When the phalanx disappeared ?

[Barry Soteiro]

I wondered after the Romans conquered most of the Greek World, did the phalanx totally disappeared ?

Or did it survived in hellenic remaining kingdoms like Bosphore or Commagene ?

Thanks

[Eduorius]

It dissapeared somewhere after the Battle of Rocroi.

[pezhetairoi]

Yes. You still see a form of the phalanx existent all the way through the pike formations of medieval and post-renaissance eras, and reach a new heyday as a mixed-arms formation with pikemen phalanxes mixed with swordsmen and musketeers in the Spanish heyday. Only after Rocroi did you see it slowly disappear in favour of a full gunpowder army, as appeared at Blenheim/Culloden.

Though after the Romans took over the Mediterranean, to answer your more pertinent question, the phalanx did indeed disappear as first the legion, then heavy cavalry, took precedence. The revival of the phalanx, IMHO, was when Charles the Bold's vaunted mixed-arms artillery and cavalry army met its end at the hands of Swiss halberd-and-pike militia fighting in packed formations bristling with polearms - essentially a reborn phalanx. Following which, with their proven effect against the elite cavalry of the day, Swiss pikemen and their phalanx formation were exported across Europe as mercenaries, introducing and familiarising yet more people to the effects of formation and sharp pointy sticks.

Naturally, more people began to readopt this formation. Related formations, I may mention, were the Spanish tercios and the Scottish schiltron. And of course, the not-named English pike formations that fought the English Civil War in conjunction with cuirassier cavalry, and musketeers as part of Cromwell's New Model Army.

You could say the phalanx hadn't yet died in Napoleon's era, to a very small extent, because you had the French militia in the early First Republic, was it the federes? armed with halberds during the levee en masse, with only those in the field armies armed with flintlocks. But of course, these halberdiers (conceivably they would have been used in phalanx, meaning a tightly packed mass of troops in this case, to stop a Prussian/Austrian cavalry charge) were never used on the field of battle, only as garrison troops, so this is perhaps irrelevant, and we can point to the definite death of battlefield phalanxes at Rocroi, when Conde's cavalry broke the tercios.

[Gododdin O'Ceallagh]

The Scots Schiltron predates Charles the Bold as it is recorded being used in the 13th Century. In itself it was a development of the "shield wall" tactics of the Germanic and Celtic tribes.

Didn't Charles Martel use phalanxes at the Battle of Tours in 732 against the Moorish cavalry?

G O'C

[Leviathan DarklyCute]

What about the phalanx in the east hellenic world? when did the phalanx in persia and baktria disappeared?

[pezhetairoi]

I can't answer Leviathan's so I'll leave it for someone more knowledgeable about the MidEast. PCataphract, perhaps.

True about the schiltrons, they came before Charles the Bold. But they were omnidirectional hedgehogs, not phalanxes in the sense that we understand it, incredibly strong in front at the expense of the flanks. So while related to the phalanx (lots of long pointy sticks, closely packed formation, shieldwall), it's not a phalanx per se. To be fair, neither was the Swiss pike formation since it was a mixed-arms unit as well. But it did have much more similarity to the ancient phalanx than the schiltron, IMHO. This is not scholarly academic knowledge. Medieval era is not my strong suit, so probably patchy/assumptuous.

On Charles Martel at Tours, no idea either. I haven't actually found any good sources yet on the order of battle and the tactics used at that battle. Was Charles Martel's army at that time considered 'Christianised barbarian' or 'barbarised Christian'? I thought, being a Germanic (Frankish) army, it would most like have been a shieldwall rather than a phalanx...

[SaberHRE]

actually, the swiss 'imported' the pikes from Italian city states, prior to it, they were masters of the halberd.

And when it comes to Swiss tactics, it was not a phalanx, it called a pike square. Why? Because it looked like a square, and unlike the phalanx was a lot more flexible, being capable of holding artillery or cavlry inside the square. Often it looked liked this:


pppppppppppp
pppppppppppp
pp pp
pp pp
pp pp

p's being soldiers.

[Watchman]

Why the fig is it that whenever people start talking about phalanxes they almost never actually define what they mean with the term ? Causes a lot of unnecessary confusion and misunderstanding.

The term "phalanx" itself only refers to any closely packed formation of heavy infantry, regardless of their exact armamanet. In one form or another it's been used the world over for a very long time by any military tradition capable of greater tactical organisation than a loose-order warband (which, mind you, is in some circumstances the only tactical formation conditions like terrain allow - closed order blows in dense forest, for example), simply because it's a very cheap, easy and effective way to maximise the staying power of infantry, particularly one armed with long pointy things and preferably big shields too.

I prefer to call that one "shieldwall" for easy differentation, and because the term quite admirably accurately describes what the formation looks like. AFAIK the first known recorded appereance of the formation comes from the ancient Sumerians in the Stele of Vultures.

Pikemen are a quite different ballgame, especially in their Macedonian-Hellenistic incarnation. The basic idea is the same, but the actual execution is quite different as the formation by default cannot be too closely packed - there must be room for the pikes of the rear ranks to pass between the ranks before them for there to be much point in the whole exercise - but instead very high standards of drill are critical to allow the formation to maneuver without getting its ordering busted and the pointy flagpoles tangled together. (Thankfully, it's fairly easy to teach people to maneuver in synch as long as you have some time to spare.)

So, in response to Gododdin, yes - as long as you're talking about the first type discussed above. The shieldwall never fell out of use anyway; the Germanics and Celts both used it, the Romans employed a specialised variation (the testudo), and it was pretty much the standard heavy-infantry (especially spearman) battle formation in Europe and not a few other places until quite late times.

The Scottish "schiltrom", however, is a bit different thing. It was really just a static circular "hedgehog" of long spears, and while obviously providing good all-around cavalry protection was very much a sitting duck to missile troops. Something of a failed experiment in a proto-pike square you could say.

The actual Medieval pike formation was rather different from either the schiltrom or the ancient pike phalanx. The latter consisted of rectangluar blocks of pikemen joined into a long line, terribly vulnerable at its flanks and wont to get disjointed by uncooperative terrain and varying levels of local success against enemy forces; the Medieval pikemen fought in huge hollow squares which simply had no flanks or rear to begin with, and if necessary could accept their assorted organic support troops - skirmishers, halberd- and swordsmen and other "assault infantry", even artillery - into the protection of the hollow. Properly drilled, these living fortresses were in fact quite maneuverable (the speed the Swiss squares could advance to attack wrong-footed their opponents in at least one early battle) and if they had weaknesses it was above all the fact that they didn't really make very effective use of manpower - most of the soldiers in one never came to even close to the enemy, and simply stood there idly when one facet of the square fought. It was this, and such deep formations' vulnerability to the increasingly prevalent and potent field artillery, that led to the abandoning of the squares as a basic tactical formation during the Thirty Years' War.

[Dhampir]

During the 1812 war, the 13th US Infantry was formed without enough muskets to go around so the colonel adapted them to fight in three ranks, not two, and gave the rear rank long pikes. When the front rank has their bayonets at guard, the second most at thrust-out and the rear has their pikes aimed forward, the formation vaguely resembles a phalanx...

