Seleucid Argyraspides
Spearmen Infantry(0.6.7)Side / Back
Short description
These elite pikemen in silver coloured armament are fiercely loyal to the Seleucid king, and represent the best infantry the dynasty has at its disposal.
Description
"Under Theodotos the Aitolian, who had played the traitor to Ptolemy, was a force of ten thousand selected from every part of the kingdom and armed in the Macedonian manner, most of them with silver shields." (Polyb. 5.79.4)
The Argyraspides are the elite pikemen of the Seleucid Royal Guard, equipped with a small (45cm) pelte shield, a 21ft (6,4m) sarissa of the Antigonid variety, and – with the passing of time – heavier and heavier armour (from linothorax to breastplate to eventually chainmail). This unit represents the best infantry the Seleucids could field, and can be relied upon to hold the line at any cost.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The Seleucid Royal Guard was a regular army in active service, consisting of several elite units. Of these, none are more inherently tied to the dynasty in popular imagination than the silver shield pikemen. These have nothing to do with Alexander’s Royal Hypaspists veterans who were renamed to Silver Shields in the Indian campaign, and during the wars of the Diadochi so unceremoniously destroyed by Antigonos (Plut. Eumenes, 19.3).
Instead, they were men in their prime (20–30 years old), selected from military settlers across the colonies, to serve as guards in the centre of the Empire. They were a permanent Guard of 10,000 men – the offspring of the military settlers, who would not yet have inherited their father’s allotments and could be kept in military quarters far from their homes. The constant numerical strength suggests that that the soldiers served a limited term so as to allow for the admission of new recruits, or that perhaps incompetent soldiers, troublemakers, and those who inherited lands on their father's death were continually being replaced by young and promising recruits so as to maintain the total number at 10,000. After thus retiring to their settlements, the discharged Guardsmen were transferred to the reserve units of the phalangites.
The recruits to the Guard received their initial training in the military training school at Apameia (Syria). As well as having a permanent residence for the elite Seleucid units, this also produced a relationship of dependence and identification between the dynasty and its future soldiers. We clearly see this when Achaios’ army refused to march against Antiochos III ([…] he continued to advance and was nearly in Lykaonia when his troops mutinied, the cause of their dissatisfaction being that, as it now appeared, the expedition was against their original and natural king […]. Polyb. 5.57), or when Molon’s army demonstrates affection towards the king ([…] but the left wing, as soon as they closed and came in sight of the king, went over to the enemy, upon which Molon’s whole force lost heart, while the confidence of the king’s army was redoubled […]. Polyb. 5.54), which all suggests that they passed part of their military service in close contact with the court.
The Argyraspides are also mentioned as ‘peltasts’ by Polybios (who uses the same Antigonid terminology for the Ptolemaic infantry Agema) in his description of Antiochos III’s eastern campaigns (10.29–31 and 10.49.3).
The Argyraspides were often selected for missions that required rapid movement because of their greater military expertise and better physical condition. This would have enabled them to advance much faster than any other unit, even with the additional burden of heavier armour, which was itself of the best possible kind.