Macedonian cavalry success against close order infantry

[Mark G]

The sacred band was only ever 300 men strong.

Hence my disbelief that anyone would be stupid enough to squeeze cavalry opposite the space they occupied.

Even at an unheard of 4 deep formation (which would have been commented on), they are not  a hundred men wide standing shoulder to shoulder.
Cavalry cannot operate in such a cramped space. 

[aligern]

Ahh, but if the saced band are the front two ranks of a formation then they are 150 men wide and cavalry can operate.
R

[Mark G]

And if the moon were made of green cheese...

Meantime, these guys form an elite unit for the best part of a century, and die as a unit on this field.

You take my point, i think.

[Patrick Waterson]

2) If the Companions did not kill/maim those hoplites in the Alexander Mosaic, who did?  They have Companions to the left of them (from the viewer's angle) and Persians to the right of them.  I doubt that the Persians would themselves have killed hoplites who were in Alexander's way, and the hoplites would not have killed themselves or each other, which would seem to leave just the Companions as the instruments of death and serious injury.

The painting/mosaic is of course a moment in time - we cannot be sure how the artist perceived the run up to the scene.  Nor can we be certain that it accurately reflects that moment in time - it is an art work not an action photo.  So arguing that the presence of apparent dead hoplites in the composition means that Alexander has just carved through a phalanx of formed hoplites leading a wedge formation, in the process losing his helmet, might be a stretch of the evidence?

It could be considered a stretch, but suggesting that the hoplites are an invention casts unwarranted aspersions on the accuracy of Philoxenus of Eretria, the 4th century BC artist who painted the picture on which the Alexander Mosaic is academically assumed to be based.  We know of this painting through Pliny, who dates it to when Cassander was king, which puts it between 317 and 297 BC - when living witnesses to an event in 331 BC would still have been available.

Greek (and Hellenistic) art emphasised realism to a degree which would frighten modern film-makers, so we need not imagine that the participants in the composition was invented.

Returning to the question of how much we can extract from this pictorial information, we need to look at Darius' OB at Gaugamela, in which Arrian (III.11) states that the Greek hoplites were drawn up "in two sections, one on each side of Darius and his Persian guard."  Therefore, in order to get to Darius from the flank exposed by the departure of the Persian left, Alexander would perforce have had to plough through the left-hand contingent of hoplites.  Given this, and the dead/dying hoplites in the picture, we can safely conclude that their presence is factual and that the Companions dealt with them.  (I should note that it was Duncan Head whose eye for detail pointed out these hoplites in an Ancmed discussion on Iphicrates' reforms.)

The one matter not certain is whether the hoplites at Gaugamela managed to change facing sufficiently rapidly for Alexander to attack them head-on.  Given that they would have been well trained and disciplined, it is likely they would have managed this.  Whether they did or not, Alexander and his Companions still got through them and attacked Darius' bodyguard.

The sacred band was only ever 300 men strong.

Hence my disbelief that anyone would be stupid enough to squeeze cavalry opposite the space they occupied.

Even at an unheard of 4 deep formation (which would have been commented on), they are not  a hundred men wide standing shoulder to shoulder.
Cavalry cannot operate in such a cramped space. 

Mark, I suggest that before making any such statements it might be beneficial to work out the width of a Macedonian cavalry ile in wedge.

Meantime, these guys form an elite unit for the best part of a century, and die as a unit on this field.

You take my point, i think.

Assuming the intent is not to portray them as nonagenarians, the obvious point is that for once they had run into a superior opponent.

[Duncan Head]

I am not convinced you can draw meaningful conclusions from a  sample size of two.

Perhaps not, but these are the only samples in Plutarch's Life of Alexander, so this is 100% of the sample size and it seems (at least in my understanding) that both point in the same direction.

But if you reckon I can't use Plutarch's Aemilius Paullus to elucidate his Alexander, then I don't see why you can use the Alexander to elucidate the use of "sarissa" in the Pelopidas - which is where we started. 

[Duncan Head]

And if the moon were made of green cheese...
Meantime, these guys form an elite unit for the best part of a century, and die as a unit on this field.
You take my point, i think.

Personally, I have no idea what your point is.

The Sacred Band fought as the front rank of the phalanx until c.375. They are then known to have fought as a single body for about fifteen years, till Mantineia. How they deployed after that is unknown.

Even if they did fight as a single body at Chaironeia, this proves nothing about whether cavalry could have attacked them, since any frontal cavalry attack (which of course I don't believe in, but for the sake of argument...) could have been directed at the whole frontage of the Theban phalanx. That the Sacred Band were pointed out the next day laying dead together need only indicate that they were the only part of the line that died in place to the last man.

