Sigh, the argument is logical, you just cannot see its logic, an entirely different matter; let me walk you through it.This argument isn't logical. Do we know the names of each bank of rowers in Corinthian or other Greek fleets? No; this is just due to the randomness of the sources that have survived. Even though the Spartans were "secretive" about their military arrangements, ironically and paradoxically, we know more (though not all) about them than the armies of all the other Greek city states put together!“Quite right lower ranks are rarely mentioned, in Athens we know of no rank below ‘taxiarch’, which signifies the commander of one of the tribal taxeis of 1,000, nor is Athens under-represented in the literature or epigraphy, we know the name for the lowest level of rowers, for instance yet there is no evidence for the level of command necessary for the evolutions you claim were common place."
1) Athenian culture is the best represented in both the literature and epigraphy of the fourth and fifth centuries.
2) We know much about the lower tiers of society
3) Yet in the whole of this mass there is not one reference to an infantry commander below the level of taxiarch
Conclusion it would seem likely that the Athenians did not organise below this level, of course they lined up in files, but there was no formal structure therein. And many authors do bemoan the Athenians’ unwillingness to drill, Xenophon amongst them, but also Plato, Thukydides has Perikles actually praise them for their Corinthian attitude (true amateur )!
You are right that we do know more about the Spartan army but we also know that no other Greek army was like it until the 370’s at least, so to graft Spartan organisation onto another state would be perverse.
I am not in the least bit surprised at the evidence you choose to reject; we know that each Tactician was picking and choosing from an archetype, probably Poseidonios, so that one might choose to drop or include different elements, of all three Asklepiodotos would seem to be adding the least. Aelian seems the fullest, but we know that he did not reproduce everything since Xenophon who occurs in Arrian and the Lexicon is absent from Aelian. Looks like you dismiss his evidence purely because it does not suit, naughty.“Asklepiodotos says that the ‘dimoirites’ was an officer when the file was twelve strong (2.ii) so he is not thinking of the Macedonian file of sixteen. The situation in Babylon 323, was, indeed extraordinary; the Macedonian element of Alexander’s army had been reduced by three-quarters and he had been forced to cobble together an impromptu formation. The reason for the Macedonians’ increased pay is not to be sought in their former ranks, but rather in his need to palliate not only the distaste of serving with barbarians, these men had just mutinied over Iranian creep into the army, but also to offset the golden handshake he had given those departing with Krateros.”
Ascepiodotus is almost certainly making an artificial distinction, to explain the two different terms. Both Arrian[6.] and Aelian[5.2] are definite that ‘hemilochites’ and ‘dimorites’ are synonymous terms for ‘half-file leader’ regardless of the size of file. ( I am a little surprised you should be so selective about the evidence you choose). Military terminology, as I have said before varied from time to time and place to place – thus Antigonid, Seleucid and Ptolemaic armies used different terminology for units and ranks etc
Yes Abreas is a dimoirites, but he is not said to be a half-file leader, more likely he is the second man in the file (the leading epistates) which is, indeed the position of the dimoirites in the mixed phalanx of Arrian VII 23 iii
The final phrase also explains why the dekastateroi are on a pay scale between the dimoirites and the common soldiers, they had ‘served with honour’.κατέλεγεν αὐτοὺς ἐς τὰς Μακεδονικὰς τάξεις, δεκαδάρχην μὲν τῆς δεκάδος ἡγεῖσθαι Μακεδόνα καὶ ἐπὶ τούτῳ διμοιρίτην Μακεδόνα καὶ δεκαστάτηρον, οὕτως ὀνομαζόμενον ἀπὸ τῆς μισθοφορᾶς, ἥντινα μείονα μὲν τοῦ διμοιρίτου, πλείονα δὲ τῶν οὐκ ἐν τιμῇ στρατευομένων ἔφερεν:
‘Possible’ because whilst I think the manuals are garbling the Spartan system, I tend not to think my opinions are cast in stone.“Enomotiai are used solely in a Spartan context, with the possible exception of the Taktikeis, so your point is simply wrong. With reference to the Spartans, Xenophon would seem to imply that they had commanders at the third and sixth part of a file as well as at the head, which makes your proposed evolutions impossible if we are to accept Thukydides statement (III 68 iii) that the depth of the Spartan line was up to the individual lochagos, as the only shift they could make would be to half their depth from twelve to six.”
