keroro wrote:I think that we have to accept that we'll never quite know for sure the equipment and tactics of the Hypaspists.
Other than in "line of battle", yes. They are a bit like the Agrianes: used almost everywhere and in every situation but scantily described outside of pitched battle. That said, Alexander's Hypaspists – the Argyraspids – are reasonably attested during the first Diadochoi war. These are the "Hypaspists" described assaulting the Nile fort in Perdiccas' fatal assault on Egypt. Again, they seem capable of many tasks, not least of which was the murder of their general (and regent) Perdiccas at the hands of their commander Antigenes and also Seleucus. A point not lost on Antigenes when the same old bastards surrendered him to Antigonus after Gabiene in 317/16.
keroro wrote:It makes you wonder - if the successor states had used a greater number of Hypaspists rather than full Phalanxes then maybe they would have had more impact against the Roman Legions. I have heard the Hypaspists referred to as the 'Guards' before, though I hadn't come across the term Agema before.
Well that's entirely debateable. Fact of the matter is that the Macedonian phalanx was not ever the same by the time of Alexander's death. If we are to believe the sources, Alexander had decided to rid himself of these "meddlesome Macedonians". The 30,000 "successors" might have been an affront but what really got the sacrificial Macedonian goat were the "barbarians" salted amongst the pezhetairoi: the regular Macedonian infantry. Worse, these blokes carried bows and arrows as well as spears. And Alexander figured that this was the way to go? Bugger off. Yes he'd asked for Macedonian reserves – had been doing so for years. One problem: Antipater unfortunately didn't have a surplus to spare. Thus he was not about to bowl into Babylon with what was not coming. Lamia would – had Alexander lived to see it – have embarrassed him. Macedon, after ten years of manpower predation by Alexander's never ending horizon was a shadow of that which marched to Chaeroneia. It would not ever recover. But, to a conqueror whose capitals of empire did not include Pella, it was of little concern.
There were no "Hypaspists" in the Diadochoi armies. These were a corps that found their genesis under Philip and became the corps of choice under Alexander. After their dissolution by Antigonus they were no more. Their taunt of the young Macedonians in Antigonus' army – as reported by the Eumenes favouring Hieronymus – on the battlefield at Gabiene describes it neatly: "Why do you fight against your fathers who conquered the world with Philip and Alexander?"
Unfortunately for the Macedonians, their phalanxes followed Alexander's last designs and eventually – made up of "Asians" trained in "the Macedonian fashion" – became rigid dinosaurs armed with ridiculously long pikes and possessed of very limited manoeuvrability. That flexible vehicle of war that Philip had fashioned: sarissa-armed, mobile and somewhat agile phalanx; Hypaspists (similarly armed generally); light infantry and mercenary hoplites aided and abetted by an indomitable Macedonian cavalry backed by Thessalians none their lesser, was no more. Worse, that which made it was in desperately short supply: Macedonians. As the Diadoch wars wore on, Macedonian infantry became the coin of conflict. A point amply driven home by Leonnatus' death, on the pike of his ambition in the Lamian War, when his political putsch (his intended marriage to Alexander's sister) was not quite backed by his phalangite shove. Fact was, he'd very little in the way of Macedonian infantry.
Marcus has addressed the "Agema" well enough. It is enough to know that the distinction, sometimes drawn, between the "Royal Hypaspists" and the "Agema" is – to me – a nonsense. They are the same. "Sources", writing up to three hundred or more years later, conflate terms. The Hypaspist agema represents the kings' foot guard (refer Philip's guard – the Hypaspists – at Chaeroneia). A guard drawn from, as Marcus says, the best of the best of the….
keroro wrote:With the A(e)sthetairoi, thanks very much to Efstathios for that link. So it seems that they were equipped the same as the Pezhetairoi but were from the upper towns. I assume that the upper towns are the ones toward the Thracian border?.
I wouldn't. "Upper Macedonia" generally refers to those areas to the west and north-west of the Macedonian plains (lowlands). Think of Lyncestis, Eordaea and Orestis. In ancient times Thrace was quite a different "country".
) and the Asthetairoi.
I've found references to them, but the best description I found was the rather vague 'Heavy Infantry'. Is this just another name for the Petzhetairoi?
But I'm sure someone will be able to correct me on that.