Before and After Alexander

by Richard A. Billows

  11. The Macedonian cavalry wedge

  (Public domain image: Quora—A.L. Chaisiri)

  Thanks to this simple yet elegant and brilliant change in formation, Philip’s cavalry became indeed a fearsome strike force in his army and battles, best illustrated (as we shall see) in the battles the Macedonian army fought under Alexander’s leadership after Philip’s untimely death. At Philip’s death, when Alexander inherited his army, we learn that there were some 3,300 Macedonian heavy cavalry: Alexander took eighteen hundred with him when he crossed to Asia, and he left fifteen hundred behind as part of the home army under the regent Antipater. We know from various accounts of Alexander’s cavalry force in action that the Macedonian cavalry at this time were organized into squadrons (ilai) of about two hundred men led by officers named ilarchs, each of which was sub-divided into two sub-units of around a hundred. When we consider Antipater’s force of fifteen hundred cavalry in his home army, this creates a problem: fifteen hundred does not easily divide into squadrons of two hundred men. The solution is likely that the number two hundred is a rounded approximation: seven squadrons of 214 cavalrymen would total 1,498 men. It seems likely, therefore, that Antipater had seven squadrons of the Macedonian cavalry; and that another seven squadrons went with Alexander.

  Of course Alexander had eighteen hundred cavalrymen, not fifteen hundred: what about the extra three hundred men? A key part of Alexander’s cavalry force was a special squadron named the ile basilike or “royal squadron,” commanded at the start of Alexander’s reign by an officer named Cleitus “the Black.” This is the cavalry force at the head of which Alexander was accustomed to station himself in battle, and which formed his cavalry bodyguard (agema) in battle, being thus the cavalry equivalent of the elite infantry agema, the pezetairoi/hypaspistai. It will be recalled that this elite infantry unit was stronger in numbers than a regular phalanx battalion (taxis), being three thousand strong instead of fifteen hundred. It seems certain that the royal squadron of the cavalry was likewise a larger formation than the regular cavalry squadron: three hundred men instead of around two hundred. The cavalry at the end of Philip’s reign and beginning of Alexander’s would, therefore, have been made up of fourteen regular squadrons of cavalry, each a little over two hundred strong; plus the special royal squadron of about three hundred men; for a total of fifteen squadrons in all. We saw above that the Macedonian infantry was organized likewise into fourteen taxeis of about fifteen hundred each, plus the elite pezetairoi/hypaspistai at three thousand strong. The organization of infantry and cavalry thus matched: fourteen taxeis of infantry recruited by region and fourteen ilai of cavalry likewise regionally recruited; plus two extra-strength elite selected units, the infantry pezetairoi/hypaspistai and the cavalry ile basilike.

  The standard equipment of the Macedonian “heavy” cavalry is fortunately well attested. Thucydides already mentions that the Macedonian cavalry were “excellent horsemen and armed with breastplates” when telling of a campaign in 429/8 (Thucydides 2.100). But rather than literary descriptions, we can get a sense of the Macedonian heavy cavalry from two excellent depictions in art of Alexander’s time: the “Alexander Mosaic” in the Archaeological Museum at Naples (ill. 13), and the “Alexander Sarcophagus” in the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul (see ill. 5). Besides the breastplates mentioned by Thucydides, Macedonian heavily armed cavalry wore kilts reinforced with leather strips, open-faced helmets, and short cloaks. Their main armament was a heavy thrusting spear some ten feet in length (about three meters) which might be wielded either overarm, as does the Macedonian cavalryman on the Alexander Sarcophagus (perhaps Antigonus the One-Eyed), or underarm as Alexander does in the Alexander Mosaic depiction. As secondary arms, the cavalry carried short (around two feet) thrusting swords carried under the left arm by a strap over the right shoulder. No shields were carried, as the cavalry relied on their breastplates for protection against missiles or thrusts from enemy weapons, while using the long thrusting spears to keep enemy warriors at a distance, and speed of movement to enhance their safety. Lacking saddles or stirrups, the cavalryman had need to be an excellent rider, as Thucydides attested Macedonian cavalry were. With the equipment mentioned and the training and discipline instilled by Philip in his new wedge formation, the Macedonian heavy cavalry came, along with the pike infantry, to dominate the battlefields of the near east.

