Pausanias on Achaean armament, ca. 200 BCE

[Komanos]

Asklepiodotos says the best shields are 8 palms, equivalent to roughly 60cm or so, and not too deep. There seems to be a good bit of variety in depth of the different sizes of shields, so I'd say Asklepiodotos is defining two categories of understanding shields: diameter and depth, which I would say don't always overlap. The larger phalangite shields appear very deep in some instances, and rather shallow in others; I'd say Asklepiodotus is saying that shallow shields are better than deep shields, and the ~60cm shields are better than larger shields (presumably because of better construction or association with elite soldiers), and that the 60cm shields are generally of the shallow variety.

[Paullus Scipio]

Komanos wrote:-

Now, that said, these elite pike infantry seem more versatile and in several ways different from the rest of the phalangites. The difference may stand primarily in their being a standing army, but it may also have to do with their battlefield role and/or equipment. I rather think they often carried the ideal shield of Asklepiodotos, the 60cm pelte, rather than the larger shields carried by most phalangites. They may also have sometimes carried different equipment than the sarissa, since they're used several times as a rapid assault force engaging in storming fortresses, long forced marches, and the like, which implies their capacity to operate out of the sarissa-phalanx.

...I would agree with these observations, save that I don't believe there is any strong evidence to suggest that different sarissaphoroi in any one army carried different shields...rather, like the Hoplite Aspis, the Pelte/Aspis changed over time and perhaps from nation to nation. Certainly if the army was to carry out tasks other than pitched battle, then it had to carry alternate weapons ( which I believe to have been the traditional Macedonian Longche - a dual purpose short spear/javelin).
It is an interesting question as to whether all phalangites could carry out this function - as seems to have been the case in Alexander's day -(though I see no reason why not - most people would have been familiar with hunting spears and javelins anyway), the main reason being the necessity to learn two types of drill/fighting method, which might have, in practise, restricted the role to the 'regular' troops.
I suspect though, that the 'regulars' drew the tough tasks for just that reason alone - they were 'regular', and hence better suited to the difficult tasks, not because they could use other weapons and citizen militia couldn't.

[Komanos]

I'm sure a call-up phalangite could fight in another way if necessary...if he had the alternate weapons to fit the role. We see the alternate roles going to the regulars/elites, likely because a) they had the weapons, and b) they had the training.

Also, we do see different shield sizes within the same army. And I'm not just saying that guys with longer arms had slightly longer shields. The shields on the Lyson and Kallikles tomb are significantly different for where we're concerned, roughly 7:8, the difference between a 63 and 74 cm shield. The bronze faced shield on the A. Athanasios tomb, among the shields carried by the probable paides, is smaller by a similar ratio (though the small size of the figures may make that difference negligible). There are also clearly some of the 2 ft shields on the Gigantomachy, as well as slightly larger and significantly larger (hoplite aspides) shields. Am I certain that the same army had soldiers and whole units with different sized shields? No. But I can certainly see some evidence that looks that direction.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

An interesting relief with peltes (though a bit earlier) is the "Prince's" tomb in Vergina. The entrance is guarded by two peltes,though I don't know if they are physical size,neither their dimentions. It would also be interesting to know the painting on them but probably they were left blank,as other parts of the tomb have observed colour very nicely.
http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Helle ... c1162a.jpg
Khairete
Giannis

[PMBardunias]

Paul III, have you read Markle's paper "A Shield Monument from Veria and the chronology of Macedonian Shield Types"? I asked about the depth of sheild, because he presents a type of shield that is slung from a telamon, rimless and very convex. If you know anything more about this type, I'd be interested to hear it.

Here's the only image of it in use in a scene from the battle of magnesia:

[Aryaman2]

Hi Paul
I see you were not convinced by my arguments in my letter in AW4, I will try to be more convincing here.

First of all, let me emphasize this, there is no positive evidence for the “Peltasts being pike armedâ€

[Aryaman2]

BTW from Pol V 23 it can also be deduced that the mercenaries they talk about early in the paragraph are described later as Euzonoi, so it is possibility those mercenaries (mystophoros) not identified by their weapons were usually Euzonoi

[PMBardunias]

We need to know how common and how general a phrase "βαρέων ὅπλων " is in Polybios' usage to be sure he is not simply using a general term to refer to both groups as heavy. I can't help with that.

There is a problem with your interpretation though. The Macedonian phalanx is on the west side of the river and needs the king's protection to cross. I don't see how it could be this body of troops that the Spartans feared. In fact it surely was their plan that any attack on the spartan outpost on Meneleon would leave the enemy flank open to attack. Phillip removes the threat of the troops on the Meneleon Before he moves the phalanx across the river, under his protection.

That the peltasts were more mobile is obvious, that they were light troops is not. Elite units can be fast and not light- the Theban sacred band was was light on their feet (no double-entendre intended).

[Aryaman2]

We need to know how common and how general a phrase "βαρέων ὅπλων " is in Polybios' usage to be sure he is not simply using a general term to refer to both groups as heavy. I can't help with that.

