Romal Phalanx

[Wrangel]

Why don't the Romans have any phalanx units? Were they old fashion at the time of Romes uprise or did they just not fit into the Roman combat model?

[Kraxis]

Both more or less... The Romans had dropped their hoplite phalanx sometime around 350-330 BC when the Samnites kept getting the better of them.

Some think that the Triarii should be a phalanx, but that is merely oppinion as nothing I have read about them indicates that is what they did.

[Ziu]

Some think that the Triarii should be a phalanx, but that is merely oppinion as nothing I have read about them indicates that is what they did.

Nor I. From what I have read, and as their name suggests, they were the third line of troops. Not a front line force as phalanges would more likely be. Triarii were also made up of the oldest of the soldiers.

[Wrangel]

So is this dropping of phalanxes considered one of the reasons the Romans actually could conquer Carthage, Macedonia and the Greek Cities who still used them?

[MoROmeTe]

Practically the Romans never quite developed the phalanx and I think it didn't suit their needs and their way of being. They went for a new way of fighting and, of course, they were thinking out of the box, trying to be better than their neighbours. And their neighbours were pretty much influenced by Greeeks so naturaly the Romans had to invent a way of fighting phalanx style armies. The Roman formations, beggining with the Hastati, Principes, Triarii and ending with the Legions, were designed to beat the phalanxes and to be pretty good against whatever they should come up against.
Yes, the fact that the Romans didn't go into the whole phalanx based warfare thinking sysatem, hugely helped them to beat the Greeeks. On them beating the Carthaginians, that's a whole different issue.

[Wrangel]

On them beating the Carthaginians, that's a whole different issue.

Well it certainly is... even though the Carthaginians used the phalanx they didn't ultimately depend on it. But phalanx or no phalanx, the punic wars really are something of their own don't you think?