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This article is about the army of the Kingdom of Macedonia under the
Antigonid dynasty.
For the army of the Kingdom of Macedonia under Philip II and Alexander the
Great, see Ancient Macedonian army.
This army was active in 276-168, 150-148
The size varied - 18,600 (c. 222) - 25,500 (c. 197) - 43,000 (c. 172)
The major wars and battles: Chremonidean War Cleomenean War
Social War (220–217)
First Macedonian War
Cretan War
Second Macedonian War
Aetolian War
War against Nabis
Third Macedonian War
Fourth Macedonian War
The leading commanders:
Antigonus Gonatas
Antigonus Doson
Philip V of Macedon
Perseus of Macedon
Andriscus
The Antigonid Macedonian army was the army that evolved from the ancient Greek
kingdom of Macedonia in the period when it was ruled by the Antigonid dynasty
from 276 to 168. It was seen as one of the principal Hellenistic fighting
forces until its ultimate defeat at Roman hands at the Battle of Pydna in 168.
However, there was a brief resurgence in 150-148 during the revolt of
Andriscus, a supposed heir to Perseus. Starting as just a mere handful of
mercenary troops under Antigonus Gonatas in the 270s , the Antigonid army
eventually became the dominant force in Hellenistic Greece, fighting campaigns
against Epirus, the Achaean League, Sparta, Athens, Rhodes and Pergamon, not to
mention the numerous Thracian and Celtic tribes that threatened Macedon from
the north. The Antigonid army, as with the army of Philip II and Alexander the
Great that came before it, was based principally around the Macedonian phalanx,
which was a solid formation of men armed with small shields and long pikes
called sarissae. The majority of Macedonian troops serving in the army would
have made up the numbers of the phalanx, which took up to one-third to
two-thirds of the entire army on campaign. Alongside the phalanx, the Antigonid
army had its elite corps, the Peltasts, numerous Macedonian and allied cavalry
and always a considerable amount of allied and mercenary infantry and auxiliary
troops.
Background and sources:
The Macedonian army continued to evolve under the Antigonid dynasty. It is
uncertain how many men were appointed as somatophylakes bodyguards, which
numbered eight men at the end of Alexander the Great's reign, while the
hypaspistai seem to have morphed into assistants of the somatophylakes rather
than a separate unit in their own right. At the Battle of Cynoscephalae in 197
, the Macedonians commanded some 16,000 phalanx pikemen. Alexander the Great's
'royal squadron' of companion cavalry were similarly numbered to the 800
cavalrymen of the 'sacred squadron' commanded by Philip V of Macedon during the
Social War of 219 .
Due to the Roman historian Livy's accounts of the battles of Callinicus in 171
and Pydna in 168 , it is known that the Macedonian cavalry were also divided
into groups with similarly named officers as had existed in Alexander's day.
The regular Macedonian cavalry numbered 3,000 at Callinicus, which was separate
from the 'sacred squadron' and 'royal cavalry'. Thanks to contemporary
inscriptions from Amphipolis and Greia dated 218 and 181 respectively,
historians have been able to partially piece together the organization of the
Antigonid army under Philip V, such as its command by tetrarchai officers
assisted by grammateis (i.e. secretaries or clerks).
Antigonid army under Antigonus Gonatas:
When Antigonus Gonatas took over from his father, Demetrius I of Macedon, he
inherited little more than a few mercenary garrisons spread across Greece. But
using his mercenary forces, he was able to defeat an invading Celtic army at
Lysimachea in 277 . This gave Gonatas the Macedonian throne, which had been in
turmoil since the Galatian invasions of 279 . However, when Pyrrhus of Epirus
invaded Macedon in 274 , Antigonus' army suffered some minor defeats and
desertions before eventually defecting en masse to Pyrrhus. Once again Gonatas
was left with but a mere handful of followers and mercenaries. These forces
were of considerable aid to Sparta when Pyrrhus assaulted the city in 272 .
