The "Fred thread": the Argead Macedonian Army

[Paralus]

I would think that is to keep the shield in line with the arm. Thus the baldric suspends the shield from the neck over the shoulder / arm and the loop about the wrist brings the shield towards the forearm carrying the shield. It is not utilised to support the sarissa which is carried by both arms and not the shield strap.

Lets be clear, there are three possibilities: 1) the ochane supports the arm holding the sarissa as Connelly suggests, 2) the ochane is simply holds the pelta when not being used actively, 3) ochane bears the weight of the shield, but it is tied to the left wrist/forearm to allow it to be moved around to a limited extent.

1) allows for limited range of motion of the left arm, but supports extended use of the sarissa. 2) allows complete freedom of movement for the arms, but then requires the shield to be taken up before sword fighting. The fellow on the left of Johnny's painting has simply slung the shield over his shoulder like this. If the shield must be taken up anew, there is not reason to pass the wrist through the antilabe rather than simply grip it because you no longer have a sarissa to hold. You are simply holding it like an old style aspis at this point. I have no problem with the notion of simply having the pelta slung for later use, except it does not conform to the notion that the shields were brought forward for battle. 3) This is the worst of both worlds. You have a limited range of motion before you start to choke yourself with the ochane- as Johnny's central figure shows.

One needs to imagine the central figure without his arm through the porpax: the shield is pulled around front by the left wrist and the baldric holds it from falling forward out of the vertical. The fellow to the left has broken that wrist strap.

With regard to the method of 'articulation' used by Antiochus the Great at Magnesia (190), the clarifying observation that this was not infantry would seem to be at least partially correct. Sekunda's assumption is that there were 11 groups having two elephants apiece that stood between 10 groups of 1,600 pikemen each (filed 32 deep); however, the elephant teams are thought to have also included forces of light infantry (here, Sekunda cites Bar-Kochva's Seleucid Army pp. 8, 82, 167), thus prompting my reference not only to spearmen, but to other "more mobile" types of troops as well.

That might have been so but it is nowhere mentioned. In general the elephants took position in the foreground and the light infantry between. Here we only have the mention of two elephants between each phalange and one would need to make further room for surrounding light infantry. Whilst it is not impossible that lights occupied the spaces they'd be behind the pachyderms. That Appian describes the Phalanx as "opening" and then "closing" again for the retirement of the light armed skirmishing in front might indicate that they were with the elephants as the latter are back inside the phalanx as it retires under fire. This is not to say they were not already arrayed before the phalanx though, that too, is not mentioned.