Ancient Greek military personal equipment event of a broken spear, or if close melee combat was necessary. Hoplites mounted on horseback likely used a heavier, curved sword known as the "kopis", meaning "chopper" in the Greek language. Hand-to-hand, light support troops such as the "psiloi" were often armed with ranged weapons. Popular ranged weapons were the bow ("toxa"), javelin ("akontia") and sling ("sfendonai"). While the bow was a relatively uncommon weapon (the wooden stave bow used had a limited range), some troops treated their arrows by thrusting them into rotting corpses, thus creating a crude form of biological weapon. Peltast troops commonly used javelins, and
Battle of Gaugamela weapon of the Achaemenid army historically was the bow and arrow, and javelin. Alexander commanded Greek forces from his kingdom of Macedon and the Hellenic League, along with Greek mercenaries and levies from the Paeonian and Thracian tributary peoples. According to Arrian, the most reliable historian of Alexander (who is believed to be relying on the work of the eyewitness Ptolemy), his forces numbered 7,000 cavalry and 40,000 infantry. Most historians agree that the Macedonian army consisted of 31,000 heavy infantry, including mercenaries and hoplites from other allied Greek states in reserve, with an additional 9,000 light infantry consisting mainly