred years of military service.

Conclusion

History remembers four of the most celebrated auxiliary units in classical Mediterranean history as Thracian peltasts, Rhodian and Balearic slingers, and Cretan archers.  Interestingly, these specialized units often fought together as mercenaries for different Mediterranean armies at different times during their collective history.  And often, as light infantry skirmishers, they adopted the fighting styles and fighting equipment of each other. Their skill with javelin, sling, and bow became so renowned that their art of war was emulated by other auxiliary groups seeking employment or taught to allied units by larger military forces like the Greek poleis, Hellenistic successor states, or Rome. Moreover, the pride in these weapons has transcended both time and place. The javelin throw for distance has been part of both the ancient Olympiad (event beginning in 708 BCE) and modern Olympics (event beginning in 1908 CE) for thousands of years (with a substantial break in between), and though the design and composition of the javelin has changed radically, the underlying spirit of the contest has not. Today, there is an annual sling competition held by the Balearic Slinging Federation on the Balearic Islands where contestants are graded on both accuracy and distance, with the sport of traditional slinging becoming popular worldwide. Sadly, organized archery is not practice as a national sport on the island of Crete, but traditional archery corresponding to different national bow types (from English self-bow longbows to Korean and Japanese composite bows) is popular across the world, with participants learning the martial skills necessary to use the bow and arrow on foot and on horseback. Here, international competitions are often held in countries with long traditions in archery. For instance, two examples are the International Longbow Archers Association which promotes the history and use of this lauded bow, while mounted archery has the International Horseback Archery Alliance which creates rules and grading systems used by different clubs around the world.

Suggested Readings:

Primary sources

Diodorus Siculus. The Library-Philip II, Alexander the Great, and the Successors. Translated by Robin Waterfield. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Vegetius. Epitome of Military Science. Translated by N.P. Milner.  Liverpool University press, 1997.

Strassler, Robert B. ed.  The Landmark Xenophon's Hellenika. Translated by John Marincola. Anchor, 2010.

Xenophon.  The Persian Expedition.  Translated by Rex Warner.  Penguin, 1965.

Secondary sources

Cheesman, George Leonard. The Auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army. Lagare Street Press, 2022.

English, Stephen. Mercenaries in the Classical World: To the Death of Alexander. Casemate Publishers, 2012.

Parke, Herbert William. Greek Mercenary Soldiers: From the earliest times to the Battle of Ipsus. Clarendon Press, 1933.

Trundle, Matthew. Greek Mercenaries: From the Late Archaic Period to Alexander. Routledge, 2004.

Informational websites

Balearic Slinging Federation.  https://tirdefona.es/en/historia/

International Horseback Archery Alliance http://ihaa.info/

International Longbow Archers Association https://www.longbow-archers-association.org/