pothos.org

Now, we are not only into Xenophon's fictional Persian 'hoplites' not being hoplites at all, purely on Agesilaos' say-so,

Ah, misrepresentation and exasperation all in one! Maybe the real reason that there is so much the same on the thread is that the simplest arguments seem to need explaining so many times before you get them; savvy?

Now I cited the instances when the Kyrou Paideia describes the equipment of what you insist on calling ‘hoplites’, I have also cited the passages where they are contrasted to the Egyptian hoplites (so-called by Xenophon) but that does not count as evidence? The argument is refuted by re-defining ‘hoplite’ and adducing a totally spurious synonym. You are right, it is Pythonesque but I‘ve paid for the full half hour so this sort of distraction tactic just won’t wash. And I place my faith in everyone else seeing straight through it too.

The word is ‘pempas’ that Xenophon uses and it means simply five, yet another item I have not dreamt up but exactly what LSJ says, I thought you could read this as well as I can ? Here is the Perseus’ wordsearch grammatical notation and the LSJ’s definition

πεμπάδος noun sg fem gen

πεμπ-άς , άδος, ἡ,
A. [select] the number five, Pl.R.546c, Phd.104a (πεμπτάς codd.), Plu.2.387e, Plot.6.3.11.
*II. [select] group of five, X.Cyr.2.1.22 and 24, HG7.2.6, Dam.Pr.203; cf.πεντάς.
III. [select] fifth part, SIG57.35,39 (Milet., V B.C.).

So ‘pempados’ is the genitive form ‘of five’ (more Python!) and here is LSJ defining precisely as I have with reference to the very passage under discussion and no wonder this is the only usage in his historical works (Hell. VII 2 vi), there are seven others in the Kyrou Paideia.

Even there, though, these are emphatically NOT generic words for ‘half-file’ if it were Xenophon would not need to change his terminology at II 4 iv, and give his twelve deep files ‘commanders of twelve’, dodekadarchs. This is no Hegelian philiosophy, it is Xenophon Gryllou who switches between twelves and tens and then never has them explicitly fighting at either depth te only stsed depth being at VI 3 xxi where the lochoi are deployed ‘eis duo’, two deep in my view, twenty-five deep in your most recent guess (presumably starting the battle in close order either way, unless you propose a single line in close order or commanders of twelve and a half under the commanders of twelve!) had they been twenty five deep the worries about the relative depths of the battle lines would seem otiose (VI 3 xxii).

So what we have is a bald assertion of a bald assertion which was in fact referenced from Xenophon throughout and a coherent interpretation of Xenophon’s fluctuations in command structure (it is NOT central to his aim which is to demonstrate how Kyros is the ideal Prince), against a doomed attempt to impose some consistency, unreferenced and based on external factors. But this is to form you have a tendency to complain most loudly about those faults in others in which you yourself are most guilty, we call that ‘Mote and Beam Syndrome’ chez moi.

But there’s more, excuses why your arguments(?) are bunk, or reasons??

I love a charge of being illogical, especially followed by such a display of what it actually means! The Xenophon OB approach to lexicography seems to propose ignoring earlier uses of a word, then accepting that they are the same usage but adducing a synonomous use in a later writer from thin air to save his personal view; were this on stage it would be ‘deus ex machina’, though I would class this as Comedy rather than Tragedy, wherein such would normally appear.

‘Thorakophoros’ in Herodotos and in Xenophon mean the same thing and are thus apples and apples. Two (VI 3 xxiii ,VII 1 xxiv) of the instances of ‘hoplites’ you want to mean these ‘thorakophoroi’ are explicitly referring to the Egyptians, with whom the Persian equipment is invidiously compared, conclusion; Xenophon is separating the Persians from the class of troops he calls ‘hoplites and keeping them ‘thorakophoroi’. In the ‘folding back’ manoeuvre outside Babylon, VII 5 iii, the Persians must indeed be included among the ‘hoplites’, the Egyptians are now part of Kyros’ army but the Persians cannot be counted with lights ‘gymnetes’; authorial lapse or telling point? Oops by VIII 5 xi and xii the Persians are again separated from the ‘hoplites’ as

ὁπλίτας δὲ καὶ τοὺς τὰ μεγάλα γέρρα ἔχοντας κύκλῳ πάντων εἶχεν ὥσπερ τεῖχος, ὅπως καὶ εἰ δέοι τι ἐνσκευάζεσθαι τοὺς ἱππέας, οἱ μονιμώτατοι πρόσθεν ὄντες παρέχοιεν αὐτοῖς ἀσφαλῆ τὴν καθόπλισιν.
The hoplites and those armed with the large gerrha he arranged around all the rest like a wall, so that those who could best hold their ground might, by being in front of them, make it possible for the cavalry to arm in safety, if it should be necessary

.

The next three references follow this passage immediately, and it is clear that the Persians with the ‘big gerrha’ are subsumed with the hoplites to avoid the clumsiness of differentiating them four times in a row.

You seem to think that this is a fall back position, I have not accepted your fallacious interpretation of ‘paragein’ and have demonstrated that it is such from Xenophon’s own writings; that you will never accept this but will continue to base a theory on a unique usage, I d not doubt but the more innocent will be able to weigh the ‘evidence’ rather than have an opinion presented as the unvarnished truth.

Neither author uses ‘thorakophoros’ and ‘hoplites’ as synonyms; savvy?!

Digression; hands up on that one you got be bang to rights guv’nor I was tricked by the horsemen, next in the list, DOH!! The translation of ‘spearmen’ seems eccentric to say the least (did he send the archers home?) but better than the cuirassiers of the Perseus translation, another slip on my part there. In this quiet interlude let me just remind you that it is Perseus that does the word search and frequency stats, LSJ which you keep using for those is only the lexicon with exempla, available on Perseus but not the word frequency tool itself. I only point this out to prevent frustration in others who may look up LSJ elsewhere and be baffled to not find the frequency stats . I realise it is a shorthand but it might confuse, ‘nuff said.

I’’ll address the final fugue later, its assumptions and fantasy are just too fatiguing, I’ll just note that you DID use Arrian’s usage to try and support your view but I pointed out it was a term specific to the Macedonians and not generic at all; remember? It was only a couple of posts ago; mmmh, both Aussies displaying signs of memory loss, must be something in the water, for Foster’s sake! DON’T drink the water!! (Now that’s the sort of medical advice of which I approve!)

Before going back over the same old same old, here is another reason, sorry excuse, for not believing the four deep fighting theory from Xenophon Kyrou Paideia VII 5 i-vi

When Cyrus appeared before Babylon he1 stationed his whole force about the city and then rode around it himself in company with his friends and the staff-officers of the allies; [2] but when he had taken a survey of the walls, he prepared to draw off his army from the city. But a deserter came out and told him that they were going to attack him as soon as he began to draw his army off. “For,” the man went on, “your lines looked weak to those who observed them from the walls.” And it was no wonder that they appeared so; for, encompassing walls of such extent,2 the lines necessarily had but little depth. [3]
On hearing this, therefore, Cyrus took his place3 with his body-guard in the centre of his army and gave orders that the hoplites should fold back the phalanx from the extremity of either wing and move toward each other behind the main body, which had been halted, until each of the extreme wings should meet in a line with him, that is, in the centre.4 [4] By this manoeuvre the men that remained standing in their places were at once given more courage, for the depth of the line was thus doubled; and those who had fallen back were likewise rendered more courageous, for thus those troops which had been kept standing had now come to face the enemy, and not they. But when, as they marched in from both sides, the ends came together, they stood thus mutually strengthened—those who had shifted their position were supported by those in front of them, those in front by the men behind them. [5] And when the phalanx was thus folded back, the front ranks and the rear were of necessity composed of the most valiant men and the poorest were drawn up between them. And this arrangement of the lines seemed well adapted both for fighting and for keeping the men from flight; and the cavalry and the light-armed troops upon the wings were in each case brought as much nearer to the commander as the phalanx was shorter when doubled. [6] And when they had thus closed up, they retired backward as long as they were within range of the missiles from the wall; but when they were out of range, they would face about and go forward at first only a few steps and wheel to the left and stand facing the wall; and the further off they got, the less often did they thus wheel around; and when they seemed to be out of all danger, they marched off without stopping until they arrived at their tents.

