Macedonian infantry shields

[RichT]

General understanding, or belief, is that hoplites fought on a 3' individual frontage and phalangites on an 18" frontage

You may be misremembering what the 'general understanding' is too, but let's move on quickly from that...

CM (in Storm of Spears) favours an 18" frontage for hoplites, but with shields facing the enemy and so greatly overlapping. He doubts the usual high overarm thrust of the spear (he thinks many depictions of this in art are actually javelins), and favours instead a high underarm, with the spear held in the armpit (which would allow the spear to protrude over the top of the interlocked shields), as well as a normal low underarm position (spear below the shields). And as Duncan says this is as well as, not instead of, a 3' frontage.

In Invincible Beast he favours a sarissa/shield grip much as you (Patrick) describe - shoulder strap, porpax, wrist at shield edge, and hand in about the 8 o'clock position. Yet he is absolutely certain that this makes it impossible for phalangites to close up to 18". I'm not really sure why he thinks this. Unfortunately he seems only to have tried this out on his own, not collected a small phalanx (fiteen people would be plenty to test this out - even two would be a start) to see what is really possible or impossible. I don't know why nobody else in the re-enactment community seems to have done this either (except Peter Connolly - he concluded IIRC that the 18" formation was possible to adopt with sarissa and shield, but difficult or impossible to move/attack in, as we would expect - CM seems to take this as evidence that it wasn't possible at all).

It seems to me that the low spear position - as depicted in the Pergamon plaque - should make the close formation possible, so I don't think CM's objections hold up at all. I think it's also possible (though there is no evidence for it) that some if not all ranks used a high spear position (which CM also thinks is impossible) - something like this:
https://img0.etsystatic.com/065/1/9499451/il_570xN.793475528_gdn2.jpg
(from 1618 - I understand the high position was common for Renaissance/Early Modern pikemen - it is also depicted in the rather nice front cover illustration of Invincible Beast, rather amusingly given CM's views). CM also thinks Polybius' testimony that the sarissa was held such that two cubits extended to the rear is impossible - he holds the sarissa with his rear (right) hand on the butt.

In general I think 'impossible' comes up far to often in this book and CM is too deeply committed to defending his pet theories. I'd  be happy to write a review but think I saw in another thread that Holly has already volunteered, and one review is enough.

[Mark G]

Someone bagged the review copy over Christmas, I was about to put my hand up for it too but was beaten.

That said, two short reviews are better than one in many cases, and the contrast in thoughts would be an attractive read of itself.

[Andreas Johansson]

CM also thinks Polybius' testimony that the sarissa was held such that two cubits extended to the rear is impossible - he holds the sarissa with his rear (right) hand on the butt.

I was of the evidently mistaken impression that sarssia butts were buttspikes?

Anyway, Renaissance artists, who may have had some reason to know, didn't think it impossible to let part of a pike shaft extend behind the wielder's rear hand. Two random examples:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Schlacht_bei_Dorneck.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Luzerner_Schilling_Battle_of_Grandson.jpg

[Erpingham]

Agree with Andreas here.  The overarm and underarm position for late medieval pikes had the rear hand inwards of the butt by a couple of feet.  The classic de Gheyn-type hand on butt seems to be later 16th century.  Although I have seen medieval illustrations of shorter spears used with the hand-on-butt method.

[Duncan Head]

Interesting - though only as a pretty vague parallel - that the  Great Ming Military blog reckons that in the C16th:

Qi Ji Guang considered Chinese pikemen to be superior to Japanese pikemen, mainly because of the difference in weapon handling. Chinese held their Chang Qiang (長鎗) at the hinder end, while Japanese held their Yari (槍) in the middle, thus Chinese pikemen had longer reach than Japanese pikemen.

from http://greatmingmilitary.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/chinese-infantry-tactics-p1.html

[RichT]

Very interesting - this sort of comparative evidence is underused I think.

I misspoke slightly in saying CM has his hand on the butt (...childish snicker suppressed...) - he holds the shaft a few inches above the end of the butt spike, which therefore sticks back for its own length (a foot or so).

