Description
As centuries passed, naval tactics and needs changed across the Mediterranean. There was a move towards larger ships, partly as an expression of national or dynastic power: the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt were particularly fond of large ships to show their wealth and influence in a physical way. These 'polyremes', a term meaning many oared, were not suitable for ramming work in battle. In practice many of them had no more oars than smaller ships; what they had were more rowers per oar than smaller ships. A Roman hexareme or Greek hexeres would have a couple of banks of oars with three men per oar, and appear to be an over-sized version of a smaller ship. Even so, thanks to being tremendously heavy and strongly constructed, they were slow moving, and hardly capable of the quick turns needed to take advantage of enemy mistakes. Instead the large ships made use of their wide decks and plentiful carrying capacities and became fighting platforms for infantry and artillery. Boarding or long-range bombardment were the methods to be used to defeat the enemy; naval warfare had come full circle in terms of fighting methods, even if ships had grown significantly.
Employing Celtic shortswords or the xiphos, with its very similar blade-shape, these heavily-armoured elite swordsmen acted as frontline and shock infantry in Pontic armies. Garbed in scale armour and carrying thureos shields, they were equipped with javelins in addition to their swords. When charging or receiving a charge, they would throw their javelins at close range, draw their swords and attack before their enemy had chance to recover. This has led to them being referred to as imitation legionaries and the suggestion that they copied the fighting style of the Roman Legions. Over the course of the three Mithridatic Wars, waged between Pontus and Rome from 88-63BC, there was certainly time to recruit and reorganise the Pontic army on the Roman model. However, such infantry may equally have developed under the influence of the Celtic Galatian settlers or the Hellenic thorakitai, a more heavily armoured form of thureophoroi. Whatever the case, Pontic swordsmen were well disciplined and equipped, and highly effective in battle.