We are told that when the line has folded back ‘the front ranks and the rear were of necessity composed of the most valiant men and the poorest were drawn up between them’, now as the basis for promotion was valour it follows that the front rank of the original formation comprised entirely of officers and further that since there can be no officers among the poorest troops, the arrangement must have had the lowest ranking officers in the front-rank and their commands behind them. So as the lowest rank of which we are told is the pempadarch or hexarch, depending on how much ouzo Xenophon had had for breakfast; Kyros’ line is then either five or six deep and it ‘looks weak’, and Kyros concurs and doubles his depth with his fanciful manoeuvre (the end quarters of his line about face and wheel 180 degrees to bring them behind those that have halted; we won’t go into the numbers as Xenophon is not concerned about them and we can all see that they are absurd). But here we have a five deep line (at least) being considered weak. Xenophon then elaborates to give one of his favourite tropes, ‘And this arrangement of the lines seemed well adapted both for fighting and for keeping the men from flight’, a variation of his wall simile, best fighters in front rank and rear-rank. Which occurs at VI 3 xxv ‘For just as a house, without a strong foundation or without the things that make a roof, is good for nothing, so likewise a phalanx is good for nothing, unless both front and rear are composed of valiant men.’ And in the Sokratic writings, Xenophon referenced earlier.

So what is the purpose of the commanders of five if their commands are too weak to stand in line of battle? The answer is in the Cavalry Commander (4 ix), although there the pempadarchs do seem to have commands capable of fighting due to the differences between cavalry and infantry, their purpose is to pass on orders, an advantage he also notes to the Lacedaimonian organisation, Lak.Pol. 11 v, by implication.

Which brings us to the interesting quote from the Hellenika, III 4 xiii

Most of the time he pursued his march through the country in safety; but when he was not far from Dascyleium, his horsemen, who were going on ahead of him, rode to the top of a hill so as to see what was in front. And by chance the horsemen of Pharnabazus, under the command of Rhathines and Bagaeus, his bastard brother, just about equal to the Greek cavalry in number, had been sent out by Pharnabazus and likewise rode to the top of this same hill. And when the two squadrons saw one another, not so much as four plethora apart, at first both halted, the Greek horsemen being drawn up four deep like a phalanx, and the barbarians with a front of not more than twelve, but many men deep. Then, however, the barbarians charged.

I will not pretend that the Greek cannot mean that ‘like a phalanx the cavalry was drawn up four deep’, it can; however, it can also mean ‘the cavalry were drawn up like a phalanx (ie in a line) and were four deep,’ which is how I would take on the grounds that the comparison is clearly between the Greeks shallow line and the Barbarian’s deep column, and the lack of evidence that phalanxes drew up four deep; itself shown by the fact that a request for a passage mentioning infantry fighting four deep was answered with one about cavalry; they are hard to come by. What this also shows is that cavalry fought in shallower formations, Polybios notes that beyond eight depth is unhelpful in cavalry combat, This would tend to make Xenophon’s pempadarchs in the Cavalry Commander intended front rank fighters, or file-leaders were we or Xenophon considering things from a file perspective; but he is not, he is considering things from the number of men under command . But I’ll save that for next ime.

Xenophon wrote: The Spartans sent a small force under Polytropus (1,000 hoplites and 500 Argive and Boeotian refugees) to the aid of the Orchomenians, who were unsurprisingly defeated and Polytropus killed. Meanwhile, Agesilaus had already invaded Arcadia, and was ravaging it and its crops – so evidently it is early in the campaigning season, not late. It is at this point the Arcadians send to Athens, then Thebes, which process need have taken no longer than the Thebans doing the same immediately after Leuktra ( Athens and then Jason of Thessaly in their case).

The Thebans, whilst agreeing to help as allies did not come immediately, but a considerable time later, after Agesilaus had returned home, despite him remaining in the field into winter. Why ? On their own reckoning, Leuktra had not been a ‘decisive’ battle, and they were reluctant to take the war into the Peloponnese. Instead, they were more interested in campaigning against ‘easy pickings’ in their own backyard – attacking and destroying Thespiae. Boeotian Orchomenus too would have suffered this fate but for the intervention of Epaminondas. However it was only a temporary reprieve, for it was destroyed in 364 BC. All this must have occurred in the summer campaigning season, and perhaps into the Autumn. It was not “late in the year” nor “near certainly during the winter”.

You would appear to be the only person who thinks the campaign of Agesilaos into Arcadia was "early in the campaigning season". While this is necessary to sustain your 'Xenophontic' view of Thebes being "more interested in campaigning against ‘easy pickings’ in their own backyard" and thus "timidly" waiting until Agesilaos had gone home before "poking their noses" into the Peloponnese, it is wrong. The only substantiation, it seems, is that Agesilaos was ravaging Arcadia "and its crops". Xenophon does not say this. What he says is that the land was ravaged and the farms plundered. Such does not require standing crops (of grain for example) to be available. The Boeotions and Arcadians found plenty themselves to burn and plunder in Lakonia in the subsequent winter campaign.

On your reckoning Agesilaos took the field sometime in April or May ("early in the season"). He does not retire until midwinter. On such a reckoning you have him and his army campaigning for some seven to eight months. Nothing in Xenophon’s account indicates a campaign of such length. That account tells us that he marched to Eutaia where he waited for Polytropos. We might generously give him a week here (6.5.12). Hearing of action about Orchomenus he mearched to Tegea from where he proceeded to Mantinea taking two days (5.15). A day later he camps twenty stades from Mantinea and a day later (5.17) the Orchomenians arrive and he marches into the valley to encamp. The next day he performs his extraction (5.18). The last notice of time is Agesilaos’ departure which covers four days (5.20-21). One wonders just what Agesilaos was doing all this time in front of Matinea. It’s taken him some nine or ten days to camp before Mantinea and four days to conduct a departure – which departure was in midwinter. Like the Israelites wandering in the wilderness for forty years Agesilaos has sat pat before Mantinea for something approaching six months! The only notice of ravaging is before he moves to twenty stades from Mantinea and even if he continued for the rest of this long campaign, just how many times can one ravage and plunder the same farms?

It is thus plain that this is no six to eight month campaign but rather exactly what Xenophon describes: a short campaign, centred on Mantinea, which terminated in midwinter and thus began no earlier than late autumn and most likely winter in response to the stasis in Tegea during the autumn.

The Thebans, rather than preferring “easy pickings”, sensibly consolidated their hold over central Greece and sorted out their vacillating allies. Thebes also saw to the detachment of Phokis and the Lokrians from Sparta and brought them under her control. The results of Thebes’ pursuing “easy pickings” are on display at 6.5.23 where Xenophon describes the forces that came with her into the Peloponnese:

…they were reinforced by the Phocians, who had become their subjects, the Euboeans from all their cities, both the Locrian peoples, the Acarnanians, the Heracleots, and the Malians; they were also reinforced by horsemen and peltasts from Thessaly.

The concentration on “easy pickings” proved very fruitful. To be noted in that list is Thessaly. It was clear that Jason of Pherai was a lukewarm ally at best and had plans for far greater things than simply being tagos of Thessaly. Thebes, far from being timid, was wise to attend to her control of central Greece. In the event Jason was assassinated and Thebes gained Thessaly as a partner in this invasion.

The embassy from Arcadia to Athens has to be placed in the context of the ‘Mexican standoff’ that resulted from Agesilaos’ invasion. The appeal to Athens (as prostatai of the peace) will have been sent once the Spartans invaded Arcadia. It was rebuffed and another was sent to Thebes which was successful. This had to take time and certainly the debate in Thebes took its time. The Theban forces – considerable and diverse as noted above – did not assemble overnight and nor did their supplies. That army then had some 120 miles to march – something in the order of 8 days (or more given its size).

I can find no one who agrees that this campaign of Agesilaos began in the spring and lasted six to eight months; quite the opposite in fact. No one – including Xenophon son of Gryllos – describess a campaign of such a length. The communis opinio is an early winter campaign by Agesilaos (see, for example, Stylianou, A Historical Commentary on Diodorus Siculus, Book 15, 423-425).

None of which alters the fact that the absconding from the Spartan alliance by Mantinea, Tegea and other parts of Arcadia was the direct result of the fracturing of the ‘mirage Spartiate’ at Leuktra.

On the depth of hoplites mater, I reiterate my view that the ancient sources actually give us the depths at which these armies fought. I do not see that there was some unspoken understanding whereby the ancient writers only ever recorded the 'marching' depths (or 'open order') of these armies because all their readers knew to halve them.

THE MACEDONIAN PHALANX:

At long last, I’m going to write about the subject matter of this thread – the Macedonian phalanx and the culmination of the evolution of the phalanx, which is described in the manuals/taktike techne.
Agesilaos wrote:

The Macedonians were originally organised decimally because they were under Achaemenid rule, hence their decades.

I shall assume Agesilaos has read this somewhere ( I know I have), and has passed it on without thinking about it, for it is patent nonsense.

Let us consider what little we know of the Macedonian armed forces prior to Philip II.

