Greek and Macedonian Land Battles of the 4th Century BC

by Fred Eugene Ray Jr

  The action opened with the elephants coming together all along the line, and then Eumenes left-wing horsemen engaged Antigonus and his elite riders. Seeing a dense cloud of dust going up from the dry earth as the mounted men moved about, Antigonus sent a detachment from his left wing to ride around the enemy line. These were his Median horsemen and some of those equipped in Tarantine style, who took advantage of the obscuring dust to skirt unobserved past Eumenes' right flank, racing on to capture his baggage train. Meanwhile, Antigonus and the hetairoi charged ahead off their own right with such elan that Peucestes and his squadron took flight, drawing 1,500 others from the Upper Satrapies along to seek safety at the rear. Eumenes with his few remaining horsemen and elephants on that side of the field continued to fight valiantly, but it was hopeless and, when his best elephant went down, Eumenes rode back and around to join his still only lightly engaged cavalry on the other wing.

  BATTLE OF GABENE (317/16 B.C.) (BOXES REPRESENTING FORCES ARE EXAGGERATED TO SHOW RELATIVE SIZES.)

  Yet, though Eumenes was suffering poorly in the mounted action, his phalanx was doing well. The leading elephants had somehow cleared out of the way (perhaps escaping to join the horsemen off either flank) and, just as planned, the elite hypaspists on Eumenes' left, led by the Silver Shields, were out-dueling their Macedonian counterparts, wounding and killing men in the leading ranks to move the opposing array back all along that wing. Antigonus' phalangites could eventually take it no more and withdrew, causing the rest of his heavy formation to give up the fight as well. Lunging at their retreating foes, Eumenes' pikemen and hoplites now took a heavy toll from those trying to get away. Diodorus put the retreating array's dead at more than 5,000 (19.43.1), a loss rate of over 20 percent reflecting particularly fierce and effective pursuit.

  Antigonus reacted to this disastrous turn of events by holding back a portion of his victorious cavalry to counter Eumenes and his remaining horsemen while sending the rest to attack the enemy phalanx, which was giving chase without benefit of mounted protection. Realizing their peril, the hypaspists formed a square and, holding off the attacking cavalry, abandoned the field. At this point, their pikeman and hoplite comrades must have paid a steep price. We've no figures, but Antigonus' riders probably cut down many that were fleeing in a manner nowhere near as effective as the ordered retreat of the hypaspists. Eumenes forces thus might have suffered 5-10 percent in fatalities here in addition to 2-3 percent taken along the line of battle

  Eumenes, unable to rally Peucestes and his horsemen, joined his infantry as darkness fell. He wanted to renew the fight while his allies from the Upper Satrapies preferred a withdrawal to their homelands. However, it was the Macedonian foot soldiers that had the final say. The enemy was in possession of their families and goods with the captured baggage train and they entered into negotiations to get them back. The Macedonians ultimately agreed to join Antigonus and gave up Eumenes for execution, which sent his remaining satrapal allies running for their own safety. (After this bit of treachery, Antigonus would put no trust in the Silver Shields and arranged for the most contentious of them to be assigned a few at a time to hazardous missions from which they were not expected to return.) Antigonus went back to Persia and, claiming all of Asia, once more redistributed the satrapies of that part of Alexander's conquests. Seleucus escaped from Babylon at this time to join Ptolemy, and Antigonus had by year's end marched down with his army to winter in Cilicia, from where he could threaten Egypt in the spring. For his part, Ptolemy now made an alliance with Lysimachus and Cassander to prevent Antigonus from reuniting the empire under his rule and depriving everyone else of their domains.

  The End of Alexander's Line

  Back in Macedonia, Cassander had gained a superior position by the winter of 317/16. With Polyperchon invested in Thessaly and his son Alexander isolated with a last army in the Peloponnese, he besieged Olympias, Roxanne and the child king in Pella. Conditions in that city became so bad that some of its residents resorted to cannibalism and Olympias had to let many of her troops within the walls go out and surrender. Seeing all of their support evaporate, the royals tried to flee by sea, but were betrayed and had to come to terms. With the king now in hand, Cassander set out to reduce the last pockets of resistance to his control of Europe.

  Amphipolis II (316 B.c.) and Aphrodisias (315 B.C.)

