Ah, that's a shame Kraxis. But even just getting the equipment is fun, and really does help you to get a better understanding of ancient warfare IMHO. If you want to know more about some of that, do PM me

But now to our current argument

I have here a book called The Great Battles of Antiquity (Richard A. Gabriel and Donald W. Boose Jr.), and I have a few choice quotes here I'd like to share with you:

"This cumbersome body of men [the phalanx] could hold its ground and slowly advance forward only as long as the ground was level. Even the slightest uneveness of terrain tended to throw the ranks of the phalanx out of alignment. There was an additional tendency for the wings of the phalanx to move outwards from the center as it moved, and to create gaps between the individual syntagmae... as the Romans demonstrated at Pydna, it was possible to insert an infantry maniple into the gaps and hack at the phalanx from within... [as] few of the opposing forces in the Macedonian military experience were capable of exploiting this vulnerability... the gap problem was accepted as part of the normal risk of infantry combat." (pg 328)

"The comparative advantages and disadvantages of Roman infantry and the Macedonian phalanx, as revealed in such battles as Cynoscephalae, were summed up by Polybius... 'In the front nothing can stand up to the sarissa; the individual Roman with his sword can neither slash down nor break through the ten spears that simultaneously press against him. But the Roman legionary is adaptable... [t]he sarissa-bearer can fight only as a member of the entire phalanx and not even in small units... [f]urthermore, the phalanx can move only on very level terrain; every ditch, every hill, every hole, every clump of trees causes it to fall into disorder. But if it has fallen into disorder at any place at all or if Roman maniples should fall upon it from the flank, which can be easily done with the echelon formation of the Romans, then it is lost.'" (pg 332)

Again, on this point we almost seem to be arguing for the sake of arguing. I reiterate my stance: the phalanx was extremely tough from the front, but as soon as anything - terrain, fatigue, Roman resistance - caused it to start to break apart, the Romans could easily capitalize on it. Are we agreed on this point?


"Philip ordered his phalanx to form at double depth, shortening his front like a hammer, and instructed his troops to arrange themselves in close-order "shield lock" formation. Then, Philip ordered the phalanx and cavalry to charge straight down the hill into the Roman left wing." (pg 337)

There's the answer to your double-depth query.

"The [Roman] left wing took the full brunt of the Macedonian charge. The open formation of the legion allowed it to flex and bend in the face of the momentum of the phalanx. Resistance slowed the Macedonian charge in much the same manner, Livy notes, as a tree branch bends but does not break before the wind. It was in circumstances like these that Roman training paid huge dividends. Almost as if on command, the legion broke into small groups and sidestepped the charge of the phalanx. As the phalanx tried to pass through the legion, small units of swordsmen fell on its flanks and began to slash it to pieces. Attacked from the flanks, the phalangites could not move their long sarissae to meet the assault, and their spears became entangled. Livy notes that someone gave the order to abandon the spears and fight on with swords."

So actually Livy does mention that the pikes were dropped in favor of swords. Again, the problem of the phalanx is reiterated here: once the momentum is lost, and once there is even the slightest disorder, the Romans could move in and capitalize on it. Your point on the Macedonians putting up more resistance in the rear if they were indeed using swords is valid but does not seem applicable. Remember that the formation of the Macedonians didn't change (as would likely have been almost impossible under the circumstances), only their weaponry. I'll again use the example of Cannae; the Romans could have given better resistance, indeed possibly have broken out, but what happened? Fear happened. The Romans were packed all on top of each other, they don't know what's going on, there is dust everywhere, screams and shouts are echoing... And it seems doubtful in any case that the Macedonians could have given much resistance anyway; as you yourself said earlier, the Romans were vastly better swordsmen than the Macedonians. The twenty maniples that crashed into the rear of the Macedonian right did so going downhill (as the fighting had carried the Macedonians down the slope), which would have added even more impetus to their impact.

Additionally, the surrendering troops probably came from the left, if only because they were still using their pikes. That the left wing crumpled and fled does not necessarily mean that they all fled. It's possible even that the "raised pikes" story is apocryphal, or at least not as meaningful as we might guess; Philip lost 13,000 men dead at Cynoscephalae out of, according to Livy, 23,500 (16,000 of those being phalangites), which was quite shocking to the Greeks, who may have wanted some sort of justification (even if it was surrender, on the argument that killing a man who surrenders is worse than the man surrendering).


You're right that the Roman shield was descended from Celtic ones. So were their helmets. Along with chainmail.

The problem was that, unlike the Romans, the Celts had no organized way of equipping their troops. A rich Celtic warlord might look a lot like a Roman; wearing a very similar helmet, chainmail, and carrying a sword and a shield. But many Celts were simply spearmen, and would be lucky to have any kind of shield, let alone a nice big one (and never mind armor or helmets).

A short spear would not be a good weapon for attacking the inside of a phalanx. A "short" spear is still much too long and unwieldy to be used effectively in such a cramped space. The same problem arises for the barbarian with a sword as well; they were terrifically skilled, there is no question, but to utilize their skill they needed space; their swords were longer, and were designed for cutting, and were thus simply too unwieldy in such a locale, and might even have given the phalangite, with his very small sword, a better chance. The Romans, of course, used the short gladius in a thrusting manner, and so did not have this problem. This sort of "cramping effect" happened at the Battle of Watling Street; the Roman position was at the narrow end of a sort of "V" clearing in the woods, with Boudicca's Britons, who vastly outnumbered the Romans, in the wide end. When Boudicca's warriors, sensing an easy kill, charged forward, they were compressed into the narrow end. The Romans were able to resist the charge, and the barbarians found themselves in too tight a space to effectively use their mighty longswords and large axes. The Romans, on the other hand, were presented with a giant mass of mostly unarmored bodies to stab with the gladius. No headway could be made, and once the Roman cavalry charged in from the woods, the barbarians turned and fled - unluckily, right into their wagon circle, which presented a wall that the Romans were able to push them up against. The result was, of course, a devastating slaughter that totally ended the rebellion.


Carl: for the most part, the Roman scutum was just several variations on a theme; the biggest different between the Imperial and the Polybian scuta are that the former has a flat top and bottom to save weight.

Scuta were covered with linen or leather, and, no, I don't know why there were both (although I can try and search for that). My best guess is that it was just different contractors supplying different things, which is also why there are different kinds of Roman helmets occuring at the same time; again, they were variations on a theme, contractors supplying the state with them and with legionnaires likely just grabbing whatever they could/what they liked when they were being equipped.

Leather would probably add more protection than linen, although the presence of either was not so much a defensive measure as just a way to keep the shield together and prevent splinters. The amount of leather or linen on a scuta would in either case almost certainly not be enough to cause any significant difference in penetration.