The English term chiliarch was borrowed from Latin chiliarchus, a transcription of Greek khilíarkhos (χιλίαρχος) and khiliárkhēs (χιλιάρχης), both meaning "commander of a thousand".
[2] In the Ancient Macedonian army, a chiliarch was the commander of a 1024-strong chiliarchy or taxis "order" of the pezhetairoi and the hypaspists heavy infantry, subdivided into 64 files (lochoi) of 16 men each.
[3] Later Greek authors employed the term chiliarch for the Roman military tribunes, with the tribunus laticlavius in particular rendered χ[ε]ιλίαρχος πλατύσημος (ch[e]iliarchos platysemos).
In the Novgorod Republic, the chiliarch evolved into a judicial or commercial official and was elected from boyars at a veche for a period of one year.
Along with the role as military leaders, they were also supposed to supervise the city fortifications, convene veches, act as ambassadors and as judges in the commercial courts.
Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy, after the death of Vassily Vassilyevich Velyaminov in 1374, abolished the post, replacing it with voyevodas and namestniks.
In January 1822, the First National Assembly at Epidaurus decided to create an organizational framework for the irregular troops of the various independent war leaders, and instituted a number of chiliarchies (χιλιαρχίες), each composed of ten centuries (εκατονταρχίες) of a hundred men under a hecatontarch (εκατόνταρχος, ekatontarchos).
Each chiliarch had a small staff comprising an adjutant, a secretary, a priest, a doctor, a paymaster and a quartermaster, while a flag bearer and a trumpeter were allocated to each pentakosiarchy.
An aluf (Hebrew: אלוף, romanized: allūp̄ "chilliarch") is the term used in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for officers who in other countries would have the rank of general, air marshal, or admiral.