09-09-2010, 02:02 AM
Came across something the other day whilst – as always – looking for something else that throws some light on the below.
Paul Mac, on a thread many moons ago, posed a decent question on the subject of sarissa-armed Argyraspides for which we’d no answer (edited for brevity):
The phrase, from the Thesaurus Lingua Graecae (Teubner), reads:
The "foremost" Macedonians in Eumenes' army were, without any doubt, the Argyraspides as a reading of Diodorus clearly shows ( 19.13.1-2 "Seleucus and Pithon again tried to persuade the Macedonians to remove Eumenes from his command and to cease preferring against their own interests a man who was a foreigner and who had killed very many Macedonians. But when Antigenes and his men were in no way persuaded..." is one of several examples). The answer to the question, then, is that the argyraspides clashed sarissas upon their shields and so were here, and likely elsewhere, armed with such.
Quote: One can argue with some support (not conclusive) that both the hypaspists and Silver Shields of Eumenes were hoplites or one can argue with some support (not conclusive) that these same troops were sarissa-bearing phalangites …
Paul Mac, on a thread many moons ago, posed a decent question on the subject of sarissa-armed Argyraspides for which we’d no answer (edited for brevity):
Quote:Paralus said:-
Quote:As soon as the soldiers saw him they saluted him in their Macedonian dialect, and took up their shields, and striking them with their pikes,......Mind you, as with many things, it may all be in the translation.
How true! That is the rather old Dryden translation. Here are others "And when the soldiers saw him, they hailed him at once in their Macedonian speech, caught up their shields, beat upon them with their spears, and raised their battle-cry, challenging the enemy to fight in the assurance that their leader was at hand."
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Unfortunately I haven't been able to get hold of Plutarch's original greek, so we can't tell if he says 'dory' (spear)'longche'(often wrongly translated as pike) 'sarissa' or even some greek version of a Roman name(he was writing during the Principate period), nor do we know what he used for shield -'aspis' or 'pelte' or something else ...!
The phrase, from the Thesaurus Lingua Graecae (Teubner), reads:
Quote: ...??????? ????????? ??? ???? ???????? ?????????????? ??????????...
...shields, and striking them with their sarissas...
The "foremost" Macedonians in Eumenes' army were, without any doubt, the Argyraspides as a reading of Diodorus clearly shows ( 19.13.1-2 "Seleucus and Pithon again tried to persuade the Macedonians to remove Eumenes from his command and to cease preferring against their own interests a man who was a foreigner and who had killed very many Macedonians. But when Antigenes and his men were in no way persuaded..." is one of several examples). The answer to the question, then, is that the argyraspides clashed sarissas upon their shields and so were here, and likely elsewhere, armed with such.
Paralus|Michael Park
Ἐπὶ τοὺς πατέρας, ὦ κακαὶ κεφαλαί, τοὺς μετὰ Φιλίππου καὶ Ἀλεξάνδρου τὰ ὅλα κατειργασμένους
Wicked men, you are sinning against your fathers, who conquered the whole world under Philip and Alexander!
Academia.edu
Ἐπὶ τοὺς πατέρας, ὦ κακαὶ κεφαλαί, τοὺς μετὰ Φιλίππου καὶ Ἀλεξάνδρου τὰ ὅλα κατειργασμένους
Wicked men, you are sinning against your fathers, who conquered the whole world under Philip and Alexander!
Academia.edu
