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Since I dont want to hijack a thread discussing the RTW battle engine I decided to start a new one about phalanx warfare. So did they push or not?

I have found the reference, it is "A history of warfare" by Kevin Keegan, but indeed when he describes the details he refers to Hanson.
BTW, what are those out of context sources?

Hm, why? To me it is difficult to depict an ancient phalanx battle without the push. What were the soldiers in the 2nd, 3rd, etc lines doing? Polishing their armours, picking their noses, or trying to help their comrades? Image that as you said, individual soldiers in the first line pushing their opponents. Now, imagine me as a second line soldier What shall I do? Wait for him to win or to be defeated, or perhaps to give him a helping hand to push over his opponent? Now, what should the enemy soldier in the second line do seeing my attempt to help my comrade in the first line? Well, intuitively he should help pushing too. Then my 3rd line comrade should join in etc. By this simple logic of cascading help soon the whole phalanx would be pushing forward. And why not?

When I was in the army (the Hungarian ) I had some experience with pushing. Well, it was not on the battlefield just in front of the canteen but still something very similar. Imagine one or two hundred soldiers trying to get into the canteen, which of course had only one door. All these soldiers pushing at once, moreover the push were focused to one spot, yet, as you see (or perhaps as your read) I am still well and alive. So, imho being pushed by 7 ransk from behind, and even adding 8 from the front of course, might not be deadly at all.

Also how did they fight? The overhead stab with spears, as it is often depicted, imho is not a very powerful way of stabbing. First, holding the spear in such a position and stabbing with it continuosly is very tireing. Second, it is a weak stab relying only on the muscle power of your arm. Third, it has a limited reach.

Last but not least, if there was no push then what was the difference between the "shield wall" and the phalanx? My readings and my intuition would suggest that the shield wall was a static defensive formation, while the phalanx, even though slow to manouvre, could be used offensively. What made the difference if not pushing?

Of course, I am in no way 100% sure that they did push, just atm it seems very plausible to me.

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We need to be careful in distinguishing phalanx types (macedonian pike style vs. hoplite style.)

I have been questioning the overhand part for hoplites all day, but I'm becoming more accepting of it. It is shown on the Chigi vase as well as on the Nereid monument--Chigi shows them marching with spears at their sides as well. Perhaps they alternated overhand and at the side to rest one set of muscles while using the other--this would give them more staying power although the switch could be a bit tricky while in fighting. With the big shield in the way I can see why they would be stuck either stabbing high, or low with little in between. I could also see the 2nd rank stabbing from the opposite location (allowing them to get two spears in the fight.) Seems like that a bit of drill would quickly work out a method that provided staying power, effectiveness and the max amount of spear points in the fight.

Thebes used 50 deep at Leuctra to break the 12 deep Spartan hoplite phalanx. This supports the shoving match idea. Plus the word "othismos" is associated with phalanx warfare and means "shove" (or so I've read.) Goldsworthy apparently takes the view that this was not really a shoving match though and the depth served purposes for manouver. I can see where a deeper phalanx could certainly keep the pressure on longer. The men could sustain a lower level of exertion for a longer time.

If I were on the front rank what would I be inclined to do, what help would I want? I would probably be trying to shove my opponent off balance or back using my shoulder and shield. The momentum aids my attack and an off balance opponent (on his heels) is little threat. How much help from behind is "too much?" I don't know. At some point it would clearly be a detriment. However, if one or two opposing guys get jostled or go down in a shallow formation, that file would be likely to get shoved back, while a deeper formation could absorb it.

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When looking at the effect of depth of a unit, it could be useful to look at other successful deep formations.

I'm particularly thinking of the Napoleonic column. Thousands of men packed into a column which could be a hundred deep: what were the ones behind doing? I don't think they were pushing; all I can think of is:

- replacements for losses in the front ranks
- shouting "Vive l-Empereur" really loudly
- looking terribly imposing on the battlefield

The main benefit of the dense formation seems to be morale. Lines just look flimsy, whereas columns look solid and tough. It's common sense which is going to break the other, and although mathematically the line outguns the column and should beat it into bloody ruin every time, in practice the line often fled *before contact* unless it was made up of steady troops - hence it not be widely used outside the British (Hurrah!) army.

In the case of a phalanx, there is perhaps a similar effect. If you're in an 8-deep phalanx and there's a 32-deep one coming towards you, then you have 32 men coming to kill you, personally. That is worrying. Your immediate opposite only has 8 men after him, which is less so. His morale is likely to be slightly higher, and so he may fight better.

Perhaps more usefully: if you're at the *back* of an 8-deep phalanx then you are safe so long as the 7 men ahead of you can beat off the 32 men they're facing. Do you trust them to beat 5:1 odds and keep you safe? On the other hand, your counterpart is pretty confident that his 31 friends can beat up their 8 opponents, so he's safe.

In addition, you are only 30 feet from the fighting, and he is 100 feet away. You know much more about how many of your friends are dying than he does about his. I disregard enemies killed, as that is a natural consequence of fighting and is supposed to happen, whereas your friends dying is wrong and worrying - so, a morale hit for a friend dying, but only a small bonus (if any) for killing an enemy. Even if the front ranks are evenly matched in the battle, and every time one of your friends dies one of the enemy goes too, I think you are going to get more worried for your own skin than your counterpart is.

Net result: phalanxes clash, front ranks fight for a bit, rear ranks worry about what's going on. The rear man of the thin phalanx has more to worry about, and is therefore more likely to flee first. Once he goes, the other rear rankers and the man who was in front of him are going to worry, and eventually it's a question of sauve qui peut.

To an extent then, if the two armies are man for man identical (in skill, equipment, morale, etc) except that one has more ranks, the shallower formation is likely to flee first - even if the actual fighting is going well for it.

I have entirely ignored frontage here, of course: I assume that both phalanxes have the same width, or that the peltasts are successfully stopping the wider phalanx from flanking the deeper if numbers are the same.

Oh, I know: each phalanx is infinitely long and so has no flanks, and has the same number of men as the other regardless of the number of ranks. Phew.

In RTW, I would say this should be reflected in the morale scores of the individuals. Either give a bonus for being deeper than the enemy, or take say 4 or 5 (or perhaps "the normal depth for that troop type") off the base morale of every unit and add one for every rank they have of depth (perhaps capped at say 8 or 10). At normal depths there is no change, but you can choose to trade off frontage for morale.

Cheers,

Pell.R.

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Pellinor:


I do not agree with your asessment that formations were just for show, neither that the last men on the phalanx would be the first to run off.

First of all you are trying to compare napoleonic war formations of musketeers with ancient phalangites: the differences are too obvious to enumerate but ill give you a clue; gunpowder.


Second of all you are providing the very sketchy observation that men in the rear lines yould run first due to them being scared from a battle they cannot see. I will say this: the largest number of casualties in the phalanx happened only when the phalanx formation broke up, prior to that it was minimal. Now, if the phalangites in the back rows did not push how then was the formation broken when they left (the phalanx certainly did not evaporate from the rear) and if neither phalanx broke, how were all the phalanx battles resolved, none of them lasted for long from what I know.

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Yes there are differences, but there are also similarities (which is rather the point of analogies). Why did Napoleon attack in columns, and why was he so successful, when the use of cannon and muskets would suggest that a large mass of men was just a big target? Why was it not better to split into two or more smaller (narrower, shallower, or both) columns to diffuse the incoming fire?

The only reason I can find is the morale factor: big masses of men are scary to the enemy, and comforting to the men in them.

One would predict that if the point of the column is to break the enemy's morale before they can do enough damage to the column to break it, then men with high morale (able to shrug off the imposing impression) in a line formation (to maximise damage to the column and break it quicker) should be able to stop it. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the British Army.

And didn't Napoleon have something to say about the relationship between the moral and the physical, in war?

Not conclusive, but suggestive.

Can I ask a counter question? If the rear ranks are pushing against the front ranks, and the front ranks fled, where did they go?

You are arguing for a dense mass of men pushing forward and fighting in a confined space (I note that a 6' spear, never mind a 20' pike, is an impractical weapon for that fighting style): surely this completely precludes any chance of the front row moving anywhere except into the enemy. The only people who could flee (ignoring those who could fly or burrow into the ground) are those at the sides or at the back.

