rbodleyscott wrote: ↑Fri Jan 04, 2019 1:28 pm
Yaitz331 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 04, 2019 12:54 pmJosephus mentions Jewish phalanxes in his description of the Battle of Beth Zecharia, taken from a non-Jewish source, Nicolaus of Damascus.
But to the ancient writers a phalanx did not mean a pike phalanx. Any heavy/medium infantry in battle array were called a phalanx.
As per Bar-Kochva, "At to the term 'phalanx', it had a variety of meanings... In the Hellenistic period, however, the term was confined to sarissa-equipped units."
The descriptions of the battles of Elasa and Azotus. At Elasa, on a gently sloping plain, a Jewish infantry force held back a large Seleucid infantry force for a long time before defeat, which came through a disastrous cavalry engagement on the flanks. It would have been impossible for light or even medium infantry to have held back heavy phalanx infantry for so long on flat terrain. At Azotus, it's even clearer, with the Jewish infantry forming an absorption formation to absorb the ambush of horse archers set by Apollonius; the only kind of infantry which could have simultaneously formed an absorption formation and prevented the Seleucid phalanxes from charging would have been phalangites. However, it's virtually certain that the Jewish phalangites were vastly inferior to the Seleucid ones, though capable of holding for a time; raw phalanxes capture that well, I think.
I think this is rather the tail wagging the dog, to say that they could stand up to pikes so they must have been pikes. In fact Zealots in the game will stand up to pikes quite well - maybe better than Raw pikes would.
It also presupposes that most of the Seleucid infantry were phalangites, whereas in backwater actions like these (from the Seleucid point of view), they may have been mostly thureophoroi, particular at Azotos where the Seleucid force largely consisted of city militia/garrisons.
If the Maccabeans had already fielded pike phalanxes, it seems unlikely that the later army (as represented in the "War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness") would so clearly consist mainly of thureophoroi.
We have included some pike phalanxes in the later army, but it is purely speculative and may never have happened.
Well, I did simplify the argument, forgetting that you're also a professional in this. Sorry for that.
In more depth, Elasa shows that they had heavy or semi-heavy infantry, and Azotus shows they had phalanx units; not primarily because they held back the enemy forces, but because they prevented them from taking advantage of a center weakened from horse archer fire.
Elasa and Beth Zecharia were both royal armies, consisting of the main Seleucid forces, with even the elite Royal Guard taking part at Beth Zecharia. Azotus wasn't royal, but again, the primary argument there is not the standing up to the infantry, but the combination of doing that while absorbing horse archer fire points to phalanxes.
The argument isn't that they consisted purely of phalanx units, it's that they had phalanx units in addition to their plain medium infantry, which is why a combination of Zealots and raw phalanxes would work well.
As for the War of the Sons of Light, I don't know. I'm taking this wholesale from the book I cited; this isn't my research. However, I assume the author has done his, since he's also written a generally well-received-by-professional-military-historians book on the Seleucid army. And he does bring up the War of the Sons of Light in his book in other contexts, so he definitely knows about it.
