Macedonian Silver Shields

[Paralus]

The army is occasionally attested as having a small city of followers. This will have included the usual retinue which attaches itself to all armies. It will also have included armourers. The sources rarely ever bother themselves with such boring minutiae. Thucydides does, though, provide the insight with his description of the Sicilian expedition and Xenophon's recount of Cyrus' wagons, cooks, et al.

Self-evidently, broken and rusted weapons will have had to be relaced. Broken shields too. Originally this will have been strictly on an "as needs" basis - money being in short supply. Later, with money being no issue (other than what to spend it on), a re-armament of his force is not out of the question at all. Bright, shiny new weaponry/armour for a bunch of blokes being asked to essentially forget their homeland might be seen as a treat - to a soldier anyway.

I'm not at all certain about silver as armour. Perhaps tinned might be the better idea. Anyone care to work out how much weight is in three thousand or more shields with a half ml of silver plating? I certainly can't afford it.

Wonder if any of the old buggers was preparing to hock his shield at Opis to pay his debts? A whole new view of the Alexandrian largesse.

It is unlikely in the extreme that Alexander, at a symposium attended by the recently conquered barbaroi …where did that come from? There are no ‘barbarians’ mentioned in the sources, nor Greeks either, only Macedonians attending a Macedonian religious festival…

Plutarch, Alex. 50.9:

Thereupon clietus, who had already drunk too much and was rough and hot tempered by nature, became angrier than ever and shouted that it was not right for Macedonians to be insulted in the presence of barbarians and enemies, even if they had met with misfortune, for they were better men than those who were laughing at them.

Ian Scott-Kilvert would be to balme for this translation...