Chalkaspides and Chrysaspides

**pezhetairoi** · 06-24-2008, 01:29

It might be that they are just argyraspidai anyway, just that for the purposes of the procession and to 'fill the gap', Antiochos had some of the shield plated with gold. It was, after all, a parade. They're out to impress and dazzle.

Who and what are the leukaspides, though? What metal ranks lower than bronze?

**abou** · 06-24-2008, 01:54

Leukaspides = White-shields

I believe O'Etairos can tell you more, but in the Antigonid army they seem to have been what the Phalangitai Deuteroi are in EB1. There was also a unit of Leukaspides in the army of Taras when they were allied to Pyrrhos in his campaign against Rome, but these do not seem to have been levies.

**Decimus Attius Arbiter** · 06-24-2008, 02:18

This sounds like the beginning of handing out chevrons and medals of valor. Maybe they handed ceremonial shields to a guy who pulled a buddy to safety.

**pezhetairoi** · 06-24-2008, 06:59

I would have thought it was more about levels of personal fitness and combat proficiency. Hence the white shields are the lowest percentile, then bronze, silver and gold, or something, while usually in combat the gold and silver shields were actually the Silver Shields (with the capital S), a corps d'elite, or at least some sort of youth cadre.

This is just speculation, but hey, it's entirely possible the silver shields they were wearing weren't the silver shields the Argyraspidai wore, if you get what I mean. Like, the Daphne silver and gold shields (no capital S) were just ordinary shields plated for the occasion, carried by ordinary soldier, while the Raphia Silver Shields were the real deal maybe carrying the real silver shield that was a mark of their corps, who knows, maybe with the Seleukid anchor on it or something.

It's like, in the Singapore army half a year back, we were in the process of updating our webbing models, so at that time only the commandos and Guards units, the elite, had the latest-model webbing. But for the purposes of parades, even those of us in the service and support echelons selected to take part (I was a signaller) were also given the latest-model webbing for the duration of the parade as well as the locally made SAR 21 rifle usually reserved for combat vocations, instead of the M16 that the support units used. Parades are not for accurate reflection, it's to put up a damned good show to make the army look good (even if it isn't).

Indeed, isn't it suspicious that if the 10000 argyraspidai present at Daphne were divided into the chrysaspidai and argyraspidai, it would make neatly 5000 of each metallic shield? It's a bit too neat, for me, especially when, if the metals represented proficiency and 'eliteness', you would see a smaller number of each subsequently higher level of metal/rank.

Just my thoughts about this whole chrysaspidai thing.

**abou** · 06-24-2008, 18:19

Personally, I don't think the Chrysaspides ever existed. Although that doesn't mean it isn't possible, I don't agree with Kaibel's emendation to the text.

PS. Pez, you're declining the name wrong. The plural nominative ends with epsilon-sigma.

**Centurio Nixalsverdrus** · 06-24-2008, 18:55

Originally Posted by abou

PS. Pez, you're declining the name wrong. The plural nominative ends with epsilon-sigma.

That's just natural, given that most of us have their ridiculously little knowledge of the Greek language from EB. And at least till 0.81, it was all Argyraspidai, Chalkaspidai, etc.