The Generalship of Alexander the Great by J.F.C. Fuller - Chapter 2. THE MACEDONIAN ARMY: The Macedonian Military Renaissance - HQ Full Book.
In Chapter 2 of The Generalship of Alexander the Great, J.F.C. Fuller meticulously examines the evolution and organization of the Macedonian army, which served as the foundation for Alexander the Great’s unparalleled military conquests. This chapter, titled "The Macedonian Army," delves into the transformative reforms instituted by Alexander’s father, King Philip II of Macedon, and contrasts them with the Greek military traditions that preceded his reign. Fuller’s analysis highlights how Philip’s innovations created a professional, disciplined, and versatile fighting force that Alexander later wielded with extraordinary skill. The chapter is divided into two subchapters: "Greek Warfare before Philip" and "Philip’s New Model Army." Together, these sections provide a comprehensive understanding of the military context and innovations that enabled Macedon’s rise to dominance.
Fuller’s narrative is both scholarly and engaging, blending historical detail with strategic insight. He emphasizes the revolutionary nature of Philip’s military reforms, which not only reshaped Macedonian warfare but also set a new standard for armies across the ancient world. By exploring the limitations of earlier Greek warfare and the ingenuity of Philip’s system, Fuller sets the stage for understanding Alexander’s ability to execute complex campaigns against formidable adversaries like the Persian Empire. The chapter is essential for readers seeking to grasp the structural and tactical underpinnings of Alexander’s success, as it underscores the critical role of the Macedonian army as an instrument of his generalship.
Subchapter: Greek Warfare before Philip
This subchapter provides a detailed overview of the military practices in Greece prior to Philip II’s reign, setting the context for his reforms. Fuller describes the traditional Greek approach to warfare, which was dominated by the hoplite phalanx—a formation of heavily armored infantrymen equipped with spears and shields. These citizen-soldiers, drawn from the city-states’ middle and upper classes, fought in tight, rectangular formations that relied on collective discipline and frontal assaults. The hoplite system, while effective in certain scenarios, had significant limitations. Battles were typically short, seasonal affairs, constrained by the agricultural calendar and the amateur status of the soldiers. Mobility, cavalry, and combined arms tactics were underdeveloped, as city-states prioritized infantry over other branches.
Fuller notes that Greek warfare was often ritualistic, with battles fought on flat terrain to maximize the phalanx’s strengths. Sieges and prolonged campaigns were rare, as city-states lacked the resources and logistical systems for sustained operations. The subchapter also highlights the political fragmentation of Greece, which hindered the development of unified military strategies. Rivalries between city-states like Athens and Sparta led to a lack of cooperation and innovation, leaving Greek armies vulnerable to more adaptable opponents. Fuller’s analysis underscores the stagnation of Greek military thought, which Philip would exploit and overhaul. This section serves as a critical backdrop, illustrating the challenges Philip faced and the revolutionary nature of his subsequent reforms.
Subchapter: Philip’s New Model Army
In this subchapter, Fuller explores the groundbreaking military reforms introduced by Philip II, which transformed Macedon into a military powerhouse. Philip, recognizing the weaknesses of traditional Greek warfare, created a professional standing army that combined discipline, versatility, and innovative tactics. Fuller details how Philip reorganized the Macedonian infantry into a new type of phalanx, armed with the sarissa—a long pike that gave his soldiers greater reach than the hoplite spear. This allowed the Macedonian phalanx to hold enemies at bay while other units maneuvered, creating a more dynamic battlefield presence.
Philip also developed a robust cavalry arm, particularly the elite Companion Cavalry, which became a decisive striking force. Unlike Greek armies, which marginalized cavalry, Philip integrated horsemen into his tactics, using them for flanking and pursuit. Fuller emphasizes the importance of combined arms in Philip’s system, where infantry, cavalry, and light troops (such as archers and slingers) worked in concert. This coordination required rigorous training and a professionalized army, which Philip achieved by maintaining a year-round force rather than relying on seasonal levies.
The subchapter also covers Philip’s logistical and organizational innovations. He improved supply lines, enabling sustained campaigns, and introduced engineering units for sieges and fortifications. Full
In Chapter 2 of The Generalship of Alexander the Great, J.F.C. Fuller meticulously examines the evolution and organization of the Macedonian army, which served as the foundation for Alexander the Great’s unparalleled military conquests. This chapter, titled "The Macedonian Army," delves into the transformative reforms instituted by Alexander’s father, King Philip II of Macedon, and contrasts them with the Greek military traditions that preceded his reign. Fuller’s analysis highlights how Philip’s innovations created a professional, disciplined, and versatile fighting force that Alexander later wielded with extraordinary skill. The chapter is divided into two subchapters: "Greek Warfare before Philip" and "Philip’s New Model Army." Together, these sections provide a comprehensive understanding of the military context and innovations that enabled Macedon’s rise to dominance.
Fuller’s narrative is both scholarly and engaging, blending historical detail with strategic insight. He emphasizes the revolutionary nature of Philip’s military reforms, which not only reshaped Macedonian warfare but also set a new standard for armies across the ancient world. By exploring the limitations of earlier Greek warfare and the ingenuity of Philip’s system, Fuller sets the stage for understanding Alexander’s ability to execute complex campaigns against formidable adversaries like the Persian Empire. The chapter is essential for readers seeking to grasp the structural and tactical underpinnings of Alexander’s success, as it underscores the critical role of the Macedonian army as an instrument of his generalship.
Subchapter: Greek Warfare before Philip
This subchapter provides a detailed overview of the military practices in Greece prior to Philip II’s reign, setting the context for his reforms. Fuller describes the traditional Greek approach to warfare, which was dominated by the hoplite phalanx—a formation of heavily armored infantrymen equipped with spears and shields. These citizen-soldiers, drawn from the city-states’ middle and upper classes, fought in tight, rectangular formations that relied on collective discipline and frontal assaults. The hoplite system, while effective in certain scenarios, had significant limitations. Battles were typically short, seasonal affairs, constrained by the agricultural calendar and the amateur status of the soldiers. Mobility, cavalry, and combined arms tactics were underdeveloped, as city-states prioritized infantry over other branches.
Fuller notes that Greek warfare was often ritualistic, with battles fought on flat terrain to maximize the phalanx’s strengths. Sieges and prolonged campaigns were rare, as city-states lacked the resources and logistical systems for sustained operations. The subchapter also highlights the political fragmentation of Greece, which hindered the development of unified military strategies. Rivalries between city-states like Athens and Sparta led to a lack of cooperation and innovation, leaving Greek armies vulnerable to more adaptable opponents. Fuller’s analysis underscores the stagnation of Greek military thought, which Philip would exploit and overhaul. This section serves as a critical backdrop, illustrating the challenges Philip faced and the revolutionary nature of his subsequent reforms.
Subchapter: Philip’s New Model Army
In this subchapter, Fuller explores the groundbreaking military reforms introduced by Philip II, which transformed Macedon into a military powerhouse. Philip, recognizing the weaknesses of traditional Greek warfare, created a professional standing army that combined discipline, versatility, and innovative tactics. Fuller details how Philip reorganized the Macedonian infantry into a new type of phalanx, armed with the sarissa—a long pike that gave his soldiers greater reach than the hoplite spear. This allowed the Macedonian phalanx to hold enemies at bay while other units maneuvered, creating a more dynamic battlefield presence.
Philip also developed a robust cavalry arm, particularly the elite Companion Cavalry, which became a decisive striking force. Unlike Greek armies, which marginalized cavalry, Philip integrated horsemen into his tactics, using them for flanking and pursuit. Fuller emphasizes the importance of combined arms in Philip’s system, where infantry, cavalry, and light troops (such as archers and slingers) worked in concert. This coordination required rigorous training and a professionalized army, which Philip achieved by maintaining a year-round force rather than relying on seasonal levies.
The subchapter also covers Philip’s logistical and organizational innovations. He improved supply lines, enabling sustained campaigns, and introduced engineering units for sieges and fortifications. Full
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Generalship of Alexander the Great by J. F. C.
