1st Narrative Post

    As mentioned in my previous posts, I will have an ongoing narrative that accompanies the scenarios I play through in order to provide some fun context. This first post will serve as an introduction to events in Cyrene and the mercenary Nikanthos. Many of the scenarios I play will feature his mercenaries and their adventures around the Mediterranean. 

    Blood sprayed across Nikanthos as his xiphos cut through the unprotected neck of his opponent. The blood was hot and stung at the cuts on his arm. He hardly noticed the pain or his own exhaustion because a feeling of nausea dominated his consciousness. This sickness was an unusual sensation. Nikanthos was battle hardened, he had killed before and experienced the gruesome horrors of war. But, this time was different. This whole situation was different from the scenarios Nikanthos was used to. This wasn’t a fight against a foreign foe. These were fellow Greeks and their bright red blood was vividly plastered across the beaming white marble floors of the Prytaneion. Yes, these dead and dying men had been his enemies. But, they were still his people and some had even been his comrades just a few days before.

    A loud clatter brought Nikanthos back to reality. A man scuttling backwards on his arms and ass had knocked over a potted amphora. It was one of the aristocrats allied to Xanthe, the now deceased usurper. The cowering nobleman lifted out both hands in supplication as one of Nikanthos’ men, the Illyrian Bardylis, marched directly at him. Bardylis yanked the cowering man by his hair, jerking his head back to expose the man’s neck to his sword.
“No!” Nikanthos wailed.

Bardylis gave Nikanthos a curt and confused glance before he executed his sobbing victim. More blood painted the floors and spattered on the gleaming bronze armor Bardylis wore. He looked like a demon out of some mythical poem. The whole agora resembled a horror scene from Hades. Bile boiled up in Nikanthos’ chest until he burst out vomit.

    Omiros, second in command and childhood friend of Nikanthos, walked over and rubbed a reassuring hand on Nikanthos’ back.

“This isn’t your first fight.” Omiros murmured.

“This is different.” Nikanthos replied.

“How is it different?” Omiros asked in a genuine tone.

“These people were Greek citizens, Omiros, not soldiers. And this isn’t a battlefield, it’s the agora. I can’t explain why, but it feels wrong.” Nikanthos clarified.

Omiros rubbed his hand across his chin as Bardylis walked over to them.

“You Greeks and your fucking philosophy. You think too hard. We must be killing this man. I no kill this man, he goes home and he get his friends and his slaves then come back and kill me. And he kill you and he kill your woman. He kill us all and then Alexander come here and Macedonians fuck this whole city.” Bardylis said mockingly.

Omiros stopped rubbing his stubble and nodded at Nikanthos. It could be because he had a blunt and barbaric way of thinking, or his struggle with translating his thoughts into Greek. But, Bardylis always seemed to have a clear and simple answer to morally ambiguous things.

“He is right, you know. These men knew this was a possible outcome for their scheming.” Omiros added.

“You are seeing the point? They are enemies so we must be killing them.” Bardylis gesticulated at Nikanthos, sword in hand.
Deep in his heart, Nikanthos knew that Bardylis was right. The realization was painful and nearly made him sick again.

Bardylis wiped the blood from his sword off on the chiton of a dead guard. Then he trailed off to scavenge with the rest of the surviving attackers.

    After a few moments of rest, Nikanthos prepared himself for the mental stress of planning out their next move.

“We need to check on the men, see if anyone got injured, or worse. Then I want to send the pages out. Send a runner to Isidoris’ house first. Inform him and the surviving archons that Xanthe and his party are dead. They should urgently form a new government and elect a new Tyrant.” Nikanthos commanded Omiros.

Omiros raised his eyebrows at Nikanthos.

“No. I don't want to be Tyrant!” Nikanthos snapped at his companion.

“They pushed for you before. And now, you’ve killed the reigning Tyrant. You’re already Strategos of the city, and you have powerful friends under your cloak…. And in your bed” Omiros contented.

Nikanthos glared back at Omiros for the remark. He didn’t want to admit it, but Omiros raised good arguments. And now that blood had been spilt there were few alternatives. 

“By the gods, how have things come to this?” Nikanthos thought. Mere months ago he had arrived in Cyrene as an officer in his mercenary band. And now he was to be Tyrant of the most prominent Greek city in Africa? Fate had seen fit to bring the struggles of politics from Thessaly with Nikanthos. His father would be gloating at the idea of Nikanthos obtaining a far higher position than the man could have ever dreamed. Nikanthos pushed aside thoughts of home and honed in on the fight at hand.

“Alright.” Nikanthos sighed back at Omiros. “If I’m to be Tyrant, then we need to plan this out so I keep my head.”

“Keep it long enough for Alexander to come and lop it off.” Omiros mused.