But not tactically so.:shame:

[Gododdin O'Ceallagh]

Watchman said

"The Scottish "schiltrom", however, is a bit different thing. It was really just a static circular "hedgehog" of long spears, and while obviously providing good all-around cavalry protection was very much a sitting duck to missile troops. Something of a failed experiment in a proto-pike square you could say."


In most cases this was true, the enemy usually stood off the schiltron and peppered it with missiles but at Bannockburn Robert the Bruce drilled the schiltrons so that they could advance in formation, like a "phalanx".

I don't think the Scots used schiltrons much after the 14th Century and the Scots fighting in the 100 Years War in France were probably indistinguishable in arms from their French allies who would have equipped them.

GO'C

[pezhetairoi]

Uhuh at Watchman (did you get your name from the comic, by the way?). I did say in my post that neither schiltron nor Swiss pike squares (thanks Saber for jogging my memory) were true resurrections of Alex's pike phalanx, and anyway, I did define my idea of what a phalanx was. Long pointy things, tightly packed infantry, unidirectional strength. So why in the world is everyone taking what I said to mean 'The Swiss were Alexander's pezhetairoi reborn?'

de Bruce's schiltrons were only used at Bannockburn, so I don't know if we can take that to buck the norm. And they were not unidirectional. You try to arrange spears to cover all angles, you are bound to have weak spots somewhere. If circular, then between every spear is a weak spot because each spear has to cover a wider 'arc of poking', if you will, than a single unbroken front. If square, then every apex is a MAJOR weak spot. And it wasn't like the Spanish tercio with the corners covered by musketeers, or a Napoleonic divisional square (another incarnation of the tightly-packed long-pointy-stick infantry?) where the corners were covered by artillery.

[Ibrahim]

actually, at falkirk in 1297 the schiltron was also used (lack of manuevrability from not being drilled cost them defeat)

[pezhetairoi]

Which is as good as saying mobile schiltrons were only used as intended at Bannockburn... Points given for trying, though. And if I recall, Falkirk was before Bannockburn (William Wallace before Robert de Bruce?), so I think de Bruce at Bannockburn was really just perfecting Wallace's attempt at tactical innovation?

Question, though, what sort of spears did they use in the schiltron? Pikes, or hoplite-length...? And how was the schiltron for missile protection? If the pezhetairoi phalanx gave them some protection because of the rear pikes slanting over the heads of the front five ranks, then what of the schiltron? Did they have some such plan?

And actually, now that I mention it. Was the schiltron circular or square? I'm not actually quite sure...

[Sarcasm]

Which is as good as saying mobile schiltrons were only used as intended at Bannockburn... Points given for trying, though. And if I recall, Falkirk was before Bannockburn (William Wallace before Robert de Bruce?), so I think de Bruce at Bannockburn was really just perfecting Wallace's attempt at tactical innovation?

Question, though, what sort of spears did they use in the schiltron? Pikes, or hoplite-length...? And how was the schiltron for missile protection? If the pezhetairoi phalanx gave them some protection because of the rear pikes slanting over the heads of the front five ranks, then what of the schiltron? Did they have some such plan?

And actually, now that I mention it. Was the schiltron circular or square? I'm not actually quite sure...

Actually it worked offensively at Stirling Bridge as well as other battles. Though the schiltron probably degenerated into a regular pike push.

Pikes on the short end (less than 3 meters) and they obviously sucked at receiving missile fire, being a stationary formation where half your guys are facing backwards does that. They'd have 4 divisions usually, with 1500 men or more in each, formed generally in squares and rarely in a circular formation (yay for M2TW). You'd have the pikemen/spearmen on the outside, and guys with big-ass polearms, like lochaber axes or bills standing behind to take advantage of a broken charge or take care of any breach in the spearwall.

[SaberHRE]

3 meters or 4 meters, The range of medieval pikes(and by this I mean those of Flanders and Scotland) ranged from 6 to 8 "feet". And yes the Schiltron was not a circular formation, Pez's explanation is exactly why the schiltron couldn't have been a circle)

Concerning its use. At Bannockburn it was used defensively, as the English were foolishly attacking the well positioned Scots, who basically fought off the English who were attacking from two sides. The credit for the success at Bannockburn has to be also given to the non-pike men who were part of the Schiltron. Unlike the Phalanx the Schiltron consisted also of men with all sorts of polearms(as Sarcasm pointed out) and also dismounted men-at-arms(most of the knights and men-at-arms of Scotland dismounted to fought in the Schiltron).

So again the differences between Phalanx and Schiltron are significant.

[Sarcasm]

3 meters or 4 meters, The range of medieval pikes(and by this I mean those of Flanders and Scotland) ranged from 6 to 8 "feet". And yes the Schiltron was not a circular formation, Pez's explanation is exactly why the schiltron couldn't have been a circle)

Concerning its use. At Bannockburn it was used defensively, as the English were foolishly attacking the well positioned Scots, who basically fought off the English who were attacking from two sides. The credit for the success at Bannockburn has to be also given to the non-pike men who were part of the Schiltron. Unlike the Phalanx the Schiltron consisted also of men with all sorts of polearms(as Sarcasm pointed out) and also dismounted men-at-arms(most of the knights and men-at-arms of Scotland dismounted to fought in the Schiltron).

So again the differences between Phalanx and Schiltron are significant.

Right, typo on my part. Less than 4 meters - on the low end of pikes.

Actually it could have been used in a circle. At Falkirk when the schiltrons became isolated, they probably assumed a circular formation and sat on their asses until they were shot to pieces. And at Bannockburn the vanguard probably assumed a similar formation.

Also, the schiltrons did attack the English at the second day of Bannockbrun, they didn't just defend. In fact they pike-pushed the whole English infantry off the field after resisting a mounted knight charge.

[SaberHRE]

Yes, sorry forgot to mention that the Scots did later advance.

However I don't believe that Scots deployed a circular schiltron at Falkirk, because it would make no sense. At Stirling the used regular retangular or square formation, but they were in attack really. At Falkirk a I doubt a circular formation would be employed due to the need for a strong defensive array. But again this is debateable

Just one last thing, Schiltron is often solely attributed as Wallace's creation, whereas people forget about Andrew de Moray, who was an equally brilliant soldier and leader(if not greater than Wallace himself). His guerilla war and minor campaigns against the English in Northern Scotland are pretty impressive. So no doubt de Moray would have largely contributed to the creation of the Schiltron

[pezhetairoi]

I'm not sure about that, based solely on your description of him. He was a minor-campaign and guerrilla leader. You'd hardly find a need to innovate something like the heavy ponderous and above all, defensive, schiltron for what is essentially hit and run fighting.

Moray... if I recall Braveheart (yes I know, sinfully inaccurate movie) they demonised him as the guy who withheld his troops in support at Falkirk hence contributing to Wallace's defeat.

Now, what was he like actually?

[Ibrahim]

Which is as good as saying mobile schiltrons were only used as intended at Bannockburn... Points given for trying, though. And if I recall, Falkirk was before Bannockburn (William Wallace before Robert de Bruce?), so I think de Bruce at Bannockburn was really just perfecting Wallace's attempt at tactical innovation?

Question, though, what sort of spears did they use in the schiltron? Pikes, or hoplite-length...? And how was the schiltron for missile protection? If the pezhetairoi phalanx gave them some protection because of the rear pikes slanting over the heads of the front five ranks, then what of the schiltron? Did they have some such plan?

