hypaspist

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ὑπασπιστής (hupaspistḗs, “shield bearer”), from ὑπό (hupó, “under”) + ἀσπίς (aspís, “shield”) + -τής (-tḗs, “suffix forming agent noun”).

Noun

hypaspist (plural hypaspists or hypaspistai)

1. (historical, military, Ancient Greece) A type of lightly armoured foot soldier equipped with an aspis (shield) and spear.
   • 1900, John Bagnell Bury, A History of Greece: To the Death of Alexander the Great, Cambridge University Press, page 777:

     Meanwhile Darius had loosed his scythed cars, to whirl destruction into the ranks of the Companions and the hypaspists. But the archers and the Agrian spear-throwers received them with showers of spears and arrows; some of these active hillsmen seized the reins of the horses and pulled the riders from their seats, while the hypaspists, swiftly and undismayed, opened their ranks, and the terrible chariots rattled harmless down the intervals.

   • 1988 [CUP], A. B. Bosworth, Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great, Cambridge University Press (Canto), 1993, page 259,

     The other major component of the Macedonian infantry was the corps of hypaspists. This force had evolved from the old bodyguard of the Macedonian kings and its nucleus, the agema, still acted as Alexander's guard when he fought on foot. The rest of the hypaspists were organised in chiliarchies (units of 1,000), perhaps three in number.

   • 2013, Michael Taylor, Antiochus the Great, Pen & Sword Books (Pen & Sword Military), unnumbered page,

     Perhaps fearful of blame in the event of failure, Lagoras asked that two of the King's favourites join the assault, Theodotus the Aetolian and Dionysius, the commander of the hypaspists, an elite subset of the Silver Shields.

Usage notes

• The role and status of hypaspists changed over time:
  • Initially, their role was that of shield bearer or squire.
  • By the time of the historian Herodotus (5thC BCE), they had become high-status soldiers.
  • Under Philip II of Macedon (4thC BCE), the hypaspists were considered an elite unit and were used to protect the flanks of the phalanx of phalangites, with their own flanks being protected by cavalry.
  • Under Alexander the Great (4thC BCE), a special unit of hypaspists, recruited from the nobility, became the infantry component of the agema (the king's personal bodyguard).
  • Among the Diadochi states of the Hellenistic period, hypaspists continued in name in the Seleucid, Ptolemaic and Antigonid armies, but with the roles of royal bodyguard and military administrator.
  • In Macedonia, the title went into disuse; however, in terms of status, equipment and role, the peltast became virtually identical to what the hypaspist had been under Philip.

See also

• hoplite
• peltast
• phalangite

Further reading

• Agema on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• 2015 November, Manousos Kambouros, The Hypaspist Corps: One Identity, Three Units, and Many Functions, Ancient Warfare, Issue IX.5.