The choice for the people at the front is just to fight: if they turn to flee into the press of men behind they just put themselves into more danger: the enmy is just as close, cannot be avoided, and has your back to strike without fear of you striking back or defending yourself. As you say, most casualties were inflicted in the rout: if the front ranks started to flee first, then they would all die in the battle *before* the general rout spread. They'd probably caus the general rout by doing so, but they'd die in the front line.

My hypothesis is that the fighting was a bit looser (in general). The front ranks try to kill each other, while the next few ranks poke spears or pikes over their shoulders to help out and the rear ranks provide moral support. Occasionally people will get over-enthusiastic and push a bit, but this is not going to be liked much by those in the front rank (who are trying *not* to get speared). Victory goes to the side which breaks the enemy's morale first.

It is *not* a case of killing all the enemy, or disrupting their formation (though those may affect their morale): the quickest way to get an enemy off the battlefield is to induce him to use his own legs.

IMO, morale is affected by lots of factors - how loud your side is cheering, how imposing the paean was, whether you're being shot at by peltasts, whether your flanks are threatened, how high the enemy's horse-hair plumes are, who the generals are and how good they're reputed to be, whether the enemy are Spartans, when you last ate, how rapidly people are dying, etc.

The crucial factor in my view is what you think the man next to you is going to do. If he is going to break and run, then you ideally need to start running just before he does - you don't need to outrun the enemy, so long as you can outrun your friends. It's a Prisoner's Dilemma situation: if you all stay long enough you win because the enemy will break before your army does; but if you stay and he flees then you die. If you flee and he stays, you stand a better chance of living if your side loses; but on the other hand you may be reviled as a coward if your side wins, so you don't flee until you really think you need to.

Only the men at the back (and sides, but there are fewer of them) have the chance to flee. If they start to go, then the men in the next-to-last rank then get the same dilemma. However, they *know* that at least some of their comrades are scared enough to flee, so they can pretty safely conclude that others will: this is a good incentive to get out while the going's good, and thus a chain rout is triggered (snowball effect).

This is all hypothesis on my part; please feel free to pick holes in it, so long as you don;t mind me picking hole in your pick.

Cheers,

Pell.R.

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Since Leuctra has been mentioned as the great "depth wins against width", I have to step in.
Leuctra was extremely close until the Sacred Band managed to outflank the Hippeis as the king. The very deep Theban phalanx could not budge the Spartans, and they actually lost many more hoplites in the actual fight that the Spartans. Each side lost about 400, but the Spartans lost them almost exclusively to the Sacred Band. Obviously the Spartans were winning until the flanking maneuver was finished.
Just to point out that depth didn't always win out, the Spartans and Thebans fought another battle some years prior. The Spartans and their allies under king Agesilaos (I think) fought the Thebans and a collection of allies near a lake. The Thebans managed to break the Spartans allies (allies who previously would be able to fight on an equal footing to the Thebans) while the Spartans broke the Theban allies. So now they both faced home but could not get there before defeating the other. So they had a go at each other, the Thebans in 25 ranks and the Spartans in 12. The fight was inconclusive but the Spartans claimed victory because the Thebans hadn't halted them in their campaign and had lost more men. This is the first instance of the deep phalanx, it was revolutionary because it managed to hold the Spartans in an equal fight, but it was far from a steamroller.

So, while I think the hoplites pushed each other they didn't do it very hard, it was more like they leaned onto each other (the first guys still needed to be able to fight). So with consecutive lines the added pusheffect deminished, meaning the second line added much more power than the 25th line.
The Spartans while perhaps a bit stronger than most others were obviously not twice as strong as normal hoplites, that is hard to believe. So somewhere down the line the pusheffect has to have been weakened dramatically, or perhaps it is true what Pellinor says, that the Spartan allies were broken by moraleissues rather than the push. But the Spartans being much more determined would not budge at all and so the depth failed to bring te desired results, though it did let the Theban phalanx stay in a fight it would normally have been beaten in.

Lastly, the underhand spear and the pusheffect is mutually exclusive. If the men behind the fronlines push, then the underhand spear is very dangerous to their thighs and groins, which were in fact the most unarmoured parts. The overhand spear can still be used even if the user is being pushed. Further, if the underhand spear was used then it is strange that the greaves were dropped rather than the heavy helmet, or that the toughest part of the linnen cuirass is the shoulders. Even earlier the hoplon (aspis) even had a leather skirt attached to the lower part to protect the groins and thighs from what is believed to have been stone bullets, javelins and arrows. But it could be that the hoplites went from underhand to overhand as the pusheffects were understood.

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Very good discussion here. I might as well throw in my 2 eurocents, just for arguments sake.

We have many descriptions from ancient writers regarding hoplite warfare, and all of them talk about certain phases in the phalanx (hoplite phalanx, no confusing with the later macedonian pike phalanx) clash.

Advancing to the sound of the paeanas (a battle song either song by the hoplite themselves alone, or with the use of an avletes - a flutist) was the first stage.

When contact was made between the two phalanxes, the doratismos (spearing) would start. The hoplites would try to find weak spots in the enemy formation, get past (or above?) the aspis* and hit an oponent.

At some point during the doratismos the phalanxes would get pretty close, and the othismos (shoving-pushing) phase would start. The othismos is described as an effort to push the opposite phalanx with the sheer weight and strenght of your own phalanx and there are specific accounts on the role the ranks before the first would play during that phase (=they would push along with the first lines, each man pushing the man in front of him).

The pushing around couldn't last for long, since it was extremely demanding on physical resources (another reason for the obsession of the ancient Greeks with excercise, they needed an extremely fit individual to take the heat in the first lines, especially, of a phalanx) and by some point one of the two phalanxes broke and tried to disengage. If it was a well-disciplined and highly organized army (like the Spartan army, or another of the great city-states) they usually managed to fall back in good order, using their light infantry and cavalry (if present the latter) to cover their retreat. If they couldn't do anything like that and started panicking, carnage ensued.

Rarely a battle between two phalanxes would go really nasty. Usually the winner would lose something like 4-8% of his men, and the defeated not more than 10 or at worst 15%.

But in the times of the peloponesian wars, when the hoplites got rid first of the greaves, then their metal cuirass and adopted the linothorax (and many used no thorax at all) and at the same time the role of the light infantry, with the development of the peltast and the acquisition of more missile infantry and relatively heavier cavalry, the hoplite warfare became a nasty business and casualty rates rose to extreme heights.

The most prominent example is a battle during the Corinthian war (the aftermath to the Peloponesian war) when the Peloponesian league defeated the Athens&Co alliance in the largest hoplite clash ever. More than 50.000 hoplites were fielded in a single battle and casualties (dead and badly wounded) exceeded the 8.000, maybe even the 10.000. This battle is a rather peculiar case, since the right wing of the Pelo army, composed by the elite Spartans, routed the Athenian force they had in front of them (taking advantage of the miscalculations of an Athenian general trying to cover the flank, but breaking the formation during the process) and then turned 90 degrees and flanked the allied army (who got pinned down by the allies of Sparta).

Overhand vs underhand

There is much dispute over this, as the classical sources are never mentioning wether the hoplite would use his spear underhand or overhand. Some of Kraxis' arguments about the overhand grip make very much sense, since the doratismos would be nearly impossible with an underhand grip.

But there are more factors to take into account, like:

- The "hoplon" (aspis) shield was not the only one in use in classical Greece and in hoplite warfare. The other well-known hoplite shield (in use in Boeotea, areas of Peloponesse and several islands, and as well in parts of Thesprotia, Thessaly) is also round, but has two openings in the right and left of it. A spear shaft fits very well through the (rather large) openings, and the user can even manouvre it a bit.
- Several military historians have come to the conclusion that in hoplite warfare most fatal wounds (like 90%) were either wounds in the face and throat, or wounds in the thighs. This adds to the confusion, because it's impossible to reach the thighs with an overhand grip, but equally impossible to reach the face or throat with an underhand grip. At least considering there was a large shield covering the torso.
- ALL artistic depictions of hoplite warfare have the hoplites wielding the spear overhand.
- The evolution of the helmets: the Corinthian helmet (providing ample protection for the face and head) was the norm before the Peloponesian war. During that era, it got replaced by the Pilos, who was really like a simple bowl and offered no facial protection.

This is a really confusing subject, isn't it?

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A bit on the Napoleonic assault column, if I may. The things doesn't really have much anything to do with the hoplite and phalangite formations of Antiquity - it was a stopgap measure invented due to the fact Revolutionary France had to fight off professional armies with masses of enthusiastic but ill-trained volunteers (and, once those ran out, draftees but that's another thing) and there simply was no time to drill them in the proper firing-line techniques.

