Agesilaos wrote on 4 August:
Well, your saying my interpretation is wrong does not make it so either,..
I agree, it is not my saying so, but it is rather the evidence, on balance of probability, which condemns your interpretation – wrong for a number of reasons I’ve expounded earlier.
.. but let’s have a little test of ‘military naivete’; you assert that ‘paragoge’ can be used to describe what was later described as ‘parembole’ but also, when units are involved the movement I have illustrated when deploying (and this is how armies have deployed [moved from column to line] since well before Alte-Fritz improved the speed by deploying on the centre rather than to a flank, sorry, side). One command meaning two different things? Naïve, not naïve?
I don’t just ‘assert this’. Xenophon says so plainly enough in the ‘dinner drill’ [ XA II.3.21]:
“
..and when he judged it proper, he gave the order for each lochos to form in fours and thereupon the half-file leaders[pempadarchs] led up by the side[paragon] to form in fours.”
‘paragon’- in tactical context, leading men up beside ( as in deploying from column into line) is not just restricted to inserting half-files, it has a broader meaning, as I have referred to previously – in this passage alone it is used to describe ‘lochoi’ coming up beside one another, and files likewise marching up beside one another. At [XH VII.5.22] it is used to describe Epaminondas at second Mantinea marching successive lochoi up beside one another which becomes his column[embolon] by a right turn. Moreover ‘paragon’ is in no sense a “command”. What Agesilaos says above is not just wrong, but doesn’t even make sense, and he doesn’t seem to understand the correct meaning of ‘paragon’.
As far as I am aware Xenophon never mentions intervals at all, you may impute an interval when he talks of depth, but that is hardly the same thing. The Hellenistic manuals do give an interval for marching but linking it to largly untrained, undrilled milita rather than the well-drilled troops of the Hellenistic Kingdoms is just the leap that Matthews makes. Presumably you find yourself in agreement with him here, shame you felt the need to vilify him.
Xenophon may not mention measurements, but he does for example speak of ‘synaspidou’ =fight side by side; shields together; or in other words close order of 3 feet or so. That there are intervals of the same distance between files is obvious from the fact that rear half-files march up beside front half-files to fill such intervals.
Where do you get the idea that hoplites were ‘untrained’ or ‘undrilled’ ? Moreover, the bulk of Hellenistic infantry were part-timers or militia too.
I most certainly do not agree with Matthew that hoplites performed the drill of the Hellenistic manuals.( His photos of his Sydney group purporting to show hoplites in the manuals formations do no such thing). I do not ‘vilify’ Matthew either – it is far too strong a word, for I don’t defame him or speak evil of him personally, even if I do describe his theories as wrong and bizarre.
Hoplite battles were fought on largely flat plains or meadows for precisely this reason but the same would be true of most battles full-stop, it is easier for most armies to fight on the flat. They were certainly in short supply in Greece which is why we find several battles occurring at the same place.
I think you missed my point – parade grounds and meadows are unemcumbered by obstacles, whilst the few plains of Greece have buildings such as huts, trees, shrubs and bushes, low rock wall enclosures, dry stream beds etc, and moving across such terrain is much easier in open order, and very difficult if not impossible for any distance, for a line in close order.
Now to Cristopher Matthew; you may find it a bizarre theory but it is one that has been tested by reconstructive archaeology and, whilst I have a number of reservations I am quite persuaded by the couched dory method (not so much as to melt down my hoplite armies though!), if you have read what he actually wrote you might be less dismissive.
“tested by reconstructive archaeology” ? This must be a joke, or a ‘wind-up’. All it demonstrates is that it is possible for a hoplite to carry a spear couched. Apart from his Sydney group, the rest of the hoplite re-enactors world who “test by reconstructive archaeology” treat the idea of couched spears, resting in the ‘notches’ between shields with scorn. One can’t fight in that way, limited to a feeble jab forwards like a snooker cue. Try it yourself. Tuck a broomstick under your arm and try to fight with it in that ridiculous position.All the re-enactors of my acquaintance regard such a stance as suicidal. Nor does the iconographic evidence, which overwhelmingly depicts spear overhead stance and rarely any other, support such a view.
If this is not a wind-up, and you are genuinely “quite persuaded by the couched dory method”, then I am sorry that you have such a weak grasp of the mechanics of wielding a spear, and of hoplite warfare generally, if you subscribe to such views.
I
have read his theories, at least in the form of his PhD thesis which became his book, and I corresponded personally with him for a year or so, and therefore understand his ideas very well.