Fuller two. The Macedonian Army Greek warfare before Philip Alexander
inherited from his father the most perfectly organized, trained and
equipped army of classical times. It was Philip's masterpiece, and
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the genius he displayed in its creation can best be
measured by contrasting it with the slow and haphazard progress
in military organization before his day. In the heroic period
of Greek warfare, the nobles were the warriors. They drove
on to the battlefield in their chariots, dismounted, and engaged
each other in hand to hand combat, while their ill
armed retainers stood apart and cheered them on. Battles were
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little more than displays of personal valor. This mode of
fighting demanded an agile fighter, lightly armed and armored. For
his protection, the warrior relied mainly on a round shield,
provided with a single hand grip in its center. To
It was attached to thong, which was fastened round the
warrior's neck, so that should he have to retire, he
could sling the shield round to protect his back. His
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offensive weapons were one or two light spears and a sword.
He frequently hurled the spears at his adversary, and should
they fail to bring him down, he engaged him with
the sword. The bow was looked upon as a cowardly
weapon and seldom used. Early in the seventh century, these
hand to hand encounters gave way to group fighting. Increasing
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prosperity and improvement in smelting, which cheapened armour, enabled more
and more commoners to arm themselves like nobles, with a
complete panoply, which consisted of a metal helmet, a breastplate, greaves,
thigh pieces, shield, spear and sword. This transformation, both leveling
and democratic, placed the wealthy commoner and the noble on
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equal footing on the battlefield. Both now became hop lights
heavy infantry spearmen who fought in rank instead of individually.
The spears ceased to be a missile and was used
for thrusting. The shield was enlarged and held on the
left fo forearm by an armband through which the arm
was thrust, and a grip on the rim was provided
for the hand. The neck thong was abandoned, obviously because
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in a line of men it would be fatal should
one or more try to retire with this increase in
the number of warriors, the city state army may be
said to have been born, and from then two factors
determined its tactics and organization, the city walls and the
field land surrounding them. Before siege engines were introduced, walled
cities were virtually impregnable to assault, and the normal means
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of reducing them were through starvation or treason. The former
meant blockade, and because the means of supplying the besieging
army were rudimentary, except in sieges of coastal cities, when
the besiegers could be supplied by ship, sieges were generally brief. Also,
until the advent of the mercenary soldier, betrayal through subversion
of the garrison was far more difficult, But the city's
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field lands were always attackable, and the most effective method
to force an enemy to abandon his walls and settle
then argument in the field was either to destroy his
crops and herds or to appropriate them. This meant that
warfare was restricted to the summer months, when crops grew
and cattle grazed. Because the winter months were free from war,
a standing army was not needed, and as soldiers were
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seldom more than militiamen required to fight on the level fields.
The simplest organization was that of the phalanx, a line
of spearmen marshaled in eight to ten ranks whose tactics
were restricted to push. Of Pike's phalanx met phalanks in
parallel order, and the victor, after he had set up
a trophy on the battlefield, either destroyed his enemies crops
and herds, or, what was more profitable, appropriated them, as
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long as the phalanx maintained its alignment, which it could
only do at a slow pace. Over level ground, it was,
as Polybius says, irresistible in face to face battles, but
over broken ground it rapidly lost its dressing and became disorganized.
To this limitation must be added its incapacity either to
change front to a flank rapidly or to maintain an
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orderly pursuit like a battering ram. It was designed for
a single purpose, to rupture its enemies front. Of all,
the city state Sparta was the best organized for war,
and there were two reasons for this. The first was
that she remained a monarchy under a dual kingship, and
was therefore less subject to civil discord than were the
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Hellenic democracies and oligarchies, and the second that by law
she was established on a holy military footing. As the
exiled Spartan king Demaratus explained to Xerxes, though my people
are freemen, he said, they are not in all respects free.
Law is the master whom they own. Whatever he commands,
they do, and his commandment is always the same. It
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forbids them to flee in battle, whatever the number of
their foes, and requires them to stand firm and either
conquer or die. Because the Spartans relied on the superiority
of their hoplights, Sparta was left unwalled until the second century.
The original inhabitants were reduced either to hell It serfs
or to Perioisi provincials, and though the latter maintained a
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partial independence, they were obliged to serve Sparta in war.
This meant that the highly trained Spartan army was supplemented
by a militia At the Battle of Plataea in four
seventy nine BC. The Spartan phalanx, five thousand hoplights, organized
in five territorial regiments, was supported by five thousand Perioisi
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before the advent of Philip Sparta was the only example
in Hellas of a nation in arms. Because the pace
of the phalanx could not be increased without loss of dressing,
and because maintenance of alignment was the essence of shock,
mobile operations were prohibited, and though this restriction could in
part be mitigated by combining cavalry and light armed troops
with the hoplights, for long these arms were sparingly used.
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The reasons for this were the traditional conservativism of armies
and the hoplights contempt for the light armed. Also, as
Aristotle points out, because only the wealthy citizens could afford
to keep a horse cavalry favored the establishment of oligarchies,
and in a lesser degree this held good for the
heavy armed, but that the light armed and the sailors
always contribute to support a democracy, and when the number
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of these is very great and a sedition arises, the
other parts of the community fight at a disadvantage. In
spite of these restrictions, small numbers of light cavalry and
light infantry were employed from early times as scouts and marauders.
At Marathon in four ninety b c. No Greek cavalry
took the field, and eleven years later in the Plotea campaign,
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the only cavalry on the Greek side was the Thessalian,
and it was completely outclassed by the Persian. For the
siege of Syracuse in four fifteen b c. Nisius, the
Athenian commander in chief, took with him no more than
thirty horses, but soon after, in order to protect his foragers,
he found the need of cavalry so great that he
sent back to Athens for an additional two hundred and
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fifty troopers and raised four hundred local cavalry in Sicily.
This lack of appreciation of cavalry is all the more
remarkable since a century earlier, one thousand, Thessalian cavalry had
stormed a Spartan bridgehead at Phalerum in an attempted invasion
of Attica. Within twenty years of the siege of Syracuse,
this situation was reversed when in three ninety four b C.
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A Jesilaus, king of Sparta, raised a very efficient body
of cavalry and with it defeated a body of Thessalian cavalry.
Xenophon writes that Agesilaeus was greatly delighted with his exploit
in having defeated with cavalry which he himself had formed
a people who prided themselves on their equestrian skill. When
after the Peloponnesian Wars, the mercenary soldier began to dominate warfare,
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the low cost of raising light armed mercenary troops caused
their steadily increasing use and efficiency. The Athenian mercenary general
Iphocrates four hundred fifteen to three hundred fifty three b C.
Was one of the first to grasp how formidable they
might be made. He raised a force of light infantry
modeled on the Thracian javelin men known as peltasts from
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the small round shields pelta they carried, and trained his
men in rapid, coordinated advances and retirements over every type
of ground, both for missile and hand to hand attack.
He lengthened by a half both the light Thracian javelin
and short sword, and introduced a species of leggings known
as iphocritides. In three hundred BC, with his light troops,
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he annihilated a body of six hundred Spartan hoplights near Corinth,
and from that day the trained peltast became an essential
auxiliary to the hoplight, especially in broken and mountainous country,
where they could reduplicate the functions of cavalry on the plains.
Little progress in siege craft was made until the fourth century,
and though city walls were largely or wholly built of
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sun baked bricks and wood, it remained rare for a
city to be taken by assault. Tunneling under a city
wall was at times resorted to, and mounds of earth
were raised from the summits, of which command of the
wall could be gained. Battering rams are mentioned by THEUSA,
also scaling ladders and fire throwing in fire resisting devices.
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He records that at the siege of Plataea in four
twenty nine BC, the Plataeans covered their walls with skins
and hides to protect their woodwork against burning missiles, and
that at the siege of Syracuse in four thirteen BC,
the Syracusans defended their walls by burning the Athenian rams
with liquid fire. In the same year, an ingenious engine
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was used by the Megarians in their siege of Delium.
