The "Fred thread": the Argead Macedonian Army

[Paralus]

The often heated discussion regarding the true nature of hypaspists seems something unlikely to ever be resolved between true believers on any side of the issue, and certainly not through quoting from our far from complete and not always themselves well informed sources.

Ahh... the eponymous Fred! Wondered where you'd got to.

Don't mind me: Paul Mac and I have rehearsed this before; once around a pool with dead and dying bottles of red. Bit like a married couple.... My position is likely as entrenched as is Paul's though I'd see these troops as having fought in both forms. But you're right: like any good married couple, we're unlikely to persuade each other otherwise we can't bicker later.

or one can argue with some support (not conclusive) that these same troops were sarissa-bearing phalangites or one can even argue with some support that the hypaspists were hoplites (carrying on an old tradition with mostly fresh troops) while the Silver Shields were phalagites (a team culled from at least a few surviving 'old sweats' from Alexander's day, perhaps reconstituting an elite composite unit formed in India ["picked troops from each batallion of heavy infantry" - Arrian 5.20]) and heavily filled-out with new recruits (thus, the Silver Shield's failure to hold good discipline as a unit at Paraetacene, losing vital order in pursuit to suffer a counter-attack and ultimately cost Eumenes that engagement).

As you qualify: "with some support". I don't think that is a widely accepted view. The troops mentioned in India are a one off. Craterus and Ceonus (from memory) are left behind as Alexander marches on - eventually to Sangala. Here we have some of the phalanx, half the cavalry, the Agrianes and the hypaspists (all three chilliarchies commanded by Ptolemy incidentally). The "rearguard" then join them. I don't have the Greek but I do wonder if the picked men of the phalanx are not the "most mobile and best armed"?

The modified position of the above is Lock's. He claims that "argyraspid" is a Seleucid throwback and that these troops were simply three thousand mutinous old sweats detached from the royal army at Triparadiesos. There are any number of problems with that view beginning with their commander (Antigenes) and the hypaspists being in Egypt with Perdiccas and the fact that Diodorus clearly names them, under the command of the archihypaspist Nikanor, at Gaugamela. Arrian names the self same troops, under Nikanor, as the hypaspists.

Moving off the armament of these blokes, it is interesting that the sources' clear line is that this unit was 3,000 strong - both under Alexander and after his death. This has implications for their final numbers as the other plain fact is that the argyraspids do not have an agema. This is to be expected after their role as the king's guard lapsed during the Diadoch wars. It is possible then that the hypaspists corps by the end of Alexander's reign was some 4,000 strong - the royal hypaspists being the other chilliarchy?

As for Paraetekene, Antigonus in fact lost this engagement. His behaviour post battle signals this clearly (the detaining of Eumenes’ envoy as he buried his far, far greater dead etc) and the battle was fought over access to the region of Gabiene: access Eumenes gained and Antigonus lost (having to retreat to Media). The argyraspids did not cost Eumenes the battle on the field. They cost him the battle in demanding to return to their baggage and refusing to occupy the field. Antigonus was clearly attempting to win this engagement with his heavy cavalry and Macedonians of his right. That Eumenes left wing stubbornly stayed put with its flank protected by the hills made this impossible. Unfortunately it meant that as Eumenes' right pressed forward and the infantry, lead by the argyrapsids, drove the Antigonid infantry from the field, a gap opened as the Eumenid left stayed rooted to the hills. Had Eumenes left Eudamos (on his left) to look after himself "Antigonos might have found himself the leader of a cavalry detachment and little more" (Gaebel, Cavalry Operations in the Ancient Greek World p. 215).

Addendum:
Just on the Anaximemes thing. There are as many interpretations of that fragment as there are commentators - or so it seems. At bottom we have an out of context reference to Anaximenes (a contemporary of what he writes as were Theopompus and Demsothenes) preserved in Harpocration if I recall. There is little or no context revealed for the fragment and it is hardly likely that Alexander (II or III or even I for that matter) had to accustom or teach the Macedonian hetairoi to ride a horse. Probably the best discussion - linguistically and context wise - is Erskine's The Pezhetairoi of Philip II and Alexander III (Historia , 38, No. 4, pp. 385-394) And, yes, I do have a soft copy...

Adendum II:
The corrollary to the above is Anson's excellent discussion in his Eumenes of Cardia: A Greek Amongst Macedonians (pp.237-230).