Xenophon - new figures from Frank Ziegler

Frank came back to his favorite subject - ancients!

I remember Frank sculpting these figures at the dioramica one year ago. Now he sent this photos with the attached text.

I guess they will be available in the shop in 8 weeks.

Here the photos:

And this is Franks text:

The riders of Cyros the younger

At last i completed the first Figures on my new range. The „raw“ horses, I did a couple of years ago, were casted. And at the last time I made their bridle and their saddle cloth. Some of You saw the first riders at the Dioramica, now I completed some more, ready for moulding.

This figures are the first ones of a new series of figures belonging to the era of Xenophon, the time around 400 BC. So here we have the guardsmen of Cyrus the Younger, who did a coup against his brother the grand king Artaxerxes II with the Battle of Cunaxa.

Prince Cyrus the satrap of Lycia, Grandphrygia and Cappadocia has the rank of an Achaemenian viceroy and had the entire Asia Minor under his command. His guard troops were chiefly from his satrapies as well as from Lycia, an independent allied kingdom

My figures represent the mounted guard troops from Cappadocia, as Xenophon also describes. Besides the Persian fashion, they also had Greek-style equipment. They wore an armor (intimated with the protruding neck guard) under a purple / red Persian garment; I applied braids or seam bands as painting aids. Then a Greek helmet with a white crest. Here, the cone-shaped pilos helmet was certainly the most widespread, but variations of Attic or Thracian helmets are also very common at this time. As armament, the riders wear a Greek sword and the Palta, a pair of spears, one being used for throwing, the other for fighting.
The horses have bridles with gag snaffles, the mane is short-cropped and the forelock is tied to a tuft. The saddle clothes have the pointed or stepped zaddles, typical for the Achaemenite period, as well as some of the motifs, which I worked as a painting aid.

Beside the riders there are horse boys / pages. They wear Persian / Median garments, an akinakes and as headgear a tiara with a diadem. I sculpt them without beards, as youths.