Depictions of Underarm Phalanxes

[Sean Manning]

I agree that these discussions often focus on a very tight phalanx, and that raising the spear from a high to a low position would not be a problem in a more open phalanx. If only we had a picture or two of a phalanx from the front ...

And, as I already mentioned, a saroteur was not a knife, if you do not pull the spear back with force there is no way you can injure anyone and even if you do that it cannot be compared with the force of a forward thrust (although there would be no reason why you should do such quick pull movements).

My understanding is that in mortal combat most people are highly adrenalized with a high heartrate, leading to a loss of fine motor control and intense focus on one threat. In the 5th century BCE Greek militias did not to a lot of training to counteract this. Someone scared and trying to clear their spear from under to over the shield might well use a lot of force pulling it back. The trouble is that as I've never had a chance to play with spear and Argive shield, and as I fortunately have very little experience with violence, this is all theoretical.

By the way, has anyone studies how 5-6 ranks of sarisophoroi in hyperpykne order could actually project their sarissas over the first ranker holding their sarissas underarm? The 8 palm shields of course played some role, but even these could be locked leaving a very limited space for 4-5 sarissas from the back to somehow be in the right angles to injure opponents and protect your own... This is something I always wanted to reenact but lacked the resources....

Peter Connolley got a phalanx of 16 Macedonian hoplites together around 10 years ago (published in JRMES). They didn't have a problem fitting the sarissas into the same space at the right side of the file ... because each had the point higher than the hands, the rear ones were above the ones in front.

My impression is that men in a sarissa phalanx probably used short jabbing motions or even planted their spears in the enemy shields and just pushed. We also know that Philip's and Alexander's Macedonian hoplites did a lot more drill than 5th century Greek ones.