"The last macedonian phalanx." Topic

Hello everyone,

According to some the last Macedonian phalanx, that of the Antigonides was divided into probably equal "regiments", the Chalkaspides, "bronze shields", and Leukaspides" white shields".

Chalkaspides are sometimes found on distant on distant expeditions without leukaspides, so may have been reader for prolonged service, perhaps because they were recruited from the younger men.

According to others, the phalanx only included Chalkaspides, "bronze shields" and the Leukaspides, "white shields" were these Thracian mercenaries who are dressed in black tunics and are equipped with romphaias, white thureoi and greaves.

In your opinion the leukaspids were sarissaries or thurephoroi?

Good luck narrowing that down, but I doubt that they were thurephoroi. There were large numbers of pike in all of the Successor armies and references to white shields continued on for quite some time, even after the Antigonids.

You are referring to the account of the Battle of Pydna in the Life of Aemilius Paulus (chapter 18).

[3] First the Thracians advanced, whose appearance, Nasica says, was most terrible,—men of lofty stature, clad in tunics which showed black beneath the white and gleaming armour of their shields and greaves, and tossing high on their right shoulders battle-axes with heavy iron heads. Next to the Thracians, the mercenaries advanced to the attack; their equipment was of every variety, and Paeonians were mingled with them. Next to these came a third division, picked men, the flower of the Macedonians themselves for youthful strength and valour, gleaming with gilded armour and fresh scarlet coats.
[4] As these took their places in the line, they were illumined by the phalanx-lines of the Bronze-shields which issued from the camp behind them and filled the plain with the gleam of iron and the glitter of bronze, the hills, too, with the tumultuous shouts of their cheering. And with such boldness and swiftness did they advance that the first to be slain fell only two furlongs from the Roman camp.

The Macedonians had two corps of phalangites – bronze shields and white shields. They may also have had a guard unit called the Peltasts (the shield of the phalangites was a Pelte).

The Thracians are definitely a separate unit and not part of the phalanx.

The last recorded use of a Hellenistic phalanx was at the siege of Jerusalem (70 CE) when the client kingdom of Commagene supplied troops to Titus.

Kleomenes "armed two thousand of them in Macedonian fashion as an offset to the White Shields of Antigonus" Plut. Cleom. 23.1

which suggests the White shields were also 'in Macedonian fashion'

The prof. dr hab. Nicholas Sekunda who worked a lot for Osprey wouldn't be happy with you all…

I have never been convinced that Thracians and others with white thureoi would be described by a name implying that they carried as aspis.

One of the delights of ancient history is that the sources are often open to interpretation. Sekunda often interprets them in a novel way. Some of his conclusions are convince me more than some of his others.

I don't agree with the prof. dr hab. Nicholas Sekunda because I'm an vieux de la vieille…

One of the things I do like about some of Sekunda's books is that he presents the evidence on which he has based his ideas. The Ospreys tend to have less of this, but the Montvert books and also the longer 'Hellenistic Infantry Reform' book have more detail.

It's strange but he seems to be the only historian to have his theories.