Greek and Macedonian Land Battles of the 4th Century BC

by Fred Eugene Ray Jr

  Alexander's mercenary spearmen, like their mounted counterparts, had greatly increased in numbers thanks to plunder-financed recruiting over the last couple of years. Attached to the allied hoplites, they probably boosted the Greek heavy-armed corps up to around 12,000 in addition to the Old Mercenaries already deployed. These troops formed up behind the Macedonian heavy array, creating a second phalanx at eight shields deep that might have spanned 1.5km not counting screens of light footmen off either flank. (This formation supports the idea that something similar was done at Granicus River, where there was also great fear of envelopment by a cavalry-rich opponent unconstrained by lateral terrain barriers.) By turning about, such an arrangement could counter any mounted threat from the rear. It was also able to advance to meet enemy forces should they penetrate the forward battle line or, in the worst case, stand as a bulwark in support of a retreat. Rearward of these reserves sat the army's baggage train with a guard of Thracian peltasts. Considering both these various backing forces and the main phalanx, Arrian gave Alexander 40,000 infantry at Gaugamela, a third less than Darius, but 70 percent heavy-armed in contrast to the Persian's 25 percent.

  BATTLE OF GAUGAMELA (331 B.C.) (BOXES REPRESENTING FORCES ARE EXAGGERATED TO SHOW RELATIVE SIZES.)

  As the armies closed on each other, Alexander and his hetairoi drifted rightward, moving toward less level ground beyond the enemy left. Their intent seems to have been to repeat the flanking maneuver that had worked so well at Granicus River. However, the Scythian and Bactrian cavalry (sitting next to the 100-chariot deployment and farthest left among the Persian front-screen on that side) moved to head this off. Alexander countered by having his right-flank mercenary horsemen charge to engage these foes before they could block his end run. The mercenary riders were outnumbered by better than 2 to 1 and took a terrible beating, but as they fell back, the Paeonians and lancers behind came up in replacement. A fierce fight developed forward on Alexander's right, with the Macedonian riders first gaining the upper hand. The Bactrians then rebounded and the Scythians eventually returned as well to use their superior armor against the more lightly equipped European horsemen (Arrian 3.13.4).

  At this point, all three of the scythed chariot contingents raced out to attack. Alexander's peltasts on the right took a heavy toll on the charioteers and their horses before these engines could reach the front; and there, along the phalanx, the hypaspists and phalangites were still in open order and shifted files to form lanes down which the vehicles could be channeled. Many of the chariots were thus disabled while others passed harmlessly through the lines, though some did find the mark with their whirling blades. Diodorus (17.58.4-5) said that "they severed the arms of many, shields and all, and in no small number of cases they cut through necks and sent heads tumbling to the ground with the eyes still open and the expression of the countenance unchanged, and in other cases they sliced through ribs with mortal gashes and inflicted a quick death." Yet the phalanx kept cohesion and, after the chariots had passed and been captured at the rear, it closed ranks and advanced into the enemy front. (Note that the practicality of phalangites creating the sort of avenues described in our sources has been fairly questioned [Heckel et al 20101. This suggests that the chariots were able to pass through only forward-posted light infantry and, in fact, met defeat [at least against Alexander's right and center] without ever penetrating his phalanx.)

  The Paeonians and lancers had by now pushed the Thracian and Bactrian mounted screen back and to its left, driving ahead to cut into the main line of enemy horsemen. This pulled the Persians toward them, which combined with movement that direction in response to Alexander's opening rightward shift to create a gap in the imperial cavalry front where it bordered Darius and his infantry array. The aggressive Macedonian king saw this opening and charged with the hetairoi. Angling back across the open field, he hit at the thinning spot just as his phalanx's bristling weapons were closing into shock contact. The Persian horsemen gave way and Alexander and his riders drove through with their xysta along the left flank of Darius' infantry. Scattering the last of the enemy cavalry and foot archers there, the horse companions wheeled to take the mercenary and guard spearmen from side and rear even as the hypaspists thrust and shoved into them and the pikemen down the line extended their sarissai to lock the other Persians in place. (If not Issus, then this is the moment captured on the Alexander Sarcophagus, with hypaspist and Persian hoplites dueling while hetairoi led by their warrior monarch lance down footmen and stray riders alike.)

