Weight and grip of sarissa and shield in macedonian phalanx

[MeinPanzer]

Filling up the body of citizens with the most promising of the perioikoi he created 4,000 hoplites, teaching them to use the sarisa with both hands and to bear shield with strap (ochane), not with porpax.

I see no reason to believe that this indicates a lack of porpax, only a shift in bearing the weight with the strap as opposed to holding it on the arm.

As I stated, I don't take this necessarily to mean that they removed the porpakes from their shields, but it certainly does mean that in order to wield their sarissae two-handed, they did not use them.

Below are some images one of our members took at Ephesos, the very concave shields look as similar to the only actual depiction of sarissaphoroi that we have as you could want.

Note also that that phalangite in the rear on the Pergamon battle plaque carries a shield with an offset rim as large as on most Argive shields.

Remember that they would have to use these shields with a sword at times, so a single grip at the edge would not be sufficient.

And why could they not fight with their swords with a shield suspended by a grip at the edge and a strap? We know that phalangites weren't very effective in close combat, and maybe this is one of the reasons why.

As to how and if they could hold the sarissa when holding such a shield I can't say. Perhaps as you say the porpax was not used at this point in the fight- fighting in this way would be something that had to be "taught" as in the quote above.. I even have my doubts about the almost ubiquitous pose of the sarissaphoroi in modern depictions- side-on, with the pelta basically facing to the left. It is not what is shone- the peltae are clearly facing forward, though that is about the only thing clear in how they are held.

The artist who made (or copied) the battle plaque was clearly unsure of how to depict the phalangites holding their shields - hence why the sarissa actually runs on the other side of the shield - so I don't think we can read too much into it.

There is also Plutarch's description of Pydna:

"The battle being begun, Aemilius came in and found that the foremost of the Macedonians had already fixed the ends of their spears into the shields of his Romans, so that it was impossible to come near them with their swords. When he saw this, and observed that the rest of the Macedonians took the targets that hung on their left shoulders, and brought them round before them, and all at once stooped their pikes against their enemies' shields, and considered the great strength of this wall of shields, and the formidable appearance of a front thus bristling with arms, he was seized with amazement and alarm; nothing he had ever seen before had been equal to it;

"Round before them" to make a "wall of shields" does not fit well with the common pose to me.

Then there is the question of what happened when two phalanxes clashed. I assume the shield had some use or they could have just left it on their back until the lines broke up. My guess is that both phalanxes ended up with sarissa "fixed" in their peltae just as the romans did. Maybe the side-on pose with the shield facing the side was used when the extreme 1.5 foot spacing occurred.

I'm curious then, what you would suggest their stance was? It seems like your repertoire as a warrior is somewhat limited by carrying a long pike in a very tight formation.