Apple carrier

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The great king receives his court administrator for an audience. On the right are two apple carriers as life guards. The Apadana relief from Persepolis is also flanked by two apple carriers on its left edge, which is not visible here.
Two guardsmen of the apple bearers, depicted in the rock relief on the tomb of Artaxerxes III., Who was murdered by Bagoas.

The so-called Apple Carrier Guard was the guard corps of the great kings of the Old Persian Empire (Achaemenid Empire) . Among the Persians, this infantry unit was known under the simple name “lance bearer” ( old Persian: arštibara , ancient Greek: αἰχμοφόροι or δορυϕόροι), while the term “apple bearer” (μηλοϕόροι / mēlophóroi ) comes from the Greek historiography and from the gilded feet Lances worn by the guardsmen are derived, which had the shape of an apple (μηλο), in which case pomegranates are to be understood.

history

For the first time with reference to the nature of their lance feet, the apple bearers are mentioned in the histories of Herodotus , as part of the armed forces of the great king Xerxes I on the occasion of the invasion of Greece in 480 BC. However, the unit is likely to be of even older origin, because Cyrus II had already had a guard troop, in which Darius I later served as a lance-bearer to the great king Cambyses II during his campaign in Egypt. The corps had a strength of 1,000, recruited from the bravest sons of the Persian aristocratic caste. In peacetime it served as a bodyguard and palace guard and in war it surrounded the Great King on his chariot on the battlefield. Within the marching order, the apple-bearers marched in two formations of 500 men each in front of and behind the great king's chariot, with the formation marching in the front keeping the tips of their lances lowered to the ground. Contrary to the older doctrine, in more recent studies the apple bearers are no longer regarded as part of the 10,000-man army of the "immortals" , but as a separate unit, since the immortals as the regular standing army are primarily made up of warriors of simple origin from the ethnic groups of the Persians , Medes and Elamites were composed, while the guard corps was reserved solely for the Persian nobility. In this favor, the guards manifested the primacy of the Persian ruling caste over those of the peoples previously subjugated by the great kings. At the same time, the great king was able to bind the elite of his tribe to himself in a relationship of loyalty.

According to their manpower, the apple bearers were commanded by a "thousand shank leader " ( old Persian: hazarapatiš , ancient Greek: chiliarchos ), who was always chosen by the great kings from people of the closest personal trust due to the outstanding importance of this unit. Because of its prominent position in the army order, the command of the guard has undergone a change in meaning in the further course of history. In addition to their protective function for the great king, the thousands of leaders had increasingly been given tasks in the palace and state administration until their position corresponded to that of a vizier who, as the "second man in the state", could occasionally take over the reign of the empire. The Chiliarches Artabanos († 464 BC) and Bagoas († 336 BC), who were able to take control of the state through the murder of three great kings , gained particular fame . At the same time, the military duties of the Chiliarch, who under the last Achaemenids also had other troops, such as B. the cavalry in the battle of Issus (333 BC), could lead into the field.

The Persian Guard Corps only reappeared by name in the battle of Gaugamela (331 BC) against Alexander the Great , although its presence at Issus is likely. Also from Arrian and Diodorus the guardsmen there with her nickname "apple carrier" are referred to. After the lost battle, they fled to Persis together with the great king . It is not known what role they played in his murder, in which the Chiliarch Nabarzanes was involved. In the course of an orientalization of his administrative and army structures, Alexander had after the capture of Bessus in 329 BC. The apple-bearer guard was integrated into his army and the members of the highest Persian nobility were assigned to it, including Oxyathres , a brother of Darius III. The court office of the Chiliarchen has now been transferred to Hephaistion , although it remains unclear whether he also took over command of the apple bearers, since his military command until his death in 324 BC. Was a hipparchy of the Macedonian Hetairenreiterei . Arrian only reports that the apple bearers were integrated into the battalions (taxei) of the Macedonians, but even afterwards they formed their own unit. Ultimately, the command structure of the Guard under Alexander remains unclear.

When Alexander in the spring of 324 BC When he had released ten thousand of his Macedonian veterans in Opis , these were replaced by Persian warriors of the same number, and they were probably "immortals". The apple bearers are mentioned again as a separate part of the Alexandrian army . From then on, they supplemented the Macedonian guard (agēma) of the shield-bearers ( hypaspistes ) and formed the outermost ring around the throne in Alexander's large audience tent with 500 soldiers dressed in purple , apple-green or white robes. Marching alongside the Macedonian guardsmen, the apple bearers escorted in 321 BC. Alexander's funeral procession out of Babylon , which was then diverted to Egypt . This is also their last mention.

Well-known guard commanders (Chiliarches) were:

literature

  • AB Bosworth: Alexander and the Iranians. In: The Journal of Hellenic Studies. Vol. 100 (1980), pp. 1-21.
  • AW Collins: The Office of Chiliarch under Alexander and the Successors. In: Phoenix. Vol. 55 (2001), pp. 259-283.
  • Michael B. Charles: Immortals and Apple Bearers: Towards a better understanding of Achaemenid Infantry Units. In: The Classical Quarterly. Vol. 61 (2011), pp. 114-133.

Remarks

  1. ↑ In the middle of the 4th century BC Herakleides of Kyme ( Persika ) , who wrote in BC, first used the term "apple bearer" in his description of the Persian court organization ( The Fragments of the Greek Historians No. 689, F 1 = Athenaios 12, 514c).
  2. ↑ Herodotus , Historíai 7:41 .
  3. ↑ Xenophon , Kyrupädie 8, 5, 3; Herodotus, Historíai 3, 139.
  4. ↑ Herodotus, Historíai 7:40 , 2; 41, 1. Herodotus had assigned a man strength of 1,000 to both formations, describing only the unit that followed as having the “bravest and noblest blood of the Persians”. He had also described the lance feet of the front formation as "golden pomegranates", while those of the back formation only had "golden apples". This suggests that the unit marching in front must have represented a second guard troop. However, more recent historical research tends to recognize an oversight on the part of the author in correctly reproducing the strength numbers, since a second guard troop is not mentioned either by him or by later authors. See Charles (2011), pp. 121, 133.
  5. ↑ Even among the immortals, a thousand people had carried golden pomegranates and on the march they surrounded the 9,000 other immortals who carried silver pomegranates. In any case, this troop should not be confused with the Guard Corps. She represented only an elite, probably the most experienced veterans, among the immortals. Herodotus, Historíai 7, 41, 3.
  6. ↑ a b Cornelius Nepos , Konon 3, 2-3.
  7. ↑ Arrian , Anabasis 3, 13, 1; Diodorus 17, 59, 3.
  8. ↑ Arrian, Anabasis 3, 16, 1.
  9. ^ Curtius Rufus 7, 5, 40.
  10. ↑ Arrian, Anabasis 7, 29, 4.
  11. ↑ Diodorus 17, 110, 1.
  12. ↑ Phylarchos , The Fragments of the Greek Historians No. 81, F 41, 20 = Athenaios 12, 539e; Polyainos , Strategmata 4, 3, 24.
  13. ↑ Diodorus 18, 27, 1.
  14. ↑ Plutarch, Themistocles 27, 2.
  15. ↑ Ktesias von Knidos : Persika , in: The Fragments of the Greek Historians No. 688, Frag. 15, 48–49 [based on the edition by Dominique Lenfant ].