The Macedonian forces will have been ‘tribal’ like their Thracian, Paeonian and Illyrian neighbours. The bulk of them amateur warriors levied when needed (and that was often ), and generally armed with the traditional pair of ‘longche’/hunting spears and a light skin/leather covered wicker ‘pelta’. Few would possess helmets or swords, and those who did tended to be in richer lower Macedonia, with its trade with southern Greece. (a fairly large number of graves in lower Macedonia have been excavated, and Illyrian helmets and other weapons recovered). Added to these were cavalry, formed from the ‘Kings’ and their aristocratic retinue. These likely were able to afford ‘panoplia’, and again their main weapons seem to have been two ‘longche’.

We first hear of Macedon in our first Greek Historian, Herodotus, who describes how Amyntas, their lowland King, submitted to Darius after the devastation of neighbouring Paeonia in 507 BC, but this was rather nominal, and his successor Alexander, submitted to Xerxes in 492 ( very wise of him!).
With the arrival of Xerxes and his army in 480, Persian rule became a reality and Alexander actively co-operated with the southern Greeks, being his only hope of getting rid of Persian suzerainty – which duly occurred in 479, when after Plataea the Persians withdrew back to Asia. Persian rule was thus brief. The armed forces of Macedon were certainly not re-organised along Persian lines. For a start, Persia never interfered with the military organisations of vassal states, or required them to be organised 'Persian fashion'.
Secondly, tribal peltasts were not organised into files at all, let alone decimal ones. Such an idea has no evidence for it, and so unlikely as to have been impossible, as anyone thinking about the matter would realise at once.

Herodotus does not tell us anything about Macedonia’s military capacities. We first hear of Macedonian troops in Thucydides, when Macedonia was coveted, and colonised by Athens and became a ‘fringe player’ in the wars between Sparta and Athens.They acted as auxiliaries to the armies of Sparta, Athens and Corinth that used lower Macedonia as a battleground. Thucydides reports the infantry, who don’t ever seem to have numbered more than a couple of thousand ‘tribal peltasts’, as being rather poor around the 420’s BC. The several hundred cavalry seem to have been better quality, described by Thucydides (II.100) as “excellent horsemen and armed with breastplates”, when defending against a Thracian invasion by Sitalkes. (429/428 BC).

The highland Macedonians seem to have been tougher, and challenged Brasidas’ Spartan mercenary army for instance. We now hear of ‘Hoplite’ heavy infantry in Macedonian armies for the first time. Perdiccas, the lowland King, allied to Brasidas, bringing ‘Hoplites’ raised among Greek expatriates living in Macedonia from the coastal cities, against the upper Macedonian Lynkestians, who also fielded ‘Hoplites’ – probably mercenaries, and rather fewer, in 423 BC. ( Thuc. IV.124). Chalkidian allies also provided ‘Hoplites’ – 800 against Olynthus. This then is the rather motley Macedonian army prior to the ‘Age of Philip’.

The first reformations seem to have been those of King Archelaos some time before 400 BC, who “built straight roads throughout the country, re-organised the cavalry, the arming of the infantry, and equipment in general, so as to put the country in a stronger position for war than it had ever been.”

Macedon was becoming stronger and wealthier, and was expanding. We are not told exactly what these reforms are, but the issue of state arms for the first time is implied. Since later, Philip is not credited with the invention of Macedonian type ‘pelta’ – wooden, bronze-faced and 24-30 (60-70 cm) inches in diameter, and hence suitable for hand-to-hand combat, perhaps this was introduced at this time too. The cavalry reforms probably involved them being made a permanent, regular force for the first time- and perhaps the name ‘Hetairoi’ appeared now. Thucydides does not refer to re-arming the cavalry, but the 12 ft (3.6 m) ‘xyston’/cavalry lance may have been introduced – again not something explicitly credited to Philip, whose reforms seem to have been the introduction of the two-handed ‘sarissa’ (possibly a Thracian weapon), and the organisation and drilling of a reformed Greek phalanx, and the introduction of the Macedonian version of ‘synaspismos’/ locked shields, and improving morale and general discipline of the Makedones after their disastrous defeat, with 4,000 casualties and the death of Philip’s brother Perdikkas II, by the Illyrians under King Bardylis ( Diodorus XVI.1.)
This then was the Army inherited by Philip, at a crucial time when Macedonia’s very existence was at stake. We can now consider in detail the Argead Macedonian Army under Philip.

Philip’s immediate task was to re-build the shattered Macedonian army, with only his shrunken state to begin with. Diodorus tells us that, soon after coming to power in 359, Philip ' reformed the organisation of his units, provided the men with the necessary arms and instituted continuous drill of the men under arms and competitive forms of training; he also designed the compact order and equipment of the phalanx, imitating the close fighting order with overlapping shields of the heroes at Troy, [ called in the manuals ‘synaspismos’/locked shields] and he was the first to organise the Macedonian phalanx'. [Diod. XVI.2-3]
Philip also apparently reformed the Macedonian cavalry by adopting Thracian style ‘wedge’ formations, which the Thracians had adopted from the Scyths, according to Arrian [Tactica 16]; but he does not say when this change took place, though we might surmise it was early in Philip’s reign.

So Philip turned his infantry from a rabble of tribal ‘peltasts’ into a Greek-style heavy infantry phalanx, and the men into ‘hoplites’. His real innovation was the radical introduction of the 16-18 foot pike, and the modifications to formation and drill that went with that. The file was deepened to 16 in ‘open’ order, 8 in close order, because the length of the pike allowed 5 ranks or so participate, and a new even denser formation was instituted thanks to the smaller shields and side-on stance of two-handed pikemen. This was ‘synaspismos’, just 4 deep with each man on an 18 inch frontage ( the late Peter Connolly demonstrated that this formation was indeed practical, and formed by halving close order depth ). We know from Arrian’s 'Anabasis’ that the file was called a ‘dekad’, and the file leader ‘dekadarch’ in Alexander’s army, and from Frontinus IV.1.6, where one of Philip’s earliest reforms is to cut down the number of servants, in the case of the infantry, to one per ‘dekad’/file, that this terminology was used from the beginning. ( Some have surmised that perhaps originally Philip’s files were only 10 deep – but you couldn’t form ‘synaspismos’ from such a depth. Asclepiodotus' manual too refers to the file formerly being called a 'dekas'). Since this terminology cannot have been Persian, it can only have had its origins in the Greek terminology of the model for the Macedonian phalanx, namely the Greek hoplite phalanx – and must have been the generic term for ‘file’ by this date ( as explained in a previous post). Similarly, ‘pempadarch’ would by this period be a Greek generic term for half-file leader ( the Persian army organisation did not have ‘groups of five’ ) – see Xenophon’s usage in the ‘Cyropaedia’ and ‘Hellenica’, and my post above explaining how a hoplite file of a nominal ten with all age-groups called up would in practice be 8.

The details and evidence from the manuals for Macedonian formations and drill will be the subject of a future post.

Agesilaos wrote Wed 20 Aug

No ‘pempadas’ just means a ‘group of five’ and Greek expresses our ‘one in five’ as ‘one in each group of five’, no organisation is implied, there are fifty guards and ten watch during the day, it is an ad hoc assignment.

More distorted translation ? ‘ad hoc’ as in random individuals ( “no organisation is implied”)?

The correct translation is : “for one out of each/ekastos squad of five/pempados was regularly left behind as a day-guard”
Certainly ‘pempas’ can mean a generic number five, but in context means squad/group.
The relevant LSJ entry is : *II. [select] group of five, X.Cyr.2.1.22 and 24, HG7.2.6, Dam.Pr.203; cf.πεντάς. referring, as Agesilaos says, to this passage VII.2.6. It also refers to XC II.1.22, which we have referred to before:

“What he proposed was as follows: to the private soldier, that he show himself obedient to the officers, ready for hardship, eager for danger but subject to good discipline, familiar with the duties required of a soldier, neat in the care of his equipment, and ambitious about all such matters; to the corporal [pempadarch], that, besides being himself like the good private, he make his squad of five [pempada] a model, as far as possible; to the sergeant[dekadarch], that he do likewise with his squad of ten[dekas], and the lieutenant[lochagos] with his platoon [lochos]; and to the captain[taxiarch], that he be unexceptionable himself and see to it that the officers under him get those whom they command to do their duty.”

Quite clearly then, what is meant is a squad (of 5 literally); half a file (of ten literally) – a half file. According to the LSJ Xenophon refers to ‘pempados’ seven times in the Cyropaedia, once in the Hellenika above with reference to a Phliasian squad of 5/half-file ( which was probably not literally 5 men) ; ‘pempadarch’/leader of half file six times in the Cyropaedia and twice in the ‘Cavalry Commander’. In every single case an organised half-file, led by an NCO, probably not always literally of 5, is meant.

To pile Pelion on Ossa, all the translations I have access to translate ‘pempados’ in this case as ‘squad’, none as ‘one in [a random] five’. Yet again Agesilaos has evidently mistranslated, for even if his meaning is a possibility, it is wrong in context.

