The "Fred thread": the Argead Macedonian Army

[MeinPanzer]

I believe you have misunderstood Asclepiodotus, who, like the other versions, refers to the Hoplites/corps of heavy Infantry, not necessarily sarissaphoroi, which “uses very heavy equipment – for the men are protected by shields of the largest size, cuirasses and greaves” – which distinguishes the ‘heavy infantry’ from lighter types.

There can be no doubt that Asclepiodotus' "sustema ton hopliton" is exclusively phalangites: "The corps of hoplites... uses very heavy/the heaviest equipment - for the men are protected by shields of the largest size (aspisi megistais), cuirasses, and greaves - and long spears of the type which will be called "Macedonian."

He then goes on to say: “The best type of shield for use in the phalanx is the Macedonian, of bronze, eight palms in diameter..” – note the use of the singular; the best type of shield for the phalanx of heavy infantry/hoplites is the Macedonian one ( as opposed, say, to the Argive aspis, or the Thureos), and of course the best type of spear is also the Macedonian that goes with it.
There is only one shield type called Macedonian. C.f. Aelian:” The phalanx will be armed with shield and spear. Now the best kind of shield is bronze, in the Macedonian style, not too concave, eight palms (8 x 3” = 2 ft.) in width….” Again singular and referring to the Macedonian shield, as opposed to other types.

If you're going to nitpick these statements, you're going to have to nitpick the Greek. The Greek of Asclepiodotus is "Ton de phalaggos aspidon ariste he Makedonike chalke oktopalaistos ou lian koile." A literal translation of this would be "Of the shields of the phalanx, the best is the Makedonian, bronze, eight palms [in diameter], not too concave." This means either that in ancient times the Macedonian shield was that which was bronze, eight palms in diameter, and shallow, or that the best kind of shield in Asclepiodotus' eyes is a type of Macedonian, and that there are other kinds which are more concave and larger. The implication is clear: phalangites could employ different kinds of shields, but in his eyes the small shallow one was best. Note also that in the following sentence, he does not write of the best type of spear, but simply states that it must be longer than ten cubits but shorter than twelve.

It is clear that Aelian changes things, because he omits the "of the phalanx" part, but it is widely agreed that Arrian and Aelian modified the military manuals they drew upon (either Polybius' or Posidonius', or both), whereas Asclepiodotus drew from them directly.

But your explanation cannot be correct! It is not just Connolly, but many, including me, who have explored this question by recreation. I urge you to do the same. Cut out a 90 cm disk from a cardboard box. Add some string and hang it round your neck. Now grab a rake or broom-handle and hold it two-handed sarissa fashion. If you have the disk hanging in front of you can’t reach around the two sides to hold the ‘pike’. So place your left arm behind the hanging shield – now you can grasp the pike, but your arm is in just the right place for a porpax. Now make a two-handed thrust. The disk/”shield” slides around as you move until it is hanging beside you, side/edge on, and providing no protection at all. As well, the telamon supporting the heavy aspis is in the way of you thrusting. Now you should understand why you need a porpax……and why you can’t use an Argive aspis, because once you add the essential porpax, the shield is too big to reach the ‘pike’ with the left hand, because of the rim ( essential for structural integrity of the aspis).

Unfortunately, I do not have an array of accurately-made shields of different shapes and sizes, so I cannot test this accurately, nor can any test with a flat shield be helpful in this debate. I hope that at some point in the future, a rigorous test of this can be made.

Well, not having been there at the time, I’m not going to be too insistent on reasons, but it does seem logical to me that the Aetolians, mostly peltasts, must have observed in their battles that the Gallic ‘thureoi’ provided better protection than their own ‘peltai’, and that its long shape was suited better to the ‘peltast’ style of individual fighting than either 'aspis' or 'pelta', and having done so and captured many of them it would make sense to adopt it….I have already stated that I believe that the meaning was that the Gallic shields alone provided inadequate protection.