  4. THE SPECIALIZED LIGHT INFANTRY AND CAVALRY FORCES

  The set-piece battle was the acme of ancient warfare, the event that ultimately decided the fate of a war. And with his powerful pike phalanx, usually spearheaded by his elite pezetairoi, and his vastly improved heavy cavalry strike force, Philip had created the crucial units that could win his battles for him. But warfare is not only about fighting battles; battles are not only characterized by the clashes of the “heavy” infantry and cavalry; and the great difference in mobility and speed of movement between infantry phalanx and cavalry could cause gaps in one’s battle formation that a swift-thinking enemy might exploit. Philip realized that he needed a variety of specialized forces to carry out peripheral but important tasks in his campaigns.

  When an army sets out to undertake a campaign against an enemy force, especially if the campaign is to be conducted in enemy territory, it is of fundamental importance to the commander that he receive regular and reliable intelligence reports about the terrain to be traversed and, most crucially, about the whereabouts of the enemy force(s) and their number and make-up. Providing these intelligence reports was the task, in ancient warfare, of scouts: highly mobile and fast-moving soldiers who were sent out ahead and to the sides of the main army to spy out the lay of the land, look for enemy forces, capture and/or question enemy scouts or local civilians, and report back regularly on what they discovered. Such scouts were usually lightly equipped cavalry, mounted on horses with the qualities of speed and stamina. Heavy armor and weapons were not required by men whose job was not to fight so much as to see, hear, and report. Cavalry scouts wore only the lightest protection—padded jackets and light “target” shields strapped to the left forearm—and typically carried light missile weapons, mostly javelins, along with slashing swords for close in-fighting when necessary. In the Macedonian army of Philip and Alexander, units of light cavalry scouts, called prodromoi, are well attested: there were at least nine hundred of them in the army inherited from Philip with which Alexander invaded Asia in 334, for example, many of them recruited from Paeonia and Thrace.

  Another crucial activity of soldiers on campaign is foraging for food supplies, i.e. stealing food by force from enemy lands and settlements. This necessity is dictated by the nature of overland transport in antiquity. Bulk goods such as large supplies of foodstuffs could only be carried in very slow-moving ox-drawn carts or mule pack-trains. These would slow down an army’s movement dramatically, and besides being very expensive such supply trains would also be vulnerable to enemy attack and need guarding. Philip wanted to be able to move fast, and preferred to keep his baggage-train as light as possible. The solution, adopted by all ancient armies, was that of “living off the land,” which means taking food from the indigenous population by force. This too required specialized soldiers. One could, certainly, in theory have the heavy infantry, in Philip’s case his pikemen, lay down their pikes and other equipment to go out foraging; but that would be a huge risk, if the enemy were to be able to pull off a surprise attack. The men of the phalanx had to stay in formation, whether it be column of march or line of battle, leaving the business of foraging to more mobile and less crucial troops. It was in fact the business of lightly equipped and hence fast-moving infantry, guarded during the actual foraging by mobile cavalry. Units of lightly armored javelineers, archers, and slingers would be sent out to do the foraging, covered and protected by the light cavalry prodromoi and other units of lightly equipped cavalry.

