Mykale, a naval battle?

[Paullus Scipio]

Fred/Old Husker wrote:

As for Herodotus' various references to shield walls/barricades, I believe that these are consistant with a barrier being held in place by hand.

I certainly don't think you can read Herodotus' very explicit descriptions as 'hand held', though it is certainly possible that if a close enough 'hoplite' was pushing or pulling at the 'spara/shield' barricade, then the Persian would seek to counter that.

Frankly, a 'free-standing' row of propped spara would seem to make no sense at all once 'shock' fighting began.

Don't forget that the Persian army, unlike the Greek Hoplites, was optimised to fight other 'missile' armies rather than for 'shock' fighting. Just consider how many of the 'allies/conquered peoples' that Herodotus describes were predominately bowmen. The most dangerous of Persia's foes were the steppe nomads - horse archers; and foot archers fighting from behind cover ( the barricade of 'spara/pavises')allowed the Persians to dominate an enemy that would have left Greek Hoplites helpless....consider the early days of the retreat of "The Ten Thousand". That such an army was vulnerable to 'shock action' was the lesson Xerxes took from his campaign in Greece.....though it should be remembered too that the Persians had met and overcome Hoplites of the Asian Greek city-states when conquering Anatolia.

Given the hard data that Paul Bardunias has published on the great force applied by othismos from crowds, it seems clear that a shield wall not being actively held up by 'sparabara' would surely have fallen like a house of cards at its very first contact with Greek heavy infantry

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We are on dangerous ground here! I for one one would not like to see this thread 'hijacked' into yet another 'othismos' debate ( which is artificial anyway). Suffice to say that Paul B's theories on othismos may be seen as one end of a 'bell-shaped' curve of theories, with his crowd crushing extreme form of shoving, and Van Wees, with his loose order spear duelling, at the other. Personally I don't believe 'crowd mechanics' applies to normal 'hoplite' combat on the open battlefield, though it might in an unusual or extreme situation, such as street fighting, or fighting between walls. Your own work ( e.g. Table 4; Land Battles in 5 C BC Greece), despite the caution with which the data must be approached, demonstrates that othismos/shoving, whatever form it took was only a factor in a minority of battles between Hoplites.
It is clear from Herodotus' accounts that the 'spara/pavise' barricades did not collapse"like a house of cards" at first contact, and the reason is not hard to envisage.
Charging men, like charging horses, are not suicidal when faced with a solid obstacle, and charging Hoplites will generally have 'pulled up' at spear-thrust distance from the barricade, and an exchange of vicious spear thrusting taken place across it. Before the Hoplites could get close enough to either drag at the 'spara' ( which would involve temporarily abandoning spear), or could get close enough to hack through it with swords, or try to push it down with their 'aspides', they had to get past the the Persian spears, and maybe too once in close, Persian 'battle-axes/sagaris'. Not to mention arrows shot from point-blank range. The defenders had to be driven back, and that is what took the time Herodotus refers to.("First there was a struggle at the barricade of shields..." "so long as their as their line of spara remained intact, successfully repelled all attacks..." )