Quote Originally Posted by Sarcasm
That story was from a cavalry skirmish I think, not of dead phalangitai. So it wouldn't be wounds from gladi but instead of longer cavalry swords.

I think.
This is AFAIK correct. And makes you wonder what the uproar was, given that one of the more popular instruments among Hellenic cavalrymen for smiting down thine neighbour was the kopis/machaira, which is pretty much designed for messily dismembering people.

As for short swords vs. spearheads, well, it wasn't that unusual for the business end of a war spear to be not much unlike a short sword stuck atop a pole... Check out the things some of the Celtic units in particular have been modelled with. And aren't some excavated sarissa tips something like well over half a meter long ?