The "Fred thread": the Argead Macedonian Army

[Paullus Scipio]

I posted this yesterday, but somehow it seems to have got "lost". It is now rather out of context, but for completeness sake I'll restore it......

Paralus wrote:-

Paullus Scipio wrote:But in Polybius, ‘euzanoi’/unencumbered or lightly equipped...

We are not discussing Polybius here. The quote was from Diodorus who describes an army sent to confront Eumenes. You are suggesting that Antigonus sent some 20,000 “peltasts”, psiloi or Cretans to confront the argyraspids and Eumenes other forces?

No, but we are discussing usage of the term ‘euzanoi’ which can refer to ‘light armed’ in the technical sense, or mean more generically ‘lightly equipped’ as in no baggage. Antigonus’ army is an example of the latter, since of course Antigonus did not send only ‘light armed’ forces to confront Eumenes, rather a mobile, lightly equipped ( with no baggage) force.

Paullus Scipio wrote:Also, troops don’t come any more lightly armed than shieldless, unarmoured archers/light armed, so who can the ‘lightest armed’ of these be , if not those who leave their baggage behind with the remainder? Troops still do this today – dropping their packs to become ‘lighter armed’ and leaving them for others to bring up…..

You skip past the point Scipio. That is that the term should be translated as “mobile’ or “agile”. That passage, “the lightest armed of the light armed” is the clincher.

Huh?....I think we are here agreeing that ‘mobile/agile’ = no baggage/lightest equipped, so that a better translation is “the most lightly equipped/baggage-less of the light-armed” – otherwise, as we have seen, it simply does not make sense…..

Paullus Scipio wrote:All in all, not very impressive evidence for sarissa armed Hypaspists ( Phylarchus is not very credible, according to Polybius,(II.56 etc) who charges him with falsifying history, inter alia....)

I would expect little less. The criticism of Phylarchos, by Polybius, which you reference is entirely in relation to the former's narrative of the rise of the Acahaean League and its demotion to near lapdog status under Macedon. There were two strong traditions in the ancient source material; you discard one absolutely to suit your view. Polybius, naturally, was incapable of bias: particularly when it came to an historian who chronicled Kleomenes III of Sparta; a man who represented the absolute antithesis of everything Polybius, his father Lycortas and his coterie stood for. One might almost imagine Phylarchos was an Aeatolian rather than an Athenian...

Consign Phylarchos to the McDonnell-Staff waste basket. To quote Pierre Briant: “A historian can’t choose his sources”. You will continue to do so I expect.

It is not I who consign Phylarchus to the “waste-basket”, but rather Polybius. The passage you refer to as evidence for the argyraspides carrying sarissa is a later, fanciful tale of the extravagance of Alexander and his companions, to be found here:- [url:32cffpi0]http://www.attalus.org/translate/phylarchus.html[/url]- this translation does not mention ‘sarissa’ - like I say, pretty thin as evidence, especially as the passage as a whole is not very credible….

Paullus Scipio wrote:Theopompus is in any event contradicted by another source contemporary with Philip – Anaximenes ( who incidently wrote a lampoon of Theopompus), who tells us that the Macedonian army reform were started by ‘Alexander’ (Alexander II reigned 370-368 BC; he and Perdiccas were both Philip’s elder brothers who were killed). He tells us that Alexander bestowed the name ‘Hetairoi’ on all the heavy cavalry ( probably no light at that time) and ‘all’ the infantry were called ‘pezhetairoi’. He describes the infantry being organised in units ( lochoi) cositing of files ten deep. (dekades). Whether it was in fact Alexander II who initiated use of the sarissa, or Philip, later as he is commonly credited with, is unknown.

As I see you’ve just done. You’ve published this paper I assume? This proof of the above bald assertion?

We know the ‘Alexander’ cannot be Alexander I ( early 5C BC), because no ‘regular’ heavy Infantry existed in Macedon at that time, and cannot be Alexander III ‘The Great’ because both Hetairoi and Pezhetairoi existed in his father Philip’s time. Alexander II ( ruled370-368 BC) is the only possible candidate, especially as he is the elder brother of Philip….
Eighteen months (nearer 2 years?) is plenty of time to set in motion military reforms completed by, and credited to his brother Philip.....and if he set about reforming the cavalry from 'irregular' to regular ( i.e. disciplined drilled cavalry as opposed to a bunch of nobles who only got together for a campaign, and replaced the previous pair of longche with the hand-to-hand xyston) he could be said to have "taught them to ride" ( as proper cavalry), remembering that under Philip (Alexander?) the 'hetairoi' were opened up to include other than macedonian nobles.....turned into 'professional cavalry' in fact....

Paullus Scipio wroteemosthenes does not in fact refer to Hypaspists as ‘pezhetaroi’. That is pure inference.

Nice attempt. After all the ink to discredit Theopompus, only this? Demosthenes refers to “foot companions” (pezhetairoi). It is clear they are his guard. They are later named hypaspists under Alexander. The utterly discredited and totally unreliable (another ancient source dismissed to the McDonnell-Staff waste bucket) Theopompus also names them. Go figure.

Sigh !! It is said that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, and I must say I had hoped this debate would be above this sort of personal attack…..usually a sign that the perpetrator has run out of rational arguments !
Later you quote the Demosthenes piece:

Dem 2.17: Hence it is not difficult to see how the majority of the Macedonians regard Philip. As for his ‘household troops’ (?????)and ‘foot-companions’/phalanx ( a more accurate translation than ‘footguards’ – as you clearly acknowledge above.) (??????????), they have indeed the name of admirable soldiers, well grounded in the science of war; but one who has lived on the spot, a man incapable of falsehood, has informed me that they are no better than other soldiers.

