Agrianian Peltast

[MeinPanzer]

If you turn to page 152 of the Art Catalogue from "In Search of Alexander" (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1980) you'll find some very interesting, and, I think, revealing, shield decorations. they're done in terra cotta and have brushed on color, indicating that they were rose and gold (or possibly purple and gold) and can be associated with guards units (check out the Alexander Helios decoration)

I know we don't "know" anything, but the elongated shields match both the descriptions of Iphacrates so-called reforms (forget the reforms, he did re-create the idea of the Peltast) and the associated shield.

I find the Iphacratian shield interesting because, with minor mods, it's the Celtic La Tene shield and the Roman Republican shield--an important design. Which makes it all the more likely that some of Alexander's best carried it. Agrianians? Who knows....

Interestingly, the pointed gallic" shields (with thunderbolts and Alexander's head, or 26 other decorations) are associated with similar shields but of "argive" design, complete with deep dish and rim. They're from the "Erotes" toomb (3rd c. BC) and were probably funerary decorations.


Okay, I don't have the right to cut and paste them here, but the items are 97.323 (argive) 97.327 (argive) 97.334 (pelte) and 97.345 (pelte). Go to the Museum of fine arts boston website and search by cat number and the images are clear and include the original color--wow.

If I was painting Agrianians to play, or doing a unit as a reenactor, that would be my shield...www.mfa.org/index.asp

The shields you are referring to from the Tomb of the Erotes, a Macedonian tomb from Eritrea, are thureoi (Celtic shields) and are not associated with the Iphikratean pelte. Both Iphikrates' reforms and the reign of Alexander predated the invasion of Celts into the southern Balkans and the subsequent introduction of the thureos by several decades. Besides that, we don't even know if the description of Iphikrates' peltai as being "symmetrical" means that they were oval, so they may not have resembled thureoi at all.

The pelte of the Hellenistic period was not the thureos, and the two forms of shield are quite clearly differentiated in literary sources. The pelte was a small round shield while the thureos was a large oblong shield.

[Kineas]

Do you know that?

Diodorus Siculus says that Iphacrates shield was oblong.

For instance, the Greeks were using shields which were large and consequently difficult to handle; these he discarded and made small oval ones of moderate size, thus successfully achieving both objects, to furnish the body with adequate cover and to enable the user of the small shield, on account of its lightness, to be completely free in his movements. [3] After a trial of the new shield its easy manipulation secured its adoption, and the infantry who had formerly been called "hoplites" because of their heavy shield, then had their name changed to "peltasts" from the light pelta they carried. (DS Book 15.XLIV.2)

Further, Polyaenus suggests the same, and while I would hesitate to say anything is a "fact" in the distant past, I'd be pretty careful of saying that representations found in a Macedonian tomb couldn't possibly represent arms carried by Macedonian troops.

Why would we believe that Celtic shields were necessarily "different"? Is there, for instance, a period source that remarks on the difference? Seems to me that most ancient cultures borrowed/drew on everything around them. Modern DNA theory is overturning all of our 19th C. notions of race as a cultural division--let's not assume the same for military equipment.

And if those shields are Celtic--why the thunderbolts and the Greek mythology on the design?

[MeinPanzer]

Do you know that?

Diodorus Siculus says that Iphacrates shield was oblong.

No, he doesn't. He calls the shield if Iphicratean troops "peltas summetrous," which means "symmetrical peltai" if translated. The real difficulty comes in when interpreting what "symmetrical" means in this case, and one suggestion is that they could have been oblong, but that is only speculation.

Further, Polyaenus suggests the same, and while I would hesitate to say anything is a "fact" in the distant past, I'd be pretty careful of saying that representations found in a Macedonian tomb couldn't possibly represent arms carried by Macedonian troops.

Though, again, the shields are never called oval or oblong. I definitely do think that the shields represent Macedonian arms, but they are thureoi and aspides, not peltai.

Why would we believe that Celtic shields were necessarily "different"? Is there, for instance, a period source that remarks on the difference? Seems to me that most ancient cultures borrowed/drew on everything around them. Modern DNA theory is overturning all of our 19th C. notions of race as a cultural division--let's not assume the same for military equipment.

The thureos was unique in that it was not only oblong (a facet which is not all that unique when it comes to shields), but that it was decorated with a vertical spine embellished with a boss usually shaped like a barley-corn. This is a feature that is peculiar to the thureos and its family of shields and differentiates it from oblong shields from the rest of the world and from all other periods of history.

And if those shields are Celtic--why the thunderbolts and the Greek mythology on the design?

I hesitated to call the shields Celtic in that post, but I only did so to fit your terminology. I prefer to refer to this type of shield as a thureos, which was the ancient name for it. Though the thureos is of Italian origin, the Celts were the primary transmitters of it to other peoples. After their invasions of the Balkans and Asia Minor, the thureos was widely adopted by all sorts of peoples, Hellenic and non-Hellenic. Unsurprisingly, after Hellenic peoples adopted this style of shield, we find examples which are decorated with motifs common to Greek art. The most common examples are representations of Nike and the lightning bolt, both commonplace symbols of victory, but on the Tomb of th Erotes shields we also see, for instance, Helios used as an emblem.

