'The Norman Invasion of Sicily, 1061-1072: Numbers and Military Tactics'

[rodge]

Thanks Duncan
Roy pointed me at some of those images but I missed a couple that you put up.
I found the article on Sicilian Archers on De Re Militari yesterday, I believe there was a debate about whether the mounted archers used horses to move around on but dismounted to fight or if they were horse archers?

Numbers are quoted by Malaterra and that link to the Theotokis paper on Malaterra goes some way (but not far enough) to deciphering some of the claims.

[Jim Webster]

The 5000 cavalry figure could be very much a maximum if Gelon hired Mercenary cavalry as well as Mercenary infantry. His horsemen need not necessarily all have been from the Island

I think they were all Greeks from Sicily (not necessarily Syracuse), because any other mercenaries available would have been snapped up by the Carthaginians 

Just reading round the subject apparently Gelon hired a lot of Sicels
Trying to remember when the earliest use of Etruscans and Italians (not Italiots) was by Greek Tyrants

[Patrick Waterson]

Sicels would at least have grown up among and be living off the resources of Sicily and so should not unduly affect our rule-of-thumb figure.

Wikipedia mentions the following about Gelo's army, alas without references:

"Under Gelo's rule, Syracuse soon became prosperous. Along with grand building program in Syracuse, Gelo sought also to create a powerful mercenary army. Most of the recruits for his army came from the native Sicel tribes. However, some were recruited from the Greek mainland, men who had most likely fought with Gelo at some point in the past, and their total number was said to be around 10,000. All of these men were granted citizenship of Syracuse."

This was before the 480 BC campaign, and being Syracusan citizens they presumably settled there and lived off Syracuse's resources.

Gelo also fielded 50,000 infantry against the Carthaginians (in addition to his 5,000 cavalry) and had earlier promised to take 28,000 troops (not differentiated between infantry and cavalry) and 200 triremes to Greece if given overall command of the Greek forces against Xerxes.  This suggests that 27,000 of his 55,000 at Himera were allies, as opposed to men under his rule or direct influence, and might conceivably give us an idea for the likely size of a Sicilian Muslim army (27,000-28,000?) in later times.

The Carthaginians at Himera, having lost their own mounted forces to a storm en route, were expecting cavalry from their Greek allies: Gelo's cavalry got into the Carthaginian camp through some of them pretending to be allies from Selinus, so it looks as if there were more cavalry existing in Sicily at the time than just the 5,000 under Gelo.  5,000 thus looks more like a minimum for the island rather than an upper limit, at least for this period.

Gelo's successor, Hiero I, fought the Etruscans (defeating them at Cumae in 474 BC) so I suspect the first Syracusan tyrant to hire Etruscans and Italians in any numbers may have been the elder or younger Dionysius, but stand to be corrected on this point.