[255] The Guard. The word agema properly means the leading corps in an army; but it obtained this technical meaning in the Macedonian army (see Arrian, 1, 1, 11), whence it was used in other armies also founded on the Macedonian model, as for instance in Alexandria (see infra, ch. 65).
[256] Hypaspists, originally a bodyguard to the king, had been extended in number and formed one or more distinct corps of light infantry (Grote, ch. 92).
[257] Here again, as in 5, [1], the outgoing Strategus appears to go out of office at the time of the election of his successor (see note on ch. [1], and cp. [4], [6]). There seems to have been some variety of practice. Perhaps the interval was left somewhat to mutual arrangement, the summer solstice being the outside limit.
[259] Archidamus was the brother of Agis, the king of the other line, who had been assassinated in B.C. 240. Plutarch, Cleom. 5, probably on the authority of Phylarchus, represents the murder of Archidamus as not the work of Cleomenes, but of the same party that had murdered Agis and feared the vengeance of his brother. (See Thirlwall, 8, p. 158, who agrees with Plutarch.)
[260] Homer, Il., 22, 304.
[261] The false Smerdis (Herod. 3, 61-82).
[262] Hence the sacred breed of Nisaean horses, used for the Persian king’s chariot (Herod 7, 40; 9, 20). The Nisaean plain was one of those in Media containing the best pasture, and is identified by Rawlinson with that of Khawar and Alistan near Behistun.
[263] ἕταιροι are cavalry; the πεζέταιροι of the Macedonian army are represented in Polybius by the Hypaspists. See supra, ch. [27], cp. 16, 18.
[264] That is, Demetrius II. and Antigonus Doson.