And actually, now that I mention it. Was the schiltron circular or square? I'm not actually quite sure...


actually, you said just now is exactly what I was inferring; I'm not saying that robert the bruce was the first who got it right (I know wallace did); the only reason his sciltron was screwed over was from some welshmen who had curved armor piercing 6ft monsters (whose name will not be mentioned for obvious reasons); in fact, they almost screwed de bruce over at the bannockburn...hehe..the point behind what I said was this: 1-everyone seems to mention De bruce only, forgetting that wallace had done the same; guess defeat warrants forgetting. 2-to point out the danger of standing still in a schiltron.

[Parallel Pain]

Wallace had not done the same. The command at Stirling was Andrew de Moray, while Wallace had not taken the time to train his men in mobility like de Bruce did.

And the schiltron wasn't used at Stirling. Stirling was a simply rushing against a cut off enemy at a bottleneck.

Also the only threat to the Scots at Bannockburn were the longbowmen again, but due to impatient kights, King Edward's lack of control, and his own stupidity these were not a factor.

[cmacq]

Right, Stirling was a bum's rush through the mud and onto the old roman bridge, then one big slaughter. Many of the Franco-Norman horse and Welsh archers over the Forth, as for example Hugh deCressingham, were butchered, some literally. Trophy kills, at least they didn't take any heads? And for all it was Edward 2 at Bannockburn.

Todays poem

On both sets were hewn five notches,
each the size and shape to fit a severed human soul.
As peace held fast now for many years,
only rusted-nails pegged these black-stained bitter holes.

[SaberHRE]

Wallace had not done the same. The command at Stirling was Andrew de Moray, while Wallace had not taken the time to train his men in mobility like de Bruce did.

Wallace had also contributed to the Stirling Campaign and no, the command at Stirling was JOINT, each of commanders being significant.

The claim that Wallace did not train his men is not very true, no sources claim so.

and whatever you think, Schiltron was used at Stirling... Just read what the Benedictine emissary account who describes "the men being arrayed in great order"

About Andrew de Moray, is basically a great hero however living in the shadow of Wallace. Probably descended from Flemish merchants, his family rose to nobility sometime before David I. Another theory is that the Moray from which Andrew descended were Anglo-Norman petty nobles who replaced the Old Scottish nobles in the area of Moray. Whatever the version, Andrew de Moray was the third member of his family to fight in the Scottish war against Edward I, and to see defeat and imprisonment. His father was IIRC Justiciar of Moray

As the youngest son he was not taken to the tower of London, and despite the legend of brave escape, he was probably released to gather the ransom for his brother and father.

Moray's style of war was one of guerilla but also brilliant cavalry raids, and possibly Moray was the author of Wallace's later scortched earth tactics.

[cmacq]

Gertrude

Not to draw too fine a point, yet the Hellenistic term φαλαγγα (fingers; that could no doubt reach out and touch someone) actually refers to the use of the long-spear and not the shield-wall based formation. More recently this Greek word has taken on another meaning, 'battle formation.'

http://scottthong.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/sarissa1.jpg?w=215

The use of the Hellenistic phalanx went out of use in the 1st century BC.

Now to reap the whirlwind.

[Parallel Pain]

Yeah it was a joint command. But given the fact that Wallace had ran off to join de Moray with his tail between his legs, that de Moray was an important nobleman and so commanded the respect of the higher class, and that not only had he been more successful from the start but also took more castles than Wallace in that immediate campaign, it's not hard to imagine the command being joint in name while most of the actual command power was in de Moray's hands.

And "the men being arranged in great order" does not equal a schiltron. Neither does groups of pike wielding men.

And I didn't say Wallace didn't train his men, I said he didn't train them IN MOBILITY. And really all sources of Falkirk says Wallace's schiltrons standing still, so I don't really need any other sources.

[Tellos Athenaios]

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%23110167

A phalanx, in it's most litteral meaning is simply a 'battle formation'. Not neccesarily of heavy infantry even. (Check the word psiloi in conjunction with phalanx: psiloi means 'simple' or 'poor' or in tactics, 'light'.)

[cmacq]

I see some wiggle room here, but have to go for now.

Still, this may be of some use.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0234%3Aid%3Db18c31

I wonder if EB could incorporate some of this treatment?

[Watchman]

...other than by shafting the phalangites when it comes to forest penalties ?

[Sarcasm]

And "the men being arranged in great order" does not equal a schiltron. Neither does groups of pike wielding men.

And I didn't say Wallace didn't train his men, I said he didn't train them IN MOBILITY. And really all sources of Falkirk says Wallace's schiltrons standing still, so I don't really need any other sources.

"...the men being arranged in great order" does not indeed mean that they were formed in schiltrons, neither does groups of pike wielding men, indeed. However the conclusions you draw from this are fundamentally wrong in my view.

How would one define a schiltron then? What do we know about it?

It was a formation based on the strength of a pikewall supported by infantry armed with various polearms and a few men-at-arms/knights when available to dismount. It could form in squares or circles, and could perform attacks as well as the usual tactic of receiving cavalry charges. Do all these soldiers cease to be a schiltron in a charge, when the formation is messed up?

If one agrees with this then only the purely defensive formation can be considered a proper 'schiltron'. Which is fine by me, but then the argument for a mobile schiltron is moot, because an infantry square set in a defensive posture against cavalry is essentially immobile.

Let's assume we don't agree with that assessment, then why did the Scot army remain stationary at Falkirk? They had shown to be capable of attacking like a regular pike block before, so why not charge headlong into the English army? The answer is simple in my view - they were pinned down.

To get out of the schiltron would mean to be destroyed by a charge of mounted knights supported by infantry. To remain in formation, and with no bowmen of their own (destroyed at the beginning of the battle), effectively meant they would be isolated and vulnerable to missile fire from the longbows of the welsh.

As we say here, between getting in the pot, or staying in a hot place, the frog stayed where it was. Or something to that effect.

[cmacq]

Weren't these formations associated with some type of very crud field works?

[Sarcasm]

Maybe you're referring to the Flemish? They used pikemen/long spearmen from behind ditches, other earthworks and stakes, along with what equated to heavy macemen/clubmen and men-at-arms standing behind in support.

[cmacq]

thought it might be stakes?

[Watchman]

Wasn't that the archers ? (The Ottomans used that at Adrianopole a few years before the English, incidentally. Then again, they also treated their infantry archers as an ablative shield to put before the main line...)

[Sarcasm]

Dunno that one, please do elaborate. :yes:

[pezhetairoi]

English longbowmen at the Crecy, Agincourt and Poitiers battles (at least those three, not sure about the Scottish battles involving them) were fronted by a barrier of some rather nasty looking sharpened wooden stakes to protect them and to break a charge launched against them.

I've never heard of the Ottoman usage of archers, apart from the fact that there were quite a lot of them.

[Parallel Pain]

It was a formation based on the strength of a pikewall supported by infantry armed with various polearms and a few men-at-arms/knights when available to dismount. It could form in squares or circles, and could perform attacks as well as the usual tactic of receiving cavalry charges. Do all these soldiers cease to be a schiltron in a charge, when the formation is messed up?


