Demaratus, 'hetaroi' or 'agema'?

[agesilaos]

The fifty sons in Diodoros are the Royal Pages; I 'd check the context but have mislaid my copy! I'll be posting a nice long reply on this thread later; Ive still got two books of Arrian to plough through

[smittysmitty]

Diodorus 17.65.1'ek de tes Makedoniaston philon tou basileas huioi pentekonta pros ten somatophulakian hupo ton pateron apestalmenoi''From Macedonia also came fifty sons of the kings Friends sent by their fathers to serve as bodygaurds'.
cheers!

[marcus]

Hi Smitty,I have to confess that I am taking Heckel's word for it - and, to be honest, I have no reason to doubt what he says, as he's done more research on it than I have!My usual excuse comes out here - all my notes are 150-odd miles away from here, and I won't get to them until the weekend; but were I there I could quite easily pull out the chart I drew out which lists the somatophylakes.Certainly some names come to mind very easily: Balakros, who was appointed as a satrap after Issos; Menes replaced Balakros. Demetrios who was demoted (executed?) after the Philotas affair (who was replaced by Ptolemy); and of course Peukestas who became the famous eighth. But I can't remember any of the others off the top of my head, unfortunately.All the bestMarcus

[marcus]

This is a point that Heckel has certainly made; and I think Bosworth has made it a few times, too - that the various sources can be quite confusing at times by interchanging words. I have noticed that some of the modern books on Alexander will call someone a 'bodyguard' who clearly wasn't... all because the terminology of one or more of the sources has been taken at face value.All the bestMarcus

[Jeanne]

Yes, the terminology is a serious problem. Several things are at work here:1) The sources we have extant are none of them contemporaries. They may be using contemporary sources (as in the case of Arrian), but just because Ptolemy knew what he meant doesn't mean *Arrian* is interpreting him right.Distance from events is a real issue, and no all authors are equally careful, whether the ones we have OR those sources sources (who AREN'T always named).2) We have three major sources in Greek and one in Latin. Latin and Greek don't make perfect matches. Thus, Curtius can be confusing. But Diodorus is less than careful, and -- as has been pointed out multiple times -- Plutarch is only as good as HIS source. Arrian may get closest to the original terminology, but even that's problematic. There are places where he clearly didn't get quite what Ptolemy (aparently?) meant.IOW, the nature of our sources are really quite tough themselves.
Dr. Jeanne Reames-Zimmerman;
287-K ASH, Dept. of History;
University of Nebraska at Omaha;
Omaha, NE 68182, 402/554-2489