A military unit.
*)agria=nes: ta/cis stratiwtikh/.
Same entry, according to Adler, in the
Ambrosian Lexicon.
The Paeonian Agrianes inhabited the headwaters of the R. Strymon, in present-day Bulgaria (
Herodotus,
Strabo, et al.; Barrington Atlas map 49 grid E1). The present gloss, however, highlights their military role: they were a small but nevertheless important light-infantry unit in the armies of Alexander and his successors; present at, for instance, the battles of Raphia and
Kynoskephalai. See Arrian,
Anabasis 1.5 and passim; also
Diodorus, Quintus Curtius
Rufus,
Polybius and Livy. Although originally from the Agriania, the term may have denoted a troop-
type in the armies of Antiochos III and Philip V.
'Taxis' is a term that could denote various sizes of unit. (In Alexander's invading army of 334 the Agrianes were perhaps 500 strong; see
Diodorus 17.17.4, where they and the 'archers' together number 1000. Further discussion in Bosworth [below] 263-264.)
A.B. Bosworth, Conquest and Empire: the reign of Alexander the Great (Cambridge 1988)
No. of records found: 1
Page 1