The Fractured Phalanx

[Ghostmojo]

Having been reading a little about how the mighty pike phalanx was pretty well unbeatable head on - as long as it remained on level ground - and of course how vulnerable it was if it didn't, I have always been left wondering why this obvious weakness wasn't really dealt with more effectively.

The account for example of Pydna, where a near success became a complete disaster is surely a case in point. That battle led not only to the defeat of the last worthwhile Makedonian army to take up arms against the Romans, but to the fall, capture and shame of Perseos, and the deconstruction of the whole Makedonian state.

And all because the unwieldy formation didn't halt when it reached broken ground?

I am no expert upon the sarissa-armed phalanx of the successor regimes, but I recognise there are many here who are (at least far more so than me) and would be interested in your opinions. I always wondered about this formation break and also another aspect which was dealing with it head on:

(a) knowing the phalangite was so clearly vulnerable to close-quarters attack from a swordsman (like a legionary) why did the unit ever allow itself to be placed in such a position? Was it merely the heat of battle; the breakdown of officers' orders; the inertia of the mass in terms of control? Couldn't these pikemen have also been trained in a secondary fashion as excellent swordsmen themselves once the pikes were no longer a viable (defensive) weapon? Or was it just too difficult to do anything in a tight mass wielding these long spears?

(b) when facing an oncoming pike unit, why did so many still-hoplite-armed units try to take it on with conventional tactics which had proved so useless? Didn't anybody try and devise a means to break or damage the pikes to nullify the bristling hedgerow of death that was approaching? I know they were often a very conservative bunch, but didn't any bright spark think of a means of neutering this advancing mass of sarrisai other than the Roman manner of waiting for a breach? I mean one could have tried throwing weighted nets, or having strong blokes with axes or swords trying to break the elongated spears. Perhaps these things were tried. They must have been. I don't know...

I have assumed the pike units flanks were protected by other types of troops (hypaspists?) who didn't have this disadvantage and the rear was safe by merely raising pikes and about-facing - so it was clear somehow one had to deal with this thing head on.

Does anybody have any thoughts about these two related issues - the obvious strengths and weaknesses of the fractured pike phalanx?

[Macedon]

There is a lot of talk regarding the Macedonian phalanx and lots of speculation, theories etc. It is true that what you are proposing is the most acceptable theory, one, more or less, offered by Polybius too. I am among those who disagree with this view of the Macedonian phalanx.

First of all, it was devised by a people who did not inhabit any land of great plains.

Secondly, it was devised and used by commanders who did not stick to the ancient rules of contact regarding a proper hellenic battle (that is meet up on a beautiful valley and have a preplanned battle-see Mardonius' words in Herodot when he is urging Xerxes to campaign against the Greeks).

Thirdly, it was often used in relatively or outright uneven terrain by competent commanders who did have alternatives

Furthermore, its performance in all those instances was very good too.

Uneven terrain consisted a problem for all armies based on the phalanx (line) system, no matter how this line was armed. The degree of uneveness could vary very much and exploiting it with your own phalanx was not as easy or automatic as many think. In Pydna, the phalanx was very successful against the Romans until it slowly dissolved, but this happened from a variety of reasons and not because of terrain and because the Romans readily exploited it. In the account of the battle we have Paulus riding back and forth ordering his men to leave the line and exploit any gap or sign of disorder in the Macedonian line. This clearly shows that the Romans, even in this late battle, after having had much experience against the Macedonians, did not think of it as a good idea to cause disorder in their lines in order to exploit what sometimes seemed (but might not be) disorder in the enemy line. The victory of the Romans in Pydna came after the Macedonian cavalry and king had left the field, before the battle was decided. By that time, the Romans had already outflanked the phalanx, which devoid of flank support now dissolved not at a lochos but at unit bases. Attacking a taxeis from the rear would make it stop its movement, form an amphistomos phalanx if trained well or cause outright panic. Oner taxis being immobilized like this would easily create gaps between its neighboring taxeis, who would then easily lose cohesion and produce gaps of exploitable sizes. And all this, while seeing the standards of the king's Companions fleeing to the nearby fortified city...

This does not mean that the phalanx did not operate better on even terrain, but the same applies to all other heavy infantry lines, Romans included. Polybius is right in that the Roman legionary was a more all around soldier and could better support skirmishing action, but great battles were always fought on open, relatively even ground.