‘Possible’ exception ? As I said earlier, enomotia originally meant simply a ‘sworn band’. In Spartan service, it was a sub-unit of the lochos, whose number varied with how many age-groups were called out. Since we know so little, as you have pointed out, about the military organisations of Greek city states, there is no reason to suppose that ‘enomotia’ occurred solely in a Spartan context, especially as the manuals refer to at least two other meanings - files and/or quarter files.
Your reference to Xenophon is, I take it, to “Constitution of the Lacedaemonians” XI.4, where we have an enomotia performing drill similar to the ‘dinner drill’. An enomotia of 36 are described as being drawn “...drawn up at the word of command in single file, sometimes in threes [i.e. 3 files x 12 deep, in open order] and sometimes in sixes...”[ i.e 6 x 6 deep in close order]...”and the depth of the phalanx[but not its frontage] is increased or diminished." Incidently, the word for file-leaders here is ‘paragogai’
I do not know which translation you are using but I suggest you turn it sideways and hang it in the dunny. In 11 iv there is only
No mention at all of whether they are in loose or close order, nor are moving from one state to the other being described but how they may initially have been marshalled, so no similarity to the ‘Dinner Drill’....”and the depth of the phalanx[but not its frontage] is increased or diminished." I presume this is a free translation from verse 6ἐκ δὲ τούτων τῶν μορῶν διὰ παρεγγυήσεως καθίστανται τοτὲ μὲν εἰς ... ἐνωμοτίας, τοτὲ δὲ εἰς τρεῖς, τοτὲ δὲ εἰς ἕξ.
And these morai are drawn up, by the passing on of the word of command by enomotiai, either in [single] file or by threes or sixes.
Oops, no mention of frontages at all, nor are the ‘paragogai’, file leaders this words does not refer to any of the soldiers at all, it means ‘by the act of leading by’ if you like it is the gerund of ‘paragein’ which Bowerstock above translates as ‘wheeling’ but Aelian, in Devine’s translation as ‘moving in formation’ it has no relationship to ‘parembolein’ which is to interject the rear files. Incidently the word used for the file-leaders is in verse 5 and is οἱ πρωτοστάται protostatai. Why is the phalanx thick or thin? Because the lochagos, according to Thukydides could decide how deep he wished to set his men six deep/thin or twelve deep/thick.οὕτω δὲ ῥᾴδιον ταύτην τὴν τάξιν μαθεῖν ὡς ὅστις τοὺς ἀνθρώπους δύναται γιγνώσκειν οὐδεὶς ἂν ἁμάρτοι: τοῖς μὲν γὰρ ἡγεῖσθαι δέδοται, τοῖς δὲ ἕπεσθαι τέτακται. αἱ δὲ παραγωγαὶ ὥσπερ ὑπὸ κήρυκος ὑπὸ τοῦ ἐνωμοτάρχου λόγῳ δηλοῦνται καὶ ἀραιαί τε καὶ βαθύτεραι αἱ φάλαγγες γίγνονται: ὧν οὐδὲν οὐδ᾽ ὁπωστιοῦν χαλεπὸν μαθεῖν.
[6] The formation is so easy to understand that no one who knows man from man can possibly go wrong. For some have the privilege of leading; and the rest are under orders to follow. Orders to wheel from column into line of battle are given verbally by the second lieutenant acting as a herald, and the line is formed either thin or deep, by wheeling. Nothing whatever in these movements is difficult to understand..
You did, inadvertently I am sure say something that brought an epiphany; this was that the enomotia ‘In Spartan service, it was a sub-unit of the lochos’. Thuk. V 68 has the Spartan system progress by fours, four enomotiai to a pentekostyes and four of those to a lochos; miss out the pentekostyes and we get four enomotiai to a lochos which a Hellenistic polymath could mistake for the contemporary ‘lochos’ or file, thus four enomotiai to a file means enomotai are quarter files. But what about ‘dimoirites’? Well, I toyed with confusion between the four lochoi in a mora and it is possible but there is an awful lot of confusion here already.
