Since I was a boy I have read about the biggest, the best, the brightest, the fastest, and the most successful fighting men in history. They were usually the guys with the best toolkit, the most supportive community, the most competent bosses, and the most convincing biographers. There were notable exceptions, like the French Foreign Legionnaire, who became famous despite official neglect. But when it comes to ancients, it is always the guys with the coolest toys and glitziest political pedigree that garner all of the glory. I thought it was about time to give the grunts their due.

For this examination of the ancient fighting man we are taking a grunt’s-eye-view of ancient war-fighting. My method of considering the worst jobs that the ancient military could provide required a lot of reading between the historical lines, or looking at the hero from the viewpoint of his doomed opponent or unheralded laky. I have used my vivid imagination to attempt to achieve real empathy for my subjects across the ages; and across some even wider gulfs than time. I have taken some liberties, and permitted myself a few small assumptions.

These assumptions and extrapolations are not, however, unfounded. My father, brother, father-in-law, uncle, and three step-brothers were combat infantrymen. When I made out the following job descriptions I listened to their voices, and the voices of the men I have interviewed and the war-diarists I have read, speak to me about the tedium, terror and unlikely nuances implicit in war-fighting jobs.

This article presents jobs #10, #9 and #8 in our countdown of the ten worst jobs in ancient warfare. As we countdown the woes of the war-fighter of old on our way to the single worst ancient military job possible, I trust we gain a greater appreciation for whatever job we happen to hold in the here and now.

In the ancient world the fellow actually driving the chariot was like a Huey pilot in Vietnam. If his commander—a rich guy, the guy that owns the chariot and horses—is an archer, than it’s like piloting a gunship—everybody wants to kill you so that the jerk that’s killing them gets grounded; but all you have is a door-gunner, and he is the jerk in charge! Do you realize how different Vietnam would have been if the door-gunner was the guy calling the shots?

And if your employer is, let’s say, Achilles; some unbeatable psychopath with a sharp object, then putting a feather in your throat is the enemy’s only chance to keep him at bay long enough to flee.

On the other hand, suppose your boss is a scrub. Let’s say your scrub boss-man gets his ass kicked—by, for instance, an Achilles-like butcher—then you have to try and swoop in there and pick him up, unarmed and without cover. You need both hands to operate your chariot and both engines are living, breathing, scared and/or pissed-off beasts, who might also be shot or stabbed—and if that happens, you are suddenly multitasking as a combat veterinarian.

If we pursue the helicopter pilot analogy further we have to take your weapon-systems away except for the door-gunner, and put two gas tanks down below your cockpit where everybody can shoot at them.

Then there is that Achilles guy again. If your commander kills his little boyfriend he’s going to be making examples out of you guys. Honestly, about the only thing that sucks more than being you; is being one of your horses! At least you aren’t strapped to this thing like some serial killer’s plaything.

Oh, just one more thing, Pharaoh wants you to ride across that exposed sandbar while the wind is keeping the tide out. The crazy prophet with the bad hair; bring back his head—no, of course it doesn’t float! Get moving!

A helot was a specific type of slave owned by the Spartan State. Each Spartan shield-man would have a peltast as an attendant. If 300 Silent Men were going somewhere to fight, 300 of these back-shafting pricks were coming with them. A peltast was armed with a few light javelins, a small shield, primarily for deflecting the missiles hurled by his counterpart, and some type of hand weapon: a club, knife, small sword, sickle, etc.

Properly deployed these troops could be very effective, and were needed to cover the flanks of the heavily armored shield-men when they were arrayed in line and file. The job of peltast was not so bad. It was the fact that a helot peltast was essentially the squire to a heavily indoctrinated suicidal psychopath that sucked.

Your boss wants to die in combat—like a Viking without the booze or personality—which increases your opportunities to do likewise without the booze, the fancy red cape, and absolutely none of the glory. And if you somehow avoid his fate, which you may, since him and his psycho buddies tend to win most of the fights they pick and all the ones they don’t; then you get to drag his corpse back to his mother, and explain it all to her; you know, the chick that told him to come back ‘with his shield or on it’. Since your shield is not big enough to carry your scrawny ass back on maybe she will give you a pass and not say anything to her bloodthirsty brother about you not having done enough for her killer baby.

One final thing, if you make it to retirement by way of your master finally getting knocked off, you will be fair game again, just like the rest of the Helots. So if you actually get to retire, keep in mind, that while you are whittling in front of your overcrowded hut, that the next generation of Spartans will be celebrating their graduation from the Military Psychopath School for Brutalized and Inarticulate Youths, by hunting and killing at least one of you.

Yeah, that’s why you didn’t get to bring your weapon-kit home when your master’s commander grunted something about returning to the land…

Congratulations. You are the standard-bearer for a Roman cohort, or perhaps an entire legion; maybe even a counselor legion! You carry the mighty eagle on a stick; symbol of mighty Rome and her invincible legions. You have the coolest outfit on the battlefield and are generally not expected to go out there and carve people up because you have already done plenty of that. That is why you are a signifier and that pasty-faced punk in the front rank is not! Let him work his way up through the ranks.

Although, on the face of it, you have one of the best jobs in the legion, there are some potential complications.

First there is the enemy. They might be a bunch of Asiatic pussies. But, if your commander is suitably ambitious, he has either picked a fight with a bunch of gigantic barbarians who are not afraid to die, or, more likely than not, another finally honed killing machine; a rival Roman legion! Wow, that will be a tough day at the office, particularly for you, because the enemy commander wants that big unwieldy avian sculpture that you are hauling around, at his feet; and he does not want your hands on it, unless they are no longer attached to your arms!

The second, and most common, complication, is the fact that your commander 1. Either sucks, and when the cleaved gobs of flesh hit the proverbial fan, will be looking for the Centurion—the fearless hard-ass standing next to you—to straighten out his rich-boy mess; or 2. He is a military genius, a leader of men, who, if need be, will take that standard out of your hands and throw it into the enemy ranks—like throwing your promotion into the dumpster for the grease-balls in the janitorial pool to fight over!

Now, wanting to be suitably admired by as yet unborn play-writes, he will do this, in a most dramatic fashion, from the back of his big white horse, which is, just now, shitting on your boots. You, on the other hand, must retrieve that standard from amongst the horde of foul-smelling axe-wielding barbarians or snappily-dressed apex man-cleavers by climbing over the dead and dying in your nondescript lion-skin.

The upside is, you probably only have ten more years until retirement. Besides, this battle is no big deal, really—you guys are outnumbered all of the time. That’s what got you your promotion, when the last signifier—dude, check your eleven o’clock; you’re like the only grunt on the field without a shield…