Macedonia was peopled by peasants and herdsmen, and up to Philip’s time they were an untrained mass, insufficiently armed, not able to contend with the armies of the rest of Greece. There was a landed aristocracy in Macedon, forming a special warrior class, who fought as cavalry. Using these elements and adding to them Greek mercenaries, King Philip had created a military force far superior to any that Greece had ever seen before. The Greek cavalry moved in loose formation, the horsemen wore armor, and as arms they had a shield, sword, and spear, the spear being used rather for throwing than for striking, as is the case with the modern lance, with the whole momentum of the moving mass, man and horse. The troops of the Macedonian cavalry, formed of the nobles of the land, were called the followers of the king, “Hetairoi.” They bore a shield and a spear for casting or thrusting, and a sword, and were always given a crucial position in an engagement. As contrasted with Greek cavalry generally, the Macedonians showed superior training and discipline; they moved together and behaved in a fight, not as individual warriors, but as tactical units, and were controlled in their movements by a single will. Such development of cavalry was unfamiliar to the Greek republics, which confined themselves to the technical training of the phalanx. The Macedonian foot were the special creation of Philip, and were named by him “the followers on foot.” They fought in the ordinary phalanx formation, but closer together than was usual, and used long spears, so that several lines were enabled at once to engage in actual hand-to-hand fighting. The spear was so constructed as to weight, thickness, and length that it could reach the opposing line and yet be firmly grasped. The ordinary spear was somewhat over six feet in length, but the Macedonian phalanx depended for its success not so much on man-to-man fighting as on the irresistible impact of the whole. When it was acting on the defensive, it was virtually impenetrable. Its disadvantage was in its lack of individual initiative; the soldiers were machines rather than fighting men. It was heavy in its movements and could be thrown into disorder more easily than the older Greek phalanx with its looser formation. The élite corps, the hypaspists, were more lightly armed than the men in the phalanx, and so moved more freely. In Alexander’s battles they were the connecting link between the cavalry and heavy mass of the phalanx, which advanced slowly forward. As managed by Alexander, these various arms seem to have worked admirably together, all sharing in the activity of a general offensive movement. It should be added that Alexander was also indebted to his father for much of the advance made in the art of besieging. He constantly used siege engines, and we have noticed how much he depended on their successful employment at Tyre and Halicarnassus.