The "Fred thread": the Argead Macedonian Army

[MeinPanzer]

I am surprised to see it being suggested that shields simply ‘hung’ from their neckstrap/telamones. This suggestion was largely discredited more than 35 years ago by Charles S. Grant among others, and Connolly and other re-enactors since. An old ‘canard’ that is as lame now as it was then ! To begin with, any shield unsupported by hand/arm will be driven in by the first serious blow it receives. Secondly, even a smallish 60- 70 cm shield is a severe encumbrance dangling thus – and anyone who has tried it can tell you that it is impractical to fight in this way. Any shield must be moved to parry – see any practical arms manual from any era. A soldier in combat unable to move his shield is a dead soldier – effectively shieldless.

All that these reenactors have shown with their limited tests is that some types of shield - Asclepiodotus' Macedonian shield - could be effectively employed with porpax. Once again, the purpose would not have been to deflect serious blows, nor to parry - they were probably just intended to be used as defense against missile weapons for those not in the front ranks. We hear about how phalangites were unsuited to fighting in close combat, and so it was perhaps thought to be worth it to arm a number of men with shields which conferred some defensive benefit, if not when it comes to close combat, in order to fill out the ranks.

The tomb of Eubolos, dated 275-250 BC ( see e.g. the Cambridge History of Warfare) – but I’m sure you expected me to say that! For further details see Feyel (Polybe et l'histoire de la Beotie) which discusses Boiotian inscriptions that describe young citizens being recruited into the thureophoroi - dating from about the 270s to 240s

The stele of Eubolos is dated to between 275 and 250 because it features thureoi and it is known that the first years the thureos could have been in use was the mid-270s, while it was no longer in use after 245 - so this does not provide any evidence for the date when the thureos came into use per se. Instead, we must rely on the two military catalogues which mention thureaphoroi, IG VII, 2716 and SEG 3, 351. On the latter the preamble listing the archons in office has been lost, and so it cannot be dated with precision beyond "pre-245;" the former, however, preserves the name of the federal archon Dorkylos, which means that it can be dated between 250 and 245. Therefore, the terminus ante quem for the adoption of the thureos in Boeotia is 250: almost exactly the same as for the Achaean and Aetolian leagues.

I think you misunderstand, of have maybe misread my post – I refer to both the the single-rib/single hand grip Italo-Gallic type, and the Greek type with porpax and antilabe. I was not suggesting ‘aspis’ types were single grip.

If I understood you correctly, and you were referring to the round cavalry shield furnished with a spina like the thureos, then I was challenging the fact that they are single grip, as you assert, and not equipped with a porpax. What evidence do you use to support this?

I don’t believe there is any convincing evidence for such a premise – cutting down the rim would compromise the structure and rigidity of the shield, and render it useless, I suspect that experimentally, small rims might have been added to ‘Macedonian’ shields is possible – the rim deflects a weapon sliding over the domed surface, so that it doesn’t come straight over the edge of the shield, a disadvantage of the rimless shield compared to the ‘Argive’ type.

So, in your view, how would the phalangite on the Pergamon battle plate with the domed shield with small rim be able to wield the sarissa with a porpax?

It should be pointed out that it is more likely the shields in the Lyson and Kallikles tomb are quite possibly cavalry shields. The high-waisted armour depicted certainly is a cavalry cuirass c.f. Alexander mosaic, the Roman bronze of Alexander in the BM, and the Pelinna relief from Thessaly ( the latter two illustrated on pp5 and 8 of Sekunda’s “The Army of Alexander the Great”). I referred to the potential for confusion following the introduction of cavalry shields earlier e.g. the larger ‘Macedonian’ shields are now believed to be cavalry shields.( sorry, can’t find the ref at the moment)

Certainly you do not think that the shield decorated "in the Macedonian manner" is a cavalry shield? In our fairly plentiful evidence from all over the Hellenistic world, we never see such shields in use among cavalry, only ever infantry. The single exception is a cavalrymen on a belt plaque from Basse Selce in Albania, but he is clearly an Illyrian cavalryman, as he wears an Illyrian helmet.

The panoplies don't necessarily relate to the single arms shown in the paintings, but simply seem to be generic trophies, since if they did each individual would possess two helmets.

Furthermore, as the Aemilius Paullus frieze illustration posted by Paul B. shows,(beating me to it!) in fact a porpax was used with the ‘Macedonian’ shield.
That this shield was not an ‘Argive’ aspis is shown by three things:
1. It is clearly rimless
2. Whatever time the infantry use of the ‘Argive’aspis ended, it was almost certainly long before 168 BC
3. Nowhere in the accounts of Pydna are there any references to Macedonian infantry who could be armed with an ‘argive’ aspis.

Except for the similar shield in Pergamon and the exceedingly similar shields carried by infantry on the Paullus monument (and armour in as much as can be made out).

That shield, held as shown, could not be used as Connolly suggests. It is being held exactly as aspides, Argive or otherwise, have been held for centuries, with the hand well inside the curvature of the shield, not near the rim, and not so that the hand passes through the antilabe as Connelly did. There are many images of aspides in the classical period that show shields with greatly reduced rims.

This shows that one kind of shield carried by a Macedonian infantryman was equipped with a porpax - which, again, I don't object to. But, again, Paul, how would a phalangite be able to carry such a shield and employ its porpax while also wielding a sarissa two-handed? Could such soldiers perhaps have not used the porpax, only slipping their left arm into it after they had dropped their sarissa and were preparing hurriedly to engage in close combat?

But for porpaxes on peltae, see below from Ephesus:

Unfortunately worth little, considering its late date (1st c. BC) and the tendency of artists at that time to produce fantastical weapons reliefs (see, for instance, the numerous Amazonian peltae depicted elsewhere on the monument).