Pyrrhus was soon killed by a combined effort of the Spartans, the Argives and
Antigonus Gonatas. Having now recovered Macedon after the death of Pyrrhus,
Gonatas ruled until 239 . At this point, the Antigonid kingdom probably had no
standing army; the only permanent corps, besides the mercenaries, being the
'horse guards... and the foot guards, the agema'. The army was probably formed
by a levy of farmers called out when a serious campaign was expected. Almost
all overseas and garrison work was performed by mercenaries. Due to the
financial strains that plagued the kingdom, Gonatas primarily hired Galatian
and Celtic mercenaries, as they were much cheaper than Greeks. Antigonus
Gonatas ruled directly over the original Macedonian kingdom, however he put the
newly acquired territory under the control of a strategoi with military powers.
By the time of his death, Gonatas had cemented Antigonid dominance in Macedon;
however, in Greece itself, Macedon was weaker than it had been under Alexander
the Great. This would change with his successors though.
Antigonid army, 239–168 :
Demetrius II, father of the future Philip V of Macedon, only ruled for 10
years, but in his reign he fought many campaigns against the northern Thracian,
Celtic and Illyrian tribes as well as an Achaean-Aetolian alliance. However his
swift death left Antigonus Doson as regent for the young Philip. A resurgent
Sparta under Cleomenes III led to war in the Peloponnese and the Achaean League
under Aratus of Sicyon turned to Antigonus Doson for help. Doson campaigned
against Cleomenes in 224-22 . This culminated with the Battle of Sellasia in
222 , in which Cleomenes was defeated by an allied army, mainly anchored by a
Macedonian army of 13,300 Macedonians and 5,300 mercenaries. After the death of
Doson, Philip took the throne and almost immediately began to campaign. Wars
against the Aetolia, Sparta and Elis, as well as a Dardanian invasion kept
Philip busy in the years 220-217 and gave him a great deal of military
experience. Yet Philip's rule would be marked by war with Rome, which
culminated with a treaty with Carthage which led to the First Macedonian War.
The first war ended in a stalemate and the Peace of Phoinike, which allowed
Philip to keep his newly acquired land from his campaigns against the
Aetolians, Rome's ally. Between 205 and 201/200 Philip used the peace to
reorganize his army recruitment system and introduce new strict disciplinary
codes for the army. Peace did not last and an alliance with Antiochus III of
the Seleucid Empire, which allowed Philip to campaign in Asia Minor, led to an
alliance of Pergamon, Athens and Rhodes who appealed to Rome for help. By 199 ,
the Romans had inflicted some minor defeats on the Macedonians and had also
recruited the Aetolian and Achaean Leagues to their side. An army under Titus
Quinctius Flamininus was sent to Greece and campaigned against Philip V in 198
in the Aous Valley, which Philip defended by using carefully placed artillery
and missile troops, leading to many Roman casualties. Using a flanking
maneuver, Flaminius managed to dislodge Philip and chase him into Thessaly,
where in 197 the two sides met at the Battle of Cynoscephalae. Here, Philip was
decisively beaten, with 8,000 of his men killed and 5,000 taken prisoner, about
half of his entire army. The defeat left Philip with a weakened kingdom.
Consequently, the king set about a system of reforms and reorganized his
kingdom, especially in increasing his manpower base for future campaigns. He
encouraged large families and imported Thracians from districts he had recently
annexed into Macedon proper. Thus, in the autumn of 187 , Philip transported
segments of the populations of the coastal towns and cities to the northern
Paeonian frontier and then moved Thracians and so forth into the evacuated
districts of the towns. This 'Macedonised' the frontier and also made it easier
to defend. The Thracians moved to the cities and towns were people directly
responsible to Philip as king and also a useful force to watch over suspect
citizens. New mines were created, old ones were deepened and agricultural and
harbour duties were increased to increase the kingdom's revenue. Overall, these
social and economic moves strengthened the kingdom by Philip's death and the
accession of his son Perseus of Macedon. By the eve of the Third Macedonian
War, Perseus, thanks to his father, had enough grain to last the army 10 years
without drawing on harvests in or outside Macedon, enough money to hire 10,000
mercenaries for 10 years, a fully reconstituted army and "arms for three
such armies as Perseus possessed in his armouries". In fact, when Aemilius
Paullus, the Roman commander who defeated Perseus at Pydna in 168 , took the
Antigonid royal treasury, he found 6,000 talents left. The army fielded by
Perseus in the Third Macedonian war was 43,000 strong, 29,000 of them
Macedonians. Compare this to the army of Doson at Sellasia, which had 13,300
Macedonians, or the army of Philip at Cynoscephalae (18,000 Macedonian foot,
2,000 cavalry and 5,500 mercenaries). The years of peace and consolidation had
increased the national levy by 9,000 men. However, at the Battle of Pydna in
168 , Perseus was severely defeated, with the loss of 20-25,000 killed and
11,000 captured. After this defeat, the Antigonid kingdom was quickly
disbanded, with Perseus becoming a Roman prisoner and Macedonia being split up
into several autonomous republics.
