Warfare and Society in Ancient Greece

Lecture 23

The new identity of the Hellenistic soldier I

The army of Philip

358: 10,000 infantrymen 600 horsemen (Diod. XVI.4.3)

334: For the Asian campaign:32,000 infantrymen12,000 horsemen

In Europe with Antipater:12,000 infantrymen1,500 horsemen

Oinochoe (410–400 B.C.), showing a Greek hoplite in combat with an Achaemenid takabara infantryman. Though roughly the samesize as the hoplite shield, the taka was made ofleather and other materials, had a different systemof handles, and was distinguished by the crescent cut out of the upper edge of the shield as an aid to visibility. It was this Persian type of pelte which Iphicrates borrowed to equip his peltasts.

Stone base showing an Athenian cavalryman riding down a Greek infantryman.The infantryman is not armed with a hoplite shield, but with a pelte of similar size, distinguished by the crescent cut out of the upper edge of the shield. The scenecould commemorate an event which saw Athenian cavalry fight against the Arcadianpeltastikon, perhaps during the Mantinean campaign of 362.

The cavalry wedge formation

Knasmullner

Pergamum, bronze strip, showing infantry equipped with the larger type of Macedonian shield, long spears, helmets and cuirasses fighting an enemy force consisting of infantry of thureophoros type and cavalry with helmets and large round shields, perhaps Galatians. It is possible that a standard is being shown at the extreme left of the scene. If so this would be a unique indication that Macedonian infantry formations used standards before the reforms of the160s B.C.

Asclepiodotus (5.1): “The Macedonian bronze shield of eight palms’ width and not too concave”.

Macedonian heavy infantryman on the Monument of Aemilius Paullus in Delphi may show the inside of the larger type of Macedonian shield. The handle arrangements are similar to those of a hoplite shield, in which case it is difficult to imagine how the sarissa was held with both hands.

Pompeian copy of Hellenistic painting showing the fall of Troy, possibly by Theoros ofSamos. The figure on the left may show the young Antigonus Gonatas in theguise of Menelaus. The figure of Ajax on the right is equipped as a Hellenistic peltast, this time without a cuirass.

Tombstone of Eubolos from Tanagra c. 275–250 B.C. The two thureoi and the Boeotian helmet shown in the pediment reflect the contemporary equipment of the infantry of the BoeotianLeague as thureophoroi.

Terracotta group in Berlin showing two ephebes, from a Greek city of Asia Minor, competing in the thureomachia. The terracotta was supposedly found at Pergamum.

Parthian cataphract

Roman copy, made in the Severan period, of a late Hellenistic statue of a non-oriental, possibly Greek, horse-archer.