What happens at the flanks of a line?

[Mark G]

Good thing you are not then, i say, sine a thin phalanx that wide would be breakable by your wall wagon idea

[Erpingham]

if I had to lead a phalanx I would make my men stretch the line in the last moment so to overlap the enemy line. Simple and effective. Battle is won, Job is done, go back home to make some cute preteen child play the "make me happy so I can teach you everything" game. Well am I an ancient Greek or not? Joking.

Invariably, the problem is can you complete your envelopment before the deeper enemy rips through your centre?  As a phalanx was not particularly manoueverable, it is highly likely your centre would go before you could effectively use your flankers.

[andrew881runner]

if I had to lead a phalanx I would make my men stretch the line in the last moment so to overlap the enemy line. Simple and effective. Battle is won, Job is done, go back home to make some cute preteen child play the "make me happy so I can teach you everything" game. Well am I an ancient Greek or not? Joking.

Invariably, the problem is can you complete your envelopment before the deeper enemy rips through your centre?  As a phalanx was not particularly manoueverable, it is highly likely your centre would go before you could effectively use your flankers.

your center will be the same. You simply have to take some men on the flanks and send them stretching the line so to overlap the sides and maybe even the back of enemy lines. Enemy feeling surrounded will surrender quickly. Given that typical phalanx was 12 men deep, you could simply take those some 4 or 6 men in the back of the flanks and send them doing the job. Enemy possibly could do same. So lines would be constantly stretching as far as they find that the other line is bigger than theirs. Is this what maybe happened? Like the sub commanders as the phalanx advances notice that other phalanx is larger so they stretch the line to try to overcame, enemies commander do the same... in this idea both lines would adapt to be more or less the same (even if the purpose would be to try to overlap the enemy lines), in a flexible and changing way.  So the static idea of phalanx could be wrong. And Hence the men in black rows would be a bit more useful, than being back pressing the guys in front, since they could provide a tactical reserve for this purpose. My personal idea.

[Mark G]

I'm sure I've seen Greeks described as thinning the centre to match an enemy frontage, but never to overlapbone, so the risk must be too great for the reward

[andrew881runner]

I'm sure I've seen Greeks described as thinning the centre to match an enemy frontage, but never to overlapbone, so the risk must be too great for the reward

well if a phalanx overlapped the other it would have almost immediate victory since a phalanx is made to fight in front not in the sides. So trying would be worth the risk of having a line a bit thinner (which would make a sensible difference during hot ysmos, which I suppose could not happen on frequently because casualties would have been much higher - imagine of pushing the shield against An enemy shield... you could simply stab him since he is so close why pushing?- or in the remote case all guys in the first 5/6 men were heavily wounded or killed so that back 6 guys are needed).

[Mark G]

If it were that obvious, why do the reports we have of lines being thinned only talk of doing so to match an enemy frontage?

Are there any examples of a line being thinned to overlap an enemy?

[Patrick Waterson]

If it were that obvious, why do the reports we have of lines being thinned only talk of doing so to match an enemy frontage?

Are there any examples of a line being thinned to overlap an enemy?

The one obvious example is Leuctra, where Cleombrotus tried to extend his line to wrap round the flank of Epaminondas' 50-deep Theban column.  That did not go well.

"In the battle, while Epaminondas was drawing his phalanx obliquely towards the left, in order that the right wing of the Spartans might be separated as far as possible from the rest of the Greeks, and that he might thrust back Cleombrotus by a fierce charge in column with all his men-at-arms, the enemy understood what he was doing and began to change their formation; [2] they were opening up their right wing and making an encircling movement, in order to surround Epaminondas and envelop him with their numbers. But at this point Pelopidas darted forth from his position, and with his band of three hundred on the run, came up before Cleombrotus had either extended his wing or brought it back again into its old position and closed up his line of battle, so that the Lacedaemonians were not standing in array, but moving confusedly about among each other when his onset reached them." - Plutarch, Life of Pelopidas 23.1-2

[andrew881runner]

If it were that obvious, why do the reports we have of lines being thinned only talk of doing so to match an enemy frontage?

Are there any examples of a line being thinned to overlap an enemy?

The one obvious example is Leuctra, where Cleombrotus tried to extend his line to wrap round the flank of Epaminondas' 50-deep Theban column.  That did not go well.

"In the battle, while Epaminondas was drawing his phalanx obliquely towards the left, in order that the right wing of the Spartans might be separated as far as possible from the rest of the Greeks, and that he might thrust back Cleombrotus by a fierce charge in column with all his men-at-arms, the enemy understood what he was doing and began to change their formation; [2] they were opening up their right wing and making an encircling movement, in order to surround Epaminondas and envelop him with their numbers. But at this point Pelopidas darted forth from his position, and with his band of three hundred on the run, came up before Cleombrotus had either extended his wing or brought it back again into its old position and closed up his line of battle, so that the Lacedaemonians were not standing in array, but moving confusedly about among each other when his onset reached them." - Plutarch, Life of Pelopidas 23.1-2

well I imagined Spartans were able to March in column and reform in phalanx formation soon. I even read about some of their manoeuvres like changing direction and they should be quite fast. Maybe Spartans were not so perfect... [emoji1]

[Mark G]

That was the one i was thinking of.
Hardly a. Sucesd, as you say

[Patrick Waterson]

Leuctra was indeed a significant Spartan failure.  Part of the problem was that Pelopidas and the Theban Sacred Band seem to have hit the Spartans just as they were in the process of extending, which rather spoiled Cleombrotus' plan.  Not only was the extending manoeuvre stopped before it really began, but the Spartans were caught with some of their troops facing the wrong way, which did nothing for their ability to resist the Theban deep column when that hit them shortly afterwards.