  The only royal outpost refusing to submit in the north lay at Amphipolis. Aristonous was in command there and Cassander sent his general Cratevas to take the city. Aristonous didn't wait, but came out and fought Cratevas on open ground. It's likely that Cassander had sent a typical detachment of 4,000 heavy infantry (3,000 pikemen and 1,000 hoplites) along with a modest mounted contingent (maybe 400 horsemen) and some light infantry (perhaps 1,000 or so). As for his opponent, we don't know anything about the strength of Aristonous beyond Diodorus' claim that "he had many soldiers" (19.50.7). However, a strong garrison of at least 3,000 hoplites along with substantial light-armed support (hireling Thracian riders and peltasts) seems reasonable. At any rate, the resulting action cost Cratevas "most" of his troops and sent him into retreat with 2,000 men. (Note that this squares with the foregoing guess at his initial manpower in that the survivors represent a 40 percent minority of the estimated infantry.) Such extraordinary losses suggest a double envelopment, probably led by superior skirmishing on the part of the men from Amphipolis off both wings. Ultimately, though, Aristonous surrendered upon a request from the now captive Olympias acting on the king's behalf. It would prove one of her last acts. Cassander shortly thereafter had Olympias killed to leave Roxanne and her child alone in his custody.

  The remainder of 316 saw Polyperchon flee Thessaly to join his son Alexander in the Peloponnese. Cassander then pushed past a force of Aetolians in the pass at Thermopylae and closed on the Isthmus of Corinth. When he found that narrow corridor sealed by an army under Alexander, he gathered boats and built barges at Megara to pass down the coast and land at Epidaurus. Alexander was then unwilling to engage and gave up his blocking position at the isthmus to withdraw into the interior. Faced with the approach of winter, Cassander returned to Macedonia, leaving his officer Molyccus behind with 2,000 men to insure future ease of entry into the Peloponnese. Polyperchon and his son would respond by allying with Antigonus in the coming year; however, after the subsequent assassination of Alexander, his father would become no more than a minor player in the succession game.

  Asia was at this time the site of a duel for Cilicia and Caria, whose conquests were meant to serve as preliminaries for an invasion of Egypt by Antigonus. The first major action in this fight came in 315 when Ptolemy's subordinate Polycleitus gained a victory in a land/sea engagement along the Cilician coast at Aphrodisias. Ambushing a supporting force marching onshore (Diodorus 19.64.6), he had then routed Antigonus' fleet under the admiral Theodotus. We've no details on the onshore segment of this affair, but Polycleitus probably hit his foes' flank as they moved in column near the beach. The armies involved must have been fairly small. Polycleitus was perhaps able to deploy no more than 2,000 heavy infantrymen and 3,000 armed rowers (40 spearmen and one level of oarsmen from each of his 50 triremes). As for the force taken by surprise, it could well have consisted of 2,000-4,000 heavy infantry along with a few hundred each in foot skirmishers and horsemen. Antigonus paid back this reverse with his own surprise attack in Caria. His nephew Ptolemaeus caught Eupolemus (a general of Ptolemy's ally Cassander) and his 8,000 infantry and 200 horsemen in their beds near an otherwise unknown site called Caprima and captured the lot of them.

  Hebrus River (314 B.C) and Epirus I-II, Callantia, Haemus Pass II (313 B.c.)

  Back in mainland Greece, siege operations and shifting alignments dominated action over the next couple of years with the contending Macedonian warlords striving to bring or keep as many poleis as possible under their control. The few set battles that did take place during this period were all at the fringe of the Greek world. In the west, Cassander had campaigned in Acarnania
to bring that region into his camp as a hedge against continued Aetolian resistance. Having succeeded there, he headed even farther northwest, taking Apollonia in modern day Albania and waging war into nearby Illyria. The latter led to a battle against the Illyrian Glaucias when that tribal king tried to contest a crossing of the river Hebrus in his homeland. Cassander drew up his army after getting over the stream and defeated the barbarian monarch and his men, forcing them to sign a treaty of submission. The scope of this engagement is unknown, but might have featured a Macedonian army of some 9,000-12,000 heavy foot (75 percent pikemen) and 400-800 hetairoi plus 2,000-3,000 foot skirmishers along with maybe 4,000-8,000 mercenaries (75 percent hoplites and the rest light infantry). These fought an Illyrian host that was maybe 6,000-10,000 strong in shielded spearmen with light support running around 10 percent of the total manpower. Like previous contests between these nationalities at Lyncus Plain (358), Grabaea (356) and Ardiaea (345), this action probably turned on success by the Macedonians' hetairoi and spearmen, who combined efforts to envelop the enemy left flank and break apart the Illyrian battle array.

