New hoplite book

[Paralus]

As for IV.64, no-one is suggesting that the companies/formation interlocked - you are simply setting up your own straw man to knock down - the discussion was regarding the likelihood of 'synaspismos' being used to force a river in the face of cavalry!

Why would we assume that? in my opinion we should not.

Note to Paralus: for God’s sake Jim, use emoticons not punctuation marks! I was going to include an adolescent remark regarding the interpenetration to indicate that the line was a throwaway. I should have done so.

Yes, I thought this was the source of your belief....you would do well not to get too hung up on a lexicon explanation of a somewhat technical term....

“Somewhat technical” term? I don’t believe epellalon is technical at all and clearly the weight (excuse that) of evidence does not support any lateral sense to its application.

[…] etymologists, and the great Walbank are not infallible, and certainly they are not military specialists [...] What you propose, in order to preserve a meaning guessed at by a lexicographer ignorant of military matters [...] you ( and your sources) were relying on this for proposing simple 'close order' for the formation […] The "meaning guessed at by a lexicographer ignorant of military matters" (note the singular) was the tacked on guess in the LSJ that it refers to 'close order'

Well the original source was Walbank. He, and my sources, I will add to a long, distinguished and growing list of those ignorant of military matters and therefore to be dismissed, like the advice of Charidemus (Diod. 17.30.2 ff), out of hand.

In any case, you miss the point which is not your dogged insistence on any supposedly tacked on “close order”; it is the close one behind the other which I’ve consistently stated from the outset. I would argue that this is the sense of the word and that it is not technical.

Edit:

Polybius uses epallelon three times in his extant histories outside of 2.69.9 (2.66.9 ; 11.11.7 ; 12.18.5). In all those instances the word is clearly used to describe something (phalaxes or troops of horse) close behind one another.