Quis custodiet custodes ipsos?

[agesilaos]

As I mentioned in the previous post I have just read the piece on Philip's Death. Therein I found a good deal of confusion over the nature of the various Guard units in Philip's Army.Imagine my delight when I found the same errors in the late professor Hammond's 'King, Statesman, Commander'.To start at the top;
The Seven- these were high ranking Macedonians also known as The Companions and comparable to the Friends of Hellenistic Monarchs and the Roman emperors. They discharged the function of an Inner Council and not that of an actual bodyguard. This is clear from Arrian where most of the Seven have commands independant of Alexander's.The Pages- these are the young men who act as hostages during their military training as described by S+H in their introThe Hypaspists-These provide actual bodyguard functions at dinners etc, Maracanda anyone?The problem is that whilst Ptolemy knows the Macedonian titles for these posts, the Greek historians translate them all as Bodyguard- somato/phylax or spearbearer-doru/phoros occaisionally qualifying them with a Royal- basileke or such. The trouble is we can only disentangle these by context; Curtius and Justin merely use catch all Latin equvalents armiger, custos etc.Diodorus provides the longest exposition and the most valuable and it is clear his source was Greek and so behindhand on military terminology. The Hypaspistai are not mentioned only somatophylakes and doruphoroi.Somatophylax in Arrian normally infers the Inner Guard, this and Pausanias' proximity to Philip seem to have led people to assume he was one of the Seven. This can be shown to be false.At XVI 93 ix we have '...kai kata ten somatophylakian proegen auton entimos' that is '...and he[Philip] advanced him[Pausanias] in honour among the bodyguards.' So Pausanias, was promoted. Now, no hierarchy is known within the Seven but there was clearly a rank structure within the Hypaspists.

[marcus]

Karl,This, I'm afraid, is one of those typical times where I wish I were at home with my books. Unfortunately, I won't get near my books until the weekend, so you'll have to make do with what I can drag out of my memory.With regard to the somatophylakes, the term appears to have been used for two different groups - the 'seven' and (if I recall correctly) the royal agema of hypaspists.But the 'seven' *were* bodyguards - certainly, if you look at the list of people who were variously members of this group you will find that (a) they were not always Alexander's closest friends (although they were, according to Heckel, members of the king's consilium) and (b) if they were given a command outside the duties of the somatophylakes, then they were replaced (although there are, I think, a couple of exceptions to this rule).All the bestMarcus

[agesilaos]

The Greek source of Diodorus' account of Philip's murder uses somatophylax and doruphoroi as synonyms showing that they have no particular significance for him ie denoting the Seven, to him the people so designated are just guards. Yes the Seven were replaced when they were assigned permanent commands such as satrapies (a possible exception being Peucestas whose status as a Bodyguard is surely only honorific in any case; much like Diana keeping the title Princess while she slept with the sons of industry rather than the heir apparent) BUT in battle the attested Bodyguards command hipparchia etc, and thus do not act as bodyguards per se.It is true that initially the Bodyguards were not all intimates of Alexander but the initial stages of the expedition do see this Old Guard promoted out of the consilium and replaced fairly quickly, even Thatcher had to bide her time clearing out the wets.The main point I was making is that neither Pausanias, Leonnatos nor Perdikkas were of The Seven at the time of the assassination merely(!) Hypaspists. Which means the latter two were in fact promoted not demoted.I regret I have not seen pap.Oxy.1978 only Hammonds reconstruction in translation but as it stands it would not contradict this interpretation.In support of the aforesaid being merely hypaspistai, Philip's boast that he needs no bodyguards is a good deal more impressive if he is talking about a hundred or so hypaspists rather than seven probably middle-aged blokes and Diodorus does state that ' Philip had sent his attending friends in before him...' XVI 94 iii this is the group I would identify as the Seven by analogy with Hellenistic usage though only tentatively as the nature of Diodorus source is unknown.

[marcus]

Hi Karl,I'm afraid I really don't have the information with me to be able to argue the point, but I think you are wrong!It seems an easy way out, but my books are 200 miles away and I won't get to them until the weekend. However, what I can say for sure is that Perdikkas was never one of the somatophylakes, ie. one of the 'seven' (which isn't sufficient to destroy your argument, I know), but a commander of one of the battalions of pezhetairoi. Sorry I can't give you a good debate on this - perhaps someone else can step into the breach who can marshal the arguments with something to back them up!All the bestMarcus

[agesilaos]

We actually agree about Perdikkas, it is Sikander/Halil and Hammond who think he was one of the Seven and subsequently demoted; curiosly Mary Renault seems to have a better grasp of the status of the main players than some academics.

[marcus]

Nice one, Karl - sorry, did I misunderstand what you were saying? Anyway, glad we agree on Perdikkas - absolutely no proof that I am aware of that he was ever one of the 'seven'.I still can't argue effectively with you over the other stuff though :-)All the bestMarcus