In the case of cavalry, the depth according to Polybius, was 8 as you mention. Asclepiodotus says Greek cavalry formations were 16 x 8, and square. He also mentions formations 3 or 4 deep. Aelian too refers to square formations ( e.g. 10 x 5 or 8x4 – a horse being longer than wide compared to a man, and hence the formation longer in frontage to achieve a ‘square’). Also at XH III.4.13 that I referred to, the Greek cavalry fight like a phalanx 4 deep,. The ‘dekas’ for cavalry can obviously be 8 and the ‘pempados’ 4 !!
[digression: Asclepiodotus in his manual also says that one of the names for ‘file’ used to be ‘dekas/dekania’ i.e. a generic name for file, consistent with Arrian and Frontinus’ usage to refer to a file of 16.]

“The Macedonians were originally organised decimally because they were under Achaemenid rule, hence their decades.”

I dealt with this in my previous post. This cannot be so because:
1. There is no evidence that they were so organised.
2. Persia never imposed its military organisation on vassal states, but left them to fight in ‘native’ fashion.
3. In any case, the Achaemenids only occupied Macedon very briefly – a year or so.
4. To the best of our knowledge, traditionally, Macedonian infantry fought as tribal peltasts, like their neighbours, and the first time they were organised into ‘regular’ files of heavy infantry hoplites was under Philip II, who used the Greek phalanx as his model. Thus ‘dekad’ meant a file of 16 from the outset, and the term must have come from Greek hoplite usage ( from which Philip's phalanx derived), who also did not use a decimal organisation. The term must therefore have denoted a generic ‘file’ by this time.

“Even there, though, these are emphatically NOT generic words for ‘half-file’ if it were Xenophon would not need to change his terminology at II 4 iv, and give his twelve deep files ‘commanders of twelve’, dodekadarchs.”

Certainly, in the Cyropaedia Xenophon may have meant ‘dekas’ amd ‘pempados’ literally. But like so many words that have a specific or literal meaning, that does not mean that they don’t have a generic meaning too e.g. ‘aspis’ which can specifically mean the circular Greek hoplite shield, but can also refer to shields generally. Or consider how words change meaning over time e.g. an ‘enomotia’ originally meant ‘sworn band’, later came to be a platoon ( of varying size ) in a hoplite phalanx, and by Hellenistic times a quarter file of 4 men. Thus what began as a specific file of ten could come to also mean any file as well over time.

We also cannot make too much of ‘dodekadarch’ – used only twice in the Cyropaedia, ( and hexadarch for its equivalent half-file only once) and never used anywhere else by him or any other author, and quite possibly a word he invented for the fictional Cyrus’ hybrid army as ‘exotic’, or even just to emphasise files of 12 – we just do not know. [ I mentioned this previously in my post of Sun Aug 10]

“Thorakophoros’ in Herodotos and in Xenophon mean the same thing and are thus apples and apples.”

But it is only Xenophon who uses both ‘thorakaphoroi’ which we can loosely translate as ‘foreign armoured heavy infantry’ equivalent to ‘hoplites’, and the actual word ‘hoplites’ to refer to the same body of Persian infantry – i.e. synonomously.

“

Two (VI 3 xxiii ,VII 1 xxiv) of the instances of ‘hoplites’ you want to mean these ‘thorakophoroi’ are explicitly referring to the Egyptians, with whom the Persian equipment is invidiously compared, conclusion; Xenophon is separating the Persians from the class of troops he calls ‘hoplites and keeping them ‘thorakophoroi’.

”

I was not including the reference to Egyptian hoplites – only Persian ones.

“ In the ‘folding back’ manoeuvre outside Babylon, VII 5 iii, the Persians must indeed be included among the ‘hoplites’, the Egyptians are now part of Kyros’ army but the Persians cannot be counted with lights ‘gymnetes’; authorial lapse or telling point? Oops by VIII 5 xi and xii the Persians are again separated from the ‘hoplites’, the Egyptians are now part of Kyros’ army but the Persians cannot be counted with lights ‘gymnetes’; authorial lapse or telling point? “

So you are saying the 28,000 Persians are subsumed among the 120,000 Egyptians ? If they were to be a different class of heavy infantry, then why does Xenophon not simply use the generic term ‘phalanx’, as he does elsewhere ?

More tellingly still, there are NO Egyptians in Cyrus’ army at the relevant time. At the conclusion of the fictional battle of ‘Thymbrara’, Cyrus negotiates their surrender – but one of the terms is that they don’t serve in the current war against their former master Croesus [ VII.1.44-45]:

“On hearing this, the Egyptians begged to be excused from taking part in any campaign against Croesus, for with him alone, they said, they were acquainted; all other stipulations they accepted, and gave and received pledges of good faith.
And the Egyptians who then stayed in the country have continued loyal subjects to the king even unto this day; and Cyrus gave them cities, some in the interior, which even to this day are called Egyptian cities, and besides these Larissa and Cyllene near Cyme on the coast; and their descendants dwell there even unto this day.
When he had accomplished this, it was already dark; and Cyrus led back his forces and encamped in Thymbrara.”

Evidently most of the surrendered Egyptians went home, some took up Cyrus’ promises of land, cities, wives and servants, but none went on campaign with him to follow up Croesus.

“The next three references follow this passage immediately, and it is clear that the Persians with the ‘big gerrha’ are subsumed with the hoplites to avoid the clumsiness of differentiating them four times in a row.”

To be strictly correct, we aren’t told what nationality these troops are, but hoplites obviously refers to heavy infantry, presumably Cyrus’ re-armed Persians. Men with ‘megala gerra/large woven shields’ are only mentioned here. They might be allied troops, or perhaps likeliest the ‘sparabara’ of the archers mentioned. ( Xenophon is here describing the general camping arrangements of Cyrus’ army ). Your explanation appears to be invalid, for he could have simply said ‘hoplites,’ without adding the men with ‘large gerra’ – they are clearly some other troop type.

“You seem to think that this is a fall back position, I have not accepted your fallacious interpretation of ‘paragein’ and have demonstrated that it is such from Xenophon’s own writings; that you will never accept this but will continue to base a theory on a unique usage, I d not doubt but the more innocent will be able to weigh the ‘evidence’ rather than have an opinion presented as the unvarnished truth.”

That, in your state of denial, you don’t accept that when Xenophon says the half-file leaders led the rear half-files up beside the front half, that’s what he means. Like Clark Gable “frankly, my dear, I don’t give a Damn !!”...... I have patiently explained to you a number of times why your interpretation/translation of ‘paragon’ is wrong. Every other translation I’ve seen translates ‘paragon’ as I have; here is the LSJ :
2. [select] in Tactics, march the men up from the side, bring them from column into line,
.....referring to this very passage [XC I.3.21]

You have demonstrated nothing but your own wishful thinking. Nor is it a ‘unique usage.’ Xenophon uses this exact word to describe Epaminondas leading up his lochoi side by side to build his deep formation at second Mantinea,[XH VII.5.22] as I have mentioned previously, and to describe Cheirisophus bringing up his lochoi side-by-side to form a phalanx/battle line from column.[XA IV.6.6].There are many variations of this word, but they all derive from ‘para’ = side, as I have said before. In this passage paragein/paragon is used three times to describe the lochoi moving up beside each other, then the lochoi in double files to come up beside each other, and finally the half-files to move up beside each other. Irrationally, you don’t accept this last move, insisting the half-files form up on the “flank” in your reconstruction, extending the frontage. Quite impossible, because ‘paragon’ (and its related words) don’t mean “flank” ( which is ‘pleura’ in Greek [see e.g. XA III.4.22 ] – yet another mistaken translation on your part !!), and secondly because in a phalanx the ‘lochos’ would have another ‘lochos’ either side of it, and could not expand frontage “to the flank” anyway – yet another reason your reconstruction is incorrect.

Agesilaos wrote Sat 23 Aug

“So as the lowest rank of which we are told is the pempadarch or hexarch, depending on how much ouzo Xenophon had had for breakfast; Kyros’ line is then either five or six deep and it ‘looks weak’, and Kyros concurs and doubles his depth with his fanciful manoeuvre (the end quarters of his line about face and wheel 180 degrees to bring them behind those that have halted”

Typical Agesilaos argument....start with an assumption based on something not mentioned, and build a whole edifice on this foundation of sand. As anyone reading the passage quoted can see, an unknown number of troops surrounded the whole city ( first para), whose walls were apparently 40 miles long! ( according to Herodotus, whose figure Xenophon likely believed. In actuality, archaeology shows the outer wall to have been a bit over 5 miles long). Cyrus’ fictional Persian hoplites in phalanx 5-6 deep as Agesilaos ASSUMES, would take up a frontage of 4,500-5,500 yards long (roughly 2.5 – 3miles long) – not enough to surround the real city, let alone one with circuit walls of 40 miles !! Still, Xenophon tells us Cyrus had a great host of cavalry, of bowmen and javelimen, and “slingers beyond number”, and it is apparently his “whole force” he surrounds Babylon with. For all we know, Xenophon might have envisaged the phalanx of hoplites only being a single rank or two deep, for he says :
“

But a deserter came out and told him that they were going to attack him as soon as he began to draw his army off. “For,” the man went on, “your lines looked weak to those who observed them from the walls.” And it was no wonder that they appeared so; for, encompassing walls of such extent, the lines necessarily had but little depth.”

