The Macedonian Army Assembly in the Time of Alexander the Great

T HERE has been a tendency among modern scholars to see the Macedonian heavy infantry force which went to Asia with Alexander the Great as a politically and nationally conscious body with defined rights and a defined role in its relationships with the king. But a study of the ancient evidence reveals a degree of flexibility in the attitudes of Alexander and his men toward each other which would scarcely be possible in a rigidly defined political system. I shall argue in this paper that no theory, nor anything that can properly be called an ideology, influenced the relationship between the Macedonian king and the troops: it was essentially a simple relationship, governed solely by the personalities involved in, and the circumstances surrounding, any particular issue. I have divided the discussion into two parts. In the first part I consider the arguments used by scholars to prove the existence of a theoretical basis for the Macedonian state. In the second part I discuss the episodes which scholars have thought were influenced by the constitutional relationship between the Macedonian king and his menin-arms.