Talk:Ancient Macedonian army

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This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

The page should be edited, along with most pages involved with the hellenistic period. The use of linothorax is a popular memetic mutation not based in archeology/history. Linen corslets are mentioned occasionally in period literature, however this was of twined or quilted construction which was the norm for all soft armor across the planet. Glued linen is completely unsupported and driven entirely by art students from Wisconsin-Green Bay that lacked any supporting textual, archeological, or aristic evidence. Not only does it quite literally delaminate in climates like Greece itself, there simply is no basis for its existence beyond hypotheticals by students which is wholly unrelated to historical study. The "Tube and Yoke" design found in artwork depicting stiff armor is probably comprised of spolas, ie leather/rawhide protection. Really there should be a purge of the linothorax "reconstruction" in general from the wikia, as it spreads misinformation of period warfare.

~W

This is an opinion, but it is far from universal within relevant scholarship (stretching far beyond Wisconsin). It does have supporting artistic evidence, which is mentioned in the text. Your opinion is extremist, as the article text includes reference to the possibility that 'soft armour' could be stitched, quilted or leather-faced. Urselius (talk) 12:31, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As i have appointed in the image "Macedonian Battle Formation" there is a problem because the hypaspists are called "heavy cavalry" when they was infantry.

-Fco

"but this would contradict statues and reports contemporary to phalangist troops that showed these soldiers wearing large and heavy shields over one arm; regardless"

The phalangites did not "hold onto" their shields directly in their left hard - the small heavy shield the phalangites used were strapped onto their left arm, leaving both their left and right hands free to wield the heavy sarissa pike. Intranetusa (talk) 02:40, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"It seems to appear that Alexander would organize his left flank into a thin line to make it appear weak, while a massive phalanx would be on the right." There is no evidence of Alexander varying the depth of his phalanx. Was is true is that his left was often the point of the hardest fighting--as in Issus, where the Persians focused the brunt of their cavalry assault.

"It is the belief of some that these pikes were so large and heavy ..." Weight had nothing to do with it. Length did.

"... that they had to be wielded with two hands in battle." It's not the "belief of some"; it is physically impossible to use a sarissa effectively with one hand.

"The phalangite training was sufficient to permit proper use of the shield and sarissa." Actually, it was the shield's sling, suspended around the wielder's neck and shoulder that kept the shield in place. Connolly also asserts that there was a forearm sleeve that helped keep it from moving and gave the phalangite better control--and a hand-grip that could be used when the spear was not in hand.

"The typical Macedonian phalanx was divided into groups of 800 phalangites, ..." According to whom? Very little is known about Phillip's phalanx, and even less about its sub-divisions.

"Before a battle the sarissa were carried in two pieces and then slid together when they were being used." Spoken as a fact... there is no evidence in the extant record of this happening.

I deleted the "short" from "short sword", as it was unecessary. The xiphos, machaira and falcata that would have been used by a phalangite are hardly smaller than the average swords of their contemporaries, and only mere inches shorter (if that) than the gladius they would be conquered by.

"So long as everyone was using the same tactics these weaknesses were not immediately apparent, but with the advent of the Roman legion they proved fatal in every major engagement, the most famous being the Battle of Pydna, as the Romans were able to advance through gaps in the line and easily defeat the Phalangites once in close." Deleted due to innaccuracy and lack of relevance.

1) Pyrrhus defeated the Romans twice. 2) The armies fielded by Flamininus and Paulus at Cynoscephalae and Pydna were largely non-Roman. The armies Pyrrhus defeated were actually much moreso, with fewer non-Roman troops. 3) Pydna was decided partially by the rough terrain Perseus' phalanx marched into, but the extant record (largely Plutarch and Livy) makes it clear that the deciding factor was the departure of the cavalry on the flanks. By the time the gaps were forming, Paulus' cavalry and elephants were already destroying the phalanx's flank.

Phoebus Americanos (talk) 15:19, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So I moved this article to Army of ancient Macedon yesterday....but should the "a" be capitalized? (I.e. move the page to Army of Ancient Macedon or Army of Ancient Macedonia?) Thanks in advance. the_ed17 14:57, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t quite understand the question. Can you please rephrase? Seleukosa (talk) 08:48, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I apoligize. I am referring the the a in "ancient"...I am wondering if it should be capitalized for the title of the article.....So instead of its current name, Army of ancient Macedon, I am wondering if it should be Army of Ancient Macedon (The "A" in Ancient now being capitalized)...any clearer? the_ed17 14:57, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This artical refers to Macedonia as a state or province of Greece. It is well documented that Macedonia was it's own sovereign nation with it's own language that is spoken today. I find this reference not only infactual, but also insulting. Please make the required changes so reflect the facts as it should be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.247.42.187 (talk) 08:51, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A) No it doesn't. B) This isn't an article about language - Ancient Macedonian is a dead language and the Ancient Macedonian upper classes spoke both Ancient Macedonian and Koine Greek - and it is recorded that they did so. And C) No!Urselius (talk) 12:52, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

However, since the article about the state is now at Macedonia (ancient kingdom), and Macedonian army redirects here, why don't we move this to Macedonian army (along the likes of Roman army, Byzantine army etc)? Constantine ✍ 13:03, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know? Certainly any additions to "Macedonian army" dilutes its searchability and not many people will be looking for the army of modern Macedonia (FYROM).Urselius (talk) 14:36, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There appear to be a lot of personal pronouns (we, I, etc.) in the article. Per Wikipedia:Pronoun#Tone we should not use first person narrative. I'm going to work on it a bit, but I'd appreciate if anyone else that notices it helps. C6541 (T↔C) 18:17, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The new heading image is so very dull!