They saw it in two and scooped out a great
beam from end to end and fitting it nicely together
again like a pipe hung by chains of cauldron at
one extremity, with which communicated an iron tube projecting from
the beam, which was itself a great part plated with iron.
This they brought up from a distance upon their carts
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to the part of the wall principally composed of vines
and timber, and when it was near, inserted huge bellows
into their end of the beam, and blue with them
the blast, passing closely confined into the cauldron, which was
filled with lighted coals. So and pitch made a great
blaze and set fire to the wall, which soon became
untenable for its defenders, who left it and fled. In
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this way the fort was taken. Another ingenious means was
adopted by Addissipolis, king of Sparta, in three eighty five
b c. At the siege of Mantinia. He dammed up
the river which flowed through the city, and caused its
water to rise above the foundations of the city wall,
which were built of sun baked brick. The bricks soon
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began to dissolve, and when the superstructure was about to collapse,
the Mantineans surrendered their city to him. The first real
advance in siege craft was made by Dionysius, Eye Tyrant
of Syracuse four hundred thirty to three hundred sixty seven
b C. In his wars with the Carthaginians, and notably
at the siege of Motia in three ninety eight b C.
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It was a fortress city built on a small island,
separated from the mainland by a narrow channel. Dionysius built
a mole across the channel, and at the island end
of the molarrects its six storied wooden towers moved on wheels.
He installed powerful battering rams on their ground floors and
arrow firing catapults in their stories. While the rams battered
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the enemy's wall from below, the catapults swept its summit
and he gained an entrance into the city. Next, he
wheeled his towers within the city walls, and, according to Diodorus,
from their top stories, he let down bridges on to
the houses. His men passed over these, broke through the roofs,
descended into the streets, and took the city by storm.
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The introduction of the movable siege tower and the catapult
radically changed siege warfare. The former was an old invention
dating back to the Assyrians in the ninth century, and
is depicted on bar leafs of the Palace of Ashernazir
Pal three, in which the battering ram is shown in
operation on the ground floor, while archers on the summit
of the tower clear the top of the enemy's wall
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with their arrows. It was known to Xenophon, who also
describes a field battering ram real or imaginary work from
a wooden tower mounted on a wagon with eight poles
and drawn by eight yoke of oxen Of this machine,
he writes, Cyrus felt that if he had a series
of such towers brought into the field at a fair pace,
they would be of immense service to him. The towers
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were built with galleries and parapets, and each of them
could carry twenty men. In idea, they were a species
of tank. It would appear that the torsion catapult was
invented by the Phoenicians. There were two types, varying mainly
in size, the light and the heavy. The former the catapeltes,
a machine that could pierce a shield pelta through arrows, javelins, pebbles,
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or small lead shot, and the latter the Petrobolos threw
stones up to fifty or sixty pounds in weight. The
motive power was provided by two tightly twisted skeins of
sinews or of human hair, and within eight pounds shot.
The maximum range of the lighter type was about four
hundred fifty yards. Later, in Hellenistic or Roman times, a
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more powerful stone, the ballista or onegger, a type of howitzer,
was invented. An excellent description of both the catapult and
ballista is given by Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman historian of
the fourth century a d. When the catapult was first
introduced into Greece is not known. In about three fifty
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b C. It is mentioned with other siege devices by
Eneas Tacticus, and in three forty one b C. Philip
of Macedon made use of arodischarging catapults, as well as
movable towers said by Diodorus to have been one hundred
and twenty feet high during his siege of Paranthus, the
development of individual arms inevitably raised the problem of how
best to combine them in an army of professional soldiers,
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although this problem was not fully solved until Philip reorganized
the Macedonian army. Two great foreigners set the pace for him.
They were the two tyrants, Dionysius, Eye of Syracuse, and
Jason of Ferry c. Three eighty three hundred seventy b c.
Dionysius raised an army of all arms, which is said
to have included eighty thousand infantry. Professor Barry writes of
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him in Military Innovations, he is the forerunner of the
great Macedonians, and the originator of the methods which they employed.
He first thought out and taught how the heterogeneous parts
of a military armament, the army and the navy, the
cavalry and the infantry, the heavy and the light troops,
might be closely and systematically coordinated, so as to act
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as if they were a single organized body. Or, as
Plutarch makes Ippocrates say, the light armed troops are like
the hands, the cavalry like the feet, the line of
men at arms itself like chest and breastplate, and the
general like the head. Jason of Fairy, who in disposition
and character closely resembled Philip, first appears in history in
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three eighty b c. Politamus of Farcellus says of him,
he is able to take advantage of the night as
well as of the day, and when he is hurried,
can attend to business while he takes his dinner or
supper rest he thinks he ought to take only when
he has arrived at the place to which he is going,
or has accomplished the object which he had in view,
and he has accustomed all about him to act like himself.
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Whatever he attempts, either by secret machinations or in anticipation
of the schemes of others, or by open force, he
is by no means likely to fail. This might equally
well be a description of Philip. When Jason made himself
Tagus of Thessaly, he had at his disposal twenty thousand hoplights,
eight thousand cavalry, six thousand mercenaries, and enough peltasts to
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fight the whole world. It was a highly paid and
well disciplined army, and it would appear that his intention
was to use it against Persia. After their victory over
the Spartans at Leuctra in three seventy one BC, because
the Spartans had decided to continue the war, the Thebans
appealed to Jason for aid. He set out at once
with one thousand, five hundred infantry in five hundred cavalry,
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and rushed through the territory of Phosis with such speed
that in many towns he was seen before news came there.
He was on the march, but as his intention apparently
was to make himself hegemen of all Greece and lead
the Greeks against the Persians, he patched up a truce
and the Spartans abandoned the campaign. In the ensuing year,
his intention was to visit Delphi, where he proposed to
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preside over the Pythian Games and presumably announce his war
on Persia, But before he could set out, he was
assassinated Philip's new model army. Since early times, the Macedonian
army had consisted of three forces. The king's retinue of
mounted nobles known as the Histyroi or companions, to which
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was added the royal Squadron, recruited from the lesser nobles,
whose duty it was to protect the king's person in battle,
A small foot guard of household troops called the Aegima,
who guarded him at all times other than in battle,
and the tribal levies of infantry recruited from the peasants
and mountain shepherds. The Companions, like the Thessalian cavalry, were
a well mounted force armed with cuirass and the short
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thrusting spear system for close combat. The Agima was a
standing professional force, and the tribal levies were an untrained
rabble armed with sword or spear and a wicker shield.
When in four twenty nine BC, the Thracians under Sidlesis
invaded Macedonia, Fusidide's rites that Perdicas too considered his levees
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of so little value that he never thought of meeting
him with his infantry, but that his cavalry were excellent horsemen, who,
wherever they charged, overthrew all before them. It was out
of these small beginnings that Philip created his army. But
before discussing how he did so, it is as well
to look at his problem in the whole. He was
a far sighted man who realized that the warfare of
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his day was increasingly becoming the business of specialists, and
because of the untrustworthiness of the mercenary, a more reliable
soldier was needed. He determined to combine the skill of
the mercenary with the loyalty of the city militiamen and
to convert his tribal levies into a professional army imbued
with a national spirit. Further, as his political aim was
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to expand his dominion over the whole of Greece, this
demanded that, unlike the city militias, his army had to
be a force of all arms. It must include heavy
cavalry and heavy infantry for close order field battles, light
cavalry and light infantry for protective and loose order operations,
and artillery and engineers for sieges. Because he already had
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at his disposal an efficient body of horsemen who had
proved their value in war, he decided to make his
cavalry his decisive arm that is, it would replace the
phalanx as the instrument of shock. While the phalanx he
intended to form would constitute the base of cavalry action.
Instead of assaulting normally, the phalanks would threaten to do so,
and through the terror its advance always instilled that would
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immobilize the enemy and morally prepare the way for the
decisive charge. Scouting, skirmishing covering the front and flanks of
the heavy striking force, as well as mountain warfare and
guerrilla operations were to be the tasks of the light
cavalry and light armed innasantry, and the artillery with its
ammunition train, was to form an integral part of the army.