Since, in the Anabasis, Xenophon tells us phalanx customarily fought four deep, he probably means less than this.

The calculations of Agesilaos are therefore fanciful, and one cannot logically conclude that a phalanx 5 deep looked ‘weak’,or that a phalanx a half-file deep was ‘weak’, because that is not what Xenophon says. From this illogical conclusion, Agesilaos then decides that their purpose is to pass on orders, by reference to the “Cavalry Commander” !

In fact, Xenophon says rather more about what the 'pempadarchs/half-file leaders are for:

“The advance of cavalry is less likely to be detected by the enemy if orders are not given by a herald or in writing beforehand, but passed along. Accordingly, for this purpose, too, that the order to advance may be given by word of mouth, it is well to post file leaders[dekadarchs], and half file-leaders [pempadarchs]behind them, so that each may pass the word to as few men as possible. Thus, too, the half file-leaders[pempadarchs]will lead up by the side [paragontes – yep ! That word again ].and extend the line without confusion, whenever there is occasion to do so.”

In other words, exactly the same manoeuvre of forming half-files for battle as in the dinner drill for infantry, which Agesilaos, rather misleadingly, neglects to mention. Naughty !

“I will not pretend that the Greek cannot mean that ‘like a phalanx the cavalry was drawn up four deep’, it can;”

Careful there, you almost conceded I am right – a first !

“...however, it can also mean ‘the cavalry were drawn up like a phalanx (ie in a line) and were four deep,’ which is how I would take on the grounds that the comparison is clearly between the Greeks shallow line and the Barbarian’s deep column,”

.... retrieved yourself just in time !

However, it is not what the Greek says:
“ Ἕλληνες ἱππεῖς ὥσπερ φάλαγξ ἐπὶ τεττάρων παρατεταγμένοι/ the Greek horse like a phalanx in fours were drawn up side by side in battle order [para –tetagmenoi ]. If it had Agesilaos’ second meaning, Xenophon would be repeating himself‘drawn up in line’ twice (‘ like a phalanx’ and ‘side by side in battle order’), so it must mean the former.

"... and the lack of evidence that phalanxes drew up four deep; itself shown by the fact that a request for a passage mentioning infantry fighting four deep was answered with one about cavalry; they are hard to come by. "

Errrr...the reference is to an infantry phalanx four deep, which the cavalry resemble....

And of course references are rare. All Xenophon’s readers will have known that pahalnxes formed up in files a certain number deep, in their ”natural/normal” order, but closed up into ‘pyknosis/close order’ to attack and fight hand-to-hand.
Notice that I haven’t ( so far! ) referred to evidence from the manuals that is consistent with phalanxes fighting this way........

Paralus wrote Sat Aug 23 :

“On your reckoning Agesilaos took the field sometime in April or May ("early in the season"). He does not retire until midwinter. On such a reckoning you have him and his army campaigning for some seven to eight months. Nothing in Xenophon’s account indicates a campaign of such length.”

It is impossible for me to carry on a discussion on what are two separate subjects in one thread, and since this a digression upon a digression, I’m going to let it fall by the wayside and make this brief, and also my last post on this subject, albeit an interesting subject.

I will happily concede that seven or eight months to midwinter is a long campaign, but I don’t believe that it ;

“began no earlier than late autumn and most likely winter in response to the stasis in Tegea during the autumn.”

Such a late start calls for comment – and Xenophon gives none. The only reference to time is “while this was going on” [VI.5.10 ] which refers to the upheavals and civil strife in Arcadia, which probably occurred in Spring/early Summer latest. In response to appeals from the losing exiles, Sparta mobilised. Agesilaus at once crossed the frontier and captured the border city of Eutaea, so the campaign likely started mid, or perhaps at the latest, toward the end of summer.

Meanwhile in the north, Polytropus raised mercenaries for Sparta ( in Corinth), and reinforced Peloponnesian Orchomenus, small but naturally strong, under threat from Mantinea, just over 8 miles to its south. Diodorus XV.62ff is a little different, giving Polytropus 1,000 citizen hoplites and 500 Argive and Boeotian exiles – personally I doubt that this many ‘citizen’ Spartan troops would be in Corinth. The Mantineans then mounted a campaign against Orchomenus which failed ( with their professional army of 5,000 hoplites, styled the ‘Eparitoi’ under Lycomedes, on their first campaign). All this must have taken weeks, perhaps months. Meanwhile Agesilaos did nothing but continue to occupy Eutaea, apparently waiting for Polytropus and his men, [ since they were separated by a hostile Arcadia, Polytropus would have to have taken a roundabout route]and spent the time repairing the city walls ( which one would assume would take a considerable time ).

The Mantineans withdraw ( probably at or toward the end of the campaigning season? ). Polytropus follows up, but is killed, and his troops flee back to Orchomenus. Agesilaos, once he realises the mercenaries are not going to join him, embarks on ravaging Arcadia, and in response the Arcadians assemble, along with their Elean and Argive allies ( which would also have taken time). It is now mid-winter and Agesilaos takes his army home, while the Arcadians and allies await the Thebans......

Actually, I suppose if you reckon the campaign as starting when Agesilaos left Eutaea, then arguably it probably began “in late Autumn”. Important dates are the harvest times – in Southern Greece cereals are planted in November and harvested end of April/May but olives are harvested in November. That suggests that Agesilaos probably left Eutaea before November to commence his ravaging.....

“None of which alters the fact that the absconding from the Spartan alliance by Mantinea, Tegea and other parts of Arcadia was the direct result of the fracturing of the ‘mirage Spartiate’ at Leuktra.”

Obviously, the news of Leuktra had an effect – but the faction fighting in the Arcadian cities, as with other Greek cities, had been going on long before. The effect of leuktra, militarily indecisive as it was – and the Thebans acknowledged this, and more importantly its large ‘Homioi’ casualties, encouraged the anti-Spartan factions, to the detriment of the pro-Spartan factions ( generally oligarchs).

In the long term, after the brief flowering of Arcadia, Leuktra had no more decisive effect than second Mantinea 9 years later in 362 BC.

“On the depth of hoplites mater, I reiterate my view that the ancient sources actually give us the depths at which these armies fought. I do not see that there was some unspoken understanding whereby the ancient writers only ever recorded the 'marching' depths (or 'open order') of these armies because all their readers knew to halve them.”

That cannot be so, because leaving aside the literature, the frontages of phalanxes does not ‘fit’ known widths of battlefields, whilst having them ‘double’ their frontage and halving depth does fit, almost uncannily exactly at times. There doesn’t need to be any ‘understanding’, you are just looking at this the wrong way. The organisation of the hoplites was into files of a certain number. That is the depth our sources give us. It is the formation in which the phalanx carried out most of its activities in natural/normal.standard formation. Closing up into ‘pyknosis’ close formation only ever occurred briefly for combat. This becomes clearer when we examine the evidence of the Hellenistic manuals.

Xenophon wrote:Such a late start calls for comment – and Xenophon gives none. The only reference to time is “while this was going on” [VI.5.10 ] which refers to the upheavals and civil strife in Arcadia, which probably occurred in Spring/early Summer latest.

There is no need for 'comment' given the Spartans are responding to the stasis in Tegea which takes place in autumn.

The rest is similarly unpersuasive. Having abandoned an "early season" commencement of the campaign, it now begins mid/late summer? Agesilaos spends two to three months repairing walls (in a sorry state it would seem) awaiting a seriously dilatory Polytropos before embarking upon devastating Arcadia (Xenophon only describes the area about Mantinea as ravaged) at which time the Arcadians then assemble at Asea. Fine except that Xenophon makes plain that the Arcadians had already assembled by the time Agesilaos crossed the frontier and actually arrived in Mantinean territory after Agesilaos (6.5.11-12; 5.15).

Xenophon wrote:Actually, I suppose if you reckon the campaign as starting when Agesilaos left Eutaea, then arguably it probably began “in late Autumn”. Important dates are the harvest times – in Southern Greece cereals are planted in November and harvested end of April/May but olives are harvested in November. That suggests that Agesilaos probably left Eutaea before November to commence his ravaging.....

