Greek Mercenaries in Antiquity

[akritas]

One from the FYROM argument as about the Greekness or not of the ancient Macedonians is the claim that the Greeks that fought Great Alexander’s army are most from that was allied. Is that true and if no why. I am tried to explain what a Greek mercenary was in the Greek classical epoch. A mercenary in Antiquity had different meaning from the today mercenary.
The mercenaries explored herein were military men. The majority of Greek mercenaries were probably the very citizens who formed the cores of poleis armies. The mercenary reflected Greek society because of the integral relationship between war, socio-economic organization and politics.
The mercenary, however, challenged the community values of ancient Greek society because a mercenary was not a member of the community for which he fought and had no stake in that society, being neither citizen nor landholder. The importance of mercenaries in transforming the nature of Greek society cannot be belittled. In the hoplite community war was highly political.
Mercenary service cut the links between citizen and community service, between a son and his household, between an independent farmer and his land, between the ideal amateur and the professional specialist. Mercenaries cut the link between war and the political life of the community and thus the independence of the citizen who abrogated his responsibilities in needing a specialist to defend his home and his state.
Economically, mercenaries were of major significance to Greek history.
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