Hoplitai too weak ?

[Flavius_Belisarius]

It didn't get inflexible and the Makedonian Syntagma didn't change. Were did you hear/read something like that? Please get your facts right dude. The only thing that probably happened, is that the pikes were further lengthened about a meter. The formation remained the same: 256 (16x16) man blocks typically, with 5 rows in front having their pikes lowered parallel to the ground and the rest in an angle that rose the further back you went.

The only thing that changed, is that more and more pikemen were used and less and less cavalry. Alexandros used approsimately 9,000 Pezhetairoi IIRC, while later Basileis like Perseus fielded from 16,000 to even 22,000 I believe.

Maion

A mate told me this things but probably i understood something false, im not the best in english. Moreover i already said that im not sure about the formation thing, probably it was linked with the aspect that the successors raised more Pezhetairoi than Alexander once.

But one thing i can say for sure and this that in the 2nd century bc the Hellenistic Kingdoms forgot the tactics pioneered by Philip II and Alexander and neglected to effectively use cavalry to cover the flanks of the syntagma, allowing the Roman allied cavalry to flank the Pezhetairoi lines and attack from the rear, where they were extremely vulnerable. The development of the Roman maniple formation also allowed the Romans to effectively outmaneuver the Macedonian syntagma and bring the legionnaires in close enough to utilize their deadly swordsmanship. The defeat of the last of the Hellenistic Kingdoms spelled the end of not only the remnants of Philip and Alexander's empire, but also the end of the Pezhetairoi.

Moreover the sucessors armored the Pezhetairoi more than alexanders one to counter the legions of rome. This made the Pezhetairo more inflexible because of the weigth of the armor. I think even in Eb is there such a unit. But im not quite sure about this last aspect, only heard/read it one time, maybe i understood it also false. :/

[Watchman]

Somewhat debatable how much more inflexible adding armour made the pikemen. I'd say it just slowed their movement down a bit, and the pike phalanx had never been a very fast mover to begin with so the difference was likely minor.

Also, I've seen it argued that it's not really that the Successors neglected the cavalry arm - au contraire they took along as much horse as they could get their mitts on - but they just wore out their reserves of relevantly trained manpower in their incessant wars. A pikeman - or for that matter, most any other form of infantryman - is after all easy enough to train; the Philippo-Alexandrian originals were pretty much retrained psiloi skirmishers, and I understand for example the Ptolemies got decent enough results out of issuing Egyptian peasants with pikes and drilling them to operate in formation. Cavalrymen, especially quality heavy shock cavalry, OTOH took quite a while and a lot of money to train, and were duly that much harder to replace.

[Celtic_Punk]

hit the nail on the head with that post.

[ARCHIPPOS]

anyway this is not a hellens VS romans discussion at all... i have just remembered that germans supposedly fielded pike units as well (described by Caesar and Tacitus???) ... so you see pike phallanxes were not an exclusive Greek feature

so a pike phallanx (sarisoforoi) standing ground and secured from the flanks proved almost impregnable... this however was avery defensive role... when the marching/pushing forward started things turned risky... the morphology could easily disrupt the phalanx cohesion and against a more mobile enemy (like the romans) who could exploit such gaps things could end in catastrophy...but what good is any formation in battle if it can only assume a purely static role???

all this talk is purely on tactics... i'm not so certain that even if the phalanxes managed to beat the legions repeatedly , Roman expansion to the east would be have been effectively contained... sooner or later those Latium SOB everybody loves to hate would have returned with some bigger armies

[Watchman]

anyway this is not a hellens VS romans discussion at all... i have just remembered that germans supposedly fielded pike units as well (described by Caesar and Tacitus???) ... so you see pike phallanxes were not an exclusive Greek feature

What Caesar describes sounds more like Ye Goode Olde standard-issue shieldwall you know. Do recall that "phalanx" in the generic sense means nothing more than infantry fighting in close order, and old Julius was also using the closest relevant descriptor he knew (and could expect his audience to recognise). Ditto for the "phalanx" of the Helveti. The Germanics did apparently make some use of spears long above and beyond the usual size range of infantry longspears, possibly even two-handed in a manner not unlike the long spears the "Iphikratean" peltast-hoplites used, but even then the character and purpose of such formations was quite different from the Hellenistic pike block.

...but what good is any formation in battle if it can only assume a purely static role???

Well given that the main role of the pikemen was to pin the enemy in place and hold the center steady, with the cavalry taking care of the main offensive activity...

[Flavius_Belisarius]

Would have been a hoplitai phalanx able to defeat a legion when the hoplitais would have got enough support by cavalry etc. to prevent that the legionarys surround and outmaneuver them ?

[Watchman]

Good luck at it with pilum-skewered shields. Probably not, but I figure it really depends on terrain - hoplites suck in rough ground, legionary maniples much less so (this being the whole reason why the Romans ditched the former for the latter after all) so at least on level the hoplites would have better odds.

[Flavius_Belisarius]

Somewhat debatable how much more inflexible adding armour made the pikemen. I'd say it just slowed their movement down a bit, and the pike phalanx had never been a very fast mover to begin with so the difference was likely minor.

Also, I've seen it argued that it's not really that the Successors neglected the cavalry arm - au contraire they took along as much horse as they could get their mitts on - but they just wore out their reserves of relevantly trained manpower in their incessant wars. A pikeman - or for that matter, most any other form of infantryman - is after all easy enough to train; the Philippo-Alexandrian originals were pretty much retrained psiloi skirmishers, and I understand for example the Ptolemies got decent enough results out of issuing Egyptian peasants with pikes and drilling them to operate in formation. Cavalrymen, especially quality heavy shock cavalry, OTOH took quite a while and a lot of money to train, and were duly that much harder to replace.

Respect ! You seem to be a pro in ancient history =)