Officers and generals

[Sandra]

Hi, Companions! Wanted to wish a happy Newe year!
And a question- what was Greek terms used for generals and officers? I don't think they were called generals....

[marcus]

Hi Sandra,For general read 'strategos' - and while Alexander was a strategos, Parmenion was, too, when he led the left wing in the battles... so it wasn't just the overall commander.There are then different terms for the various officers for cavalry and infantry. I'm doing this from memory, so apologies in advance if I make a mistake (and by all means anyone can correct me!).Cavalry - leader of 'brigade' was the 'hipparch'
leader of a squadron (ile) was an 'ilarch'Infantry - leader of a battalion (taxis) was a 'taxiarch'
then there were a number of 'logochoi' (equivalent of captains, I suppose)
then there were 'dekarchs' who each looked after 10 men (equivalent of a lieutenant, I suppose)All the bestMarcus

[maciek]

Well Marcus I believe that decadarches was a commander of the file which was 16 man. The name was deca- ten because of previouse organisation where it was only 10 man in line. They changed organisation but this name stayed. There is some problem with lochoi - Warry states that lochagos was commander of one file - 16 man - but he is following Asclepiodos. Well it looks to me that lochagos had to be commander of larger unit like 265 man. Regards
Maciek

[s]

Have read that lochagus was commander of about 100-150 men...

[maciek]

But when? Was it during Alex time or maybe previouse or later? Because during Philip and Alex time theyt made few reorganisations of the army.Maciek M

[marcus]

Hi Maciek,Yes, my understanding is that the logachos (lochagos? - I don't remember) was commander of a much larger unit - as you say, around 265 men.You might well be right about the dekarchos - it certainly comes from the word for '10', but could well have been responsible for a file of 16. I suppose it's the same as a 'century' in the ROman army comprising only 80 men!All the bestMArcus

[agesilaos]

The problem with lochagoi is that whilst they have an established position in Spartan organisation in the Alexandrian Army the term is used for the commanders of non-Macedonian troops as well as the commanders of the newly instituted cavalry lochoi. Yet another problem with the technical terminology is that Arrian himself does not appear to understand it. Taxiarch is really a catch-all term meaning 'unit commander' just as taxis merely means 'unit' with no implication that it refers to a phalanx unit of any particular size, Arrian's sources could say 'Coenus' unit' and be understood because contempories knew he was a phalanx commander. Indeed in book V Arrian switches from taxis to phalanx for the name of a battalion.The area is further confused by the works of later theorist who invent names for things the 256 man unit they call a syntagma is called speira throughout Polybios, although like taxis thia seems not to be confined to the phalanx as he speaks of Illyrian sperai! The ancients did not have our obsession for precision and liked more than one term for the same thing as an aid to literary composition. Although the army will have had set terms these may not always be transmitted by the sources who often shy from calling a spade a spade they prefer calling a spade a mattock.Another general term for officers is hegemones, and there were chiliarchs in command of the hypaspist brigades with pentekosiarchs below them after Gaugamela, though I doubt these were the Macedonian names for these ranks.

[Sandra]

Thanks! This information helped me a lot!

[maciek]

That's exactly what I mean. Well That's also what I wrote in my (very small) book. Well I also made a picture with my idea of organisation of Macedonian army. Regards
Maciek

[marcus]

Karl,By the way, thanks for this - I've made a note of all your points (much more detailed than my knowledge currently is!).All the bestMarcus

[agesilaos]

I omitted to mention the hecatostyes VI xxvii 6 where interestingly it comes between ile and lochos in the cavalry organisationwhich re-inforces what I have always believed that the new hipparchies were not much larger than the old ilai after all although it could be another instance of Arrian flourishing a term he does not understand for the lochoi and the hekatosyes should have the same strength - ile =c215 =2Xlochoi lochos=100 which is what hekatosyes means! I am currently trawling through Arrian to pick up all his military terminology and once I have accumulated, analysed and arranged it I'll see if Nick would like to post it; can't be the only anal-hoarding-sadist here surely?

[marcus]

Oh goody, Karl, what a lovely pedantic load of information. Thanks again!All hail to anal retention... :-)All the bestMarcus