If you number the instances when a Macedonian phalanx performed well on uneven terrain, you will be astonished. Sellassia was certainly no plain and Cynos Cephalae was also not really even. In the latter example, the Macedonians lost the battle, but again the phalanx performed brilliantly and conquered its opponents, losing only because half of the Macedonian army was in marching order when the right Roman wing attacked, thus making it easy for the Romans to finally outflank the (until then) right Macedonian wing. Alexander's attacks in Issus and Hydaspes are other good examples of the Macedonian phalanx being used and performing well on uneven terrain. More examples could be mentioned but I think that these are enough to support my position.

Stratagems to counter the phalanx are mentioned, like the carts thrown on Alexander's forces by the Thracians or the order that Paulus gave (I do not remember now, was it in Polyaenus) for cavalry to ride in front of the sarrissae chopping off the spearpoints with the use of the momentum of the horses, but none has been standardized, not in ancient times nor in later times when the pike reappears (like in Byzantium or medieval pikemen), which shows that such stratagems were not really successful against an opponent who had the ability to find an answer to them.

[PMBardunias]

(a) knowing the phalangite was so clearly vulnerable to close-quarters attack from a swordsman (like a legionary) why did the unit ever allow itself to be placed in such a position? Was it merely the heat of battle; the breakdown of officers' orders; the inertia of the mass in terms of control? Couldn't these pikemen have also been trained in a secondary fashion as excellent swordsmen themselves once the pikes were no longer a viable (defensive) weapon? Or was it just too difficult to do anything in a tight mass wielding these long spear?

We have to remember that Polybius is describing a late Hellenistic phalanx, it may have been more nimble in its original form. But retaining a tight formation while advancing in combat is a problem. Not only can relatively small terrain effects cause disorder, but facing a foe like the Romans who can attack on a small front, while adjacent units give way, will tax the cohesion of a solid linear formation like that of the sarissaphoroi.

Once the Romans broke into the formations, their bigger shields would have been a great advantage reguardless of sword skill.

(b) when facing an oncoming pike unit, why did so many still-hoplite-armed units try to take it on with conventional tactics which had proved so useless?

We looking back may beleive that sarissaphoroi were superior, but many of these battles were close-run. A Greek may have thought not that they need a change in the panoply of their fathers- to jumped-up peltasts no less- but simply more courage or perhaps piety. To turn the question on its head, would the Macedonians who had been beating men armed with swords, throwing spears and scutum-like shields for generations, see the Romans as having superior arms or superior tenacity?

Didn't anybody try and devise a means to break or damage the pikes to nullify the bristling hedgerow of death that was approaching?

Cleonymus, the Spartan who "would be King", fought his way through a breach in a wall by having his front rankers drop their weapons and grab the enemy's sarissa. The fact that we don't see a bunch of rhomphaia armed Thracians or some such fronting the phalanx perhaps speaks to just how different this was from the later Pike formations of the early modern era.

[Ghostmojo]

I suppose with the sarissa phalanx you also have the problem of not just the initial projections of spearheads but also more and more every few feet as you approach the ranks of men wielding them. So even if you manage to grab the closest and form a breach - there are more waiting for you as you penetrate further.

Do you believe the Hypaspists were flankmen protecting the phalangites themselves, with shorter spears and/or swords, at least rendering some degree of protection to the phalanx's sides? Surely that is what any sensible and thoughtful general would (like Phillip II or Alexander III) have contrived - unless it was just one lengthy array of phalanxes stretching hundreds of yards?

The best way of dealing with an approaching phalanx would be with massed archers I would have thought - which is why the Spartans (and other Greeks) were always going to struggle hanging on to their chivalrous hoplite mode of engagement. At least Kleomenes III understood that, and learned from the opposition.

200

[Old Husker]

I'm still developing my views on the Macedonian pike phalanx, but am becoming more comfortable with the idea that one wing (normally the right) was initially occupied by dory-armed hoplites (hypaspists and, on occasion, mercenaries). I think that this was the case throughout Philip II's career and, perhaps, Alexander III's as well (though here I'm still researching). Otherwise, cavalry fronted by light infantry seems to have been the method used to protect the heavy infantry's flanks. Once pikes got so long that penetration by hoplites became very impractical (likely in the period after Alexander's death), this probably changed (at this point, small teams of elite hoplite might have taken position on the ends of the line more as flank guards than elements of the heavy phalanx proper). As I say, my thoughts remain in flux on this thorny subject and I look forward to the ongoing discussion here to enlighten me.

