Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of ancient warfare answers.

I'm by myself again today. I'm Murray Dam. I'm the assistant editor of ancient warfare

magazine. But you of course can ask a question. I have some questions that I'll get to in just a

minute, which I'm looking forward to answering if I can in 10 minutes. But of course you can

ask a question too by backing us on Patreon.

We've got three different levels of backer, which are legionary Optio and Centurion.

You can even get a copy of the magazine digitally or in print if you go there.

But even if you don't back us on Patreon, which is Patreon forward slash ancient warfare podcast.

I think I've got that right.

Yes.

And then you can ask a question anyway.

But the question I have today is about the Silver Shields,

a unit in Alexander the Great's army.

And they were the Agi Raspedes silver shields.

Aspides being shields and Agri being silver. Now, the question is, did the silver shields lose their effectiveness as they grew old, which if you're listening

along, you'd be like, who were the silver shield? So I'll give you a bit of background to that.

And then we will answer the question, did they lose effectiveness as they grew older? Because

they did stay in the field for a very long time. Now, the interesting thing about them is that

they are hypaspists.

So they are a unit of 3,000 men who are generally stationed on the right of the phalanx by Alexander and Philip.

The problem we have is that we don't know whether they are armed as hot hotlights or whether they are armed as phalangites.

So the same as the 9,000 men of the Macedonian phalanx.

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