There is a problem with your interpretation though. The Macedonian phalanx is on the west side of the river and needs the king's protection to cross. I don't see how it could be this body of troops that the Spartans feared. In fact it surely was their plan that any attack on the spartan outpost on Meneleon would leave the enemy flank open to attack. Phillip removes the threat of the troops on the Meneleon Before he moves the phalanx across the river, under his protection.

That the peltasts were more mobile is obvious, that they were light troops is not. Elite units can be fast and not light- the Theban sacred band was was light on their feet (no double-entendre intended).

However Polybius says that "Philip, leaving the Illyrians in occupation of the hills, returned to his army with his Euzonoi and peltasts" and he recrossed the river to give cover to the phalanx of Aratus from the forces inside the city, so I guess his main force had crossed before and was coming to the support of the Peltasts, and that was why the Lacedemonians, seeing them coming, run.
I don´t quite understand your differenciation between mobile and light, in military history light infantry is mobile because it fights in open formation.

[Komanos]

Real quickly, Polybius uses the phrase "heavily armored" very frequently, in a couple of different formulations: the heavies with respect to arms, the heavy arms, etc, somewhere close to 100 times.

I'll reply on the nature of peltastai soon.

Edit:

Now, on Polybius V 23, that is a very interesting passage that you misunderstood, because you need to read the full paragraph, Here is it.
Philip, on approaching Lycurgus, first sent the mercenaries along against him, 2 so that at the beginning the Lacedaemonians fought with more success, favoured as they were in no small degree by the ground and their superiority in arms. 3 But as soon as Philip had sent the peltasts to take part in the fight acting as a supporting force, and getting round the enemy with his Illyrians charged them on the flank, 4 his mercenaries encouraged by this support fought with much greater spirit, while Lycurgus' force dreading the charge of heavier troops βαρέων ὅπλων gave way and ran… Philip, leaving the Illyrians in occupation of the hills, returned to his army with his Euzonoi and peltasts….
Meanwhile Aratus had left Amyclae with the phalanx and was now close to Sparta. 8 The king crossing the river remained with his light troops, peltasts, and cavalry to cover the heavy armed troops βαρέα τῶν ὅπλων until they had traversed the narrow passage under the hills. When the Spartans from the city attempted an attack on the cavalry which was performing this service, the action became general, 10 and the peltasts displaying great gallantry, Philip gained here too a distinct advantage, and after pursuing the Spartan horse up to the gates, recrossed the Eurotas in safety and placed himself in the rear of his phalanx

Now, you can see by the words he uses to describe heavy armed troops that they are different from the Peltasts, as they are described exactly with the same words as being covered by the Peltasts while traversing the narrow passage. In all probability those heavy armed troops are the phalanx Philip placed himself after recrossing the Eurotas.
So, the heavier troops were in all probability phalanx, and in any case they were not Peltasts.

Funny that your translation has missed a little bit of information that is very crucial for understanding what happens in the battle.

Philip sends the peltastai to engage in the battle as a support to the misthophoroi, and sends the illyrians to attack the enemy's flank, then we get a nice parallel men...de construction from Polybius: he encouraged the mercenaries, on the one hand, by means of the support of the peltastai and illyrians...the men of Lykourgos, on the other hand, having been stricken with terror at the arrival of the heavy troops, collapsed into flight.

A close reading of the passage makes it quite clear that, in this particular case, the "heavy troops" are the illyrians and peltastai. Later on, the "heavy troops" are clearly the phalanx which Aratus brought from Amyklai and the rest of Philip's own force. The term "heavy troops" in Polybius is by no means restrictive to a sarissa-armed phalanx, its more like his generic way to say "line infantry." So the first time it appears in the narrative, he uses it because he was talking about the effect of two quite different troop types, the peltastai and the illyrians. The second time, he's probably using it, rather than "the phalanx," because the "dunamin" of Philip likely included, in addition to his and the Achaian phalanxes, other sorts of line infantry.

As far as the nature of peltastai, the argyraspidai at Raphia are identified there as "armed in the Macedonian manner," and most writers agree that they are identical to the "peltastai" later mentioned by Polybius, and to the "caetrati" mentioned by Livy, who was almost certainly basing his account largely off Polybius, if for no other reason than the consistency of the numbers involved. Also, I'd have to check, but I'm pretty sure the Seleucid caetrati at Thermopylae are identified as wielding the sarissa, to which we could also add the caetrati/peltastai/agema in the various accounts of Pydna.

And on the subject of the peltastai and agema, who is more reliable, Macedonian army inscriptions, or Livy? I'll go with the inscriptions.

edit: and on Aelianus Tacticus, exactly how much should we follow him? He's writing at least a hundred years after the last Macedonian phalanxes disappeared (and that's only if we drag out their use by late Successors, Pontics, and Greeks allied to the Romans). He calls phalangites "hoplitai," he says they carry the aspis and dorasi perimhkesterois, which I'm pretty sure is a way of saying something along the lines of "long spears" since he does say they're armed in the Macedonian manner, and that means phalangites right? So then next he says the peltastai are armed in the manner of Macedonians, too, but are lighter in armor than the hoplitai, "for the pelte is smaller and lighter than the hoplon, and the spears are a good bit shorter than the sarissa." He later describes them as "being heavier than the light troops, but nimbler than the hoplitai." And in distinguishing light troops from hoplitai, he says they lack "a cuirass, greaves, thureos or heavy aspis" and fight with different weapons. This implies that the thought the peltastai wore a cuirass and greaves, since he later distinguishes them from the hoplitai only on the basis of shield and length of spear.

