The Army of Alexander the Great

Stephen English

• Éditeur: Pen & Sword History
• Année: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781844683529
• Sujet: History
• Sous-sujet: Ancient History

Alexander the Great is one of the most famous men in history, and many believe he was the greatest military genius of all time (Julius Caesar wept at the feet of his statue in envy of his achievements). Most of his thirteen year reign as king of Macedon was spent in hard campaigning which conquered half the known world, during which he was never defeated in open battle and never besieged a city he did not take. Yet, while biographies of Alexander abound, there are relatively few full-length books dedicated to the Macedonian army which made his dazzling conquests possible and which proved itself the most formidable machine of the age.Stephen English investigates every aspect of the Macedonian forces, analysing the recruitment, equipment, organisation, tactics, command and control of the fighting arms (including the famous pike phalanxes, elite Hypaspists and incomparable Companion cavalry), Some of Alexander's most famous battles and sieges are described in detail to show the army in action. With forensic thoroughness he draws on recent archaeological evidence and scholarship to present a detailed portrait of the army which demonstrated a superiority over its opponents equal to (but much longer-lasting than) that enjoyed by the German forces in the blitzkrieg campaigns of 1939/40. Alexnader's navy is also covered.

Chapter 1

Macedonian Heavy Infantry

Developments in Greek Warfare

In traditional Greek warfare, until the Peloponnesian War, a phalanx was a heavily-armed mass of infantrymen who fought as a coherent body. They wielded spears in their right hands and carried a large shield in their left. This led to the tendency described by Thucydides for men to move not only forward, but to the right as well, in order to gain greater protection from the shield of the hoplite stationed in that position.² The hoplites that fought in these phalanxes were relatively untrained, being citizens of the various city-states who were pressed into service as situations demanded. The hoplite phalanx was therefore a relatively inflexible body, mostly incapable of complex manoeuvres, although the actions of the Athenian hoplites at Marathon would tend to suggest that this was not always the case.

The Peloponnesian War represents a watershed in Greek military, social and political history. It lasted from 431-404 with the chief protagonists being Sparta (the great land power), and the naval empire of Athens. The length and brutality of the conflict transformed Greek warfare from a small scale affair, often involving consenting protagonists, into a year round and entirely more dangerous situation. During hoplite battles, each side essentially had to agree to engage in combat. A suitable plain had to be selected as hoplites could not operate across broken ground easily, due to their lack of training. Furthermore, the generals had to deploy their hoplites so that their tendency to drift to the right – as noted above – did not take them into rough ground, or cause them to miss the enemy completely as both sides had the same tendency to drift. If this deployment was impossible, a commander could refuse to offer battle.³ With these considerations in mind we can see that a battle effectively had to be agreed upon beforehand. It was also considered unsportsmanlike to pursue a fleeing enemy, and the battle itself was perhaps more akin to a giant rugby scrum than one of Alexander’s battles.

The Peloponnesian War’s effect upon the Greek world must have been similar to that of WWI on Europe. It became apparent that the old way of doing things no longer worked and new tactics were needed. Flexibility became the order of the day and Philip immediately grasped this during his time as a captive in Thebes. This is also, evidently, something that he impressed upon Alexander at an early age.

Philip

When Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great, succeeded to the throne of Macedonia in 359, he inherited a kingdom beset by enemies on all sides and on the verge of collapse. The previous king, Perdiccas III had been killed in a disastrous battle against Illyrian invaders, led by Bardylus. The Macedonian army was comprehensively defeated and the infantry, such as it was, was crushed. Philip immediately recognized that, although Macedonia was in a weak position, the inability of the city-states to unify against him would be their downfall. He also saw that in order for Macedonia to become the dominant, significant military power, reforms were required, particularly of the infantry. In this belief, Philip was certainly influenced by his years as a hostage in Thebes during which time he saw the training and development of the Theban Sacred Band, along with its devastating effectiveness on the battlefield. Within the first year of his reign he had defeated the Illyrian threat and secured Macedonia’s borders. Philip achieved this remarkable feat in a number of ways, not all of them military: he was much admired and renowned for his political shrewdness; his seven recorded wives, many of whom came with a new peace treaty, are a testimony to this.

