08-17-2012, 04:13 AM
Quote:Indeed. Infuriatingly he most often uses kouphos and its derivatives. This is often - especially in his Anabasis - taken as describing "light armed". The context in which the words are used more generally fit "most active" or "the fittest".
I think that the word "kouphos" actually means mobile/agile and although usually it truly goes with light armed/armored troops, it can actually be used to differentiate those that were more agile/mobile/had more stamina, from equally armed hoplites. I admit it was a bit difficult to find proof for Arrian does not describe the armament of those pezhetaeroi that were most "kouphoi" in the Anabasis but I found a very good example in his Tactica where he writes that an orderly army is more "mobile" on the march than one that is in disorder. The word he uses there is "kouphoi"!
