Macedonian cavalry success against close order infantry

[Jim Webster]

The fact that he had a horse killed under him?

Which would not preclude him leading a subsequent infantry assault.

Given the presence of squires with spare horses, junior colleagues who would offer leaders their horse, spear or whatever, the death of a horse need not preclude a general from leading a subsequent cavalry assault

Jim

[Duncan Head]

Again, this is what I used to think until I began to wonder if Plutarch specifically means the infantry sarissa.  In Plutarch's Alexander (68.4) Alexander slays Abuletes, son of Oxyathres, with a sarisa (one would expect him to use a xyston), and in 67.2, when the army is having a 'Bacchic march' Plutarch remarks that 'not a shield (pelta) nor helmet (kranos) nor spear (sarisa) was to be seen'.  The focus of this comment seems to be upon Alexander and his Companions, although it could be a generalised comment applied to the whole army, but in such a case I would expected 'aspis' rather than 'pelta' as the generic word for shield.  He has Alexander bear a xyston at Gaugamela but this is the only mention of the weapon other than when he has Cleitus use one to strike down Rhoesaces at the Granicus (where incidentally Plutarch has Alexander carrying a 'pelta' which seems to tie in with 67.2).

Alexander's killing of Abuleites is not in battle, so there is no reason to assume he is using a Companion's weapon. Indeed one version of his killing of Kleitos claims he did the deed with a sarisa taken from a guardsman: the same may have happened here. (In fact Tarn suggested that the use of "sarissa" indicates that Plutarch invented the killing of Abuleites, basing the story on the Kleitos incident, as part of his program to show the moral decline of Alexander. But we needn't go that far.) The use of sarisa and pelte in the "bacchanal" suggests that the focus is on the phalanx, since their shield could be called pelte as often as aspis (cf. Polyainos on Philip's route-marches): Companions were not widely associated with shields, and in Arrian I.6 when some of them do use shields, it's aspides, not peltai.

Indeed these days I am with Sekunda (as in "The Sarissa", Acta Universitatis Lodziensis 2001) in thinking that there is no such thing as a cavalry sarissa.

[Erpingham]

Given the presence of squires with spare horses, junior colleagues who would offer leaders their horse, spear or whatever, the death of a horse need not preclude a general from leading a subsequent cavalry assault

Jim

Agreed.  I only point out that Patrick's statement is not as definitive as it appears.

[Jim Webster]

I was probably agreeing with you Anthony.

I've recently done some 'translation work' for a friend. He writes in Italian, translates it into English, and I convert it into proper English for him and then try to discover what he really meant to say.
I've got a lot less definitive about ancient authors and their meanings after this experience. 

The English he has been taught and the English I have been taught (and the English I speak) are three different languages :-)

Jim

[Patrick Waterson]

Alexander's killing of Abuleites is not in battle, so there is no reason to assume he is using a Companion's weapon. Indeed one version of his killing of Kleitos claims he did the deed with a sarisa taken from a guardsman: the same may have happened here. (In fact Tarn suggested that the use of "sarissa" indicates that Plutarch invented the killing of Abuleites, basing the story on the Kleitos incident, as part of his program to show the moral decline of Alexander. But we needn't go that far.) The use of sarisa and pelte in the "bacchanal" suggests that the focus is on the phalanx, since their shield could be called pelte as often as aspis (cf. Polyainos on Philip's route-marches): Companions were not widely associated with shields, and in Arrian I.6 when some of them do use shields, it's aspides, not peltai.

I was looking solely at Plutarch's usage, and this suggests he used 'pelta' as the Macedonian cavalry shield and 'xyston' or 'sarisa' interchangeably as the Macedonian cavalry lance.  Bringing in Polyaenus and Arrian's usage does not really clarify Plutarch's, otherwise I would be in agreement.

Do we incidentally know if the guardsmen who would have been present when Cleitus was killed would have been foot or horse Companions, i.e. infantry or cavalry?  I believe it was the cavalry who were 'seven days and nights around the king'; if this was so on this occasion, we would have a cavalryman's weapon being termed a 'sarisa'.

