Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (106 – 48 BCE), better known today as Pompey the Great, was a hero of the Roman Republic, with a string of successes in various wars, so when Julius Caesar launched his military coup in 49 BCE by crossing the Rubicon, it was to Pompey that the senate turned to crush the revolt. Some historians believe it was Pompey who had engineered these events precisely so he could respond to such a call and save the Republic, thus becoming the most powerful man in Rome, but if so then he miscalculated. Initially retreating from Rome and Italy, he gathered forces from throughout the Eastern Empire, and met Caesar at the climactic Battle of Pharsalus the following year. Although he had the larger army, many of his soldiers were relatively inexperienced, and in the event Pompey suffered a complete defeat, fleeing the battlefield as his army was routed. Seeking to continue the struggle, Pompey then travelled to Egypt looking for support, but was murdered upon his arrival, and in time it was Caesar that would become the most powerful man in the Roman world.

Looking at the poses, we see that this set contains mostly men with sword drawn, so any spear they might have had has been thrown, and they are either racing to contact with the enemy, or else already engaged in fighting. As usual, the 3D printing process used to create these figures has allowed for much more natural poses than we normally see in such figures, and the results are terrific. Possibly the weakest one here is the first pictured figure, who is holding his shield horizontally in front of him. It is often forgotten that shields could be a very useful offensive weapon as well as protection, and holding it this way could help unbalance an opponent before moving in with the sword. However, this man’s full shield is quite heavy, and while legionaries were used to handling them, it takes some effort to hold the shield like this, so while the pose is not wrong, it is probably the least common of the collection here in our view. Of the rest of the swordsmen we can only say we loved them. The shields are all held in logical positions, and the sword arm is moving freely about and away from the body, ready to attack or parry to the side of the shield. We were particularly taken by the third man in our second row, who is about the most realistic running pose we have ever seen, but all the poses are nice and aggressive and look completely natural. The sole archer is in a normal drawing position, which is fine, and the last man is interesting as he has dropped his shield and any weapon, and appears to have a shoulder injury, which must have been common enough on an ancient battlefield, but such minor injuries are rarely modelled today.

As we have said, Pompey raised his forces from all over the Eastern Empire, and so many different styles of war gear would have been on display in such a multi-national army, which by the time of Pharsalus had had little time to come together as a united force. The classic Roman legionary as depicted on the box is barely present in this set, but the styles are pretty much more of the same Hellenistic theme to be found in the company’s sets of Caesar infantry for the same period. Our top row shows the three figures wearing Coolus-Mannheim helmets (incorrectly identified on the back of the box) and padded body armour with diagonal stitching, called coactile. Given the haste with which some of Pompey’s legions were raised, it seems plausible that not all could be given mail body armour, hence these figures, although all three have greaves on both legs, when many (but not all) historians think such items were mostly limited to officers by this period. They wear boots rather than Roman sandals, and all carry a slightly curved, rectangular shield in addition to their sword, which has a blade of about 7.5 mm in length, and is not the shape of a Roman gladius (indeed the last man seems to have a serrated edge to his sword, which must be a production problem).

Our second row contains figures in a very different style. Three of these men wear a Hellenistic-style helmet with a wide brim all round, turned up at the back, and a double-plume crest on top. Again this is mislabelled on the box, and certainly not Roman, but many of Pompey’s troops came from Greece or Hellenised areas. The same three also wear a Greek linothorax armour with layers of pteruges, highly ornate greaves on both legs, and boots. They carry large circular shields, each of which is decorated with the same head design, which is not a symbol we could confirm or dismiss, but regular visitors will know we prefer plain shields so we can add our own choice of emblem. One very curious feature of these shields is that they are held by a short central bar, but there is no boss or indent. While such round shields are very common, we have never seen one held in this way, as they are usually held by multiple straps around the forearm, so while the lack of perfect evidence means we can never say anything about the ancient world is impossible, this arrangement made us very uncomfortable. The third figure in this row is different again, in that he wears a Montefortino helmet with crest, a full mail corselet, sandals and no greaves, and so is much more like the typical Roman soldier of the day. He holds a gladius sword, and a Roman oval shield with central spine and boss.

The final row begins with a figure the box describes as a ‘decurio’. We think they mean a decurion, although that was a cavalry officer, so why he is in this set is a mystery. Anyway, presumably they mean to say this is an officer of some sort, and he is dressed exactly the same as the Hellenistic figures in the row above him. The difference lies in his squarish shield, which has a design of some sort of dragon, perhaps? Again, we have never seen such a design, which looks to us more Chinese than Greek, but perhaps it is taken from a real source, though the whole thing is certainly unusual.

The middle figure in the final row is identified as a Hellenistic archer with a Sarmatian thigh sword, a feature which is again new to us, and for which we could find no corroboration. He wears a tunic and a very simple helmet, but interestingly also has a cloak. His arrows seem to be carried in a bag which is hanging from his belt at the back, and so under the cloak, and he also has another bag on his left hip. All this would make it very awkward to retrieve the next arrow, and so seems to us a very unlikely arrangement for purely practical reasons, and once more, we could find no supporting evidence for this. The last figure wears a Montefortino helmet, padded, fabric body armour, and Roman sandals. He also wears a belt with straps dangling down the front, sometimes referred to as an apron, but a device that did not appear until the first century CE, so is wrong here.

The sculpting of all the 3D printed figures we have so far seen from Linear-A is exceptional, with lovely proportions, great detail and very realistic posture. These are no different, although the man with mail has an odd texture which does not look realistic. Also, the second figure in the top row seems to have confused the sculptor as to the design of his corselet, in that the diagonal stitching goes one way above the waist, and the other below it. This does not follow the one reconstruction that we could find of this garment, and seems less likely, but perhaps not wrong. As always, the 3D printing means the poses can be really energetic and natural, and there is no loss of the lovely detail anywhere, even though every figure comes complete, including shield where appropriate. Obviously having no flash or excess plastic makes this sort of figure ready to go straight out of the box, which is always pleasing, although Linear-A need to keep careful tabs on their sizing, as these are rather too large for Greeks of this century. Another feature we noticed is the bowstring of the archer is much more realistic than earlier sets where this was exceptionally thick. Now obviously a bowstring is actually very thin, so technically it is still much too thick here, but we felt it was thin enough here to be credible, although missing it out entirely is still our preferred action in these cases. However, as can be seen, the string was broken on our examples (at the bottom), so this is probably the price for having a slim and more credible string. Nevertheless this is lovely sculpting by any standards.

With so many national elements in the army of Pompey at Pharsalus, it would have looked particularly heterogenous even by the standards of the day, and Linear-A have made a point of showing some of these more exotic elements rather than the standard Roman legionary, which has already been made by other companies in this hobby. The evidence for such men is extremely sparse, such that it is near-impossible to dismiss or reliably confirm any particular feature. We have raised some issues with certain elements like the shield grips and the positioning of the archer’s arrow bag, sufficient to knock an accuracy mark off, but the truth is no one really knows for sure, so everyone must decide for themselves if they accept the look of these unusual figures. What they do achieve is they bring a Hellenistic flavour to a late Roman Republican army (whether that of Pompey or someone else), which is surely a good thing for the civil wars, and by doing so, expand the available range for the period, underlining the fact that not every ‘Roman’ looked the same. And of course, they are beautiful objects in their own right, which is always a bonus.