Reform of the Egyptian Army
All these officers, too, had commands in the army
suited to their particular accomplishments. Eurylochus
of magnesia commanded about three thousand men of what
were called in the royal armies the Agema, or Guard;
Socrates of Boeotia had two thousand light-armed troops under
him; while the Achaean Phoxidas, and Ptolemy the son of
Thraseas, and Andromachus of Aspendus were associated in
the duty of drilling the phalanx and the mercenary Greek
soldiers on the same ground,—Andromachus and Ptolemy
commanding the phalanx, Phoxidas the mercenaries; of which
the numbers were respectively twenty-five thousand and eight
thousand. The cavalry, again, attached to the court, amounting to seven hundred, as well as that which was obtained from
Lybia or enlisted in the country, were being trained by
Polycrates, and were under his personal command: amounting
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in all to about three thousand men. In the actual campaign the
most effective service was performed by Echecrates of Thessaly,
by whom the Greek cavalry, which, with the whole body of mercenary cavalry, amounted to two thousand men, was splendidly
trained. No one took more pains with the men under his
command than Cnopias of Allaria. He commanded all the
Cretans, who numbered three thousand, and among them a
thousand Neo-Cretans, note over whom he had set Philo of Cnossus.
They also armed three thousand Libyans in the Macedonian
fashion, who were commanded by Ammonius of Barce. The
Egyptians themselves supplied twenty thousand soldiers to the
phalanx, and were under the command of Sosibius. A body
of Thracians and Gauls was also enrolled, four thousand being
taken from settlers in the country and their descendants, while
two thousand had been recently enlisted and brought over:
and these were under the command of Dionysius of Thrace.
Such in its numbers, and in the variety of the elements of which
it was composed, was the force which was being got ready for
Ptolemy.