But the point he helped me on did not concern his theory of hoplite fighting but linguistics. Now you have, formerly granted my command of Greek to be better than your own, and similarly , though with even greater disparity, is mine less than his. Nor is it polite to emit a diatribe against someone who cannot reply, though I can see it provides a distraction from the linguistic point; I do not, for instance belittle your oft repeated prop of Connelly by pointing out that he always draws pike phalaxes attacking sixteen deep, arms Liby-Phoenician foot with sarissai and gives Seleukid horse armour to Karthaginian cavalry; it is irrelevant as I have already said a name is just that. As to your suggestion of where to hang it, I got the kindle version making that rather impractical (£5 was about all what I was prepared to spend.)
I see. It is OK for you to describe a work as only fit to be hung in a dunny, but not polite for me to follow in your footsteps ? Do I detect a whiff of hypocrisy here ?
Connolly is not my “oft repeated prop”. I mentioned him, along with J.K. Anderson and others as among those who recognise that hoplites fought in half-files in response to an allegation that this was just ‘my’ theory. As to the errors you refer to, I have been pointing these( and others) out since the 1970’s, though in fairness to Connolly, in the case of the Carthaginian pikeman, he was misled by the incorrect translation of ‘longchophoroi’ as ‘pikemen’ in both the Loeb Polybius and the LSJ, and this was corrected by him in “Greece and Rome at War”[1981]. The armoured Carthaginian horse also was dropped from this revised work.
Since you have only the electronic version, guess you'll have to revert to using your left hand, third world fashion !!!!!
And now the part that would have had me splurting my tea if I ever drank the vile brew
Xenophon wrote:The expression "in fours"/epi tettaron in the Anabasis [I.2.15] is exactly the same as "in fours"/eis tettaras in the 'dinner drill'. The final evolution has the 'pempadarchs/half-file leaders bringing the rear half-files up "in fours", so that the formation is in close order of half-files four deep.That somehow this means 8 deep in close order of files as per Christopher Matthew is frankly garbage, and I am amazed that you should clutch at such straws
The first sentence is absolutely right but the rest is woefully wrong; let me walk you through the maths; Xenophon’s fantasy ‘lochos’ consists of 25 men, the lochagos, who stands outside the ranks as we are explicitly told at III 3 xi, this leaves 24 men in two files led by dekadarchs at II 3 xxi but dodekadarchs at III 3 xi (maybe there was an army reform between books more likely the elderly Athenian has forgotten how he officered his ‘lochos’) in any case these twelve men also contain another officer the pempadarch or hexarch, depending which passage one reads. There are no other officers so in the ‘final evolution’ one actually has the four officers four abreast ‘εἰς τέτταρας’ the files are therefore SIX deep so that when the 32 strong enomotiai of the 10,000 stand on a frontage of four ‘ἐπὶ τεττάρων’ they are eight deep. I am sure that Mr Matthew would be as surprised as I am that you cannot count, the lack of Greek we would both excuse I am sure.
Unfortunately for you, “woefully wrong” is more appropriate to this paragraph of yours than mine. It is your maths and counting that is completely wrong from start to finish - as well as your other statements. To begin with, you seem to assume that the formation referred to at the dinner drill [II.3.21] is the same as the organisation he gives the fictional Cyrus, which it is not.[ see XC II.1.23-25.] In the former, Xenophon does not give numbers for the unit, whose structure works for both files of 8 and files of 12 for example, as I pointed out earlier. The Taxis consists of four lochoi, each of two files, and hence 4 half-files. The implication is that the ‘lochos’ here consists of 16, who end up “in fours/eis tettaras” i.e. four deep ( see my diagram page 1) – it is just co-incidence that this formation is 4x4, and hence also 4 abreast. In every other example ( see my previous post) “in fours/eights” refers to depth, because it is a whole phalanx, or ‘battle array’ for a significant part of it that forms “in fours/eights” and hence can’t mean abreast. The organisation Xenophon gives to his fictional Cyrus’ “New Model Army” is a hybrid, based on the real Persian army’s decimal organisation but adding in Greek features such as ‘lochoi’ and half-files. Its taxis/company is 100 strong divided into two lochoi of 50 ( not four), and he refers to files of 12, like the Spartan organisation.
Moreover, neither of these ‘orbats’ has a lochos of 25, and I don’t know where you get this from, but it is clearly wrong. When I was a computer programmer we had a saying “GIGO”/ garbage in, garbage out meaning if you start with incorrect or bad data no matter what you do, you won’t get a correct or good result. We need consider these erroneous calculations no further.
That we are told that the lochagoi stood outside the ranks at III.3.11 is also incorrect. What we are told is that ALL the officers ( from General to lochagos) are exempt from enrolment/'katalegesquai' in the regular regiments, so that they can be detached as staff officers, messengers etc, and that in their absence the file leaders/dodekadarchs and half-file leaders/hecadarchs kept proper order.