For a similar reason, assuming the killing of Abuletes did take place, Alexander would presumably have used either his own weapon or one taken from a nearby Companion, on the basis that it is most likely that he had a retinue of Companion cavalry guarding him, mounted or otherwise.

Incidentally, I do not see in our sources any mention of a failed initial assault followed by a more deliberate combined arms one.

I am going by the two you provided, as I am entirely inexpert.  The Plutarch quote in particular sounds like something that might have lasted some time.  While it doesn't stop the whole Macedonian army charging in at one go, it doesn't seem to be the only explanation.  And for avoidance of doubt, I'm not saying Alexander didn't lead cavalry assaults in both battles, just that the evidence does not look unchallengeable.

Here are the two accounts of the attack on the mercenaries at the Granicus again (was it these you had in mind?); I really see nothing in them to suggest more than one attack from beginning to end.

"But he, influenced by anger more than by reason, charged foremost upon them and lost his horse, which was smitten through the ribs with a sword (it was not Bucephalas, but another); and most of the Macedonians who were slain or wounded fought or fell there, since they came to close quarters with men who knew how to fight and were desperate." - Plutarch Alexander 16.7

"Ordering a combined assault by infantry and cavalry Alexander quickly had them surrounded and butchered to a man." - Arrian I.16.2

My impression is of fighting that was intense rather than protracted.

On the wider point, I agree we have good evidence that the Companions were a confident bunch confident to tangle with formed infantry.  But the thread title mentions success, and this is harder to be certain of. Did later successor companions have a track record of success against infantry, or do we think this is the "Alexander touch"?

Frankly, I think it is more to do with the fact that the Successor heavy infantry were now almost universally pikemen; not even Alexander would have been able to outreach a pike with a xyston or even a sarissa. 

[Jim Webster]

Alexander's killing of Abuleites is not in battle, so there is no reason to assume he is using a Companion's weapon. Indeed one version of his killing of Kleitos claims he did the deed with a sarisa taken from a guardsman: the same may have happened here. (In fact Tarn suggested that the use of "sarissa" indicates that Plutarch invented the killing of Abuleites, basing the story on the Kleitos incident, as part of his program to show the moral decline of Alexander. But we needn't go that far.) The use of sarisa and pelte in the "bacchanal" suggests that the focus is on the phalanx, since their shield could be called pelte as often as aspis (cf. Polyainos on Philip's route-marches): Companions were not widely associated with shields, and in Arrian I.6 when some of them do use shields, it's aspides, not peltai.

I was looking solely at Plutarch's usage, and this suggests he used 'pelta' as the Macedonian cavalry shield and 'xyston' or 'sarisa' interchangeably as the Macedonian cavalry lance.  Bringing in Polyaenus and Arrian's usage does not really clarify Plutarch's, otherwise I would be in agreement.

Do we incidentally know if the guardsmen who would have been present when Cleitus was killed would have been foot or horse Companions, i.e. infantry or cavalry?  I believe it was the cavalry who were 'seven days and nights around the king'; if this was so on this occasion, we would have a cavalryman's weapon being termed a 'sarisa'.

For a similar reason, assuming the killing of Abuletes did take place, Alexander would presumably have used either his own weapon or one taken from a nearby Companion, on the basis that it is most likely that he had a retinue of Companion cavalry guarding him, mounted or otherwise.

Is there any literary evidence for that? I would have assumed that the Hypaspists were more likely to provide the guards than the Companions, if only because they were infantry and better equipped for it
Also you have such people as the Royal Pages and the core bodyguards like Lysimachus who also had roles

Jim

[Patrick Waterson]

The close bodyguards of the king were the somatophylakes, high-ranking officers who were also (mounted) Companions.  In the incident where Cleitus dies, Arrian has Alexander seize a weapon from 'ton somatophylakon', one of his inner circle, not from a hypaspist or even rank-and-file Companion.  That said, Arrian complicates the issue by calling it a 'logkhe' ... and Plutarch (Alexander 51.5) has the king seize an 'aikhme' from a 'doruphoros' (generic Greek word for 'bodyguard').  In each case a weapon shorter and lighter than a sarissa or xyston seems to be indicated.

