Ranks of Ancient Greek/Hellenic Armies?

[jabames]

I know what the Officer ranks are, but is or was there Junior Officers or even NCO rank equivalents in the Ancient Macedonian Army or even older Greek Armies? Like uhh rank and file, file closers etc..

[Macedon]

Yep, there were, at least in the more professional Macedonian and Spartan armies. In the militia based armies of most Greek city states, it seems that there was usually no such distinction, even the places in the file being decided in the last moment. Regarding the age of Alexander, the (later) historians mention offices such as dimoerites (second ranker), decadarches (the first ranker), decasteros (third-ranker and file-closer). Xenophon also gives such offices for the highly organized 10,000 (enomatarches, lochagos) and the more professional Spartan army (enomatarches, penteconters, lochagos). Thucydides also gives the same offices for the Spartans.

[koechlyruestow]

For the city-states of ancient Greece that had adopted democracy, an officer corps and military excercises were typical symptoms of such undemocratic states as Sparta and Persia, so the only official officer was the commander of the militia, elected for the duration of the conflict. However, the men in the first and in the last ranks were explicitly chosen for their bravery and experience.

[Sean Manning]

For the city-states of ancient Greece that had adopted democracy, an officer corps and military excercises were typical symptoms of such undemocratic states as Sparta and Persia, so the only official officer was the commander of the militia, elected for the duration of the conflict. However, the men in the first and in the last ranks were explicitly chosen for their bravery and experience.

That is closer to my understanding as well. In the Anabasis, as far as I can tell the only hoplite ranks were general (strategos στρατηγός), captain (lochagos λοχαγός), and soldier (stratiotes στρατιώτης). The smallest unit was therefore the company of about a hundred combatants and several dozen hangers-on. The organization of the light-armed seems to have been similar, although Xenophon is vague about it. As John Lee has argued, Greek armies other than the Spartan one relied on the informal self-organization of small groups of messmates (syskenoi) to solve problems which most of us would expect to be handled by a formal bureaucracy.

[Macedon]

Sean, Xenophon mentions a number of offices regarding the 10,000 but I would anyways expect them to have been organized according to Spartan standards.

He mentions strategoi and lochagoi (2.5.30.1.), he mentions a hypostrategos (3.1.32.4.), taxiarchoi (3.1.37.2.) as well as hypolochagoi (5.2.13.2.), pentekontarchae and enomotarchae (3.4.21.3.). So, in reality, there are many offices in the mercenary army of the 10,000, a good number of them junior.

And of course in the less militaristic Greek states, there also (most possibly) were military offices, not just during war and certainly not just generals. Take for example the hipparchikos (regarding the training of the Athenian cavalry in peace time), in which, Xenophon again, mentions the following offices :

pempadarchos, dekadarchos, phylarchos and hipparchos - the two first being junior officers (translation : leader of 5 and 10 respectively for those who do not know ancient Greek). I am sure that if the Athenian cavalry had junior offices, surely the infantry had too.

I nevertheless personally also believe, as I have stated in my first post that the evidence points at the men usually not having a specific, pre-determined place in the line since day 1 of the campaign, which was the point of junior officers in more organized Greek armies, so a less organized system would be my suggestion in which junior offices were handed out more liberally.

[Sean Manning]

Macedon, I think we basically agree. I suggest, following Lee, that the taxiarchoi are captains of light infantry [Xen. An. 4.1.28], the junior generals (hypostrategoi) were only present in some contingents, and the junior captains (hypolochagoi) may be the officers of the six picked lochoi who were divided into fifties and twenty-fives in order to manoeuvre more quickly. Earlier writers tend to assume that other lochoi were subdivided like the six picked lochoi who acted as rear guards and reinforcements during the retreat into Armenia (Xen. An. 3.4.19-23) but Lee points out that there is much evidence for lochoi and suskeniai and very little for other lochoi having similar subdivisions.

I think that one has to be careful about using that the mid 4th century Hipparchikos in that way, since by then many Greek militias were imitating Persian and Spartan practices. But I can't prove that the Athenian cavalry were not divided into fives and tens during the Peloponnesian War! Classical military history is an uncertain business ...