C2nd BC Seleukid

[Jim Webster]

Cynically, either something unhelpfully vague like "formation", or something specific but unrecoverable (and possibly wrong).

Technically a phalangarchia is was supposed to be just over 4000 men, which is remarkably similar to a legion is size, but personally I suspect you're right that it's more likely to be a vague 'formation'.

I think you're right, it is just being used as a fairly general term. Possibly indicating "heavy infantry" as opposed to lights - just in case the reader missed that they are armoured 

I did an article in Slingshot some time ago looking at the word Josephus used for heavy infantry etc and it was interesting how things changed
Because the Greek text won't copy I'll put the page in as an attachment

[Jim Webster]

this might be easier to read

[Patrick Waterson]

May I just remind the participants that once each poster has repeated repeated their entrenched view for the one thousandth time (even if quoting different evidence each time) the convention here is that we freeze the thread...

But see how the necessary details are pouring in for Nik - people are motivated to seek them out and sort them out.

Please carry on with the good work.

[Patrick Waterson]

Regarding the Maccabean description of 32-man Seleucid elephants, I do not see anyone accepting these on the wargames table.  Yet it is not impossible, despite being well over the recommended carrying load for any sort of elephant.  One may recall the fashion for seeing how many people could be crammed into a Volkswagen (the old kind); the car could seat four, maybe five people, but the record for people sitting, standing, hanging out of the windows and onto each other in and around the vehicle, which could still move under its own power, was 105.

If there is anything to this purported Seleucid arrangement, it would be that, presumably as with the Burmese, someone had discovered that it was possible, with careful load distribution, to have an elephant carry an overload contingent - perhaps at no more than walking pace - for the duration of a battle.

However the Greek text Peter referred to has andres dunameos tessares, four skilled men.  Thirty-two men would be andres duo kai triakonta, and despite the significant difference between the two it would seem possible to end up with the one from the other if the original were blurred, faded or otherwise hard to discern and someone was making a guess to fill in the illegible parts of words.  It is not however clear which would the the original and which the error.

The man-carrying apparatus on the elephant is referred to as a pyrgos, the usual Greek word for tower.  The question is whether the concept of pyrgos can be extended to a multi-tiered arrangement with sixteen men per side, or twelve per side and four on top, or whether it stops at a four-man howdah-type construction.

[Duncan Head]

And, thinking about it, there may just be something in Justin as well - although he is so brief it may not add much if anything.

Justin has the occasional amusing anecdote:

Antiochus (VII Sidetes), having heard of their designs, and thinking it proper to be first in the field, led forth an army, which he had inured to service by many wars with his neighbours, against the Parthians. But his preparations for luxury were not less than those for war, for three hundred thousand camp followers, of whom the greater number were cooks, bakers, and stage-players, attended on eighty thousand armed men. Of silver and gold, it is certain, there was such an abundance that the common soldiers fastened their buskins with gold, and trod upon the metal for the love of which nations contend with the sword. Their cooking instruments, too, were of silver, as if they were going to a banquet, not to a field of battle.

Latin and English at http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/justin/english/index.html

There's an old (2004) Luke U-S army list for the late Seleucids at http://lukeuedasarson.com/LateSeleucidDBM.html which is still worth a look. 

[Patrick Waterson]

Just in case anyone is interested, in Perikles Deligiannis' account of Heraclea in Slingshot 315 we find this on p.22:

"Oplacus suddenly rushed with his horsemen against Pyrrhus and his close Companions, the philoi ..."

which would seem to identify the philoi as a subset of the Companions; presumably a small one in the modest army of tiny Epirus, but perhaps a rather larger and even organisationally distinct one in the opulent and populous Seleucid Empire.

[Duncan Head]

Dionysios (XIX.12.3) describes Oblakos charging "the royal squadron", "ten basiliken ile". Plutarch has Pyrrhos rescued by his "philoi", but Dionysios by the most faithful of his bodyguards, "somatophylakes".

"his close Companions, the philoi" seems to me to be extrapolating further than the terminology of the sources permits.

[RichT]

Indeed.