[Sean Manning]

The best way of dealing with an approaching phalanx would be with massed archers I would have thought - which is why the Spartans (and other Greeks) were always going to struggle hanging on to their chivalrous hoplite mode of engagement. At least Kleomenes III understood that, and learned from the opposition.

200

The Greeks and Macedonians were lucky that the local archery traditions used moderate draw weights, light arrows, and sometimes short draws. So shields and armour were very good protection, although a few arrows would always strike unarmoured spots. Still, Alexander seems to have worried about archery.

The other thing is that Greek style hoplites continued to put up a fight against sarisaphoroi for several generations, so the mismatch may not be as great as it seems. There isn't a lot of published research on how battles between sarisaphoroi and traditional hoplites went.

[Paullus Scipio]

Macedon wrote:

There is a lot of talk regarding the Macedonian phalanx and lots of speculation, theories etc.

Very true, alas! Before this topic develops too far, I suggest we stop and consider what we THINK we know. Like some ancient authors, we are in danger of using hindsight to apply over-simplifications, cliches and generalisations that often simply aren't correct.Let us try to avoid repeating these, and instead apply some original thought.

Ghostmojo wrote:

(a) knowing the phalangite was so clearly vulnerable to close-quarters attack from a swordsman (like a legionary) why did the unit ever allow itself to be placed in such a position?

I don't think it can be said that the phalangite was 'vulnerable' as such - Polybius and others all seem to agree the dence array of pikes was pretty INvulnerable from the front.
If the 'swordsman' could get close, then I believe the same as Paul B.

Once the Romans broke into the formations, their bigger shields would have been a great advantage reguardless of sword skill.

The key advantage was the better protection of the 'scutum' over the 'pelta', rather than 'sword skill'. Even this, I suspect, was not the prime reason the phalanx collapsed in such circumstances, but rather the morale reason of knowing one's formation was 'broken'.....once the enemy were within your ranks, the situation could not be restored.

(b) when facing an oncoming pike unit, why did so many still-hoplite-armed units try to take it on with conventional tactics which had proved so useless?

Again, I would agree with Paul B.

We looking back may beleive that sarissaphoroi were superior, but many of these battles were close-run. A Greek may have thought not that they need a change in the panoply of their fathers- to jumped-up peltasts no less- but simply more courage or perhaps piety. To turn the question on its head, would the Macedonians who had been beating men armed with swords, throwing spears and scutum-like shields for generations, see the Romans as having superior arms or superior tenacity?

Chaeronea, Granicus, and Issus are but three examples (involving the Great Alexander himself) where a Hoplite phalanx and a pike phalanx were fairly evenly matched, and in all three cases it was tactical advantage that decided the issue, not 'superior' weaponry.Similarly it was a huge advantage in numbers that allowed the Macedonian phalanx of Antipater to push back the Athenian hoplite phalanx at the battle of Crannon, (Lamian War 322 BC), but the Hoplites weren't broken.( If the sarissa had the advantage of reach, the larger aspis had the advantage of greater protection - swings and roundabouts)

Consider too that Philip and Alexander's soldiers were 'professional' and in Alexander's case, full time professionals often fighting (at Chaeronea and on other occasions) part-time'citizen militias' - yet still roughly equal.Recall too that it was not the pike phalanx that impressed the Greek city-states as the 'successor' of the Hoplite but rather the Gauls and their 'body-shields'(after 279 BC). Most city states converted their armies to more flexible in theory 'Thureophoroi' before ultimately adopting the sarissa - after 'thureophoroi' had failed against the Macedonian-style phalanx.
Paul's point that from a Greek point of view, a Roman was just another 'thureophoroi' is very pertinent.

When Philip I looked to match the 'Hoplites' of the Greek city-states, he brilliantly achieved this by adding the sarissa to his plentiful native peltasts, and drilling them in the ways of phalanx fighting. In doing so, he 'equalled' the Hoplite phalanx cheaply without the full expense of the Hoplite panoply - and by doing so he gained both 'equality' of fighting power in Heavy/Line Infantry, but in far greater numbers than any 'polis' could raise.

First of all, it was devised by a people who did not inhabit any land of great plains.