[Patrick Waterson]

One point about the handling of a sarissa is that the - ahem - sauroter appears to have been integrated with a counterweight (Hellenistic engineers tended to put counterweights on anything from oars to siege machines), so the point of balance should be pretty much where Polybius puts the user's left hand, i.e. about six feet from the aft end.  Setting the right hand on the shaft between the sauroter and the point of balance would allow the pike to be lowered easily and raised with a little more effort, pivoting on the right hand each time.

The old Hundred Years War question of long piercing weapon use also arises: hold in position - or thrust?  Has CM any thoughts on this?  Or is it getting a bit far off the topic of shield characteristics and use?

Interesting - though only as a pretty vague parallel - that the  Great Ming Military blog reckons that in the C16th:

Qi Ji Guang considered Chinese pikemen to be superior to Japanese pikemen, mainly because of the difference in weapon handling. Chinese held their Chang Qiang (長鎗) at the hinder end, while Japanese held their Yari (槍) in the middle, thus Chinese pikemen had longer reach than Japanese pikemen.

Looking at the Ming Chinese 'pike' (if the modern reconstruction is anything to go by it appears to be more of a short spear) and Japanese yari, the latter seems to be a considerably heavier weapon and hence needs to be held with the leading hand at the point of balance, whereas the lighter Chinese weapon seems able to be used with the leading hand aft of the point of balance, gaining a reach advantage but losing out in weight of strike.

Regarding CM's hoplite frontage assertion, I was both misremembering and mis-expressing, in that the 'edgeways' comment was a distortion of CM's overlap born of the need to let out the spearpoints from the wall of shields.  Apologies.  I am still intrigued how he managed to combine an underarm grip - high or low - with these seriously overlapped shields.

CM (in Storm of Spears) favours an 18" frontage for hoplites, but with shields facing the enemy and so greatly overlapping. He doubts the usual high overarm thrust of the spear (he thinks many depictions of this in art are actually javelins), and favours instead a high underarm, with the spear held in the armpit (which would allow the spear to protrude over the top of the interlocked shields), as well as a normal low underarm position (spear below the shields). And as Duncan says this is as well as, not instead of, a 3' frontage.

In Invincible Beast he favours a sarissa/shield grip much as you (Patrick) describe - shoulder strap, porpax, wrist at shield edge, and hand in about the 8 o'clock position. Yet he is absolutely certain that this makes it impossible for phalangites to close up to 18". I'm not really sure why he thinks this. Unfortunately he seems only to have tried this out on his own, not collected a small phalanx (fifteen people would be plenty to test this out - even two would be a start) to see what is really possible or impossible. I don't know why nobody else in the re-enactment community seems to have done this either (except Peter Connolly - he concluded IIRC that the 18" formation was possible to adopt with sarissa and shield, but difficult or impossible to move/attack in, as we would expect - CM seems to take this as evidence that it wasn't possible at all).

Steven James once commented: "Evidence is only evidence if it suits your theory."

As you say, a little re-enactment might work wonders for our understanding here.  My memory of Peter Connolly's conclusions is the same as yours, so hopefully we both have it right, and familiarity with and a little refinement of the kit and techniques involved might iron out some if not all of the incidental difficulties, or at any rate give a clearer idea of the formation's capabilities and limitations.

It seems to me that the low spear position - as depicted in the Pergamon plaque - should make the close formation possible, so I don't think CM's objections hold up at all. I think it's also possible (though there is no evidence for it) that some if not all ranks used a high spear position (which CM also thinks is impossible) - something like this:
https://img0.etsystatic.com/065/1/9499451/il_570xN.793475528_gdn2.jpg
(from 1618 - I understand the high position was common for Renaissance/Early Modern pikemen - it is also depicted in the rather nice front cover illustration of Invincible Beast, rather amusingly given CM's views). CM also thinks Polybius' testimony that the sarissa was held such that two cubits extended to the rear is impossible - he holds the sarissa with his rear (right) hand on the butt.

In general I think 'impossible' comes up far to often in this book and CM is too deeply committed to defending his pet theories. I'd  be happy to write a review but think I saw in another thread that Holly has already volunteered, and one review is enough.

I think we cannot lose from having two reviews of the book: I have the impression Dave (Hollin) is fairly positive about it, whereas you cover the caveats with precision and accuracy.  Perhaps the reader would benefit from such all-round coverage.

