Did the Macedonian Phalanx practise othismos with its sarissas?

[RichT]

How the f**k should I know?

Or less wearily - I'm afraid I don't recall - a couple of years ago I think. If you can't find it I can dig it out at some point in the nearish future.

[Imperial Dave]

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again.

42

[Justin Swanton]

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again.

42

Don't panic.

[Patrick Waterson]

Putting everything together, it seems that a phalanx would jam its sarissas into the shields of its opponents then push. The phalangite shield, concave like the hoplite aspis, made this a workable tactic (the phalangite, like the hoplite, would still be able to breathe in the crush). The sarissas would not shatter as several were stuck in each enemy shield, each taking only a part of the strain of the push. The use of several sarissas for this purpose by each file would explain Asklepiodotus' remark about variable sarissa lengths: "But some, who wish to bring all the projecting spear-points to the same distance in front of the line, increase the length of the spears of the rear ranks."

One detail I noticed about combat between two sarissa-armed phalanxes is the amount of back-and-forth which results (e.g. at Sellasia), as if one side establishes superiority of pressure early and the other gives back rather than stand and get skewered.  The second thing I noticed was that very few people appear to get skewered unless they try to press back (the Paelignian cohort at Pydna being a case in point).

When a phalanx encounters a legion, the pressure is generally all one way: the legion goes backwards in short order.  The exception, the Paelignian cohort at Pydna, ended up as kebabs.

This suggests to me that the pike phalanx developed considerable forward pressure, and opponents who wanted to live went with the flow, backwards.  Interestingly the exceptions seem to have been Greek hoplite phalanxes.  This could be understood as the hoplites, being both configured for and accustomed to a mode of fighting based upon pressure, had both equipment and training (or habit) capable of withstanding the pressure exerted by the pike phalanx.  Or that, being accustomed to an othismotic form of fighting, their natural reaction was to press back, which might not have been quite so good for their health, given the greater length of the sarissa.

[Jim Webster]

Interestingly the exceptions seem to have been Greek hoplite phalanxes.  This could be understood as the hoplites, being both configured for and accustomed to a mode of fighting based upon pressure, had both equipment and training (or habit) capable of withstanding the pressure exerted by the pike phalanx.  Or that, being accustomed to an othismotic form of fighting, their natural reaction was to press back, which might not have been quite so good for their health, given the greater length of the sarissa.

Yet it's interesting that in Diodorus Siculus, (sorry, no reference) when Alexander attacked Thebes, the Thebans brought their infantry out to fight in the open field but with secure flanks and seem to have held the phalanx, indeed the phalanx had to be withdrawn and replaced with a fresh phalanx

[aligern]

I too find it unresolved as to whetherPhalanxes  comebtogether shield against shield or pike against shield. Both would involve pressure upon the enemy and would enable one phallanx to push back another. If they contacted shield to shield then the pikes of the ohalanxes woukd have to penetrate the formation of the opposing phalanx.
A question I may well have pised before is why opposing phalanxes do not just spit one another. Clearly there is movement of the whole formation back and forth  and  clearly there are not enormous casualties on both sides. Also the projecting pikes of ranks two to five play some part. Renaissance and later pike may have some lessons in that they do mnot have shields and do not run upon each other so hard that the front ranks drop mutually. If tge phalanxes are fencing then overarm might be the best pisture, but if the pije heads are stuck into shields then it looks more sensible to have an underarm stance with pelta to the front.
Roy

[Justin Swanton]

Interestingly the exceptions seem to have been Greek hoplite phalanxes.  This could be understood as the hoplites, being both configured for and accustomed to a mode of fighting based upon pressure, had both equipment and training (or habit) capable of withstanding the pressure exerted by the pike phalanx.  Or that, being accustomed to an othismotic form of fighting, their natural reaction was to press back, which might not have been quite so good for their health, given the greater length of the sarissa.

Yet it's interesting that in Diodorus Siculus, (sorry, no reference) when Alexander attacked Thebes, the Thebans brought their infantry out to fight in the open field but with secure flanks and seem to have held the phalanx, indeed the phalanx had to be withdrawn and replaced with a fresh phalanx

Which makes sense. A pike phalanx in close order has one cubit or 48cm per file. Hoplites at the moment of contact with enemy have overlapping shields and 60 cm per file (about as close as they can go without the edge of one aspis hitting against the elbow of the adjacent aspis). Which makes it 2 hoplites per 3 phalangites. Assuming that Alex's phalanx was 16 deep to begin with, and doubled to a close order depth of 8 men, the Thebans would need only 12 ranks in their phalanx to be even-stevens as regards the number of men pushing against each other.