Actually, if one supposes, as everyone else does, that the entire campaign began in late autumn/winter then everything makes sense. There is no reason to suppose that Agesilaos spent from mid summer to late October eating the Euataians out of their winter stores whilst awaiting a Polytropos sans a navigator.

Xenophon wrote:Obviously, the news of Leuktra had an effect – but the faction fighting in the Arcadian cities, as with other Greek cities, had been going on long before. The effect of leuktra, militarily indecisive as it was – and the Thebans acknowledged this, and more importantly its large ‘Homioi’ casualties, encouraged the anti-Spartan factions, to the detriment of the pro-Spartan factions ( generally oligarchs).

That faction fighting in these Arcadian cities had "been going on long before" is utterly irrelevant to the point (evidence?). Why, now, these cities chose to assert their independence of Sparta is the point. I will take that very much 'hedged' statement above as a most grudging agreement that it was, in fact, Leuktra which inspired the Mantineans and Tegeans to act on a clause in the King's Peace available to them since 386 as argued in this post. Everything which followed - including the emasculation of Sparta (the loss of perioikik towns and Messenia) followed on this uprising and its concommitant invitation to Thebes.

Xenophon wrote:In the long term, after the brief flowering of Arcadia, Leuktra had no more decisive effect than second Mantinea 9 years later in 362 BC.

Which is irrelevant to the above.

Xenophon wrote:It is impossible for me to carry on a discussion on what are two separate subjects in one thread, and since this a digression upon a digression, I’m going to let it fall by the wayside and make this brief, and also my last post on this subject, albeit an interesting subject.

Which follows on your earlier declaration...

Xenophon wrote:But all that belongs in its own thread, or perhaps as a digression in the “Leuktra thread’.......

This thread is supposed to be about the Greek and Macedonian phalanx, its drill/technike tactike and the manuals that record it in its highest theoretical sense.

Well that's a shame because I think it is better addressed where it was raised and, unless you've changed your mind, so do you.

The patent nonsense comes from reading Anaximenes ap Harpokration;

ΠΕΖΕΤΑΙΡΟΙ
Δημοσθένης Φιλιππικοῖς. Ἀναξιμένης ἐν α Φιλιππικῶν περὶ Ἀλεξάνδρου λέγων φησὶν ‘ἔπειτα τοὺς μὲν ἐνδοξοτάτους ἱππεύειν συνεθίσας ἑταίρους προσηγόρευσε, τοὺς δὲ πλείστους καὶ τοὺς πεζοὺς εἰς λόχους καὶ δεκάδας καὶ τὰς ἄλλας ἀρχὰς διελὼν πεζεταίρους ὠνόμασεν, ὅπως ἑκάτεροι μετέχοντες τῆς βασιλικῆς ἑταιῥ̣̣᾽ας προθυμότατοι διατελῶσιν ὄντες.’

A king Alexander is said to have ‘organised the Macedonian foot into lochoi and groups of ten’; from Book I of his Phillipica. Alexander III already had an army organised by his father Philip, Alexander II was a short reigned monarch whose army under Perdikkas III was annihilated by the Illyrians but the fragment also says that this king ‘accustomed his nobles to riding together’, the Macedonian cavalry was effective under Perdikkas II, as noted by Thucydides. Leaving Alexander I, for 30 years a Persian vassal (his father Amyntas submitted in some form in 510 and he himself to Megabyzos in 492), however loosely, as the only remaining candidate. Maybe he was not influenced by his most powerful neighbour, maybe he plucked his decimal organisation from the air, perhaps he even called them groups of ten when they were groups of ten; I very much doubt it.

Persia did not need to impose anything, it exerted an influence, just as she had on Greek art for the previous century. I arrived at the conclusion independently whilst reading Ancient Persia by Josef Wiesehofer and noting that a great many Achaemenid institutions seemed mirrored in the Argaead. That others had reached this conclusion would not surprise me.

Macedonian infantry formed part of the Persian battle line at Plataia, Herodotos IX 31 v; they are brigaded with the Boeotians, Lokrians, Malians, Thessalians and 1,000 Phokian hoplites and face the Athenians, Megarians and Plataians; 11,600 men according to Herodotos, allowing 6,000 Boeotians (they were a weaker power than Athens) 2,000 for Phokis , Lokris and Mailis, there would be 3600 to divide between the Thessalians and the Macedonians. Whether they were peltasts or close order troops is somewhat moot but they were clearly frontline quality in Mardonios’ eyes.

What happened to the organised infantry? The chaos following the death of Alexander I saw the kingdom fragment as each son held his own fiefdom and various barons asserted their independence (which can be seen reflected in Perdikkas II treaty with Athens where just about everyone in Macedon with a tenant is a co-signatory).

The bulk of them amateur warriors levied when needed (and that was often ),

Just like Greek hoplites, then LOL. Hell! Is this a digression on early Macedonian History in the offing? Looks like the man who complaions about digressions just can't help popping the little beauties out

The rest is the usual supposition and assertion and criticism can wait until ‘The details and evidence from the manuals for Macedonian formations and drill will be the subject of a future post’.

You really are in language difficulties; ad hoc, yes no organisation. Let’s look at the passage again.

When they had climbed up and found the posts of the guards weakly manned, they pursued the day-guards, who numbered ten (for one out of each squad of five was regularly left behind as a day-guard); and they killed one while he was still asleep and another after he had fled for refuge to the Heraeum.
οἱ δ᾽ ἀναβάντες καὶ λαβόντες τῶν φρουρῶν τὰ ὅπλα ἔρημα, ἐδίωκον τοὺς ἡμεροφύλακας ὄντας δέκα: ἀφ᾽ ἑκάστης δὲ τῆς πεμπάδος εἷς ἡμεροφύλαξ κατελείπετο: καὶ ἕνα μὲν ἔτι καθεύδοντα ἀπέκτειναν, ἄλλον δὲ καταφυγόντα πρὸς τὸ Ἥραιον.

Miller chooses to translate as ‘squad’ but it is not required; either way the day guard are an ad hoc assignment as it is not a unit which is assigned the duty but ten men, ‘deka’ not ‘dekados’, the next clause explains that they were ‘one out of every five’ of the whole guard detachment of fifty IMHO; you posit that this means a unit of four so there must be ten of these which you will want to agglomerate into five files of eight; now where is a group of five files ever a unit? Answer nowhere, as in your system units increase by a doubling of the number of files, 1 2, 4, 8..etc.

Yes Xenophon invented his formation in the Kyrou Paideia and made the lowest rank command five (literally) influenced not only by the standard Persian decimal system but no doubt also by his own ’Cavalry Commander’ where the pempadarchoi also command five men; the total contingent ought to be 1,000 horse, from ten tribes, 100 horse per tribe or ten dekadarchies.

The ‘dekas’ for cavalry can obviously be 8 and the ‘pempados’ 4 !!

Non sequitur; Xenophon’s dekades, in both the Kyr and CC are clearly literally ten strong similarly the pempadoi five strong, Agesilaos’ cavalry are unlikely to be using Athenian organisation.

Frontinus, of course writes in Latin, which has decuria as a word for a unit of ten, yet he simply write ‘decis’ per ten men,

Philippus, cum primum exercitum constitueret, vehiculorum usum omnibus interdixit, equitibus non amplius quam singulos calones habere permisit, peditibus autem decis singulos, qui molas et funes ferrent; in aestiva exeuntibus triginta dierum farinam collo portari imperavit.
When Philip was organizing his first army, he forbade anyone to use a carriage. The cavalrymen he permitted to have but one attendant apiece. In the infantry he allowed for every ten men only one servant, who was detailed to carry the mills and ropes.7 When the troops marched out to summer quarters, he commanded each man to carry on his shoulders flour for thirty days.

Not necessarily pertinent to the Macedonian file, then unless they were ten men strong in which case your hypothesis fails although Diodoros does not mention ‘synaspismos’ other than with reference to Homer, Philip is credited with ‘pyknosis’.

But rather than bang on aboutthing for which you don’t give a damn like Truth Justice and academic debate, here are three examples demonstrating that Greek armies really did progress into the field not knowing how they were to line up!