So momentum, enthusiasm and weight of numbers (applied to a single spot in the spread-out firing line for local numerical superiority, if the opponent now even bothered to stick around and didn't rout before contact) had to make do.

The vulnerability of the deep column to firepower in general (as it'd lose a firefight against a line due to its small frontage) and artillery in particular was known and special measures were devised to remedy the situation. One was psychological warfare. The soldiers wore high, showy hats to appear bigger and often waved them atop their bayonets for more effect, shouted loudly and generally did their best for the whole block of men to appear as intimidating as possible. With luck the enemy officers would lose nerve and discharge salvo from too far away, after which the assault could commence in relative safety. Another was the light-infantry skirmishers, the voltigeurs, in loose order who screened the line troops and shot up the enemy line and particularly officers. If the enemy unit returned fire, all the better - the skirmishers would only suffer light casualties from the volley, and the line column could charge home. If it didn't, well, the skirmishers would be only too happy to shoot the unit to bits.

Artillery had to be neutralized, preferably with counter-battery fire as that arm's obscene density of firepower meant attacking a battery with even cavalry was often suicidal, or simply weathered. It would inflict casualties, possibly quite horrendous ones, but them's the breaks.

After the French strategic situation stabilized they could spare the time to drill the troops properly, but the column was used when the situation warranted.

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Ok, lets start all over again......


Really? that is like comparing a blowtorch to a lamp.... Maybe morale was not the only thing that won battles, and besides you are still refering to mostly R-A-N-G-E-D combat where marksmanship and morale were more important than cohesion and unified movement. If you thought more you would have found something more.



Yes, suggestive to various interpretations, too bad yours are all wrong.

Fly or bury themselves? Well you said that man.
What we know for phx vs phx combat is the following: it never lasted very long, the casualties during combat itself were very low. Why is that? because of the hoplite heavy armour and shield. The spear of the front rank broke off after some time and then the soldiers drew swords and tried to close in, with the second rank supporting them with spear thrusts. There was no chance for the guys in the front to go anywhere, or fly or bury themselves as you have very astutely pointed, and the last ranks did not gradually evaporate from the rear of the phalanx while the battle raged on, like you suggested, unless of course they were total cowards. Besides there is not a single piece of evidence saying that. So how then did you break then a large formation of steady men holding their ground and covered behind heavy shields? Pushing them with a similar formation of stronger men with better coordination with each other would result in several men of the front ranks losing their balance (especially if they were woulded) and other men frantically trying to walk backwards in the safety of the formation which in all probability lead to them getting a spear through their right shoulder or their belly. For the people in the back ranks actually WATCHING me massacre in front and OBSERVING the enemy closing in through their ruined formation and KNOWING that all is lost this would be enough, they would break off and run, with the ones in the front following as best they could ie those who were not engaged in mortal combat, crippled or cut off. But of course, like you said the reasons above were the only ones you could think of.

And there is no better way to do that than kill him or disrupt his formation, if you know something about the strengths and weaknesses of the phalanx you should know that. You seem to be contradicting yourself alot.

Yes well all this is pure hypothesis with no proof whatsoever (i.e. bullsh*t).
Maybe you should put your historical RTW knowledge into actual reality. And someone who runs during battle and before anything decicive has happened is not a coward, he is worse, a deserter.


It is very unlikely that the majority of hoplites were cowards who would run at the sight of the enemy advancing. Once again you need to read some history.

Picking holes? you better shut up, read a good book.

I wonder if the persian front rank at Marathon got scared of the hoplites and flew or buried itself.


Also on the point of the deep Theban formations not moving the spartans: It is very difficult to have twelve men in a column push one another with their shields in the same direction and with all their strength and maintain their formation. Maybe such a push did occur but the well drilled spartans (I read somewhere about columns of men training together on bringing down trees) won through. Maybe the front ranks of the thebans were less enthusiastic at getting in range of the spartans deadly aim (casualties were quite high as you said in the theban side) or probably it was a combination of both. This proves only one thing, that the spartans were the undisputed masters of the phalanx, something that we already know.

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Crusader that was a little harsh, this is a discussion not a presidential debate.
I think you would find that the Thebans and Alexander probably disagree.

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Actually his comparisons are fine. He's talking about Moral in combat and in combat the moral of the force with superior numbers will generally be higher than the opposing force.

Actually, everything he said was pretty solid. I didn't see anything wrong with it.

Most battles in ancient times were determined because of one side running away before they are engaged, or a flank collapses and the rest run away because of what's happening on their flank. Since this happened almost every battle back then I wouldn't call those who joined in on the chain-route cowards.

Nah.

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CrusaderMan (everyone else pay attention too), this is not how to conduct an interesting and educational discussion. There is absolutely no reason to insult or be condescending to another patron. Feel free to disagree with or correct someone's knowledge, but you'll advance your point much further by doing so in a constructive manner. There is a lot you can learn in this forum and there are many opportunities to share your knowledge with others. This can only happen when we maintain a civil atmosphere. On the whole, the posts have been excellent and very civil, however, there seems to be a little bit of a rise in disrespect as of late. Let's keep the dialog at a high caliber that we can all appreciate. Thank you for you cooperation in this matter.

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Kraxis

There are at least two other examples of depth of Phalanx not producing a victory. At Delium, the standard depth Athenian Phalanx was only pushed back, not broken by a 25 deep Theban phalanx that had the advantage of charging down hill. At the Piraeus the democratic faction decisively defeated the hoplites of the Thirty, even though they deployed 50 deep against the more typical depth of the democratic army.

Crusader King

“What we know for phx vs phx combat is the following: it never lasted very long"

While your right the ideal of a '5 minute' hoplite clash seems to have become cannonical, I'm not sure the evidence supports this conclusion.
Some battles do indeed seem to have been over quickly, but some like Solgia, Tanagra, Crannon, Delium, and at least one of the early battles at Syracuse with the Athenians, etc, seem to have carried on for quite some time. In the short battles, many hoplites do indeed seem to a have evaporated contra your "It is very unlikely that the majority of hoplites were cowards who would run at the sight of the enemy advancing. Once again you need to read some history", At the first Mantinea, for example many of the troops on the anti-Spartan side fled before any contact with the enemy.

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I do know from the Wars of the Roses that a line did collapse from the rear. It's pretty logical; you see men dying in front of you and behind you there is nothing that can harm you. it's an easy way for a coward to escape death and once he runs the guy in front of him started to worry since his backup is gone. More and more men in the backranks flee and the whole line collapses. The generals in the Wars of the Roses knew this and encouraged the infantry to stay by putting some horsemen behind them.

And about the overhand/underhand use of spears. Athletic spear throwing is done overhand. I have done it too and you can build up alot of thrust even when standing still. And the power is not only coming from the muscle arms (as someone said), you also add extra momentum by turning your torso. The only downside of overhand trusting is the extra strain of constantly holding up the spear.

Then there were also the late medieval pike units who used their pike at shoulder level or sometimes even higher. Although of course they had the advantage of using both hands making it less tiring.

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Well first of all depth definitely does have morale boosters for multiple reasons.

1 the frontlines can't run
2 it'll take a while to punch a whole deep enough to make the rear ranks to see the carnage happening

As far as an army retreating before engagement, that was probably due to the frontline being skittish and causing disruption to there own ranks forcing a rout.

First of all let's look at melee infantry in general first. I'm not too knowledgable in the history of warfare but here goes.

Were there infantry that used the push method in warfare? Rome seems like a perfect example. What was the standard formation for a unit, that'd be a square formation. A typical unit contained 80 men, for a square that'd be a 9 by 9 men. Looking at the battle of Cannae the Romans decided for an aggressive formation. They used the rectangular formation, small frontage but great depth. This was done for a punch through in the Carthaginian lines. Why would that formation be more aggressive for a breakthrough.

2 things possible, 1 it forced the frontline to keep on fighting or the other and that is the depth of the formation caused forward momentum to push back the opponents. Now came the next phase of the battle, the Romans saw the Carthaginian line buckling under pressure and saw a breakthrough was close by. So why would the Romans send in there reserves on a part of the line that was already engaged? Would these reenforcements ensure that the frontline cant fallback or would there pushpower help the frontline in disrupting there formation and punch a whole. Regardless the Romans were looking for a breakthrough so they could flank out on the Carthagens. This was countered by the bringing in Libyan spearmen on the flanks of the already preoccupied Romans.

