The "Fred thread": the Argead Macedonian Army

[Paullus Scipio]

Ruben wrote:-

Firstly, by the time the Greek states (Achaea, Boeotia, Sparta) adopted the Macedonian phalanx, they had not "long abandoned" the hoplite, nor was it the success of peltast-like troops that led to the adoption of the thureos throughout Greece. Both the account of Philopoemen's reforms and the military catalogues of Boeotia make clear that the thureos was adopted by hoplites, and that the thureophoroi of whom we hear in Greece in the mid third century BC were in fact hoplites fighting in phalanx formation but carrying thureoi. As a result, they pretty much had the worst of both worlds, with the light equipment of thureophoroi but the static and unwieldy formation of the hoplite phalanx.

Where did you get "long abandoned" from? I don't think I said this....most of the city states seem to have changed one by one from hoplite arms to thureophoroi sometime after the Gallic invasions, c. 275 BC onward.....
It was the Aetolians success with missile armed peltasts/psiloi, and the relative failure of hoplites against the dreaded Gauls that likely caused a switch in the armament of citizen Militias from hoplite to a peltast-type 'intermediate' infantry, supposedly able both to fight as missile troops (requiring open order) and to be able to close up for hand-to-hand combat, though in reality they seem only to have fought hand-to-hand with their own kind, generally,and at the same time to adopt the Gallic-style thureos/oval shield.

Plutarch makes it clear that the Achaean thureophoroi were not good at close combat:
"For this reason they were effective in fighting at a long distance, because they were so lightly armed, but when they came to close quarters with the enemy they were at a disadvantage.....and since they employed a solid phalanx without either levelled line of spears or wall of interlocking shields such as the Macedonian phalanx presented, they were easily dislodged and scattered."
...so I would agree with you that they seem to have had the worst of both worlds.

Secondly, the Achaeans did adopt the Argive aspis, and not the Macedonian shield (Pausanias, 8.50.1). However, this does not indicate that they re-armed their hoplites with such shields. It simply means that the phalangites used Argive aspides. Contra Paul, it would not have been physically impossible to carry the Argive shield while bearing the sarissa. We know that when Cleomenes III equipped his men as phalangites, he issued shields to them and taught them "to wield the sarissa with both hands and to bear the shield with strap (ochane), not with porpax" (Plutarch, Life of Cleomenes, 9.2). Once it is accepted that the phalangite did not have to employ a porpax to carry his shield, the offset rim and size of the hoplite shield are no longer impediments to wielding the sarissa.

You are being a little selective by only referring to one of our sources. Plutarch simply says 'heavy' aspis and 'long' dory - presumably the Macedonian 'sarissa', Polybius refers to these Achaeans as 'peltasts'. We have in fact had a detailed discussion of these reforms here on RAT in early 2008 "Pausanias on Achaean armament ca. 200 BC", which is still available in rather butchered form since the changeover to the latest version of RAT. Here is a quote from a previous post of mine on that thread.
"First, Pausanias was living in a Roman Province, and probably came from Lydia.He wrote his 'Tour of Greece' between 174 and 180 A.D. He does not show particularly good classical or scholarly knowledge, and when writing of the past tends to rely on 'tradition' and 'what he was told'.
Second, the Achaean League at around this time went through many changes. For example under Aratus, an early leader of the League it fielded barely 10,000 troops in 245 B.C. By 228 B.C. it could field 20,000. Initially, the army of the League consisted of citizens and mercenaries, equipped as Thureophroi ( i.e. Pausanias' 'long narrow shield' equals thureos, and thureophroi, with celtic style oval shields performed the function of earlier peltasts.)A force of 3,000 citizen foot and 300 citizen horse took the field under Philopoemen as Macedonian Allies against the Spartans at the battle of Sellasia in 222B.C. - plus a force of 1,000 Megalopolitan exiles equipped in the Macedonian manner(i.e. as heavy infantry sarissaphroi).Megalopolis was not technically a part of the League, but joined later. By 219 B.C. this force became a standing Army of the 3,000 citizen Infantry and 300 citizen cavalry, plus 8,000 mercenary foot and 500 mercenary horse.The army now included 500 Megalapolitan heavy infantry phalangites. In 208 B.C. Philopoemen re-organised the rest of the citizen infantry as Macedonian sarissaphroi. .The Achaean citizen infantry are hereafter referred to as 'peltasts' ( by Polybius, and caetrati), a direct latin translation in Livy). Philopoemen also reformed the Cavalry arm and re-organised it.
Third,It should be noted that Macedonian style sarissaphroi are often referred to as 'hoplites', and that Macedonian style shields are often referred to as 'Aspides' as well as 'Peltai' and that Greeks might prefer the term 'dorasi megalois' to the more uncouth Macedonian sarissa !! "

It is also clear that in 208 BC, Philopoemen reformed the whole Achaean citizen phalanx into Macedonian sarissaphoroi, from thureophoroi. There is no evidence,AFIK, that Achaea fielded traditional hoplites armed with 'dory/Argive aspides' at that time

And I can assure readers that it IS impossible to effectively wield a two-handed sarissa and a rimmed shield 85-90 cm in diameter ( the Argive aspis), from personal experience and that of Peter Connolly and other re-enactors, and this is so even if the porpax is not used and the shield simply hung from the neck ( which is impractical in itself anyway). See Connolly's various articles for how the neck-strap/[i]telamon was used in fact to support both sarissa and shield.
An "aspis with a neck-strap" in our sources probably means the Macedonian style pelta,(60-70 cm diameter) the reference to the neck-strap being used to distinguish it from other 'aspides' such as the traditional Argive one (85-90 cm diameter)

That is not to say that the later Macedonian pelta 60-70 cm in diameter, originally rimless, may not have acquired a rim at some time in some states - for some representations in iconography appear to have rims, though none of the half-dozen or so found have rims, IIRC. Both Giannis and I have pointed out before that 'aspis' simply means a sturdy 'heavy' circular shield ( as opposed to wicker and rawhide 'light' shields), and only became synonymous with the Argive rimmed aspis because this was the normal shield of the traditional hoplite.

And thirdly, there is no reason to doubt that the hoplite armed with doru and Argive shield existed well into the Hellenistic period. The classic hoplite remained in use among small independent poleis: an example of such troops is the the third century BC citizen soldiers of Teos armed with aspis, doru, machaira, and helmet (Robert and Robert, "Une Inscription grecque de Teos en Ionie. L'Union de Teos et de Kyrbissos," l. 33-4), and their continued use is demonstrated by several iconographic sources which continue to depict the Argive shield alongside contemporary equipment.

Certainly, traditional hoplite panoplies did not disappear immediately with the appearance of the Macedonian one, and existed into the 3 C BC, even in Macedonia ( see Markle: A Shield monument from Veria), but we cannot rely on iconography for continued use of traditional argive aspides. As an attribute of Gods and Heroes, it continued to appear in art, on coins and in sculpture right into Imperial Roman times - but I doubt anyone would suggest that it continued in use in those times! I don't believe there is any certainty as to when the traditional Argive aspis finally disappeared, other than 'sometime in the 3C BC'.