Assault Bireme, Auxiliary Bactrian Hillmen

Description

The waterline ram was first mounted on a vessel in around 850BC. Warships and naval tactics were transformed. Ships were no longer platforms for infantry battles on the water; the ship itself became the weapon. Galleys changed as the new reality sank in. Ramming at speed would hole and sink an enemy, therefore slimmer, faster, handier ships were required. More speed on demand obviously required more oars a fast ship with a single row of oars ended up being stupidly, impractically long. The solution, then, was to put in a second set of oars above the first, but slightly offset to allow for rowers' benches. These biremes, a Latin word meaning 'two oars', or dieres, the Greek equivalent, were no longer than previous designs but had twice the number of rowers. They were fast, manoeuvrable, and could carry a fighting contingent. Some nations also gave their bireme crews fire pots; these clay pots filled with oil and pitch were hurled at enemy ships in the entirely reasonable hope of setting them ablaze.

The Bactrian plain is to the west of the Hindu Kush in what is now Afghanistan. It first enters records of antiquity through Ctesias, a Greek historian (circa 400BC), who falsely claimed that the Assyrian King Ninus defeated the Bactrians in 2140BC. A fertile and developed land, Bactria was prosperous and so, during the expansion of the Achaemenid Empire, it inevitably drew the interest of the newly crowned Cyrus the Great. Under the Achaemenids, Bactria enjoyed the special privilege of being ruled by the crown prince, or heir-apparent to the royal line. It has been suggested that before the Persians, however, Bactria was ruled by the Median Kingdom before they, too, fell to the expansionist Achaemenids. Like many other Persian satrapies, Bactria attempted to rebel against its overlords in the wake of Darius III's defeat by Alexander the Great, only to be subdued by the victorious general.