Throughout classical Greek History, most mercenary soldiers came from peripheral regions like Archadia, Aetolia and Crete. Few resources and too many mouths to feed have been often indicated as forming the background of working away from home. As a matter of fact, agricultural conditions in those regions cannot always be thought of as unfavorable in comparison with the rest of Greece. So, it is important to focus upon the social and economic conditions of these peripheral peoples to study the origins and development of mercenaries among them. This paper is a case study of Crete, which was a major source in the recruitment of mercenary forces in the armies of warring powers during Hellenistic times. In Hellenistic Crete, like Sparta, the ownership of landed estates had markedly changed in character. Polybios says in his time that citizens could have as much land as they were able to acquire. A logical conclusion is that on the one hand, landed estates became owned by fewer and fewer people, while on the other hand, more and more people lost what land they possessed. Serious discontent spread throughout the island among citizens deprived of land and young men trained from boyhood in athletic and military pursuits. In this same period, Cretan cities concluded many international treaties with the major political powers of the Hellenistic World, and as a result of these treaties, frequently dispatched "allied troops" overseas. In the guise of bilateral agreements these treaties principally aimed at ensuring stable supplies of mercenary troops for kings, cities, or leagues of cities. The evidence suggests that these Cretan mercenaries were normally those citizens who could still provide their own weaponry, but were suffering economically. These citizen・soliders went abroad almost exclusively under the control of the oligarchic rulers of cities. Negotiations for recruiting mercenaries were often controlled by the governments of individual Cretan cities themselves and recruiting campaigns on the island required their permission. This is the reason why, in Hellenistic Crete, a redivision of land or other radical changes never happened, as far as we know. The ruling oligarchies of cities coped with this critical situation by sending abroad people who had been reduced to poverty and discontented with existing regime as hired soldiers and allowing them to enjoy the benefits of war, while at the same time to averting the revolutionary energy of people upsetting the ancien regime. On the other hand, the alliances with foreign powers were beneficial in both political and military aspects for the oligarchic parties that dominated the Cretan cities. In their own feuds or in social conflicts, they found supporters in those foreign powers in return for providing mercenary forces to them.

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