In this situation Alexander drew up his army with the phalanx 120 lines deep. Posting 200 cavalry on each flank, he ordered his men to be silent and swiftly obey the word of command. At first the infantry warriors were signaled to hold their pikes upright, then at the signal to lower them for the charge, and to swing the serried mass of their pikes first to the right, then to the left. He moved the phalanx itself forward quickly, bringing it round first to one side then the other. Thus in a short time he maneuvered the taxeis through many and varied formations, and finally making the phalanx into a kind of wedge facing left, he led it against the enemy. They were already amazed seeing the speed and order of the maneuvering, and they did not await the attack of Alexander’s men, but abandoned the first hills.
The superb order and discipline instilled into his pikemen by Philip is evident here, as the soldiers alternately raise and lower their pikes, swinging them to the right then the left, marching and counter-marching, and finally charging in a wedge. Noteworthy is the depth of the formation: 120 lines means fifteen files (dekades) one behind the other. One can understand the amazement and fear this extraordinary army of pikemen instilled in the enemy, and how it ruled the battlefields under Philip’s and later Alexander’s command.
2. THE ELITE PEZETAIROI
When the US army in World War II decided to have military historians accompany their forces in battle, to be able to record with the greatest immediacy and accuracy the history of the engagements and battles each unit fought in, they opened up a new era in military history and in our understanding of the nature of warfare. To their great surprise, these battlefield historians discovered that most soldiers, no matter how well trained, are in fact distinctly passive when in battle. They found that only about one of every four soldiers even discharge their weapons in battle, thereby doing the actual fighting, the rest basically hunkering down and trying to survive, offering at best vocal support to their more aggressive colleagues. Battle is an exceptionally frightening and stressful environment. We are all familiar with the “fight or flight” response of animals, including humans, when placed in great fear or stress; but this dichotomy overlooks an equally popular third option: that of simply hunkering down and doing nothing, giving in to the paralyzing tendency of fear and/or stress. We are familiar with this response in the animal world, which gives us such sayings as “playing possum” (pretending to be already dead to escape notice) or “burying one’s head in the sand” (from the ostrich’s supposed habit of lowering its head so as not to see the enemy, in the hope that the enemy will then bypass it). The plain truth is that rigorous training and discipline will make men hold their ground and stay in formation under the fear and stress of battle, but it cannot make them fight aggressively.
This passivity of most soldiers in the stress of battle was in fact well known to ancient war leaders. The most successful ancient warrior peoples found a way to cope with it: concentrating the most aggressive warriors in elite formations which were tasked with the most crucial roles in battle, requiring the most active and committed soldiers—the tasks which would directly lead to victory if carried out aggressively and well. For example, a Spartan army very rarely had more than a smallish percentage (usually perhaps ten to forty percent, depending on the occasion) of actual “Spartiates” (the true Spartan warriors) in it. The true Spartans—perhaps two thousand strong in an army of, say, twelve thousand—would be stationed on the right wing. When battle began, they would advance faster and with greater determination than their allies, would engage the enemy opposed to them first, and would invariably drive their direct opponents backward and away and then turn to the left to engage the rest of the enemy from the side. The Spartans’ allies were there to make up numbers and hold their ground; victory depended on the better trained, better disciplined, more aggressive, elite Spartiates; and for two hundred years or so this system enabled the Spartans to dominate the battlefields of Greece. In the second quarter of the fourth century, when for a generation the Thebans dominated Greek warfare, they relied on an elite force called “the Sacred Band” to spearhead their army in battle and by their determined and disciplined aggression to lead the army to victory.
