The "Fred thread": the Argead Macedonian Army

[MeinPanzer]

This is why I enjoy our discussions, you bring in these great sources. I stand corrected as to the relative cost of a shield.

The whole inscription is neat in part because it gives a glimpse of the involvement of arms in a minor festival. The winning archer receives, naturally, a bow and quiver; the winning akontistes, three longchai and a helmet; the winning catapult operator, a helmet and a kontos; the winner of the torch race, a shield.

I was thinking of Ptolemy's donation, but I can't decide which way to interpret it. On the one hand it speaks to the cost of a pelta, but on the other it may show that the whole panoply must be adopted together in a package and if you want to field sarissaphoroi you have to go all the way. In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say.

I don't think it's an all-or-nothing kind of thing, as there was certainly nothing stopping men with only helmet, shield, and sarissa operating in the phalanx with more heavily armoured men. I think it's just a friendly gesture, ensuring that future phalangites could be equipped with a full panoply - no need for the archons of the league to scrounge around, or to force their men to provide their own cuirasses, for instance. It's certainly not unusual for kings in their benefaction to go above and beyond the request or expectation of the receiving party. For instance, an inscription of around 270 BC records letters sent and received between the city of Cyme and Philetairus, dynast of Pergamum, in which the populace request a number of peltae to arm the populace, and Philetairus contributes hundreds more than requested from his own workshops with which to arm the different tribes.