[Jim Webster]

If they'd been the front ranks of a larger formation I would have thought that it might be expected that the bodies of men not of that larger formation would be mixed in with them.
I can understand there being no Macedonian bodies, they could well have been cleared away first.

I suppose that it may well be that the bodies of the Sacred Band had been put separately, the looting and recovering of bodies of friends (on the Macedonian side) may well have started by the time Philip arrived there.

Jim

[Duncan Head]

If they'd been the front ranks of a larger formation I would have thought that it might be expected that the bodies of men not of that larger formation would be mixed in with them.

Don't quite understand that - men "of that larger formation" but not of the Band, I could understand, but "men not of that larger formation" - why? In any case:

...and when, after the battle, Philip was surveying the dead, and stopped at the place where the three hundred were lying, all where they had faced the sarisai, with their armour, and mingled one with another, he was amazed...

- while this suggests that the 300 were all in the same place, I think it may be too much to read into it that no other bodies were with them.

[Jim Webster]

I was assuming from memory that it had specifically mentioned Philip had seen it next day, in which case looting  would have been done and bodies even sorted a bit. But re-reading it, Philip might well have happened past an hour or so after the fighting had finished.

Mind you, one thing that niggles, how could he tell they were the bodies of the sacred band?

1)  They wore some form of identification, a common shield design or something.
2)  Someone who'd fought them was still there and said something along the lines of "And that heap is the Sacred band"
3) The incident was invented to add a touch of pathos and cast an interesting light on Philip's character.

I guess all are perfectly possible, perhaps equally possible

Jim

[Patrick Waterson]

But if you reckon I can't use Plutarch's Aemilius Paullus to elucidate his Alexander, then I don't see why you can use the Alexander to elucidate the use of "sarissa" in the Pelopidas - which is where we started. 

Period, m'lud, period.  Pelopidas and Alexander belong to the same century, one generation apart.  Plutarch's sources for these individuals would most probably date from that time and have its usage.  Aemilius Palus is a century and a half later, by which time meanings had changed - peltast (the eponymous troop category for the pelta) for a start. 

Even if they did fight as a single body at Chaironeia, this proves nothing about whether cavalry could have attacked them, since any frontal cavalry attack (which of course I don't believe in, but for the sake of argument...) could have been directed at the whole frontage of the Theban phalanx. That the Sacred Band were pointed out the next day laying dead together need only indicate that they were the only part of the line that died in place to the last man.

Indeed, the Sacred Band would not have been deployed in isolation, but as part of the Theban battle line.  It is entirely in keeping with Alexander's nature that he would go for the best and strongest of the enemy troops.

The Sacred Band were traditionally exactly 300 strong.  If we assume for the sake of argument that they deployed in a single body, this body would most probably be 30 wide by 10 deep or 50 wide by 6 deep.  A Macedonian cavalry ile of c.200 men (190 or 210) is 19 or 20 horses wide: allowing 4.5' per horse (rather than the Polybian 6' which allows for about-turns) this is 28.5 yards or 29 yards.  The frontage of Alexander's ile with this spacing would have matched the frontage of a 10-deep Sacred Band quite nicely.  If we insist on 6' per horse then we have a 40-yard width, allowing the bulk of the ile to front the Sacred Band (or the whole of the ile with room to spare if the Sacred Band deployed 6 deep).

One question about Chaeronea is whether the Thebans would have attempted to fight in their usual very deep formation - I think the consensus is that they would not, because a) the death of Epaminondas seems also to have been the end of his tactical approach and b) deploying the main phalanx 50 deep would leave them seriously outflanked by the Macedonians.  If they did mass 50 shields deep it puts an entirely new complexion on the battle, but given their position on the right (Epaminondas used to put his deep formation on the left) and the need to front the Macedonian force it seems much more likely that they went for a more standard 8 deep or 10 deep deployment.

Given the assumption that the Thebans would have deployed 8-10 deep, the Sacred Band would have a 30-yard frontage and hence only Alexander's ile could attack it.  The other four ilai on his wing would thus hit the main Theban infantry line or, if the Sacred Band was on the extremity of the Theban line, two would hit that line and two the Theban cavalry.

Mind you, one thing that niggles, how could he tell they were the bodies of the sacred band?

Greek cities had heralds, whose duties included arranging truces after battles to allow for recovery of the dead, and heralds knew their own citizens.  Hence identification would not depend upon Alex saying: "Daddy, look what I did!" but upon the Theban herald pointing out who was whom.