I think the answer again is likely to be found in the evolution in Greek warfare away from the heavy Hoplite, toward the more useful Peltast types, ( most mercenaries/mistophoroi seem to have been peltast types), and the realisation that the 'thureos' was a better protection for such troops. The change may also have to do with social change and the demise of the small land-holder/Hoplite class with its expensive equipment, the growth of larger armies, hence need to recruit from lower social classes. It is likely that as with most changes, many factors were at work…… but one of them was almost certainly the impression that the Gallic troops made on the Greeks. Certainly they would have been aware of the ‘long shield’ previously, in use in Northern Illyria, Thrace and Italy prior to this time – but it was the Gallic use of this ‘long shield’ that made the most impression, during the invasions.

Fair enough. I think we are largely in agreement on this point, but I am simply cautioning that although the Greeks' exposure to Galatian warriors was undoubtedly the catalyst for the thureos' adoption, we cannot know how quickly it came into use, and how widely at first. It's a shame the Aetolian-Acarnanian alliance of 262 does not specify what kind of arms the hoplites, men-with-hemithorakia, and light troops furnished by Aetolia were equipped with.

True, and as I say above, one should be wary of simplistic explanations when likely many factors were at work. In the case of the Boeotians, they became close allies of Macedon at the time, and likely adopted Macedonian for two main reasons;
Firstly their own 'Thureophoroi' had not proved terribly successful, as you say, against the Aetolians, and secondly adopting Macedonian arms allowed them to join and conform with the Phalanx, and show 'solidarity', with their ally Macedon...

But one could equally argue that like the Boeotian league prior to 245, the Aetolians, who were primarily concerned with the domestic front after 279 through to the Chremonidean war, had little reason to reform their military until later, when they began to engage in hostilities again.

I agree with you that the device added to the back of the shield would make an unlikely ‘hanger’, but equally it is obvious that this ‘porpax’ of sheet metal has been added to the original cast object at some time, possibly in antiquity. I remain suspicious of it.

Such separate clay handles were also added to cast votive terracotta shields - they had to be, because they couldn't be added in the casting process. The Telamon horde was deposited sometime before the battle in 225, so it must have been added before then, and the most likely explanation is that it was simply added when it was produced to create a more true-to-life model. I don't think there's any cause for suspicion.

Why would only one of a number of shields shown be rimmed? Whatever the drawing shows, I tend to think Paul B’s explanation the correct one. In addition, every other depiction of the “Macedonian shield”, and all the examples found ( at least 5 ) have no significant rim.

Because it was the norm for men to carry different kinds of shields, as long as they were appropriate for the phalanx? Unless someone can produce the original or a copy of the drawing which shows that the rim is an error, there is no reason to doubt it any more than any of the other details depicted.

The Agios Athanasios soldiers are certainly not cavalry (Macedonian cavalry almost certainly did not carry shields at this time). Nor can they be ‘Hoplites’ since their shields are clearly ‘rimless’.Scaling them off provides rough measurements of, for the white shield, 65 cm aprox; red and blue shields 70-75 cm aprox. This is exactly within the sizes of all extant Macedonian shields (66-74 cm) – variation is because shield size is closely related to forearm length, and Asclepiodotus “8 palms” ( which is NOT two feet, but more precisely 26.25 inches/ 65.6 cm ).

Well, we can't say for sure who the fourth man with a kausia, spear, and brown and purple cloak is, but why must a hoplite carry a rimmed shield?

I feel a note should be made here about shield sizes and extant examples. Six different finds have been made of the remains of bronze shield facings for what we today call Macedonian shields: fragmentary finds from Dodona, Vegora, Dion, and Staro Bon?e; and largely intact examples from Pontus and Pergamon. The first four all date to within a very short timespan, the first half of the third century BC, the sixth to between the years 189/88 and 160/59, and the fifth to before 133. Of the first four, the fragment from Dodona is too fragmentary to be able to extrapolate its original diameter; the estimates of the diameters of the other facings are all close to 74 cm. The Pergamon facing originally measured 66 cm in diameter, and the Pontic example slightly over 80 cm.

So, if we take the actual numbers, and account for the fact that four out of six were likely produced to the same specifications, that gives us three sizes: 66, 74, and 80 cm. Iconographic evidence, again mostly from Macedonia, is weighted towards the 70-75 cm range. The evidence thus points to a spectrum of shield sizes, ranging from shields with diameters of slightly over 60 cm up to around 80 cm

The Pydna shield shown from the rear is also roughly forearm length and hence must be 65-74 cm diameter. My own rough reconstruction differed from Connolly’s in that instead of a ‘wrist-strap’, I had a conventional antilabe, placed close to the rim, exactly like the Pydna shield, and I had no problem holding both antilabe and pike with the left hand, by simply opening the fingers to enclose the shaft.