  In a repeat of his defeat in Cilicia, Darius could see enemy cavalry spilling out around the back of his line and the hypaspists beginning to roll up his spearmen's left flank. A rout was clearly imminent and he once more chose to flee. And no sooner did the king take off than his entire left wing through center collapsed to follow suit, the stampede carrying the large infantry formation at the rear along with it. Alexander and his accompanying riders delayed for a few critical minutes to clear their side of the field of the last resistance and then set out in pursuit.

  Over on the Macedonian left, things were still dicey. Parmenio commanded that wing and was having a devil of a time fighting off swarms of Persians that had gone on the attack behind the chariot charge. Some of the enemy riders had skirted his position (or, much less likely, cut through it) and raced for the baggage train only to have the reserve phalanx turn about and put them under attack. But so occupied, the allied and mercenary spearmen were not then able to react to Alexander's leaving the field. His departure thus denuded the right side of Parmenio's part of the line. There, cavalry that had stood left of the Persian center were still unaware of Darius' flight and pressed the Macedonian so that he now faced the prospect of simultaneous assaults from the front and both flanks. In fear of encirclement, Parmenio sent a courier to Alexander begging for help. The king responded, halting the chase to rescue his endangered left wing. On the way back, he met enemy horsemen fleeing rearward and some of the day's most ferocious cavalry action ensued as the Macedonian and his troopers made their way past foes desperate to go the opposite direction. In a mounted variation on Agesilaos' costly second assault at Coronea II (394), Alexander bloodied the enemy before they broke through and escaped, but took heavy casualties in return as some 60 of his companion riders lost their lives and many others fell wounded. As it turned out, by the time that Alexander reached Parmenio, the action had turned. The Thessalian cavalry had done a masterful job and managed to drive off the Persian horsemen, who were retreating even as the hetairoi arrived on the scene. Reversing course once more, Alexander went back to pursuing Darius; however, it was too late, and though chased until dark, the Great King made good his getaway. Meanwhile, Parmenio had finally advanced with his battered wing to flush the enemy from his sector and capture the Persian camp.

  Our sources give a variety of numbers for the Persians lost at Gaugamela: Curtius 40,000 (4.16.26), the Oxyrhynchus Historian 53,000 (1798), Diodorus 90,000 (17.61.3) and Arrian 300,000 (3.15.6). Even the lowest appear grossly overstated. And reduced to percentages, a wide range still persists: 9 percent for Diodorus, 16 percent for Curtius and 30 percent for Arrian. Given that only 1,500 of the 2,000 mercenary hoplites later gave up (Diodorus 17.76.1), a loss of 25 percent among the Persian heavy infantry looks realistic. Yet, the more mobile light infantry and cavalry (over 90 percent of the Persian army) surely took much less damage. This suggests something in the 10-15 percent range as a more likely overall loss. As for the Macedonian dead, we get 100 from Arrian, 300 from Curtius, 500 from Diodorus and 1,200 from the Oxyrhynchus Historian. At 2.5 percent, the last figure would be well within the normal range for a fairly hard-fought victory in this era.

  The Peloponnese

  While Alexander was besting Darius, problems were mounting for his rule back home. Memnon, who was governor in Thrace, had decided to break away from Macedonia and carve out his own kingdom. Antipater marched against him with his entire army, but had to settle for a negotiated resolution, keeping Mem
non in his position in return for a renewed pledge of loyalty. This lenient settlement was prompted on Antipater's part by his urgent need to address an uprising in southern Greece.

  Vs Corrhagus and Megalopolis (331 B.c.)