  If and when the enemy was sighted and the decision was taken to fight a battle, battle was not joined instantaneously: it took time to shift t
he heavy infantry and cavalry from their encampment, or from the column of march, into a proper line of battle ready to fight. In the lead-up to battle, as the precise plan of battle was decided and the units of the army were drawn up in corresponding formation, there occurred a preliminary form of fighting known as skirmishing. Thousands of lightly equipped and highly mobile light infantrymen and cavalry would be sent forward to occupy space on the battlefield, to harass the enemy forces, to spy out the exact nature of the terrain on which the battle would be fought and the formation the enemy was adopting and report back on these, and to cover and protect the maneuvering of their own army into battle formation. This role of skirmishing is frequently referred to in ancient accounts of battles, but even more frequently simply passed over in silence as unimportant. It most certainly was not unimportant, however, and Philip had well organized and trained units of specialized light infantry equipped with missile weapons—archers, slingers, and javelineers—to carry out this role of skirmishing along with the lightly equipped cavalry. These special light infantry were often foreign troops recruited as allies or mercenaries. Archers, for example, often came from the island of Crete, since Cretans had long specialized in archery; and in the campaigns of Alexander (and so probably of Philip too) the best javelineers came from a tribe living just north of Macedonia proper, the Agrianians. Skirmishing was also a role played by the prodromoi, the cavalry scouts, and in addition we hear of a light cavalry unit named sarissophoroi or “lancers”: evidently very lightly armored cavalry who carried the same pikes as the heavy infantry to attack enemy infantry and cavalry skirmishers. In some cases it seems that the prodromoi and the sarissophoroi may have been the same soldiers, employed in different roles.

  Finally, when battle was joined, the skirmishers would retreat to join the line of battle formed by the phalanx and the heavy cavalry, but their role in battle was not ended. There remained, in fact, three crucial roles for them to play. In battle, the phalanx, weighed down by their heavy and unwieldy pikes, moved very slowly. The heavy cavalry kept pace with the phalanx until an opening or disruption in the enemy line offered them a point of attack, at which they would then charge. It was the role of cavalry skirmishers and missile-firing infantry to harass the enemy line of battle as the phalanx moved slowly forward, to try to create such an opening or disruption, as several of Alexander’s battles reveal. When the heavy cavalry did charge, their swift advance would create a gap between them and the slowly moving phalanx. It was important not to allow an enemy force to move through this gap to attack the phalanx from the side and/or rear: light infantry units had the task of occupying this gap and protecting the phalanx from such an attack. Finally, units of light cavalry were routinely stationed out on the army’s flanks to harass and hold off any enemy force attempting an outflanking maneuver, unless the field of battle offered a natural barrier—a ravine, a wood, a hill—providing natural flank protection. In sum, in addition to their important roles during the campaign preliminary to battle, light infantry and cavalry units also played important, if secondary, roles during battle. These light forces might not actually win the battles, but they contributed in important ways to making victory possible. Finally, energetic pursuit of the defeated and fleeing enemy was crucial to make a victory decisive. Here too, the squadrons of light cavalry, especially the lancers (sarissophoroi), had an important role to play. Ensuring that he always had such lightly equipped units—infantry archers, slingers, and javelineers, and cavalry prodromoi and sarissophoroi, as we have seen—in sufficient numbers and in a high state of training and preparedness, was therefore crucial to Philip’s advanced form of warfare.

  As indicated above, these specialized light infantry and cavalry forces were by no means always Macedonian. Philip recruited and used troops from a variety of sources for this purpose: Paeonians and Thracians are attested as light cavalry prodromoi, Cretans as archers, and Agrianians and other Thracians and Triballians as javelineers, for example. In the army Alexander inherited from Philip, we hear of seven thousand light infantry from the Balkan peoples, as well as one thousand Agrianian javelineers. But in addition to all these specialized light infantry and cavalry forces, we should also note an important source of specialized heavy infantry troops: mercenaries drawn from southern Greece. The world of the Greek city-states suffered from severe over-population in the fourth century, at least according to intellectuals such as the pamphleteer and educator Isocrates. Certainly southern Greece seemed to provide an almost inexhaustible supply of rootless young men willing to serve as soldiers for pay in this period. For Philip’s purposes, mercenaries, equipped as heavy infantry hoplites or at times as more mobile peltasts—soldiers who carried a lighter shield and had less body armor than the hoplites—had an enormous advantage: they were relatively much more expendable than his Macedonian troops. Losses in mercenary troops could always be replaced by fresh recruitment; and thanks to his enormous income in gold and silver from his mining operations, Philip could afford to employ thousands of mercenaries as he saw fit. These men supplemented his phalanx, easing the burden on native Macedonians for military services, and could be used for dangerous operations where losses might be higher than usual. Highly experienced and versatile, mercenary peltasts could also be used in all sorts of operations in which Philip might prefer not to exhaust his native military manpower.