  Cassander's forces were again engaged in western Greece the next year when his brother Philip carried out a campaign against Aeacides, the king of Epirus. The Epirotes had cast their lot with a still hostile Aetolia and Philip set out to take them on before these allies could combine. Perhaps commanding a force of 8,000 heavy infantry (6,000 pikemen and 2,000 hoplites), 2,000 foot skirmishers and 800 hetairoi, Philip fought a phalanx action against what must have been a somewhat smaller hoplite army (maybe some 4,000-6,000 local and mercenary spearmen with 1,000-2,000 light infantry and a few hundred horsemen) under Aeacides. Dealing out quite a few casualties (perhaps 10-15 percent) and taking some prisoners as well, Philip carried the day. Details on his victory are lacking, but it most likely featured his phalangites stalling the Epirotes on their right while his spearmen and cavalry overcame their left. However, Aeacides and most of his men got away and rallied to join Aetolian reinforcements. These might have been 3,000 or so troops such as that polls had put in the field a year earlier (Diodorus 19.68.1), maybe 1,000-1,500 spearmen and 500-1,000 foot skirmishers. Philip advanced to engage this force and repeated his previous success, killing Aeacides in the process. As a result of this loss, the Aetolians were so discouraged that they fled the cities to take refuge in the hills when the Macedonians dropped down into their country.

  At about the same time as Philip gained his twin triumphs over Aeacides, Lysimachus went up against barbarian opposition on the eastern frontier of his Thracian satrapy. He was putting down a revolt there by Callantia, which lay on the west side of the Black Sea. The rebels were allied with neighboring Thracians and Scythians who had now arrived on the scene. Lysimachus was able to chase off the men from Thrace without a fight, but had to engage the Scythians in a pitched battle. We have very little data on this action. What we are told is that it was victory for Lysimachus in which he inflicted many casualties on the Scythians and pursued their survivors "beyond the frontiers" (Diodorus 19.73.5). We might suspect that he had nothing more than a garrison similar to that which he'd fielded at Odrysia back in 323. If so, there were something like 3,000 pikemen and 1,000 hoplites plus 2,000 horsemen and a thousand or so missilemen on foot. His barbarian foes, who were horse-archers and perhaps several thousand in number, might have fallen victim to tactics much like those Philip II had employed on the Dobruja Plain in 339. This called for Lysimachus' cavalry and light infantry to skirmish ahead of an anchoring phalanx, using the superior range of their bowmen and slingers to advantage while the heavyarmed formation spoiled the barbarians' usual circling tactics.

  Having bested Callantia's allies, Lysimachus left some men behind to prosecute a siege (without success, as it would turn out) and headed home. This brought him up against Seuthes, the Thracian chief he'd met in battle at Odrysia a decade ago. Seuthes was now in league with Antigonus and had moved to block the pass over Mount Haemus. No doubt waged in a narrow space, this was a drawn-out affair in which "Lysimachus lost not a few of his own men, yet still destroyed a vast number of the enemy and overpowered the barbarians" (Diodorus 19.73.9). Just how Lysimachus did this isn't recorded, but he might have emulated Alexander's 335 triumph in this same pass, stacking his heavy-armed foot soldiers on one flank and covering the other with missile fire from his light infantry. Had the fight occupied an even more restricted portion of the passage than the crest forced by Alexander, Lysimachus could have pushed through with a deeply filed array fronted by his hoplites while supporting it with skirmisher volleys from behind. Regardless of such details, the poorly protected Thracians must have suffered mounting and unequal casualties during an extended exchange of missiles before yielding to pressure from the Macedonian's heavy footmen.

  Despite his victories, Cassander ended the year 313 in distress. This was caused by Ptolemaeus, whom Antigonus sent out to aid a bid for freedom by the Greek poleis. Bringing 5,000 foot soldiers and 500 horsemen aboard 150 warships, Ptolemaeus had gathered another 2,200 infantry and 1,300 riders from Boeotians hostile to Cassander (Diodorus 19.77.2-4). He campaigned with this considerable force and, with help from a feint by Antigonus at the Hellespont, drove Cassander back into Macedonia while liberating Euboa, Phocis and all of Boeotia.

  Gaza (312 B.c.)