You are, of course, correct.

However the men at Stirling were mixed armed and did not form proper pike squares. Therefore they are not a schiltron.

Unless of course you call whatever scottish formation that has at least one pikeman in it a schiltron.

And I could throw the question back at you. Would you call a group of 1600 phalangists who broke formation to go running and pointing their pikes forward yelling on a full run (and after probably having to resort to lots of small arms) a phalanx?

Both schiltrons and phalanx and anyother formations are FORMATIONS. As soon as its soldiers break formation that formation CEASE TO EXIST. (and besides they never formed that formation at Stirling in the first place)

[cmacq]

At Falkirk only, somehow I got the impression the four infantry formations were bounded by stakes as well as pikes. This was why their foot couldn't withdraw northwest into Callander Wood as did their archers and horse when it was clear the English horse had abandoned the frontal assault over a muddy bog, in favor of the flanks. Frankly, this defense at Falkirk was foolish at best. Its very clear that here this particular Lowland army and its leadership was not very good; a vast understatement indeed.

I remember that the Welshman thought his Lowland army was so outclassed by the English he had planned a night attack on Edward 1's field camp. When this plan was betrayed, maybe he should have withdrawn a few miles north to Serling, as he had better luck there once before. The Forth made a far better defensive line, still he was likely under great political direst to make a do-or-die at Falkirk.

[Ibrahim]

@ pexhetairoi: put it that way: the sultan mehmet II used them to make a bridge during the famous siege of constantinople in 1453-so I was told(it is told that he sent them to shoot at the byzantines in close range at a moat-the men would keal over in to the moat and they floated there; so many fell it is said one could walk on it, and walk they did):whip: :whip: was how they were made to stay put (=coersion)

I doubt it's true, but you get the point

[SaberHRE]

You are, of course, correct.

However the men at Stirling were mixed armed and did not form proper pike squares. Therefore they are not a schiltron.

Unless of course you call whatever scottish formation that has at least one pikeman in it a schiltron.

And I could throw the question back at you. Would you call a group of 1600 phalangists who broke formation to go running and pointing their pikes forward yelling on a full run (and after probably having to resort to lots of small arms) a phalanx?

Both schiltrons and phalanx and anyother formations are FORMATIONS. As soon as its soldiers break formation that formation CEASE TO EXIST. (and besides they never formed that formation at Stirling in the first place)

I think you got it mixed up.

First you claim that classification of a schiltron depends of arms used.
Then you say that schiltron is formation-bound term.

The word schiltron should be used very cautiously when describing what was really used in those days. If I'm not wrong, the first one to use the term Schiltron was the contemporary monk Walter of Guisborough. However John Barbour makes no mention of schiltrons.

Further, neither were the Scots armed really uniformly at Bannockburn are any other Anglo-Scot wars of the Middle Ages. Hell even at Otterburn the Scots put Lochbacher axe armed men into the pike ranks. And perhaps that was the intention to mix men of different arms.

For comparison neither did the Flamands use pikes-solely against the French.
They mixed men armed with goedendags and pikes.

And lastly concerning the Ottomans, at the battle of Nicopolis I think the Ottomans put forth stakes, so when the French knights charged forward they had to dismount at one point, remove the stakes and remount.

[Parallel Pain]

Mixed arms need ratio too, schiltron still needs all pikes formed properly in order.

Besides my point was the schiltron was not present at Stirling Bridge, though pikemen were.

[pezhetairoi]

@SaberHRE

As I understood from my old reading somewhere (and refreshed my memory on Wiki, I know, I know, sinful), the knights a) never remounted or b) never got the chance to remount...

[Ibrahim]

@pezhetairoi: sinner!!!:whip: :whip:
that's very enlightening though; now I know the english weren't the only one's who did stakes

[pezhetairoi]

Well, if you want to put it that way, every country with a lottery does stakes... o.O

[Ibrahim]

:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:

[Spartan198]

If I'm not mistaken,didn't Roman legions campaigning in the east directly adopt the Greek phalanx at some point? :inquisitive: I remember reading that on Wikipedia's phalanx page.

[cmacq]

Tell that to Marcus Licinius Crassus.

No, they eat them for lunch.

Please read Polybius...

The link is provided above.

[Spartan198]

Tell that to Marcus Licinius Crassus.

No, they eat them for lunch.

Please read Polybius...

The link is provided above.
I know the story of the lost legion of Crassus. He was just a bad general.

The phalanx never quite died out; the Roman legionaries at the time of Caesar and Arrian were known to have defended against (and even attacked) cavalry by using their pila as thrusting spears instead of thrown javelins. In the 3rd century the Roman army even directly adopted the phalanx formation for units campaigning in the East, such as the Legio II Parthica. The phalanx also formed an important part of the skoutatoi formations in the later phases of the Eastern Roman Empire.
---- From Wikipedia's Phalanx Formation Page

[cmacq]

Wiki is simply wrong. The Hellenic Phalanx, which is what this tread is about, was abandoned around the middle of the 1st century BC. What wiki refers to are spearish phalanx-like formations designed to ward off cavalry. Again please read Polybius. If you do know the Crassus story then you understand that by and after the mid 1st century BC, warfare in the Near East was dominated by a high degree of mobility. In fact, Crassus demonstrates that this type of mobility even far out classed the relatively nimble formations the Romans were able to field (both horse and foot); at this stage the Hellenic Phalanx was at best an ancient dinosaur, unless...

the battlefield was a Curling Street, and then the ice may have been an issue.

[Watchman]

Again, shieldwall =/= pikemen. Roman infantry could obviously close rank to shieldwall densities well enough - see testudo - and it's not exactly a big deal for a commander to have occasionally issued them spears, or ordered them to use their pila for poking rather than throwing, for anti-cavalry duty, but that has jack all to do with the Hellenistic pike phalanx.

Leave it to the nitwits at Wiki to not define their terminology properly.

[paullus]

cmacq, what bearing does polybius have on anything after 146 BC?

Caracalla attempted to institute a phalanx in the Macedonian manner, and while I wouldn't say Arrian's 'contra alani' describes a Macedonian phalanx, it does seem to describe a type of phalanx formation, though one more like a Hellenistic era hoplite phalanx.

[Fenrhyl]

As far as i know, no phalanxes in the frankish armies. Shieldwalls, franciscae and angons were more than enough to stop a charging enemy in its tracks. Plus, the franks wore few armour, if any at all, and most warriors did not even have a helm. A phalanx like formation would have prevented them from moving their shields to protect themselves and would have turned them into sitting ducks.

[cmacq]

cmacq, what bearing does polybius have on anything after 146 BC?

Caracalla attempted to institute a phalanx in the Macedonian manner, and while I wouldn't say Arrian's 'contra alani' describes a Macedonian phalanx, it does seem to describe a type of phalanx formation, though one more like a Hellenistic era hoplite phalanx.

He was offered only to provide the logic behind the abandonment of the Hellenistic formation, not as the proof. Could we say Lucius Septimius Bassianus or Marcus Aurelius Septimius Bassianus Antoninus interference with the military was but an unseemly flash in the pan? By Arrian do you mean Lucius Flavius Arrianus Xenophon or Arrianus Severus? The 'Alan Defense' sounds like a spear based formation again to ward off the horse? I thought the Alan didn't reach the stage until the 4th century AD. Arrian?

