What training did Alexanders soldiers receive?

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What training did Alexanders soldiers receive?

-- Anonymous, September 18, 2004

Answers

They had a lot of mock battles, Alexander gave prizes to the best fighters.

-- Anonymous, September 23, 2004

Such a simple question. You wouldn't believe how complicated the answer is.

First, Alexander's soldiers came in a huge assortment of flavours. Take a look at the answer I gave here. So, each kind of soldier got training for the different kinds of kobs they had to do.

The hoplites were the best trained. They were constantly drilled in how to act as a unit, in full armor, kind of like the way soldiers today are trainde to march all together, present arms, turn left or right or 'about face'. The calvary soldiers were trained to do similar things on horses. All the Greek soldiers participated in sports, too, to train their bodies.

But not all Alexander's soldiers were Greek. He kept recruiting new soldiers from the lands he conquered. Some of these soldiers were very well-trained, such as the King's Companions who were the crack troops of the Persian king. Others were just 'cannon fodder' with very little training before they were recruited.

Armies in Alexander's day were almost always a thrown-together mish- mash. The Greeks in general trained for war more rigorously than other people at the time, and the Macedonians trained the hardest of all of them. Alexander's army, thanks to his father Phillip, was the first really professional army in the world (that we know of).

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2004


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