Discussion on Chaeronea

[Alexias]

Kathleen Toohey has published a detailed analysis of Chaeronea here https://www.academia.edu/s/cc85aad334?source=ai_email.

[chris_taylor]

thanks for posting this.

I had no idea how much discussion there is over where exactly the lines were. What is interesting to me that everyone seems to agree that the battle must have been fought within a diamond shaped area defined by four landmarks: two low mountain ranges, the graves of the Thebans (marked by a copy of the Lion of Chaeronea) in the west and the Tumulus of the Macedonians in the east. The line between lion and tumulus is 3.3 km and runs almost exactly east-west.

All points remain to this day and are clearly visible on Google maps. The entire area is barely two square miles.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mOVtUE ... share_link

This photo was taken near the northern corner (marked by the red star) last year. Except the section obscured by vegetation on the left, it shows the entire battlefield. However the armies lined up, they did so somewhere on those fields you see.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ogOqQv ... share_link

what struck me most when I was there was the silence. no birds, no people, no cars. it was eerie.

[Alexias]

Oh, interesting, thanks.

One of the issues is the placement of the armies' lines. In the bottom left hand corner of the Google map are two wooded areas, presumably because they are not good farmland. The conifer area could be the 'advantageous' position occupied by the Athenians, and the woodland area to the north of this the 'eminence' that Philip retired to and launched his decisive attack from.

It would be good if you could share this on the academia post, and the photo of the site.

[chris_taylor]

It would be good if you could share this on the academia post, and the photo of the site.

I wouldn't know how to do that - and I'm not an academic so I'd feel a bit out of place there. but AIUI, this forum is public, so a link to the thread here should make it accessible.

maybe we'll even get a few more members )

[Alexias]

I could post a link to this thread if you like.

You don't have to be an academic to join academia. I'm not!

[chris_taylor]

I could post a link to this thread if you like.

of course, please do!

[Alexias]

Done. https://www.academia.edu/s/cc85aad334?source=ai_email

[Paralus]

It's a very good summation of the evidence, such as it is. Kathy has done a great job of bringing it all together.

Several things are apparent. Firstly, Hammond's reconstruction cannot stand. Hammond's ridiculously refused allied line is where it is because of two (typical) assumptions: it must run from somewhere near to the polyandrion (Lion Monument) to the Macedonian burial mound; it fits 30,000 Greek hoplites eight deep. Nothing compels us to believe that the Macedonians fell facing the Sacred Band where the mound sits. On this basis Hammond places the right of the Greek line. Nonsense. The burial mound is exactly that. Here all the Macedonian dead were cremated in a massive pyre and its placement has little to do with where the majority of Macedonians fell or where the Sacred Band stood as John Ma has cogently pointed out.

The second assumption is just as misplaced. Even should we accept Hammond's 30,000 hoplites for the allied army, any reading of Greek history will show Greek formations adopted a depth suitable to tactics/circumstances. That could be (and was) anywhere from four to eight to twelve and beyond. Hammond also neglects the well demonstrated Theban proclivity to stack a wing.

The movements that Hammond has the Macedonian line make are not supportable in the face of the enemy. Late stories about a sham retreat are just that: stories well after the event. There is precious little chance of the Macedonian phalanx retreating on one wing (up a hill no less) while the centre and other wing advance. Even should we fill the width of the available field with the Macedonian line, pivoting as Hammond has it leaves it well short of the Greek line. The Taktike describe a phalanx extending to one wing or another but this is a very convoluted and time consuming manoeuvre and highly unlikely to be performed as contact neared (see attached where the yellow is Hammond's advancing Macedonian line and the blue the Greek).

Chaeroneia2022.3.png (252.72 KiB) Viewed 33563 times

The Greeks intended a defensive battle. To that end they far more likely plugged the valley at its western end. Whether this meant hoplites 12 deep or a stacked Theban wing and eight deep elsewhere, the field would dictate. My view is indicated in the attache topgraphic map. Here the Greek line is in blue and the Macedonian in Red (the MAcedonian burial mound is the red spot). Escape routes over the Kerata pass are shown in black. The position blocks the valley and negates the Macedonian strike weapon of cavalry.

Chaeroneia topo2022.1.png (250.16 KiB) Viewed 33563 times

Not that Macedonian cavalry were not present. Despite Diodorus capricious description, the battlefield archaelogy confirms the forces present. From the mound we've sarissa points, doru points, javelin points, xiphe (straight infantry sword) handles, blades from kopides and arrow heads. All the elements of Philip's regular campaign army: sarissa armed phalanx; hoplites (Macedonian, allied and mercenary); light armed missile troops; infantry swords (phalanx); cavalry (kopides). The arrow heads likely reflect Macedonians who died of such wounds. As well, as Ma has shown the remains from the polyandrion show horrific head wounds inflicted by a downward heavy slashing weapon: the cavalry kopis. This will likely have occured in the final melee as the allied line cut and run and the Sacred Band was slaughtered where it stood.

