![]() Foot soldiers were organized into heavy infantry phalanxes called phalangites. With the rise of Macedonia under Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great, the Greek military became professional, tactics became more sophisticated and additional levels of ranking developed. Following further specialization, the naval strategos was replaced by a nauarchos, a sea officer equating to an admiral. Specifically, the kybernètès was the helmsman, the keleustēs managed the rowing speed, and the trièraulès was the flute player who maintained the strike rate for the oarsmen. Moreover, as in modern navies, the different tasks associated with running a ship were delegated to different subordinates. Under them, each warship was commanded by a trièrarchos or trierarch, a word which originally meant " trireme officer" but persisted when other types of vessels came into use. Once Athens became a naval power, the top generals of the land armies had authority over the naval fleets as well. Heavily armed foot soldiers were called hoplitès or hoplites and a hoplomachos was a drill or weapons instructor. The rank and file of the military in most of the Greek city states was composed of ordinary citizens. A Greek cavalry company was led by a tetrarchès or tetrarch. The unit was split into two and led by two hipparchos or hipparch, but Spartan cavalry was led by a hipparmostes. Next was the lokhagos, an officer who led an infantry unit called a lokhos that consisted of roughly a hundred men, much the same as in a modern company led by a captain.Ī Greek cavalry ( hippikon) regiment was called a hipparchia and was commanded by an epihipparch. The rank was roughly equivalent to the legatus of a Roman legion. Below him was the tagmatarches, a commanding officer of a tagma (near to the modern battalion). Below this was the syntagmatarchis, which can be translated as "leader of a regiment" ( syntagma) and was therefore like a modern colonel. In Sparta, however, the title was polemarchos. The rank that was subordinate to a top general was a taxiarchos or taxiarhos, something akin to the modern brigadier. Particular assignments, however, might have been given to individual generals inevitably there was a regular division of responsibilities. The ten generals were equal to one another there was no hierarchy among them, however a basic form of democracy was in effect: For example, at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, the generals determined the battle plan by majority vote. Originally these generals worked together with the old polemarchos ("warlord") but over time the latter figure was absorbed into the generalship: each of the ten generals would rotate as polemarch for one day, and during this day his vote would serve as tie-breaker if necessary. Strategos literally means "strategist" which was considered the army leader and so it is usually translated as " general". 5.2 Military ranks and insignia of various nationsįrom 501 BC the Athenians annually elected ten individuals to the rank of strategos, one for each of the ten "tribes" that had been created with the founding of the democracy. ![]() 1.3 Turko-Mongol ranks (Ancestral Central Asian Tribes).
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