My guess is the Romans used this tactic to keep the frontline engaged so that the breakthrough could occur.

Now lets take long spears/pikes into perspective. Deadly at long range but of poor use when then enemy closes. If I had a sword I'd be chopping your spear tip to bits. Obviously standing still with a spear is detrimental to your life even if you are thrusting it. Obviously you need forward momentum. If you lose momentum the spear tips will start getting chopped up. So the Phalanx did need momentum but not so much against another phalanx it seems. As standing still in front of a swordsmen is not such a swell idea

My only guess was it wasn't so much of a push as it was multiple factors. With depth every inch of ground you gain will not be lost. So depth was more of a factor of 2 things. 1 the guy behind you stops you from getting pushed back and it forces you to fight.

Now let's take a look at what position unreliable units/allies would take on the battlefield. They'd have the position of the center in most cases. This was a tactical decision done to cut off there rout on the flanks and you could press them from behind. Now they are forced to fight and there only hope is to win or wait until the flanks route allowing them a path to retreat.

Considering the tactics of non phalanx units it does not seem the push was a major part. If they did use the push it was neither excessive or was it used beyond the third rank.

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Let's not confuse Greek-style hoplites with Macedonian-style phalanxes again, shall we ? The former were spearmen, the latter pikemen.

The difference is pretty major, as any late-medieval commander could likely tell you.

As a side note, aside from the Spartans the Greek hoplites were part-time citizen soldiers called to arms when needed - "sunday soldiers" would be the unflattering term. Their typical campaign consisted of about one day marching to a suitable spot to fight their colleagues from the city-state they were at war with, getting it over with, and returning home - whether in triumph or defeat wasn't actually that important, given the comparatively low casualty rates (the hoplite panoply could weigh up to forty kilos, and routers tended to throw away many bits; this made effective pursuit nigh impossible). It's probably not that far-fetched to compare this sort of fighting to national-level football matches, just with more blood and less popcorn.

Such part-time soldiers naturally have their limitations, and the Spartans could often scare their foes into flight merely by their fierce reputation and steady, unflinching advance (trained professionals, they usually didn't do the "phalanx drift" to the right).

Well, their tactics became more "professional", combined-arms (think peltasts) and lethal over the time.

Anyway, so far as I know from my assorted reading spearmen and pikemen are the troops who profit the most from a dense, ordered formation, as their weapons need little sideways room to use and work well "layered". Not that all spear-carrying warriors fought in that manner, but the more sophisticated ones often did. Anyway, such dense formation has the added bonus effect of being rather solid - it gets rather difficult to knock an individual warrior down when what he stumbles against is the guy right behind him, and even if that guy staggers back there's a third one right behind him... you get the idea; the close order absorbs impacts pretty well, not wholly unlike multiple layers of textile do.

Managing a charge in formation that close was probably beyond all but the best-drilled troops, so odds are rapid offensive maneuvers were usually done in looser formation. Kind of inevitable really, as they'd be done in full run at least at the last leg and that plays serious havoc with formations. Still, getting rammed by a man with a big shield and him getting rammed in the back by the next guy, who gets rammed in the back by the third guy etc. is going to add up to some serious momentum that's going to be difficult to resist, and it won't help any if they try to skewer you with a spear on the side too (probably "couching" it much like cavalry do).

As a side note, I've read the Spartans at least had a special "super-dense" formation where the entire hoplite unit packed into about half the space it normally occupied. Standing that close together they'd been pretty unable to fight effectively, so this was probably a special-purpose formation used to receive charges deemed "heavy" enough to warrant it.

So far as I know, however, the Romans normally used pretty loose order and kept a little distance between the engaged front line and the rest of the unit (which replaced casualties and wounded or tired legionaires as necessary) - sword-fighting requires a little more room to go well. Their stabbing short swords ought to have worked pretty well in the face-to-face crush of shieldwall fighting too, but AFAIK they preferred to have some room to maneuver in. There were special exceptions though, for example if they expected to face heavy cavalry (say, Sarmatian cataphracts) head on - then they'd deploy in deep, dense blocks and preferably take some spears along for the front ranks, albeit pilums also worked in a pinch.

Spearshafts aren't all that easy to chop up, though. They were made of strong woods and many centimeters across, and most of the time weren't conveniently braced so as to be optimally shopped. Not to mention the spear-heads could be very long - specimen over a meter in lenght are known from Japan, used in the long two-handed cavalry spears - so you might well have a serious problem even reaching the wooden parts. And of course the people who wielded them were disinclined to cooperate with attemps to vandalize their weapons...

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A tiny little detail nobody seems to take into account: You are all speculating about what you think is more logical or expected and draw conclusions, while utterly ignoring the ancient sources and the facts they state. For what those facts are, refer to my previous post.

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CrusaderMan: could you please explain *why* my points are all wrong or contradictory? I am quite prepared to believe they are, but I have this odd sense of curiosity that means that I like to know reasons for things rather than just accepting someone's say-so.

By the way, when I say "the only reason I can find..." please take it as read that I mean "the only *good* reason I can find...". I can find any number of reasons for anything, but I tend to discount some of them (eg one side had the pixies helping them, or battles were decided by which army had more people whose name started with "S", etc).

You state that the front ranks could not flee and the rear ranks would not. How, then, do you account for the documented reports of armies fleeing?

In the absence of any reasoning to support your contentions, I hope you'll forgive me if I place little value on them.


Colovion and Gregoshi: thank you.


Watchman: thank you for the comments on the Napoleonic column. I think that overall they support my argument: if you can't beat the enemy man to man, then use psychology to try to scare him off so you don't have to.


Rosacrux Redux: I'm sorry if you think you're being ignored. I thought you gave a good summary of the mechanics of a battle - knowledge of which is essential to the debate - but you didn't cover the reasons for one side winning rather than the other, which is I think where the debate is headed. As you say, the push is a documented feature; but how many people pushed, how, and to what end?


Oaty: I think I'm going along the same lines as you: the actual pushing was limited to the first few ranks. I'm not sure about how to visualise it, though: is it a full-blown scrum, with the whole frontage (or at least a lot of files) trying to force the enemy as a whole back, or was it a more individual matter of trying to get single soldiers in to the enemy's front rank or two to break up their formation? Or something else entirely?


As far as Romans go, IIRC the default spacing was something like 3' between files and 6' between ranks. That is a different style of fighting, granted, but you'd think that if the Greek hoplites fought by having 8 ranks pushing at once then the unsupported Romans would get walked all over. I note also that Caesar's casualty reports include a huge proportion of centurions (sometimes almost as many as the other ranks, who presumably outnumber them by up to 80:1). Could it have been common practice to have a few of your bravest try to get in amongst the enemy to disrupt them (but often dying in the process), while the rank and file keep formation but try to exploit any gaps created? Is the Greek push a way of doing this?

One potential reason for reinforcing success (a la Cannae) is that if you're going to break through the enemy you need to keep a connexion between your lead troops and the rest of the army. If one section breaks through but has no support, then they may just get cut off, and knowing this may slow their advance a bit. If they know their backs are covered they may be more willing to push on.


One further point: we're talking about troops in close formation trying to get another close formation to flee, without actually causing massive casualties face to face. How come films always portray battles as 20,000 one-on-one confrontations in a field, and how come we need to kill 90% of a unit to get it to flee in RTW?

Anyway: there's lots of comments, lots of questions, not many answers.

Cheers,

Pell.R.

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Rosa, that battle you mention is actually what some would call the pinnacle of Spartan hoplitewarfare.

The king had possibly the best Spartan army ever, it was experienced from campaigning and fighting and it was of course trained as the Spartans did. He himself (his name eludes me but he could have been Agis II or III or another figure ) was a very quickthinking man and a bit of a revolutionary.
When he saw the enemy advance he took two Morae from his left flank (and thus opened a gap in the line) and sent them behind his own line to the right while he was still advancing. They barely made it there before the fight but being Spartans they formed up on the march perfectly.
Unlike your account I'm quite certain the allies were broken quite fast as they were overlapped on both right and left (due to the drift and the gap). Anyway, the Spartans made quick work of the Athenians (who were very much overlapped by the Spartan right), so they fled early and suffered fairly few losses. Then the Spartans formed up with their 'overlappers' at about 90 degrees to their previous advance (showing again their high disciplined and skill) and began to plow down the other troops in the enemy army. No other army could perfect such maneuvers in battle, not even the Thebans.
But the problem with that battle was the inherent risk it had and the fact that it didn't involve things not seen before, and was thus merely a perfect hoplitebattle rather than something new like the Theban tactics at Leuctra and later.