As to Alexander? Most likely on foot and with a unit of the hypaspist agema about him. He may even have had about him three somewhat more senior members of that unit who'd play a large role in coming years: Leonnatos, Perdikkas and Attalos.

[chris_taylor]

Paralus, how lovely to see you here again!

The Greeks intended a defensive battle. To that end they far more likely plugged the valley at its western end.

Here the Greek line is in blue and the Macedonian in Red (the MAcedonian burial mound is the red spot). Escape routes over the Kerata pass are shown in black. The position blocks the valley and negates the Macedonian strike weapon of cavalry.
Chaeroneia topo2022.1.png

my knowledge of military strategy is limited, and I have the greatest respect for Hammond, but "plug the valley" is a perfect description of what the topography or the terrain demands from defenders.

Paralus red and blue lines run parallel or almost on top of an unmade road that runs dead straight for 2km, between the two mountain ranges. It's an odd kind of road and I'm not sure why it is where it is. There isn't another one like it in the valley.

but if Paralus is right - and having walked it, I personally am absolutely convinced he is - then the two armies once lined up on either side of this road.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1COUOv0 ... share_link

[Paralus]

Paralus, how lovely to see you here again!

Very kind. Been about, just involved in other concerns including, but not limited to, getting old, the real world biting and deep dives into Zama and Roman historians.

Time to put something back into Pothos methinks.

my knowledge of military strategy is limited, and I have the greatest respect for Hammond, but "plug the valley" is a perfect description of what the topography or the terrain demands from defenders.

Paralus red and blue lines run parallel or almost on top of an unmade road that runs dead straight for 2km, between the two mountain ranges. It's an odd kind of road and I'm not sure why it is where it is. There isn't another one like it in the valley.

but if Paralus is right - and having walked it, I personally am absolutely convinced he is - then the two armies once lined up on either side of this road.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1COUOv0 ... share_link

In the end, we do not know the lie of the land - not to mention streams - 2,360 years ago. I drove the road south to Thebes via Caheroneia back in 2007. Unfortunately no time for any extended stop and late in the afternoon. The land off to the south just out of Chaeroneia is hilly and overgrown in parts. One can only imagine a more wooded scene back in 338 BC. The area about Chaeroneia itself was likely cultivated then as it is now. The Greeks of the time well knew it though. They had attempted to block the Gravia Pass the previous winter. Something they failed in doing. The next line is Chaeroneia.

The allies had cavalry with them, Demosthenes telling us his alliance raised 2,000 (On The Crown, 18.237). How many remained by the battle is a guess but it did not play a significant role. What role some of it will have played, if my line is correct, is the plugging of 120 metre gap between the Kephissos and the ridge on the allies' right. Here it will have been deployed with significant light troops and archers. Ditto on the Allied left.

Hammond is very strong on the sources. How he wields them becomes the issue. Hammond often makes assumptions and presumes from there as if such are fact and he does so here. The Macedonian battle line is one such. There is no way it can have swung in the manner that he assumes without any rational explanation for the mechanics thereof. There are more such but I will get to them in another post.

[Alexias]

Thanks from this, Paralus. As you say, the oblique line for the Greeks just does not make sense as it lets the Macedonians into the valley, and means they are not facing the Macedonian line of approach directly.

Chris, I can't place your unpaved road on Google maps. The road that cuts straight across the mouth of the valley appears to be paved across the river and railway (as far as the images go). At the river, I can't make out if there is a dam, weir, or floodgates near or under the bridge, but flooding appears to still be an issue here, which would make a road across the mouth of the valley logical as the shortest route, even in antiquity.

[Paralus]

Chris, I can't place your unpaved road on Google maps. The road that cuts straight across the mouth of the valley appears to be paved across the river and railway (as far as the images go). At the river, I can't make out if there is a dam, weir, or floodgates near or under the bridge, but flooding appears to still be an issue here, which would make a road across the mouth of the valley logical as the shortest route, even in antiquity.

Alexias - the road Chris speaks of is my Macedonian red line.

[chris_taylor]

Chris, I can't place your unpaved road on Google maps. The road that cuts straight across the mouth of the valley appears to be paved across the river and railway (as far as the images go). At the river, I can't make out if there is a dam, weir, or floodgates near or under the bridge, but flooding appears to still be an issue here, which would make a road across the mouth of the valley logical as the shortest route, even in antiquity.

you're quite right, I misrembered it as a hard-earth-gravel-track.