[Dhampir]

Wiki is simply wrong.


No! Say it isn't so!:drama2:

[paullus]

The former Arrian, who faced a potential invasion by the Alans in the 2nd c. While it is unlikely his army actually had to fight them in battle (the Alans invaded through Caucasian Iberia), we have from his writings a piece he wrote detailing marching order and battle formation against the invaders. I'm not sayings its a Macedonian phalanx, but it does seem to have several layers of spear-points projecting from the formation. Its tempting to say it was a unique formation designed to counter horsemen, or even a literary invention. While the latter is a possibility, the proximity of the written work to the actual encounter lends some practicality to his plans. As for the former, unless the Roman soldiers were re-armed with kontoi strictly for the campaign, it is likely their regular combat formation bore some strong similarities to what Arrian describes in the text.

[Watchman]

Uh... didn't that one involve the front ranks having regular fighting-spears (probably loaned from the Auxilia) instead of the usual pair of pila, the middle ranks having their usual pila to throw over the first ranks at the horsemen, and the rear ranks a bunch of light javelins for the same purpose - and horse-archers stationed behind the whole infantry block ?

Or am I thinking about a different encounter with nasty nomadic lancers here ?

[pezhetairoi]

Pila were made to bend on impact so they could not be reused again as intact shafts. That alone should defuse your argument that they actually used it in an anti-cavalry 'phalanx' which I think is an over-liberal application of that name anyhow.

In future, IMHO, anyone starting a phalanx page ought to discuss first what EXACTLY he means by 'phalanx', the Makedonian, the Greek hoplite, or just any old general compressed pack of men with sharp pointy sticks.

[Watchman]

I've always been a bit leery of that whole bending thing really. Given what a pilum is like, and that the early ones were barbed AFAIK, the thing's going to sink so deep in anything it hits pretty much nobody is going to waste time pulling it out during battle. Perfectly normal humble javelins already are an utter pain to get out of a shield, nevermind now if the blighters are barbed; a pilum has a whole another level of penetrating power, and its design virtually ensures it gets stuck in deep and doesn't come off easy.

Plus, there's records of legionaries using their pila to poke at cavalrymen, aren't there ? IIRC that was done in at least one of the civil-war battles in Italy.

[Tellos Athenaios]

I found it to be a mildly unstatisfying as well: I mean, if it bends on impact how is it going to do any damage? Who'd use a javelin when he might just as well throw a perfectly ordinary stick? That might be my ignorance tied to a basic understanding of some physics on my part; but another possibility is that it didn't bend on impact by default....

[cmacq]

Just wondering, where did the 'bend on impact' statement actually originate? If it was textual, what are the actual Latin words and do they actually mean 'bend on impact?' I know of a Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus reference to the Pilum, but there is no mention of them bending.

I think this may have something to do with the pin that held the iron penetrator/elongated point on to the heavy wood shaft. When the pin was made of iron the Pilum remained intact, however if a wooden pin was used ,this would break on impact and would cause the shaft to twist at a sharp angle deforming the base of the penetrator, not the lenght or shaft of the penetrator. Thus, after a battle a used Pilum could be repaired in seconds by replacing the pin and straighting the relatively thine base of the penetrator.

[paullus]

the pilum was supposed to bend on impact before Marius, but Plutarch's life of Marius does say that he had the pilum redesigned to have a softer iron shaft, so that it would hit shields and the iron part of the shaft would bend, rendering the weapon and shield useless.

[pezhetairoi]

I've been leery of that bending metal thing. Personally a believer in the theory of the wooden pin, this also would indicate that you could not have used it to poke at cavalry since a poke that was too hard would be enough to bend it. Then all you would be able to do then was club the cavalrymen one good one over the head with the pilum butt.

The alternative, of course, is to believe they issued triarii spears to everyone for the poking. Which seems a bit unlikely too since you can't really predict you're doing to have to 'repel cavalry' before a battle starts.

[paullus]

you're misunderstanding how the bending worked. it wasn't the impact of the head that caused it to bend. the head itself was still hard iron. the shaft was soft iron. So when the head penetrated, the wooden shaft would follow up, and due to the quick deceleration of the head, the wooden shaft's momentum would cause the soft iron of the iron part of the shaft to bend. this wouldn't prevent you from using the pilum as a stabbing weapon, because your momentum behind the thrust would rarely be sufficient to cause the iron shaft to bend. It could happen, I suppose, in a glancing blow against a durable shield or some heavy armor, but the bending would mainly happen when the pilum was thrown. Granted, that's the idea, I've never thrown a pilum myself, so can't testify that it actually worked as the ancients testified.

[pezhetairoi]

I see. Standing corrected (never any good at physics), I can see how they conceivably could use their pila now.

[cmacq]

Paullus please, I have a copy of Plutarch's Marius in Greek. What chapter and line does it actually say that?

[paullus]

book 25. now that i look at it plutarch makes it sound like the iron of the shaft is not the thing changed, but the fastening to the wooden shaft. by making one of the pins wood instead of iron, the impact could break it, thus allowing the shaft to bend. I'm not sure I follow Plutarch on that, and I'm pretty sure we find testimony well before Marius that pila shafts tended to bend on impact when thrown.

[cmacq]

The shaft is wood and elongated head was iron, no?

[HFox]

Obviously no veracity to this stuff but a quick google search finds....

http://www.larp.com/legioxx/pilum.html

part of it states this....(again not sure of sources or accuracy)

" ......Back in the early Republic, c. 5th to 4th century BC, the pilum was made in "heavy" and "light" versions. The light one seems to have been the socketed style, with a long narrow iron shank and a small point, with a socket at the bottom to connect to the wooden shaft. The heavy version generally had a shorter, stouter iron shank with a barbed head, widening at the base into a large flat tang which was solidly riveted into block at the top of the wooden shaft. By about the 2nd century BC or so, the tanged variety also has a version with a longer, slimmer iron shank like the light pilum, though it seems the overall construction was still "heavy". The general concept was to throw the light pila first, probably at a range of about 30 yards, then the heavy ones just before the final charge. The men farther back in the ranks may have held onto theirs at first, and moved up to the front as the men who started there got tired and moved back to rest.
Gaius Marius is credited with a design change about 100 BC. He found that the iron shank was not bending very often, so that the enemy were able to throw the pila back at the Romans. So he had one of the two iron rivets that held the parts together replaced with a wooden peg which would break or shear off on impact, causing the head to flop and making it unusable. After the battle it was a simple matter to replace those pegs. One problem is that on many of the surviving pilum heads from this general era, the edges of the tang are bent to form flanges which essentially wrap around the wooden junction block. So they aren't going to flop if one rivet is missing! But of course few of these can be dated with certainty, and there do seem to be pilum heads with simple flat tangs which would function as the story says.

By the end of the Republic, however, it looks like the difference between heavy and light pila has gone away. The tanged variety is slimming down, and the points are generally a narrow pyramidal form, very rarely barbed any more. Some have three rivets rather than two, and most have an iron ferrule or collet at the top of the joint, so Marius' wooden peg system was apparently no longer in use. But we do find that the iron shank will bend on impact, keeping the enemy from chucking them back. Most illustrations of Imperial legionaries show only one pilum, but a few show two, both tanged and apparently identical. It would appear that two pila were still carried, but that there was no longer a "heavy" and a "light".