Whilst true, this is a relative statement - Macedon possessed more and bigger plains than any other Greek state ( Thessaly doesn't count, for it was made up of a number of city-states ! )

Macedon wrote:

Uneven terrain consisted a problem for all armies based on the phalanx (line) system, no matter how this line was armed. The degree of uneveness could vary very much and exploiting it with your own phalanx was not as easy or automatic as many think. In Pydna, the phalanx was very successful against the Romans until it slowly dissolved, but this happened from a variety of reasons and not because of terrain and because the Romans readily exploited it. In the account of the battle we have Paulus riding back and forth ordering his men to leave the line and exploit any gap or sign of disorder in the Macedonian line. This clearly shows that the Romans, even in this late battle, after having had much experience against the Macedonians, did not think of it as a good idea to cause disorder in their lines in order to exploit what sometimes seemed (but might not be) disorder in the enemy line.

This is undoubtedly true - contact of one 'line' with an enemy one would always tend to 'disorder' the all-essential cohesion of the line ( and not just phalanxes).Certainly at Pydna, the Macedonian phalanx had fought its way slowly across a plain, pushing the Romans before it, and 'cracks' in the line must have appeared, as in any similar situation, long before the Roman retreat reached the foothills where their camp was. The gullies and trees and so forth associated with these foothills exacerbated these 'cracks' in the frontage. As 'Macedon' has noted, it was a sign of desperation that Aemilius Paullus was prepared to sacrifice the integrity of his own line to break the enemy's - a bit like a 'sacrifice throw' in Judo or Wrestling. It is also true that as with Macedonian phalanx v Hoplites, Macedonian phalanx v Legions was also a close run thing - from Pyrrhus (280 BC) to Pydna (168 BC). Clearly, weaponry was not 'the' decisive factor when it came to heavy Infantry battle.

If you number the instances when a Macedonian phalanx performed well on uneven terrain, you will be astonished. Sellassia was certainly no plain and Cynos Cephalae was also not really even.

As always, closer examination reveals a more complex picture. The clash between Spartan and Macedonian phalanxes at Sellasia occurred across a fairly flat saddle - the field was narrow, falling off steeply at the sides, but the actual saddle was even. Similarly the hills at Kynoskephalae are fairly shallow and even, not steep or broken ground. Nevertheless, it is certainly true that Heavy/Line Infantry ( not just phalanxes) do not always need flat even terrain to fight on.....

or the order that Paulus gave (I do not remember now, was it in Polyaenus) for cavalry to ride in front of the sarrissae chopping off the spearpoints with the use of the momentum of the horses, but none has been standardized, not in ancient times nor in later times when the pike reappears (like in Byzantium or medieval pikemen), which shows that such stratagems were not really successful against an opponent who had the ability to find an answer to them.

A moment's thought will reveal the anecdote about cavalry knocking the heads off sarissa to be completely implausible....but the point that "gimmicks" such as carts or scythed chariots never succeeded in disrupting a line of heavy infantry is well made ( save scyhed Persian chariots in a skirmish on one occasion).

Ghostmojo wrote:

Do you believe the Hypaspists were flankmen protecting the phalangites themselves, with shorter spears and/or swords, at least rendering some degree of protection to the phalanx's sides? Surely that is what any sensible and thoughtful general would (like Phillip II or Alexander III) have contrived - unless it was just one lengthy array of phalanxes stretching hundreds of yards?

Raise this point at your peril! I believe the 'high status' Hypaspist guards were dory/aspis armed (like the 'high status' Hoplites) throughout the reigns of Philip and Alexander, but Paralus and others believe otherwise ! In either event they took the 'post of honour' on the right flank of the Phalanx - and were part of it, not a 'flank guard', which function was carried out by more mobile types such as cavalry, peltasts, light troops etc

The best way of dealing with an approaching phalanx would be with massed archers I would have thought

Quite so, as the apparent annihilation of a Macedonian army under Zopyrion by mounted Scythian archers would seem to illustrate ( though it is uncertain if Zopyrion's army included 'sarissaphoroi', or was made up of only allies/mercenaries etc). Alexander's reform of including Persian archers might also seem to point this way, but in reality was perhaps the only way in which Persians fighting with their native weapons could be incorporated in the Army in large numbers, rather than a tactical innovation - another example, like Philip's reforms, of social structure dictating weaponry, rather than just military 'best options'.

