William Kackston, Forward to Sir Thomas Mallory’s Death of Arthur, on the Nine Men of Renown
The sum is of 21 books and over 500 chapters, beyond my ability to listen to and memorize this work, which was intended to be the capstone of a study of Arуan martial ethics. Alas, Alexander drags me back through the rent veil of Time to favor his brash aspirations above the fate of our race. Kackstan recount how that “in all places, Christian and heathen,” Arthur was “reputed to be one of the nine worthy.” After the simple cunning that God imparted me,” Kackstan has edited the work of Mallory, who had taken this account out of French, and to correspond with other accounts known in Welsh. That “no man” is held in high renown in his own country,
“After this short and transitory life,” the editor hopes that the holy trinity, who “dwells in heaven,” imparts bliss upon us on our passing. Knowing only the rough outline of the legend of Arthur Pendragon, and owning such a dearth of insight into the persons of the Agriane Brigade of the army of Alexander, one is tempted by the name, Arthur, related to Arktik, or land of the bear in Greek. Like the Agrianes of Paeonia, the knights of the round table, seem to represent a highland Welsh border folk. Hence, in looking for a model of the Agriane king, Longarus, one could do no worse than author. The scale of their realm and the population of warriors under them, were similar. The highland herding culture of each set them against neighboring grain societies. Additionally, each realm was close enough to the sea to be acquainted with piratical nations, but possessed of a hinterland in accessible by boat. Both were beset by more numerous tribal folk, Longarus the Illyrians, and Arthur the Saxons. Both kings perished according to treachery and both were revenged by committed warriors.
The Totemic Unit Structure
The civilized Greeks painted their shields with totemic animals. Their wild life had been reduced and their populations welled. While early illustrations and religious art depict the actual animal pelt or head being worn, the practicality of outfitting an entire tribe or nation with the pelt of the same animal, unless a small one like the fox or a domestic animal such as the fleece worn by many herdsmen, was prohibitive in Europe of this age. African warriors, sparsely populating vast ranges were known to wear the same animal pelt in their thousands. The cults of the wolf held esoteric power for warriors across Europe from the earliest time. The fact that the Agrianes had a king, means that they constituted an aggregate of tribes or clans. Consider that small Elis was made of three tribes, that Athens was constituted of either 10 or 12 tribes, and Thebes probably seven, as it was storied to have been built with seven gates. Since we know nothing of the Agrianes, they were mountain folk, and had levels of loyalty unusual in a tribal society, I am going to suppose that this was a clannish folk.
In Native American clan based warrior societies, each clan had a specialty. Since seven is a sacred number, which was so in Europe since Neanderthal times, I will select seven clans and assign them function. This is pure guess work. But, the assumption that they were a mono-culture brigade or a heterogeneous mob, woud both be unlikely. I am inspired by notes from Tacitus that various mixed race “Germanic” folk 400 after Alexander included a tribe with a name similar to the Agrianes and another, also from the Balkans who painted their shields black and only fought at night. I sight this because the Agrianes lead three successful nighttime engagements in Europe. No matter the time of day, they were each first.
The ursine, or bear, was they signature beast of Europe. The mountains of Paeonia, men of the highest reaches in the barbarian hinterlands of Eastern Europe, were known to hunt lions, leopards, wolves, auroch and bear. Such a tribal folk, the world round, tend to adopt the most respected beasts as clan or personal totems. Taking the lion as the royal animal, which was universal in Europe, one reasonably supposes that bear would take the second rank. In lower ranges, the boar might. Additional totem animals from the period and cultural zone were the eagle, well adapted to highlands cut with rivers, the ram, the stag, and the fox which provided the normal cap for the region.
The unit structure will be:
-Hand = 7 men, including a hero or rally man
-Band = 7 hands, or 49 men and a chief for 50
-Battle = 10 bands, or 500 men.
-Army = 3 battles: Home, War, Kings Guard
Alexander seems to have had between 500 and 1000 with a unit this side busy in Asia for the next 200 years! The Agrianes were to Alexander and his warring successors what the Gurkha Battalion has long been to the British Empire.