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This army was to be a combined force of all arms,
ever ready to fight both in winter and summer, over
all types of country. When in his Third Philippic forty
eight to fifty one, Demosthenes compares the warfare Philip introduced
with the traditional method, he says, I consider that nothing
has been more revolutionized and improved than the art of war.
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For in the first place, I am informed that in
those days, the Lacedaemonians, like everyone else, would spend the
four or five months in the summer season in invading
and laying waste the enemy's territory with heavy infantry and
levies of citizens, and would retire home again. And they
were so old fashioned, or rather such good citizens, i e.
True to the spirit of a free constitutional state, that
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they never used money to buy an advantage from any one,
but their fighting was of the fair and open kind.
On the other hand, you hear of Philip marching unchecked,
not because he leaves of phalanks of heavy infantry, but
because he is accompanied by skirmishers, cavalry, archers, mercenaries, and
similar troops. When relying on this force, he attacks some
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people that is at variance with itself. And when, through
distrust no one goes forth to fight for his country,
then he brings up his artillery and lay siege. I
need hardly tell you that he makes no difference between
summer and winter, and has no season set apart for inaction.
As nothing is known of Philip's military reforms other than
their results, all we can do is to consider these results,
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and then, by an inverse process, arrive at the steps
he probably took to achieve them. He was a practical
man and did not invent a new army. Instead, he
converted what he had into two armies. He turned his
feudal cavalry and bodyguard into a royal army under his
personal command, and his levies into a territorial army. He
adopted this course not only because it was the simplest
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thing to do, but because the two armies would act
as a counterpoise to each other and together would event
too much power passing either into the hands of the
nobility or of the peasantry. A balance of power would
be established between the two main social divisions of his
people that would guarantee the reliability of the whole. The
Royal army consisted of two forces, the Royal Companion Cavalry
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and the Royal Hypaspists. The former Philip formed out of
the Royal Squadron of the Companions by expanding it to
eight squadrons or a lie each, all numbered from two
hundred to three hundred horsemen armed with the cistan, and
the whole was placed under the command of a cavalry leader.
In this expansion, the original squadron was not deprived of
its duty of protecting the kingyan battle, and remained his
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mounted bodyguard. It is sometimes referred to as the Aegima
of the Companions. The Royal Hypaspists or Hypaspists of the Companions,
frequently referred to by Aryan as the shield bearing Guard,
was a force of infantry. Philip formed out of his
original foot guards by increasing their strength to three battalions
each of one thousand men. Again, he did not deprive
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the original agima of its special duties, and this particular
battalion is generally referred to as the Agima of the Hypaspists. Thus,
the King's army consisted in all of eight squadrons of
companion cavalry, one of which was a squadron of Royal
horse Guards, and three battalions of Hypaspists, of which one
was a battalion of Royal foot Guards. How the Hypaspists
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were armed and equipped is not known. Sir William Tarn
is of opinion that they were heavy infantry, as heavily
armed as the Phalanx, and that their difference from Hoplights
was one of history, recruitment, and standing, not of armament.
Wilkin considers that they were light armed infantry whose battle
role was to hasten forward at quick march or the
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double and make connection between the cavalry and the Phalanx,
and growth suggests that they were hoplights, keeping regular array
and intended for close combat, but more lightly armed and
more fit for diversities of circumstance and position than the Phalanx.
They occupied a sort of interest immediate place between the
heavy infantry of the Phalanx properly so called and the
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peltasts and light troops, generally because Aryan records that Alexander
made use of them to follow up cavalry storm walled
places execute rapid night marches and other mobile operations. It
would seem probable that they were more lightly armed and
equipped than hoplights. The purpose of the Territorial Army was
to provide the Royal Army with a pivot of maneuver,
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a tactical base of action. As mentioned, its task was
to pin down the enemy's phalanx while the Royal Army assaulted.
Philip created it by transforming the old Macedonian tribal levies
into a standing force of six taxiis or battalions of hoplights,
known as pessiteroi foot companions and historically referred to as
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the phalanx. Each taxis consisted of one thousand, five hundred
and thirty six men and was divided into three pennacosa
kiys of five hundred and twelve men each, which in
their turn were subdivided into smaller units, down to the
file of sixteen men, which was the basic unit. Each
taxis had its own commander. There was no overall Phealanx commander,
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and the leader of each file was called the decadarts.
The two men immediately behind him were selected for their
courage and skill, and the rearmost man, also a picked soldier,
was the file closer. Asclepiodotus, a writer of the first
century BC, says that the file leader and file closer
were the most efficient soldiers in each file, and that
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this line of file leaders builds the phalanx together and
is like the cutting edge of the sword. The outstanding
difference between the Macedonian and Greek hoplights was that, while
the latter were armed with a nine foot spear held
in the right hand, Philip armed his hoplights with the sarisa,
a spear better called a pike of thirteen to fourteen
feet in length, held in both hands, with shields slung
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on the left shoulder. The lengthening by a half of
the hoplights main offensive weapon gave his phalanks a decisive
advantage over the traditional phalanx armed with the shorter weapon,
an advantage which in battle may be compared to a
fifty percent increase of range of the musket. Because in
a clinch between two phalanxes, the one armed with the
longer weapon could at the same time engage its enemy
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and keep out of effective range. It is strange that
this innovation had not been adopted before. A possible reason
is that the Greeks were loath to reduce the size
and weight of their large shield, which required the full
use of one arm. Besides the sarisa, the Macedonian hoplight
was armed with a short sword. He carried a light
circular shield, wore a breastplate, leggings and helmet, and at
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times the caujia, a broad brimmed hat. In addition to
possession of the sarisa, the superiority of Philip's territorial army
lay in that it was a standing force of men
recruited on a national footing, whose morale was in every
respect superior to that of the professional mercenary. Further, its
men were in constant training, and so true professional soldiers.
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Before the end of his reign, Philip also raised large
contingents of troops from his subject and out peoples. The
Thessalians furnished him with a body of some two thousand
heavy cavalry, armed like the companion cavalry and little inferior
to it. For his light cavalry, he recruited one thousand,
two hundred Thracian, Paeonian and Odrisian horse, as well as
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a body of Greek mercenary cavalry. The Thracian contingent included
a regiment of lancers known as sarisifori because they were
armed with the sarisa. These men usually operated like Cossacks
in battle. The light cavalry covered the flanks of the
phalanx and companion cavalry, sometimes their front and on the
line of march. Their task was to scout ahead and reconnoiter.
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All these auxiliary bodies of cavalry were like the Macedonian
divided into a lie and commanded by Macedonian officers of
auxiliary infantry. The League of Corinth placed at Philip's disposal
seven thousand Hoplights armed in a Greek fashion, and five
thousand Greek mercenaries part Hoplights, part Peltasts, and from the
(27:00):
rations Peonians, Illyrians, and other warlike tribes bordering Macedonia. Philip
raised some six thousand light armed infantry, the most noted
of whom were the Agrianians, a Paeonian tribe who were
superb javelin men. Besides these troops, he recruited two bodies
of archers, one Macedonian and the other Cretan. The latter
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were the most skilled bowmen of their day. Little is
known of his artillery, park and siege train. They were
probably modeled on those of Dionysius Eye, and when judged
from the use Alexander made of them, both were highly
organized and extremely efficient. The siege train consisted of towers,
rams penthouses, of which only the essential parts were carried
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in the field. The woodwork was constructed when needed. Even
in Alexander's most exacting marches, his field artillery accompanied him.
It must have been transported in sections on pack horses,
like modern mountain artillery. There is not much known of
Philip's system of command, staff and services, and it is
not possible to differentiate between what is attributable to him
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and what to his son. Both held a threefold command.
