Fiona wrote:[Sorry, you've lost me now. If the hypaspist agema stuck with the king, who was dashing about on horseback, how could the taxeis take their lead from them, if their job was to be this kind of point and fire weapon, going along in its tracks?
Ahhhh now, the key phrase is "dashing about". This immediately brings to mind the gallant image of Stone’s Alexander galloping out to his right at Gaugamela and then swinging left to gallop at the Persians. This, in my opinion, is as silly as it is nigh on impossible for reasons I’ll get to later.
In short, the
personal foot-guard in Alexander’s time were the Royal Hypaspists. These were the sons of nobles and were led by men of similar blood: Admetos, Hephaestion (highly likely) and Seleucus. The rest of the Hypaspist corps comprised the strongest and the best of the rank and file Macedonians with officers promoted from within their ranks (Antigenes for example) and led by the “archihypaspist”, a noble such as Neoptolemus or Nicanor. The job of the unit was to protect the king – hence they are often referred to as “the Guards” and, when he was on foot, the agema would attach to him like a barnacle. In the battle line the hypaspist corps is always stationed alongside the Companion Cavalry and the king. Where he led they followed.
The two cogent descriptions are Issus and Gaugamela. Granicus too, although reduced by the sources to nothing more than a cavalry battle, sees the hypaspists alongside the king in the line. Interestingly, in this battle, the light troops – which will be the Agrianes and others – are described by Arrian as causing the Persians much discomfort having “forced their way in amongst the cavalry”. Not an overly glorious role – that belongs to Alexander and his cavalry in every battle description – nor one that generally tasks our sources overmuch and I rather suspect that this was one of their main roles in most battles.
At Issus the Macedonian line approaches the river, and the Persians, at an even pace. Within “missile range” the king decides to charge the Persian left across the river. Given the charge was made across a river it will not have been at any great pace. The Agrianes and the hypaspists will have followed smartly as part of the assault force. To the Hypaspists' immediate left, the battalion of Coenus will have marched – at “charging pace” to close the distance and lessen the effect of the missiles. The rest of the phalanx will have taken its cue and “hopped the bags” as they used to say in the Great War. It is here that, somewhere along the line toward the centre, the phalanx units broke ranks over the difficulties of covering the terrain in unison.
Eventually Alexander swung left with the successful “picked troops under his command” and rolled the Persian left into the centre and came to the rescue of his phalanx. Those “picked troops” which had won a “brilliant local success” on the right will have included his hypaspists and the deadly spearmen of the Agrianes.
Gaugamela, though, provides a much clearer example. Here Alexander, with a three tiered right wing, advanced whilst “inclined slightly to the right”. This is countered by the Persians who move to their left. Arrian then describes Alexander as continuing “his advance towards the right” until he cleared the prepared ground thus provoking the Persians into the first real move. None of this implies, in any way, a precipitous gallop or charge out to the right by Alexander. What it does describe, clearly in my view, is a measured advance forward and to the Macedonian right. Were it to have occurred in the way Stone has it, we will have had some rather exhausted Agrianes, “veteran mercenaries” and hyperventilated hypaspists. Not to mention a deserted phalanx. This was a concerted advance to the right. The Mercenary cavalry, Agrianes and others led the echeloned line in their direction. The Companion Cavalry and the rest followed. Then, at the critical moment, Alexander ceased his rightward drift and “charged” the Persian line directly to his front. His “wedge” was formed by the Companions and the other cavalry available to him and, importantly, “all of the heavy infantry in this sector of the field”. That heavy infantry is the hypaspist corps. All will have assailed the Persian line across a gap that was, by now, not terribly large (Medias’ cavalry had already engaged the Scythians earlier) and taken the brigade of Coenus with them.
This then is where Simmias, out to the left next to Craterus' battalion, likely had a terrible decision to make: follow the general advance or stand and fight as his infantry commader, Craterus, and Parmenio came under increasingly heavy assault and were rooted to the spot. He decided to stay put and play his part in the desperate bloodbath that was the holding action on the Macedonian left. He likely had little choice.
What then resulted was a desperate fight by the Persians toward their centre to escape the envelopment that the left swinging Cavalry, light troops, hypaspists and infantry were executing. The same situation as at Issus. At Hydaspes it resulted in the near annihilation of the Indian infantry.
In the end it comes down to “dashing” and just how far and fast one dashed. It seems evident to me that the dash was neither the sprint of the last stretch at Ascot or Churchill Downs and nor was the distance the “thoroughbred distance” (2,400 metres). Alexander’s successful assaults were combined with both light and heavy infantry. The hypaspists, and their agema, were in the thick of them all.
By the time Alexander was dead his hypaspist corps was an entity unto itself. As the Silver Shields they prided themselves on their service under Philip and Alexander and looked down their Macedonian noses at other commanders – as they appraised Antigonus’ phalanx at Gabiene. Their performance in that campaign in Iran demonstrated clearly what horribly proficient and ruthless killers they had become over their years of service.
