Paralus wrote:
If the Greek is not necessary then I'd likely plump for the Landmark Arrian that Amyntoros has linked. The translation might well be more "current" (though there is not necessarily anything bad in Brunt's - though he revises Robson's) and I would be very interested to see if modern scholarship has seen past mistranslations corrected - Koinos' brigade of asthetairoi at Tyre and the persistent error of "lightest / lighter armed" for kouphos (nimble / mobile / agile).
Just on which, what has Mensch rendered for 3.18.5 Amyntoros? (he took the shield-bearing guards, the brigade of Perdiccas, the lightest armed of the archers, the Agrianians, the royal squadron of the Companions…)
I’d also be interested in her rendering of 3.17.2 (He then took the royal body-guards, the shield-bearing infantry, and 8,ooo men from the rest of his army…).
3.18.5 "... Alexander set out at night and, after covering about twelve miles, went on ahead with the shield-bearers, Perdikkas' battalian, the nimblest of the archers, the Agrianians, the royal squadron of the Companion cavalry, and one additional cavalry tetrarchy ...."
3.17.2 "Taking the royal bodygards, the shield-bearers, and nearly eight thousand other troops ..."
Paralus wrote:I note that in the spare pages available to “look inside”, Mensch has rendered 1.1.11 as “He himself collected the agema, the shield bearers…” Nice to see the agema being rendered as such. I’d love to read “Appendix D” though to see her rationale for the note that the agema of the hypaspists were “a special division of light armed infantry” and that the hypaspists were “specially equipped infantry […] lighter and more mobile than the heavy infantry that made up the phalanx”. The hypaspists – in every set piece – make up the phalanx as do their agema. The tired argument that they are “lighter armed soldiers” due to the fact that Alexander takes on missions outside phalanx work ignores the plain fact that so were many other divisions of the phalanx. Whatever we decide of the hypaspists who take the wall of Tyre (certainly not with a sarisa) must just as clearly apply to Koinos’ brigade of asthetairoi – “heavy infantry” who also clearly make up the phalanx. Not to mention the many detachments of phalanx brigades doing similar work to the hypaspists as the anabasis wears on.
Not sure of the exact reference, but there's this in Appendix D, #3: " It may also have been Philip who created a new corps of infantry soldier, the hypaspists, or shield-bearers, to help cover the phalanx flank and keep a connection between it and the faster-moving cavalry. Unfortunately our evidence as to how these shield-bearers were armed is very scant, but it seems likely that they were more lightly outfitted than the phalangites, given their great need for mobility. Certainly they were an elite corps chosen for their speed, strength, and stamina, for under Alexander various segments of the three-thousand man corps were almost always the first selected for fast-moving pursuits or taxing physical challenges. They were also elite in terms of their loyalty to the king, since a subdivsion of them, the thousand-man, agema ("royal squadron"). formed his personal bodyguard and security brigade. (Under Alexander there was also a cavalry agema, made up of elite horsemen; one unit or the other would accompany the king into battle, depending on whether he was fighting on foot or on horseback."
Appendix D, by the way, is written by James Romm, not Mensch. A is by Elizabeth Baynham, B by Borza, C is Stoneman, D and E are Romm, F is Holt, G Stoneman again, H is Borza, I is Holt, J is Stoneman, K is Romm, L is Stoneman, M and N are Romm, O is Borza, P is Bosworth, Q is Borza, and R is Romm again.
Paralus wrote:Appears I must order the book....
Don't think you'll be disapointed. Even my rabbit loves it - he ate half the book cover!
Best regards,