They were simultaneously commanders in chief of all their forces,
general officers in personal command of the Macedonian Royal Army,
and Generalissimos of the forces raised by the League. Parmenian
was second in command to both kings. To assist the king,
he had at his disposal of personal staff and also
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a small company of selected officers of high position, who,
to quote Sir William Tarn acted as an informal council
and formed his general reserve, both for special duties and
fulfilling all high offices, whether military or administrative, of Alexander's
technical services, most if not the whole of which must
be credited to Philip Sir William Wrights. Alexander had with
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him a number of Greek technicians, of whom too little
is known. He had a siege train with engineers for
constructing siege machines, the chief engineer being the Thessalian Jetta,
the man who took tire with Alexander. There were sappers
for siege works and making pontoons, water and mining engineers
and architects like Deinocrates, who laid out Alexandria. To this
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company belonged the historian Aristobulus, architect and geographer. There was
a surveying section, the bomadists, who collected information about routes
and camping grounds and recorded the distances marched. Their records,
which were checked by Alexander for long, formed the basis
of the geography of Asia. There was a baggage train
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as for commissariat. Supplies were collected in each district as
conquered and used for the next advance. The secretarial department
was under Eumenes of Cardia, who wrote the journal the
Daily official record of the expedition. Also there were physicians
such as Philip the Acarnanian who attended the king, naval
experts and scientists, and the official historian was Callistenes of
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olynthus a nephew of Aristotle. Because supply is the basis
of strategy and tactics, it is a exasperating that no
information is forthcoming on how the Macedonian army was supplied
in the field. To write off this question by stating
that it lived on the country it traversed is to burkett,
because even then supplies had to be collected. An army
of between thirty thousand and fifty thousand men without counting
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followers can seldom be adequately supplied by foraging. Without an
extensive and highly efficient supply train, it would have been
totally impossible for Alexander to have carried out as many
rapid marches, to have crossed the sparsely inhabited plains of Prudgia,
to have led his army over the Hindukush, to have
operated for months on end in the mountain fastness of
the northwest frontier of India, and to have traversed the
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deserts of Makran Further, he could never have maintained in
the field his large force of cavalry by grazing alone.
It was not that this problem went unrecognized, save by
military historians, who throughout history have paid little attention to it.
For Xenophon and his syrapedia, largely a textbook on generalship,
is fully aware of its own importance. He makes cambicies,
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say to his son Cyrus, soldiers, no less than servants
in a house are dependent on supplies, and pray, what
will be the use of tactics to an army without supplies?
Cyrus observes, I was forced to tell the truth and
admit that not a syllable had been mentioned on that
score by the teacher who had professed to instruct him
in generalship. Another organization peculiar to the Macedonian army was
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the corps of royal pages, recruited from the sons of
the leading Macedonian nobles. These youths were kept in permanent
residence around the king and were intrusted aryan rites with
the general attendants on the king's person and the protection
of his body while he was asleep. Whenever the king
rode out, some of them received the horses from the
grooms and brought them to him, and others assisted him
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to mount. They were also companions of the king in
the emulation of the chase. These youths also constituted a
pool of officers from which many of Alexander's commanders were selected.
It may be suspected that they were also a hostage
for the good behavior of their fathers when the king
campaigned away from Macedonia. Lastly, although Macedonia was not, like
(32:10):
Athens or Persia a maritime power, Philip raised a not
inconsiderable fleet of undecked galleys of light structure, of about
one hundred and twenty feet in length and twenty feet beam.
Their crews numbered about two hundred men a galley, and
they were propelled by a square rigged sail and by
a single row of oars on each side, with three
rowers to each ore. Larger vessels of a similar build
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but decked, known as quadririms and quinquerreams four and five
rowers to an oar and manned by Cypriots and Phoenicians,
were at this time to be found in the Persian service.
It is as well to mention here that the Galley,
part excellence the warship of the classical age, and for
long after, was a vessel of very limited powers. She
could not safely operate in rough weather, and therefore seldom
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sailed out of sight of land, and for fear of
sudden storms, was incapable of maintaining a close blockade. These
limitations should be borne in mind when we come to
the ineffective part played by the Persian fleet during the
invasion of Asia by Alexander
The Generalship of Alexander the Great by J. F. C.
Fuller two. The Macedonian Army Greek warfare before Philip Alexander
inherited from his father the most perfectly organized, trained and
equipped army of classical times. It was Philip's masterpiece, and
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the genius he displayed in its creation can best be
measured by contrasting it with the slow and haphazard progress
in military organization before his day. In the heroic period
of Greek warfare, the nobles were the warriors. They drove
on to the battlefield in their chariots, dismounted, and engaged
each other in hand to hand combat, while their ill
armed retainers stood apart and cheered them on. Battles were
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little more than displays of personal valor. This mode of
fighting demanded an agile fighter, lightly armed and armored. For
his protection, the warrior relied mainly on a round shield,
provided with a single hand grip in its center. To
It was attached to thong, which was fastened round the
warrior's neck, so that should he have to retire, he
could sling the shield round to protect his back. His
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offensive weapons were one or two light spears and a sword.
He frequently hurled the spears at his adversary, and should
they fail to bring him down, he engaged him with
the sword. The bow was looked upon as a cowardly
weapon and seldom used. Early in the seventh century, these
hand to hand encounters gave way to group fighting. Increasing
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prosperity and improvement in smelting, which cheapened armour, enabled more
and more commoners to arm themselves like nobles, with a
complete panoply, which consisted of a metal helmet, a breastplate, greaves,
thigh pieces, shield, spear and sword. This transformation, both leveling
and democratic, placed the wealthy commoner and the noble on
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equal footing on the battlefield. Both now became hop lights
heavy infantry spearmen who fought in rank instead of individually.
The spears ceased to be a missile and was used
for thrusting. The shield was enlarged and held on the
left fo forearm by an armband through which the arm
was thrust, and a grip on the rim was provided
for the hand. The neck thong was abandoned, obviously because
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in a line of men it would be fatal should
one or more try to retire with this increase in
the number of warriors, the city state army may be
said to have been born, and from then two factors
determined its tactics and organization, the city walls and the
field land surrounding them. Before siege engines were introduced, walled
cities were virtually impregnable to assault, and the normal means
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of reducing them were through starvation or treason. The former
meant blockade, and because the means of supplying the besieging
army were rudimentary, except in sieges of coastal cities, when
the besiegers could be supplied by ship, sieges were generally brief. Also,
until the advent of the mercenary soldier, betrayal through subversion
of the garrison was far more difficult, But the city's
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field lands were always attackable, and the most effective method
to force an enemy to abandon his walls and settle
then argument in the field was either to destroy his
crops and herds or to appropriate them. This meant that
warfare was restricted to the summer months, when crops grew
and cattle grazed. Because the winter months were free from war,
a standing army was not needed, and as soldiers were
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seldom more than militiamen required to fight on the level fields.
The simplest organization was that of the phalanx, a line
of spearmen marshaled in eight to ten ranks whose tactics
were restricted to push. Of Pike's phalanx met phalanks in
parallel order, and the victor, after he had set up
a trophy on the battlefield, either destroyed his enemies crops
and herds, or, what was more profitable, appropriated them, as
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long as the phalanx maintained its alignment, which it could
only do at a slow pace. Over level ground, it was,
as Polybius says, irresistible in face to face battles, but
over broken ground it rapidly lost its dressing and became disorganized.
To this limitation must be added its incapacity either to
change front to a flank rapidly or to maintain an
(04:01):
orderly pursuit like a battering ram. It was designed for
a single purpose, to rupture its enemies front. Of all,
the city state Sparta was the best organized for war,
and there were two reasons for this. The first was
that she remained a monarchy under a dual kingship, and
was therefore less subject to civil discord than were the
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Hellenic democracies and oligarchies, and the second that by law
she was established on a holy military footing. As the
exiled Spartan king Demaratus explained to Xerxes, though my people
are freemen, he said, they are not in all respects free.
Law is the master whom they own. Whatever he commands,
they do, and his commandment is always the same. It
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forbids them to flee in battle, whatever the number of
their foes, and requires them to stand firm and either
conquer or die. Because the Spartans relied on the superiority
of their hoplights, Sparta was left unwalled until the second century.
The original inhabitants were reduced either to hell It serfs
or to Perioisi provincials, and though the latter maintained a
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partial independence, they were obliged to serve Sparta in war.