Old Husker wrote:

Once pikes got so long that penetration by hoplites became very impractical (likely in the period after Alexander's death), this probably changed (at this point, small teams of elite hoplite might have taken position on the ends of the line more as flank guards than elements of the heavy phalanx proper). As I say, my thoughts remain in flux on this thorny subject and I look forward to the ongoing discussion here to

'Thorny subject' is right!:wink:
I don't believe that pikes got any longer than 16-18 ft maximum, and that metrology and copyists errors are to blame for texts referring to impractically long sarissas ( I researched this some time back, but research incomplete) It would be incorrect to think that Hoplite armed troops ever formed 'flank guards', AFIK. They were invariably part of THE phalanx/heavy infantry fighting line proper, generally speaking. 'Flank guard' was the function of lighter, more mobile trops.

Similarly, the idea that later Macedonian phalangites were somehow less capable than Philip or Alexander's is also an over-simplification. To begin with, few armies campaigned as constantly as Alexander's army (335-323 BC) and gained the experience ( or rather the survivors of them, as Paralus has pointed out to me) of constant warfare for a dozen years. Hellenistic armies reverted to part-time militias, with only elite Guards units being full-time. Even so, the later phalanxes performed just as well as earlier ones.

I am of the belief that factors in combat are so complex that one has to examine any given army in a given campaign, even a given battle, to analyse the myriad factors affecting combat power, or the outcome of a particular battle or skirmish.......formations and weaponry are way too simplistic in themselves, even where they are factors.

[Ghostmojo]

I can see this is a complex technical issue, but I raised it because I am keen to learn. From what Paul/lus says it would seem to me that a stalemate would be the most likely result of any hoplite V phalangite encounter. One side had the longer reaching spears so how could the dory-armed soldiers ever get near the sarrisa-armed warriors to harm them? Conversely, the hoplite had the larger aspis/hoplon shields so were better protected than the smaller shields of the pikemen, who in turn surely struggled to injure them? So perhaps they just yelled abuse at each other until one side or other's feelings were sufficiently hurt to cause them to retreat in tears?:lol:

And yet that wasn't the usual outcome at all. How would you attack a pike phalanx with a spear phalanx?:? Head on? My comments above surely prove this would have been unprofitable for both sides. Was it down to the shove - sarrisai against aspis? Difficult to imagine. So what did usually happen I wonder?:neutral:

Perhaps the hoplites tried to get under the pikes by using their shields in a kind of proto-tortoise fashion? If sufficient numbers of front rankers could do this and advance they might have made some headway. Perhaps not? The Spartans utilised younger lightly clad hoplites to run out and skirmish ahead of the main phalanx on occasion, before rejoining the unit. Perhaps some of these guys managed to effect broken sarrisai?

And of course the Makedonians were not the only Greeks to have professional troops. Both Spartans and Thebans were highly professionalised. The crack Thebans at Chaironeia were hardly the usual hellenic yeoman hopites - they were the Sacred Band - not the Scared Band!

I fully accept that lots of factors were at play here. Conservatism at least as prevalent as innovation. But there are plenty of examples of necessity being the mother of invention - Epaminondas, Iphikrates etc., and plenty of thought surely went into this matter over the generations of internal Greek conflict?

Regarding shields. The scutum was certainly both more defensive and more offensive than a pelta - though not perhaps an aspis? So the Roman having broken into a Makedonian or Epeirote phalanx formation would be better protected. But better protected from what? What could the phalangite do? He had a small sword perhaps and a smaller shield. The Romans were highly trained in the cut and thrust with the gladius. The phalanx of pikemen was a one-trick pony if ever there was one. Perhaps that's why some of the other Greeks hung onto their hoplite phalanxes? The dory/sword/aspis unit may well have performed better against the early legions in close-quarter combat.

[Old Husker]

Great post Paulus Scipio! I suspect that we're pretty close to agreement on the role of the hypaspists/hoplites in the phalanxes of Philip and Alexander, though, as you point out, there are others who quite reasonably diagree and disagree strongly. I would propose that the sarissai of Philip's early armies (up through at least 354 B.C.'s battle at the Crescent HIlls in Thessaly) were probably 12-foot, with a 15-foot model coming into play sometime thereafer (prior to - and most probably well prior to - Chaeronea in 338 B.C.). This vesion likely was standard throughout Alexander's campaigns, but might have been replaced by an 18-foot instrument in India; at any rate, I think that the longer weapon came into play no later than during the period of Alexander's immediate successors (my preferred date for its introduction).