[Duncan Head]

Period, m'lud, period.  Pelopidas and Alexander belong to the same century, one generation apart.  Plutarch's sources for these individuals would most probably date from that time and have its usage.  Aemilius Palus is a century and a half later, by which time meanings had changed - peltast (the eponymous troop category for the pelta) for a start. 

Yet you rejected my earlier use of Polyainos, who uses pelte for the Macedonian shield of Philip II's reign - suggesting (using the same argument of "presumed contemporary sources" as for Plutarch) precisely that usage had not changed. Consistency, m'lud, consistency.

The argument that pelte in Plutarch's Alexander means a cavalry shield, hence the association of pelte and sarisa may indicate cavalry, hence the sarisai in Plutarch's Pelopidas may be cavalry weapons, relies on a very selective use of evidence, I fear.

[Patrick Waterson]

It may be a bit less selective than that, my learned friend.

Plutarch in Alexander 67 seems to use pelta and sarissa as generalised words for the equipment of the Macedonian army as a whole.  This is of course set in Alexander's reign and hence may validate Polyaenus' use of pelta as a Macedonian infantry shield without excluding its usage for a Macedonian cavalry shield, as per Plutarch in Alexander 16.

Regarding sarissas in Pelopidas, we may remember the enigmatic Macedonian sarissaphoroi, who were cavalry but whose name suggests use of the eponymous weapon.  I can conjecture (on no real evidence) that Philip originally rearmed his cavalry with sarissas, and then experience suggested a lighter weapon would be better, resulting in progressive re-equipment so that by the time Alexander went campaigning only a few Macedonian cavalry (the oldest and least retrainable?) still used the sarissa.  If Plutarch was drawing on a period source for his Pelopidas then he may have transcribed the term without further reflection - his weapon vocabulary throughout his works seems to vary in precision and accuracy, perhaps reflecting his original source material.  This is why I feel he needs to be treated with some care as he lacks a military background and seems to have had a rather eclectic collection of sources.

[Duncan Head]

It may be a bit less selective than that, my learned friend.

Plutarch in Alexander 67 seems to use pelta and sarissa as generalised words for the equipment of the Macedonian army as a whole.  This is of course set in Alexander's reign and hence may validate Polyaenus' use of pelta as a Macedonian infantry shield without excluding its usage for a Macedonian cavalry shield, as per Plutarch in Alexander 16.

A passage to which I can give very little weight, as it seems to be describing either a fictional shield in an apocryphal incident - since Macedonian cavalry did not generally carry shields in mounted combat - or at best an antique of unknown type and age purloined from a temple. So I don't see it as proven, or indeed likely, that Plutarch used pelte to mean a "Macedonian cavalry shield" (probably a non-existent class at this period).

Regarding sarissas in Pelopidas, we may remember the enigmatic Macedonian sarissaphoroi, who were cavalry but whose name suggests use of the eponymous weapon.

We're never actually told that the sarissophoroi cavalry carried a sarissa. Their "official" name seems to have been prodromoi, and the alternative designation is a bit of a mystery.

I can conjecture (on no real evidence)...

Indeed. Let's just stop there.

This gets increasingly tenuous. There is no clear, unambiguous example of any cavalry, certainly not of any Companion cavalry, using a weapon called sarissa in Alexander's reign - even you might agree with that formulation.

Therefore, it is vastly more probable that the sarisai in Pelopidas were infantry weapons, in which case the Thebans were frontally engaged by the phalanx, in which case there is no evidence for a charge by cavalry into the front of hoplites at Chaironeia.

[Justin Swanton]

If I may go back a bit to the mechanics of Companions breaking frontally through hoplites.

The one difficulty both sides of the debate have alluded to is the front man of a cavalry actually killing between 6 and 10 hoplites he faces. It's his lance. The Alexander Mosaic shows the problem. Stick a lance into a man whilst your horse is moving forwards and the lance stays in him. It is physically impossible to pull it out and stick it into the next man. Hence after the first strike you have lost your main weapon; you are perhaps able to bowl men over but you can no longer dispatch them. But the Sacred Band were all killed with their wounds in front, thus the presumption is that they were killed by Companions which implies Alexander was either able to use his lance 6-10 times (how?) or he used 6-10 lances.

The only solution I can think of is that the men to the rear of the cavalry wedge passed their lances up to the men in front, who used them to take out the next hoplite, and the next, and so on until the wedge broke through the line.

The technique used by the 'medium' cavalry of the late imperial period was to rest the spear on the shoulder, jab it into the throat or head of one's opponent, and then swivel the shaft upwards and jerk the spearpoint out as one passed, but I suspect the Macedonian lances were a little too long for that trick.

[Mark G]

Lance relay on stationary horses against elite formed infantry?

Can we move this to the fantasy boards yet?