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The "Fred thread": the Argead Macedonian Army
#16
Quote:But in Polybius, ‘euzanoi’/unencumbered or lightly equipped...

We are not discussing Polybius here. The quote was from Diodorus who describes an army sent to confront Eumenes. You are suggesting that Antigonus sent some 20,000 “peltasts”, psiloi or Cretans to confront the argyraspids and Eumenes other forces?

Quote:Also, troops don’t come any more lightly armed than shieldless, unarmoured archers/light armed, so who can the ‘lightest armed’ of these be , if not those who leave their bagggae behind with the remainder? Troops still do this today – dropping their packs to become ‘lighter armed’ and leaving them for others to bring up…..

You skip past the point Scipio. That is that the term should be translated as “mobile’ or “agile”. That passage, “the lightest armed of the light armed” is the clincher.

Quote:All in all, not very impressive evidence for sarissa armed Hypaspists ( Phylarchus is not very credible, according to Polybius,(II.56 etc) who charges him with falsifying history, inter alia....)

I would expect little less. The criticism of Phylarchos, by Polybius, which you reference is entirely in relation to the former's narrative of the rise of the Acahaean League and its demotion to near lapdog status under Macedon. There were two strong traditions in the ancient source material; you discard one absolutely to suit your view. Polybius, naturally, was incapable of bias: particularly when it came to an historian who chronicled Kleomenes III of Sparta; a man who represented the absolute antithesis of everything Polybius, his father Lycortas and his coterie stood for. One might almost imagine Phylarchos was an Aeatolian rather than an Athenian...

Consign Phylarchos to the McDonnell-Staff waste basket. To quote Pierre Briant: “A historian can’t choose his sources”. You will continue to do so I expect.

Quote:Theopompus is in any event contradicted by another source contemporary with Philip – Anaximenes ( who incidently wrote a lampoon of Theopompus), who tells us that the Macedonian army reform were started by ‘Alexander’ II (Alexander II reigned 370-368 BC; he and Perdiccas were both Philip’s elder brothers who were killed). He tells us that Alexander bestowed the name ‘Hetairoi’ on all the heavy cavalry ( probably no light at that time)and ‘all’ the infantry were called ‘pezhetairoi’. He describes the infantry being organised in units ( lochoi) cositing of files ten deep. (decades). Whether it was in fact Alexander who initiated use of the sarissa, or Philip, later as he is commonly credited with, is unknown.

As I see you’ve just done. You’ve published this paper I assume? This proof of the above bald assertion?

Quote: Demosthenes does not in fact refer to Hypaspists as ‘pezhetaroi’. That is pure inference.

Nice attempt. After all the ink to discredit Theopompus, only this? Demosthenes refers to “foot companions” (pezhetairoi). It is clear they are his guard. They are later named hypaspists under Alexander. The utterly discredited and totally unreliable (another ancient source dismissed to the McDonnell-Staff waste bucket) Theopompus also names them. Go figure.

As to the Cleitus incident (Arr.Anab 4.8.8) :

Quote:Then his companions were no longer able to restrain him; for according to some he leaped up and snatched a javelin from one of his confidential body-guards (somatophylakes); according to others, a long pike from one of his ordinary guards (hypaspists), with which he struck Cleitus and killed him…

So we can now consign Arrian to the same waste bucket? The text is plain: the murder and its lead up are the same; one source saw a “javelin” and the other reported a sarisa. Nothing to do with later interpolation: the somatophylakes carried a javelin and the hypaspists carried a sarisa. Here Arrian is recording what the two sources he relied upon reported. That’s fine though: Theopompus in the bin, Phylarchos in the bin and Arrian’s source in the bin (be that Aristobulos or Ptolemy) as you well know which “story seems unlikely and probably comes from later knowledge”.

Quote:This is something of a ‘myth’ – Hoplites held their own and more on numerous occasions against sarissaphoroi – Chaeronea, Issus etc

Which, of course, is why Greek states belatedly went to sarisa-armed troops. We know little of Chaeronaea and Issos is a poor example for your thesis: the phalanx needed to cross a river with steep banks and assault a hoplite phalanx on extremely favourable defensive ground. It should have lost here. That it did not tells much about the quality of troops and the tactics. Read Devine on this battle.

Again: were the argyraspids, hoplite armed, to charge a Macedonian phalanx they will have come off second best. The successor wars show up the increasing reliance on phalanx infantry. Your thesis would see Eumenes battle Antigonus with 3,000 hoplites, 3,000 native “hypaspists” (hoplites?) and a mob of mercenaries. This up against some7,500-8,000 best troops of the day (Macedonian phalangites) which Antigonus fielded. I reject such a weak argument.
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
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Re: The "Fred thread": the Argead Macedonian Army - by Paralus - 06-09-2010, 12:06 PM

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