Recruitment

Professional soldier

Somebody who is paid to fight in the army of their country/state. Being a soldier is their career, but they may also fight for other reasons e.g. a sense of duty.

Mercenary

Somebody who is paid to fight in an army, but they aren’t from that place and aren’t fighting because of duty.

Agoge

Spartan military training. All Spartan boys started this at age 7 and needed to complete it if they wanted to become a citizen.

Syssition

A dining club in the Spartan military. Made up of adult Spartan citizen men, nobody could call themselves a Spartan citizen unless they belonged to one of these groups. Members of the syssition would dine together every day and fight side by side on the battlefield.

Tresant

A Spartan could lose their citizenship and become a tresant (plural: tresantes) if they were seen to be cowardly in battle. This was a kind of inferior status.

Camaraderie

Mutual trust and friendship among people who spend a lot of time together

Kleros

A plot of land given by the Spartan state to every Spartan citizen, to ensure that Spartan families could produce food.

Helots

“Captives”

Spoils of war

Treasure (including enslaved people) looted as part of a successful battle or campaign.

Trireme

A warship popular in the Athenian navy and characterized by having three rowers on each side of the boat in each row (hence: tri).

Trierarch

A wealthy citizen in Athens who paid for the building/upkeep of a trireme.

Legionary soldier

A soldier in the Roman army. Legionary soldiers were Roman citizens and were more highly paid than other kinds of soldiers.

Auxiliary soldier

A soldier in the Roman army. Auxiliary soldiers were not Roman citizens and they were paid less than legionaries, but they could earn citizenship when they retired.

Augustus

Rome’s first emperor, also called Octavian.

Denarius (plural denarii)

Roman currency

Honourable discharge

when you’re released from military service early, but not for a bad/dishonourable reason.