Plutarch, writing of Pydna, says that the agema of picked Macedonians, who in his narrative fill the place where Livy has caetrati, are heavily armed with gilded armor (Aem. P. 18.7), and that next after them were the phalanxes of the chalkaspides(18.8) . So does that mean that the agema/caetrati can't wield a sarissa, if they're not "of the phalanx"? They do, though, as we see in 19.1, where the agema, the first Macedonian line unit in contact with the Romans, have planted their sarissai into the thureoi of the Romans.

So I agree, they aren't part of the phalanx. But I think that's more likely because they sometimes operated outside of the sarissa phalanx, rather than because they never did.

[PMBardunias]

However Polybius says that "Philip, leaving the Illyrians in occupation of the hills, returned to his army with his Euzonoi and peltasts" and he recrossed the river to give cover to the phalanx of Aratus from the forces inside the city, so I guess his main force had crossed before and was coming to the support of the Peltasts, and that was why the Lacedemonians, seeing them coming, run.

Phillip was victorius with the mercenaries, Illyrians, and Peltasts alone on Menelaon, which is on the east bank. Only then did he leave the Illyrians to hold the hills as he recrossed the river back towards Amyclae in the west, where the phalanx was arriving. The point is that the phalanx could not cross without flank support. They then all cross together and camp on the heights on the east bank.

The force at Menlaon was not supposed to stand alone, but create the situation that occurred- any force attacking them would be subject to attack from the Spartans on the west bank. The sight of the phalanx just arriving on the far bank of the river would not have sent the spartans to flight.

I don´t quite understand your differenciation between mobile and light, in military history light infantry is mobile because it fights in open formation.

Infantry can also be mobile because it is better trained, not neccesarily lighter armed.

[Aryaman2]

So I agree, they aren't part of the phalanx. But I think that's more likely because they sometimes operated outside of the sarissa phalanx, rather than because they never did.

Quickly too
I think you miss the point that Philip rejoin his dynamin with his Ilirians and Peltasts before he recrosses the Eurotas, so the first time the expression heavy armed is used there is already a phalanx force across the Eurotas.
The argument of consistency in numbers for Seleucid argyraspides and Peltasts is very inconsistent.
I would love to see the epigraphic evidence, could you provide a reference?
I agree with you here, but I would guess is the other way around, they are not part of the phalanx because they are trained as light infantry, but if required they can pick up a sarissa and be part of the battleline of the phalanx. I have in mind here the historical parallel of Spanish Halberdiers in the XVI century that fits neatly performing the same multiple role, however I have to see a source that clearly says that Peltasts carried sarissa.

[Aryaman2]

Only then did he leave the Illyrians to hold the hills as he recrossed the river back towards Amyclae in the west, where the phalanx was arriving.


Infantry can also be mobile because it is better trained, not neccesarily lighter armed.

Here is my discrepancy, before recrossing the river hi joins his main force (dynamin).
My guess is that the phalanx crossed while Aratus was closing on the city and covering his flank.

I didn´t say it was mobile because is lighter armed, I said because it fought in open order.

[Aryaman2]

BTW I have found an interesting paragraph in which Polybius used the word Peltophoroi (III 75) They (the Romans) also applied for help to Hiero, who sent them five hundred Cretans and a thousand Peltophoroi
From this forces Livy says (XXII 37) The king is quite aware that Rome does not employ any legionary soldiers or cavalry except Romans and those belonging to the Latin nation, but he has seen foreigners serving as lightly armed auxilia in the Roman camp. He has, accordingly, sent 1000 archers and slingers, capable of acting against the Balearics and Moors and other tribes who fight with missile weapons.
The numbers don´t quite match, but in any case it seems clear that the Peltophoroi were acting as light infantry.

[Paralus]

Plutarch, writing of Pydna, says that the agema of picked Macedonians, who in his narrative fill the place where Livy has caetrati, are heavily armed with gilded armor (Aem. P. 18.7), and that next after them were the phalanxes of the chalkaspides(18.8) . So does that mean that the agema/caetrati can't wield a sarissa, if they're not "of the phalanx"? They do, though, as we see in 19.1, where the agema, the first Macedonian line unit in contact with the Romans, have planted their sarissai into the thureoi of the Romans.

So I agree, they aren't part of the phalanx. But I think that's more likely because they sometimes operated outside of the sarissa phalanx, rather than because they never did.

I would tend to agree. The "Caetrati" are filling the role of earlier hypaspits - as has been argued by more than a few. As with the hypaspists, they were not a totally different troop, they were "selected" on the basis of skill, strength and perfomance. Their calibre set them apart. Most particularly so in Philip II's or Alexander III's time.