Macedonian cavalry success against close order infantry

[aligern]

Matt Bennett did some work on routing , years back and we talked through examples when he was looking for examples. The conclusion was that the expectations of both sides were key. Hence surprise or rather a plan not working was key.   If the infantry expected to stand then breaking them was much harder than if they expected to fail. So medieval armies strengthened their infantry in several ways... I think this is in his article in 'Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World '.  given that most Med infantry will have thought knights pretty terrifying they sought refuge in dense formations with bad terrain to the front, or pits and their own knights dismounted to boost morale and common risk. What they are trying to do is boost the expectation that the  foot can hold the knights off. Similarly the Swiss were not of the sort to panic when Bayard broke in and just let the horses push through them. Between Hoplites and Companion cavalry there was not a huge social or martial gradient and, as was said earlier hoplites had been facing Thessalian and Persian cavalry and scythed chariots for many years so one rather thinks they had drills and expectations that they could deal with  such a charge and survive. I also take the point that the Companions could push in and move through with few casualties on either side because its actually quite hard for either side to reach anyone in such conditions.
Roy

[Jim Webster]

I also take the point that the Companions could push in and move through with few casualties on either side because its actually quite hard for either side to reach anyone in such conditions.
Roy

A good point. Given modern health and safety considerations, it's amazing how few people died in ancient battles

Jim

[tadamson]

Well, day off so time to read the whole thread...

I don' want to get too involved as I'll have to disappear off soon, but I'd like to suggest a few points..

#1  Greek cavalry didn't fight in wedges to 'break through', it was to give them control and manoeuvrability.

#2  Hoplite, is used for any close order infantry (including Galatians etc). Though in this case mercenary long spear/big shield late classical Greek infantry are probably what Alex faced.

#3  Alex's companions would be outreached by long spear infantry  We can take the xyston as a 12ft counterbalanced spear held, one handed, roughly in the middle so reaching 8ft from the ride'rs shoulder.  The dura as a 10ft counterbalanced spear held, one handed, roughly in the middle so reaching 7ft from the infantryman's shoulder.  As the horse is over 3ft in front of the rider, the infantryman gets to strike first.

#4  There has been an enormous amount of work on cavalry charges and the consensus is that it's a giant game of 'chicken'.  If the infantry flinch and waiver, the cavalry charge home and break them.  If the infantry stand firm, the charge peters out and bounces off.  This is explicitly detailed in later Chinese and Persian texts; implicit in Arrian and Xenothon; and ties in with Napoleonic examples of the odd horse, often dead, breaking squares etc...


Just thoughts....

Tom..   

[Patrick Waterson]

This discussion is going nicely without me, so I shall confine myself to a couple of points.

Are you arguing that the wedge was only used against hoplites?

No, just that when cavalry have the xyston and hoplites the doru a wedge could be successful against hoplites.

To save us going to out of period, are there other examples within a few hundred years of cavalry tackling formed infantry.  For example, did Hellenistic cavalry never attack infantry or was it only phalangites they stayed clear of?  Did anybody attack Romans, Iberians, Galatians?  If so, do we have any details that would help us here?

Not many, unfortunately.  Hellenistic powers tended to fight mainly each other, and where cavalry (xyston-armed or not) came up against phalanxes, it invariably went for a flank (Sellasia 222 BC, Raphia 217 BC).  When Pyrrhus fought the Romans (280-279 BC), his cavalry at Heraclea was tied up with the Roman cavalry until his elephants went in and sorted out that particular problem, after which our narrative passes over the bit between that and the end of the battle, so we do not know if his cavalry knocked any wedges through legionary lines.  At Asculum the actions of the cavalry are not detailed.  Once the Seleucids begin treating the Parthians as public enemy number one, their cavalry are remodelled as cataphracts and wedges seem to go out of the window (Macedonians in Macedon continue with them but seem to revert to javelin and shield, everyone in Greece who was anyone having meanwhile adopted the pike for their infantry).

