main vulnerability, the flanks. The protection/remedy for this vulnerability was the Hypaspists, who were able to conduct maneuvers and use tactics, which, owing to their hoplite panoply of weapons and armor, would have been impossible (or at least much less effective) if performed by the phalangites. It is worth noting that all the references to a unit called "Hypaspists" are much later than the period of Philip, and modern historians have to assume that later sources, like Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC) and Arrian, had access to earlier records. Arrian's phrase ) has frequently been rendered as 'lightest armed', although Brunt concedes it is more properly translated as 'nimblest' or 'most agile'. There has been a great deal of speculation by military historians ever since the late Hellenistic period about the elite units of Philip's army. The hypaspists may have been raised from the whole kingdom rather than on a cantonal basis; if so, they were the king's army rather than the army of the kingdom. In the Hellenistic period, hypaspists apparently continued to exist, albeit in different capacities and under different names. The name lived on in the Seleucid, Ptolemaic and Antigonid kingdoms, yet they were now seen as royal bodyguards and military administrators. Polybius mentions a hypaspist being sent by Philip V of Macedon, after his defeat at the Battle of Cynoscephalae in 197 BC, to Larissa to burn state papers. The actual fighting unit of hypaspists seems to have lived on in Macedonia as the corps of peltasts, whose status, equipment and role seems to have been almost exactly the same as that of the hypaspist under Philip. Originally consisting of 3,000 men, by the Third Macedonian War there were 5,000, most likely to accommodate their elite formation, the Agema. See also Skeuophoros Amyntas of Lyncestis References Further reading Kambouris Manousos Dr, "The Hypaspist Corps, One identity three units and many functions", koryvantesstudies.org Ancient Greek military terminology Military units and formations of the Hellenistic world Infantry units and formations of Macedon Military units and formations of ancient Greece