This meant that the highly trained Spartan army was supplemented
by a militia At the Battle of Plataea in four
seventy nine BC. The Spartan phalanx, five thousand hoplights, organized
in five territorial regiments, was supported by five thousand Perioisi
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before the advent of Philip Sparta was the only example
in Hellas of a nation in arms. Because the pace
of the phalanx could not be increased without loss of dressing,
and because maintenance of alignment was the essence of shock,
mobile operations were prohibited, and though this restriction could in
part be mitigated by combining cavalry and light armed troops
with the hoplights, for long these arms were sparingly used.
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The reasons for this were the traditional conservativism of armies
and the hoplights contempt for the light armed. Also, as
Aristotle points out, because only the wealthy citizens could afford
to keep a horse cavalry favored the establishment of oligarchies,
and in a lesser degree this held good for the
heavy armed, but that the light armed and the sailors
always contribute to support a democracy, and when the number
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of these is very great and a sedition arises, the
other parts of the community fight at a disadvantage. In
spite of these restrictions, small numbers of light cavalry and
light infantry were employed from early times as scouts and marauders.
At Marathon in four ninety b c. No Greek cavalry
took the field, and eleven years later in the Plotea campaign,
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the only cavalry on the Greek side was the Thessalian,
and it was completely outclassed by the Persian. For the
siege of Syracuse in four fifteen b c. Nisius, the
Athenian commander in chief, took with him no more than
thirty horses, but soon after, in order to protect his foragers,
he found the need of cavalry so great that he
sent back to Athens for an additional two hundred and
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fifty troopers and raised four hundred local cavalry in Sicily.
This lack of appreciation of cavalry is all the more
remarkable since a century earlier, one thousand, Thessalian cavalry had
stormed a Spartan bridgehead at Phalerum in an attempted invasion
of Attica. Within twenty years of the siege of Syracuse,
this situation was reversed when in three ninety four b C.
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A Jesilaus, king of Sparta, raised a very efficient body
of cavalry and with it defeated a body of Thessalian cavalry.
Xenophon writes that Agesilaeus was greatly delighted with his exploit
in having defeated with cavalry which he himself had formed
a people who prided themselves on their equestrian skill. When
after the Peloponnesian Wars, the mercenary soldier began to dominate warfare,
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the low cost of raising light armed mercenary troops caused
their steadily increasing use and efficiency. The Athenian mercenary general
Iphocrates four hundred fifteen to three hundred fifty three b C.
Was one of the first to grasp how formidable they
might be made. He raised a force of light infantry
modeled on the Thracian javelin men known as peltasts from
(08:03):
the small round shields pelta they carried, and trained his
men in rapid, coordinated advances and retirements over every type
of ground, both for missile and hand to hand attack.
He lengthened by a half both the light Thracian javelin
and short sword, and introduced a species of leggings known
as iphocritides. In three hundred BC, with his light troops,
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he annihilated a body of six hundred Spartan hoplights near Corinth,
and from that day the trained peltast became an essential
auxiliary to the hoplight, especially in broken and mountainous country,
where they could reduplicate the functions of cavalry on the plains.
Little progress in siege craft was made until the fourth century,
and though city walls were largely or wholly built of
(08:44):
sun baked bricks and wood, it remained rare for a
city to be taken by assault. Tunneling under a city
wall was at times resorted to, and mounds of earth
were raised from the summits, of which command of the
wall could be gained. Battering rams are mentioned by THEUSA,
also scaling ladders and fire throwing in fire resisting devices.
(09:05):
He records that at the siege of Plataea in four
twenty nine BC, the Plataeans covered their walls with skins
and hides to protect their woodwork against burning missiles, and
that at the siege of Syracuse in four thirteen BC,
the Syracusans defended their walls by burning the Athenian rams
with liquid fire. In the same year, an ingenious engine
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was used by the Megarians in their siege of Delium.
They saw it in two and scooped out a great
beam from end to end and fitting it nicely together
again like a pipe hung by chains of cauldron at
one extremity, with which communicated an iron tube projecting from
the beam, which was itself a great part plated with iron.
This they brought up from a distance upon their carts
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to the part of the wall principally composed of vines
and timber, and when it was near, inserted huge bellows
into their end of the beam, and blue with them
the blast, passing closely confined into the cauldron, which was
filled with lighted coals. So and pitch made a great
blaze and set fire to the wall, which soon became
untenable for its defenders, who left it and fled. In
(10:07):
this way the fort was taken. Another ingenious means was
adopted by Addissipolis, king of Sparta, in three eighty five
b c. At the siege of Mantinia. He dammed up
the river which flowed through the city, and caused its
water to rise above the foundations of the city wall,
which were built of sun baked brick. The bricks soon
(10:28):
began to dissolve, and when the superstructure was about to collapse,
the Mantineans surrendered their city to him. The first real
advance in siege craft was made by Dionysius, Eye Tyrant
of Syracuse four hundred thirty to three hundred sixty seven
b C. In his wars with the Carthaginians, and notably
at the siege of Motia in three ninety eight b C.
(10:50):
It was a fortress city built on a small island,
separated from the mainland by a narrow channel. Dionysius built
a mole across the channel, and at the island end
of the molarrects its six storied wooden towers moved on wheels.
He installed powerful battering rams on their ground floors and
arrow firing catapults in their stories. While the rams battered
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the enemy's wall from below, the catapults swept its summit
and he gained an entrance into the city. Next, he
wheeled his towers within the city walls, and, according to Diodorus,
from their top stories, he let down bridges on to
the houses. His men passed over these, broke through the roofs,
descended into the streets, and took the city by storm.
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The introduction of the movable siege tower and the catapult
radically changed siege warfare. The former was an old invention
dating back to the Assyrians in the ninth century, and
is depicted on bar leafs of the Palace of Ashernazir
Pal three, in which the battering ram is shown in
operation on the ground floor, while archers on the summit
of the tower clear the top of the enemy's wall
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with their arrows. It was known to Xenophon, who also
describes a field battering ram real or imaginary work from
a wooden tower mounted on a wagon with eight poles
and drawn by eight yoke of oxen Of this machine,
he writes, Cyrus felt that if he had a series
of such towers brought into the field at a fair pace,
they would be of immense service to him. The towers
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were built with galleries and parapets, and each of them
could carry twenty men. In idea, they were a species
of tank. It would appear that the torsion catapult was
invented by the Phoenicians. There were two types, varying mainly
in size, the light and the heavy. The former the catapeltes,
a machine that could pierce a shield pelta through arrows, javelins, pebbles,
(12:37):
or small lead shot, and the latter the Petrobolos threw
stones up to fifty or sixty pounds in weight. The
motive power was provided by two tightly twisted skeins of
sinews or of human hair, and within eight pounds shot.
The maximum range of the lighter type was about four
hundred fifty yards. Later, in Hellenistic or Roman times, a
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more powerful stone, the ballista or onegger, a type of howitzer,
was invented. An excellent description of both the catapult and
ballista is given by Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman historian of
the fourth century a d. When the catapult was first
introduced into Greece is not known. In about three fifty
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b C. It is mentioned with other siege devices by
Eneas Tacticus, and in three forty one b C. Philip
of Macedon made use of arodischarging catapults, as well as
movable towers said by Diodorus to have been one hundred
and twenty feet high during his siege of Paranthus, the
development of individual arms inevitably raised the problem of how
best to combine them in an army of professional soldiers,
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although this problem was not fully solved until Philip reorganized
the Macedonian army. Two great foreigners set the pace for him.
They were the two tyrants, Dionysius, Eye of Syracuse, and
Jason of Ferry c. Three eighty three hundred seventy b c.
Dionysius raised an army of all arms, which is said
to have included eighty thousand infantry. Professor Barry writes of
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him in Military Innovations, he is the forerunner of the
great Macedonians, and the originator of the methods which they employed.