All we can say with confidence is that the hoplite rapidly went out of fashion in the Successor period, to be replaced initially by the enigmatic thureophoroi and then by pikemen.  Whether the main reasons were social, tactical or doctrinal is an open question, but the change was made.  We might hypothesise from this that the weakness of hoplites against Companions had been appreciated, but one might equally hypothesise that the weakness of hoplites against phalangites had been appreciated (despite hoplites showing quite well at Issus).  The intermediate troop type - thureophoroi - would not seem to have any great advantage over hoplites against either Companions or phalangites unless it had a longer spear than the hoplite, perhaps an Iphicratic (150% length) model.

Carthaginian cavalry can be seen in action at Bagradas, 255 BC, where they envelop the Roman rear and then shoot down Roman infantry with their javelins.  In Cannae, 216 BC, the similarly javelin-armed Spanish and Gallic cavalry in Carthaginian service charge the rear of Roman formations, presumably making contact against troops who are facing the wrong way or who cannot face the right way quickly enough.

Macedonians did fight Gauls, but these battles are covered by our sources only in a tell-them-when-it-is-over-then-tell-them-who-won kind of way.  The one exception is the 'elephant victory' over the Gauls in Babylonia narrated by Lucan, which was won by ... elephants.

The Parthians did leave us a victory over Crassus, and while their army was not Hellenistic it did have lance-armed cavalry who happily put their lances through two Romans at a time, or so Plutarch tells us in his Life of Crassus.  Mark Antony's men did better with an overlapping shield arrangement (Plutarch, Life of Antony 45) but the Parthians were still happy about closing frontally to melee formed Roman infantry, and Parthians did not employ a wedge (or of they did our sources omit it).

#3  Alex's companions would be outreached by long spear infantry  We can take the xyston as a 12ft counterbalanced spear held, one handed, roughly in the middle so reaching 8ft from the ride'rs shoulder.  The dora as a 10ft counterbalanced spear held, one handed, roughly in the middle so reaching 7ft from the infantryman's shoulder.  As the horse is over 3ft in front of the rider, the infantryman gets to strike first.

Looking at the Alexander Mosaic, we can see the butt spike and the point of Alexander's xyston, and on my computer screen at the highest magnification the lance is 5 1/2" long and is held at the 1 3/8" mark.  This is about a quarter of the way along.  Hence the Companion gets to strike first. 

I suspect the xyston may have been counterweighted rather than counterbalanced. 

[Duncan Head]

#1  Greek cavalry didn't fight in wedges to 'break through', it was to give them control and manoeuvrability.

This isn't true, if I recall correctly. The manuals  - or at least Arrian - mention both manouevrability and breaking through as advantages of wedge.

Patrick's right about the grip-point of the xyston; and the hoplite's doru is more like eight feet than ten, judgung from most illustrations.

[Mark G]

I think a bit more work on what the hoplites looked like at this time would be valuable.

When i was reading on the a couple of years ago, it became clear that the composition and equipment of all Greek armies changed dramatically during the penrloponesian war.

Yet we still view any Greek army as basically a pre marathon era mass of old style hoplites plus a few lights.

I think some more work on what the Greeks looked like, and how their army was composed is now needed for charonea

[Duncan Head]

The basic armament of the hoplites - the spear and shield - didn't change significantly, unless you think they were in fact "Iphikrateians". And the presence of traditional hoplite Argive shields in the Mosaic, and also on the Sarcophagus, suggests that the mercenaries in Persian service weren't.

[Mark G]

there may be more to it than that though Duncan.

body armour - and the consequent change in doctrine of manoeuvre and speed over solidity.

the total army composition changing from mostly hoplites to mostly peltasts as some authors suggested (or at least a change from a single troop type plus attendants army to a more balanced composition force - something which the Macedonians themselves clearly represent).

iphicrates himself, not so much, but can we rule out changes to the length of the spear so easily when the Macedonians may have adopted a change in length from the Thebans?

How certain are we of exactly that Alexander was facing full citizen hoplites?

[Duncan Head]

How certain are we of exactly that Alexander was facing full citizen hoplites?