If you look at the Pydna shield, there is no way that its bearer could extend his hand to grip a sarissa while keeping his arm through the porpax - as Paul has shown with his diagram, it would need to extend a significant distance past the edge in order to do so.

As to a telamon, such a detail was likely painted on – I can’t think off-hand of any iconographic depiction of one, can you ?

Yes, two shields painted on the wall of the Macedonian tomb from Katerini dating to the first half of the fourth century BC, which are represented as hanging from nails by red straps; and a shield depicted with a strap hanging down from it on a tetradrachm dating to 336/5-329/8 BC.

The identity of the soldier as a 'sarissaphoroi' (despite the lack of 'sarissa' - for artistic reasons) must be all but certain, since his equipment ( and that of the soldier coming to the rescue of the fallen officer ) is clearly that of an infantryman – and only 'sarissaphoroi' carried the ‘Macedonian shield’. For artistic reasons too, the monument must show the fight between Legion and Phalanx ( the Macedonian King and cavalry fled the field)

Again, you have to be careful to distinguish between what we call the Macedonian shield and what the ancients called the Macedonian shield. All we know about the ancient Macedonian shield was that it was c. 60 cm in diameter, shallow, and faced with bronze. Today, the term is used to refer to just about any round shield which was used by Hellenistic armies which wasn't an Argive aspis. So we know that the ancient Macedonian shield was likely only used by phalangites, but we have no reason to think that some of the larger shields we take today to be Macedonian shields were not in use among hoplites.

I don't agree that all five are different at all. To me the only odd one out is the one you perceive as having a distinct rim, and I think Paul B. has the right of it - not least because these two side by side figures should surely have the same type shields. Furthermore, as I have said previously, none of the extant examples, archaeological or iconographic, has any hint of a significant rim......In order for readers to judge for themselves I attach some examples....

The one on the far right clearly has a small rim which juts out a bit, unlike the one second from the right which has absolutely no rim whatsoever. Why should the two side by side figures have the same kind of shield any more than the other figures depicted on the ground? And we cannot count on the extant examples to represent all kinds of shields which may have been in use, especially if four of them were likely manufactured in the same place at around the same time.

But while you are bringing up these examples, how does the 80 cm shield of Pharnaces fit into your conception? How could a man carrying that shield by a central porpax use it to carry a sarissa with both hands, and how would that be different from a man carrying an Argive shield 80 cm in diameter?

Your logic is reversed here, for I am suggesting that the excavators did indeed omit a detail that was less than evident- the top curve of the pelta. Comparison makes the inclusion of such a curved line likely, just as comparison allows us to guess that there should be a bottom half to the thureos held by the next figure to the right.

Comparison with what? The Pydna monument, one other source? And if the excavators did find the detail of the shield's rim at that point less than evident, then I'm sure they would have left it blank, just like the thureos' lower half. It seems to me that like the testimony that Philopoemen employed Argive shields and that Cleomenes taught his men to wield their shields without porpakes, you simply wish to ignore this evidence, though there is no good reason to do so.

The pattern on the shield face is radially symetrical. Thus if one demi-lune is facing directly at us, then the other has to be facing directly up. If this is that case, its edge cannot be the top border of the shield, but some point in the pattern's center.

I don't think I quite understand what you mean, but I think it's clear that the raised line on top of the shield shows the edge of the demi-lune. However, not much faith should be put into the rendering of such decoration on spherical objects, as ancient artists almost always seem to have had difficulties in doing so.

I have no problem with little rims, we see little rounded rims sometimes, as in the Italian relief showing a pelta and sarissa Paul M-S poted above. My problem with that shield being interpreted as you suggest is not the "rim" but the unorthodox and unlikely curvature- far too steep, more bucket than bowl.

It's not much, if any steeper than the shield second from right, and we find such deeply-dished shields on other sources as well, such as coinage.