Other possibilities:

Urselius (talk) 20:52, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just letting others known that I am massively expanding this article with materials taken from Macedonia (ancient kingdom). Per Wikipedia:Article size and Wikipedia:Summary style, I am trimming details from the main article and shifting it here, treating this article as a sibling or sub-article of the main one. I have cited three sources thus far: Sekunda (2010), Hammond and Walbank (2001), and Errington (1990), adding full reference info for them in the sources section. I have also removed a lot of non-sourced material in this article, since we shouldn't have a bunch of paragraphs without even a single citation. Thankfully the vast majority of statements I removed were simply replaced with similar statements that are actually sourced (see Wikipedia:Reliable sources for more information about how to properly cite sources). Raise any objections if you have them, but the material I have added is well-referenced and uses academic sources. Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:56, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I have some doubts about the image of a "Macedonian shield" being a shield as such. There is no scale, but it looks small, a full-size shield would just consist of the bronze facing, and any bronze fittings, as such it would be thin in comparison to its diameter and I would expect to see some evidence of plastic distortion or bending; there is none. The pattern of wear on the gilding suggests that it is a small votive offering in the shape of a shield. Still a useful image, but I would be happier with some caveats in the figure legend. Urselius (talk) 09:42, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have done some research and the Bonce shield, whilst certainly displaying the star, was excavated in many fragments and was badly distorted. The image must be of a much smaller bronze model of a shield, presumably votive or from a small-scale sculpture. I have therefore modified the caption. Urselius (talk) 12:12, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Urselius: Hello. You might be right about all of this, but it strikes me as violating Wikipedia:No original research. You are not allowed to introduce your own speculation and claims into the article. You are only allowed to cite journalistic or academic sources on the matter, via Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Do you have a source for your idea? If so please present it. Otherwise I'm afraid that citation needed tag I just added to your caption will have to stay. Regards Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:35, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@PericlesofAthens: Hi. There is at least one Vergina sun-bearing bronze model shield out there, but it is not identical to the one pictured. The photo is most definitely not the bronze shield discovered at Bonce; that was excavated in a number of pieces and was not intact when assembled. One of the larger pieces is shown here: [[1]]. We are reliant on the uploader of the image to have been accurate and reliable, which he or she obviously wasn't; therefore, the upload amounts to original research itself. I think that the image is essentially unsourced, or at least its source is demonstrably inaccurate, and unreliable. I suspect that it is too compromised to be included in the article. Urselius (talk) 15:56, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just found out that there were fragments of three shields found at Bonce, but all were incomplete. At least one will be reconstructed as far as is possible, none of the fragments looks like the photo. Urselius (talk) 16:10, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Urselius: hi again. Those are interesting if not convincing details and you seem to be right about this. Unfortunately I can't find any academic sources on the matter. My access to JSTOR and other scholastic databases is very limited and I've been unable to find anything of use at Google Books. That being said, the image we are discussing actually does claim a source. It says that it comes directly from a member serving at the National Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, and that the editor to consult on the matter is Blaze Ristovski. Mind you, sometimes academic sources can be wrong and that is why we have usually consult a variety of sources in order to see what the scholarly consensus is (see Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources#Academic consensus as well as Wikipedia:Notability (academics)). It is unfortunate that in this case we have a claim from one source but a lack of sources to support or oppose the claim. We seem to be at an impasse here, unless you can find an article or book that clears everything up. Feel free to remove the image for now if you think that it is too misleading, though. Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:20, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I have access to Juhel's Fragments de "Boucliers macédoniens" au nom du roi Démétrios... on the Bonce shield finds, and it describes 160 fragments from 3 shields inscribed with the name of King Demetrios (Demetrios Poliorcetes). None of the photographs in the paper is close to that of the image on Wikimedia. I think that a non-committal wording could be devised for the image, however. I will give it a go, see what you think. Urselius (talk) 19:00, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Seems fine to me for now, but if it can be deduced from Juhel's book that the image being used now isn't even the same piece of evidence from the archaeological dig, then that presents a serious problem. Perhaps there were other shields that have been found since the publication of Juhel's work? We'd need detailed information from very arcane scholarly sources on recent archaeology to clear this up. Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:07, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