He first thought out and taught how the heterogeneous parts
of a military armament, the army and the navy, the
cavalry and the infantry, the heavy and the light troops,
might be closely and systematically coordinated, so as to act
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as if they were a single organized body. Or, as
Plutarch makes Ippocrates say, the light armed troops are like
the hands, the cavalry like the feet, the line of
men at arms itself like chest and breastplate, and the
general like the head. Jason of Fairy, who in disposition
and character closely resembled Philip, first appears in history in
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three eighty b c. Politamus of Farcellus says of him,
he is able to take advantage of the night as
well as of the day, and when he is hurried,
can attend to business while he takes his dinner or
supper rest he thinks he ought to take only when
he has arrived at the place to which he is going,
or has accomplished the object which he had in view,
and he has accustomed all about him to act like himself.
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Whatever he attempts, either by secret machinations or in anticipation
of the schemes of others, or by open force, he
is by no means likely to fail. This might equally
well be a description of Philip. When Jason made himself
Tagus of Thessaly, he had at his disposal twenty thousand hoplights,
eight thousand cavalry, six thousand mercenaries, and enough peltasts to
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fight the whole world. It was a highly paid and
well disciplined army, and it would appear that his intention
was to use it against Persia. After their victory over
the Spartans at Leuctra in three seventy one BC, because
the Spartans had decided to continue the war, the Thebans
appealed to Jason for aid. He set out at once
with one thousand, five hundred infantry in five hundred cavalry,
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and rushed through the territory of Phosis with such speed
that in many towns he was seen before news came there.
He was on the march, but as his intention apparently
was to make himself hegemen of all Greece and lead
the Greeks against the Persians, he patched up a truce
and the Spartans abandoned the campaign. In the ensuing year,
his intention was to visit Delphi, where he proposed to
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preside over the Pythian Games and presumably announce his war
on Persia, But before he could set out, he was
assassinated Philip's new model army. Since early times, the Macedonian
army had consisted of three forces. The king's retinue of
mounted nobles known as the Histyroi or companions, to which
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was added the royal Squadron, recruited from the lesser nobles,
whose duty it was to protect the king's person in battle,
A small foot guard of household troops called the Aegima,
who guarded him at all times other than in battle,
and the tribal levies of infantry recruited from the peasants
and mountain shepherds. The Companions, like the Thessalian cavalry, were
a well mounted force armed with cuirass and the short
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thrusting spear system for close combat. The Agima was a
standing professional force, and the tribal levies were an untrained
rabble armed with sword or spear and a wicker shield.
When in four twenty nine BC, the Thracians under Sidlesis
invaded Macedonia, Fusidide's rites that Perdicas too considered his levees
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of so little value that he never thought of meeting
him with his infantry, but that his cavalry were excellent horsemen, who,
wherever they charged, overthrew all before them. It was out
of these small beginnings that Philip created his army. But
before discussing how he did so, it is as well
to look at his problem in the whole. He was
a far sighted man who realized that the warfare of
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his day was increasingly becoming the business of specialists, and
because of the untrustworthiness of the mercenary, a more reliable
soldier was needed. He determined to combine the skill of
the mercenary with the loyalty of the city militiamen and
to convert his tribal levies into a professional army imbued
with a national spirit. Further, as his political aim was
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to expand his dominion over the whole of Greece, this
demanded that, unlike the city militias, his army had to
be a force of all arms. It must include heavy
cavalry and heavy infantry for close order field battles, light
cavalry and light infantry for protective and loose order operations,
and artillery and engineers for sieges. Because he already had
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at his disposal an efficient body of horsemen who had
proved their value in war, he decided to make his
cavalry his decisive arm that is, it would replace the
phalanx as the instrument of shock. While the phalanx he
intended to form would constitute the base of cavalry action.
Instead of assaulting normally, the phalanks would threaten to do so,
and through the terror its advance always instilled that would
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immobilize the enemy and morally prepare the way for the
decisive charge. Scouting, skirmishing covering the front and flanks of
the heavy striking force, as well as mountain warfare and
guerrilla operations were to be the tasks of the light
cavalry and light armed innasantry, and the artillery with its
ammunition train, was to form an integral part of the army.
(19:05):
This army was to be a combined force of all arms,
ever ready to fight both in winter and summer, over
all types of country. When in his Third Philippic forty
eight to fifty one, Demosthenes compares the warfare Philip introduced
with the traditional method, he says, I consider that nothing
has been more revolutionized and improved than the art of war.
(19:27):
For in the first place, I am informed that in
those days, the Lacedaemonians, like everyone else, would spend the
four or five months in the summer season in invading
and laying waste the enemy's territory with heavy infantry and
levies of citizens, and would retire home again. And they
were so old fashioned, or rather such good citizens, i e.
True to the spirit of a free constitutional state, that
(19:49):
they never used money to buy an advantage from any one,
but their fighting was of the fair and open kind.
On the other hand, you hear of Philip marching unchecked,
not because he leaves of phalanks of heavy infantry, but
because he is accompanied by skirmishers, cavalry, archers, mercenaries, and
similar troops. When relying on this force, he attacks some
(20:10):
people that is at variance with itself. And when, through
distrust no one goes forth to fight for his country,
then he brings up his artillery and lay siege. I
need hardly tell you that he makes no difference between
summer and winter, and has no season set apart for inaction.
As nothing is known of Philip's military reforms other than
their results, all we can do is to consider these results,
(20:32):
and then, by an inverse process, arrive at the steps
he probably took to achieve them. He was a practical
man and did not invent a new army. Instead, he
converted what he had into two armies. He turned his
feudal cavalry and bodyguard into a royal army under his
personal command, and his levies into a territorial army. He
adopted this course not only because it was the simplest
(20:55):
thing to do, but because the two armies would act
as a counterpoise to each other and together would event
too much power passing either into the hands of the
nobility or of the peasantry. A balance of power would
be established between the two main social divisions of his
people that would guarantee the reliability of the whole. The
Royal army consisted of two forces, the Royal Companion Cavalry
(21:17):
and the Royal Hypaspists. The former Philip formed out of
the Royal Squadron of the Companions by expanding it to
eight squadrons or a lie each, all numbered from two
hundred to three hundred horsemen armed with the cistan, and
the whole was placed under the command of a cavalry leader.
In this expansion, the original squadron was not deprived of
its duty of protecting the kingyan battle, and remained his
(21:38):
mounted bodyguard. It is sometimes referred to as the Aegima
of the Companions. The Royal Hypaspists or Hypaspists of the Companions,
frequently referred to by Aryan as the shield bearing Guard,
was a force of infantry. Philip formed out of his
original foot guards by increasing their strength to three battalions
each of one thousand men. Again, he did not deprive
(22:00):
the original agima of its special duties, and this particular
battalion is generally referred to as the Agima of the Hypaspists. Thus,
the King's army consisted in all of eight squadrons of
companion cavalry, one of which was a squadron of Royal
horse Guards, and three battalions of Hypaspists, of which one
was a battalion of Royal foot Guards. How the Hypaspists
(22:22):
were armed and equipped is not known. Sir William Tarn
is of opinion that they were heavy infantry, as heavily
armed as the Phalanx, and that their difference from Hoplights
was one of history, recruitment, and standing, not of armament.
Wilkin considers that they were light armed infantry whose battle
role was to hasten forward at quick march or the
(22:43):
double and make connection between the cavalry and the Phalanx,
and growth suggests that they were hoplights, keeping regular array
and intended for close combat, but more lightly armed and
more fit for diversities of circumstance and position than the Phalanx.
They occupied a sort of interest immediate place between the
heavy infantry of the Phalanx properly so called and the
(23:04):
peltasts and light troops, generally because Aryan records that Alexander
made use of them to follow up cavalry storm walled
places execute rapid night marches and other mobile operations. It
would seem probable that they were more lightly armed and
equipped than hoplights. The purpose of the Territorial Army was
to provide the Royal Army with a pivot of maneuver,
(23:25):
a tactical base of action. As mentioned, its task was
to pin down the enemy's phalanx while the Royal Army assaulted.
Philip created it by transforming the old Macedonian tribal levies
into a standing force of six taxiis or battalions of hoplights,
known as pessiteroi foot companions and historically referred to as
(23:46):
the phalanx. Each taxis consisted of one thousand, five hundred
and thirty six men and was divided into three pennacosa
kiys of five hundred and twelve men each, which in
their turn were subdivided into smaller units, down to the
file of sixteen men, which was the basic unit. Each
taxis had its own commander. There was no overall Phealanx commander,
(24:07):
and the leader of each file was called the decadarts.
