Some ancient greek cavalry...

Then the Athenians, when they had learned that by inquiry, were coming to the rescue, even themselves, to Marathon and ten generals were leading them, of whom the tenth was Miltiades, whose father Cimon, Stesagores’ son, it had befallen to go in exile out of Athens from Peisistratus, Hippocrates’ son.
Herodotus


Ok, let's move on to Greek cavalry. My intention is to make an army for 490 BC, the period of the battle of Marathon. With an emphasis on the defense of Athens by the forces of mostly Athens and Platae.

At this time, Greek cavalry was an extremely limited affair, mostly with lightly armed skirmishers on light horses. Osprey and other sources show a very light cavalry, and I was tempted to represent mine as Thessalian light cavalry, as can be found in the Wargames Foundry ancient Greek range (BRWGA9: LIGHT CAVALRY). Those would be lightly armed horsemen wearing a specific headgear resembling a cow-boy hat. Osprey's "The Greek and Persian Wars" has a good depiction of what I want, plate G2. The plate depicts a Thessalian light cavalryman coming from the plains of Thessaly, in the North of Greece. These were mercenaries, and wore the typical chiton loincloth and a cloak. Armament was light, mostly javelins or spears. Their hat is particularly striking, with its wide brim and small crown.

With this in mind, I was not really satisfied with the various sets I had: Hat Thessalian cavalry, Zvezda or Hat Greek cavalry, etc. They tend to represent the cavalry of Alexander the Great during his conquests of Persia and the Caucasus. This armored, heavily armed cavalrymen often wore shields, which Greek cavalrymen of the Marathon period never used.
So I took the wonderful Zvezda horses (from the Alexander's cavalry set) and mixed them with Hat and Zvezda light infantrymen, plus a few bits and bobs. The results below:













You get the idea. As an aside, the Hat Alexander's light infantry set contains a wealth of material: I will most probably use those as well for Persian light subject infantry or mercenaries. A guy with a loincloth and a spear can be a Persian, a Greek, an Egyptian or something else all the same.

One problem is the saddles: Thessalian light cavalry rode bareback, without stirrups, but their horses had mouthpieces and reins. I was wondering about filing off the saddleclothes of the Zvezda horses, but Mr. Osprey told me that these cavalrymen sometimes used a piece of cloth called an ephippion to ride on. This is great, because the soft plastic these 1/72 figures are made of tends to melt or shred if you file it. This is messy business, and I was happy to let them as such.

I will do two units of those, counting as light cavalry in the Warmaster list. For heavy cavalry, always following Osprey, I will basically represent them as hoplites on horseback, without the shields.

Ok, more later.
Cheers.

PS. A few links on Greek cavalry and ancient Greek warfare taken from the Interweb. Between that and the Osprey books you already get a lot of information. I am ashamed as to how little I actually know about certain aspects of this period. Or, to be precise, I know more about the organization of Ancient Greek societies than about their military life. Well, never too late to learn.

• Some wikipedias on Ancient Greek warfare and Miltiades, the Greek commander in Marathon.
• A superb website full of black and white pictures related to Greece and especially ancient Greek sites. You will also find there the writtings of Herodotus, especially his depiction of the battle of Marathon. Very inspiring stuff...
• Robert E. Gaebel's "Cavalry Operations in the Ancient Greek World" and a book review of it giving you a good road map through the book
• A forum entry with drawings of hoplite shields' symbols (very useful for painters)
• And, because I can, the best book I have read so far on Ancient Greek civilization: L'aventure grecque, Pierre Leveque. Yes, it is in French.