Of the seven totemic animals which seem most likely for shield devices, caps, attire and inspiration I suggest:
#1. Lion, for heroes, chiefs and the king, a man able to acquire such a pelt, as did Polydamas in about 404 in Thessaly, having proven his worth.
#2. Wolf, 2 bands to a battle, flank/reserve, blackened shield, darts, knives
#3. Bear, 1 band, center, hide shield, darts, spear, ax, [0] tasked with holding against barbarian foot as at the Psidrian heights [1]
#4. Bull, 1 band, center right, hide shield, javelin, spear, sword [aor], tasked with holding against horse and heavy foot as at the Granicus [1]
#5. Boar, 1 band, center left, hide shield, darts, reaper [xiphos] tasked with close assault and siege breaches, as at Thebes [1]
#6. Panther, 1 band, right flank, blackened shield, darts axes, [0] tasked with puling down shields on left flank of enemy line, night fighting, pursuit
#7. Fox, 1 band, left flank, painted shield, slings, daggers, tasked with attacking un-shielded right side of enemy line, scouting, screening.
This is, admittedly a wish list of. But, they never lost under Alexander and racked up the biggest body count in division down to battalion, level actions. This was the only allied unit to campaign on its own in 335 against the Aleartians. They were mentioned as having various equipment in Arrian, Book 1 and outfought their more numerous Illyrian and Tarlantian neighbors, by teaming with the archers and slaughtering thousands of the enemy in their sleep. This argues for a varied equipment set at the battalion level.
As intend to use Arthur as the model for Longarus, let us consider a quote by Clackston from the preface to Mallory’s Death of Arthur, for Longarus had told Phillip that he “held Alexander in particularly high regard,” which was regarded as an affront to the father:
“For it is notally known, through the universal world, that there be nine worthy, and the best that ever were, that is to wit three panims, three Jеws and three Christian men. As for the panims there weretofor the incarnation of Christ, which were named, the first, Hector of Troy, of who the history is common both in bard and in prose, the second Alexander the Great, and the third Julius Caesar, Emperor of Rome, whom the histories be well known and had.”
Note, that of the three pagan princes, Alexander was not identified with a nation or a station, simply according to his magnification. I would not impugn the other great men merely to make this point, so rejoin the editor of Arthur’s death yarn:
“And as for the three Jеws, which also weretofor the carnation of Our Lord, of whom the first was Duke Joshua, which brought the children of Isrаel into the Land of Behest, the second, David, King of Jerusalem, and the third, Judas Maccabias. Of these three, the bible reherseth all their noble histories and acts. And since the said incarnation, having been tree noble Christian men that are installed and admitted through the universal world into the umber of the nine best and worthy. Of whom was first the noble Arthur, whose noble acts I preface to write in this book here following, the second was Charlemagne or Charles the Great, of whom the history is had in many places both in French and in English, and the third and last was Godfrey [French title undecodable by this peasant from audio] whose acts and life I made a book unto the excellent King and Prince of noble memory, King Edward the Fourth…”
The nature of this attribution, a reminder that books—even pamphlets—were, until the late 1700s, typically sponsored by a wealthy and influential patron whose class must be upheld, to the diminishment of the unnamed soldiers that fought by their side, provides the prime mission of the Areid, a war story from Antiquity, accurate according to the Kingly/Scholarly record, and true to the men who provided what Arrian recognized as “the common tradition,” of the 13 year war that shattered the world. [3]
Notes
-1. From Arrian, Book 1
-2. Light, long hafted axes, most probably with a spike or half hook on back for pulling down shields and scaling palisades.
-3. It is obvious from the narrative texts and subtexts of Gilgamesh, The Iliad, The Odyssey, the Aeneid, The Song of Roland, Beowulf and the Death of Arthur, as well as the lives of poets such as Archilochos, Hesiod, Theognis and Simonides that a writer committing more than epitaphs must have a patron for his work to enter into enough volume to survive Fate’s wicked wiles.
