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Armenians?I'm actually a little leery about the inclusion of the Early Armenians in the Antigonid DBA enemies list. I cannot find any references to Antigonos attacking Armenia at all. To mislead Eumenes during the winter of 316 BC, Antigonos let it be publicly known that he was marching north to conquer Armenia. This was merely disinformation. He planned on - and succeeded in - stealing a march on Eumenes. He never invaded the country. Much later, Seleucus did some campaigning in Armenia, but to my knowledge he did not raise an Armenian army to fight against Antigonos.Therefore I had believed that they represented some of the Asia Minor kingdoms (such as the Pisidians) that did not ally with Antigonos. Or possibly an early hypothetical campaign against Cappadocia in 322, although Antigonos fled from Asia rather than follow Perdikkas' orders. Both ideas are not very sound however. In the first instance I believe the Pergamene (#48) list would be more accurate than the Early Armenians, aside from the Galatian warband...and the question of dates. In the second case the Antigonid list begins in 320 BC, at the start of the First Diadoch War, well after Perdikkas issued his orders. Which brings up the problem of dates. The Early Armenian list only begins in 300 BC...which is after Antigonos died. According to the DBA chronology it must therefore be Demetrios who fought the Armenians. This presents another thorny problem. Here is the timeline of Demetrios' activities after Ipsus.
To quote Plutarch, "But when Agathocles, the son of Lysimachus, arrived with an army, he retreated into Phrygia, with an intention to pass into Armenia, believing that, if he could once plant his foot in Armenia, he might set Media in revolt, and gain a position in Upper Asia, where a fugitive commander might find a hundred ways of evasion and escape. Agathocles pressed hard upon him, and many skirmishes and conflicts occurred, in which Demetrius had still the advantage; but Agathocles straitened him much in his forage, and his men showed a great dislike to his purpose, which they suspected, of carrying them far away into Armenia and Media." Early Armenia therefore can only be considered a hypothetical opponent. Personally, I do not mind fighting such battles or campaigns. After all, is not all wargaming a "what-if"? However, I think the enemy lists in DBA should contain actual, historical opponents. I'd be interested in hearing from others about this little conundrum. I'm certainly no expert and do not claim any exhaustive search of the literature and sources. Return to the Antigonid Army List.
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I can only conclude that Demetrios never fought the Early Armenians. So, either my sources are wrong, or I have missed a reference to an attack on Early Armenia by Demetrios. I suspect that a reference to Demetrios' planned attack on Armenia in 285 was encountered, but unfortunately the DBA list compilers did not realize that he was captured before ever setting foot in Armenia.