Hoplite spacing and formation

[PMBardunias]

How do you know you cant't push or that you're terribly harmed if your fellow hoplite's shield is a bit to the right of your chest?

Did you read my article? What I describe is a very specific use of the aspis in the press of othismos. This cannot occur if the edge of a shield is compressing your diaphragm.

You say that right over left and body parallel to the shield are inseperable. How do you know? You base your whole theory on only these two points, that you have not experienced yourself and that other re-enactors disagree with(they may not have expirienced othismos,but they-if nothing else-have been side by side with shields with other hoplites.

To my knowledge no modern man has experience othismos. Reinactment without othismos tells you nothing about what othismos is like. In fact it leads to misconceptions since other formations might work better if there is no othismos. Saying that you can push in C is meaningless because it is not the pushing I describe.

I have been in crowds at pressures that can lead to asphyxiation. If there was a literal mass pushing it would have resembled such a crowd. The manner in which force can be maximized in a crowd is the same that would be applicable to maximizing force in othismos. This is the basis of my theory. If they literally pushed en masse, then the scheme I outline will always win, men in C can neither generate or withstand the same pushing force as D. That is really all there is to it. Without the shield rim flush to your chest, you do not gain the protection from asphyxiation.

I posted so many pictures,many of them showing locked shields in battle, but you insist this is incapability to depict the real phalanx(while there are indeed some few depictions of right over left shield)

Giannis, not a single of your images show men with their shields in front of them facing off against men opposite them. The Lycian rhomphaia-men for example are advacning to battle and the Xanthos relief clearly show space BETWEEN the shields. These images all show shields EDGE FORWARD which we agree is unlikely. Even the images I think are showing right over left are unreliable and I would not use as evidence. Art is of little help with this question. You have read that Schwartz article- he makes the same point in argueing against scheme A.

You also don't offer an explanation of how they would deploy,and how this would be practical

I thought I had. They can deploy exactly the same way as you would deploy them, only twisting to the right not the left. More likely they simply stacked up like Tetris pieces or building blocks upon contact with the enemy phalanx after losing some of their order in the charge.