The "Fred thread": the Argead Macedonian Army

[MeinPanzer]

While I don't wish to wade into the fuller debate, I would like to offer a few comments on the discussion...

Given the foregoing viewpoint, it then doesn't seem all that strange that some Greek armies didn't take up the Macedonian way of war until more than a century after it's introduciton in 358. Even then, it should be noted that adoption of the Macedonian manner of fighting doesn't necessarily mean universal use of the sarissa. Indeed, at the time the Achaeans acquired this military style they had long abandoned the hoplite, yet they now set about equipping some of their men with a large shield (aspis, suggesting a return to hoplites) and others as phalangites with sarissai, indicating that both warrior types were considered necessary to make the system work. In contrast, the Spartans, who had never abandoned the hoplite, needed only to add sarissai to complete a transition to Macedonian warfare.

A controversial claim ! The throwing spear/longche had been in use all along, but it was the success of Aetolian ‘peltast’ types thus armed, against the Gauls in 279 BC, in contrast to the lack of success of ‘Hoplites’, that prompted the southern Greeks to switch to ‘Thureophoroi’ – adopting the oblong ‘thureos’ from the Gauls.

Whoah ! That's quite a hypothesis. Don’t be confused here! Philopoemon’s reforms (late 3 C) were undoubtedly to re-arm “in the Macedonian style”. This is not a reference to a ‘mixed’ phalanx, but ‘sarissaphoroi’.
The confusion arises from the use of the word ‘aspis’, which, since the virtual disappearance of the specific ‘Argive Aspis’, had come to mean a generic ‘circular shield’ only. ( previously the ‘Argive aspis’ had been the only kind of ‘Aspis’ in use, hence could be synonymous with it). The ‘Macedonian shield’ – circular, wooden, 60-70 cm in diameter, often metal faced could be equally accurately described as a ‘pelta’ or ‘aspis’.It should be noted that it is a physical impossibility to use the ‘Argive Aspis’ ( 80-90 cm diameter) with the sarissa.

A few points:

Firstly, by the time the Greek states (Achaea, Boeotia, Sparta) adopted the Macedonian phalanx, they had not "long abandoned" the hoplite, nor was it the success of peltast-like troops that led to the adoption of the thureos throughout Greece. Both the account of Philopoemen's reforms and the military catalogues of Boeotia make clear that the thureos was adopted by hoplites, and that the thureophoroi of whom we hear in Greece in the mid third century BC were in fact hoplites fighting in phalanx formation but carrying thureoi. As a result, they pretty much had the worst of both worlds, with the light equipment of thureophoroi but the static and unwieldy formation of the hoplite phalanx.

Secondly, the Achaeans did adopt the Argive aspis, and not the Macedonian shield (Pausanias, 8.50.1). However, this does not indicate that they re-armed their hoplites with such shields. It simply means that the phalangites used Argive aspides. Contra Paul, it would not have been physically impossible to carry the Argive shield while bearing the sarissa. We know that when Cleomenes III equipped his men as phalangites, he issued shields to them and taught them "to wield the sarissa with both hands and to bear the shield with strap (ochane), not with porpax" (Plutarch, Life of Cleomenes, 9.2). Once it is accepted that the phalangite did not have to employ a porpax to carry his shield, the offset rim and size of the hoplite shield are no longer impediments to wielding the sarissa.

Again, the evidence is fairly conclusive that ALL the Spartan Infantry became ‘sarissaphoroi’, not a mix of ‘Hoplites’ and’ Sarissaphoroi’. The evidence strongly suggests that ‘Hoplites’ armed with ‘dory/argive aspis’ no longer existed in 222BC…

And thirdly, there is no reason to doubt that the hoplite armed with doru and Argive shield existed well into the Hellenistic period. The classic hoplite remained in use among small independent poleis: an example of such troops is the the third century BC citizen soldiers of Teos armed with aspis, doru, machaira, and helmet (Robert and Robert, "Une Inscription grecque de Teos en Ionie. L'Union de Teos et de Kyrbissos," l. 33-4), and their continued use is demonstrated by several iconographic sources which continue to depict the Argive shield alongside contemporary equipment.