Dekadarch never meant a ‘generic file-leader’ it specifically referred to the leader of a Macedonian dekas or a real file of ten. That Philios, a pretty minor state would have a more organised militia than the Spartan army is pure fantasy – fifty men were given guard duty and out of them ten performed the day watch – simples.”. No, I don’t think that the Phliasians had 10 man files ( though it is not impossible), but rather just as ‘dekadarch’ meant generic file-leader, regardless of file number, so ‘pampadarch’ no longer meant ‘leader of five’ but rather generic ‘half-file leader’, and since it would be awkward to delegate one man in five if they weren’t organised in tens, which you firmly assert, it makes more sense that the group in question is “one man from every half-file
If you can find where I have said that the Kyrou Paideia is anything other than a work of fiction please do, so the lecture is another wild shot, though interesting enough.
I won’t rise to charges of anachronism, how different do you think Cyrus the Great’s Persians would have been from Dareios I’s? This is a fantastic work in any case, maybe I should have chosen Orcs!! I merely picked from what was available on the web and wanted to make it clear that we are NOT dealing with hoplites but Xenophon’s dream Persians.
I made the dekadarchs outside the ranks because the officers multiply with the units in other Xenphon passages (yes, Lak.Pol. 4) so it seemed reasonable that Xenophon would be thinking four, lochagoi, eight Dekadarchoi, and sixteen pempadarchoi (note pEmp, rather than pAmp) once that is decided there is no other way as the pempadarchoi clearly require commands of the same size. It also fitted with the progression 1, 2, 4 files with a different level of command in line. Other interpretations may work but once you have spent half a day creating the scheme and another trying to get the forum to accept it tinkering is not an option.
In your version each file has to distance itself from its neighbour and when the correct spacing has been achieved along the line the Taxiarch calls the rear file to interject, leaving aside the point that ‘paragein’ does not mean this, this calls for finer judgement than my version where the gaps develop between the units and are therefore easier to see as they are themselves larger. The idea of keeping your station by sticking out an arm encumbered with a heavy shield or armed with a spear is certainly quaint, and re-enactors use it without kit (there is a new article on an experimental hoplite drill on academia.com, by the way, it was a bit like Athenian training day though, only twenty people turned up and six of those were only there to film their mates!)
LOL! You ought to know that the side is generally called the flank in military contexts, I feel sure the non-military historian Bosworth would, but that is then capped by making a noun from a verb, ‘paragein’ . What reference is the statement that these Persian lochoi are 12 strong, I can only find it in the notes and it stems from the translator making the pempadarch stand outside their commands so that they each command five men and the dekadarch twelve, if there is no statement to the contrary by Xenophon then my solution is to be preferredWorse still, you have surmised this based on, dare I say it, incorrect translation. You translate:
“...pempadarchs came by the flank to form four [files];” but I have not seen ‘paragon’ translated as ‘flank’ in any translation I can find, nor in the LSJ where it means “lead up by the side” or “lead up beside” and in a military context, “march the men up from the side, bring them from column into line,”[LSJ, quoting this very passage]This meaning also denies your incomplete ‘checkerboard’ front line of just ‘dekadarchs’ alternating with gaps. Which reminds me, in the Cyropaedia, these file-leaders lead files of 12 ( just like Spartans! ), not 10 – see reference above.
I appreciate the tedium of drawing all those figures, I drew a diagram first but found my scanner to be as much use as the proverbial one-legged man.
Connolly's very credible reconstruction of a sarissa ( see my post 5 June on the Kynoskephalai thread) weighed 4.05 kg/8.9 lb - an easy weight to hold at arm's length for a short time, which leaves the matter of balance. The sarissa balance point was roughly 6 ft from the bottom of the shaft, so holding it single handed vertically would be no problem. In addition, in the case of both 'dory' and 'sarissa' the butt could be rested on the ground ( picture all those movie 'guards' at portals standing at ease, arm extended) making the task even easier........
Can you remember?