Somewhere around the mid- or late first century AD, the weighted pilum shows up. None have been found by archeologists, yet, but what we see in artwork is a regular tanged pilum with a ball behind the junction block. We are guessing that this is a lead weight, to add penetration power to the weapon since it had been getting progressively lighter over the years. The weight does not form part of the actual joint between iron and wood but is just below the joint. It might have been held in place by a cord wrapping on the wood below it, but there could easily have been some sort of nail or rivet holding it in place. Since the wood shaft was under an inch thick by that time, the weight didn't have to be very big, maybe tennis-ball sized or less. Though there is a tombstone from the late 2nd or early 3rd century that shows a pilum with TWO weights........"

[Ibrahim]

talk about pilum balls....:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :beam:
any pila from the post west roman army (i.e Byzantion)

[fjkwgv43]

The term "phalanx" itself only refers to any closely packed formation of heavy infantry, regardless of their exact armamanet.


...No

They really have to be armed with polearms to be considered a phalanx. A Roman testudo formation is a closely-packed formation of heavy infantry, but is not a phalanx. The shield-wall is just half the equation. The other half is the spear-hedge. And by this definition, the phalanx never disappeared for as long as shields and polearms were used in warfare. Even the shield is optional, really, although that's a rather light phalanx.

The word derive from the Greek for "finger", so-named because they used their spears to "poke" the enemy. The Romans originally called their formations maniples for the exact same reason, as Rome began its lifespan fighting in the Greek style, with phalangites. The original hastati, the ones that actually wielded hastae (which they don't in EB, except for the Samnites), fought more or less the same as hoplites.

[cmacq]

Not to make too fine a point, but I tried to address this issue above [post 23]. Its meaning in Greek was only modified after the Hellenic pike-based formation when out use in the 1st century BC. It does indeed come from the Greek base word for finger. I simply didn't have the time to run this down as I should have; thanks fjkwgv43 for bring it back up.

[machinor]

While we're talking about pila 'n stuff, I got a question, that's bugging for quite some time now:
How did the legionaires hold their pila? Since they carried 2 of them, I guess they didn't carry them both in their sword-hand and the way they were holding the scutum didn't really allow them to hold a pilum in that hand. So how did they hold them?

[Watchman]

They really have to be armed with polearms to be considered a phalanx. A Roman testudo formation is a closely-packed formation of heavy infantry, but is not a phalanx. The shield-wall is just half the equation. The other half is the spear-hedge. And by this definition, the phalanx never disappeared for as long as shields and polearms were used in warfare. Even the shield is optional, really, although that's a rather light phalanx.Then you need to get a little more specific about the polearms involved, though. Halberds and assorted other pole-axes for example were usually employed in relatively open formations, since they need some space to use to full effect...

Moreover, if you have say a Viking shieldwall where most men fight with spears, but will readily throw them at the other guys and follow through with swords and axes and whatnot, is that a "real" phalanx or not by your definitions ?

Methinks you're trying to apply much too strict and exact standards here. Considerably more so than is the norm in present-day militaria jargon AFAIK, and what is really applicable considering the manifestly non-standardised equipping of most ancient fighting forces.

The word derive from the Greek for "finger", so-named because they used their spears to "poke" the enemy. The Romans originally called their formations maniples for the exact same reason, as Rome began its lifespan fighting in the Greek style, with phalangites. The original hastati, the ones that actually wielded hastae (which they don't in EB, except for the Samnites), fought more or less the same as hoplites.Uh-huh. AFAIK the Hastatis' name doesn't actually come from the heavy hasta fighting-spear (which, we may recall, was used as a primary weapon rather longer by the two "senior" grades of close-combat infantry but made no impression upon the names they went by), but a javelin called hasta lancea (ie. "throwing-spear") which was later replaced by the pilum - these first-line troops having originally been the only part of the heavy infantry armed in such fashion, while the other ranks thereof still used a "hoplite" kit.

[machinor]

Btw, the term "manipulus" is a variation of "maniplus" meaning "a handful".So I think it rather came by simply naming a handful of soldiers "a handful" and not as a derivation from the greek "phalanx".

[NeoSpartan]

here is something cool fellas

a mixed arms army with a pike phalanx... only it was called a TERCIO

https://youtube.com/watch?v=je-c81wwrpA

[Ibrahim]

that's the one beaten at rocroi...:book:
from alatriste?

[machinor]

... as depicted in above linked videoclip. ~D

[Watchman]

Meh, the Spanish were dragging badly behind the times. The purebred tercio was starting to fall out of use in the German battlefields of the Thirty Years' War already before the Swedish turned up with their prototype "triple block" brigades, and by Lützen, 1632, the two sides were already using essentially identical tactical arrays.

Rocroi just put the dot above the "i" there - besides pretty much breaking the back of Spanish military power for a while.

[NeoSpartan]

that's the one beaten at rocroi...:book:
from alatriste?

yep! too bad the only way I can buy this movie is to have it imported to the US and costing $49.99 :wall:

[Tellos Athenaios]

...No

They really have to be armed with polearms to be considered a phalanx. A Roman testudo formation is a closely-packed formation of heavy infantry, but is not a phalanx. The shield-wall is just half the equation. The other half is the spear-hedge. And by this definition, the phalanx never disappeared for as long as shields and polearms were used in warfare. Even the shield is optional, really, although that's a rather light phalanx.

The word derive from the Greek for "finger", so-named because they used their spears to "poke" the enemy. The Romans originally called their formations maniples for the exact same reason, as Rome began its lifespan fighting in the Greek style, with phalangites. The original hastati, the ones that actually wielded hastae (which they don't in EB, except for the Samnites), fought more or less the same as hoplites.


http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%23110167

A phalanx, in it's most litteral meaning is simply a 'battle formation'. Not neccesarily of heavy infantry even. (Check the word psiloi in conjunction with phalanx: psiloi means 'simple' or 'poor' or in tactics, 'light'.)

Also FYI: the ancient Greek uses the word daktylos rather often for finger. And there's a rather large amount of words/expressions clearly derived from the same stem and clearly related to finger (counting on your fingers/ring/...

[cmacq]

Right,

here is Plutarch's Marius and the reference to the Pilum change.

Chapter 25
[1] Ὡς δ' ἀπηγγέλθη ταῦτα τοῖς Κίμβροις, εὐθὺς ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἐχώρουν ἐπὶ τὸν Μάριον, ἡσυχάζοντα καὶ διαφυ[2]λάττοντα τὸ στρατόπεδον. λέγεται δ' εἰς ἐκείνην τὴν μάχην πρῶτον ὑπὸ Μαρίου καινοτομηθῆναι τὸ περὶ τοὺς [3] ὑσσούς. τὸ γὰρ εἰς τὸν σίδηρον ἔμβλημα τοῦ ξύλου πρότερον μὲν ἦν δυσὶ περόναις κατειλημμένον σιδηραῖς, τότε δ' ὁ Μάριος τὴν μὲν ὥσπερ εἶχεν εἴασε, τὴν δ' ἑτέραν ἐξελὼν ξύλινον ἧλον εὔθραυστον ἀντ' αὐτῆς ἐνέβαλε, τεχνάζων προσπεσόντα τὸν ὑσσὸν τῷ θυρεῷ τοῦ πολεμίου μὴ μένειν ὀρθόν, ἀλλὰ τοῦ ξυλίνου κλασθέντος ἥλου καμπὴν γίνεσθαι περὶ τὸν σίδηρον καὶ παρέλκεσθαι τὸ δόρυ, διὰ τὴν στρεβλότητα τῆς αἰχμῆς ἐνεχόμενον.