The two men immediately behind him were selected for their
courage and skill, and the rearmost man, also a picked soldier,
was the file closer. Asclepiodotus, a writer of the first
century BC, says that the file leader and file closer
were the most efficient soldiers in each file, and that
(24:27):
this line of file leaders builds the phalanx together and
is like the cutting edge of the sword. The outstanding
difference between the Macedonian and Greek hoplights was that, while
the latter were armed with a nine foot spear held
in the right hand, Philip armed his hoplights with the sarisa,
a spear better called a pike of thirteen to fourteen
feet in length, held in both hands, with shields slung
(24:49):
on the left shoulder. The lengthening by a half of
the hoplights main offensive weapon gave his phalanks a decisive
advantage over the traditional phalanx armed with the shorter weapon,
an advantage which in battle may be compared to a
fifty percent increase of range of the musket. Because in
a clinch between two phalanxes, the one armed with the
longer weapon could at the same time engage its enemy
(25:10):
and keep out of effective range. It is strange that
this innovation had not been adopted before. A possible reason
is that the Greeks were loath to reduce the size
and weight of their large shield, which required the full
use of one arm. Besides the sarisa, the Macedonian hoplight
was armed with a short sword. He carried a light
circular shield, wore a breastplate, leggings and helmet, and at
(25:33):
times the caujia, a broad brimmed hat. In addition to
possession of the sarisa, the superiority of Philip's territorial army
lay in that it was a standing force of men
recruited on a national footing, whose morale was in every
respect superior to that of the professional mercenary. Further, its
men were in constant training, and so true professional soldiers.
(25:55):
Before the end of his reign, Philip also raised large
contingents of troops from his subject and out peoples. The
Thessalians furnished him with a body of some two thousand
heavy cavalry, armed like the companion cavalry and little inferior
to it. For his light cavalry, he recruited one thousand,
two hundred Thracian, Paeonian and Odrisian horse, as well as
(26:16):
a body of Greek mercenary cavalry. The Thracian contingent included
a regiment of lancers known as sarisifori because they were
armed with the sarisa. These men usually operated like Cossacks
in battle. The light cavalry covered the flanks of the
phalanx and companion cavalry, sometimes their front and on the
line of march. Their task was to scout ahead and reconnoiter.
(26:39):
All these auxiliary bodies of cavalry were like the Macedonian
divided into a lie and commanded by Macedonian officers of
auxiliary infantry. The League of Corinth placed at Philip's disposal
seven thousand Hoplights armed in a Greek fashion, and five
thousand Greek mercenaries part Hoplights, part Peltasts, and from the
(27:00):
rations Peonians, Illyrians, and other warlike tribes bordering Macedonia. Philip
raised some six thousand light armed infantry, the most noted
of whom were the Agrianians, a Paeonian tribe who were
superb javelin men. Besides these troops, he recruited two bodies
of archers, one Macedonian and the other Cretan. The latter
(27:20):
were the most skilled bowmen of their day. Little is
known of his artillery, park and siege train. They were
probably modeled on those of Dionysius Eye, and when judged
from the use Alexander made of them, both were highly
organized and extremely efficient. The siege train consisted of towers,
rams penthouses, of which only the essential parts were carried
(27:41):
in the field. The woodwork was constructed when needed. Even
in Alexander's most exacting marches, his field artillery accompanied him.
It must have been transported in sections on pack horses,
like modern mountain artillery. There is not much known of
Philip's system of command, staff and services, and it is
not possible to differentiate between what is attributable to him
(28:02):
and what to his son. Both held a threefold command.
They were simultaneously commanders in chief of all their forces,
general officers in personal command of the Macedonian Royal Army,
and Generalissimos of the forces raised by the League. Parmenian
was second in command to both kings. To assist the king,
he had at his disposal of personal staff and also
(28:25):
a small company of selected officers of high position, who,
to quote Sir William Tarn acted as an informal council
and formed his general reserve, both for special duties and
fulfilling all high offices, whether military or administrative, of Alexander's
technical services, most if not the whole of which must
be credited to Philip Sir William Wrights. Alexander had with
(28:48):
him a number of Greek technicians, of whom too little
is known. He had a siege train with engineers for
constructing siege machines, the chief engineer being the Thessalian Jetta,
the man who took tire with Alexander. There were sappers
for siege works and making pontoons, water and mining engineers
and architects like Deinocrates, who laid out Alexandria. To this
(29:10):
company belonged the historian Aristobulus, architect and geographer. There was
a surveying section, the bomadists, who collected information about routes
and camping grounds and recorded the distances marched. Their records,
which were checked by Alexander for long, formed the basis
of the geography of Asia. There was a baggage train
(29:31):
as for commissariat. Supplies were collected in each district as
conquered and used for the next advance. The secretarial department
was under Eumenes of Cardia, who wrote the journal the
Daily official record of the expedition. Also there were physicians
such as Philip the Acarnanian who attended the king, naval
experts and scientists, and the official historian was Callistenes of
(29:53):
olynthus a nephew of Aristotle. Because supply is the basis
of strategy and tactics, it is a exasperating that no
information is forthcoming on how the Macedonian army was supplied
in the field. To write off this question by stating
that it lived on the country it traversed is to burkett,
because even then supplies had to be collected. An army
of between thirty thousand and fifty thousand men without counting
(30:17):
followers can seldom be adequately supplied by foraging. Without an
extensive and highly efficient supply train, it would have been
totally impossible for Alexander to have carried out as many
rapid marches, to have crossed the sparsely inhabited plains of Prudgia,
to have led his army over the Hindukush, to have
operated for months on end in the mountain fastness of
the northwest frontier of India, and to have traversed the
(30:39):
deserts of Makran Further, he could never have maintained in
the field his large force of cavalry by grazing alone.
It was not that this problem went unrecognized, save by
military historians, who throughout history have paid little attention to it.
For Xenophon and his syrapedia, largely a textbook on generalship,
is fully aware of its own importance. He makes cambicies,
(31:02):
say to his son Cyrus, soldiers, no less than servants
in a house are dependent on supplies, and pray, what
will be the use of tactics to an army without supplies?
Cyrus observes, I was forced to tell the truth and
admit that not a syllable had been mentioned on that
score by the teacher who had professed to instruct him
in generalship. Another organization peculiar to the Macedonian army was
(31:26):
the corps of royal pages, recruited from the sons of
the leading Macedonian nobles. These youths were kept in permanent
residence around the king and were intrusted aryan rites with
the general attendants on the king's person and the protection
of his body while he was asleep. Whenever the king
rode out, some of them received the horses from the
grooms and brought them to him, and others assisted him
(31:48):
to mount. They were also companions of the king in
the emulation of the chase. These youths also constituted a
pool of officers from which many of Alexander's commanders were selected.
It may be suspected that they were also a hostage
for the good behavior of their fathers when the king
campaigned away from Macedonia. Lastly, although Macedonia was not, like
(32:10):
Athens or Persia a maritime power, Philip raised a not
inconsiderable fleet of undecked galleys of light structure, of about
one hundred and twenty feet in length and twenty feet beam.
Their crews numbered about two hundred men a galley, and
they were propelled by a square rigged sail and by
a single row of oars on each side, with three
rowers to each ore. Larger vessels of a similar build
(32:32):
but decked, known as quadririms and quinquerreams four and five
rowers to an oar and manned by Cypriots and Phoenicians,
were at this time to be found in the Persian service.
It is as well to mention here that the Galley,
part excellence the warship of the classical age, and for
long after, was a vessel of very limited powers. She
could not safely operate in rough weather, and therefore seldom
(32:55):
sailed out of sight of land, and for fear of
sudden storms, was incapable of maintaining a close blockade. These
limitations should be borne in mind when we come to
the ineffective part played by the Persian fleet during the
invasion of Asia by Alexander
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