Hellenistic traditions in Greco-Bactrian army
- Annotation
- Authors
- List of references
The article is dedicated to the army of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom, existed in the 3rd–2nd centuries B. C. The Greco-Bactrian
military forces were the typical for the Hellenistic epoch and were the result of the cultural interactions between the Antique
world of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Eastern civilizations of the Central Asia and India. Basically the Greco-Bactrian army
is the off spring of the Macedonization, the process of the military reforms, founded by Alexander the Great and his father Philip.
During Alexander’s campaigns, the epoch of the Diadochi and the period of the Epigoni, the new types of combat arms have
appeared. Sometimes these combat arms had the Eastern origin. They changed the tactics, ethnic and social view of the Greco-
Macedonian army. This process has touched the Greco-Bactrian forces. Apart from the traditional Hellenic phalanx and cavalry,
peltasts, archers, slingers and squads of machines, in Greco-Bactria there were squads of war elephants of the Indian origin and
new types of cavalry units, principally consisted of the Eastern Iranians. There are the literal Antique and Indian, numismatic
and archeological sources on this subject. Hypothetically it is possible to reconstruct the presence of the Greco-Bactrian fl eet.
- Попов Артем Анатольевич
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