  Antipater had garrisoned the Peloponnese under the general Corrhagus, who was perhaps headquartered at the center for Alexander's Greek league in Corinth. The Spartan king Agis III led a force of mercenaries against him during the summer of 331. Agis' troops probably numbered 8,000, Diodorus having recorded (17.48.1) that he used that many on Crete two years earlier. The Spartan's army might have included 6,000 hoplites and 2,000 foot skirmishers, with the latter mostly peltasts (though a few Cretan archers might have followed Agis home as well). Corrhagus would also have had a largely mercenary force, maybe with 4,000 of it heavy-armed in line with detachments often used in the past for minor Macedonian expeditions. Corhagus' spearmen likely enjoyed support from 1,000-1,500 in light infantry. Agis thus might have had an edge in manpower, but not one so overwhelming as to entirely discourage his enemy from accepting battle. Still, he must have used his greater numbers to carry the action either with deeper files pushing through at a critical point or longer ranks wrapping around a flank. The latter, being a typically "Spartan" approach, is maybe a bit more likely. At any rate, Agis gained a crushing victory that "destroyed" his foes (Aeschines Against Ctesiphon 165) and killed Corrhagus. We might put the Macedonian's losses at 20-30 percent and those of Agis at 3-5 percent.

  The Spartans now became champions of Greek independence and attracted troops from other discontented poleis. Diodorus (17.62.7) put this uprising's total strength at 20,000 infantry and 2,000 horsemen. The foot soldiers probably broke down into 4,000 light infantry and 16,000 hoplites. Among the spearmen there were likely almost 6,000 hirelings and 4,000-5,000 Spartans (their entire muster) with the rest (5-6,000) being allies from Elis, Achaea and Arcadia (the latter perhaps the more numerous). Cavalry primarily came from Sparta and Elis, though some renegades from Phocis and Thessaly might have been present as well. (Demosthenes boasted of having brought some Thessalians into revolt [Aeschines Against Ctesiphon 1671.) Agis led this coalition army and took it into Messenia. Megalopolis had remained openly loyal to Alexander there and the Spartan king put that city under siege.

  Antipater was delayed by the situation in Thrace, but by summer's end had returned to regroup and lead out his entire homeland force to deal with the Greek revolt. He collected some still loyal allies on the way south until he had 40,000 men in all (Diodorus 17.63.1). About a quarter of his troops were Macedonians: 3,000 hypaspists, 9,000 phalangites, 3,000 foot skirmishers and 1,000 horsemen. (This cavalry count represents 600 light lancers and only 400 hetairoi, Antipater having just sent off a third of his native horsemen to reinforce Alexander [Diodorus 17.65.11.) His other soldiers might have numbered 15,000 hoplites, 5,000 light infantrymen and 4,000 riders. The allied cavalry was Thracian, Thessalian and Boeotian, while the infantry came from Boeotia, the Peloponnese (especially the northeast) and mercenary ranks (maybe up to a third). Therefore, it was a powerful armament that arrived with Antipater to disrupt Agis' siege of Megalopolis; one that, in fact, reversed the manpower advantage that the Spartan had held over Corrhagus.

  Caught in open country by an enemy much superior in both numbers and quality of horsemen, Agis had no real option for escape and formed up instead for a pitched battle. He faced an opposing heavy infantry formation that likely stretched across more than 2.6km of the plain before Megalopolis, forcing him to file thinly if he was to avoid a dangerous enemy overlap. He thus must have lined up only five or six shields deep. His phalanx probably had the picked men from Elis (the Three Hundred and the Four Hundred) on the far left with their other countrymen and the Achaeans and the Arcadians next in that order across the center. Agis and his Spartans took the post of honor on the right wing. Antipater likely set up his phalangites at either ten or 16-deep. The former had been common under Philip, but the latter, thicker array might now have become standard practice under Alexander; moreover, even in files of 16, Antipater could still compel the enemy to stretch out at non-optimum depth. These pikemen would have held the far left to anchor the battle line on that end. As for his spearmen, the Macedonian probably deployed them in eight-man files. He and his hypaspists no doubt took their customary station on the right, with the mercenaries next in line and allied militia spearmen filling in down to where the phalangites stood. (Note that Antipater could have filed his pikemen at eight-deep just as Alexander sometimes did in Asia during this period. However, there, the king's sarissaarmed troops, which weren't as well suited as hoplites for envelopment maneuvering, assumed these thinner arrays to stretch out his line against larger opponents, which wasn't the case here. Therefore, it's more likely that Antipater used his phalangites in their traditional defense-oriented role and stacked them as deeply as was practical.)