Ghostmojo's observation that stalemates would have occurred regularly if the pike array was so inpenetrable to aspis/dory armed opponents is well taken, and the fact that such stalemates did not long dominate these kinds of actions suggests that either the pike array was not so invulnerable or that other factors carried the day. I suspect that both those solutions are viable. In the days of Philip's shorter sarissa, it must have been possible for hoplites to pierce the pike front and come to blows with phalangites at great advantage, which seems to have happened to Philip in Thessaly in 354 B.C. (twice, though the second penetration was clearly greatly assisted by the Macedonians falling into a very unique artillery ambush). The result of these defeats was that Philip's troops became so dispirited that they revolted and forced a return to Macedonia. Later actions between Philip's pikemen and hoplites do seem to have had a tendency toward stalemate along the heavy-armed front, with the spearmen perhaps now being held more effectively at bay by longer (15-foot?) pikes. In these actions, resolution fell upon the cavalry (Thessalian light-horse at Crocus Plain for example) or was achieved by an unusual infantry maneuver (the false retreat at Chaeronea fits here). This was a pattern that seems to have persisted through Alexander's engagements against hoplite opposition and quite possibly for a while into the Successor Wars as well (though those not in favor of the significant presence of Macedonian hoplites would no doubt argue against the latter).

[Ghostmojo]

Agreed Fred. After all the main purpose of the Alexandrian phalanx was to pin the enemy in place while the cavalry whizzed around to the rear to deliver the coup de grace. This was the hammer and anvil tactic. Philip may well have done much the same thing.

As an offensive unit against stubborn opposition, then perhaps the pike taxeis could be brought to a halt regularly? Without the cavalry to finish the job it might have been rendered impotent against a particularly intransigent opposition i.e. a well-trained Greek hoplite phalanx.

But we also have the pike against pike scenario:

At Sellasia Kleomenes III was let down by his brother/co-king Eukleidas who gave away his advantage by moving his periokoi phalanx downhill to fight. Kleomenes himself, in charge of the Spartan phalanx made better use of the slope to push back his Makedonian opponents. Unfortunately his flank became exposed. K3 lost because of poor subcommanders on his own side and disobedient subcommanders on his opponents i.e. the Akhaian Philopoimen who showed initiative by ignoring Antigonos III Doson's orders.

I feel sorry for Kleomenes III. He was let down by Eukleidas and also possibly betrayed by the Krypteia commander (whose name temporarily escapes me). He had proved himself to be a most worthy and innovative commander and probably the best Spartan warrior king since Areos I. Had he triumphed at Sellasia, or avoided the conflict altogether I suspect he would have gone on to completely liberate southern Greece from Makedonian control - and perhaps even further ...

[Macedon]

All sources agree that the Macedonian phalanx was extremely tough to beat frontally. As heavy infantry lines are concerned, it seems it reigned supreme against all other sorts of heavy infantry line (by no means meaning absolute superiority, just a good edge). Of course I do stand by my initial opinion that this was not enough and, as Scipio also supports, other tactical conditions were as, if not more important in the final outcome. What is most unfortunate is the fact that we do not have any detailed literary evidence of Philip's battles, so that we can judge the sarissa in its first steps. There are those who understandably propose that Philip actually never implemented the sarissa, or at least the well known long form of it, at least until Cheronaea, some doubt that it was even used there. I really have dreamed of a day when someone will discover ancient works on Philip, a most competent commander, innovator and politician.

Regarding the ordering of a cavalry force to ride in front of the sarissae, of course I agree that it sounds highly unlikely to have worked, but the point was that according to the ancients, as Ghostmojo asked, there are stories about strange or outright improbable stratagems concerning most aspects of warfare. Was this particular one really implemented? Maybe yes, maybe not, it is not up to me to judge. What I can say is that it certainly was not standardized as far as tackling a Macedonian phalanx was concerned, so I guess that whatever the degree of its success, it cannot have been as high as is suggested. I would advise though keeping an open mind in the possibility of sometimes peculiar stratagems being employed to shift the tide.

We also have to accept that any battle formation ever made up was to answer to specific challenges. If and when these challenges changed, the battle formation would also have to adapt, even if not immediately. Factors such as piety and tradition of course were of importance but in the end it was results which always took precedence. Philip, as well as Alexander, Antigonos and all other Macedonian kings or commanders in chief had to fight not only against other Greeks, armies based on heavy spearmen, but also, and maybe even more usually against barbarian armies. As far as the Macedonian plains are concerned, they should not be imagined as long stretching level areas as many would fancy. On the map, it looks like it is bigger than the Thessalian plains, but in reality, it is less flat, with more gullies, hills, streams and swamps. It is very difficult to find a really open stretch of land of the sort most Westerners hold that a pike phalanx would excel on. The same seems to also apply to Asia Minor, also a very mountainous region, certainly not, though, in nowadays Eastern Thrace. In the Peloponnese, it is even more difficult to find good, level, open terrain and in Sellasia (we had some very interesting discussion on this battle in the past) all battlefields proposed are really rough and difficult. We also have to account for Granicus, Issus and Hydaspes, all battlefields supposedly not proper for a perfect phalanx match.