If you're talking Chaironeia, the image of Philip examining the bodies of the dead Theban citizen Sacred Band who had gone down before the Macedonian sarisai makes it pretty certain.

[tadamson]

The http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Alexandermosaic.jpg mosaic isn't particularly good evidence for xyston legth. It was reconstructed from a very fragmented state and the butt spike (if it is that) is in a 'best guess' position (the smooth plaster isn't just filling gaps).
Though as we believe its based on a 3rd c BCE painting it may be the best evidence we have.  And this isn't the place to rehash the 'look how long the Persian lances are' discussion.  :-)


Tom..

[Erpingham]

While length of the xyston seems to be key to Patrick's reconstruction, I'm not sure whether that is too detailed.  If cavalry pre-xyston were armed with javelins, isn't the likely major change the fact you now have a big spear that you thrust with rather than a little one you throw, regardless of exact length and reach?

[Duncan Head]

The http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Alexandermosaic.jpg mosaic isn't particularly good evidence for xyston legth. It was reconstructed from a very fragmented state and the butt spike (if it is that) is in a 'best guess' position (the smooth plaster isn't just filling gaps).

But there's plenty of other representational evidence that bears out both the length of the weapon and the way in which it was held - the Kinch tomb and the Raphia decree, for a start.

And as for the buttspike in the Mosaic, I'm not so sure: this isn't from an academic article, it's Paul McDonnell-Staff on RAT, but I think he's right on this one: "Anyone who views the mosaic will have observed the 'bare' patches, and most assume this was damage during the eruption, or during its recovery. It is neither. The mosaic is displayed exactly as found, complete with several repairs, and the mortar producing the 'bare' patches, which are in fact wear in ancient times from people standing and admiring it." In other words, the buttspike is probably where it was found, not "restored".

[tadamson]

It was moved to Naples in the mid 19th C, and restored as best they could...

[Patrick Waterson]

While length of the xyston seems to be key to Patrick's reconstruction, I'm not sure whether that is too detailed.  If cavalry pre-xyston were armed with javelins, isn't the likely major change the fact you now have a big spear that you thrust with rather than a little one you throw, regardless of exact length and reach?

I would think that the major change is that for the first time since cavalry became the premier mounted arm in Hellas some very well-trained cavalry now have a weapon capable of outreaching their best infantry opponents and a combat formation that is effective at slicing through infantry and cavalry alike.  As a side-mention, it is interesting to note that in certain Mycenaean frescoes chariot warriors and infantry both carry long spears, making one wonder if a similar development had occurred during the chariot era, at least in Greece, where the bow never really seems to have become established as a chariot weapon.

Jim made the point that a javelin has a longer 'reach' than any lance, but the javelin, once it leaves the hand, is unguided and can be blocked, deflected or dodged.  The lance point is guided right up to the moment of impact, and has rather more impact; even a small advantage in reach gives the cavalryman a very large advantage.

Curiously, Roman cavalry of the 5th-4th century BC seems to have used the cuspis, a melee weapon wielded like a lance, and Livy has instances of Roman cavalry making frontal attacks on enemy formations - a tradition we see intermittently revived in the 3rd century BC, albeit usually with less success, even though the Roman cavalry by this time has adopted the javelin.

[Mark G]

We have alexander facing the sacred band - only 300 men, i recall.  How many of them had retained the same level of quality as their forebears at leuctra 40 years earlier?

Doesnt Polyaenus have something about the athenians being pulled forward by a feigned retreat by Philip? 
That indicates a less than well drilled Athenian contingent for a start.

And isnt it diodorus who describes alexander as being with companions, but where does he mention them being horsed?

While its plutarch who says alexander broke the line, but who also says the thebans fell before sarissa and were face to face with the macedonian phalanx.

Wasnt alexander at the front of the hypaspists at Issus when they broke through initially, before remounting to chase darius from the field
- again reinforcing the suggestion that at Chaeronea he had an infantry command - which is only logical given its placement jammed against a river.