Macedonian Silver Shields

[Duncan Head]

What were the enemies of the phalangites? Galatians and Greeks or Asians?

The only interpretation that I've seen in print is that the enemies are Roman infantry and maybe Roman or Pergamene cavalry (the piece comes from Pergamon) and the battle is Magnesia. This was in Minor M Markle, "A Shield Monument from Veria and the Chronology of Macedonian Shield Types", Hesperia 68.2 (1999), referring back to P J Callaghan, "On the Date of the Great Altar of Zeus at Pergamon", BICS 28 (1981).

Previous discussions in other fora, which Ruben was involved in, did produce the hypothesis that the oval-shielded infantry might have been Galatian rather than Roman. They look naked or nearly so in the drawing (but how reliable is it? AFAIK only the drawing was published in the original publication of the Pergamon excavations; a photo would be really useful!) and their shields are smaller than the Roman scuta on, say, the Aemilius Paullus monument. Hard to be sure.