About the fatal injuries. I have indeed heard about a large percentage of thighkills, that baffled me for quite a while, and I'm still a bit puzzled about it, but I have a solution that is useable. How would you kill an armoured warrior fleeing before you? You would strike at his head? You know where your sword/spear has a good chance of missing the little distance between the armour and the helmet. Would you strike the armour and risk it glancing off? Arms? Without which he can easily run on. Or would you strike at his legs? Thighs are rather big targets as they are close together, a spearhed in between the thighs and the man is down possibly even fatally wounded. He can't run on and you can now chase other fleeing hoplites and come back for this one later. See my point? Even when you come back and still find him alive and want to kill him, you would strike below the armour or at the neck/face.

Of course it is not perfect and even if it was it couldn't account for all the instances of thighkills. But we can't ignore the rout as it produced a very large percentage of the deaths. So in all we can't use the total killscore for much besides saying it was this/that that killed them.

I would like to know more about the figure-8 shields you mentioned, I thought they had been long abandoned. Do you possibly have a link to some pics or something, anything.
Anyway, in a hoplitephalanx wouldn't the shields overlap enough for the holes to be eliminated? Or at least be unstable as the shields would move up and down a bit when fighting and pushing.

Also, I'm quite certain the Spartans had dropped the bellcuirass at the time around the Persian Wars and gone over to the linnencuirass. Possibly the others came along later. Also I'm not entirely certain that everybody were so loving about the Pilos helm besides the Spartans. I have seen plenty of depictions of the (in my mind lovely) Thracian helmet on hoplites. Of course these could be glorified images, but generally it doesn't seem as the Greeks were much into equipmentglorification.

conon, indeed battles could last a while. The battle I mentioned with the Thebans and Spartans (I hate that all my info comes from borrowed books I don't have anymore, so I can't just look it up) it seems the battle dragged on and on as neither side caved in, the Thebans pushing to get home and the Spartans resisting of all might. And since hoplitebattles were seldomly indecisive it must have lasted a while for there was only victory or defeat.

Crusaderman... My whole point is that the push was there, but it wasn't so that 12 men were much stronger than 8, and 25 were much stronger than 12, if at all. It would be far too difficult for the last men to push properly. Meaning it would be the first man who pushed everything, the next a little less, the next a little less again and so on. Thus making the deep phalanxes not quite the effective steamrollers were think of them.
But of course the Spartans were the masters of the unchanging world. Everything within hoplite warfare was benefitting them. Lighter armour, quicker maneuvers, deeper formations, they benefitted as they were the best hoplites. But when someone broke those rules, such as when at Corinth the Spartan Mora was assaulted in the flanks by light troops and attacked by cavalry, or they were flanked by an independant unit at Leuctra, then the Spartans were left out just like anybody would. The difference was just that they had a hard time coping with the losses.

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To kraxis: I agree with your point, I never claimed that 50 rows could push uniformly. However 8 or 10 rows could certainly do so and a few more rows could add a little bit extra. It is done today in rugby matches in the scram (spelling?), the front rows try to get hold of each other, the middle rows push with their legs and the back rows provide some weight to the formation.
Strong, trained men can do that.

As for very long battles what I was thinking when I wrote that were battles that lasted thhrough the whole day, not 5 minute clashes.



To whoever mentioned the pike phalanx: Indeed, the pike phalanx was very different from hoplites, they circumvented any casualties by simply using a very long and heavy weapon. However, as we well know, this introduced a whole new set of flaws which any good comander could cover up.

to the moderators: My whole pont was that except in very special circumstances, the back ranks of hoplites (and any other ancient army for example) simply did not ran at the sight of the enemy. There is a certain ironic behaviour however that simply does it for me. I apoilogise and I hope that something was learned from above.


Edit: About the thigh striking: a hoplite who couldnt stand couldnt fight. Strikes in the thighs would simply bring you down on the ground where you would be safe and harmless and the enemy would have the chance to finish you off with the spear butt should they advance.

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The spears were actually lighter. They cut them in half and hollowed them out and lashed them together again so that they both had a longer spear as well as a lighter one.

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Sorry for this late reply. A burned out hdd and other stuff kept me from responding until now.

Well here is a quick list in no particular order:

1) Quoting Livy on the battle of Zama about Roman rear ranks pushing on the front. Which is only half the truth as Livy actually says the rear ranks started to press forward AFTER they became aware of the forward movement as the front rank were advancing "as though meeting with no resistance." So Livy is actually saying that the rear ranks didn't do much to help the front ranks fighting which is the opposite of what Victor D. Hanson (VDH) says.


2) VDH about Xenophon: "he noted that Egyptians were especially well suited for fighting in column since their peculiar body-shields allowed the infantryman to rest the shoulder while he pushed"

Now something might be wrong with the translation I have, but Xenophon doesn't say anything about a column formation being good, only about the shield design and that it was good for thrusting (or pushing/showing). That might as well mean the soldiers had a big shield that was also good for bashing into the enemy. Actually Xenophon describes a bit earlier how the extremely deep Egyptian formation (100 men deep) wouldn't do them any good. I guess VDH tries to add them together without reading all of it.


3)Numerous times VDH brings up the pushing term from sources but none of them specifically says anything rear ranks pushing the front. VDH "knows" pushing means all ranks push so take all his sources as evidence of it while none of them actually go into such detail. They could might as well mean the front rank doing the pushing only.


4)VDH describes how clever fighters could take a step back to draw an onrushing opponent off balance and to that he says: "One wonders how this was accomplished when there was pressure at his back as well" The simple answer could very well be that they didn't have pressure on their backs at all. So VDH can find a source that goes into such detail about fighting tactics and they imply no pushing. Now this could be seen as in the charge phase so therefore no men from the rear has come up yet. But that would also mean some hoplites didn't just crash into each other and use only brute force to win.


5)Sphodrias' son who fell 3 times at the battle of Leuctra but managed to get on his feet again. How that is possible when VDH sees the initial charge and spear combat to last only seconds before the pushing starts?



That is one the arguments in the "push lobby". Why were formations so deep if only 1-2 ranks could fight and casualties in general was pretty light before a unit routed to attrition is not the answer as there was no need for so many replacements.

But they are really missing the psychological aspect of warfare. More about that later.

Now one can argue that Hoplite warfare was different than later eras but IMO we can easily draw some conclusion from about 2000 years of melee warfare from classical Greek to Renaissance warfare.

Renaissance pikemen used deep formations too and they didn't have any shields. Sure fighting could get close and vicious but training manuals are mentioned that specifically says that rear ranks should stay off and let the front ranks do the fighting. Paintings/drawings confirm that too and some also show how frantic the fighting could be where soldiers weren't standing/fighting in neat ordered ranks.

Late Medieval Men-at-Arms would use several ranks too. At Agincourt the outnumbered English line was only 4 ranks while the French initially were 8 ranks. At that time most men would be armed with poleaxes or lances but some might have used sword and buckler too.

Polybius tell us that Romans were fighting individually without support from other ranks. That is also what we can read from Livy as I mentioned above. Romans used from 6-10 ranks in each line (depending on era/attrition etc)

The Macedonia phalanx was normally 16 ranks but was also a flexible system that could go into a wider 8 rank line or march the rear half forward and make a very compact 8 rank line. Polybius gives us a short description of how it advanced/charged and mentions how the last 11 ranks would press forward with the weight of their bodies.

But that is not the first 5 ranks, as they have their weapons leveled ready to fight, and its only mentioned in connection with the charge. By having all the "inactive" rear ranks move forward in close formation they ensure that the front ranks stay in position so all stay together and hit the enemy at the same time. When Polybius describes the Roman soldier facing such a phalanx he doesn't talk about weight or ranks but number of spearheads that he has to face


So in what way were the Classical hoplite warfare any different?

They shared same tactical idea as the Macedonia phalanx of putting all men into one line. Although Greek warfare evolved, using more cavalry and light infantry, it stayed with the simple one line only system.

A Roman army was very flexible and operated in 3 lines as standard and sometimes even had a separate reserve (sometimes a whole Legion) The Greeks would either extend the line or increase its ranks if they had the men. But sometimes part of the line was deeper than the rest.

