What were the hellenic officers called? Romans had centurions and oppios, but what were the hellenic equivalents called?
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What were the hellenic officers called? Romans had centurions and oppios, but what were the hellenic equivalents called?
Here are the ones I can think of off-hand:
Strategos: general. In most democratic cities, a strategos is more or less equivalent to a Roman consul. In the Hellenistic kingdoms, he's just a general or a governor.
Lochagos: commander of a lochos. Which is more or less the equivalent (in size at least) of a modern company or a contemporary Roman maniple. Originally the Athenian lochoi (at the beginning of the democracy) were large divisions, one per tribe, and each commanded by a strategos; but the general meaning is that of a "company-sized" unit, such as you find in Xenophon's Anabasis.
Pentekonterarchos: Commander of (approximately) fifty men. More or less equivalent to a centurion. In the navies, this would probably be what you'd call the commander of a fifty-oared galley.
Enomotarchos: commander of a platoon-sized enomoty.
I think conflating Strategos and Consul is a bit tricky. The office you are probably thinking of is Polemarch or "War-Leader" but in a lot of democracies the highest civil official was the Archon or "ruler."
In general Hellenic and Hellenistic officers were titled according to the number of men they lead.
Each state has it's own names of officers (hardly suprising) they were most probably different in cavalry and light infantryQuote:
Originally Posted by Puupertti Ruma
In Antygonid Macedonia those are attested by inscriptions (for phalanx)*:
1.Strategos - commander of strategia (4000 men under full levy - country defence, around 2-3000 in normal conditions) in theory 16 speirai
2. Speirarches - commnder of speira (smallest tacticaly independent unit - 255 men + commader and additional non-combatant staff) 4 tetrarchiai
3. Tetrarches - commader of tetrarchia (63 + commander) 4 lochoi
4. Lochagos - commander of lochos (15 + commander) single file in normal battle order
Direct equivalent of roman optio is greek ouragos - file closer, one per lochos and additional one in speira
There is possibility of intermediate level (levels) of command between speira and strategia, but no titles survived.
Obviously those are "military" part - there were many administrative offices with it's own system of ranks.
*Obviously you can do a lot of guessing, using Alexander time officers and those from other armies (Selucid, Ptolemaic) but that leads to way too many conflicting titles.