Macedonia had always been renowned for having some of the finest cavalry in the Greek world, but it had never been a significant military power until the point at which it developed an equally strong body of infantry. It therefore seems appropriate to begin by examining the origins and composition of this newly formed force.

The men that comprised the Macedonian heavy infantry are almost exclusively referred to collectively as the ‘phalanx’ by both ancient and modern authors. The adoption of this term is partly due to convenience and partly due to a lack of understanding on the part of some as to the tactical role of the heavy infantry. Throughout this work I have tried to avoid using this generic term, simply because in the strictest sense it should not apply to the Macedonian pezhetairoi; at the very least we can say that it is misleading. In reality the pezhetairoi were essentially an evolution of the standard phalanx and more akin to Iphicratean peltasts than a traditional hoplite phalanx.

The term pezhetairoi is extremely rare in ancient literature. Its only occurrence outside of the period of Philip and Alexander is in Plutarch (Flam. 17.8); the term also occurs infrequently in Arrian (he is the only Alexander historian to use it), for example at 1.28.3; 7.2.1; and 7.11.3, and the term seems to refer to the heavy infantry battalions (taxeis), excluding the hypaspists.

The Origins of the Pezhetairoi

At some point in time it seems clear that the peasantry of Macedonia were organized into an infantry body that was recruited territorially. Anaximenes tells us quite clearly that at some point the infantry were given the title pezhetairoi, a term which translates as ‘Foot Companions’, effectively making them equal in status to the Companion Cavalry. This was an important development in the heavy infantry as it gave them status, vital in forming a bond with the new king: they would no longer be considered ‘cannon fodder’. Theopompus defines who the pezhetairoi were, and how they were recruited; these two fragments of source material are both crucial to an understanding of the origins of the Macedonian heavy infantry and will be referred to frequently.³

These two fragments unfortunately do not present us with a coherent picture; Anaximenes calls all of the Macedonian infantry pezhetairoi, whilst Theopompus believes them to have been picked troops, a bodyguard to the king and not front line infantry. Anaximenes attributes their creation to Alexander, although he does not make it clear precisely which Alexander he is referring to, whereas Theopompus makes no statements as to their origins. What can we draw from these two accounts? Were they even talking about the same thing? And who was the Alexander that Anaximenes referred to? The general tendency among scholars has been to accept the testimony of Anaximenes and reject Theopompus where there are contradictions, but this still leaves open the question of which Alexander is meant. Some scholars have claimed that Alexander II must have been the king Anaximenes is referring to, although the brevity of his reign, only one year from 369-8, would tend to eliminate him from such serious reforms. That is, if we assume that the reforms Diodorus mentions occurred at the same time as the creation of the pezhetairoi; he also attributes the introduction of the phalanx formation and the sarissa to Philip II, but says nothing about the pezhetairoi as such. Diodorus and Anaximenes can only be reconciled if we assume that Alexander II conceptualized the new force and Philip II actually created it. The belief that Philip II was the originator of the pezhetairoi has had some significant scholarly proponents.

It could be argued that the Alexander Anaximenes is referring to must be Alexander I; but this would mean dismissing any possibility that it could be Alexander II largely because it would mean that if it were Alexander II, then the reforms made by Archelaus mentioned in Thucydides would be reduced to nothing.⁴ This argument, however, is unsound as it relies upon a dubious interpretation of Thucydides and ignores the evidence of Polyaenus and Xenophon, both of whom tell us clearly that even as late as the early fourth century, Macedonia still possessed no properly trained or equipped infantry forces.⁵ This would be borne out by the defeat of Perdiccas III’s infantry by the Illyrians before Philip II ascended the throne; they were clearly not a well-trained, coherent or organized body of infantry.

