Product Code Database
The Leukaspides () were a group in the Antigonid Macedonian army. Scholars suggest two main possibilities for what precisely they were. The first is that they were equipped in the style of the Macedonian phalanx and were a counterpart to the Chalkaspides ("Bronze Shields"), a group uncontroversially known to be sarissa-wielding hoplites with bronze shields (the pelta and aspis). In this possibility, they were probably only mustered when the Macedonians needed more manpower as a supplemental corps. The second possibility is that the Leukaspides referred to ethnically non-Macedonian troops hired as auxiliaries or mercenary who fought using thyreos shields, which were wooden, oval-shaped, and covered with hide or felt. Ancient sources refer to a "phalanx" of Leukaspides several times, but in the second possibility, it is assumed that the word "phalanx" is meant in the broad sense of any organized military troop, rather than the specific sense of Greek-style spear phalanxes. Auxiliaries (regardless of whether they were called "white shields" or not) probably fought using whatever their locally trained weaponry was—, slings, , and so on.
The Leukaspides are reported in ancient sources as troops used by King Antigonus Doson in his campaign against Cleomenes III of Sparta in the 220s BCE, and the white shields of the Leukaspides are mentioned as spoils of war after the Battle of Pydna in 168 BCE.
Interestingly, the historian Polybius makes no mention of leukaspides in his account of the Cleomenic War, although he does extensively list the composition of the Antigonid army: 10,000 chalkaspides, 3,000 , 300 cavalry, 1,000 Agrianes, 1,000 Gauls, 3,000 mercenary infantry, and 300 mercenary cavalry. Polybius also lists allies of the Antigonids in the Achaean League and other allied , Epirus, , and Illyria. Nicholas Victor Sekunda, who favors the historical stance that the leukaspides were non-Macedonian auxiliaries, argues that Plutarch's reference referred to the Greek states such as Sparta acknowledging the superiority of the Macedonian phalanx to their own systems, and believing that creating their own Macedonian-style phalanx would "offset" any non-phalanx auxiliary troops ("White Shields") with the superiority of the phalanx. Thus, to Sekunda, Plutarch meant the allied Achaeans, Boeotians, Acarnians, etc. with the reference to the "White Shields", not a separate section of the Macedonian regulars, since Polybius merely lists a single group of chalkaspides.
Regardless of what the "White Shields" referred to, them being a less prestigious supplement to the chalkaspides is implied by the parallelism between the leukaspides and armed . Helots were low-status slaves in Sparta, and arming them was probably presented to the Spartan elite as a measure done from the necessities of war by Cleomenes. Similarly, the leukaspides may have been less "trustworthy" troops in some fashion, whether marshaled from low-class citizenry or from non-Macedonians, and only mustered when necessary.
From this line, it sounds as if the Macedonians had roughly equal numbers of chalkaspides as leukaspides at Pydna, given that an equal number of bronze shields and white shields are recorded as loot.
The translator to English, Francis R. Walton, stuck a footnote on "embossed" that the Greek term really meant more like "rough", but thought that made no sense for shields made of bronze (even if painted white). Nicholas Victor Sekunda argues that "rough" was indeed the correct translation, and the white shields were hide-covered thyreos used by Thracians, which could indeed be rough. Plutarch writes that Thracians indeed used white shields at Pydna:
|
|