[Kineas]

Thanks--nice explanation. I'm a little concerned that our view of the Pelta is too limiting, but I see the strength of your argument. Wow, is my Didorus wrong--your translation is better.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Kineas,there is a long discussion about the pelte and the thyreos and the translation of "summetrous",or better,the non-translation of "symmetrous". Do a search if you want...
By the way...there is every possibility that your translation of Diodorus is wrong This is the case with nearly every translation,especially to english.
Khaire
Giannis

[Paralus]

Kineas,there is a long discussion about the pelte and the thyreos and the translation of "summetrous",or better,the non-translation of "symmetrous". Do a search if you want...
By the way...there is every possibility that your translation of Diodorus is wrong This is the case with nearly every translation,especially to english.

Some words and concepts are difficult to find English equivalents for. My Greek is nowhere near good enouh and I'd go with Giannis. The words used – "kateskeuase peltas summetrous amphoterôn" - seem to covey that the pelte was commensurate with both. Both of what?

Either way oblong is not mentioned nor is oval. These are concepts applied to make sense of the Greek. In other words, to do both jobs the best “fitâ€

[Marcvs75]

What made the Agrianian peltast/javelineer an elite (light) infantryman ??

Were they all (aprox. 1000 troops) picked man ?
Was it their way of fighting ? (surely not very different from the other thousands of Balkan fighters in Macedon's army)
Or were they much better armed, trained and disciplined by Macedonian officers ?
Or was this special core in someway absolute loyal to Alexander ?
Maybe it is a mix of the above.

These special soldiers of Alexander (as the hypastist) intrigues me very much, and i think manny feel the same way

[hoplite14gr]

The men of the whole locality had devloped an uncally skill with the javelis as the Rhodians had the sling or the Cretans the bow.

Philip II improved them with further training, dicipline and equipment.

Kind regards

[Paralus]

Philip II improved them with further training, dicipline and equipment.

Well that, I suspect, is a guess. An educated one possibly but we really do not know. The Paeonians were subdued early in Philip's reign and they revolted - along with Cetriporis (king of an area of western Thrace) and Grabus (an Illyrian king) in 356. Philip appeared with an army and they were "compelled" to "support the Macedonians" as Diodorus notes at 16.22.3. Thus they were subject kingdoms in the way Thrace was due to become in the next decade. As such they will have been drafted into Philip's forces as he chose and when he chose.

It is then likely that male members of these ruling families were brought within the influence of the Macedonian court - as were some Greeks to the south. Thus when Demosthenes in his Third Philippic, delivered sometime about 341/40, says "You hear of Philip marching wherever he wishes not by leading a phalanx of heavy infantry, but by being equipped with light infantry, cavalry, archers, mercenaries and suchlike soldiery..." (IX.49) the forces he describes (likely operating during Philip's Thracian campaigns) almost certainly contain the Agrianes.

Whether Philip trained or supplied them is anyone's guess though. Demosthenes' point - that Philip's levies were brigands, mercenaries and uncivilised swill, nothing like the Spartans in their pomp, would be rudely rebutted at the point of a sarisa at Chaeronea.

[sitalkes]

Hi, don't forget that the first use of the thureos or shields like it was just as likely to have been by the Illyrians, not the Celts, as illustrated (on this forum in another discussion) on 5th century Illyrian metalwork

[Paullus Scipio]

Interesting....the earliest Celtic depiction comes on a metal scabbard (IIRC)...being away from home I can't readily check.....c.450-400BC, following their contact with Italy and the scutum. A research project worth doing would be to chart the spread of the large Italian oval scutum/thureos shield, which spread so rapidly through the Mediterranean world...

[MeinPanzer]

Interesting....the earliest Celtic depiction comes on a metal scabbard (IIRC)...being away from home I can't readily check.....c.450-400BC, following their contact with Italy and the scutum. A research project worth doing would be to chart the spread of the large Italian oval scutum/thureos shield, which spread so rapidly through the Mediterranean world...

That study would be M. Eichberg's "Scutum: die Entwicklung einer italisch-etruskischen Schildform von den Anfängen bis zur Zeit Caesars." A good beginning point, but Eichberg draws on a limited pool of archaeological sources and his theory of the diffusion of this shield type suffers for it. His postulations about the spread of the thureos to the northern Europe and the Germans, for instance, have already been proven to be off by at least a century or so by the find of a 5th c. BC barley-corn boss, almost identical to those form the Hjortspring shields, from Kvarlov in Sweden. In addition to this, he almost totally neglects the Greek east and the thureos's spread following the Galatian invasions.

I believe that the Illyrians are thought to have taken the thureos from the Halstatt Celts, who were the first central European people to adopt it, some time in the 5th c. BC.

[PMBardunias]

I had read it originated with the Venetic culture.

[MeinPanzer]

I had read it originated with the Venetic culture.

My knowledge of early Italians is not very deep, but I believe that it is thought to have emerged in Etruria in the Villanovan period.

[Paullus Scipio]

Mein Panzer/Ruben wrote:-

My knowledge of early Italians is not very deep, but I believe that it is thought to have emerged in Etruria in the Villanovan period.

...to elaborate a little on this, the earliest example I know of is a sculptural representation of a scutum, complete with spina and 'barleycorn' boss found in an 8th century grave in the cemetary/necropolis at Etruscan Vetulonia ( Poggio alla Guardia). The shields themselves must go back earlier still......
Representations of Oval shields of slightly later date have also been found in the Po valley and over the border in Austria, but these lack 'spina' ( though this may be inaccurate art). The origins of 'scutum' type shields, are clearly in Northrn Italy then, among still-bronze-age Villanovan culture tribes.
Around this time,(c.750 BC) another culture of immigrants arrives in Italy from the East, probably Anatolia - the Etruscans who introduce chamber tombs with vaults and domes that even the Greeks were still unaware of...