Loeb Classical Library Edition
[1] When these things had been reported to the Cimbri, they once more advanced against Marius, who kept quiet and carefully guarded his camp. And it is said that it was in preparation for this battle that Marius introduced an innovation in the structure of the javelin. Up to this time, it seems, that part of the shaft which was let into the iron head was fastened there by two iron nails; but now, leaving one of these as it was, Marius removed the other, and put in its place a wooden pin that could easily be broken. [2] His design was that the javelin, after striking the enemy's shield, should not stand straight out, but that the wooden peg should break, thus allowing the shaft to bend in the iron head and trail along the ground, being held fast by the twist at the point of the weapon.

Translated by John Dryden
This was no sooner made known to the Cimbri, but they with all expedition came against Marius, who then lay still and guarded his camp.

It is said that, against this battle Marius first altered the construction of the Roman javelins. For before at the place where the wood was joined to the iron it was made fast with two iron pins; but now Marius let one of them alone as it was, and pulling out the other, put a weak wooden peg in its place, thus contriving that when it was driven into the enemy's shield, it should not stand right out, but the wooden peg breaking, the iron should bend, and so the javelin should hold fast by its crooked point and drag.

My rendering
Thus, this report was thereafter brought to the Cimbri, which immediately began to advance against Marivs, whom rested and guarded with care his encampment. To recount it was at this place that the method of fighting for the first time Marivs altered regarding the Roman Pilum. That since as one the iron implement was formerly affixed to the wooden [shaft] by two large pins made of iron, that at this time Marivs even allowed to change in part, one of the two was removed and instead another of wood was taken and put in, of subtle design as imbedded arrows in the large oblong shield of the enemy remain true, yet the wooden cam pin breaks off then [the shaft] continued to turn around the iron piece and draw aside the spear, in this manner it’s awry-angle then held the spear point fast.

----------------------------------------
The key word here was καμπὴν. Indeed it can mean bend, in the sense that water flows in a stream. However it can also mean to turn, as to change direction. I think the text implies that the impaled Pila were simply and quickly pulled through the shield and tossed back. However the wedged wood shaft and iron spear head made it impossible to pull the pilum out without putting the shield down and straighten it back out. Of course this was a modification of the two hole tanged type Pilum.

Here a flattened iron nail was used in a slightly elongated hole nearest the iron spear head. In contrast, a soft wood peg was used in the other hole near the trailing edge of the Pilum's tang. The iron nail made a tight fit, but the elongate holes will allow the wood shaft to shift forward slightly on impact. This would break the soft wood peg and the momentum of the heavy hard wood shaft would rotate on the axis formed by the iron nail. Now, the Pilum's tanged iron head is imbedded in a shield and the heavy hard wood shaft has turned to a sharp angle, only held by the single iron nail. I think the use of the phrase 'remain ture' suggests that the metal did not bend.

Right I think there may be a question with the line numbers?

[cmacq]

Also copied

The Scotsman
10 April 2004

'Sensational' discoveries unearthed in Roman armoury
By ALLAN HALL IN BERLIN

ARCHAEOLOGISTS in Germany have described a Roman weapons dump discovered near the city of Göttingen as a "sensational find" that is yielding valuable military artefacts.
Excavations on the site have just started, but more than 250 metal objects, most of them weapons or tools used by Roman legionnaires in 10BC, have been found. They include several rare examples of a soldier’s axe, an all-purpose Swiss army knife of its day.

"We are particularly pleased with these: they are a rare find because they were usually so prized by the legionnaires that they rarely left their sides," said the chief archaeologist, Klaus Grote. "It is a sensational find for research purposes."

The site served as an ordnance depot for Roman troops fighting Germanic tribes farther north.

Also brought up from metres of clay and bog is a rare example of a pilum, the favoured javelin-type spear of the legionnaires, deployed when close combat with their swords was not possible. Other items include catapult balls, lances, axe heads and knives.

Experts believe the depot was one of many the Romans built in Germany, then a wild area inhabited by tribes not keen on bowing to the empire.

It was discovered in a wood near Göttingen in 1985 by metal-detecting hobbyists.

Local authorities sealed it off when its importance was fully realised.

Although looters might have taken some objects the archaeologists are hopeful the depot still has much more to offer up.

The Romans gave up trying to pacify Germania around 70BC.

Mr Grote added: "They headed home and built their walls higher at home."


Also see The Roman Fort at Hedemünden.

[The Persian Cataphract]

What about the phalanx in the east hellenic world? when did the phalanx in persia and baktria disappeared?

It fell out of practical use when it proved far too clumsy to use effectively against mounted archery and combined tactical usage of heavy cavalry; By the time of the Parthian succession, the entire area had rather scaled up the use of heavy horse quite dramatically. In set-piece battles, relatively lightly armed contingents mustered by the Eastern nations, though brave, did not possess any tactical superiority given such conditions, instead since the age of Xenophon, he had warned about the lethality of the Iranian cavalry and wrote books on horsemanship based very intimately with the Achaemenid model; So we have a source where the Iranian empire basically reforms itself to a more extensivve shock role for the cavalry arm. These were the seeds that were planted.

By the time of the great conquests of Mithradates I and Phraates II, we already see nations such as Atropatene possessing an impressive heavy cavalry arm. There were instances where the Parthians indeed did use heavy infantry, including phalangites, and made use of prisoners of war (Which had earned Phraates much scorn as those same prisoners staged a mutiny and surrendered him to the Scythians), but the advantage of using an all-equestrian force proved to be a remarkably swift strategical deployment, kept small and organized in decimal order could actually prove itself, in optimal conditions as proven by Orodes' brilliant plan of swarming the Roman East; The battle of Carrhae proved to only be the first step. He had personally lead his own Arsacid retinue to consolidate Armenia, and continued to swarm over Caucasian Iberia, Colchis, while his son, Pacorus attempted to put Syria under the Parthian banner.

Pacorus was met with failure and lost his grand retainer, Osaces, but once Decidius Saxa was defeated at the battle of Apamea, we see a tremendous catalyst in the Parthian conquests; Thanks to Orodes' foresight, Quintus Labienus did not need to heed his rear as he marched over Asia Minor. Pharnapates probably went along with him. Pacorus and Barzaphernes however went south, conquering the entire Levant, down to Jerusalem. In a very short span of time, and with divided forces striking swiftly, the Parthian military machine nearly restored the Achaemenid borders: An empire stretching from the Indus, the banks of Oxus, and the river Kura in Caucasia, beyond Euphrates into coastal Arabia, and to the Eastern Mediterranean coast, as far as the Bosphorus. It was not for the keeps though, and after three successful decisive battles, Publius Ventidius Bassus had not only thwarted Orodes' plan, but killed Pharnapates, Labienus and Pacorus, the latest in an oft-forgotten battle in Cyrrhestica, 38 BCE.