One could say the one line system was a simplistic system that couldn't handle any reverses in the same way as the Romans. Having several allies involved in a battle, with different levels of training and no proper command and control meant that using only one line was the best way of doing things.

Line the men up and charge the enemy. Thats the essence of Classic Hoplite warfare. But apart from being a bit simple was the fighting any different?

The term Othismos is where the big discussion is. VDH tries to put Hoplite warfare into several distinct phases where Othismos is the last one and is mainly pushing. He thinks the actual fighting with spears only lasted seconds and then went over to all pushing. Several of the sources in his book actually tells of fighting and pushing as something that happened at the same time. There is not much in the book that points towards pushing having its own phase.

Othismos is not a very well defined term but is used a lot by contemporary writers and can even be traced back to the days of Homer and thats before proper phalanx warfare. It was apparently used in naval warfare too. A general military meaning of it would be something like: to force the enemy back. To attack and keep up the pressure on the enemy was the ideal of Hoplite warfare.

Let him fight toe to toe and shield against shield hard driven,
crest against crest and helmet on helmet, chest again chest;
let him close hard and fight it out with his opposite foeman,
holding tight to the hilt of his sword, or to his long spear.

(Tyrtaios 11.31-34)

As the many "tearless" battles shows that wasn't quite what all Hoplites actually did as they would rout just before impact but one thing is ideals another thing is realities

I will take the liberty and quote a Viking reenactor about pushing:

Now that is of course a reenactor who will never experience the fear and chaos in a real battle, but if he thinks going in and start leaning on his shield to push the enemy is bad for his head, then I don't see why a soldier back then would think otherwise.

A soldier in the front rank wants to kill/wound his opponent but he also wants to survive. The shield is the most important part of his protection so he needs to be able to move it to deflect enemy strikes as well as be able to move his whole body for both attack and defense.

The shield can also be used to bash an enemy off balance but if the enemy is in close formation you risk opening up for a strike from an enemy to your right. Best thing for you is to stay in tight formation and use your spear and for a Hoplite that would be something like 1-2 meters away from the enemy.

The second rank might be able to help with spears but the front rank is the one doing most of the fighting and are also the best soldiers as several sources say.


Pushing doesn't necessarily mean leaning on your shield. Push/shove/bash pick whatever word you want If the man in front of you decides to make a quick push forward to unbalance his opponent he wouldn't be happy if you move forward and prevent him from going back. If the whole front line moves forward to go shield on shield and push they still need room for any defensive movement. Having say 7 people in his back/shoulder does limit his ability to do any movement.

And you are alive today because:

a) none of you had big shields and spears
b) you didn't have the same number men trying to go out the door
c) although you might have been real hungry its still not the same as real war with all the chaos, panic and death that follows it
d) you actually did get something to eat so you didn't starve to death



If you are in a close formation with overlapping shields then using a spear overarm is the best way but we know they could use it underarm too. Overarm is not that tiring as you can rest the spear on your shoulder and raise it quickly if needed. And some battles had several lulls for soldiers to rest a bit. And I actually don't think there is so much difference in power as arm muscles/forward motion with shoulder is doing most of the work for both anyway. But overarm is good for head/torso thrusts while underarm is better for leg/groin thrusts. Overarm will have shorter reach but better control.

Phalanx is a general term that for a Hoplite would mean something like "the main line" or just "the line". All it meant was one big line of close order Hoplites. The standard width per file was about 3 feet although there might have been differences but Hoplites could and did use a densely packed formation with about 1 1/2 feet of frontage per man. A proper shieldwall is actually more like the later. But phalanx and shieldwall doesn't mean the same thing really as phalanx is a general term.

Most Hoplites would break out in a run or at least a trot/jog when charging and a line cant maintain its formation in that way. In some cases part of the phalanx started charging before other parts and terrain could mean holes appeared forcing part of the line to run to catch up. The Spartans were really the only ones who maintained order and marched at a step although sometimes they too made disordered attacks.

Oh yeah the morale/psychology bit..

Units needed depth and 8-10 ranks was considered minimum throughout most of the times (there are a few cases of Spartans doing 4 ranks only IIRC) If we assume that they didn't do it for the purpose of pushing and as attrition isn't the reason either then that really only leaves morale. And we can read from countless accounts of how fragile the morale was. Both Xenophon and Julius Ceasar goes into details on morale and how panic can easily spread.

The more ranks you had the more secure the soldiers would feel. Units could get disordered when moving/charging so even a 8 rank formation wouldn't end up in as solid a formation as some people might think. And in combat losses as well as soldiers pulling back could disorder it too. Soldiers in the rear ranks might not be directly in danger but would still feel they were close to it and be scared, They might not see much of the actual fighting but could still see/sense a lot of other things that could happen: a banner that falls, men crying out that the King is dead etc. If they somehow perceived things were going bad a panic could start very quickly.

Thats why it was important to have good experienced men/leaders in the rear rank too. They would be less inclined to panic and stop any retreating men by shouting pushing or poking them back, as well as move forward and push the middle ranks forward if the frontranks were advancing so the close order could be kept. If they didn't do it then an advancing unit could start to dissolve as a lot of men would hang back. Maintaining the close order was important for the perceived security, as humans under stress feels more secure when close to others.

I can dig out some examples if people wants but I think right now this post is already too long and confused enough heh.


CBR

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That was some post...

I think there was a shield to shield pushingcontest.
The reenactor says that it is easy to hit an opponent in the face if you are shield to shield. But if scared you often lose the ability to focus properly (which part of why professional soldiers were that good) and chances are you miss. Then comes the point that the hoplitespears were perhaps not pikes, but they were still long enough to make it very hard to stike a person in the face who is just in front of you, it is much easier to hit his back.
And if there is a push then the sword might never come up over the shield (because it is pinned down).
And lastly, the Corinthian helmet wasn't invented for no reason. Apparently headwounds were common enough. They did chance to the Pilos/Pylos helm, but it was only the Spartans that kept using it, the others changed to the Thracian helmet which once again protected the face.

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Yes there could be a shield up against shield pushing/shoving struggle and thats what some sources indicate in a few hard fought battles but I really doubt they had lots of ranks behind them helping with it and I dont see any sources saying it either.

IIRC its mentioned several places how the leaders cried out for his men to take one more step. If he could see the enemy was disordered and had holes in the front line then convincing all his men to push forward could break the enemy line.

This controlled step by step advance is likely to be part of the Othismos but could easily just be the frontrank doing it. It could be more like a quick push forward to bash the enemy back or just move in closer to put more psychological pressure on a already demoralised enemy that then would step back to get back into the "safe" standard spear thrusting range. Do that enough times and the enemy would fall apart.


CBR

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Then why would the Thebans use their best troops in 50-men rank deep formation at Leuctra? Were they not sufficiently "brave" and "elite" to have them in the standard 8 ranks? The fear factor due to ranks was really unapplicable then as well, due to the usual flat topography of the battle sites, thus one could not be certain of the enemy rank-depth.
And about people mentioning that the 50 ranks weren't decisive to the outcome of the battle: After having read a series of articles by greek historians regarding Xenophon's objectivity, it seems to me quite logical that he was trying to diminish the value of the victors and throw in some random factors that can justify the spartan loss. Remember, Xenophon was extremely in favour of the Spartans, with countless evidence supporting this. When a "historian" praises so shamelessly his buddy (aka as king Agesilaus), tries to downplay the losses and mistakes of the Spartans,mentions only one time the name of Pelopidas and even "forgets" to write about the significant military reorganisations of the "enemies" (by Epameinondas and Yficrates), then he's doing the next generations a great disservice, by denying very important information, at least regarding the "othismos". The timeframe he describes (being a contemporary as well) seems ideal for the clarification of the various phalanx-differentiations.

Anyway, enough Xenophon-bashing, my point is that the Thebans won twice obviously due to their 50 ranks concetrating on a single side of the enemy (and I dont think anyone believes the entire theban army was 50 ranks deep, as some old historians supported). The fact that the spartan king died and caused a chain rout is , hmm, questionable to say the least.

EDIT: And I 'm not saying ofcourse that 50 men pushed at the same time, but that at least 1/3 could have an effect on the opposite side which had only 12...the effect was surely diminishing after the 20th rank, maybe even with less men, but was significant enough to keep the hardy spartians on their toes- then we have the people on the back replacing the losses and adding fresh men into the fray.