On a different subject, I now have a copy of Markle (1982) Macedonian Arms and Tactics under Alexander the Great. I should be able to beef up citations, and perhaps text, on arms and armour, and especially tactics. Urselius (talk) 09:01, 10 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Urselius: cool! Good luck with that. If you have time, you should also consider beefing up the article Antigonid Macedonian army as well. I have shifted some material over there from the main article Macedonia (ancient kingdom), but it needs a lot of work. Thankfully it has some good images and a decent amount of citations already. Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:48, 10 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There have been a number of anonymous edits inserting "Greek" ethnicity into prominent places in the lead. This is pointless nationalistic tub-thumping. The historical importance of the Macedonians is that they created the Hellenistic world and spread Greek civilisation widely. This is not the importance of the Macedonian army, its importance is military and political. An exact parallel is the Roman army, because it allowed the spread of the Italic languages (Romance) and Roman civilisation, but no one is insisting on inserting "the Italic Roman state" into the articles on the Roman army. In short, the article makes it plain that the Macedonians were a semi-barbarous people on the outskirts of Greek civilisation. Anyone so interested can find out on Wikipedia that the Macedonians spoke a rustic Northern Greek dialect, which was looked down upon by metropolitan Greeks from the city-states. The Greeks themselves were not entirely sure of the Greekness of the Macedonians. The Macedonians were not automatically accredited as members of pan-Hellenic associations. For example Philip II sponsored contestants at the Olympic Games, not as a Macedonian, but because of his claimed descent from the royal line of Argos; he was, as a result, a "real Greek" by descent. Urselius (talk) 08:50, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's the same guy pushing his nationalist POV in all the articles related to Ancient Macedonia... T8612 (talk) 14:33, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the heads up. I guess that the IP address will eventually be blocked. Probably the recent "North Macedonia" name change debate has provoked it. Sad that some people from a country with such a long and distinguished cultural history feel so insecure. Urselius (talk) 15:09, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Far more unfortunate those that bizarrely claimed ancient Paeonia "Macedonia" evaded over the former Yugoslavians recent identity quick change into apparently antihellenic founders of the Hellenistic period. Also rather curious that those the claim Slavs "Macedonians" on some non-existent absolute right to recognition, don't follow their own alleged principles when it comes to the indisputable Hellenic self-determination of ancient Macedonians themselves. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.94.112.173 (talk) 01:41, 8 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

By your logic the English cannot call themselves British, because they do not speak a Brythonic Celtic language. This alone invalidates your argument. Urselius (talk) 11:01, 8 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The page is now semi-protected. T8612 (talk) 21:45, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Hypaspist.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 03:52, 2 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there's much in the Macedonian phalanx article that isn't covered here in Ancient Macedonian army.Unbh (talk) 05:54, 22 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - Though there is some overlap, it should not be forgotten that the Macedonian phalanx was not only used by the Macedonian army, but also the different Hellenistic armies across the ancient world. Instead of merging it into another article, the Macedonian phalanx article should be expanded with information on its later developments in the Hellenistic militaries. For instance, there is some debate on whether different regimes on the border of the Greek world (such as in Central Asia and India) adopted the Macedonian phalanx; these kinds of topics could not be discussed in the Ancient Macedonian army article. Applodion (talk) 08:26, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, as above, the Macedonian phalanx became the standard military model of the Hellenistic era and was not limited to Macedonia as a result. T8612 (talk) 07:23, 6 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, for the reasons already advanced. Urselius (talk) 07:36, 7 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As there's no support for this proposal, and the proposer has now been blocked as the sock of an editor banned in 2016(!), I have removed the proposed merge tags. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 08:07, 20 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's pretty clear that it shouldn't be hoplon, but I don't think there's a good case for using argive shield over aspis .The term used in most sources is aspis, even if that can also encompass other things. WP:OTHER not withstanding, the aspis page doesn't even call it the argive shield at any point, and does solely talk about the hoplite shield.Unbh (talk) 08:31, 22 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it should not be hoplon, recent scholarly clarification has shown what ancient usage was. This page can be better than the Wikipedia aspis page, the aspis page can also be improved in accuracy. If we are following ancient usage, as we appear to be over 'hoplon', then we need to use the ancient terms for the 'hoplite shield'. We know that ancient usage called it 'aspis', but we also know that ancient Greek usage employed this word for shields in general, it is not a specific term. The earliest inscriptional record for a shield maker is of a man from Argos. Pausanias and Dionysius refer to the hoplite shield as an 'Argive shield', this is therefore supported by ancient Greek sources and is more specific than 'aspis'. I would propose that both 'Argive shield' and 'aspis' should be mentioned in the text, but 'Argive shield' be given more prominence because of its greater specificity. The construct 'Argive aspis' might be used to advantage. See: Hoplites at War: A Comprehensive Analysis of Heavy Infantry Combat in the Greek World, 750-100 BCE, By Paul M. Bardunias, Fred Eugene Ray, Jr., 2016, McFarland. Urselius (talk) 09:12, 22 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have had a look at the aspis page, and it is a mess. It could not be used to support any argument, as it is so poor and lacking in citations. Urselius (talk) 09:21, 22 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously the aspis page needs a total do over. I don't think an 'argive aspis' is going to help anyone understand this better than 'argive shield'Unbh (talk) 10:31, 22 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The book I cited uses the construct 'Argive aspis', though it uses 'Argive shield' more, which is why I mentioned it. Urselius (talk) 13:46, 22 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]