With these merits, it is hard to go back to the preceeding model of using the phalanx; It simply did not fit the Parthian model of logistics, and they had more than enough merit to dismiss it; Instead, by continuous Roman influence, the infantry must have leaned towards less rigidity and instead with tactical flexibility. There are some implications of such infantry being used by the Parthians, such as early Sassanian combat infantry gear found in Dura-Europos (Which must have been late Parthian; Few in Iranology would argue that Ardashîr hux-flux reformed the Parthian military machine to encompass infantry), and some of Trajan's "Parthia Capta" coins. However once these factors come into play, the pikeman was no more in Iran. David Nicolle posits that in Soghdiana, much based on the late-Sassanian Kulargysh plate, that some sort of a Soghdian armoured pikeman was conceived, but it is purely conjectural, and would rather depict spearmen who also were armed with bows and swords. Deilamites equally were armed and armoured much like the late Roman infantry contingents. They were armed for a wide role of tasks, which is also reflected in the armoured cavalry where dîhqân were required to own a respectable selection of weapons, including bow, sword, axe or mace, and a spear. A universal cavalryman.

It's hard to see a pikeman fit in anywhere. The pikeman had the potential to be quite a decisive novelty on the battle-field, as in the cases of Alexander The Great or Scottish contingents or Swiss mercenaries... However in times when it was all too familiar and a set of weaknesses had been charted, it could be a liability to keep a tight, and slow-moving formation of infantry, say, against mounted archery. Seen with a generalized pathological appeal the Greater Iran has always favoured archery and equestrian sports more than infantry-based traditions.

[Mindaros]

Well, actually the Swiss were slow in compared to cavalry yes, but they weren't slow as such. In fact, they had considerable mobility, and were much more flexible than their Macedonian ancestors. They weren't as vulnerable against a more mobile enemy either.
Whereas the Macedonians tended to require cavalry, the Swiss didn't. The pikes were supported by halberds. And they were quite an invaluable part of the armies of the late Middle Ages.

[The Persian Cataphract]

Well, it's more or less an estimation, but you make a fair point; My point was that pikemen usually garnered fame for their novelty in the battle-field when the times warranted to their success, even though they were quite different to the Macedonian phalangites.

[Watchman]

Plus the Medieval European pike paradigm was rather different from the ancient Hellenistic one in a fair few key areas.

Plus, it developed for the conditions of the generally rather restricted battlefields of Europe; conversely, there's some very good reasons pikemen were so conspicuously absent from the rosters of Central and Eastern European military forces, as their military necessities demanded by far more strategic and tactical mobility. One historian has summed it up that "out on the Russsian steppe the bow and horseman remained dominant and the pike square a hopelessly slow-moving and limited curiosity", as well as "the East-Central European methods of warfare may have been backwards, but for the time being they also remained remarkably effective" (referring to the virtual annihilation of the Swedish army at the hand of the Polish cavalry).

[cmacq]

Is this horse dead yet?

[SaberHRE]

Eastern Steppe frontier required a fast moving army. Bohemia, Brandenburg, Poland did not("eastern" europe). Both Bohemia and Brandenburg had developed considerable infantry forces which although did not fight with a pike, did fight with other polearms. The height of polearm infantry was reached during the Hussite War, when infantry used quite an array of polearms(ranging from halberds to morgernsterns and finally the beloved hussite flail).

The reason homeland Poland, did not develop any solid infantry was because after Kazimierz Wielki, Poland had no 'native' ruler, most being either Hungarians, Germans, Lithuanians, and who relied in every matters on the polish nobility. Infantry(professionals and semi-professionals) at the time was recruited usually in cities and recruitment from them gave cities considerable power and prestige. The nobles would not allow that.

[Watchman]

In the Late Medieval and Early Modern period Polish-Lithuanian territory (and armies) at times extended quite far out into the Russian plains, and the Tatars were a constant annoyance.

They had plenty enough need for a cavalry-based field army. It also served them well enough against "Western" opponents until after the Thirty Years' War.

[SaberHRE]

To be honest yes, however in Late medieval stage, Poland did not actually even defend the Steppe Borders, as they were considered Lithuania's territory(and despite popular myth Poland-Lithuania didn't officially become one country until the last Jagiellon scumbag king). Poland only had to defend Ruthenia.

IIRC, the steppes weren't really well protected until a semi-professional system which included a permanent cavalry troop and protoplasts of the cossacks was created. This system would later lead to the formation of wojska Kwarciane.

But again note that under the fanatical Swedish King and his son, Polish military also saw revival in infantry(particularly the pikemen).

[Anastasios Helios]

I have read before that after the emperor Valens met his end at Adrianople, the Goths swarmed through Greece causing all sorts of trouble until they were driven away by a phalanx of Spartans. What can any of you guys make of this?

[NeoSpartan]

I have read before that after the emperor Valens met his end at Adrianople, the Goths swarmed through Greece causing all sorts of trouble until they were driven away by a phalanx of Spartans. What can any of you guys make of this?

total BULL

[Watchman]

If I printed it out, I think I could make a neat little fold-out chain of human figures with scissors...

[Anastasios Helios]

lol, yes it did seem too silly for my ears...just confirming the stupidity of it. ;-)

[Ibrahim]

seconded..that's a legend, not reality. the goths only cut the pilaging because Theodosius made peace.... the latre roman euphemism for what is essentially bribery..

[pezhetairoi]

A case of where the losers wrote history rather than the winners :D

[russia almighty]

More like a case of, "lol no written language and or surviving texts."


Referring to the Goths.

[pezhetairoi]

Hence as far as we are concerned in the modern day, the Byzantines have written the history everyone uses. :D

Just that in 1500 years, we've gotten a pretty good education in euphemisms and how to see through them.

[Parallel Pain]

Some of us. The average jacks on the street believes in Hollywood, and would probably believe everything the Byzantines said if they read them without anything else.

[cmacq]

Some of us. The average jacks on the street believes in Hollywood, and would probably believe everything the Byzantines said if they read them without anything else.

Get a grip, the average john wouldn't know the difference between a Byzant and Beeswax.

[Watchman]

He'd probably believe whatever it claimed equally blithely, though...

[Parallel Pain]

Exactly

[pezhetairoi]

True. The average manjack doesn't even know who the Byzantines are.

[Barry Soteiro]

But when for example the Bactrians stopped to use phalanx ? Or the Bosporans ?

[Ibrahim]

go read TPC's post in this thread.

[Detlef]

Isn´t really true war, but still a phalanx.

A phalanx was used during the 1967 student riots at Haneda Airport.
The students marched in a phalanx reinforced by bamboo rods or pipes. They march right into the police lines and run them down, nothing can stop them. Well, nothing human. They stupidly get bottled up on a bridge and a bus runs them right off the bridge. But when the phalanx is broken, the pipes prove useful as levers to overturn the police buses, or as clubs.

Detlef

ps. I heard this from a friend of mine. You can also find it (plus a video) here (http://www.fuckedgaijin.com/forums/showpost.php?p=139598&postcount=3)