It is an incorrect assumption that the “10,000” were organised into ‘enomotia’ of 32, for nowhere does Xenophon say this. (It is likely that the different contingents had their own organisations – certainly at this time when they first came together). Nor does ‘epi tettaron’/in fours translate as “frontage of four” – a bad translation. Moreover, it is not individual enomotia or other sub-units that are “in fours”/epi tettaron, but the whole array/battle-line [taxqhnai;etaxqhsan] which is in fours, hence cannot mean abreast, but must mean deep. ( digression: at one point in the Anabasis Xenophon refers to a rearguard of 600 men being organised into lochoi of 100; 2 pentekostyes of 50, each consisting of 2 enomotia [XA III.4.21] )
You seem to be hoist on your own petard. Unlike you I make no gratuitous, insulting remarks about ability to count ( or read and comprehend for that matter) and I trust that in the circumstances you will have the grace to apologise. Insulting, disrespectful personal remarks should have no place here on Pothos.
Xenophon wrote:Why should the fact that these are Spartan mercenaries rather than Lakedaemonians preclude them from forming 12 deep, if the occasion demanded, especially as this seems to be the Spartan norm at this time ? For whatever reason, they decided that 8 deep ( in open formation most likely) was "weak" against a "mass" – presumably deep like a Theban one, even if not actual column/embolon formation, and chose to double their depth by means of an 'anastrophe'/folding back.
How units form is dependent upon there structure, forming eight deep would allow sixteen or even four maybe, but twelve would be a bastard number of a file and a half, since we only hear of mercenaries eight deep and any unit twelve deep only once, the Spartans at Leuktra, in action and only in the Lak Pol in theory, before the theorists lists, it is reasonable to assume that troops arrayed eight deep, according to you or four deep according to me lacked the capacity to form twelve deep. Simples!
I disagree. It would not be difficult to ‘split’ into their half-files every third file and add them to files one and two. All the more so when numbers would never be exactly ‘paper’ strengths. Simples !
Have you become a convert to the theory of depth?? According to you the Spartans at Leuktra fought a 25 deep formation of hoplites only six deep with no problem despite having been disrupted by their own cavalry; the Athenians faced the similarly deep Thebans four deep at Delion with no problem until the Theban cavalry appeared to their rear, in fact most battles were fought four deep; yet these mercenaries, no strangers to hoplite warfare, are frightened into a sixteen deep open order formation by a crowd exiting a gate rather than inserting their ‘rear half files’ to form the standard fighting depth and density of hoplite warfare, is that a straw I see before thee..?
As you point out below, it was the extreme end of the line which was attacked, possibly in flank. The shortening of this end of the line may have been because of the danger of an outflanking attck on an exposed extreme end, and the purpose of the ‘anastrophe’ may have been to shorten the line rather than increase fighting depth – a possibility you don’t consider.
I know what ‘anastrophe is and posted Brownson’s definition myself; no one has mentioned the doubling method so seems that straw is a strawman.
It would seem you do not, if you think it was done by ‘doubling’ and then ‘compacting’ as per Aelian [29 and 33 Devine] – which you did indeed mention, and with which both Paralus and I disagreed:
Agesilaos wrote 31 July:
“Were this a simple (?) counter-march it is hard to see the purpose, it is more likely that alternate files counter-march to the rear of those halting to deepen the line and make it stronger, the files would presumably close-up after doubling their depth, just like the Macedonian phalanx at Kynoskephalai.”
ἄλλοι δ᾽ ἐκδραμόντες καθ᾽ ἑτέρας πύλας ἐπιτίθενται ἁθρόοι τοῖς ἐσχάτοις: [21] οἱ δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ὀκτὼ τεταγμένοι, ἀσθενὲς νομίσαντες τὸ ἄκρον τῆς φάλαγγος ἔχειν, ἀναστρέφειν ἐπειρῶντο.
The Greek is actually quite clear the ‘hoi’ who are described as ep okto are the same as ‘tois eschatois’ the extreme of the line which thought themselves weak. Since it is not the whole army that is referred to your point falls at the first hurdle, writhes and is put out of its misery!
Since I never said that it was the whole army but rather used Xenophon’s exact words “ battle array/tagmenatoi” ( he doesn’t tell us what fraction of the left attempted anastrophe) it is this false flimsy argument which falls flat on its face.
Xenophon wrote:Any hypothesis which leaves out significant parts of the evidence, as Agesilaos does here, is generally incorrect.
And those that rely on bad translation, faulty maths and bluster?
That would appear to be you!
Bad translation ( ‘paragoge’ as a command and ‘epi tettaron’ as frontage of four for example); faulty maths ( miscounting the lochoi and files and assuming two different orbats were the same, the assumed 25 strong lochos and the subsequent erroneous calculations); and bluster ( the obvious false accusations, and the insulting remarks about inability to count )