+8 to Defence, so they will theoretically take less casualties. BUT it depends upon the type of cavalry.
e.g. In the case of Hypis, once the cavalry have engaged, if you swop them to swords, they may actually kill the Cavalry faster because of the lethality, and hence take less casualties by using swords, that being if said Cavalry have low armor/defence...If the Cavalry are very heavily armoured, but have lowish melee attack, then using the spears (and having the Hypis on Defend mode) may result in lower casualties.
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