From: "Chris" 
Subject: Re: (urth) Immortals and Archaic Rome
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 04:16:22 +0000

Hmm. This, combined with some other posts, made me wonder about languages. 
Our Lucius was fairly fluent in Greek (even if his memory problem leads to 
some strange interpretation). IIRC he also was able to talk to Persians and 
Phoenicians in languages other than Greek. Perhaps he was simply very 
learned, but I tend to think that he had lived for quite some time in a 
culturally diverse environment. If Lucius and his contingent had been living 
amidst the Persian court for a fair amount of time, this makes it much more 
likely that they'd be exiles rather than mercenaries. Certainly the Persian 
kings were fairly generous to other exiles.

And now that I think about it, given the numerical advantage the Persians 
had and the obvious problems with keeping them supplied, it would seem odd 
that they would scrounge so far afield for mercenaries anyway.

>The Persians generally lacked infantry to match the Greeks. Before,
>during and after the war they went to some efforts to hire Greek
>infantry. They would have definitely found a use for a cohort or two
>of Roman infantry.
>
>
>J.

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