Mercenary
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"Under its strong integrating dynamics on the one hand and the impacts of change it transmitted on the other, tribal societies previously living in isolation along the Silk Road or pastoralists who were of barbarian cultural development were drawn to the riches and opportunities of the civilizations connected by the Silk Road, taking on the trades of marauders or mercenaries. Many barbarian tribes became skilled warriors able to conquer rich cities and fertile lands, and forge strong military empires."--Sholem Stein |
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A mercenary is a person employed to fight in an armed conflict who is not a member of the state or military group for which they are fighting and whose prime or sole motivation is private gain.
A mercenary (sometimes shortened to merc) -- also called a soldier of fortune, a hired gun, or, archaically, a sellsword -- is a private individual who joins a military conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any other official military.
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin mercēnārius (“hired for money”), from mercēs (“reward, wages, price”).
See also
- Mercenary War (c. 240 BC) – also called the Libyan War and the Truceless War by Polybius – was an uprising of mercenary armies formerly in the employ of Carthage, backed by Libyan settlements revolting against Carthaginian control.
- International Peace Operations Association
- The Dutch Blue Guard
- Private defense agency
- Condottieri, mercenaries of the Middle Ages, particularly fighting for the Italian city-states
- Mercenary Soldiers' Revolt in Brazil
- The Gallowglasses
- Corsair
- Garde Écossaise
- Filibuster (military)
- Siegfried Müller (mercenary) in the film Der lachende Mann – Bekenntnisse eines Mörders
- Hoare, Mike. Mercenary. London: Corgi Books, 1967