If we consider Arrian to be more careful with his designations, we can conclude that the bodyguard from whom the weapon was taken was a somatophylax.  If we can place any confidence in the assertion that the weapon was a sarissa, given that at least two prominent sources differ, then we have a Companion with a sarissa.

The basic point that when Alexander wants a weapon he gets one from a somatophylax does seem a tenable one, though.  This would at least give us a somatophylax providing a sarissa when in Plutarch Alexander kills Abuletes.

[Justin Swanton]

I have a query on the mechanics of horsemen charging hoplites. Granted that the Companions were equipped with sarissas or the equivalent, that means they were beyond the striking reach of the hoplites, but their horses were not (there is a lot of horse in front of a rider). Hence the hoplites would have had no trouble poking holes in the Companions' horses. A horse is very difficult to kill from the front: the vital organs are out of reach and the brain has plenty of skull in front of it. The horses, however, can be seriously injured and will be rapidly incapacitated. Presuming that each Companion didn't have a row of squires behind him leading fresh horses by the bridle, how Alexander's mounted men counteract this problem?

The only solution I can think of is that the horses wore frontal armour. Does any evidence support this?

[Erpingham]

Here are the two accounts of the attack on the mercenaries at the Granicus again (was it these you had in mind?); I really see nothing in them to suggest more than one attack from beginning to end.

"But he, influenced by anger more than by reason, charged foremost upon them and lost his horse, which was smitten through the ribs with a sword (it was not Bucephalas, but another); and most of the Macedonians who were slain or wounded fought or fell there, since they came to close quarters with men who knew how to fight and were desperate." - Plutarch Alexander 16.7

"Ordering a combined assault by infantry and cavalry Alexander quickly had them surrounded and butchered to a man." - Arrian I.16.2

My impression is of fighting that was intense rather than protracted.

Well, it seems to me the Plutarch quote has a negotiation , an assembling a combined arms assault and at least one round of assault proper - takes time (at least three moves ).  I don't think we can assume Alexander lost his horse at the same time that he penetrated to the middle of the formation either - surely Alex unhorsed in the middle of the enemy and having to be pulled out by his guards would be a more prominently heroic episode?

BTW, do why know from other sources why he wasn't riding Bucephalas?  Has he changed horses during the action?

[Patrick Waterson]

I have a query on the mechanics of horsemen charging hoplites. Granted that the Companions were equipped with sarissas or the equivalent, that means they were beyond the striking reach of the hoplites, but their horses were not (there is a lot of horse in front of a rider). Hence the hoplites would have had no trouble poking holes in the Companions' horses. A horse is very difficult to kill from the front: the vital organs are out of reach and the brain has plenty of skull in front of it. The horses, however, can be seriously injured and will be rapidly incapacitated. Presuming that each Companion didn't have a row of squires behind him leading fresh horses by the bridle, how Alexander's mounted men counteract this problem?

The only solution I can think of is that the horses wore frontal armour. Does any evidence support this?

Interesting thought: the Alexander Mosaic shows some sort of pattern on the front of Alexander's horse, which could indicate protection.  Unfortunately we are missing a lot of detail from around that area.

In late eras, it became customary to set the butt of the spear in the ground and the point at horse's chest level, but I have searched accounts of classical actions for any evidence or even hint of this and found none: hoplites and other spear-armed types do not appear to have had much if anything in the form of an anti-cavalry drill, and in the Plataea campaign we see Theban cavalry riding down Megaran and Philasian hoplites who were caught in the open on their way to join in the infantry action (Herodotus IX.69).  It is unlikely they did this by a frontal charge; it just illustrates that as of 479 BC hoplites do not seem to have had a good technique for dealing with cavalry.  By 334 BC there still seemed to be no good hoplite technique for dealing with cavalry apart from the obvious one of facing them, which had worked against javelin-amed types since Plataea.