  Ptolemy went on the offensive in 312, marching with Seleucus into southern Syria/Palestine to engage Antigonus' son Demetrius. The latter was in place near Gaza with 10,000 mercenary footmen (8,000 hoplites and 2,000 foot skirmishers including some Persian archers), 2,000 Macedonians (pikemen), 1,000 Lycian and Pamphylian spearmen, 500 Persian slingers, 5,000 horsemen and 43 elephants (Diodorus 19.69.1, 19.82.1-4). Ptolemy moved on these with an army of 18,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry (Diodorus 19.80.5). Most of his foot soldiers were Egyptian (perhaps 9,000 pantodapoi with pikes and 3,000 skirmishers). The rest were Macedonian (maybe 3,000 phalangites) and Greek (3,000 hired spearmen).

  Demetrius was determined to win the battle with cavalry on his left wing. He thus took post there along with 3,500 horsemen, among which were all of his lancers (500 in his own squadron plus 800 hetairoi) and the shield-bearing Tarantine javelineers. In front of this mounted contingent, he placed 30 elephants, spreading them out with 1,500 of the light infantry between them (including the Persian slingers). His phalanx came next right. This probably had the Macedonians on the left with the Lycian/Pamphylian fighters and the mercenaries next in that order. All of these heavy footmen would have filed eight-deep. He put the remaining 13 elephants and 1,000 foot skirmishers out in front of the phalanx. Demetrius then deployed the rest of his horsemen (1,500) off the right wing with instructions to hold back until things were settled on the left. On the other side, Ptolemy had initially set up to favor his own left wing. He seems to have had the same design as Demetrius, replicating the past strategies of Epaminondas and Eumenes that sought to carry the day against the enemy's best men; however, once he saw that his foe was also favoring his left, he reordered to boost his right and again match strength against strength. This put Ptolemy, Seleucus and their 3,000 best riders on that flank with only 1,000 horsemen of lesser quality off the other end of the phalanx. We have no details of how his heavy formation was arranged. Most likely, it stood eight men deep with the Macedonian phalangites at the right, followed by the pantodapoi and then the mercenary hoplites on the far left. As a counter to the opposing elephants, Ptolemy and Seleucus sent men out front with spiked devices (caltrops) that would damage the beast's feet. They backed these with javelinmen and archers, who were under orders to target both the pachyderms and their mahouts.

  The subsequent engagement turned on action between the two strongest mounted divisions. On that wing, the combination of caltrops and missile fire disabled Demetrius' elephants, and most of his horsemen then gave up after a lengthy and fairly even melee. Forced to withdraw with his fleeing riders, Demetrius was able to lead them off in good order. His phalanx, so far having been only lightly enga
ged at best with its counterpart, now broke apart as some of its men tossed spears and shields to run after their cavalry. Ptolemy's heavy troops closed about the enemy foot soldiers still on the field, killing a portion before the rest could surrender. (Diodorus cited only 500 lost on Demetrius' side [19.85.3], mostly horsemen. However, Plutarch [vol. II Demetrius, 448] put the death toll at 5,000. If the claim by both historians of 8,000 captured is accurate and refers to phalanx men, then those killed more probably came to 2,000-3,000.) In all the confusion that followed the defeated army's flight, the victors found Gaza's gates still open and entered to seize the town with little effort.

  Demetrius sent to Phyrgia for his father's help and retired to call up troops out of Cilicia and various garrisons. Seleucus headed to Babylon at this time with 800 infantry and 200 horsemen. Gathering more soldiers in route, he took over the city and recruited to bring his army to 3,000 footmen and 400 cavalry. He then ambushed Antigonus' general Nicanor at night along the Tigris and gained most of his 10,000 infantry and 7,000 riders as well. Having now collected a considerable army, he settled in to rule Babylonia. Ptolemy, in the meantime, sent the Macedonian general Cilles to engage Demetrius, who had moved into northern Syria. Demetrius learned of this and made a forced march to reach Cilles' camp before dawn. Striking that morning, he captured the Macedonian and 7,000 of his men without a fight. Having suffered this reverse and with Antigonus now marching down with an army to join his son, Ptolemy elected to abandon Syria and Phoenicia and retreat into Egypt. Antigonus and Demetrius spent the rest of the year carrying out an unsatisfactory campaign against Arab tribesmen in the vicinity of modern-day Jordan (as a preliminary step for the possible invasion of Egypt) and a more successful march to Babylon, which Seleucus' local general gave up rather than make a futile resistance against overwhelming odds.