March 30, 2011

almost finished



The Camp nears completion - just the oxen handlers to go.

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March 06, 2011

Greeks in Libya!

My new Field of Glory army is fully underway. When i first read about Cyrene or “Kyrene” I had no idea that the Greeks had established several cities in Libya. The more i read about this area the more i liked the concept of the army. One of the things i really was drawn towards was the fact that they used carts to travel to battle rather than walking – makes sense when you consider they wore heavy bronze armour! (makes a cool camp idea as well!) The other thing is that unlike other Greeks they utilized Heavy chariots for war. The concept of Greek Hoplite battle groups with 4 horse Heavy chariot battle groups and a hoard of skirmishing battle groups just sounded too good to not try it out.
A bit of history
Cyrene (Greek: Κυρήνη, Kyrēnē) was an ancient Greek colony in present-day Shahhat, Libya, the oldest and most important of the five Greek cities in the region. It gave eastern Libya the classical name Cyrenaica that it has retained to modern times.
Cyrene lies in a lush valley in the Jebel Akhdar uplands. The city was named after a spring, Kyre, which the Greeks consecrated toApollo. It was also the seat of the Cyrenaics, a famous school of philosophy in the 3rd century BC, founded by Aristippus, a disciple ofSocrates. It has been nicknamed then as "Athens of Africa"
Cyrene was founded in 630 BC as a settlement of the Greeks from the Greek island of Thera, traditionally led by Battus I, ten miles from its port, Apollonia (Marsa Sousa). Details concerning the founding of the city are contained in Book IV of Histories, by Herodotus of Halicarnassus. It promptly became the chief town of ancient Libya and established commercial relations with all the Greek cities, reaching the height of its prosperity under its own kings in the 5th century BC. Soon after 460 BC it became a republic. In 413 BC, during the Peloponnesian War, Cyrene supplied Spartan forces with two triremes and pilots.[5] After the death of Alexander III of Macedon (323 BC), the Cyrenian republic became subject to the Ptolemaic dynasty.
Ophelas, the general who occupied the city in Ptolemy I's name, ruled the city almost independently until his death, when Ptolemy's son-in-law Magas received governorship of the territory. In 276 BC Magas crowned himself king and declared de facto independence, marrying the daughter of the Seleucid king and forming with him an alliance in order to invade Egypt. The invasion was unsuccessful and in 250 BC, after Magas' death, the city was reabsorbed into Ptolemaic Egypt. Cyrenaica became part of the Ptolemaic empire controlled from Alexandria, and became Roman territory in 96 BC when Ptolemy Apion bequeathed Cyrenaica to Rome. In 74 BC the territory was formally transformed into a Roman province.
IMAG0171
Here’s what I've got done so far. I wont finishing basing them till the whole army is complete but it will give you an idea of what I'm aiming for.