I've never figured out how to simply load geolocated photos onto a map. EXIF data of the photo says it was taken at 38°29'57.0"N 22°51'07.9"E.

[SpartanJKM]

Unfortunately, the discussion from Kathleen Toohey is seemingly no longer available.

...as Ma has shown he remains from the polyandrion show horrific head wounds inflicted by a downward heavy slashing weapon: the cavalry kopis...

Mmm. I don't recall John Ma actually specifying that when he discussed the 254 skeletons in his fine paper (I'll take a closer look), but it is from the skeletal biologist Maria Liston, in a study over a decade after Ma's paper, which does aptly reveal this:

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ne ... frontcover

Liston, Ch. 7 from the above book,

“...The land under the Lion Monument at Chaironeia was excavated on several occasions. Seven rows with 254 skeletons were uncovered; selected bones exhibiting significant trauma were saved. These included ten partial or complete crania, teeth, a large number of leg bones, hand bones, an isolated partial foot and a pair of feet, cut off above the ankles (Phytalis 1881). These represent a minimum of 10-12 individuals, and probably as many as 15-18. The remains excavated from the Lion Monument at Chaironeia all have features consistent with adult males, 18-40+ years old, as would be expected in a battle cemetery (Buikstra and Ubelaker 1994)...

...The multiple head wounds on three of the hoplites’ skulls from Chaironeia...attest to the ferocity of the attacks...

...The pattern of injuries provides evidence to the conduct of battle, particularly at Chaironeia. Although Plutarch (Pel. 18.5) described Philip II viewing the bodies of the Sacred Band in the place where they had met with the sarissas of his army, it is clear that many died not in an initial clash between spear-bearing hoplites, but in the aftermath of hand-to-hand combat, facing enemies wielding swords.

Just how, and by whom, those swords were applied has been the subject of some debate. Accounts of the Battle of Chaironeia indicate that the Theban Sacred Band faced the Macedonian left, anchored by Alexander and the cavalry. The degree to which these cavalry had a significant role in the defeat of the Sacred Band is the subject of some debate, generally centering on whether or not the Macedonian cavalry carried sarissas, and if the cavalry was effective against the hoplite phalanx and in the destruction of the Sacred Band (Markle 1978; Rahe 1981).

The nature of the wounds on the Theban dead provides some evidence in this debate. The sharp force trauma wounds on the skulls from Chaironeia are consistently on the top of the head. Evidence from other pre-modern battles, where men armed with swords are facing each other on foot, clearly shows that most of the blows fall on the sides of the head, not the apex (Novak 2000). At Chaironeia all of the sharp force trauma on these skulls resulted from blades directed downward toward the top of the skulls with considerable force. The angle of all but one of the injuries suggests the assailants were above their victims, or at least were reaching high above their heads before inflicting the blow. There are no cranial blade wounds caused by a horizontal or upwardly angled strike. The blades sliced directly into the skull, perpendicular to the surface of the bone, and did not slide or drag or downward, as might happen if the assailant were at the same level as the target. This in turn suggests that the blows could have been inflicted by mounted cavalry or the soldiers were kneeling at the time they were struck...”

In some preliminary fighting leading up to Chaeronea, the Thebans actually got the better of Philip's horsemen in a well executed stratagem, if an excerpt from the mid-tenth century Byzantine military manual (Sylloge Tacticorum 94.3) can be sustained:

https://grbs.library.duke.edu/article/d ... 16156/7181

I do agree that Hammond, and Bosworth for that matter, often impute too much sophistication into their tantalizing emendations and reconstructions, etc., despite the enormity of erudition they possess; in this case at Chaeronea, for Philip to draw up his army at such an angle that Hammond proposed would have rendered his army carelessly vulnerable, stationed so close to the Athenians before him while his center and left were extended increasingly further away along their left. He could have been turned on his right by concentrated superior numbers and rolled up along his left. Despite the seasoned superiority of the Macedonians, the allies were not that inept, evidenced by their practical defensive strategy. But that he could use his two wings in a disconnected course of action is not untenable.

Great discussion. Thanks, James

[chris_taylor]

...The multiple head wounds on three of the hoplites’ skulls

The nature of the wounds on the Theban dead provides some evidence in this debate. The sharp force trauma wounds on the skulls from Chaironeia are consistently on the top of the head.

The angle of all but one of the injuries suggests the assailants were above their victims,

thanks for providing this quote. I cut it together to double check that I didn't misunderstand the numbers: 254 skeletons, they took 3 skulls to examine and in 2 of those, the injury pattern suggests the assailants were above the victim.

is that what they're saying?