Mercenaries

Mercenaries (MURR-sinn-air-eez) are paid volunteer soldiers: they are soldiers who are fighting as a job, not in order to save their country or for the glory of God. They only fight if they are paid, or for the booty they will get if they win. Often they will change sides if the other side offers more money.
Many ancient and medieval governments hired mercenaries to fight their wars. Greek men seem to have been especially skilled mercenaries. We know that Greek men fought as mercenaries for the Egyptians and the Syrians as early as the Late Bronze Age, and other Greek men fought as mercenaries for the Egyptians against the Persians in the 500's and 400's BC. In the 300's, Greeks fought for the Persians, in a civil war.

Nubian mercenaries from 11th Dynasty Egypt

The Egyptians also hired many Nubian men to fight for them as mercenaries. The Persians hired Arabs.

In the 300's AD, the Romans hired many Germans as mercenary soldiers, often paying them in land and a share of the taxes (though we don't understand very well how this worked). The Visigoths and the Ostrogoths both worked as mercenaries for the Romans. In the 600's AD, some Arabs worked as mercenaries for the Romans, and others worked for their enemies the Sassanians.

Once the Arabs had founded the Islamic empire, they too hired mercenaries: the Abbasid caliphs hired the Seljuk Turks as mercenaries.

Greek hoplite warfare
Main war page