10-28-2009, 06:04 AM
Stefanos wrote:
...I would agree with you that lexica cannot be taken as gospel, and that, for example much has been learnt in the last 100 years or so which should "update" them. ( e.g. the now infamous Loeb mistranslation of 'longchophoroi' as 'pikemen' based on an incorrect lexicon entry).
However, you seem to be saying in the quotation above that 'lochos' in the 5 C BC is a unit "composed from 100 to 250 men maximum" yet, as we have seen in this thread Thucydides, who was a 'strategos'/general in 424 BC ( and so "walked the beat" as you put it ) tells us plainly that a Spartan 'Lochos' numbered 512 at first Mantinea.We have also seen that if all age classes were called out, a Spartan 'Lochos' numbered 640.....
"Lochos", like the English word 'company' ,can be of indeterminate size and in the 5th/4th centuries it was most assuredly not limited to a maximum of 250 men.....
Quote:Xenophon actually saw action and knew his staff better and understood units and subunits (Anabasis). From Xenophon to our days a lochos is a unit composed from 100 to 250 men maximum and that is what a greek speaker understands.......Armies are "beasts of habit and traditon". This is something that we see even today. The most rational thing is that lochos as Xenophon and most Greeks understand appeared earlier than the 5th/4th centuries B.C.
...I would agree with you that lexica cannot be taken as gospel, and that, for example much has been learnt in the last 100 years or so which should "update" them. ( e.g. the now infamous Loeb mistranslation of 'longchophoroi' as 'pikemen' based on an incorrect lexicon entry).
However, you seem to be saying in the quotation above that 'lochos' in the 5 C BC is a unit "composed from 100 to 250 men maximum" yet, as we have seen in this thread Thucydides, who was a 'strategos'/general in 424 BC ( and so "walked the beat" as you put it ) tells us plainly that a Spartan 'Lochos' numbered 512 at first Mantinea.We have also seen that if all age classes were called out, a Spartan 'Lochos' numbered 640.....
"Lochos", like the English word 'company' ,can be of indeterminate size and in the 5th/4th centuries it was most assuredly not limited to a maximum of 250 men.....
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)
"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)
"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