They did pull themselves together, recovered Cleombrotus' body when he fell, and fought the Thebans almost to a standstill, but Epaminondas' call for 'one more step' was obeyed by the Thebans and gave them the victory, forcing the Spartans back to camp with significant losses.

"And yet the Spartans, who were of all men past masters in the art of war, trained and accustomed themselves to nothing so much as not to straggle or get into confusion upon a change of formation, but to take anyone without exception as neighbour in rank or in file, and wheresoever danger actually threatened, to seize that point and form in close array and fight as well as ever.

[4] At this time, however, since the phalanx of Epaminondas bore down upon them alone and neglected the rest of their force, and since Pelopidas engaged them with incredible speed and boldness, their courage and skill were so confounded that there was a flight and slaughter of the Spartans such as had never before been seen." - Plutarch, Life of Pelopidas, 23.3-4

Xenophon gives a slightly fuller account, which ascribes the disruption more to the Theban cavalry than to Pelopidas and the Sacred Band.

"Now when Cleombrotus began to lead his army against the enemy, in the first place, before the troops under him so much as perceived that he was advancing, the horsemen had already joined battle and those of the Lacedaemonians had speedily been worsted; then in their flight they had fallen foul of their own hoplites, and, besides, the companies of the Thebans were now charging upon them. Nevertheless, the fact that Cleombrotus and his men were at first victorious in the battle may be known from this clear indication: they would not have been able to take him up and carry him off still living, had not those who were fighting in front of him been holding the advantage at that time." - Xenophon, Hellenica VI.4.13

This initial recovery and success were followed by a collapse as the Theban pressure finally took effect.

"But when Deinon, the polemarch, Sphodrias, one of the king's tent-companions, and Cleonymus, the son of Sphodrias, had been killed, then the royal bodyguard, the so-called aides of the polemarch, and the others fell back under the pressure of the Theban mass, while those who were on the left wing of the Lacedaemonians, when they saw that the right wing was being pushed back, gave way. Yet despite the fact that many had fallen and that they were defeated, after they had crossed the trench which chanced to be in front of their camp they grounded their arms at the spot from which they had set forth. The camp, to be sure, was not on ground which was altogether level, but rather on the slope of a hill." - ibid VI.4.14

Had the Spartan cavalry been better than the Theban, the manoeuvre might have worked.  In the event it did not, and deliberate thinning of the line to outflank an opponent seems to have fallen into disfavour as a tactic.

[Erpingham]

Had the Spartan cavalry been better than the Theban, the manoeuvre might have worked.  In the event it did not, and deliberate thinning of the line to outflank an opponent seems to have fallen into disfavour as a tactic.

Emphasis on "might".  Plutarch and Xenophon both remark on the speed of the Theban onset as a factor, so the Spartans may have struggled to complete the manoeuver in time regardless of the cavalry contribution.  I think it does show that we can wonder why ancient commanders didn't do something which seems to us obvious but may have been far less obvious then.  If the Spartans, who were better than the average hoplite at drill, got caught changing formation, commanders of less disciplined and drilled troops would certainly have thought twice about it.

[Patrick Waterson]

This was not the first time that a Spartan commander had mis-timed a manoeuvre, caught out by the unexpectedly rapid onset of an opponent.  At Mantinea in 418 BC Agis tried to extend his line to diminish the Argive/Mantinean overlap of his left wing.

"On the present occasion the Mantineans reached with their wing far beyond the Sciritae, and the Lacedaemonians and Tegeans still farther beyond the Athenians, as their army was the largest. [3] Agis, afraid of his left being surrounded, and thinking that the Mantineans outflanked it too far, ordered the Sciritae and Brasideans to move out from their place in the ranks and make the line even with the Mantineans, and told the Polemarchs Hipponoidas and Aristocles to fill up the gap thus formed, by throwing themselves into it with two companies taken from the right wing; thinking that his right would still be strong enough and to spare, and that the line fronting the Mantineans would gain in solidity." - Thucydides V.71

Alas for Agis: like Cleombrotus at Leuctra, he seems to have based his timing on Spartan rates of movement, which were more sedate than those of their opponents.

"However, as he gave these orders in the moment of the onset, and at short notice, it so happened that Aristocles and Hipponoidas would not move over, for which offence they were afterwards banished from Sparta, as having been guilty of cowardice; and the enemy meanwhile closed before the Sciritae （whom Agis on seeing that the two companies did not move over ordered to return to their place） had time to fill up the breach in question." - idem

Order, counter-order, disorder.  The Spartan left (including the Sciritae) was demolished in short order, a classic instance of what happens when a line with gaps meets one without, although the Spartans won on their right and prevailed in the centre, winning the battle overall.  Had Agis left well alone and not tried to implement his last-minute line extension, his victory would have been unblemished.

[Mark G]

It does add a lot of doubt to the practicality of theories about roman posterior centuries forming out beside the prior ventures to creates continuous line of battle .