Front IV viii

8 When Theagenes, the Athenian, was leading his troops towards Megara and his men inquired as to their place in the ranks, he told them he would assign them their places when they arrived at their destination. Then he secretly sent the cavalry ahead and commanded them, in the guise of enemies, to turn back and attack their comrades. When this plan was carried out and the men whom he had with him made preparations for an encounter with the foe, he permitted the battle-line to be drawn up in p273such a way that a man took his place where he wished, the most cowardly retiring to the rear, the bravest rushing to the front. He thereupon assigned to each man, for the campaign, the same position in which he had found him

Polyainos III 9 x

10 Iphicrates, when once he was commanding against the Lacedaemonians, received a great variety of requests. One man asked for the command of five hundred men, another for the command of one hundred, and another for the command of a company; and all of these requests he rejected. On a later day, after drawing up his army hastily, he secretly ordered his generals to throw it into confusion, and raise a panic among the troops, as if the enemy were advancing in force to attack them. In this general confusion, the timorous fled and the brave advanced against the supposed foe. Iphicrates then smiled, and told them that the panic was of his own making, to test the merit of their various pretensions. He granted commands to those who had stood their ground; and he ordered those, who had retreated, to follow their leaders.

Idem V 28 i

[28] Theognis.
In order to put an end to disputes which were forming in the Athenian army about the battle positions of companies and units, Theognis dispatched a body of cavalry and officers by night; with orders to stop in a conspicuous position a little distance away, where they might be seen by the army, and taken for the enemy. When they appeared in that position, Theognis, in a pretended hurry and confusion, ordered the army to form up immediately, and everyone to fall into their ranks, as if the enemy were actually in arms and advancing against them. The fear of attack left no time for contention, but each soldier readily posted himself in his old position. Theognis then told them, that the pretended enemy were in fact there friends and fellow soldiers. "But," he said, "in future let us have no more disputes about positions; each of you should maintain the post, which you now have taken."

“The Macedonians were originally organised decimally because they were under Achaemenid rule, hence their decades.”

I dealt with this in my previous post. This cannot be so because:
1. There is no evidence that they were so organised.
2. Persia never imposed its military organisation on vassal states, but left them to fight in ‘native’ fashion.
3. In any case, the Achaemenids only occupied Macedon very briefly – a year or so.
4. To the best of our knowledge, traditionally, Macedonian infantry fought as tribal peltasts, like their neighbours, and the first time they were organised into ‘regular’ files of heavy infantry hoplites was under Philip II, who used the Greek phalanx as his model. Thus ‘dekad’ meant a file of 16 from the outset, and the term must have come from Greek hoplite usage ( from which Philip's phalanx derived), who also did not use a decimal organisation. The term must therefore have denoted a generic ‘file’ by this time.

1) There is indeed no evidence that they were organised in files of ten, except Anaximenes’ clear statement, the name of the unit itself, despite your wish for the Greeks to never call a group of four a four, if a unit is called a ten it likely started off ten strong, and there is the implication of Frontinus’ statement that the Macedonian foot were permitted one servant per ten men at the beginning of Philip’s re-organisation. Quite a full empty set really.
2) Not true universally, the Assyrians seem to have been forced to give up their archers for instance but in any case ‘influence’ is more likely than imposition.
3) Macedon was in some sort of vassal relationship with Persia from 510 to 478, let’s say thirty years.
4) ‘The best of our knowledge’ if one ignores the evidence of Anaximenes, who was writing specifically about Macedonian history rather than mentioning it in passing, of course. The picture, to the best of our knowledge is much more nuanced; with an organised infantry (in lochoi and decades) being established by Alexander I, whose only model for decades would be the Persian army. This system then fell into desuetude under his warring sons and the disintegration of central authority only to be re-invented by Archelaos and again lapsing under the troubles after his murder, presumably, although the state of the source would allow for Archelaos’ reforms to continue and Philip then build his initial force around that core; the best of our knowledge allows for many more models than the best of yours it would seem.
The final leap is truly remarkable; there is no evidence at all (not even as much as in paragraph 1) that the Greeks called the files of their hoplite phalanxes ‘dekads’. It is frankly preposterous to think that Philip would institute a file of sixteen and call it a ten. And the winner of this week’s award for circular argument…Philip’s files were sixteen strong from the start (files of ten do not work with the ‘General Theory of Half-file Insertion’ and therefore cannot have existed ), he used the Greek phalanx as a model therefore he took the name from the Greeks proving that since their file weren’t decimal either the word was a ‘generic ‘ term for a file… a masterpiece of insouciant riffing. Hang on Harpokration is lodging a complaint.

You still do not understand that if dekadarch was a generic term for file leader Xenophon would have no need to confuse matters with his dodekadarchs, to then simply dismiss it is facile to say the least; ‘exotic’ he uses it twice in a book longer than the Iliad having already used dekadarch also ‘exotic’ in that the Greeks were not organised in tens. Two mentions neither in battle hardly constitute ‘emphasis’; we know why, it is because the files are twelve strong and therefore commanded by commanders of twelve, all of his numerical commanders are to understood as literally commanding that number of men, this is not only the simplest solution it is without doubt the correct one.

I was not including the reference to Egyptian hoplites – only Persian ones.

Then you must supply the two further references to make up your seven without the Egyptians ‘only the Persian ones’, good luck, Herr Bartlett.

So you are saying the 28,000 Persians are subsumed among the 120,000 Egyptians ? If they were to be a different class of heavy infantry, then why does Xenophon not simply use the generic term ‘phalanx’, as he does elsewhere?

Because ‘phalanx’ would mean the whole battle-line and Xenophon does not want to include the lights. The Persians are indeed subsumed and Xenophon goes on with his house/roof/foundations analogy in a new form which he does mean to apply to Greek hoplite phalanxes (as such it occurs in his other works), this is probably why he uses the all embracing ‘hoplitai’,but two things spring therefrom the best men are all either in the front rank or the rear rank, leaving no half-file leaders, or closers for that matter and, more importantly, Xenophon’s continued repetition of this point of quality bread but crap filling (the s**t-sandwich model? Perhaps a bit harsh on the filling, though McDonald’s seem to have run with the idea!) would indicate that his contemporaries were not forming up like this and he was trying to make them realise the advantages.

Kyros, is of course attacking the Assyrian King in Babylon and Kroesos is now a vassal so your point fails.

The only ‘gerrha’ equipped troops we hear of are Kyros’ Persians and they are said to carry ‘gerrha’ ‘even now’ so once again they are differentiated, maybe they won’t be in those two other quotes.

I think it will be quite plain to all who is in denial here; for the record you have not ‘explained anything other than why YOU think my interpretation is wrong , despite my providing clear evidence that it is the correct interpretation, viz Polybios treating ‘parembole’ and paragoge’ as different manoeuvres, and Xenophon himself saying that his cavalry extend their frontage by paragoge. It is you that insists that in the one passage in the Kyrou Paideia paragein means to move beside each individual file rather than in every other case where a body of troops move beside, or behind in Epaminondas at Mantineia, another body of troops. That you are still insisting that flank is not the same as side is as lame as insisting that starboard is not the same as right aboard ship, every unit has a flank not just an army, if Xenophon’s manoeuvres do not make sense does not surprise me, these lochoi are all abreast of each other which is not the way any army deploys, Xenophon is illustrating the efficvacy of Kyros’ training not with an example of what every Greek was doing anyway, in your model, but with a manoeuvre he considered complex and he follows it with another of a battle-line simply manoeuvring in reverse everyman looking over his shoulder to observe his officer’s orders! Or do you suggest this is realistic? No? So once again the Dinner Drill assumes an aura of the unique.

Objections based on reality really have nothing to do with the dinner drill, including the officers’ positions being ‘suicidal’, there have been few casualties involved in going to the mess (there are bound to have been some Americans), these situations are meant to be taken in the same way as the story which precedes them of the lochos that blindly followed their lochagos wherever he went. What is irrational is trying to treat a moralising fiction as a tactical manual; had Xenophon wanted to write ‘The Infantry Commander’ he would have done just that, just as he had ‘The Cavalry Commander’.

Typical Agesilaos argument....start with an assumption based on something not mentioned, and build a whole edifice on this foundation of sand.

Typical Xenophon comment, Xenophon tells us that the front rank consisted of the best men and that once the flanks had folded round the best men stood both in the first and the rearmost rank, so once again you have been floored by not reading and understanding the source which I even posted, tut, tut. The frontage is once again irrelevant as is any realistic argument, fiction is fiction.

In fact, Xenophon says rather more about what the 'pempadarchs/half-file leaders are for:

“The advance of cavalry is less likely to be detected by the enemy if orders are not given by a herald or in writing beforehand, but passed along. Accordingly, for this purpose, too, that the order to advance may be given by word of mouth, it is well to post file leaders[dekadarchs], and half file-leaders [pempadarchs]behind them, so that each may pass the word to as few men as possible. Thus, too, the half file-leaders[pempadarchs]will lead up by the side [paragontes – yep ! That word again ].and extend the line without confusion, whenever there is occasion to do so.”

In other words, exactly the same manoeuvre of forming half-files for battle as in the dinner drill for infantry, which Agesilaos, rather misleadingly, neglects to mention. Naughty !

