07-04-2009, 01:45 PM
Arrian Anab. VIIxx3 …dekadarken men tes dekados hegesthai Makedona kai epi toutoi dimoiriten Makedona kai dekastateron….epi toutois de dodeka Persas kai teleutaion tes dekados Makedona, dekastateron kai touton….
With as dekadarchs leading the dekads a Macedonian and after them a Macedonian on double pay and a ten stater man…after those twelve Persians and bringing up the rear of the file another Macedonian ten stater man…
The Greek will not allow any interpretation other than the obvious one that counting from the front of the file there was a file –leader (surprise, surprise), a double payman , a ten stater man, twelve Persians and a final ten stater man. It’s the epi toutoi(s) that make it so; translations may be praised for many reasons but these days it has more to do with readability than closeness to the text. I prefer the Loeb by Brunt but only because the original is there to check, without Greek that might be otiose but it is quite easy to pick out the parts of speech and see how technical terms have been rendered, which is important to us but not to the general run of translators sadly.
Nor, Paul, was this formation to be used against horse archers; where it would have been clumsy and quite useless; Alexander showed how to deal with them on crossing the Oxus and it was a cavalry solution. The intended enemy were the Arabs also light horse but javelin armed and therefore forced to come into close enough quarters to make the missileman filling effective. Like Bosworth, however, I doubt how well it would have performed.
Regarding the trained Persians, they do not appear in the wars of the Diadochoi the troops that do are the Pandotopai or men of every nation, who sound rather more like the bastard offspring of the camp who were meant to have been trained in the Macedonian manner. I believe these were confused by one source with the Persians brought by Peucestas, who were untrained, probably because they were both 30,000 strong.
Not much bearing on the thread other than to scotch Paul’s interpretation of the ‘mixed phalanx’ but take heart, Scipio I would be loathe to draw too many conclusions about the fully fledged Macedonian phalanx from this one-off aberration other than to say that at the time of Alexander ‘dimoiretes ‘ meant double pay man and nothing more that later this was the pay scale of a half-file leader is irrelevant. The best argument for half-file leaders is the eight deep formation at Issos. But that does presuppose sixteen to be a full file.
The Nazi’s did some re-enactment of Swiss pike phalanxes, I’ve seen the comedy pictures of SS-men in WWII uniform with a pike (Versailles may have been harsh but…) does anyone know if the results of these were published? It was pre-war. They were manoeuvring as a battalion not just a file so despite the different drill there might be something relevant about the evolutions we are considering.
With as dekadarchs leading the dekads a Macedonian and after them a Macedonian on double pay and a ten stater man…after those twelve Persians and bringing up the rear of the file another Macedonian ten stater man…
The Greek will not allow any interpretation other than the obvious one that counting from the front of the file there was a file –leader (surprise, surprise), a double payman , a ten stater man, twelve Persians and a final ten stater man. It’s the epi toutoi(s) that make it so; translations may be praised for many reasons but these days it has more to do with readability than closeness to the text. I prefer the Loeb by Brunt but only because the original is there to check, without Greek that might be otiose but it is quite easy to pick out the parts of speech and see how technical terms have been rendered, which is important to us but not to the general run of translators sadly.
Nor, Paul, was this formation to be used against horse archers; where it would have been clumsy and quite useless; Alexander showed how to deal with them on crossing the Oxus and it was a cavalry solution. The intended enemy were the Arabs also light horse but javelin armed and therefore forced to come into close enough quarters to make the missileman filling effective. Like Bosworth, however, I doubt how well it would have performed.
Regarding the trained Persians, they do not appear in the wars of the Diadochoi the troops that do are the Pandotopai or men of every nation, who sound rather more like the bastard offspring of the camp who were meant to have been trained in the Macedonian manner. I believe these were confused by one source with the Persians brought by Peucestas, who were untrained, probably because they were both 30,000 strong.
Not much bearing on the thread other than to scotch Paul’s interpretation of the ‘mixed phalanx’ but take heart, Scipio I would be loathe to draw too many conclusions about the fully fledged Macedonian phalanx from this one-off aberration other than to say that at the time of Alexander ‘dimoiretes ‘ meant double pay man and nothing more that later this was the pay scale of a half-file leader is irrelevant. The best argument for half-file leaders is the eight deep formation at Issos. But that does presuppose sixteen to be a full file.
The Nazi’s did some re-enactment of Swiss pike phalanxes, I’ve seen the comedy pictures of SS-men in WWII uniform with a pike (Versailles may have been harsh but…) does anyone know if the results of these were published? It was pre-war. They were manoeuvring as a battalion not just a file so despite the different drill there might be something relevant about the evolutions we are considering.