There is naturally the question of how much reach each of the participants can actually use.  The xyston-armed cavalryman with his double-handed grip can use perhaps ten feet of a thirteen-foot weapon, of which one can presumably expect eight feet to protrude beyond any significant part of the horse.  The hoplite can do his best with his nine-foot spear, but his one-handed grip means he has to hold it at the point of balance, which would give him at most six feet to play with.  In theory he could hold it forward, adding the hypotenuse of his arm measurements, but this would be impossible with the traditional overarm grip.  An underarm grip would leave him unable to thrust with any force against the rider, whom an infantryman would see as the dangerous element in the horse-man combination.

To my mind (and I know I am conversing with an equestrian) the Companion still has a reach advantage even when the horse is taken into considerations.  Is there anything I am missing?

Here are the two accounts of the attack on the mercenaries at the Granicus again (was it these you had in mind?); I really see nothing in them to suggest more than one attack from beginning to end.

"But he, influenced by anger more than by reason, charged foremost upon them and lost his horse, which was smitten through the ribs with a sword (it was not Bucephalas, but another); and most of the Macedonians who were slain or wounded fought or fell there, since they came to close quarters with men who knew how to fight and were desperate." - Plutarch Alexander 16.7

"Ordering a combined assault by infantry and cavalry Alexander quickly had them surrounded and butchered to a man." - Arrian I.16.2

My impression is of fighting that was intense rather than protracted.

Well, it seems to me the Plutarch quote has a negotiation , an assembling a combined arms assault and at least one round of assault proper - takes time (at least three moves ).  I don't think we can assume Alexander lost his horse at the same time that he penetrated to the middle of the formation either - surely Alex unhorsed in the middle of the enemy and having to be pulled out by his guards would be a more prominently heroic episode?

BTW, do why know from other sources why he wasn't riding Bucephalas?  Has he changed horses during the action?

All right, we shall allow that it took three game turns. 

Plutarch mentions that the greatest Macedonian mortality occurred in this incident, which would be consistent with Companions fighting furiously around their unhorsed king while the mercenaries crumbled under attack from all sides - the action seems not to have taken long, which suggests that by the time they had hypothetically pulled the king out of the fight (not something Alexander would let them do, in my opinion) it would anyway have been over bar the rounding up of the 2,000 survivors who went to work in the quarries.

Alexander does seem to have kept a change of horses and to have 'spared' Bucephalus undue exertion, e.g. at Gaugamela:

"As long, then, as he was riding about and marshalling some part of his phalanx, or exhorting or instructing or reviewing his men, he spared Bucephalas, who was now past his prime, and used another horse; but whenever he was going into action, Bucephalas would be led up, and he would mount him and at once begin the attack." - Plutarch, Alexander 32.7

At the Granicus, he would have ridden Bucephalus into the initial fight at the river, then, as the old warhorse was probably blown from his exertions, have changed to another mount for the attack on the beleaguered mercenaries.

[Chris]

With regard to the presence of cavalry at Chaeronea, Diodorus mentions 30,000 infantry and 2,000 horse under the command  of King Philip.

I am interested in the origins of Macedonian Companions. At this early stage of his soon to be great if  also short career, does  the Macedonian horse at Chaeronea merit the label Companions?

In Hanson's book THE WESTERN WAY OF WAR, he does quote Plutarch while describing the aftermath of the battle. King Philip examines the mangled remains of the Scared Band. I don't have the passage immediately at hand, but I believe mention is made of a long spear. The question is, was this a cavalry weapon or an infantry weapon?

In his later book,  THE SOUL OF BATTLE, on page 19, Hanson relates that is was the furious cavalry charge of Alexander that destroyed the Sacred Band.