[Duncan Head]

Looking at the Ming Chinese 'pike' (if the modern reconstruction is anything to go by it appears to be more of a short spear)

Getting off the real topic here, but it isn't short, I think the photo uses a shorter modern martial-arts spear and is just included to show the posture:

A Chang Qiang (長鎗, long spear) is a very long weapon. In fact, it is the longest melee weapon in the Ming arsenal, longer than all other types of Chinese spear it replaced. General Qi Ji Guang (戚繼光) standardised Chang Qiang to one zhang eight chi long, effectively making it the Chinese equivalent of pike.

- http://greatmingmilitary.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/chang-qiang.html

A zhang is 3.2 metres, so that's 5.76 metres or about 18 1/2 feet.

[Patrick Waterson]

18 1/2 feet is certainly pike-length status and would confer a considerable reach advantage over the yari or naginata even without being held at the 'hinder end': I wonder how multiple ranks coordinated their weapons.

The sketches showing the Chang Qiang being held, curiously enough, seem to show the left hand on the centre of the shaft, pretty much like the holder of the yari.

Ah well.  Thanks for the information, Duncan, though I think the emphasis on different holding techniques may be less significant than the different weapon lengths.

Getting back to the Macedonian pike, the little grey cells have been wondering if the point of balance would have been at the right-hand or left-hand grip.  The advantages of the point of balance at the left-hand grip (six feet along the shaft) are a lighter weapon (less heavy counterweight needed) and one which can have its point height adjusted easily in action.  The disadvantage is that swinging it upright involves six feet of shaft trying to get into 2-3 feet of space as the weapon angles upwards, whereas a point of balance at the right-hand grip would at least in theory allow the sarissa to be pivoted upwards.

There might however be a way to get the sarissa upright with the point of balance at the left-hand grip, i.e. about six feet from the sauroter end.  Use the right hand to push the butt-end down until the sauroter touches the ground, then everyone takes a couple of paces backwards.  The sarissa will pretty much raise itself.  Once upright, lift it a foot or so off the ground and the formation is ready to march.  I would expect that anyone on an 18" frontage would want to deepen the files to 3' individual frontage before doing this, but well-trained troops could presumably achieve it on an 18" individual frontage as it was the Macedonian signal of surrender in battle.

And now back to shields - unless anyone has anything further to add about pike-handling.

[RichT]

CM has quite a lot to say on sarissa balance, handling, penetration etc - I haven't finished those sections yet. I will report (or review) later (though it would be only fair to Pen & Sword to suggest that people interested could buy the book).

I've also re-read Connolly's article which is in fact frustratingly vague but seems to say what we think it says.

For what it's worth I've also done a little 'literature review' of YouTube videos of reenactors doing Macedonian phalanxes - there is a fair amount out there but it's also frustratingly vague - there is no real method or rigour, at least not that gets posted to YouTube (not that I'm surprised), and an awful lot of 'Rome Total War' clips. Even so some of it is quite interesting to watch.

[Duncan Head]

18 1/2 feet is certainly pike-length status and would confer a considerable reach advantage over the yari or naginata even without being held at the 'hinder end' ...  Ah well.  Thanks for the information, Duncan, though I think the emphasis on different holding techniques may be less significant than the different weapon lengths.

Final comment on peripheral eastern matters: no, it wouldn't necessarily give much advantage of reach over the yari, because yari could be pretty long as well. Different commanders in the Sengoku period favoured different lengths for the yari of the ashigaru (those carried by samurai were generally shorter), but Oda Nobunaga is said to have standardised on 5.6 metres - close to the same length.

But the different Chinese-Japanese holding techniques do remind me of Monluc at Ceresoles, urging his newly-recruited pikemen not to hold their pikes near the butt and fence with them as the landsknechte do, but to grip them in the middle and rush straight in like the Swiss. Maybe determination and aggression counts more then length or grip.

[Patrick Waterson]

But the different Chinese-Japanese holding techniques do remind me of Monluc at Ceresoles, urging his newly-recruited pikemen not to hold their pikes near the butt and fence with them as the landsknechte do, but to grip them in the middle and rush straight in like the Swiss. Maybe determination and aggression counts more than length or grip.