There is however a caveat: the further back a rank is, the less force it applies to the whole phalanx. Paul Bardunias tested othismos with re-enactors and came up with this table (the relevant line is crowd pushing, men facing forwards when pushing each other):



Which means a pike phalanx is more efficient at pushing that a hoplite phalanx. If Alex added men to the phalanx fighting the Thebans that would do the trick. Does Siculus say he did?*

*Addendum: here is the relevant passage from Diodorus (17.2.1-4):

At length Alexander saw that the Thebans were still fighting unflinchingly for their freedom, but that his Macedonians were wearying in the battle, and ordered his reserve division to enter the struggle. As this suddenly struck the tired Thebans, it bore heavily against them and killed many. Still the Thebans did not concede the victory, but on the contrary, inspired by the will to win, despised all dangers. They had the courage to shout that the Macedonians now openly confessed to being their inferiors. Under normal circumstances, when an enemy attacks in relays, it is usual for soldiers to fear the fresh strength of the reinforcements, but the Thebans alone then faced their dangers ever more boldly, as the enemy sent against them new troops for those whose strength flagged with weariness. So the Theban spirit proved unshakable here, but the king took note of a postern gate that had been deserted by its guards and hurried Perdiccas with a large detachment of troops to seize it and penetrate into the city.note He quickly carried out the order and the Macedonians slipped through the gate into the city, while the Thebans, having worn down the first assault wave of the Macedonians, stoutly faced the second and still had high hopes of victory. When they knew that a section of the city had been taken, however, they began immediately to withdraw within the walls,

So the Thebans are presumably deep enough to resist the pressure of the Macedonian phalangites even after fresh troops have replaced those already tired. Siculus though says in 17.11.4 that both sides used swords. Not quite sure what to make of that unless it refers to the fighting on the palisades and not at the main lines.

[Justin Swanton]

I too find it unresolved as to whetherPhalanxes  comebtogether shield against shield or pike against shield. Both would involve pressure upon the enemy and would enable one phallanx to push back another. If they contacted shield to shield then the pikes of the ohalanxes woukd have to penetrate the formation of the opposing phalanx.
A question I may well have pised before is why opposing phalanxes do not just spit one another. Clearly there is movement of the whole formation back and forth  and  clearly there are not enormous casualties on both sides. Also the projecting pikes of ranks two to five play some part. Renaissance and later pike may have some lessons in that they do mnot have shields and do not run upon each other so hard that the front ranks drop mutually. If tge phalanxes are fencing then overarm might be the best pisture, but if the pije heads are stuck into shields then it looks more sensible to have an underarm stance with pelta to the front.
Roy

Hoplite and phalangite shields were designed to not let a spearpoint pass through them and by and large were effective in that role. A phalangite trying to skewer an opposing phalangite/hoplite would have only two targets: the head or the thighs. A strike at the head could be blocked by raising the shield, and a strike at the thighs by angling the bottom edge of the shield up (as shown in the pergamon plaque). The strike would end with the spearpoint deflected or embedded in the shield, and since one or both phalanxes are advancing towards each other the wielder of the sarissa would not have the chance for a second strike. I'm guessing phalangites were trained to aim their sarissas at the shield.

The tacticians and Polybios give the distances pikes will project past the front rank when the ranks are in intermediate order, but in the case of pike othismos the ranks are obviously jammed one against the other. An average man's chest is about 10 inches deep. Add 4 or 8 inches for the shield, depending on which shield, and the total depth is 18 inches max, which enables pikes of the rear ranks to actually reach the shields of the enemy and add to othismos (the phalangites have six feet of pikeshaft behind their left arm - plenty to push forward).  I don't think it matters much if you hold the pike overarm or underarm. What matters is that forearm be across the stomach or chest and the left hand hold the pikeshaft very close to the body. It is the body then that pushes the pike forwards, not the arm muscles. All the phalangite has to do is keep his grip on the pikeshaft.

[Mark G]

Andreas seemed to understand my question, Justin seems not to.

I shall spell it out.

You have taken one definition of othismos, it is disputed and there are many others or equal validity,
You have then searched for translated uses of key words from the definition, concluded they must also be translations of the actual word othismos, and are describing the exact same thing, and then formed your question.

If your question is to have any merit, you must forget whichever definition of othismos you happen to prefer, go and find actual uses in the original sources of the word itself; and then confirm that those passages apply to something comparable to the hoplite situation, and then you can propose your question in relation to that passage.

At that point, we can debate the meaning of othismos in relation to phalangites

Or we can recall the many interminable threads on the most tedious subject line in ancient military history, and just ignore it, as we ignore new biblical dating theories.

Subjects which not coincidentally seem to attract the same minds..,

[Justin Swanton]

Andreas seemed to understand my question, Justin seems not to.

I shall spell it out.

You have taken one definition of othismos, it is disputed and there are many others or equal validity,
You have then searched for translated uses of key words from the definition, concluded they must also be translations of the actual word othismos, and are describing the exact same thing, and then formed your question.

If your question is to have any merit, you must forget whichever definition of othismos you happen to prefer, go and find actual uses in the original sources of the word itself; and then confirm that those passages apply to something comparable to the hoplite situation, and then you can propose your question in relation to that passage.