Demosthenes, in the Second Olynthiac, makes a clear distinction between the privileged position occupied by the pezhetairoi, and the mass of the Macedonians who derived no benefits from Philip’s policies: according to Demosthenes that is.⁶ Demosthenes was, of course, famously anti-Macedonian, and strongly opposed to Philip and later Alexander. Alexander even demanded the surrender of Demosthenes upon the final defeat of Athens, but later retracted the request. If we accept this argument, the conclusion would be that the pezhetairoi were not the whole body of infantry that Macedonia possessed, but a select body of guards, equivalent to the hetairoi cavalry; and that it is the creation of this body to which Anaximenes referred. If this theory were correct then it was this original unit of guards which was expanded and evolved into the pezhetairoi that we recognize from the reigns of Philip and Alexander, and that was so integral to their success on the battlefield. This theory satisfies Theopompus who states that the pezhetairoi were a select group of infantry who acted as a royal bodyguard, but does not satisfy Anaximenes, who stated that Alexander gave the name to the majority of his infantry. Theopompus could have been referring to the pezhetairoi as he knew them in the late 340s; if this were the case, then Theopompus’ claim that they were an elite group and not the entire body of Macedonian infantry is reasonable. If this is correct then the only way to reconcile the two passages is to assume that the Alexander being referred to is Alexander III, and that the reform was not a significant military one, but that Alexander simply widened the use of the term pezhetairoi to include all members of the heavy infantry except for the hypaspists, at the same time widening the use of the term hetairoi to include all of the Macedonian cavalry. This would have had the effect of bonding the troops more closely to the person of the king and of slightly reducing their regional ties and the ties to their commanding officers. Alexander’s position at the start of his reign was a comparatively insecure one – for evidence that he relied heavily upon the support of Parmenio and his family, see later. This was both a positive step for Alexander’s army and a necessary one for him; at the start of his reign he was heavily indebted to Parmenio and his family for their support at the time of Philip’s assassination. This was the first step in removing their stranglehold on the throne, a process that would culminate in 330 with the murder of Parmenio and his only surviving son, Philotas.

With regards to the origins of the pezhetairoi, the most reasonable argument is that at some point in history, perhaps the reign of Alexander I, an elite group of infantry was created, whilst at the same time the main body of infantry was also trained and equipped in a similar or identical manner, and that it was during the reign of Alexander III that the term pezhetairoi was expanded in use to include all of the phalanx infantry. Alexander III was therefore simply changing the nomenclature and status of existing troops rather than instituting some major reform. Alongside this, however, we should note that the reforms of Alexander I evidently did not bring with them significant improvement to the infantry, as demonstrated by the Illyrian disaster. The major advances in effectiveness and efficiency began with Philip II and progressed into Alexander’s reign.

What then happened to the original pezhetairoi after Alexander? Whichever Alexander that may have been, he expanded the use of the term to include all of the Macedonian heavy infantry. It would be logical to assume that their elite status and special relationship to the king would continue to be recognized in some way, and that they would not simply have been absorbed into the phalanx along with the rest of the heavy infantry. It further seems likely that the pre-existing elite infantry unit was now given the name ‘hypaspists’ with which we are so familiar from the pages of Arrian. Alexander, as with his father, was always shrewd in his dealings with the army; they both recognized that it was through control of the army that they were allowed to rule. Alexander’s sensitivity towards the army, and their love for him, can be demonstrated by their willingness to march from Macedonia to northwestern India, a journey of incredible hardships lasting some eight years from the crossing of the Hellespont in 334 to the mutiny on the Hyphasis River in 326. The difficulties did not end there however, as Alexander decided to take a circuitous route back to Babylon via the Makran Desert, many thousands of miles, with virtually no sign of unrest from them. Only twice did he fail to maintain control of the army. The first time at the Hyphasis River, the modern Beas in northwest India, in 326 when Alexander wanted to press on into India to reach ‘Ocean’: after three days of sulking, Alexander declared that the omens were not favourable and they would turn back. The second time was in the late summer of 324 at Opis when the Macedonian core of the army, the heavy infantry, felt (perhaps rightly) that they were being replaced by oriental troops and that they were losing their privileged status; a complaint that is key to understanding how Alexander maintained control so effectively for so long.

