04-16-2014, 10:03 AM
George is correct: the term is not technical and can denote any infantry type carrying 'white' shields. It may well be that the 'chalkaspides' and the 'leukaspides' were the two 'wings' of the full phalanx. As George has written, Kleomenes raised 2,000 phalangites - armed in the Macedonian fashion - to counter Doson's leukaspides. While that doesn't prove that the troops he opposed these to were sarisa-armed, it is near to a certainty in my view. Further, Kleomenes faced something in the order of 8,000 Macedonian phalangites (3,000 'pletasts' and 5,000 others which must have included the leukaspides) on his wing where he stationed his 6,000 sarisa armed.
Interestingly S Nutt, in his thesis, has gone the entirely opposite way arguing that at Selaasia the chalkaspides were thureophoroi (and may not have been elsewhere). His reasoning, if I recall, is that they were formed up with the Illyrian thureophoroi on broken ground - not good for a phalanx. He singularly fails to understand that this was the reason Doson alternated speirai of Illyrians and sarisa-armed chalkaspides. Just as did Pyrrhos in Italy (though he discounts this too).
For the Macedonians of the late third century on, war was increasingly a 'phalanx thing'. The more the better as Raphia demonstrates. There is little doubt, to me, that Perseus' Macedonian infantry at Pydna was sarisa-armed. White or bronze shielded.
Interestingly S Nutt, in his thesis, has gone the entirely opposite way arguing that at Selaasia the chalkaspides were thureophoroi (and may not have been elsewhere). His reasoning, if I recall, is that they were formed up with the Illyrian thureophoroi on broken ground - not good for a phalanx. He singularly fails to understand that this was the reason Doson alternated speirai of Illyrians and sarisa-armed chalkaspides. Just as did Pyrrhos in Italy (though he discounts this too).
For the Macedonians of the late third century on, war was increasingly a 'phalanx thing'. The more the better as Raphia demonstrates. There is little doubt, to me, that Perseus' Macedonian infantry at Pydna was sarisa-armed. White or bronze shielded.
Paralus|Michael Park
Ἐπὶ τοὺς πατέρας, ὦ κακαὶ κεφαλαί, τοὺς μετὰ Φιλίππου καὶ Ἀλεξάνδρου τὰ ὅλα κατειργασμένους
Wicked men, you are sinning against your fathers, who conquered the whole world under Philip and Alexander!
Academia.edu
Ἐπὶ τοὺς πατέρας, ὦ κακαὶ κεφαλαί, τοὺς μετὰ Φιλίππου καὶ Ἀλεξάνδρου τὰ ὅλα κατειργασμένους
Wicked men, you are sinning against your fathers, who conquered the whole world under Philip and Alexander!
Academia.edu
