Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Transliteration of Hebrew
- Acknowledgements
- Prologue
- PART I HISTORICAL EVALUATION
- 1 Introduction: Deployment and tactics in field battles during the Hellenistic period
- 2 The number of combatants on each side
- 3 The armament and tactical composition of the Jewish army
- 4 The ethnic origin and fighting capability of the Seleucid phalanx
- 5 The Seleucid army and mountain warfare
- 6 The military achievements of the Jewish forces
- 7 The battlefields, tactics and leadership of Judas Maccabaeus
- PART II ACCOUNTS OF THE BATTLES: INTRODUCTION, TEXT AND COMMENTARY
- PART III APPENDICES
- EXCURSUS
- Plates
- Abbreviations
- References
- Indexe locorum
- General index
- Index of Greek terms
- Index of Hebrew words and phrases
4 - The ethnic origin and fighting capability of the Seleucid phalanx
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Transliteration of Hebrew
- Acknowledgements
- Prologue
- PART I HISTORICAL EVALUATION
- 1 Introduction: Deployment and tactics in field battles during the Hellenistic period
- 2 The number of combatants on each side
- 3 The armament and tactical composition of the Jewish army
- 4 The ethnic origin and fighting capability of the Seleucid phalanx
- 5 The Seleucid army and mountain warfare
- 6 The military achievements of the Jewish forces
- 7 The battlefields, tactics and leadership of Judas Maccabaeus
- PART II ACCOUNTS OF THE BATTLES: INTRODUCTION, TEXT AND COMMENTARY
- PART III APPENDICES
- EXCURSUS
- Plates
- Abbreviations
- References
- Indexe locorum
- General index
- Index of Greek terms
- Index of Hebrew words and phrases
Summary
Like the other Hellenistic armies, the Seleucid army on the battlefield was composed of phalangites, heavy cavalry, semi-heavy and light infantry, and at times also light cavalry and elephants. The backbone of the army, however, was the phalanx force of military settlers that was deployed in the centre of the battlefield and served as a sort of barbed and impenetrable porcupine which overran anything in its way as it advanced. It is rightly accepted that the eastern peoples had no proper answer to the massive power of the phalanx units, and that that deficiency enabled the Seleucids to control the complex variety of nations in the empire.
Polybius, the great historian of the period, consistently refers to the phalanx soldiers as ‘Macedonians’, and he does so even in his detailed description of the procession at Daphne in Judas Maccabaeus’ time (30.25.5). Many scholars, however, hold that in the course of time the Seleucid phalanx deteriorated from thè point of view of ethnic composition and operational ability. According to them, at the outset most of the military settlers making up the phalanx units were of Greco-Macedonian origin. But eventually they assimilated into the eastern environment through intermarriage with the local population, and when their offspring lost their military gifts, soldiers of indigenous Syrian origin joined the phalanx units (and perhaps also the settlements) and became a majority in them. The term ‘Macedonians’ applied to these units in the various sources thus denotes not national origin, but combat method, as it did in Ptolemaic Egypt.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Judas MaccabaeusThe Jewish Struggle Against the Seleucids, pp. 90 - 115Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989