I always fail to understand the meaning of the characterization of Alexander's use of the phalanx as "the hammer and the anvil". Of course I understand what the theory proposes, I just fail to see it. I maintain that the phalanx could and did win the day without a glorious charge of the Companions. I do not view it as infantry with a purpose to "pin" its opponent, but rather outright smash into it, drive it back and win. It seems that the Persians, perfectly aware of the inability of their infantry to engage and survive a clash against the Macedonian line, preferred to just stay away from it. It seems that the phalanx fought more usually against the Persian cavalry, which of course was impossible for the phalanx to harm, showering the phallangites with javelins and arrows, as they moved forward. Although it seems logical, I doubt that eastern arrows would be the answer to the Macedonian phalanx. They certainly did not really help much in Persia when used by the Persian cavalry (in Gaugamela it seems they did have an effect) and for some reason, I always found that strange, there are no mentions of bow use by Persian infantry during Alexander's anabasis. I always surmised that this happened because in order to use mass archery you have to be willing to also give a standing fight, which the Persians were (and I think for good reasons) not. What I would expect to have seen would be some volleys from behind infantry like the Greek mercenaries in Issus, but it seems there was none... In India, we have examples of bow use and the damage it could produce, but again, we see that the longbow did not really help too much in fracturing and defeating the phalanx. This only can mean that arrows were just not efficient enough against the general state of the Macedonian phalanx formation.

I agree that the disadvantage a pezetairos would suffer against a legionary in a one to one fight would predominantly lie in the use of the scutum rather than the Roman gladius, provided that the Macedonian was at least armed with a kopis or other battlesword. This is why I said that the Roman infantrymen were better equipped for skirmishing action, which in times can be as important as an all out battle. For such action, the Macedonians would have used mercenaries, who seem to most times have been contingents of heavier than usual skirmishing troops (even when they could also fight in line). I guess that skirmishing action, with the dangers it held (much bloodier in comparison to a regular battle before pursue) was a fit job for them.

Were the hypaspists armed with a spear? I tend to agree too. If only we had more information on them too...

[Anonymous]

But better protected from what? What could the phalangite do? He had a small sword perhaps and a smaller shield. The Romans were highly trained in the cut and thrust with the gladius.

Were we to magically switch in ceatra and falcata armed Iberians for rather similarly equiped pelta and khopis armed phalangites, I think we'd find a very different outcome, but Paullus is the one who could speak more to this. You only came to the sword in a sarissa phalanx clash if things have already gone terribly wrong, so it is not so easy to use historical battles for comparison of their sword skill. Its a bit like saying that the sword is superior to the spear because battles where the Triarii were involved tended to be lost.

[Paullus Scipio]

Ghostmojo wrote:

Agreed Fred. After all the main purpose of the Alexandrian phalanx was to pin the enemy in place while the cavalry whizzed around to the rear to deliver the coup de grace. This was the hammer and anvil tactic. Philip may well have done much the same thing.

On the face of it, that is the impression one gets from reading the sources......but bear in mind that these are concerned, from Kallisthenes onward with glorifying Alexander, so that we hear a great deal about The Conquering Hero at the head of his almost equally famous Companions ( rather like King Arthur and his Knights, for whom they may well have been the ultimate model), and precious little about the average footslogger in the Taxeis who bore the brunt of the fighting. Our view of Alexander's battles is, to say the least, a rather biased one. ( e.g. the conventional account of Granicus). Alexander's impetuousness, often angling like an old fashioned Hoplite phalanx to his right, led to a near disastrous 'split' of the Phalanx at both Issus and Gaugemala - hardly a solid anvil - which only the fighting skills of the infantry remedied on both occasions. At Hydaspes it was the Phalanx which carried the day against Porus' infantry and elephants.
As I said earlier, each battle is unique and deserves to looked at as such.