Philip, who had spent a key part of his adolescence at Thebes at the height of Theban power, understood this principle as well as any war leader; and he made sure from the start of his career as ruler and military commander to develop one of the great elite forces in the history of pre-modern warfare. This elite unit dominated the battlefields of the near east under Philip, his son Alexander, and Alexander’s immediate successors. Philip called this unit his pezetairoi or “foot companions.” Alexander changed the name of the unit, at first to hypaspistai or “shield bearers,” and late in his reign again to argyraspides or “silver shields.” Under this final name the unit, three thousand men strong, played a dominant role in several battles in the wars of the succession, until the victorious general Antigonus the One-Eyed broke the unit up as having too much power and unpredictability. Recounting one of the battles this elite unit dominated, in 316, Plutarch gave eloquent testimony to the unit’s quality: he described the soldiers of this unit as athletes of war, who had fought in all the campaigns of Philip and Alexander, and had never suffered a reverse (Plutarch Life of Eumenes 16)
At his first great battle, against Bardylis and his Illyrians, Diodorus tells us (16.4.5) that Philip personally commanded the right wing of his army, having alongside him “the best” (aristous) of the Macedonians fighting with him; and he describes Philip with these “best men” as fighting heroically and forcing the Illyrians to flee. This suggests that Philip had already at that early stage begun to develop the elite unit we later hear of. The contemporary historian Theopompus of Chios, one of the greatest and most widely admired of the classic Greek historians, who spent years at Philip’s court, reports that: “from all of the Macedonians the largest and strongest were selected and formed the bodyguard of the king (Philip), and they were called pezetairoi” (Theopompos in Brill’s New Jacoby 115 F 348). Another contemporary of Philip, his Athenian opponent Demosthenes, also refers to the pezetairoi in his second Olynthiac Oration (at 17), mentioning their reputation as “marvelous” (thaumastoi) warriors who were outstandingly experienced in warfare. Three late antique lexical sources offer explanations for the term pezetairoi in Demosthenes’ speech here: they agree that the term refers to Philip’s personal guard, whom they characterize as “strong” (ischuroi) and faithful (pistoi). One of these sources, the Etymologicum Magnum, quotes as illustration a historical fragment (perhaps from Theopompus): “and taking of the Macedonians the so-called pezetairoi, who were picked men (apolektous), he (Philip) invaded Illyria.” Theopompus and Demosthenes thus agree that the pezetairoi were an elite unit of selected men who formed Philip’s personal guard in battle, and who enjoyed a reputation as outstanding and “marvelous” warriors. It seems certain, finally, that when Diodorus reports (16.86.1) that Philip fought his final battle, the battle of Chaeroneia in 338, in command of “selected men” (epilektous) who were certainly infantry (see Polyaenus 4.2.2), this means that Philip was as usual fighting surrounded by his elite pezetairoi.
Unfortunately our inadequate sources for Philip’s reign offer us no further insight into the development, organization, and use of this elite force. But under Alexander, we see this unit, under its new name as hypaspistai, functioning as the elite personal infantry guard of the king and spearhead of his army, as Philip had trained it to be. The pezetairoi/hypaspistai (later also called argyraspides, as noted above) usually fought as part of the phalanx, wielding the sarissa and other equipment of the Macedonian pikeman, and normally stationed on the right wing of the phalanx. But they were also trained to use other equipment when needed: on several occasions Alexander had them equipped as light infantry for operations requiring more speed and mobility: pursuit of enemy forces, fighting in mountainous territory, fighting alongside cavalry, and so on. It seems that they could also, if called upon to do so, adopt th
e heavier equipment of the southern Greek hoplite and fight as a hoplite phalanx; on one occasion Alexander had them mounted on horseback for an operation requiring particular speed of movement. They were, that is to say, superbly trained and versatile warriors, equally capable of fighting with any equipment and in any style they were called upon to adopt. As light infantry they were swift and tireless; as heavy infantry they spearheaded the phalanx in attack from their post on the right and were frequently chiefly responsible for victory; in any style or formation, they were the “marvelous” warriors of their reputation. They truly were the undefeated “athletes of war” that Plutarch called them, many of them continuing to fight and dominate the field of battle into their fifties and even sixties, until the unit was finally broken up by Antigonus in 316.
By the end of Philip’s reign, as indicated above, the pezetairoi numbered three thousand men: this is made evident from the sources for the first few years of Alexander’s reign, when the unit—now renamed hypaspistai—numbered three thousand and was commanded by Parmenio’s son Nicanor. The regiment, so to speak, of the pezetairoi was divided into three battalions (chiliades) of a thousand, each with its own sub-commander. One of the three was the particular personal bodyguard of the king, known as the infantry agema, units of which protected the king at all times, and which formed his personal guard in battle when he fought on foot. Philip often chose to fight at the head of his infantry, surrounded by his infantry agema and the rest of the pezetairoi, as he did at his first great battle against Bardylis, and again at the end of his reign at the Battle of Chaeroneia. Alexander, by contrast, preferred to lead the Macedonian cavalry in his major battles, though in other operations he frequently employed the pezetairoi/hypaspistai as his special force for all purposes, as already noted. The unit is probably best known to military history in its final avatar as the Silver Shields who dominated several battles in the wars of Alexander’s Successors, but they were more properly Philip’s elite infantry unit, organized and trained by him, and instrumental in helping him to turn Macedonia from the weak backwater Philip inherited into the greatest military power in the ancient world.