“If we don’t win over the other cities of Cyrenaica he won’t have to. They’ll serve my head to him on a platter.” Nikanthos pointed out.

“How do we win over the rest of Cyrenaica?” Omiros asked.

“We don’t give them a choice. I have a plan.” Nikanthos answered back with a smirk. Next Time Hopefully I'll finally have a post with some painted miniatures for you all. I'll also be providing some historical information on the units in the post. It might be Thureophoroi or Spartans. Engagement Questions Are there any historical fiction books that you enjoy? I really like The Warrior of Rome series by Harry Sidebottom, and really all of his books are good. I also enjoyed the Tyrant series by Christian Cameron. Both of those have been big influences for me. While not historical fiction, I also enjoy classic Sword and Sorcery adventures and plan on trying to work those into my narratives and scenarios.

1st Official Post

    Hello everyone, I’m back today with a mini article to give you an outline on what you can expect from my upcoming blog posts. So yes, this is a post about posts. But, it will also contain some background on the city of Cyrene and the two scenarios for the campaign taking place in this region.

Conquest of Cyrenaica 

    In my first campaign, we have Alexander the Great invading the region of Cyrenaica with the goal of subduing the Greek cities along the coast. For both games, I will be using Tactica II for the rule set with some alterations for each scenario. Rather than slugging it out until one army reaches its breakpoint, the main game will be decided by the highest point total from controlling objective points on the map. Control of the objective will grant the player its full point value while both a contested objective and an uncontrolled objective will not grant any points to either player. The other, smaller game will feature a much smaller scale version of these rules to test them out and introduce Tactica II to the players. The exact measurements of the deployment zones, along with rough illustrations and photos of the battlefields will be in future articles that will proceed each game. For now, some brief context for these special rules will be provided below. 

    The first scenario is a 5 turn limit small scale skirmish. It is a surprise by the Greeks of Cyrene at a diplomatic meeting between a representative of Alexander the Great and Greek nobles from the major cities of Cyrenaica. The ambush is being led by a fictional Archon of Cyrene, Nikanthos. Their objective is to capture the meeting grounds and capture or kill the Macedonian leader. The other side is led by the Macedonian commander and Satrap of Egypt, Cleomenes of Naucratis. Their objective is to hold the meeting grounds and get their commander to a marked escape zone on the map. Each player will get 1 point for completing an objective. This scenario is meant more as a learning game to familiarize us with the rules of Tactica II before the major scenario.

    The major scenario is an engagement between the vanguard of the invading Macedonians and a portion of the garrison of Cyrene. Alexander himself is leading the Macedonians and attempting to set up a fortified camp in a strategic location outside the city of Cyrene. Nikanthos is leading the Greek allies sallying from the city. The Greek allies are trying to set up a fortified position at the same location. This scenario will feature the capture points I mentioned earlier. Each capture point represents a strategic place, such as woodlands for siege equipment and a nearby river for a source of water close to the city. I will be going into much more detail on the objectives in the article proceeding the scenario. For now, here is some information on Cyrene and why it is significant enough to be the setting for a campaign.

The city of Cyrene and the region of Cyrenaica

    Ancient Cyrenaica was a coastal region in northern Libya made up of Greek Colonies established in the 7th and 6th centuries b.c. Cyrenaica got its name from the most prominent city of the region, Cyrene, which was founded around the year 630 b.c. For more detail on the settlement of Cyrene I can recommend taking a look at the writings of Diodorus Siculus, in his Bibliotheca Historica, or the writings of Herodotus for primary sources. These two YouTube videos made by History with Cy and Generic History are alternatives that go over the mythical founding of Cyrene in a brief and entertaining way. 

    My scenario takes place in the year 320 b.c., meaning the region of Cyrenaica has been colonized by the Greeks for over 300 years. By this point in time, Cyrene and the other colonies in the area are flourishing trade centers. The region exported goods like silver, grain, cattle, and a plant called silphium. Silphium is a now extinct plant that was used for many purposes in the ancient world. Some of its applications included being used as a laxative, contraceptive, food seasoning, and a long list of other purposes. I have not come across references of the plant growing outside North Africa, but Silphium may have been cultivated in other areas due to how often I have seen it referenced being used across the Mediterranean. Either way, having Silphium as a major export must have been very lucrative for the cities of Cyrenaica due to how much of a staple the plant was in antiquity. Many other grains and livestock like horses were also exported from the region in ancient times.

    With their rich economy and close proximity to Greece, the colonies of Cyrenaica were able to remain a major participant in Greek politics. Several ancient sources such as Diodorus Siculus and Herodotus have quoted the cities of Cyrenaica participating in various Greek wars and politics, but have not given details that I could find. It seems like the cities of Cyrenaica most often contributed ships or material to various allies and participants in these conflicts. One example I found of direct involvement in an outside conflict was around the year 310 bc during the Greco-Punic wars between Carthage and the Greek cities in Sicily. The Ptolemaic ruler of Cyrene, Ophellas, reportedly brought between 10-15,000 troops to aid the Greek leader Agathocles in his invasion of Carthage. From what I could find, the majority of these troops were Greek mercenaries, showing that the region had the wealth to support large armies.