Amphipolis military codes:
Sometime around the beginning of the second century , Philip V introduced a set
of new codes for discipline in his army - the Amphipolis codes. As an example,
these new measures included fines for missing equipment and weaponry: two obols
for not having the konos (helmet), 3 obols for missing a sarissa and a drachma
for missing the shield. We also know from this code that the ordinary
phalangite would have been equipped with a leather or linen jerkin known as a
linothorax and not a full metal cuirass, as the fines for missing cuirasses are
limited to officers only. They also dealt with the organization of encampments.
Hypaspists were to set up their tents "immediately after those of the king
and his immediate entourage".
Peltasts and the agema:
The most elite, veteran Antigonid-period Macedonian infantry from at least the
time of Antigonus III Doson were the peltasts, lighter and more maneuverable
soldiers wielding peltai javelins, swords, and a smaller bronze shield than
Macedonian phalanx pikemen, although they sometimes served in that capacity.
The premier guard infantry unit of the regular army, they are not to be
confused with the skirmisher troops of the same name, denoted by their shield,
the pelte. Among the peltasts, roughly 2,000 men were selected to serve in the
elite agema vanguard, with other peltasts numbering roughly 3,000. The amount
of peltasts varied over time, perhaps never more than 5,000 men (the largest
figure mentioned by ancient historians, an amount that existed in the Social
War of 219 ). They fought alongside the phalanx pikemen, divided now into
chalkaspides 'bronze shield' and leukaspides 'white shield' regiments, up until
the very end of the kingdom in 168 .
Malcolm Errington writes that by the time of Antigonus III, the peltastai
formed a separate unit from the Macedonian phalanx and "operated as a form
of royal guard similar in function to the earlier hypaspistai." According
to Walbank the peltast corps was "an infantry force... which fought beside
the phalanx in battle, but at other times employed for ambushes, forced marches
and special expeditions". Examples of their special actions would be their
ambush in Lyncestis and their use, as shock troops, in the storming of
Cephallenia. At Pydna, the corps fought as part of the phalanx, in which they
were butchered to the last man. The Peltast corps was probably 5,000 strong,
with an elite battalion of 2,000 called the agema. The corps was probably
organized into chiliarchiai and subdivided like those of the phalanx. As for
term Hypaspist, it still lived on in the army. However, instead of a combat
unit, it was a staff corps and bodyguard force for the king. For instance, a
Hypaspist was sent by Philip V to Larissa to burn state papers after the defeat
at Cynoscephalae.
Chalkaspides and Leukaspides:
Like Alexander's phalanx, the phalanx of the Antigonids was mainly based on men
"enrolled territorially from the Macedonian peasantry".
"Barbarians" settled in Macedon, like the Thracians and so forth,
were given land in return for serving in the phalanx. The phalanx under the
Antigonids made up a much higher proportion of the army than under Alexander.
At Sellasia, it was 34% of the army, at Cynoscephalae it was 62% and at Pydna
it was 49%. The Antigonid phalanx itself was probably divided into two separate
corps, the Chalkaspides ("bronze-shields") and Leukaspides
("white-shields"). Together, they were 10,000 strong in Antigonus
Doson's army at Sellasia in 222 , though the precise number for each corps is
unknown. The Chalkaspides were probably more prepared for prolonged combat
service than the Leukaspides as they are sometimes found on distant expeditions
without the other corps.