As I said, nothing here to indicate that the ‘pezhetairoi’ were ‘Guards’ and later became ‘Hypaspists’.

As to the Cleitus incident (Arr.Anab 4.8. :


Then his companions were no longer able to restrain him; for according to some he leaped up and snatched a javelin from one of his confidential body-guards (somatophylakes); according to others, a long pike from one of his ordinary guards (hypaspists), with which he struck Cleitus and killed him…


So we can now consign Arrian to the same waste bucket? The text is plain: the murder and its lead up are the same; one source saw a “javelin” and the other reported a sarisa. Nothing to do with later interpolation: the somatophylakes carried a javelin and the hypaspists carried a sarisa. Here Arrian is recording what the two sources he relied upon reported. That’s fine though: Theopompus in the bin, Phylarchos in the bin and Arrian’s source in the bin (be that Aristobulos or Ptolemy) as you well know which “story seems unlikely and probably comes from later knowledge”.

Like I said, I consign no historian to the ‘waste basket’ – those are your words. Personally, I think that even a bad or unreliable historian sometimes preserves nuggets of fact and/or useful information. These are the ‘witnesses’ who provide our ‘evidence’, some good some bad, all (including Polybius!) more or less biased. And as with any witness, especially when there are contradictions between them, “the evidence is weighed, not counted”. We must try to decide which evidence is more likely/probable/correct.

BTW, Hammond's 'blade' is in fact a 'longche'. Plutarch has an 'aichme'/spear snatched from a 'doryphoroi', Curtius a 'lancea'/longche from an 'armiger'/somatophylax, which Alexander is deprived of, whereupon he seizes a 'hasta'/dory/pike? from a 'vigil'/guard/hypaspist? ....Arrian says 'longche' in one version, 'sarissa' in another - but we can't even be sure who these 'guards' are, let alone the weapon used! How can this be evidence of anything? ( and I'd bet it was a 'longche'.....). Alexander first spits Cleitus (indoors! ) with a PIKE?..... then places butt of same against a wall and tries to run himself through? Incredible ! My point about later writers assuming a particular weapon is a valid one - it still goes on today, a notorious example being the Loeb translation of Hannibal's 'longche' and 'longchophoroi' as 'pike' and 'pikemem' which misled Connolly, and it is certainly possible that some Roman writers, writing almost 500 years later, wrote 'sarissa' because 'everybody knows' that was the Macedonian spear.

Paullus Scipio wrote:This is something of a ‘myth’ – Hoplites held their own and more on numerous occasions against sarissaphoroi – Chaeronea, Issus etc

Which, of course, is why Greek states belatedly went to sarisa-armed troops. We know little of Chaeronaea and Issos is a poor example for your thesis: the phalanx needed to cross a river with steep banks and assault a hoplite phalanx on extremely favourable defensive ground. It should have lost here. That it did not tells much about the quality of troops and the tactics. Read Devine on this battle.

Again: were the argyraspids, hoplite armed, to charge a Macedonian phalanx they will have come off second best. The successor wars show up the increasing reliance on phalanx infantry. Your thesis would see Eumenes battle Antigonus with 3,000 hoplites, 3,000 native “hypaspists” (hoplites?) and a mob of mercenaries. This up against some7,500-8,000 best troops of the day (Macedonian phalangites) which Antigonus fielded. I reject such a weak argument.

Troops “armed in the Macedonian fashion” with sarissa and pelta, may or may not have had an advantage over conventional Hoplites. The conversion by later Greek states may have been as much about aping Alexander’s all-conquering troops as anything else. Having said which, I do believe ‘sarissaphoroi’ did have an advantage in phalanx warfare, but not a huge one.
Antigonus’ Macedonians at Parataikene and Gabiene were young and inexperienced. As I said earlier, warfare being largely a matter of morale, it would be unsurprising if they broke and ran, even before contact, before the fearsome charge of “the Conquerors of the World”, whichever armament they carried, ( as Fred has pointed out) and the brevity of the clash ( and see also your signature quote! :wink: ) are strong indicators of this. After all, other Hoplites broke before contact with the equally fearsome reputation of the Spartans……

Again, doesn’t tell us anything about ‘Hypaspist/Argyraspid’ armament, one way or another.

Against this literary uncertainty, we haven't even touched upon other evidence such as the iconography.....BTW, there is one more minor piece of literary evidence. In Plutarch, the Hypaspist officer Neoptolemus ( who may be the officer who succeeded Nicanor as commander) claims to have served Alexander with 'longche' and shield....no mention of 'sarissa'. Then there's the archaeology....'Aspis' and 'dory' heads (more than one) in the Kingly "Philip" tomb, but no trace of 'sarissa'..... and the 'Alexander' sarcophagus.....Certainly some Macedonian troops were ‘dory/longche’ and ‘aspis’ armed, and it can really only be the ‘Hypaspists’.The idea that it was 'Asthetaroi' who were 'dory' armed would lead to a very mixed phalanx !! Diferent taxeis with different arms?? ( not that we have any certainty as to whether 'Asthetairoi' was a unit, or several units, or a nickname for a unit, of the phalanx!)…and the continued depiction of the Aspis on Macedonian monuments into the 3 rd C BC ( see Markle “A shield monument from Veria” )

I would submit the weight of evidence, especially non-literary, favours dory/longche armed ‘Hypaspists/argyraspides’ over sarissa armed – but the reader must decide on the evidence for themselves.