Mysian light infantry in the Seleukid army

According to Polybios, a unit of ‘Mysians’ was part of the procession organized by Antiochos IV Epiphanes at Daphne in 166 BCE. Their presence has puzzled historians. In 188 BCE, the Treaty of Apameia had prohibited the recruitment of troops for the Seleukids in Asia Minor. Mysia, moreover, was at that time the territorial base of the Attalid Dynasty. Various solutions have been proposed: these Mysians may in fact have been Attalid troops who had been ‘lent out’ to Antiochos; the Treaty of Apameia was binding only for Antiochos III, not his son Antiochos IV; they were not actually Mysians, but mercenaries armed as Mysians. In this paper, we will try to identify these and other ‘Mysians’ in Seleukid armies. Using also evidence from the Achaimenid period, we argue that their identity was for a large part based upon a real background in the mountainous interior of Northwest Anatolia. The population of this region was hardly controlled by the Achaimenids, Seleukids, or Attalids, and thus often operated as a ‘warrior people’ from which Hellenistic armies recruited units.