Ill] AND HISTORIC TIMES 303 



times anterior to Philip II (B.C. 359 — 336) the military force 

 of Macedonia seems to have consisted, like that of Thessaly, in 

 a well-armed and well-mounted cavalry, formed from the sub- 

 stantial proprietors of the country, and in vast numbers of 

 targeteers\ But until Philip formed his famous phalanx after 

 the model of the Theban system established by Epaminondas, 

 the Macedonian infantry was little more than a rabble of 

 shepherds and cultivators. Philip did not merely discipline 

 this raw material into the best infantry that the world had 

 yet seen, armed with the sarissa, a pike 21 feet in length, 

 but he paid equal attention to his cavalry, and it was to this 

 arm that he owed largely his superiority over the autonomous 



Fig. 87. Coin of Philip II of Macedon, showing a horse-soldier. 



States of Greece and the Illyrians and Thracians. When Philip 

 came to the throne he bestowed great care upon all that 

 appertained to horses and horse-racing. He sent both chariots 

 and ridden horses to compete at Olympia, and, according to 

 Plutarch^, he celebrated his victories in the chariot-race on his 

 coins (probably in the biga on the reverse of his gold staters), 

 and he commemorated his victory in the horse-race^ by placing 

 on his silver tetradrachms a representation of the winner ridden 

 by a naked boy — doubtless the jockey — bearing a palm or 

 crowning his horse (Fig. 86). The news of this victory reached 



1 Demosth. Philippic in. p. 123. 



- Alex. 4: ras ev 'OXvuttio. viKai rdv apfiarwu iyxcLpdrTui' roZs vo/j.La/J.aaii' ; 

 Alex. S: 7) 8' '0\viJ.Tria<Tw 'iirin^ K^XrjTi viVLKr)K€vai. Head, Hist. Numorum, p. 197. 

 3 Ibid. - 



