Soldier in ancient Egypt

The trade of soldier is not very popular in the ancient Egypt. The Égyptiens are rather peasants that warriors. But to defend harvests of the delta Asian invasions, or, in the west, Libya NS, they very early create an army which will quickly become a professional army. If the future officers are recruited in the small one and middle class, the infantrymen come from more disadvantaged classes, because to be soldier of Pharaon gets advantages in kind.

The infantrymen were called “ ˁnḫ.w N mšˁ ”, literally “them (infantrymen) in life of the army” or “ ˁnḫ.w N mšˁ N nḫt.w ˁ3w ”, “them (infantrymen) in life of the army to the great victories”.

Under the Ramsès, there are two kinds of warriors, the infantrymen and the charriers, which often follow one another of wire father and which all is landowners. Only the soldiers of the royal guard touch a corn and meat supplement.

It is from that the army enlists foreigners in its rows, because the Egyptians seem to be diverted more and more soldiering.

Weapons of the soldiers of Pharaon

The weapons used by the soldiers with foot of the Pharaonic army are of two kinds, jet and proximity: launch, javelin, stick of jet, axe-mass, break-sword, curved saber ( kopesh ), simple arcs, hatchet, quiver, sword and composite arc of origin hittite. It is necessary to add to that the shields out of wooden, tended skin or braided reed. Not question of helmet or coat of mail, the light infantrymen, simply vêtus of a mask-sex, make use of an arc and rudimentary arrows manufactured in an imperfect alloy of bronze. The arc is with simple or double curve, of the effective models which are useful until the end of, before being replaced by the triangular arc, easier to handle and to manufacture in series.

The Hyksôs introduce in Egypt of military novel methods, horses and tanks. Later, under the New Empire, the soldiers of Pharaon adopt good number of weapons and equipment (triangular arc, helmet, coat of mail and bent sword) coming from the Syria NS and the Hittites. The coat of mail is composed of a leather jacket with short sleeves furnished with metal plates.

The bronze weapons gain in quality, the tin-copper mixture being proportioned better. Iron the weapons, more resistant, of which serve Hittites, do not seem to be used initially by the Egyptians. Thus the iron dagger found in the tomb of Toutânkhamon is more one object of pageantry that a combat weapon.

Garrison life

Since the predynastic time, the rich person Nubie is a territory coveted by the Egyptians. Also, to maintain the presence armed with Egypt in these hostile regions where the rebellions are frequent, the Pharaons make build fortresses on strategic sites. These fortresses are also used as relay for the campaigns carried out by Pharaon out of Egypt, and are also charged to take care of the good routing of the richnesses, gold, ebony, ivory, corn, etc, intended for Pharaon.

These remote garrisons are populated soldiers recruited and framed by the professional army. If the officers ensuring the framing are generally Egyptian, the soldiers are for the majority of the Nubians which show excellent recruits, mainly in the body of the archers. As for the commander of the garrison, it is often about an Egyptian prince often resulting from the royal family.

Inside the garrisons, quarterings are neighborly with the dwelling houses sheltering the families of the soldiers. The administrative buildings are next to the sanctuaries dedicated to the various worships.

Rewards

The army of Ramsès

The army of Ramsès {{II}} at the time of the Bataille of Qadesh which took place around -1274 vis-a-vis the Hittites was made up of four divisions:

the division of Amon;
the Re division;
the division of Seth;
the division of Ptah.

The army under the Lagides

The army lagide is organized overall on the same model as that of Alexandre. Thus, there exists a clear distinction between the riders, gathered in “hipparchies”, and the infantrymen, organized in “chiliarchies”, composed each of thousand men. Like other hellenistic monarchies, it had a body of elephants of war.

The armies were more and more often made up mercenaries, professionals of the war of which the principal concern was to improve their own fate. Stripped of any patriotic direction, these men, in the very variable beginnings (Thraces, Celts, etc), were not always sure elements. Vis-a-vis this problem, Lagides, which could not - and especially did not want, at least until Ptolémée {{IV}} - count on an indigenous recruitment, sought to constitute a core of faithful soldiers, bases of their military defense. The best way of sticking the mercenaries was to fix them in Egypt, thus giving them a national fastener. Thus first Ptolémées developed the system of the clérouquie which consisted in distributing to these foreign mercenaries of the plots of land in exchange of their military participation in the event of conflict. The allotted batches were proportional to the rank of the recipients; when the system was extended to the natives incorporated in the army, those were to be satisfied with pieces smaller than those of the Greeks. This system put the Greek soldiers in liaison with the natives and was to thus make it possible to diffuse agricultural novel methods. In fact, kneaded Greek and professional ideals of the war, the clérouques ones did not renonçaient with their old lifestyles to launch out in agriculture; generally, they continued to live downtown, between Greeks, and rented their ground with farmers; the only contacts with the local population were thus those of owners , very often scorning. This attitude was all the more badly felt by the Egyptians that those were to sometimes deal with the housing of clérouque, heavy constraint which could cause abuses.

If the system of the clérouquies made it possible first Lagides to secure a relatively solid army, its effect is exhausted little by little; initially because of ground saturation available that Lagides can make gleam in exchange of an engagement in the army; then, the fact that natives can profit from this system devalues it with the eyes of the Greeks; but especially, the sovereign has more and more evil to recover these grounds with dead their holders who transmit them to their heirs without those not taking again on their account the military obligations of their father. This evolution leads even at the end of the period lagide to the transmission of clérouquies to girls when those are the only heiresses.

The system tends to be dissociated from the recruitment of the army which, again, rests more and more on the principle of the mercenariat.

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