IPHI'CIIATES, an Athenian general, most remarkable for a happy innovation upon the ancient routine of Greek tactics, which he intro duced iu the course of that general war which was ouded n.o. 387 by the peace of Antalcidas. This, like most improvements upon the earlier methods of warfare, consisted iu lookiug, for each individual soldier, rather to the means of offence thau of protection. 1phicrates laid aeido the weighty panoply, which the regular infantry, composed of Greek citizeus, had always worn, and substituted a light target for the large buckler, and a quilted jacket for the coat of mail ; at the same time he doubled the length of the sword, usually worn thick and short, and increased in the same, or, by some accounts, in a greater propor tion, the length of the spear. It appears that the troops whom he thus armed and disciplined (not Athenian citizens, who would hardly have submitted to the necessary discipline, but mercenaries following his standard, like the Free Companions of the middle ages), also carried missile javelins; and that their favourite mode of attack was to venture withiu throw of the heavy column, the weight of whose charge they could not have resisted, trusting in their individual agility to baffle pursuit. When once the close order of the column was broken, its
individual soldiers were overmatched by the longer weapons and unen cumbered movements of the lighter iufantry. In this way 1phierates and his targoticrs (peltastre), as they were called, gained so many succeeses that the Peloponnesian infantry dared not encounter them, except the Laccdremonians, who said in scoff that their allies feared the targetiers as children fear hobgoblins. They were themselves taught the value of this new force, Ike. 392, when 1phicrates waylaid and cut off nearly the whole of a Lacedremonian battalion. The loss in men was of no groat amount, but that heavy-armed Lacedwumniaus should be defeated by light-armed mercenaries was a marvel to Greece, and a severe blow to the national reputation stud vanity of Sparta.
Accordingly this action raised the credit of 1phicrates extremely high. He commanded afterwards in the Ilelleepont, ao. 339; in Egypt, at the request of tho Persinus, n.e. 374 ; .relieved Corcyra in 373, and served with credit on other less iinpartaut occasions. The date of his death is not known. (Xen., Hell; Diod.; Corn. Nep.)