At that point, we can debate the meaning of othismos in relation to phalangites

Or we can recall the many interminable threads on the most tedious subject line in ancient military history, and just ignore it, as we ignore new biblical dating theories.

Subjects which not coincidentally seem to attract the same minds..,

Forget about the word 'othismos'. I just use it for convenience.

Take the manuals' very clear and detailed description of a pike phalanx's pushing process (cf. first post) and go with that. Give it another name if you prefer - 'sarissmos'?

[Patrick Waterson]

So the Thebans are presumably deep enough to resist the pressure of the Macedonian phalangites even after fresh troops have replaced those already tired. Siculus though says in 17.11.4 that both sides used swords. Not quite sure what to make of that unless it refers to the fighting on the palisades and not at the main lines.

He says that both sides started by flinging missiles and then reverted to swords.  This is typical Roman behaviour, and I wonder if Diodorus was having a slightly careless day and this simply equates to 'they closed and fought'.  The idea of imitation legions in Greece in Alexander's time is a bit odd, to say the least.

Or Diodorus may have been genuinely ignorant of the Macedonian army's weaponry.  The word 'pike' does not appear in the English, nor 'sarissa', when attempting a word search of the entire text of Diodorus at Perseus, with the exception of a single scholar-added footnote.

Although Diodorus does not explicitly state this, the Thebans may well have formed up in their characteristic deep formation: 25 deep was the norm; they might even have used Epaminondas' 50 deep if there were enough of them on a narrow frontage.  Such a formation could absorb a lot of shoving and thrusting and negate a lot of pressure.

[Justin Swanton]

One detail I noticed about combat between two sarissa-armed phalanxes is the amount of back-and-forth which results (e.g. at Sellasia), as if one side establishes superiority of pressure early and the other gives back rather than stand and get skewered.  The second thing I noticed was that very few people appear to get skewered unless they try to press back (the Paelignian cohort at Pydna being a case in point).

Could the Paelignian cohort's shields not have been designed to withstand the pressure of a sarissa head? Do we know how those shields were constructed?

[Justin Swanton]

Working on the hypothesis that sarissmos (I'm avoid the O-word from now on) was an important component of pike warfare, that would explain the 16-deep files that the manuals state were standard for a pike phalanx. Bardunias demonstrated that after the 8th rank there is little additional pressure supplied to a file pushing forwards. Which means that in close order (used by the phalanx when dealing with difficult opponents like hoplites or legionaries) 8 ranks was the optimum depth for sarissmos, and thus 16 ranks would be the depth of the intermediate order arrangement that was used for grand tactical manoeuvring on the battlefield and fighting easier opponents. It also explains why the 16 rank file of Alexander was composed of two half-files, i.e. the half file was used as a separate entity in close order only for exceptional circumstances and was usually just part of a complete 16-man file. All speculative but it fits.

[Patrick Waterson]

Could the Paelignian cohort's shields not have been designed to withstand the pressure of a sarissa head? Do we know how those shields were constructed?

Someone like Duncan will know all that is known about construction about Roman shields in any given period.

My own input is that all shields were resistant up to a point (no pun intended); as a rule, that point was only reached when someone decided to stand or push back against the sarissa points.  Again, the Paelignian cohort at Cynoscephalae is my guideline here: the cohort standard bearer threw the unit standard into the Macedonian ranks, the soldiers pushed forward to retrieve it and many of them were thrust through; they were the only Roman unit recorded as taking substantial casualties.

Hence my conclusion would be that the shields were designed to withstand pressure - or to be more accurate, penetration - to an extent whioch served for normal use, but that extent could easily be surpassed if one added counter-pressure of one's own.  In the Paelignians' case, they managed to surpass it with sufficient margin for the Macedonian weapons to also penetrate their armour.

It would of course be possible to have designed a totally sarissa-proof shield, but this would have been too heavy to use, reminiscent of the naval designers' axiom that a totally protected battleship cannot float.  All shields are a compromise between weight and effective functioning, often with cost and convenience of manufacture being added in.  They tend to be good enough for their usual operating environment.

[Erpingham]

Can I just say thanks to Justin for moving this on from another stale othismos debate?  Talking about how phalanxes fought their own kind and other troop types seems a more fruitful area of enquiry.

One question based on Renaissance pike fighting.  There were two basic methods - either you indulged in pike fencing (in which you avoided too much pressure on the front rank so they could do their stuff) or you went for "push of pike", where the ranks closed up more tightly and you sought to use momentum to drive your opponent back or down (Monluc talks of front ranks being knocked off their feet).  Push of pike rapidly tangled up if the target didn't give ground and front rankers ditched pikes and went for swords.  Do we see similar variations in tactics within Hellenistic phalanxes?  We know that hoplites when they got to "shield to shield" would ditch spears and go for swords - did phalangites do this or did they keep a rigid formation to keep themselves several metres from the enemy?