3. THE REFORMED CAVALRY STRIKE FORCE
Cavalry had always, as far back as our sources reach, been the strong suit of the Macedonians militarily, as explained in Chapter 1. The broad plains and plateaus of Macedonia were good horse-rearing country, and the aristocracy which dominated Macedonia socially and economically were enthusiastic horse breeders and riders. This is attested, as we have seen, by the popularity of personal names built on the Greek word hippos (horse): Philippos, Hipponikos, Hippolochos, Hippostratos, Hippias, Hippalos, Hipparchos, Hippodamas, Hippokles, Kratippos, and many others. In view of this it is particularly surprising to read Anaximenes (quoted above) suggesting that a ruler named Alexander had to “accustom the most notable to serve as cavalry” (the Greek verb for “serve as cavalry” is hippeuein which could also, even more unconvincingly, mean “to ride horses”). The truth is rather that the Macedonian aristocracy, as enthusiastic horse owners and riders, fought naturally from horse-back; and the Macedonian army from early times was made up predominantly of aristocrats and their retainers riding in at the ruler’s call to serve him as cavalry. The problem for Philip was that this cavalry force, though potentially excellent, was unreliable—because the commitment of the aristocrats making it up was unreliable—and incapable of directly and effectively engaging well armed infantry forces prepared to stand their ground in the face of cavalry charges.
What Philip wanted and needed was a cavalry force that was truly at his beck and call and loyal without question; and one that could be used effectively as a strike force even against well disciplined and heavily armored infantry forces. We have already seen in Chapter 3 the steps that Philip took to make the aristocracy, and thereby their retainers too, self-interestedly loyal to him as ruler, using the time-honored “carrot and stick” approach. The carrot was the granting of estates on newly conquered royal land, estates which could be repossessed if the grantee showed insufficient loyalty; the stick was the threat of destruction of disloyal aristocrats by Philip’s great infantry army, and the royal school at Pella where sons of the aristocracy, while being educated free of charge, also served as hostages for their fathers’ good behavior. Still, a cavalry made up largely of aristocrats and their retainers remained only contingently Philip’s to use. It is clear that he enormously expanded the cavalry by hugely increasing the part of the Macedonian cavalry made up of his own loyal retainers.
It will be recalled that at the start of his reign, Philip could call upon just six hundred or so cavalry for his crucial campaign against the Illyrians under Bardylis. Similar sized cavalry forces are attested as being commanded by earlier Macedonian kings such as Amyntas III and Perdiccas II. Evidently this is the kind of force, in terms of numbers, that could be raised by a traditional Macedonian ruler from his own retainers and his most loyal aristocratic hetairoi. By the end of Philip’s reign, he had available to him a Macedonian heavy cavalry force numbering at least 3,300: an enormous expansion of the Macedonian cavalry (and this doesn’t even count special forces of lightly equipped cavalry, some of whom were also Macedonians, discussed below in section 4 of this chapter). Evidently, as Philip conquered border territories and incorporated them into Macedonia, he settled many hundreds, eventually several thousand, men on large land allotments (small estates in effect) on condition that they maintained horses on part of their granted lands and served in the army as cavalry. We hear, for example, early in Alexander’s reign (when his army was still in all respects that created by Philip) of cavalry squadrons from several regions annexed to Macedonia by Philip: Amphipolis on the River Strymon, taken by Philip in 357; Anthemous in the north-west Chalcidice, a territory annexed to Macedonia at some point in the 350s or early 340s; and Apollonia in the north-east of the Chalcidice. Evidently several hundred men had been settled in each of these regions on substantial land allotments—so-called cavalry allotments—enabling them to be called up as cavalry whenever needed. These men were self-interestedly loyal to Philip because he had granted them their lands and raised them to the status of cavalrymen; the condition of keeping their allotments (which were revocable), and the status that went with them, was loyal service to Philip. We may reasonably estimate that as many as 2,000 of the 3,300 cavalry available to Philip at the end of his reign were men of this type: men raised to cavalry status by Philip, via revocable land allotments granted by Philip, who therefore were loyal retainers of Philip. With such a force of loyal retainers, Philip could overwhelm the following of even the greatest aristocrats if they should show disloyalty. This made the cavalry truly Philip’s cavalry, able to be called up and used by him as he saw fit without needing to pander to the whims of the great aristocrats.
