Macedonian surrender

[PMBardunias]

Does anyone know the origin of the practice of Macedonian sarissaphoroi surrendering by raising their sarissa? At what battle was this first seen? Is there a greek precedent, perhaps among mercenaries?

I am interested in the way warfare becomes stylized. A number of authors have noted that a large percentage of soldiers do not fight with the primary aim of killing their foe, but to keep from themselves being killed. Not suprising perhaps, but it does have an influence on tactics and panoply that I'm not sure has been explored. This leads to one asking not what weapons sytem allows you to kill the most foes, but what system allows you to do the minimum expected of a warrior, while maximizing your protection. Obviously this requires that your foes be of the same mind-set, but there are circumstances which favor this.

I'll leave you with Archilochos:

I am a squire of the lord of war, Enyalius, and I understand the
lovely gift of the Muses.
Some barbarian is waving my shield, since I was obliged to
leave that perfectly good piece of equipment behind
under a bush. But I got away, so what does it matter?
Let the shield go; I can buy another one equally good.
A mercenary, Glaukos, is a friend-so long as he's fighting.

There's no respect or fame from townsmen when you're dead. It's the praise of the living we want-while we're alive. A dead man gets the worst of it, every time.

[hoplite14gr]

To my knowledge its only Plutarch in the life of Flamininus who mentions the sarrisa going vertical as a sign of surrender at Kynos Kefalae.

Archaic and classical period hoplites threw down the shields and we know that from Thukidides description of Sfacteria.

Kind regards

[PMBardunias]

Archaic and classical period hoplites threw down the shields and we know that from Thukidides description of Sfacteria.

Excellent, that's what I was looking for, I'll check it out.

[PMBardunias]

It turned out to be less help than I hoped. The Spartans did not only lower their shields, but waved their hands to show they agreed to terms of surrender. This is not the same as a signal, such as the famous "white flag" that of itself indicates surrender with no prior discussion of terms. The waving of the hands makes the lowering of the shields alone unlikely to be a commonly recognized signal of surrender.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Paul,once again,the ancient text is not so clear. This is the ancient:

"Οι δε ακούσαντες παρήκον τας ασπίδας οι πλείστοι και τας χείρας ανέσεισαν,δηλούντες προσίεσθαι τα κεκηρυγμένα."

translation:
"them, when they heard this they let down the aspides most of them also waving their hands, showing they agreed to the keryx's sayings."

Why it isn't clear? Because there is not a comma after the "πλήστοι", it is most probable that the meaning is "they let down their shields, and most of them also waved their hands" and not "most of them let down their shields and waved their hands". This implies that letting down the shield is what all of them did and what was customary,but their situation was so difficult that most of them considered the lowering of the shield not enough.
Note that the word used for shield is "aspis" not "hoplon" and that this is the word Thucydides always uses.
How do you find the idea of starting a new thread called "What the description of Sphacteria has to tell us" ? It is in my opinion the most ritch text in Thucydides of information in details. Example,the words used for shiled,for the spartan helmet(their piloi did not protect them from the arrows) or the mention of small javelins that broke and their heads stayed stuck on their shields and thorakes,or the word "ωσασθαι" udes to describe what the Athenians tried to do when they attacked en face the Spartans,and it means "push". etc etc. It's a whole book what one can learn from Sphacteria!
Khaire
Giannis

[PMBardunias]

This implies that letting down the shield is what all of them did and what was customary,but their situation was so difficult that most of them considered the lowering of the shield not enough.

This still is not quite what i am looking for. The rasing of sarissa, if true, is like a dog rolling over on its back as a sign of submission. It has to immediately be recogniable as surrender. The hoplites at Pylos were responding to an offer, so even if they lowered their shields as a sign that they wished to stop fighting, we have no idea if lowering their shields with no terms offered would have signalled the peltasts to stop attacking them.

Against the lowering of shields as a sign of surrender, there is the story of how Chabrias met and oncoming spartan force with his shields grounded. The spartans did not seem to think he was surrendering- unless of course the move was purposefully ironic, but this is not mentioned.

How do you find the idea of starting a new thread called "What the description of Sphacteria has to tell us" ?

Do it, I'll join in if I have anything to add.