Creating the Army

Now that we have seen the origins of the pezhetairoi we should turn to the question of their training and how they were persuaded to fight with such ferocity and dedication through almost countless battles.

In order to create an army, civilians need to become militarized; this was as true in the ancient world as it is today. Throughout different periods of history this process has involved a number of fundamental elements, these have included: the wearing of a uniform; uniformity of equipment amongst individual units; the swearing of an oath; training designed to engender conformity and solidarity; participation in social events; and the playing of competitive games. The creation of the Macedonian army showed many of these classic features: a uniform was probably worn; combining this with conformity of offensive equipment amongst the leading units of the army would have led to considerable uniformity of appearance. This conformity would certainly have existed within the heavy infantry taxeis, the hypaspists and the Companion Cavalry. It is likely that there was a certain amount of conformity of equipment within other units, but the wearing of a uniform amongst, for example, the mercenaries, is unlikely. From the point of view of the enemy, however, it was almost exclusively the Macedonian units that were in the front line, all similarly equipped. To exactly what extent Philip and Alexander attempted to create complete uniformity of dress and defensive equipment is far from clear. The historical sources mention little on this subject and the pictorial evidence is too limited to decide the point. Questions such as a possible change from the use of the Phrygian helmet to the Boeotian within the cavalry, the usage of the pilos helmet within the infantry, and even the use of the Macedonian star symbol on shields, are all open to debate. All we can say is that there was probably considerable, if not complete, uniformity of dress and equipment amongst the leading units of the Macedonian army. The very way that the Macedonian heavy infantry operated strongly implies that they had identical weapons if nothing else. With the sarissa, essentially a pike, being the primary offensive weapon, it was vital that no gaps appeared in the wall of spear tips. The sarissa, as we will see later, was an offensive weapon and the heavy infantry were a strike force. The heavy infantry were not a defensive unit and if a gap appeared in the spear wall, either through poor training or lack of equipment, the pezhetairoi would never have been as operationally successful as they were.

The swearing of an oath to the king was also a feature of the training of Macedonian troops. The training programme itself was particularly rigorous, a revolution in fact; nothing quite like it had been seen in the ancient world before this time. Diodorus describes it as follows:⁷

‘having put their military organisation on a sounder footing and equipped the men with appropriate weapons of war; he held unremitting exercises in full kit as well as competitive exercises.’

Polyaenus gives us a little more information:⁸

‘Philip used to train the Macedonians before they underwent dangers to march with full kit often three hundred stades carrying at one and the same time helmets, shields, greaves, pikes, and, as well as their weapons, provisions and utensils for their daily fare.’

Frontinus tells us that the stamina produced by such a training programme was quite deliberately used by Philip to wear down his opponents at Chaeronea; although from what little we know of Chaeronea it appears to be tactics and training, rather than stamina that were the primary factor in the Macedonian victory. Philip opened the battle by leading his right wing against the Athenians, shortly after that he feigned retreat and the Athenians rashly pursued. At a prearranged signal the Macedonians counter-attacked and won the day. Thus we can say tactics and training were both key to victory. It is surprising the Athenians fell for the ruse given that it was very similar to their own tactics at Marathon. Alexander clearly understood well the importance of the training principles that his father had introduced: at the very beginning of his reign Diodorus tells us that he ordered his army to undertake regular manoeuvres. After the campaigns at Miletus and Halicarnassus, Alexander spent time putting h...

Table des matières

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Macedonian Heavy Infantry
• Chapter 2 Hypaspists
• Chapter 3 Macedonian Cavalry
• Chapter 4 Thessalian Cavalry
• Chapter 5 Mercenaries and Allies
• Chapter 6 Mediterranean Fleets
• Chapter 7 Siege Engines
• Chapter 8 Command Structure
• Chapter 9 The Army in Action
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index