[split] Phalanx warfare: use of the spear

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

There are a whole lot of odd things that the ancients did that I should think they didn't need to be a genius to realize they are counter productive.

As Paul has said, every single loss in a hoplite battle after othismos started means the rear rankers were the ones who started the rout (they need to run off to give everyone else room to run too). So if the rear rankers are always the oldest, steadiest, and given increased levels of responsibility, would that still happen often? Wouldn't battles become bloodier, as older ouragos kill their own middle rankers who keep moving backwards?

I'm just saying that besides the Spartans, Thebens, and to some extent at certain times, the Athenians, I can't remember any other city state that had well trained/drilled/repeatedly successful hoplites forces.

As I tried to demonstrate in my previous post, the oldest hoplites were the ones that decided how many of their sons died before retreat! It is not necessary that their rout started only with their personal benefit in mind, but also in cases where a retreat was indeed the better of the two options. 
Besides, there is a whole lot of reasons one army might have lost even in the case of othismos, like casualties or exhaustion and not necessarily because the rear rankers deserted.

We should always have in mind that the othismos might have happened in small portions of the line, and then possibly for short periods of time. The fighting would be so intense for the first three ranks that i doubt any army could maintain the fighting for long. The first rankers would be helmet to helmet with their oponents, grabing crests, beards and puting fingers in the eyes, perhaps even biting. In such compressed conditions even the third rankers can use their spears to reach the oponent, which means that even the third rank sustains casualties.
Now if we allow for some casualties before the othismos, from spear or arrow or slingshot, and for a phalanx of six ranks, the third ranker possibly only had one man behind him only, or in extreme cases none! This could result to a break in the line during othismos, and this is yet another reason that a phalanx might have lost during the othismos phase.

Athe second phase of the battle of Koroneia, the Thebans were trying to break through the Lakedaemonian phalanx. It is one of the few descriptions of battles where we are almost certain that the othismos occured, and yet Xenophon says that some of the Thebans managed to "break through" the Spartans and find refuge at a shrine. If this break through happened by a winning army rather than one that was trying to escape it might have been reason for victory!

It is also a misconception that during the golden age of the hoplite, the 7th and 6th century bc Athens Sparta and Thebes were the only good armies. In fact there is plenty of evidence that they weren't, both literary and archaeological. 
Even in later times, after the Persian Wars, there is no reason to believe that lesser states didn't imitate the military practise of their stronger allies. So Herodotus puts the Thebans of the middle 6th century to consider the armies of Tanagra, Coroneia and Thespiai their customary followers to every one of their military campeigns. I would think that by the 5th century these cities fought in much the same way as the Thebans, imitating their most successful practises. 

But lets face it, economic prosperity comes with military prowess and vice versa, especially in the greek workd of constant strife, and if we look at the dedications of the cities in the archaic times in the big sanctuaries, both individual objects and whole buildings and treasuries we willl see that Athens Thebes and Sparta were not so much better than many others, if at all! 

And ultimately, who fought the peloponnesian war? The 6000 Spartans that seldom left their city, or the multitude of cities of the Peloponnesus and elsewhere, who were their subordinate allies?

Khaire
Giannis