LOL I brought this passage into the discussion myself on 24/7 page 7 of the thread and it is certainly not the same manoeuvre as you posit for the Dinner Drill, the key phrase being ‘extend the line’ by paragoge, the manoeuvre you insist on does not ‘extend the line’ as I said back on page 7, and which you have ignored ever since (Did you hear Xenophon went to Egypt? – I heard he was in denial ). Who is being ‘naughty’?


Well the Landmark is of the same opinion as me and translates, p 108, ‘The Greeks were deployed in a line like a phalanx four rows deep…’ John Marincola, as is the Penguin, p169, ‘The Greek cavalry was drawn up four deep in a phalanx formation…’ Rex Warner . But no doubt these will be considered ‘bad’ translations or maybe even bad scholars.

Not as bad as your proffered translation, however, ‘paratetagmenoi’ does not mean ‘drawn up side by side in battle order’, it simply means ‘drawn up side by side’, LSJ offers ‘in battle order’ for circumstances where it stands alone in a military context, it is an over translation to clarify such situations as in English we frequently supply what is understood in Greek and Latin. Here, Xenophon has supplied the ‘phalanx’ so it is not iteration.

So this cannot be held as an example of hoplites phalanxes fighting four deep, like the other example it is decidedly ambiguous, nor is there a ‘normal depth’ as such eight is the most commonly mentioned but there are twenty-five, sixteen, ten/nine, twelve and fifty, and they are the few we are told about.

On page one I explained why ‘normal’ for the most open order was not a good translation but since it implies your point for you I doubt you will be changing your misuse soon, but you might remember that the Greek says the interval ‘had no name’.

I have had neither the time, nor the opportunity, to address the gushing cornucopia of words posted by Agesilaos.

Meanwhile I note that in his recent post,[Thurs Aug 28] he refersto me as "Herr Bartlett" - a reference to the character 'Big X', as played by the late Lord Richard Attenborough in "The Great Escape". This is a clear, if a little indirect, reference to the Nazis. As such it must run perilously close, if not an actual, transgression of 'Godwin's law'....

For those not familiar with it, it states : "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." ( i.e. certainty).

I confess that as I observed the increasing stridency of Agesilaos' posts, it did occur to me that he might be heading for a breach of the Law. .....and sure enough!!

Falling foul of Godwin's law causes the individual making the comparison to automatically lose his argument or credibility.

" This principle is itself frequently referred to as Godwin's law", but is not in fact ( see above). Rather it is a corollary.

Strictly speaking therefore, this debate is arguably over, with Agesilaos forfeiting !!

Looks like you need to look up 'comparison' in the dictionary So for the false invocation of Goodwin's Law...well I'll just settle for the lack of argument or evidence as forfeiting the case! No Great Escape here! The reference ought to be to Gordon Jackson's character, of course who foolishly answers an expression of 'Good luck!' in English, can't remember his name ,though.

Gordon Jackson played McDonald, responsible for intelligence. The irony of the means of his capture was that when rehearsing another prisoner earlier, Jackson switches to English and says "Good Luck", which the other P.O.W. responds to. McDonald then dresses him down for falling for 'the oldest trick in the book'!

Although a reference to the Nazis, since the comparison was with an Englishman, you'll note I 'gave you the benefit of the doubt', saying that it was merely 'perilously close', and only arguably a breach rather than that it was definitely the case.

Magnanimously,I shan't insist on forfeiture...

I shall try to respond to the 'cornucopia' in due course.......

Someone has been reading Nick Sekunda's chapter on the Macedonian army in a "Companion to ancient Macedonia", for your post is a paraphrase of his hypothesis there. ( I've never been a great fan of many of Sekunda's theories, including this one).

The statement in the fragment of the Roman Valerius Harpocration's lexicon regarding Anaximenes comment that Anaximenes said "Alexander" invented the 'Hetairoi' and 'Pezhetairoi', and organised the troops into lochoi and dekads cannot be a reference to Alexander III or all the way back to Alexander I and the Persian wars, because that is completely inconsistent with better sources such as Thucydides, Arrian and Diodorus. Anaximenes was at the court of Philip, and supposedly tutored Alexander, and in a book/biography called 'Phillipica' is hardly likely to have credited some remote ancestor, or his son, with Philip's own military reforms. There has been debate for years as to whether the reference to "Alexander" means A. the Great (III), or the first, or the second and it is unresolved. Usually, one would expect a reference to "Alexander" undifferentiated would be a reference to the Great One. FWIW, I think it is Valerius Harpocration who got it wrong, and put "Alexander" when he should have said Philip. If not, then the explanation may be that the rhetorician writing in the reign of Alexander was trying to flatter Alexander by crediting him with Philip's reforms.... it is at best questionable evidence, the more so as it cannot be correct as it has come to us, for all other evidence both literary and archaeological points to Philip.

Agesilaos wrote:

Macedonian infantry formed part of the Persian battle line at Plataia, Herodotos IX 31 v; they are brigaded with the Boeotians, Lokrians, Malians, Thessalians and 1,000 Phokian hoplites and face the Athenians, Megarians and Plataians; 11,600 men according to Herodotos, allowing 6,000 Boeotians (they were a weaker power than Athens) 2,000 for Phokis , Lokris and Mailis, there would be 3600 to divide between the Thessalians and the Macedonians. Whether they were peltasts or close order troops is somewhat moot but they were clearly frontline quality in Mardonios’ eyes.

This does not tally with Herodotus actually wrote. He lists the various Greek contingents, then adds that "Mardonius also posted on his right wing, facing the troops from Athens, the Macedonians and certain contingents from Thessaly". He says these were all infantry, with the cavalry elsewhere.

Herodotus tells us also : "The number of Greeks....nobody knows, for they were never counted" and goes on to guess 50,000. (most unlikely). Your 'guesstimate', based on frontages assumes these Macedonians and Thessalians etc were all hoplites in close order, formed up in the same depth as their Athenian, Megaran and Plataean foes. That assumption is probably incorrect in all those respects, and if they were peltasts there might have been many fewer - perhaps half that number. We just don’t know, and just don’t have sufficient information to make a reasonable estimate.

Moreover what do you mean by ‘frontline quality’? According to Herodotus, the whole army was in line together, so the term ‘frontline quality’ is meaningless. Most of the medising Greek contingents were really ‘hostages’, reluctant to fight (with the exception of the Thebans). Mardonius was contemptuous of them, calling them “mere slaves” [IX.48.2] and claiming that Greeks “have nothing in them.”[IX.58.2] Mardonius placed his best troops, the Persians themselves, whom he regards as “first rate/ the bravest on earth” on the right, to face the Spartans, and his contingents then in descending order of quality to the left of them. The worst troops – the Greeks – are on the left, and on the extreme left the Macedonians, evidently the worst or weakest of all. In the event, only the Boeotians fought, the others “made their escape without striking a blow or doing any service whatever”, including Alexander I and his Macedonians.( who had earlier warned the Athenians of an imminent attack)

This is not evidence for Macedonian 'organised infantry' i.e. hoplites at all. ( The ‘organised infantry’ cannot be peltasts, for that would be an anachronism circa 500 BC). It is poor methodology to assume something, then extrapolate from it without evidence ( your numbers calculation etc) Then having arrived at this assumption, you then say;

What happened to the organised infantry? The chaos following the death of Alexander I saw the kingdom fragment as each son held his own fiefdom and various barons asserted their independence

This is pure invention on your part, without a shred of evidence, and one might just as easily point out that the demand for 'organised infantry' might be expected to increase rather than decrease in such times.....as it usually did.

The fact that you have to put up a fictitious supposition, unsupported by evidence, to ‘explain’ the disappearance of the non-existent ‘organised infantry’ a.k.a hoplites surely speaks volumes as to the likelihood of Sekunda’s postulation being correct.

Just like Greek hoplites, then LOL. Hell! Is this a digression on early Macedonian History in the offing? Looks like the man who complaions about digressions just can't help popping the little beauties out

Not at all like Greek hoplites, who were largely the citizens of cities, and wealthy enough to afford a hoplite panoply. The Macedonians at this time were just the opposite, poor transhumant herdsmen down to Philip II’s time, as Alexander reminds his army [Arrian ‘Anabasis’ VII.9.2 and Curtius X.2.23]. As such, they didn’t have the wherewithal to purchase ‘heavy infantry’ hopla, nor the time to drill in ‘lochoi’ and ‘dekads’. Archaeology too supports this view. On this ground alone, the notion that it was Alexander I who founded such an army is an absurdity.

Nor was my original post a digression – though thanks to you it has become one. It is troops armed “in the Macedonian manner” that the manuals are about – though some claim to be covering the earlier Greeks as well. The foundations of the Macedonian army are therefore directly relevant. As I said, finally getting to the subject matter of this thread, which we veered off around page 3, tens of thousands of words ago.