I cannot help but recall Keegan's comments about horses not being very keen on charging "walls" of human beings, especially those armed with long spears!

Just my two cents.

Chris

[Patrick Waterson]

I am interested in the origins of Macedonian Companions. At this early stage of his soon to be great if  also short career, does  the Macedonian horse at Chaeronea merit the label Companions?

Yes, the tradition of having Companion cavalry predated both Philip and Alexander.  Possibly more to the point would be when the Macedonian cavalry, who in the Peloponnesian War are noted as being good but not exceptional, were armed with a long spear intended for melee.  The reign of Philip II, who reorganised and rearmed his infantry, would seem to be a good time but in the absence of specific archaeological clues or a definite statement in the sources it is hard to say for certain.

In Hanson's book THE WESTERN WAY OF WAR, he does quote Plutarch while describing the aftermath of the battle. King Philip examines the mangled remains of the Scared Band. I don't have the passage immediately at hand, but I believe mention is made of a long spear. The question is, was this a cavalry weapon or an infantry weapon?

Precisely the question we have been discussing earlier in this thread.    Macedonian cavalry and infantry both used a long spear-like weapon; the cavalry weapon was usually termed a xyston, and the infantry weapon a sarissa, but while we can be fairly sure that the infantry did not use the xyston, we are less sure that the cavalry xyston was not on occasion referred to as a sarissa (Plutarch uses 'sarissa' - actually 'sarisa', the Greek spelling - in his account in the Life of Pelopidas).

In his later book,  THE SOUL OF BATTLE, on page 19, Hanson relates that is was the furious cavalry charge of Alexander that destroyed the Sacred Band.

It looks as if he finally made up his mind on the subject. 

I cannot help but recall Keegan's comments about horses not being very keen on charging "walls" of human beings, especially those armed with long spears!

The business of horses being unwilling to charge ranks of spearmen depends primarily on the training of the men and horses involved.

If we look at the mediaeval period, there are numerous battles (e.g. Falkirk in 1298 and Arbedo in 1422) in which knights and their chargers unhesitatingly plough into massed ranks of enemy spears or similar long pointy weapons; the French Gensdarmes at Pavia in 1525 likewise.

In essence, if a horse is trained to charge home it will charge home.  If not, it will not.

[Imperial Dave]

The business of horses being unwilling to charge ranks of spearmen depends primarily on the training of the men and horses involved.

If we look at the mediaeval period, there are numerous battles (e.g. Falkirk in 1298 and Arbedo in 1422) in which knights and their chargers unhesitatingly plough into massed ranks of enemy spears or similar long pointy weapons; the French Gensdarmes at Pavia in 1525 likewise.

In essence, if a horse is trained to charge home it will charge home.  If not, it will not.

I have to hold my hand up Patrick and say that I have always been in the "horses wont charge closely packed men with big pointy sticks" camp. Do we have any historical manuals dealing with this kind of situation?

[Patrick Waterson]

I have to hold my hand up Patrick and say that I have always been in the "horses wont charge closely packed men with big pointy sticks" camp. Do we have any historical manuals dealing with this kind of situation?

Alas my limited knowledge does not extent to any manuals detailing such matters; there are however quite a few instances, mostly in the Middle Ages, where horses (with men on them) do charge close-packed infantry formations which are bristling with lots of long, pointy sticks - and appear to think it nothing out of the ordinary.  The problem often seems to be holding them back, not getting them to do it.

Granted, horses by themselves (without a rider) are extremely unlikely to do this kind of thing.  But if a ridden horse has been trained to do so, and nothing untoward has happened to it yet, it really has no reason not to.

[Imperial Dave]

Thanks Patrick.

I guess my next question would be if the cavalry are "charging home" into formed infantry, isnt there a danger of being unseated whilst trying to engage with their xystons or is there an assumption that the mass of the horse and rider is being used? Would the xyston be held overhand ready to thrust down rather than "couched" if a full frontal impact against infantry was being employed?

Just trying to visualize it