Maintaining unit cohesion

[Maion Maroneios]

How did soldiers from a unit manage to stick together during battles, if they managed at all? I imagine that getting a few hundred men to stand in a rough square is easy enough, but get them to march, run, fight, protect themselves from arrows, adopt different formations (not to mention the ever-present danger of cavalry charges in the rear and flanks) and sticking together seems to get considerably harder.

So how did soldiers manage to maintain a rough formation under crisis? The HBO Series Rome shows Roman soldiers holding on to each other's shoulders (the guy in the back holds onto the guy in front of him, and the guy in front holds onto the guy in front of HIM, etc etc) This seems to be pretty logical for sword units but what about spearmen, or levies? Did they bunch together? Link arms? Maybe tie a flimsy rope around their waist, linking them to the rest of the unit? (although in retrospect that last one doesn't seem to be particularly plausible, since if the rope were too taut then if one soldier fell, they'd all fall)

Any thoughts?

This is actually a very nice question, my friend. Disciplined lines was something people started doing during battles many, many years ago. We know Sumerians did fight in a shieldwall-like formation, while other nations fought in their own unique way, depending on the ground terrain and the amount of gold they could spend to train and maintain a well-disciplined formation. Other factors where also religion, like the city-state of Sparta where war was top priority for them.

I think we can all understand it wasn't very long after people started waging wars against each other that someone got the bright idea of organising units and train them to execute more complex maneuvers than a general disorganised mob. If a unit is well trained, it is of common sense it will perform better in combat. Battles are not just about winning, rather losing as less men as possible and destroying your enemy. See what Phillipos II did. He trained a professional standing army (something that wasn't common among the hellenic poleis at that time) and trained them in a brilliant way, thus conquering Hellas in a very short period of time.

Training soldiers to fight in organised formations is difficult, at school we are taught how to march synchronised during parades and let me tell you even THAT is not easy. Think about a phalanx now, where men had to maintain perfect formation and not get the line cracked. If you, however, invest a great amount of time and money to have men trained in barrackses for hours every day to fight side-by-side, you get the desired result. You do not need to tie men against each other, even when it has to do with the ''classical'' greek phalanx. You just cramp together and march synchonised to maintain formation, then poke the enemy with your spear. Generally speaking, the more cramped a formation is, the more difficult it is for one in the center of the unit body to break lines.

If you have a looser but still disciplined formation like the Romans used, the rear ranks had to hold those in front of them to maintin formation. Otherwise, the front ranks would stir during the fight and those behind would remain in place. This, of course, is my oppinion about orhanised formations. Lastly, I think it is logical to say even the most organised formations could break in times of crisis. Phalanxes could be broken , as did other organised formations. Let me tell you that, upon being encircled by enemies, you forget everything and just fight for your life. Thus, during fierce charges or when charged in the rear I think it would be common for an organised formation to fall apart.