    A later example was a planned invasion of Ptolemaic Egypt by the Ptolemaic ruler of Cyrenaica, Magas. This invasion did not end up materializing as Magas had to turn around to defend an incursion from Libyan tribes while en route to Egypt. While it is definitely possible that there are more instances where men were sent from Cyrenaica to participate in foreign wars, I think it would be in small numbers and only for short periods of time. Like other Greek colonies on foreign lands, the colonists of Cyrenaica had to contend with the other local cultures of the region. Excluding mercenaries, the armies of these Greek colonies would typically be a seasonal force made up of the citizens and could only be raised for a limited window of time.

    The reason Cyrenaica features as the first region in my campaign is because Alexander is turning his attention westward and I found myself very interested in the history of the area. The region of Cyrenaica also falls along the African coast on the way to Carthage and Sicily. While the region was nominally subject to Alexander already historically, in my fictionalized setting Alexander is finally getting around to solidifying his sovereignty of the area. He initially sent a diplomatic party to re-organize and fully incorporate the Greek cities there into his empire. After Nikanthos and the city of Cyrene killed his diplomatic party and refused to recognize Alexander’s authority, Alexander was obliged to retaliate and given a pre-text for invasion, depending on how you look at it. Nikanthos is also the leader of the fictionalized mercenary band that features in my other campaign. So this setting serves as a way to kick start both storylines.

Next Time

    In my next article, I will be going over the Greek allied forces and talking about the mercenary proto-thureophoroi unit led by Nikanthos in more detail. The article will serve as an introduction to his band and include the first short narrative in his story.

Community Questions

    For some community engagement, is there any stand out figure or event from the Hellenistic Era you enjoyed learning about or wish you could learn more about?

Sources

1.) Diodorus Siculus “Bibliotheca Historica” Book 4: The Relationship Between Cyrene and the Greek World

2.) Herodotus

3.) Pindar

4.) Duncan Head “ Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars”

5.) Introduction to ancient Greek colonies by History with Cy 

6.) Greek colonization sounds stressful by Generic History

Introduction to the Blog

Hello everyone,

I wanted to do a short intro to let you all know what my blog will feature.

    I'm a big fan of ancient history and the Hellenistic Age is one of my favorite time periods. I also really enjoy games and historical tabletop is a great combination of my passion for history and love of gaming. So this blog will be a sort of digital journal of my journey through historical tabletop. The posts will include battle reports, painting and creating army lists, tie in narrative elements, and the research I put into the game. The historical research may also lead to posts that just cover some historical topic that I find interesting. I'd also like to get some community engagement going, otherwise I would just post all this to my private Google docs. So each blog post will try to feature some engagement questions, a comment section for community thoughts, and any topics you all might be interested in.

    To kick things off, I'll jump right into a preview of the two campaigns I'm building up to. The first campaign is a series of scenarios in a fictional setting where Alexander the Great did not die in 323 B.C. The other campaign takes place in the same universe, but follows a Greek mercenary band around the Mediterranean. I will primarily be using Tactica II as a rule set, with some of my own slight tweaks for the scenarios. But, I also hope to try out some other rule systems and a variety of scenario types.

    In my first scenario, we have Alexander the Great invading the region of Cyrenaica. For the game I will be using Tactica II with some alterations. Rather than slugging it out until one army reaches its breakpoint, the game will be decided by the highest point total from controlling objective points on the map. Control of the objective will grant the player its full point value while both a contested objective and an uncontrolled objective will not grant any points to either player. I'll be providing more details, along with a rough illustration and photos of the battlefield in future articles. For now, some brief context for the special rules will be provided below.

    The two forces facing off will be the vanguard of a Macedonian army led by Alexander himself, and an army from Cyrene made up of Greek colonists, Greek mercenaries, and native Libyan allies. This battle represents a smaller portion of each side's larger force clashing as Alexander looks to get his army into a favorable position to lay siege to the city of Cyrene. Some of the notable units that will be featured in this game, and discussed in more detail in my future articles, will be the proto-thureophoroi units on the Greek colony’s side and the experimental mixed “pike & shot” units of Alexander the Great. I’ll also be providing some information on the area of Cyrenaica and the city of Cyrene.

Community Questions    

    For some community engagement, is there any stand out figure or event from the Hellenistic Era you enjoyed learning about or wish you could learn more about? Also, what area do you think Alexander would have moved to conquer next or what region would you be interested in seeing Alexander send an expedition to?