  5. THE SIEGE TRAIN

  When ancient peoples did not dare to come out to confront an enemy army in battle, they often took refuge behind strong defensive walls built around their important settlement(s). Southern Greek hoplite forces had never shown much ability to cope with fortifications. Since such hoplites were citizen militia soldiers, who as citizens elected their generals before a campaign, and sat in judgement on them afterwards, southern Greek generals could not just command their soldiers however they saw fit. A general who suffered heavy losses, or treated his soldiers in a way they disliked, would face severe consequences after his term of office was over. Since taking fortifications by storm involved either operations that carried a high risk of sustaining heavy casualties (rushing up siege ladders to capture the enemy wall), or operations calling for heavy manual labor (constructing a siege ramp, or undermining the fortification walls) which Greek citizen warriors deemed work fit only for slaves, the reality was that armies of Greek hoplites confronted by well defended fortifications were reduced to camping around the enemy city and attempting to starve the enemy into surrender, which could take many months or even several years. Mostly Greek armies simply gave up in the face of well defended fortifications, unless they could find a way to get inside help: traitors, that is, to open a city gate.

  Philip was well versed in using all the arts of persuasion, including bribery, to get his forces into enemy cities without needing to fight. But when inside traitors were not available to let his forces into an enemy city, Philip was not willing to see his military operations bogged down every time he was confronted with well defended enemy fortifications. He wanted to be able to capture enemy cities quickly. He had the advantage that, as king, he was much less dependent on his soldiers’ good will than were the generals of southern Greek city-state forces. Philip could order his men to take risks and perform labors that a city-state commander could not contemplate. In addition, since Philip employed many thousands of non-Macedonian troops—Thracians, Illyrians, mercenaries from southern Greece—who were relatively expendable, he could contemplate sustaining fairly high casualties with relative equanimity. Still, he would not want to sustain excessive losses, which would damage morale in his army. To attack fortifications effectively, the defenders on the wall had to be “softened up” first and/or the walls or gates needed to be breached, and that called for a specialized siege train.

  Great advances in siege technology had been made in the Greek world early in the fourth century, especially in the forces of the Sicilian tyrant Dionysius of Syracuse. The key was the invention of the torsion principle: using ropes made of hair and/or animal guts wh
ich would be twisted with great force to create enormous dynamic tension. The sudden release of that tension could propel missiles—bolts of various sorts from smaller catapults; rocks and the like from larger ones—that could be used to force enemy soldiers on walls to duck down behind the walls for cover, enabling siege ladders to be raised against the walls and scaled; or else to batter the walls and/or gates in the hope of breaking holes in them. In the former task groups of highly trained archers firing at the tops of the enemy walls would help. In the latter task it would help to send forward, under cover, sappers who could dig under the walls, undermining and weakening them. In addition, more elaborate siege engines came to be developed. Mantlets covered with raw or wet ox-hides could provide cover for groups of specialists to drag battering-rams up to the gates and try to smash them open. Siege towers on wheels could be moved up to the walls and provide a platform for one’s soldiers to engage the enemy soldiers on the wall, attempting to cross over and win control of the wall. All of this siegecraft was still in development in Philip’s day: it was not until the very end of the fourth century and the early third century, in the army of Demetrius the Besieger, that Greek siegecraft reached its height. But Philip made sure to have the best siege technicians and machinery available in his day, and thanks to them his siege operations were mostly very successful.