Chalkaspides and Chrysaspides

[Ludens]

As to the Macedonian chalkaspides, I don't have Livy around (and you can't get the later books online as far as I know) so I can't check what the primary source says. If someone can post the passage from Livy (there's a description in Plutarch too I think, but the Livy one is probably more useful here) we can take a look.

I just received a link for the appropriate tekst (Livy, book 44). A translation can be found here. Unfortunatly, it doesn't say anything about either chalcaspides or leucaspides beyond mentioning their existence.

Out of curiosity: if the histories did not mention them, how did you reconstruct the reformed pezhetairoi?

[Krusader]

I just received a link for the appropriate tekst (Livy, book 44). A translation can be found here. Unfortunatly, it doesn't say anything about either chalcaspides or leucaspides beyond mentioning their existence.

Out of curiosity: if the histories did not mention them, how did you reconstruct the reformed pezhetairoi?

Absinth & Polybios

[helenos aiakides]

If in doubt, use Polybius

[Musopticon?]

And absinth...

[Thaatu]

And mustard.

[Musopticon?]

Turun?

[Zarax]

I think this thread exhausted it's purpose... Admins should clean or close it...

[abou]

I wanted to practice some necromancy on this thread because I have found the solution to our problem with the Chrysaspides and the Daphne Procession. Essentially, it arises from a translation of Polybios by a Classicist named Kaibel. The extant description of the procession has been considered by historians to be fairly corrupt and so there have been attempts to restore it. Kaibel, in his attempt to fix it, added in the Chrysaspides regiment; others such as Walbank have dismissed that addition. Hence the confusion. Bar-Kochva accepted Kaibel's version, which is why Chrysaspides are mentioned in his seminal work The Seleucid Army.

There are also two different interpretations of the size of the phalanx - the inclusive and exclusive. The former of which includes the named regiments of Chalkaspides and Argyraspides in the 20,000 Makedonians. The latter counts them outside of it. I prefer the exclusive version, but I am personally not sure whether I agree with the idea that the 5,000 "Romanized" infantry should be included with the Argyraspides or not. As it stands, I see it as this:

- 20,000 men in the phalanx (some of these may be regionals or military settlers temporarily drafted into the phalanx to swell their number for the parade)
- 5,000 Chalkaspides (possibly at least partially Antigonid refugees fleeing the Roman conquest of Makedonia after Pydna)
- 10,000 Argyraspides (8,000 phalangites and 2,000 Hypaspistai)
- 5,000 Thorakitai (just as we currently have in EB, but using Roman drill)

Sekunda does a lot of combing through the extant corpus of Greek and Latin work and "Golden-shield" only appears in reference to deities such as Athena or heroes. There has never been a Makedonian regiment known as Chrysaspides. Although it is possible that a unit did exist, any reference was in a now lost work.

[chairman]

I read on the forums here a while back that the chrysaspides were the invention of a classicist who was working for one of the Roman emperors (the one who recreated the phalanx [?]) while compiling a list of Greek terms for military units. Using the leukaspides, chalkaspides and agyraspides, he extrapolated a unit with golden shields to "fill the gap" and included it in his lexicon of high-brow Greek words and technical terms for use at dinner parties. The emperor liked it and named a unit of his phalanx after it. Or something like that. Don't blame me if I'm wrong, since I have also heard Abou's explanation before.

Just giving what I have read.

Chairman

[MeinPanzer]

I read on the forums here a while back that the chrysaspides were the invention of a classicist who was working for one of the Roman emperors (the one who recreated the phalanx [?]) while compiling a list of Greek terms for military units. Using the leukaspides, chalkaspides and agyraspides, he extrapolated a unit with golden shields to "fill the gap" and included it in his lexicon of high-brow Greek words and technical terms for use at dinner parties. The emperor liked it and named a unit of his phalanx after it. Or something like that. Don't blame me if I'm wrong, since I have also heard Abou's explanation before.

The actual reason is given by Bar-Kochva in his excellent book "Judas Maccabaeus." In an extensive footnote relating to this passage in Polybius (417 n. 21), he writes that "[based on evidence of corruption of the text]there must have been another unit characterized by a shield (or colour) different from the bronze and silver shields of the other two units mentioned. The only other type of shield in Antiochus Epiphanes' time reported in the sources and not mentioned in the procession is the shield of gold (I Macc. 6.39)." This passage from 1 Maccabees, however, has been shown to have links to earlier Biblical passages which rhetorically describe the arms and armour of warriors as shining like gold, and so the description is almost certainly not literal.

[pezhetairoi]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[abou]

Yeah... that was a collective moment of "Dammit!" when we realized the error. I think Tellos pointed it out.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Oh yes, I remember. There's been a couple of them moments, since I joined.

[Heir_of_Alexander]

I might be wrong and I do not have any sources but i have read somewhere that the Chalkaspidai were some type of elite Hypaspistai.
Sorry about the English :)

[Ludens]

Hello Heir of Alexander, welcome to the .Org and to EB.


If I recall correctly, Alexander created the first Argyraspides unit from the Hypaspists after the battle of the Hydaspes. Wikipedia back me up on this. As a general rule, though: if you want to discuss history you should bring a better source than Wikipedia. The latter is fine as a starting point, but especially on less well-known topics the articles sometimes represent the bias of one researcher.