07-01-2014, 01:00 AM
Livy might have written in Latin but I'm sure he understood there was a difference in the methods of fighting between the Greeks, Macedonians, and Romans. Hence why the translation of the text even has the word phalanx in quotes. To Livy, that word meant something, specifically it seems to be not just a definition of a fighting line but also is a name synonymous with a specific fighting style. Phalanx becomes a pronoun, instead of just a noun.
but that does not mean that the literary evidence that the normal deployment of the Macedonian phalanx was without intervals is not absolutely overwhelming.
Certainly not overwhelming, but there are other examples. At the battle of Asculum, Pyrrhus separated his pike units (referred to in the translated texts as phalanxes) with Lucians, Bruttanians and Samnites, all in a single battle line, not "separated from each other over some length." This goes back to my point, that both Frontinus and Dionysius use the word phalanx in the context not as a continuous battle line but as a specific troop type.
Dionysius 20.1, Frontinus 2.3
but that does not mean that the literary evidence that the normal deployment of the Macedonian phalanx was without intervals is not absolutely overwhelming.
Certainly not overwhelming, but there are other examples. At the battle of Asculum, Pyrrhus separated his pike units (referred to in the translated texts as phalanxes) with Lucians, Bruttanians and Samnites, all in a single battle line, not "separated from each other over some length." This goes back to my point, that both Frontinus and Dionysius use the word phalanx in the context not as a continuous battle line but as a specific troop type.
Dionysius 20.1, Frontinus 2.3
