Would the artists involved in the creation of said depictions understand the finer points of combat? One point that is brought up in another video is that even modern media gets many things wrong when it depicts modern combat. He also mentions that he went to a mueseum and counted the number of vases that depicted overarm use as well as the ones that depicted underarm use. Overarm won out but only very slightly.

I'm wondering why, if the two front lines were so close, why they would use spears at all when a smaller, bladed weapon would be much less cumbersome.

Another thing that's nagging at me is that in such formations routing becomes suicidal, when casulties in battle were very low for hoplite vs hoplite battles.