Cavalry:
The importance and proportion of cavalry in the Antigonid army was far less
than in Alexander's army. Whereas the proportion of cavalry to infantry in
Alexander's army was about 1:6, in the later Antigonid armys the proportion was
about 1:20. However, we must remember that Philip II had a similar proportion
of cavalry to infantry and the reasoning for the higher amounts of mounted
forces in Alexander's campaigns was due to the vast distance of territory
needed to be travelled, especially in Persia. In Alexander's campaigns, swift
advances and the ability to cover vast distances were the key to success. In
comparison, for the Antigonid commanders, the lack of any real enemy cavalry
and short distances meant cavalry were not needed as much and they reverted to
pitched heavy infantry battle. Antigonus Doson had only 300 Macedonian horse
with him at Sellasia in 222 , though by the reign of Philip V the amount of
cavalry had increased, with Philip fielding about 2,000 Macedonian and
Thessalian horse in 197 . A sizeable part of the Macedonian cavalry was
actually supplied by Thessaly, whose city-states continued to supply horse for
the Antigonid kings as they had for Alexander and his father. However, the use
of Thessalian cavalry decreased in 196 , when the Romans, triumphant after
Cynoscephalae, gave parts of Macedonian Thessaly to their allies, the
Aetolians.[46] Perseus, due to his father's extensive recruitment drive and a
period of 30 years of peace, was able to field 3,000 purely Macedonian cavalry
to serve with him in the Third Macedonian War. The core guard cavalry unit was
the small royal or 'sacred' squadron. This unit seems to have been between 300
and 400 strong, as Doson had that amount with him at Sellasia and Philip V had
400 'household' cavalry with him on his campaigns. Due to the general lack of
native horse, the Macedonians usually supplemented their cavalry with that of
allies and mercenaries. At Sellasia, alongsides Doson's 300, there were 600
allied and 300 mercenary cavalry. Meanwhile, at Pydna, Perseus had a 1,000
picked allied Thracian horse under Cotys, the king of the Odrysai. The infantry
phalanx depended heavily on the cavalry, which of course the Antigonids lacked
in numbers. The weakness and neglect of forces on the flanks, most importantly
cavalry forces, led to the exploitation of gaps in the phalanx at Cynoscephalae
and Pydna.
Navy:
Following the initiative of Philip II, Macedonian kings continued to expand and
equip the navy. Cassander maintained a small fleet at Pydna, Demetrius I of
Macedon had one at Pella, and Antigonus II Gonatas, while serving as a general
for Demetrius in Greece, used the navy to secure the Macedonian holdings in
Demetrias, Chalkis, Piraeus, and Corinth. The navy was considerably expanded
during the Chremonidean War (267–261 ), allowing the Macedonian navy to
defeat the Ptolemaic Egyptian Navy at the 255 Battle of Cos and 245 Battle of
Andros, and enabling Macedonian influence to spread over the Cyclades.
Antigonus III Doson used the Macedonian navy to invade Caria, while Philip V
allegedly sent two-hundred ships, some of them captured from the Ptolemies, to
fight in the (unsuccessful) Battle of Chios in 201 . The Macedonian navy was
reduced to a mere six vessels as agreed in the 197 peace treaty that concluded
the Second Macedonian War with the Roman Republic, although Perseus of Macedon
quickly assembled some lemboi at the outbreak of the Third Macedonian War in
171 .
The army of Andriscus:
In 149 , nearly 20 years after the defeat of Perseus at Pydna, Andriscus, a
mercenary and supposed heir to Perseus, went to Demetrius I of Syria for aid,
but was sent as a prisoner to Rome. He quickly made his escape and sought
refuge amongst the Thracian tribes to the north of Macedon. There, Andriscus
gained the support of the Thracian king Teres and was given a troop of 100 men,
with another 100 sent by other Thracian chieftains. Andriscus quickly defeated
the forces of the several autonomous Macedonian republics in battle beyond the
Strymon in the lands of the Odomanti tribe. The Thracian troops of Andriscus
would have primarily been Peltast skirmisher infantry and light cavalry.
Andriscus, having established himself as the new king of Macedon, under the
name Philip VI, decisively defeated a Roman army under Publius Juventius.
Having defeated the Romans, Andriscus invaded Thessaly in 148 , where he
suffered a setback in battle against the Achaean League, commanded by Scipio
Nasica. A Roman army under Quintus Caecilius Metellus then invaded Macedon and
defeated Andriscus at the Second Battle of Pydna. The defeat was probably
helped by the defection of Telestes, the general appointed by Andriscus to
command his cavalry. The Macedonian aristocratic cavalry joined Telestes, as
the richer classes supported the Romans more than they did Andriscus, and any
hope of success was dead.
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