Lochos
tactical subunit of the ancient and modern Greek armies
A lochos, plural lochoi (Ancient Greek: λόχος, romanized: lokhos; pl. λόχοι, lokhoi), is a tactical sub unit of Classical Greece and of the modern Greek army. The term derived from the ancient Greek for ambush and the men carrying out the ambush, but in practice, its meaning was essentially that of "war-band", a body of armed men. This translation has been used traditionally, e.g. for the Sacred Band of Thebes.
Size and organisation
Evolving as it did with ancient Greek warfare from that of tribal Greece to that of the Greek city-states, the lochos varied in size and organisation over time and from city state to city state, ranging in size from a single file to about 640 men. The best surviving description of the lochos is that by Xenophon in his Anabasis, however this must be taken as being illustrative of a particular time and place, that of 5th century BC Sparta, rather than being truly representative. Aelian and Arrian use the terms lochos as file and lochagos as file leader.
Lochos as file
A lochos comprised an inconsistent number of men that could range from 8 to 16 men. Asclepiodotus offers three alternative names, namely stichos (στίχος), synomotia (συνωμοτία) and dekania (δεκανία).
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This entry incorporates text from “Lochos” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.