Quite likely: technique also seems to matter.  I recall earlier discussion about whether pikemen would all push together or engage in individual 'foyning' and thrusting, and it seems that different cultures at different times did different things, and that a determined communal push achieved more than individual poking against individuals.

Final comment on peripheral eastern matters: no, it wouldn't necessarily give much advantage of reach over the yari, because yari could be pretty long as well. Different commanders in the Sengoku period favoured different lengths for the yari of the ashigaru (those carried by samurai were generally shorter), but Oda Nobunaga is said to have standardised on 5.6 metres - close to the same length.

And Nobunaga's men would be those encountered by the Chinese.  So perhaps how it was held did matter after all.

For what it's worth I've also done a little 'literature review' of YouTube videos of reenactors doing Macedonian phalanxes - there is a fair amount out there but it's also frustratingly vague - there is no real method or rigour, at least not that gets posted to YouTube (not that I'm surprised), and an awful lot of 'Rome Total War' clips. Even so some of it is quite interesting to watch.

Good idea: worth a look not only to see what preconceptions are involved but also how the various bits of equipment are handled or assumed to be handled and how people try to fit it all together.

[Dangun]

But the different Chinese-Japanese holding techniques do remind me of Monluc at Ceresoles, urging his newly-recruited pikemen not to hold their pikes near the butt and fence with them as the landsknechte do, but to grip them in the middle and rush straight in like the Swiss. Maybe determination and aggression counts more then length or grip.

Admittedly, I am talking out of my nether regions, without any actual evidence, but...

It would seem EXTREMELY difficult to hold anything that would pass as a pike "at the end" while maintaining any control as to where the pointy end was pointing. Your hands would be too close together and too far from the point of balance to have any control,  the flex in the shaft would be significant, any movement and the point would wobble around crazily. Any stumble and the point could get driven into the ground, in which case it would get jarred loose.... Hard to imagine.

[Patrick Waterson]

I think the nether regions have a very good point (cue dreadful pun about butt-spike) and it is interesting to note that the illustration for holding the chang qiang is rather different from the photograph showing the alleged butt-holding technique.  In the illustration, the left hand holds the chang qiang near or at the middle, i.e. at the point of balance.

My suspicion is that the chest-based-hold-at-the-butt technique would only work with lighter, shorter spears.  There does nevertheless seem to be a difference between the style of holding the chang qiang and that of holding the yari, the latter having more shaft visible behind the holder's right hand.  This raises the question of whether the Japanese style of holding their shafted weapons was dictated by tradition/affectation or by the balance of the weapon itself.  If the latter, then observations about the Chinese style being preferable may reflect more on weapon design than on handling technique.  The yari does seem to have a larger, and hence presumably heavier, head than the chang qiang, which doubtless affected its balance.

On the subject of Macedonian shields, does anyone else get the impression that the phalangite shields in the Pergamon battle plaque are held to the right of the sarissa? Or would this be just a misleading impression conveyed by casual sketching?

[Erpingham]

It would seem EXTREMELY difficult to hold anything that would pass as a pike "at the end" while maintaining any control as to where the pointy end was pointing.

But it is, according to sources, what was done.  Duncan has already mentioned Monluc - here is the quote he precised

`Gentlemen, it may be that there are not many here who have been in battle before, and therefore let me tell you that if we take our pikes by the hinder end and fight at the length of the pike, we shall be defeated; for the Germans are more dexterous at that kind of fight than we are. But you must take your pikes in the middle as the Swiss do and run headlong to force and penetrate into the midst of them, and you shall see how confounded they will be.'

So, the "Swiss" tactic is because they aren't as well trained as their opponents.  Other writers, like Sir John Smyth, also advocated the pikes thrusting together not fencing individually.  So fencing could be and was done with a Renaissance pike.

Much as I'd love to talk comparisons of 16th century and Macedonian pike tactics, I fear it may take us away from the subject of the thread.  But, for the interested, I recommend this short piece which quotes plenty of period sources
http://www.marquisofwinchesters.co.uk/Ecwr-Guidelines/Guidelines-pikefighting.html