New hoplite book

[PMBardunias]

Another reason that side-on pushing is attractive is that it is easy for those who have not done any serious pushing to relate to. If pushed against, you will naturally assume this position for two reasons;

You can squat down low on your left leg and extend your right behind you. What this does not only lower your center of gravity, but also makes the angle between your leg and the ground more acute (smaller), which transfers more force directly into the soil.

Second, and related, you increase the traction of your foot by turning it out sideways and increaseing the area of surface in contact with the ground. I was a big advocate of this back in the late '90s, then I realized that it doesn't work because I like everyone else was trying to apply individual pushing methods to group pushing. It does not work.

The main problem is that it is static. You are restisting force based mostly on your bones not your muscles. Bones don't push back. Its like being propped up with a two-by-four (wooden prop). You might think you can scoot ahead and reset, but against someone pushing properly you can never make headvay to scoot into.

To push using maximal muscle power, you need to be facing head-on- like football linemen and rugby players- and keep your feet churning ahead. Your strongest muscles are designed to push you forward.

Also, the tug-o-war analogy commonly used predisposes the image of turning sideways, but pulling on a rope is absolutely nothing like pushing en masse. I wish this analogy had never been used for it is very confusing. The inflexible rope allows force transfer through the file, to be analogous hoplites would need to all grab an iron rod and push it like a battering ram. To push without a bar you need to pack together.


EDIT: (Fred posted while I was writing, so I'll add a response)

think it's possible that the 'side-on' stance might have been confined to certain, specific circumstances, such as small unit combat, where the action didn't evolve all the way into othismos proper.

Quite likely. If a man were coming at me with a shield and I were caught flat-footed, I would stand side-on to recieve it because I can use my bones to absorb his force. Better would be to move towards him head-on and get low.

It also seems reasonable (as previously suggested) that the last rank in a phalanx might have used an inclined shoulder push with left leg forward (and, perhaps, a grounded spear butt for even greater leverage) to impart maximum force on the rank immediately ahead within the overall othismos effort (we had discussed earlier how this was one way they could have transmited commands for coordinating a concerted push amid the noise and distraction of battle).

They might do this to prop up the file in resisting a push- like a wooden strut- but in this pose you are essentially pushing with only one leg, the foreleg being too bent to apply force in anything near an efficient manner.

Indeed, though not the technique applied by most of the hoplites in the phalanx, this approach might have been a key suppliment (both physically and for purposes of command and control) and thus at least a lesser consideration in aspis design.

I'm not sure why, explain. How does turning sideways to the vector of advance and lowering your head below the men in front of you help command?

At any rate, such exceptions in stance wouldn't seem to conflict with your conclusion that an 'up-right' stance was required of everyone else in a proper phalanx action (something on which your data seems quite convincing). Existence of multiple techniques for varying circumstances might therefore combine with non-realistic artistic conventions to help explain some of the otherwise confusing depictions of and comments upon hoplite combat that we see in the ancient record.

I agree, surely there were many stances taken as combat moved from distant to close. My concern is to educate people that only one will allow for maximal pushing force. I have always made the disclaimer that is it possible that files did not push in unison as the "heretics" put forth. If only the front rank were shield bashing or pushing against their opposite then the other poses are actually preferable.