How were the Hetairoi used (And other heavy cavalry)?

[Watchman]

Methinks "controlled stampede" is a bit of an oxymoron...

Not really, by what I know of it. After all most cavalry forces readily enough aborted the attempt if the infantry looked like they'd hold steady - or their horses did it for them. Doesn't quite sound like the single-minded "only way is forward" mentality stampeding herd beasts tend to go into AFAIK.

[mikil100]

Methinks "controlled stampede" is a bit of an oxymoron...

Not really, by what I know of it. After all most cavalry forces readily enough aborted the attempt if the infantry looked like they'd hold steady - or their horses did it for them. Doesn't quite sound like the single-minded "only way is forward" mentality stampeding herd beasts tend to go into AFAIK.

This would ESPECIALLY make sense for Alexander and the Hetairoi, as we know the spears from the phalanx were super important, not just to hold the enemy infantry in place, but think of this. You have two thousand Companions, and maybe even a host of several thousand light infantry, you are a light spearman, you have TWO choices and only two, run deeper into the spear wall, or go in Cavalrys direction. This would maybe cause a massive panic, causing MANY men to push their comrads into the wall of spears, impaling thousands, while the others get trampled by Cavalry. Pretty much what all my sources said, but they didn't specify in detail is much.


Does this seem correct, this little theory? =P

[Watchman]

What I've read of it seemed to rather suggest the Persian armies were wont to effectively disintegrate and go home once "decapitated", ie. the King was chased off. Which has always been pretty common with all manners of quasi-feudal arrangements really.

Anyway, from what I gather it was plenty rare for enemy infantry to actually get trapped between the pikemen and the triumphant Hetairoi strike force - the Greek mercs at Granicus would be around the only example that springs to mind, and that was mostly because they stood their ground after the Persian horse took a hike and basically allowed Alex all the time he needed to get them surrounded. Plus there were few enough of them proper envelopement was actually physically possible.

Conversely the Persian royal armies were sodding HUGE, which is of course exactly why Alex took the "decapitation" option to defeat them. Had the tried to take out the huge masses of infantry with direct attacks his horsemen would just have been swamped (before Philip's reforms this used to be a real problem for the Macs when dealing with Thracian incursions; their noble cavalry could charge the light barbarian infantry effectively enough, but in the absence of effective infantry of their own for support ran a very serious risk of flat out getting bogged down in and dragged down by the sheer numbers of the enemy). It duly follows that the Macedonian cavalry elements that had penetrated into the Persian rear (to try to kill the High King) in no way had the numbers required to trap the Persian frontline against the pikes, all the more so as they often had to fend off still-cohesive reserve formations on the side. When the Persian infantry line broke and legged it, they for the most part simply streamed around the Hetairoi wedges.

Not that the Macs' cavalry couldn't thereafter rake up a ghastly body count running down routers of course - light cavalry has always been particularly brutally effective at that - but that's hardly the same.

[The Persian Cataphract]

That is a slightly simplistic outlook, in particular as far as the battle of Granicus is concerned; the western satrapal forces were apparently in as far as the noble cavalry was concerned, caught up in a vicious melee where each satrap and high noble were taking turns at charging Alexander's cavalry. Needless to say, already at Granicus, Alexander's campaign could have ran short. The idea was iterated at Gaugamela where Bessus lead his heavy Sacae and Bactrian cavalry to charge the Hetairoi. As Alexander wheeled to charge the fresh gap in the Achaemenid formations, we don't really hear that much more about Bessus in that particular battle, and may in fact have staged a premature retreat.

The Macedonian cavalry did its work simply because their Iranian counter-parts failed in reciprocating sufficiently, and because of differing paradigms between the two belligerents. It could be a number of reasons. Different tactical means, or even the tides of fortune. However, it is disputed that Darius III Codomannus fled the fields at Gaugamela, even if a tactical retreat was staged at Issus to safeguard the possibility of reforming for the next battle.

[Watchman]

I've read quite a few writers suggest Bessus may have had certain fairly obvious ulterior motives for, shall we say, not quite "giving it his all" at Gaugamela. Ah, royal power games...