ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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The taxiarch or taxiarch (also taxiarchos or taxiarchēs; or ) is a military degree in use in the Greek army, corresponding to the current rank of British Army Brigadier and Commonwealth member countries. The degree has long been used in the armies of ancient Greece and the Byzantine Empire.

The term derives from Greek ("order"), which in the military meant "in ordered formation".

The Greek Orthodox Church uses the term to refer to the archangels Michael and Gabriel, as leaders of the heavenly Militia.

Ancient Greece
Various Greek cities-state used the degree of taxiarchos. In Athens, the taxiarchist college was established during the Persian wars; each of the ten tribes wanted by Clistene had its own taxiarchos subordinate to the strategist. The Athenian taxi-archists commanded the ten armies of oppressors and the strategists and the Ipparchs constituted the major state of the Athenian Army.

The term was then assumed by the Macedonian army to define the commander of the pezeteri, the units of heavy infantry armed with "macedone bat".

Byzantine Empire
The term taxiarch was used for the first time in the Strategikon of Emperor Maurice (twelfth century), to indicate the commander of the optimists, i.e. an elite mercenary body.

From the 10th century, the term passed to indicate the commander of an infantry brigade (taxiarchia), consisting of 500 heavy infantry, 300 archers and 200 light infantry. Since the brigade was composed of a thousand men, the units were also called chiliarchies and their commander chiliarchies. The degree was equivalent to that of drungarios, in use in the Byzantine navy.

Along the 11th century, with the reform of the army and the overcoming of the subdivision in thema, the taxiarchy became the largest and most important infantry formation, increasing the importance of taxiarches.

Modern Greek Army

In the Hellenic Army, the degree of taxiarchos (abbreviated in ) translated with brigadier, is equivalent to that of general brigadier or general brigadier (NATO OF-6 code). The degree was established by royal decree of 5 June 1946 and its monk always in 1946. The degree is higher than that of Syntagmatarchis (Colonnello) and lower than that of Ypostratigos (Maggior generale).

The degree is also used by the Greek Air Force (Taxiarchos tis Aeroporias, "Brigadiere dell'Aeronautica") and the Hellenic Police. In the past, it was also used by the predecessor of the Greek Police, the Hellenic Gendarmerie.

It is currently in use in the National Cypriot Guard. The rank of Tassiarco was covered by Stylianos Pattakos one of the protagonists of the coup that led to the dictatorship of the colonels in Greece.

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Bibliography

Related Items
Degrees of the Greek Army
Degrees of NATO armies

Military degrees of ancient Greece
Military ranks of the Macedonian Army
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