Agesilaos wrote:
Maybe, in your topsy-turvy world someone does have to prove that 'dekas' means ten and its genitive case '[a group] of ten', Anderson saw it and he had Greek, it is your view that is unsubstantiated in every way as has been demonstrated; that you do not accept the demonstration nor any contrary evidence is not a function of your self-proclaimed expertise in the field, but of the 'confirmation bias' which bests your reasoning.
So, you insist your assertion that ‘dekad’ as used by Xenophon can only mean ‘file of ten’, despite there being no evidence at all of this, and overwhelming evidence that it did not ? No-one agrees with you, and no-one disputes that the word had its etymological roots in the number ‘ten’ but words change meaning, especially over a period of hundreds of years ( and I gave examples ).
ALL the reputable translators translate ‘dekad’ as meaning generic file/squad, not a file specifically of ten. In the Cyropaedia, Cyrus’ hoplites are organised in companies/taxeis of 100, split into four platoons/lochoi, consisting of two files/dekads of 12. Xenophon can’t have meant ‘10’ or the arithmetic doesn’t work. Not to mention that the only times X. expressly refers to depth, it is specifically 12 deep ! Equally, since Greek cavalry files were never 10 deep, but always something less, Xenophon’s cavalry ‘dekadas’ also were not 10 deep. I’m not going to repeat all the evidence here;
for a full discussion of same see my post Dec 13 on the “Taktike” thread. Agesilaos’ assertion is an unsubstantiated impossibility held by a minority of one.
I wonder how you would react if any other member had to defend a point by rubbishing all the ancient authors, - Arrian, Asklepiodotos and Aelian all insert Roman cavalry nomenclature into their descriptions of Hellenistic infantry, Polybios probably never saw a phalanx in action (which renders any manuals going back to him somewhat redundant don't you think?)...
To point out anomalies in the sources is not “rubbishing” them, and there is no actual evidence that Polybius ever saw a battlefield, or a phalanx in action – or a Roman army for that matter. ( In his famous description of Roman organisation he does not mention ‘centuries’ despite these being the very building blocks of the Roman army organisation, and doesn’t appear to have heard of them.) Nor need lack of field experience be an obstacle to writing a 'tactical manual'. Ascepiodotus and Aelian were not military men, and there are plenty of civilian 'armchair generals' who pontificate about military matters today, despite having no experience.
.... and on the thread you have started, you could not resist stating your theory , which is totally contrary to Polybios' evidence, that the Macedonian line at Kynoskephai was 16 deep all along and that this is 'double depth' - or is that an instance of you 'trolling'?
You only needed to proceed from the, now, agreed final attack frontage, it is meant to be a geographical exercise is it not?
I have not 'restated my theory', but shown the deployment as we all agreed it. The original deployment – 16 deep in ‘open/normal order’ was agreed by all of us, just as I have shown it, so why do you criticise me for showing it that way on my map ? It is indeed a geographical exercise, and I deliberately made no mention of how Philip’s phalanx got from 16 deep in ‘open/normal order’[the red line] to 16 deep in ‘close order’ [the magenta line], the part on which we all disagree.
I have often had the thought that you would argue black was white, just so long as you could oppose anything I might say and this would seem to prove it as you contradict yourself, for in your very first post you had Philip deploying 16 deep in open order, just as my map shows:
“...and at sixteen deep on the same interval they have a frontage of 3,750 feet ; the rearmost section, then, have to move 18,750 feet once the first files begin deploying. We are told that Philip set off at the double so allowing them to move at 4mph (352 feet per minute) we can say that this phase would take about 55 minutes. To convert this into an eight deep fighting line, the even numbered soldiers in each file step diagonally to the left and the ranks close up.”
..And this was your position throughout, for you repeated it several times e.g.
“..I posit that they arrived as you both say {i.e. 16 deep in open order of 6 ft intervals] but then stepped down to eight to cover the ground in a fighting formation and that from there they doubled their depth to sixteen and closed up to arrive at the same final formation as Xenophon but with a ‘doubling of depth actually having occurred.”
...the fatal flaw in which is that this would have prevented the light troops from being ‘received’ through the phalanx...
Paralus too agreed:
“ and it is just as likely that there is something in the order of 800-1,000 or more metres of width across that ridge. As the text stands, Philip certainly thought he could deploy both halves of the phalanx - in whatever frontage - eventually. Now, I agree with Xenophon in that the phalanx will have deployed "to the shield" in open order and I would claim, given the rushed deployment, in its normal drill. That is, sixteen deep.”
...and....
“This seems rather odd as this formation, in open order, would occupy some 2,300 metres - far more than the ridge seems to give. This also is not the usual deployment and, had Philip meant to fight eight deep in close order, there still seems not enough room.”
...and...
“In general, I also agree with Xenophon that the light armed were received via the phalanx when in open order. This is all the more so when a phalanx wide screen of lights are placed before the phalanx.”
..and...
“Polybios says that the phalanx mounted the ridge and deployed "into line by the left (ἀσπίδος παρενέβαλε), and occupied the range of high ground".
...and...
“We agree that the light armed withdrew through the 'open order' phalanx deployed in its standard sixteen deep files. This is even more likely as 9,000 - 10,000 will have completely occupied the the ridge line and these troops will have withdrawn immediately rearward. This is somewhat confirmed by Philip, having received them, gathering them to the right flank of the phalanx.”
In other words, we all three agreed Philip initially deployed 16 deep in ‘open/normal order’ and that is what I have shown. ( the red line on the ridge line). Of course Paralus later changed his mind and adopted Walbank’s invented formation of 8 deep in ‘open/normal order’ which as Paralus himself pointed out [ see above] would be an impossible 2,300 metres or so long. This would not fit on either mine or Hammond’s location, nor anywhere else in the vicinity - and I won’t repeat all the reasons this scenario is quite impossible.
Paralus can’t quite seem to grasp the arithmetic of formations and drill, and sometimes gets confused, for instance he said:
“ The phalanx, closed up thirty-two deep, needs only the same number of yards per file as sixteen in open order.”
...which of course, as we both pointed out to him, is completely wrong.
Agesilaos wrote:
And why call the feature in question 'the Kynoskephale feature', rather prejudices things, don't you think? I am sure you, just like Rumpole, would object to 'the burglar, Mr Timson' being called to the witness-box.
Not at all. I posited that the feature in question was called ‘kynoskephale’/the dogs head [singular], the ‘ridge’[singular] as Polybius and our other sources refer to it in the narrative part of their accounts, and as we have all done. This conveniently distinguishes it from Hammond’s ‘kynoskephalae’/the dogs heads[plural]. I notice you don’t criticise Hammond for referring to his proposed site as ‘Cynoscephalae’ [ e.g. his fig 4] – do different rules apply to me ?
This is yet another example of you getting 'personal' and nit-picking only me.