Spartan hype?

[PMBardunias]

...because your lack of a hypothesis

I never claimed to have a hypothosis about how they got into their fighting array- only that I don't believe for a myriad of other reasons involving the mechanics of hoplite battle that they fought in 4's and 6's.

Others might say that they stood in enomotia (36) during what you refer to as opened order, then deployed in 3's or 6's depending on what frontage and depth they wanted. I think 6's was rare and a specialized formation. We know they could face light troops in an even deeper deployment of Orthioi Lochoi or stacked Lochoi.

Why have 6's at all you might ask. If you envision how you turn a 36 man enomotia into lines of 12, you'll need to peel off sections of six from 2 lines of 18.

Fair dinkum mate
I'm afraid this expression is somewhat obsolete, so the sarcasm falls a little flat ! But good try !

You obviously have not been to the Top End or Kimberly recenty- I had a research site in Darwin- though I admit that Prior to my research there, Benny Hill's Digger Blue sketch was my most formative Australian experience. I even have a hat with dangling corks- to go with my Hawaiian shirt, american tourist uniform.

The whole point of forming up is to arrive together, and I very much doubt if any formation can 'reform' when each individual is busy fighting for his life !

No, the whole point of a Spartan advance is that they arrived together in good order- this why spartans were famous. If everyone could do this so easily then why make a big deal of spartans who marched slowly in time to flutes? I have a paper somewhere showing an experiment where 10 men in line could not keep formation above a 200 yrd run. I have a hard time believing that 12 (or 6) ranks of men could for even half that when we add in the odd boulder and rabbit hole.

I brought up Koronea because you sad they never charged from 200 yards. I presented the upper limit. Obviously the short charge was better for keeping order, but the something-less-than-a-mile charge at marathon was done as well and has to be fit into the same tactical scheme. By the way, were I Persian I'd take offence at you placing the range of my archers at 50 meters! Thracians could out throw me!

(send me an email, I am happy to send you copies of all of these that you have not read. This just a friendly argument and I truly respect your depth of knowledge and wish to feed it.)

The warriors charge in a line and arrive in a line (admittedly in 'open order' !! )

Thank you for making my objection. Opened order is no order for phalanx combat. They did not fight in opened order. If they arrived in "opened" i.e. staggered lines, the gaps between would immediately be filled by men from behind as they caught up.

Hoplites never fought synaspismos AFIK , because the sources say so, and because it would have been physically impossible !! ...Since the Hoplite shield is 2cubits, 3 ft, 90 cm or so across, and sticks out around 1 cubit, 18 inches 45 cm to the left of the soldier, synaspismos is not possible for Hoplites, and even if it were they certainly couldn't run in this formation

Keep your Macedonian drill out of my Hopites. I mean just what the word says, then fought in othismos with overlapping shields. That they could not run like this in formation tells you why they could not keep formation when they ran. the only limit to how tight they could pack was their shoulders- tighter perhaps since they had one arm raised.

except maybe a slow shuffle forward - it was a defensive formation

The slow shuffle forward is the phalanx offensive formation- but I cannot go deeper into this portion of the arguement at this time.

I agree we need the sources, just as we need the pictorial evidence, but though they form our base we cannot be slaves to them.