Even such a truly loyal cavalry force, though, still retained the inherent weakness in battle that Macedonian (and other ancient) cavalry had always had up to this time. A horse will not willingly charge into an obstacle it sees no way to get over or through. Consequently, when cavalry charged a densely packed formation of infantry who did not turn to flight but stood their ground and maintained their formation in the face of charging cavalry, the cavalry horses would slow down and eventually pull up when they got close. The cavalry would be reduced to riding to and fro in front of the infantry formation, hurling missile weapons (which well equipped infantry would catch on or deflect with their shields) and insults. If and when the infantry force began to march forward in formation, the cavalry would be obliged to give ground before them, and eventually to flee. Cavalry, that is to say, were excellent against poorly organized and indisciplined infantry, which broke and ran when attacked by cavalry, enabling the cavalrymen to get among them and run them through from behind with spears or hack at them with swords. Pursuing and killing fleeing infantry was indeed what cavalry were best at and had most fun doing. A commander who was unwise enough to draw up his infantry with inadequate protection for their f
lanks would see enemy cavalry charge around to attack the infantry from the side or the rear; but that was a rarity as even minimally competent commanders confronting cavalry would know to keep their flanks protected. Beyond this, cavalry were useful for scouting and skirmishing before battle. To defeat well organized and disciplined infantry was beyond traditional cavalry forces.
In addition to all of this, cavalry forces were very hard to lead and command effectively. Traditionally, cavalry forces, like infantry forces, were drawn up in square or rectangular formations made up of lines of cavalrymen one behind the other. The commander would be stationed in the post of honor, on the far right of the front rank. From there, he could survey the field and enemy forces and decide when and where he wanted to charge. The signal to charge would be given by a trumpeter stationed with the commander, and the unit of cavalry would move forward, initially at a walking pace, in the direction the commander indicated. As they drew towards the enemy force they were attacking, the cavalry would speed up to a slow trot, and then go faster, trying to intimidate the enemy with their speed and hoping to break his morale and get him to flee. As the force moved faster, the lines of horsemen would inevitably become ragged, the thunder of hooves would drown out other sounds, and all but the few men closest to him would therefore lose touch with the commander, unable to hear or see, and so unable to follow, any other commands he might try to give. The commander, therefore, only truly had control of his force up to the initial charge; after that, it was largely every cavalryman for himself. If well trained and disciplined they would certainly try to remain as much as possible together and in formation; but it was effectively impossible for the commander to lead them in any complex or changing maneuvers.
This was unsatisfactory to Philip. He wanted to use his cavalry as a variable and effective weapon on the field of battle. He wanted the cavalry to be able to maneuver effectively under their commanders’ directions, and to attack enemy formations in an effective and destructive manner. Careful thought led him to conclude that the ineffectiveness of cavalry in battle was largely due to the formation in which cavalry was drawn up to fight: cavalry, to be effective, needed to get in among the enemy infantry, and they needed to be able to follow their commander and respond to his wishes as battle developed. The square or rectangular formation was well adapted to neither of these needs. Instead, Philip drew up his cavalry, and trained them to fight, in wedge-shaped formations (see ill. 11). The formation commander would ride at the apex of the wedge, with his second and third in command immediately behind him, ready to take his place if he was killed or incapacitated. In a wedge with the commander at the apex, the cavalry force rode wherever the commander rode, and so was able to follow him through whatever maneuvers and/or changes in direction he might undertake. In addition, with the front of the wedge only a few horses wide (the commander at the very front, two men behind him, three behind them, and so on), it would need only a small gap to open in an enemy formation for the cavalry wedge to charge at it, the first few horsemen pushing into the small gap. Once inside the enemy formation, the first cavalrymen in could “lever” the formation open by striking down at the enemy to either side, causing them to give way and thus widening the gap to allow more and more of the cavalry wedge to press in and eventually through the enemy formation. This would most often cause the enemy to turn and flee; failing that, the cavalry themselves would turn to attack the enemy from the side and rear. In this way, the cavalry could potentially be used as a genuine strike force in battle, even against well organized infantry.
Before and After Alexander Page 13