Perikles is talking in general terms and is correct, in that the philoi (friends) of the Hellenistic kings are the equivalent of the companions of Philip and Alexander - that is, the original companions, the high ranking, favoured inner circle of the kings, from which the kings drew their advisors, governors, commanders, ambassadors and so forth - and among whom they would fight in battle. The Companion cavalry is slightly different (although no doubt the personnel overlapped considerably), being an extension of this title to a military unit, as with the Foot Companions also (and the Hypaspists). The first of the Successors, not yet being kings, could not have companions, so they had friends instead. Once the kingdoms were established, the friends became a more or less formal group or rank - increasingly formal in Egypt especially where there were degrees of Friends (First Friend, Honoured Friend, Best Friend Forever (OK maybe not that one)). The formula 'the king, his friends, and his military forces' is quite common, especially in inscriptions, in the Hellenistic period to refer to these three pillars of the state.

So far as anyone knows, and unlike the Companions, the name Friends was not applied to any military unit - unless the Daphne parade is the one example, which it might conceivably be but as we discussed, then moved on from discussing a few weeks ago, it's a slim chance.

I had assumed everyone was familiar with the Hellenistic institution of the Friends of the king. If not, I'd be happy to provide some further reading.

[nikgaukroger]

I had assumed everyone was familiar with the Hellenistic institution of the Friends of the king. If not, I'd be happy to provide some further reading.

Probably worth posting if not too much trouble.

My understanding has been pretty much what you posted, but it may be interesting to look a bit deeper sometime 

[Jim Webster]

I had assumed everyone was familiar with the Hellenistic institution of the Friends of the king. If not, I'd be happy to provide some further reading.

Probably worth posting if not too much trouble.

My understanding has been pretty much what you posted, but it may be interesting to look a bit deeper sometime 

Just to say that I was re-reading Antiochus III and the Cities of Western Asia Minor by John Ma and he also mentions the various grades of Kings friends, in a Seleucid context

There's a link here
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=g0WHejZNOXMC&pg=PA151&lpg=PA151&dq=hellenistic+kings+friends&source=bl&ots=j7MuQOo5lm&sig=ITGz_FMpg_bUEtzeIU4fViEcVoo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiigfnys8DYAhXhD8AKHReIACkQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=hellenistic%20kings%20friends&f=false

to The Hellenistic Age from the Battle of Ipsos to the Death of Kleopatra VII
By Stanley M. Burstein

where it gives a nice definition of the term

Jim

[Duncan Head]

I had assumed everyone was familiar with the Hellenistic institution of the Friends of the king. If not, I'd be happy to provide some further reading.

Probably worth posting if not too much trouble.

https://www.academia.edu/3331427/Dynastic_Courts_of_the_Hellenistic_Empires_2012_  might be a convenient place to start. It also talks about the Pages, whom I mentioned recently in one of the Paraitakene threads.

[RichT]

You've beaten me to it - good links 

I'll see tonight if I can dig out others.

[Patrick Waterson]

Dionysios (XIX.12.3) describes Oblakos charging "the royal squadron", "ten basiliken ile". Plutarch has Pyrrhos rescued by his "philoi", but Dionysios by the most faithful of his bodyguards, "somatophylakes".

"his close Companions, the philoi" seems to me to be extrapolating further than the terminology of the sources permits.

But the context would seem to leave no room for doubt: the philoi are there on the battlefield, they act as a unit and are in direct proximity to the king.  That they appear interchangeable with somatophylakes within a generation of Alexander's death should not be surprising.

In any event, it is up to you how you interpret it, though for some reason Perikles seems independently to have arrived at the same understanding as myself.

Burstein's definition, as linked by Jim, points out:

"Such 'friends' were the king's closest associates in peace and war," which means they were with him on campaign and on the battlefield, so any idea that they were 'non-military' is a non-starter.  Of course, they were not exclusively military, being in addition a pool for governors and advisors and generally trustworthy/favoured company, but we note the king "appointed whomever he felt qualified to the position of 'friend'," so there was no fixed size for such a contingent, and while Antiochus III seems to have been content with 500, Antiochus IV fielded 1,000 - as a unit among the rest of his elite cavalry.

[Duncan Head]

But the context would seem to leave no room for doubt: the philoi are there on the battlefield, they act as a unit and are in direct proximity to the king. 

Or they act as a few individuals close to the king, either within or alongside the royal squadron. What I did not make clear is that when Dionysios says "the most faithful of his somatophylakes" rescued the king, that's "most faithful" singular. SoPlutarch has a group of philoi, Dionysios has one man.

[Patrick Waterson]

What I did not make clear is that when Dionysios says "the most faithful of his somatophylakes" rescued the king, that's "most faithful" singular. SoPlutarch has a group of philoi, Dionysios has one man.

But the group are nevertheless on the battlefield, irrespective of whether one or more of them are involved in the actual rescue.