Spartan hype?

[Paullus Scipio]

They could have demanded alternation of days as you point out, then done a Varro and chosen the day to fight.

Perhaps, but would their allies have agreed ? The Mantineans and Spartans had recently come close to a war because the Mantineans chose to build a wall around their city, and the Spartans, as hegemon in the Peloponnese, tried to dissuade them (King Agesilaus was sent to demand that the wall construction be postponed, and the Mantineans refused, despite Agesilaus unsubtle threats about consequences.)Given this, and as you say, the lesser threat to Laconia, would a city such as Mantinea, when its very survival was at stake, have ceded leadership in its own territory to Sparta ?? ( who might well have let the Thebans destroy Mantinea for them! hock: ) .Combine this with the fact that 'Allies' are often portrayed as reluctant to be on a battlefield ( see e.g. Coronea above) and you can see why what Xenophon described was the only practical way.

The marching band at my university can do this drill as well, but to my knowledge they fight in disarray.

Yes, but that's because they haven't been taught proper Aspis/Dory fighting !! :lol: :lol:

Being able to do it in special circumstances does not mean it was regularly used in the anscestral struggle of hoplite-vs-hoplite.

Agreed, one only has to look at the South Korean riot police clips of drill and how this becomes simplified and even non-existent under the stress of combat ( see e.g." Late Roman Formations" thread)

Lets agree to suspend this for now

Yes we'd better- for I suspect we are in danger of 'upstaging' your article. If we wait for it, being longer and more detailed than is possible here, it can provide a good foundation for discussion.

...probably shields overlapped...again with overlapped shields.

Here is one point where we are going to disagree! (see points about synaspismos/pyknosis above) - shields close, touching even, occasionally overlapping accidently maybe, but certainly not significantly overlapped or testudo fashion... because the Hoplite needed to defend himself, if no other reason ! I won't take this further at this time, but there is plenty of evidence in the sources to support this, and, AFIK, little to support synaspismos/overlapped shields as the Hoplite norm - again doubtless your article will tell us more on your reasons for thinking this!

Your 6 rank hypothesis falls into this. Other things- like opened order fighting- are irreconsilable for me.

Agreed on the open order fighting - I don't believe this happened. Of course having said this I don't doubt that it happened on occasion - what we are discussing is a hypothetical 'ideal' model of Hoplite fighting, to which every battle will have been an exception in some way !! :!:
I think both the 'shoving' and 'non-shoving' schools are right and wrong to a degree, and that battle could be both disciplined and chaotic by turns.
If I am right about e.g '12 ranks' being the 'natural'/normal/open order, then closing up to 6 ranks deep/close order for the charge at about 100yds (just outside effective missile range, or charge distance) then many of the apparent differences between the schools as to what the rear ranks were for, disappear.
Oh dear ! Perhaps a consensus is going to be possible after all !! D lol: 8)

BTW at Coronea, the Thebans may have begun their charge at 200 yds, thinking the enemy would do the same and both cover the normal distance - but the experienced enemy waited 'til they were within 100 yds before charging, thus making the Thebans cover 150 yds to the Spartans 50 - c.f. Caesar v. Pompey at Pharsalus for a similar ploy, which on that occasion failed.