[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.]
All rulers and elites need and create their own bodyguards. The latter come in many shapes, all with their own relationship to the person or persons they are supposed to protect. The papers collected in this volume illustrate the many forms bodyguards could take from the Middle and New Kingdom in ancient Egypt, the Iron Age in Mesopotamia to Achaemenid Persia and the Greek and Roman worlds from the Archaic Period all the way to the Early Byzantine one. After an introductory essay by Whately, there follow twelve chapters describing bodyguards for each area and period with a concluding “Epilogue on Bodyguards” by Maxime Emion that almost reads like a review of the book itself. An index of mostly personal names and titles completes the volume.
The problem with approaching the phenomenon of bodyguards does not seem so much one of definition as of trying to grasp the many shapes and forms of bodyguards through the ages and areas covered by this volume. For that reason, the editors chose to leave open the definition although, as Whately writes (5), “their most important function was to protect whomever they were serving,” which reads like a fair definition. The Greek somatophylakes and the Latin corporis custodes suggest that basic function with their names. But bodyguards went by many other names, some referring to weapons they carried (doryphoroi, machairophoroi, hypaspistai), others less revealing but more grandiose such as equites promoti dominorum nostrorum of the emperor Galerius (ad 305-311). The emperor Caracalla had his own group of “barbarian cavalry known as the ‘Lions’” (Hebblewhite 251). Sometimes people were bodyguards in name only “without performing traditional ‘bodyguard’ duties” (e.g., Zaia 39 on Iron Age Mesopotamia). Many such units went well beyond their strict duty of protecting their employer. Besides being symbols of power, conducting diplomatic missions as trusted intimi of a ruler, or carrying out ceremonial, administrative and courtly tasks (e.g., Zaia, Gibbs on Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt), they could be used for intimidation and ostentatious display of raw force (e.g., Rollinger 223-248 on the Praetorian Guard under the Principate), or morph into violent paramilitary bands (e.g., Gibbs). Not infrequently, they became the next kingmakers (e.g., McIntyre on the Early Principate, Hebblewhite 249-271 on the Roman Empire between ad 235-284), sometimes promoting one of their own as the next ruler (e.g., Stewart on Byzantium between ad 400-532).
In many instances, a ruler’s life lasted only as long as the loyalty of his bodyguards. (“His” seems the correct possessive here since we read mainly about men being protected by men. For an exception see Rollinger’s remarks about Roman imperial women, 234.) Inevitably, guards were and had to be in close proximity to their protégé in order to perform their job, but that close relation was also something like a double-edged sword. Those closest to the monarch, having access to him in his most private quarters, could pose a real danger. In order to minimize that risk some rulers therefore preferred their bodyguards to be foreigners with no established ties to the local elite and financially fully dependent on the ruler (Emion 299); others chose eunuchs without any power aspirations for their own offspring (Stewart). At the Macedonian court, Philip II and Alexander III used the so-called paides basilikoi, “sons of leading nobles” as guarantees for their fathers’ loyalty, who not only received an education but also performed certain protective services (King).
Given the fact that the phenomenon of bodyguards has rarely been the focus of scholarly work, this volume is a welcome collection for all those interested in ancient military history, elites, and power relations. All the essays are well written, richly sourced and footnoted, each with its own bibliography. Sources come from ancient literature, iconography, and archaeology. Given the importance of the latter two bodies of evidence, it’s a pity that the book offers no illustrations, and, in some instances, maps would have helped the reader better navigate the narrative. In spite of the breadth that the inclusion of ancient Egypt and Iron Age Mesopotamia suggests at first, the focus of the volume is almost exclusively Greco-Roman, with ten out of twelve chapters. The two contributions on the Achaemenid period rely solely on Greek and Roman sources. It’s only in his Epilogue that Emion (295) refers to the Hittite world with its excellently preserved and richly detailed Instruction for the Royal Bodyguard, to which one might add some excellent sources for the role of eunuchs concerning the safety of the king. A chapter on Hittite bodyguards would have brought some more balance to the volume as a whole.
Authors and Titles
Bodyguards in the Ancient Mediterranean World, Conor Whately
Bodyguards in Ancient Egypt: Their Role as Protectors of the King, Susan Thorpe
Protecting the King in Mesopotamia in the First Millennium bce: Perspectives from the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires, Shana Zaia
Bodyguards and the Connecting Ideology of Early Greek Warfare, Emily K. Varto
Apple Bearers and Kinsmen Cavalry: Guard Units of the Kings of Achaemenid Persia, Michael B. Charles
The Four Hundred and Ten Thousand: The Politics of Greek Bodyguard Service in the Achaemenid Empire, Jeffrey Rop
Guarding the Macedonian King: Royal Servitude, Political Jockeying, and Regicide, Carol J. King
The Lictores: Guarding the Body and the Body Politic in Republican Rome, Jeremy Armstrong
“Bodyguards” and Their Responsibilities in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, Matt Gibbs
Making and Breaking Emperors: The cohors praetoria and the Transition of Imperial Power, Gwyneath McIntyre
Specie Dominationis: The ‘Ceremonial’ Uses of Imperial Bodyguards Under the Principate, Christian Rollinger
Guarding the Emperor in an Age of Chaos, Mark Hebblewhite
Protectors and Assassins: Armed Eunuch-cubicularii and –spatharii, 400-532 ce, Michael Edward Stewart
Epilogue on Bodyguards, Maxime Emion