Also, that seems a rather distorted view of what happened at Sellasia. ( Have you read my account of the battle in "Ancient Warfare magazine"? :wink: ) Eukleides men had neither the combat power, nor the morale of his brother's part of the army, and he wisely fought from within his palisaded camp, which was his best chance ( contra Polybius, who thought they should have come out to fight). Following Eukleides defeat, the victorious Macedonians did descend into the valley and began climbing up Olympus toward Kleomenes, but Kleomenes men were defeated long before they arrived.....in a brutal head-on clash of pike Phalanxes, which in the end was decided by numbers.

I also agree with Macedon - the 'Heavy/Line Infantry' of any army are the Main Force, and are there to beat the enemy and generally do the bulk of the fighting. I largely agree with this paragraph:-

I always fail to understand the meaning of the characterization of Alexander's use of the phalanx as "the hammer and the anvil". Of course I understand what the theory proposes, I just fail to see it. I maintain that the phalanx could and did win the day without a glorious charge of the Companions....... In India, we have examples of bow use and the damage it could produce, but again, we see that the longbow did not really help too much in fracturing and defeating the phalanx. This only can mean that arrows were just not efficient enough against the general state of the Macedonian phalanx formation.

As I said above, I don't believe it was necessarily for 'military efficiency' reasons that Alexander incorporated Persian archers into the Phalanx, but rather for 'socio/political' reasons or because he intended to campaign against the nomads - the answer to the mounted horse archer had always been the longer-ranged foot-archer, protected by either the traditional Persian pavise/gerrhon, or in Alexander's case, pikes. So I agree with this too:-

We also have to accept that any battle formation ever made up was to answer to specific challenges. If and when these challenges changed, the battle formation would also have to adapt, even if not immediately.

Old Husker wrote:

Ghostmojo's observation that stalemates would have occurred regularly if the pike array was so inpenetrable to aspis/dory armed opponents is well taken, and the fact that such stalemates did not long dominate these kinds of actions suggests that either the pike array was not so invulnerable or that other factors carried the day.

I should say predominately the latter - certainly if equal numbers of heavy infantry, regardless of armament, fought one another, with equally good morale, and no other significant tactical advantages, then the result would be stalemate.But no real battle was like that, as you, the author of a tactical analysis of Greek Hoplite battles know only too well........there are always tactical factors - terrain, flanking,weather, numbers etc which break the potential stalemate between the masses of infantry......

"Anonymous" ( who should append his real name to comply with Forum rules :wink: ) wrote:-

Were we to magically switch in ceatra and falcata armed Iberians for rather similarly equiped pelta and khopis armed phalangites, I think we'd find a very different outcome, but Paullus is the one who could speak more to this.

It is probably highly significant that when Hamilcar invaded Spain, one of the first things he did was to re-equip his native Spanish mercenaries with the 'scutum/thureos' in place of the native 'caetra/pelta'(thus introducing it to South-East Spain) so he evidently believed it to be an advantage in close combat ( and perhaps missile combat too)over the smaller round shield, and as Hannibal would demonstrate, Iberian 'scutati' fighting in disciplined units were every bit a match for Roman Heavy/Line Infantry.

You only came to the sword in a sarissa phalanx clash if things have already gone terribly wrong, so it is not so easy to use historical battles for comparison of their sword skill.

Again, I have no problem agreeing with this. A pike phalanx's strength was its serried and co-ordinated mass functioning as a unit. If pikes had to be dropped and men defend themselves individually with sword and pelta, then it was already effectively over.....

[PMBardunias]

"Anonymous" ( who should append his real name to comply with Forum rules ) wrote:-

Ha! you fell for the old "anonymous posting trick". Second only to a land war in Asia as military foibles go! By the way, that is what happens now if you forget to sign in.

As I said, you'd know more than I, but I seem to recall the Iberians being a handful even with the old "Peltae".

As an aside, do you know which Roman author made the comment comparing roman and other peoples, saying Spaniards were more skilled fighters, Gauls were bigger and stronger, etc.?

[Ghostmojo]

When various Greek states, kingdoms, leagues etc. went all Romanised and started using the Celt Thureos type shield, and mail etc. how did they fight - presumably still in some form of post-hoplite/phalanx manner, or did they try to emulate the legions? I have always understood them to operate somewhere between solid phalanx and skirmishing roles.

I'm curious about this late Greek transitional stage I must admit, and know precious little about it. I recognise there is a distinction between thorakitai and thureophoroi in terms of equipment and fighting mode and wonder was Pyrrhos the first to use either of them?