  With cavalry and light infantry screening off their flanks, the phalanxes closed into shock combat to initiate what was to prove a long, grinding fight. Agis and his Spartan spearmen had not been able to outflank the phalangites on their end of the line nor could they gain sufficient penetration into the bristling hedge of serried pike-points to do telling damage. As for the Macedonian pikemen, they patiently stuck to their knitting, fixing their foes in place and jabbing away with their ungainly weapons to do whatever harm they could against men whose armor and large, overlapping shields offered precious few targets of opportunity. It was slow, strenuous work and not destined (indeed, not even designed) to be decisive. Nonetheless, it exacted a price from the enemy as, here and there over time, the sarissai found rare openings and laid a few Spartan front-fighters low. And at some point, Agis, who stood somewhere in the forward ranks, became one of those victims, going down with a wound serious enough to keep him from regaining his feet.

  The Spartans kept on fighting with equal measures of fury and frustration as their king was carried to the rear. The battle thus remained hopelessly stalemated along one wing while the light-armed fray was apparently no more decisive off either flank, making it action on the other wing that would be critical. Here, on the Macedonian right, it was hoplite against hoplite with part-time militiamen for the Greeks (albeit some of them elite) spear-fighting against fulltime soldiers, whether they be Macedonian or mercenary. This was a contest of endurance and willpower in which Antipater's well-seasoned and more deeply filed professionals finally prevailed. Unable to resist any longer, the allies on Agis' left wing lost heart at last and broke away in flight, forcing the still game Spartans to also give way too lest they be surrounded.

  Antipater's large cadres of horsemen and foot skirmishers may have underperformed during the main action, but they now executed a thorough and deadly chase. As a result, the rebel death toll rose to nearly 25 percent (5,300 per Diodorus [17.63.3]). It was at this stage where Agis actually met his end when a group of pursuing peltasts caught up with the men trying to carry him to safety. The king ordered that his comrades flee to fight another day; then, rising to his knees, he made a solitary last stand. Diodorus claimed that Agis managed to kill a number of his lighter-armed attackers before a thrown javelin took him down for good. The stubborn battle had been costly for Antipater. He lost 3,500 men (almost 9 percent), which was very high for a victorious force in this period. However, Megalopolis was even more devastating for his opponents as, having taken horrific casualties and with a king dead, the Spartans were broken and their uprising finished.

  The Persian Campaign II

  Alexander advanced from Gaugamela to enter Susa, site of a huge imperial treasury. Seizing those riches, he rested and received reinforcements from home that were badly needed to replace losses to date. Per Curtius (5.1.40-41), these included 6,000 Macedonian infantry, 3,500 Thracian peltasts and 4,000 Greeks (probably mostly hoplites). There was also cavalry, amounting to 500 Macedonians, 600 Thracians and 380 Greeks. It was at this time that the hetairoi reorganized, setting up two companies within each squ
adron (four within the double-sized royal unit). Thus refreshed, Alexander set out to capture the rest of the Persian realm. This called for passing through a number of choke points that were defended either by independent local tribal forces or still effective segments of Darius' army. The first challenge came from some of the Ouxioi tribesmen east of Susa. The mountain dwelling Ouxioi tried to extort a fee for passage through their land, but Alexander outmaneuvered them and gained their surrender. He did this with a night action using some 11,000 men (the hypaspists, perhaps four regiments of pikemen [once more at 1,500/taxis] and 2,000 others [most likely Agrianians, archers and horsemen]). Gaining a position in the mountainous terrain above the enemy, he persuaded them to end their resistance.

  Alexander next raced to secure the Persian capital of Persepolis and its riches. He sent the bulk of his army toward the city via the wagon route, which required a long trek through flat country. Alexander himself set out along a rugged, yet more direct path that led through the mountain pass known as the Persian Gate. In this way, he hoped to speed his arrival and prevent any treasure from being spirited beyond his grasp. Along with him were the Macedonian infantry, the Agrianians with attached archers, the hetairoi and the prodromoi lancers. He found a large body of imperial troops holding the Gate. Curtius put these at 25,000 infantry (5.3.17) while Diodorus added another 300 cavalry (17.68.1) and Arrian claimed 40,000 infantry and 700 horsemen (3.18.2). Once more employing a night departure with picked troops, Alexander used a local guide to gain a position above the enemy forces in the pass. At the same time, he detached some of his men to seal off the passage's backside. The Macedonians then struck from front, back and above to clear the pass for an easy descent.