Greek re-enactors - how do you display?

[PMBardunias]

.....an interesting point, and I would love to hear anecdotal evidence too, but does it tell us anything about whether the Greeks deliberately sought to generate such forces?

As with much of history, we must often settle for a convincing body of circumstantial evidence. If the phalanx clashed in a manner akin to the reenacted shield wall, then generating such forces was unavoidable and a simple result of masses of men colliding- deliberation is irrelevant. My only concern all along was whether they could in fact be generated by such shallow crowds. Obviously there is some perceived benefit to the tactic of crashing your shield wall into the enemy force or these reenactors would not do so. If there is an advantage, then we would expect such a collision-tactic to emerge anytime there is a wall of shield armed men.

The question then becomes one of how this tactical collision evolves, i.e. how do you improve on the basic concept. In this, overlapping shields or tighter packing of ranks may make for a more cohesive mass and impart more force, but the human body quickly becomes the limiting factor. At some point your group can generate no further force simple because the body of your men cannot withstand it and it will be as harmful to your own men as the enemy. The reenactors above have reached that limit.

So the case comes down to: a) To go beyond the pushing force which may have been common in any conflict of masses of men some means of allowing men to withstand the forces must be invoked. b) I can demonstrate that an aspis could fulfill this role due to its basic structure. So we have a motive and means. From their own descriptions of othismos, the Greeks seem to place more emphasis on this phase of battle than do other cultures with shield walls (The case for a figurative othismos is weak in my opinion, it is more a question of its form). From there to my vision of colliding crowds is only a matter of optimization.

To me the question is not "why did the Greeks evolve this tactic and panoply?" but "why did ONLY the Greeks develop these tactics?" My quick answer was "the aspis", and though true, it only makes us ask why only they developed the aspis. Perhaps the answer lay somewhere in the stylized nature of hoplite combat with its strict linearity.