The Dory

[Paralus]

Perhaps something akin the the Macedonian actions at Sellasia. You can see why Phillip's boosters might like to exlain this through a tactic that was attributed only to Spartans- and unlikely even with them on a mass scale.

What is your opinion, did Phillip lead Sarissaphoroi or hoplites?

Can't you ask simple questions?

In large part I tend to follow Paul Mac's and your scepticism (and Christian's) with respect to a planned withdrawal. The fullest work on the battle has been done by Hammond. His reconstruction is based on a detailed walk of what he has identified as the battlefield based on the pointers in the surviving literary sources and the archaeology of the fields below the ancient Chaeronea acropolis. His diagram (Philip of Macedon, Duckworth, 1994 p.152) seems to be cogent strategically and practically for the Greeks. He has the right of the Greek line anchored by the Sacred Band next to marshes on the edge of the Cephisus. The Athenians anchor the other along the rising spur above the Heamon, the “valley” of which is occupied by allied light armed.

These dispositions are sensible. They put the Greeks in a strong defensive position where they have no need of their weaker cavalry to defend vulnerable flanks. The sense of these dispositions is likely indicated by the fact that Philip, having made a lightening rush through the Gravia Pass with advance columns securing the entry points into the plain of Boeotia, apparently camped and reconnoitred the situation (hence “Alexander’s oak” where he’d pitched his tent).

The Athenians were unable to be flanked owing the spur and presented difficult ground for the Macedonian infantry (Haemon Creek) to cross. If the allies did not move then Philip had to dislodge them. It is tempting to suggest that Philip’s picked men (likely the hypaspists or some of them) were hoplite armed and hence the fierce battle. Given the ground, they might just as well have been sarisa armed and we have Issos lite. Polyaenus (4.2.2), possibly echoing Philip’s propaganda, likely preserves some reality:

[Philip] ordered his phalanx to keep close and firm, and to retreat slowly, covering themselves with their shields from the attacks of the enemy. As soon as he had by the manoeuvre drawn them from their advantageous ground, and gained an eminence, he halted; and encouraging his troops to a vigorous attack...

If the Athenians were on advantageous ground and if the Macedonian phalanx was in some difficulty in keeping good formation across the creek, it is not inconceivable that Philip’s “withdrawal” was not necessarily one of choice. This might well be a forced and grudging giving of ground by a phalanx closed up behind shields and sarisae. Sellasia indeed.

In Illyria, when defeating Bardylliss, Philip again is seen leading the “picked men” on the right. These, near certainly, are the troops he had been arming and training in the new tactics and weapons – the sarisa. It is similar here.

The evidence is far too tenuous to definitively assert just how the infantry on Philip’s right were armed. What is clear is that the Sacred Band was met and felled by sarisa armed troops. One might think that, given the reputation of this corps, select Macedonian infantry might well have been opposed to them as well - a splitting of the hypaspist corps? Markle would have those sarisae in the hands of Alexander and the Comapanion Cavalry. I believe it is clear – if anything is – that they were in the hands of Philip’s phalanx. Where then Alexander?

Intriguing is the fact there is no description – a clear description as in other battles – of the Macedonian cavalry in action. They likely pursued the Athenians up the Haemon valley and killed not a few but there is nothing in the battle description reminiscent of Issos or Gaugamela. The rendering of such in this battle by modern historians smacks of anticipation of the Asian anabasis.