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Well if Xenophon is so bad then he might have exaggerated the "not less than 50 ranks" bit

Dont think Diodoros and Plutarch mentions 50 ranks but they werent interested in going into such detail. But they do add some things that Xenophon doesnt talk about.

IMO we really have some pretty vague descriptions about what happened at Leuctra. If we assume that all Epaminondas did was to make an extremely deep column to ram into the Spartan, that afterall was considered to be the best, and that was the major reason for the victory then that seems to be a great tactic that was forgotten quickly afterwards.

I guess Vegitius was all wrong when he said "valor is superior to numbers" It didnt matter if the enemy was good and even had more men as long as you made a deep column and crashed into his line at some point.


AFAIK both Diodoros and Plutarch relied on same sources and as I said above they add some details that does tell more about what Epaminondas had in mind. Not only did he put his best men in the left flank intending to do the opposite of what was normal but he made an oblique attack that moved to the left.

A lot of battles ended up having each side overlapping on their respective right and Diodoros say the Spartan line was a crescent formation which indicate the army was overall wider than the Theban line and most likely had prepared to advance in a way to hit both flanks of the Theban line.

Lets looks a Epaminondas' options for winning this battle.

He was clearly outnumbered (about 6000 hoplites v 10000) but at least he had better cavalry although its only mentioned as defeating the Spartan cavalry and then not much else. By making the oblique attack he could prevent his right wing getting defeated, at least for some time. He needed a quick victory against the Spartan right wing that would remove the best part of the enemy as well as killing/capturing the Spartan king. With no leadership and the best men defeated then the rest might not be so eager to fight and thats also what seems to have happened.

How could he make sure to defeat the Spartan right wing quickly? He knew how the Spartans would deploy against his outnumbered army, so by preparing his own army for a quick move forward and to the left he would be able to surprise the Spartan right wing and outflank it. Outflanking the right wing is definitely a good way to win quickly and from Plutarchs descriptions the Spartans tried to react against the outflanking maneuver but was caught disordered by Pilopidas and his Sacred band that charged in first.

Why Xenophon is vague is a good question. Did he know all the details about the battle or just some confused accounts from Spartan survivors? When he says the Thebans was in at least 50 ranks was that Epaminondas leading his marching column that was trying to outflank the Spartan wing?

Epaminondas needed to move quickly as well as move to the left. With the tendency of soldiers shifting to the right then its not gonna be easy just to tell all solders to turn say 45 degrees and move forward. Any complicated and rapid maneuvers would have to be done in a deep column, a good example would be how Scipio maneuvered at Ilipa. Pilopidas' charge could very well have been a planned move as they would reach the Spartan wing first to pin it so Epaminondas had room to go into the flank with his column. Or it could have been a desperate charge as Pilopidas saw that the Spartans were reacting and would be able to shift the line and move in front of Epaminondas. But I think its very likely it was planned. What force could handle a quick advance and hope to fight it out for some time being outnumbered against the mighty Spartans? Only the Sacred band.


We dont really know that do we? Xenophon mentions 50 ranks but not how many and who precisely were in the deep formation. Pilopidas and his 300 men are mentioned at attacking first which could mean they were a seperate part of the line. And actually might have been used to cover the main column doing its outflanking maneuver.


A deep column is not likely to be noticed from a few 100 meters distance but Im pretty sure soldiers in the enemy front rank would notice from say 20 meters away: a forest of spears as well a noise of men shouting and trampling feet. But the Thebans were attacking the best Spartans so I doubt an attack that counted on fear alone was a good approach and the sources does indicate Epaminondas had a good plan that involved more than just brute force and fear focused at one place.


Maybe he did try and diminish it as the Spartans were defeated in a quite pathetic way: The outflanking right wing being surprised and outflanked itself. It couldnt get any worse could it?


Dont think any sources say the death of the king caused a chain rout. Xenophon says the King died first but it took several other important soldiers/leaders to die before they finally fell back.


CBR

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Well, it's true that he could have exaggerated, the man didn't even manage to write more than the bare essentials about one of the greatest battles in ancient Greece, Madineia. Ofcourse even if it was 40 ranks, the target was achieved


We don't have to assume that he made such a deep column; "..οι δέ Θηβαίοι ουκ έλαττον ή επί πεντήκοντα ασπίδων συνεστραμμένοι ήσαν, λογιζόμενοι ως ει νικήσειαν τό περί τόν βασιλέα, τό άλλο πάν ευχείρωτον έσοιτο." & "...οι μεν ίπποι καί οι συμφορείς τού πολεμάρχου καλούμενοι οί τε άλλοι υπό τού όχλου ωθούμενοι ανεχώρουν"( roughly translated to: "the thebans had formed a formation with a depth no less than 50 shields,thinking that if they managed to win the troops of/around the king, then all the others would easily succumb" & " the ippoi -not an appropriate term for the specific occassion- and the symforeis -hmm bodyguards i'd say- of the king, as well as the others,due to their being pushed by the masses/mob, started withdrawing").

This is enough evidence if seen under a certain light as we face two facts:
1)The thebans knew they had to face the spartans and their king on the left and so they placed their deep column there (allow me to classify the past participle "λογιζόμενοι" as causative "because they thought")
2)the right wing of the spartans was pushed (back? insert oppinion ) by a great number of people (and I don't assume that this referred to the enemies)

Now we can assume that in order to achieve such an effect,while having this in mind before battle, the thebans placed the sacred band on the left. But I don't think that this is self evident.


So here comes Diodoros and he describes the troops on the theban left flank as "άριστοι" , the best , aka Sacred Band ,with possible extra support from the other troops of the same wing, as some claim. Now, I haven't read anywhere a description of the left flank moving to the left, this would be highly unusual for ancient greek warfare, performing such maneuvres. Diodoros also wrote this:"τούς δέ ασθενεστάτους κατά τό έτερον κέρας τάξας, παρήγγειλεν αυτοίς φυγομαχείν καί κατά τήν έφοδον τών πολεμίων εκ τού κατ' ολίγον υποχωρείν"-xv ,55- (again roughly translated:and the weakest,placing them on the other flank-horn is the exact wording-, he ordered them to avoid battle and during the assault, to stay back while walking slowly). The theban right flank didn't move to engage nor was it too far away from the strong part of the army, due to 2 reasons, which brings us to this:

Don't be so sure that you 'd be able to tell a forest of spears from another forest of spears. Something like trying to discover the proverbial needle applies to men shouting and trampling feet, while you hear your own voice shouting and your own feet trampling And why would the thebans, who were arithmetically less, sound louder than the frantically chanting Spartans, god curse their foodstuffs...

Back to the 2 reasons I mentioned about the theban right flank avoiding battle but still moving slowly, and not creating large gaps between the various parts of the army (something necessary in order to ouflank the superior spartan army):
1)they didn't want to reveal from the sides the depth of the "ram", while the last marched to clash with the king's division.
2)they acted as a deterrant to the enemy left flank, which could later on sense their right wing crumbling, yet it would be hard to come to their aid without exposing their own flanks.

Arrian comes to further clarify the movements of the sacred band in "Tactics 11.1" but currently i don't have time to analyze this in depth. I 'll only say that by mentioning "ώσπερ έμβολον ποιήσας" regarding how Epameinondas formed the theban and boioteian phalanx in Leuctra and Madineia, which means "formed like a ram", we can assume safely that he couldn't use this part of the army for a flanking maneuvre on the left(which I repeat is nearly impossible to happen in the initial phases of a battle, when the 2 enemy lines face each other). The term "λοξή φάλαγξ" was used for a reason


Yes they did end up like this, but this means that the best troops on each side prevailed and then they turned around to clash.How could the Spartans be so sure that the supposed strong right theban wing wouldnt prevail, as the spartans used 12 shields depth and altho they hads more men, do you think that Epameinondas wouldn't stretch his right wing to at least present a decent front? Some say that a bit more left to the right flank ,the inner intermingled columns were about 6 men deep, but I wouldn't be certain at all.

Lets looks a Epaminondas' options for winning this battle.

Kleombrotos----->10.000 men/12 ranks/ 800 men front
Epameinondas--->6.000 men of which:
300+ (possibly extra men apart from the Sacred Band)/50 more or less ranks(I vote a bit less)/6+ men front aiming specifically for the spartan king)
5500 - or +/8 ranks,presumably some were less deep/ around 700 men front,assuming they maintaned 8 ranks

Let's pit in the cav and the peltast numbers, and now flanking seems a risk, altho a wider spartan front is still expected.

All in all,the surprise element wasn't the flanking maneuvre but the ramming one, as one could easily monitor the enemy phalanx movements on flat ground in ancient greek warfare. This is Epameinondas we talking about not Frederick the Great


hmm yes it's correct, assuming you don't get flanked and have a very potent force to do the smashing...so valour does play a role

This tactic didn't survive in its historical form for long due to obvious reasons, one being Filippos of Macedon, who witnessed the theban military system as a captive. And what could you do with 50 ranks if the enemy had pikes, 16 ranks, advanced cav strategies (as well as better cav) and battlefield communications and enough sense to pin the whole enemy infantry with his main line in advance?
Answer: get yourself a mountain and the romans

At se er at tro...waiting cb to flood the monastery with his response

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Long time since I was last here, but just thought I'd add a few cents...

The "Othismos" theory of Hoplite warfare is conclusively challenged in the following papers, all well worth a read (try your local library service):

- Krentz, P., 'The Nature of Hoplite Warfare', CA 4 (1985), 50-61
- Krentz, P., 'Continuing the ôthismos on ôthismos', AHB 8.2 (1994)
- A. Goldsworthy, `The othismos, myths and heresies : the nature of hoplite battle', War in History 4 (1997), 1-26

IMO, this bunch of papers demolishes the whole idea of the othismos as a combat model, and even if you don't agree - at least raise questions that I have yet to see adressed satisfactorily by proponents of the "Othismos" idea.

That is of course not to say that actual physical pushing did not at times happen in battles (it probably did), but the idea of masses of men charging in to push at each other in some huge rugby scrum as imagined by VDH doesn't hold (like many other things in the book(s)).

To get back to the original question - why armies deployed in deep ranks, part of the answer has already been mentioned by CBR: Morale. CBR has already gone on at length on the subject; I'd simply note that the benefit of deep columns on morale is a well-documented phenomena all the way forward to the Napoleonic era.

Another reason for deep columns was one of simple C&C. A deep column is much easier to maneuver and keep in order than a long line; a fact that was also factor in the development of Napoleonic columnar tactics, and one that would have been just as true 2000 years earlier. Studying Greek military rhetoric (see, e.g., The Rhetoric of Battle : Greek Military Theory and Roman Culture in Julius Caesar's Battle Descriptions for some discussion) points to the great importance the Greeks attached to keeping order in battle; to the point where disorder alone is often considered enough to explain a defeat.

The reason for a particular depth of a formation was quite simply one of balancing optimal frontage with morale and C&C; this is why veteran, well-trained troops (like the Spartans, Caesar's legions at Pharsalus, etc) could win battles in which they were badly outnumbered; they could maneuver in thinner lines, and had the morale to stand against superior numbers.

To return a moment to the Napoleonic columns, it is interesting to note that Napoleonic battalions deployed in column in 6-12 ranks just like their ancient counterparts. It was no more capable of using all of its muskets (at most 2-3 ranks could fire) than the Hoplite phalanx could use all of its spears. In this case, we have firm reasons evidenced for the adoption of deep ranks - lack of discipline and training forced the French to operate in deep columns rather than the thin lines that had been usual for the professional and strictly drilled armies of the previous era. The intuitive leap is I think obvious - if French infantry found columns useful simply for reasons of order, maneuver and morale, why would the Greek experience be any different?

Won't go into the arguement around Leuktra, but simply note that the deep Theban ranks on the decisive left can be adequately explained by the need for rapid maneuvering by the Thebans on that front. A similar deployment was used by Hannibal at Cannae, where the Libyan infantry drawn up on each flank were deployed in deep columns rather than in line.

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

Regards,

Michael A.

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Strategy
Pardon me for being so picky and referring only to parts of your post, but I 'd like to comment very fleetly a few of your most interestig points.

First of all, the relation of ancient greek warfare to napoleonic: Order was admittedly the greatest value for ancient Greeks and the way they conducted war, something that derived IMO more from social and geographical factors (a long discussion this one is, enveloping democracy,place of the individual within even greek oligarchic states, limited human and material resources and more). In the napoleonic era, the need for more ranks was mostly a necessity and bear in mind that the various rival factions in ancient Greece faced opponents that used more-or-less the same military system and formations, with the standard 8 ranks, apart from a couple of exceptions. So morale couldn't be such a deciding factor, regarding formations and in the sense you mention, as the Greeks followed the same principals, therefore a certain battle's result must be deducted from other sources as well, like in the case of Spartans, superior training and discipline (I'm tempted to mention the 12 ranks vs the standard 8 but anyway heh).

The other reason for deeper ranks in napoleonic warfare is maneuvering advantages. If we accept that this also applies to ancient greek, we must redefine the way we view battles during that era. Maneuvering obviously would apply in the case that , as CBR mentioned in the Leuctra example, there was high mobility in hoplite warfare and there were constant attempts to ouflank the enemy while closing towards him frontally, or if 2nd line forces exist. But most ancient writers to the best of my knowledge don't descibe such movements; on the contrary battle was joined pretty straightforward (I'm not throwing in the cavalry or the psiloi into the discussion).
I could be wrong tho so if you recall any specific sources, please do mention them

I'll respect your not wishing to get involved into the "Leuctra" debacle, I'll just say that I strongly oppose the oppinion that the formation of the thebans had any resemblance to the libyan infantry's multiple ranks (quite a radically different situation as well),I' ll refer to my previous post for the possible movement of the left flank, and I'll wait Cbr to further comment on that;)

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Well here what the three say about the movement:

Xenophon:


Seems the advance was disordered as not all saw the King advance.


Diodoros:


Not much special here. They seem to have made a general advance.


Plutarch:


Here we have the Spartans trying to so some fancy maneuver after they figured out what Epaminondas was doing. Cleombrotus suddenly wanted to extend his line but why would he want to do that? Even if the Spartan right wing wasnt overlapping the Theban left from the start, then the natural tendency of soldiers shifting to the right would have meant a overlap in the end. If we are to trust Plutarch then the Spartans were disordered when the Sacred band hit them.

When Xenophon says that most soldiers wasnt aware of Cleombrotus' advance does Xenophon actually mean the right wing trying to shift to the right to counter the Thebans? That does actually fit together if we admit that Xenophon is vague about several details. Plutarch give us the general plan and also the effect of it: going left to try and seperate Cleombrotus from the rest, that Cleombrotus did try and shift right to counter it but was caught disordered. I dont see how Plutarch can be understood in any other way: the Thebans shifted left to surprise, isolate and defeat the Spartan King quickly.


Nearly as unusual as an oblique advance and even an oblique advance that focused on the left instead of the right. And actually a 50 rank deep formation is pretty unsual too. All that in one battle..

From what I have read about Epaminondas I would say he was a pretty smart guy who did what he could to do something different than just the usual head-on charge. Greek warfare evolved over time and became more advanced and using rapid maneuvers to surprise his enemies was one the things Epaminondas did.


AFAIK Arrian thinks the Thebans was using a wedge. Apparently he understands Xenophons word "ram" to have same meaning of the Hellenistic manuals that means a wedge shaped formation.


Epaminondas loved to make surprises didnt he? Just look at Mantineia. Making the enemy think there wont be any battle and then rush out attack them while they are disordered.

He could have made a thinner line to make up for the wider Spartan line or he could also try and make it look like it would be a piece of cake for the Spartans to win.

For him surprise was all important and the plan was to not have his right wing engaged anyway, so letting the enemy overlap on both flanks wouldnt be bad if his plan worked. And his plan had to work as he was so seriously outnumbered, so if the Spartans became overconfident and relaxed by looking even weaker then that would just make things easier.


Its not just a question of what one could see but what one could do about it. Plutarch describes how, when the Sacred band hit them, the Spartans were disordered and the right wing was seperated from the rest. Even Xenophon says how most Spartans were not aware of the advance of Cleombrotus.

If Diodoros is right about the whole army advancing then Cleombrotus would have to get an already advancing army to stop and all soldiers to turn right to counter the Theban maneuver. Again I will give the example of Scipio at Ilipa. He managed to flank a surprised Carthaginian army by a sudden move and he did it with his whole army and not just part of it. Thats an extreme example but nonetheless an example of what could be done.

It will never be an easy maneuver to do but if planned against a overconfident enemy that relies on trusted and wellknown maneuvers then it could be done.


CBR

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