Roman Legions against Macedonian Phalanx and Carthaginian Phalanx.

[Aetius]

I was wondering about the different results between the Roman Legion, Macedonian Phalanx and the Carthaginian Phalanx? Was the Macedonian Phalanx with it Sarrisas too ponderous to fight the Romans successfully with their flexible Legions and was the Carthaginian Phalanx with its Thrusting Spear more flexible and therefore more able to counter the Romans? Was there some fundamental flaw with the Macedonian Phalanx or was it just poor generalship? I know Philip V was no Hannibal. Is this a case of Rock, Scissors, Paper?

[Mark G]

If you dig into the direct legion v phalanx battles, the case for a weapon superiority is pretty poor.

Something else seems necessary for the legion to win.
 You have the phalanx pushing so far forward it exposes its flank, or the romans being pushed back until the ground breaks up and the phalanx loses integrity, or you have elephants inside the formation breaking up that integrity.
Or even being caught redeploying on the field by charging cavalry
Basically, it comes down to some kind of flank vulnerability exploit.

What you don't have is good clear evidence of either pila killing phalangites or swordsmen having any impact at all against the steady front of a formed phalanx.

Vs the carthaginians it's less clear they were even comparable to a close order phalanx. 
By describing them as similar but shorter spears, you are making them pretty close to hoplites but with smaller shields.

Even the famous requiping with captured Roman stuff is maybe not as simple as it looks - same fighting but better made stuff, or a change to copy as closely as possible what the romans had, or something else made understandable to a non military audience by those words?

Did the carthaginians even deal better?  They certainly did when the hit the romans in the flank at Cannae after a very risky refused centre- but otherwise they seem to lose to the front every time, which is not true of the Macedonian phalanx in any reported cases.

Lots to unpack.

[Imperial Dave]

Could be a long discussion...

[Justin Swanton]

In the Battle of the Crimissus, 336BC, the Carthaginian HI are armed as hoplites. Nothing proves they had substantially changed their armament by the time of the 2nd Punic War, so using Occam's Razor one can assume they fought the Romans more-or-less as hoplites at the Trebia and Trasimere.

I had an interesting discussion with Nikolas Lloyd of the Lindy Beige YouTube channel. As a reenactor he has tested spear vs sword-armed infantry. His conclusion was that a single spearman would have no chance against a swordsman in a one on one duel, but a line of spearmen could outfight a line of swordsmen since several spearmen can target one swordsman who advances ahead of the others.

There is one exception to this: a line of determined and well-trained swordsmen who advance in perfect unison against spearmen will get past the spear guard since the spearmen won't have time to gang up against individual swordsmen.

But the best trained swordsmen cannot get past a pike guard no matter what they do. The Legion never beat the pike phalanx from the front provided the latter kept order.

The weakness of the pike phalanx was its inflexibility and vulnerability to rear attacks - the pikemen cannot just raise their pikes, turn 180 degrees and lower them to face the new threat. They are holding the pikes at their centre of gravity which means the butt points will hit the ground as they try to swivel them around. Furthermore, if they are in close order - the case when facing legions - their overlapping shields would make it impossible for them to face about.

[Erpingham]

Could be a long discussion...

I'm sure it has been on this forum in the past, though I can't pin it down. Polybius (I think) gave us an explanation of the pros and cons of the two sides, and this leads to arguments about relative frontages which Justin will know well.

[Justin Swanton]

Could be a long discussion...

I'm sure it has been on this forum in the past, though I can't pin it down. Polybius (I think) gave us an explanation of the pros and cons of the two sides, and this leads to arguments about relative frontages which Justin will know well.

The frontages of a 16,000 man phalanx of the manuals and a 16,000-20,000 man Consular army would be about the same since the Legion typically deployed 20 men deep whilst the phalanx deployed 16 men deep (it could deploy shallower but I suspect it would keep to 16 men when facing legions).

Arrian emphasizes just how badly the Legion would be outfought by the phalanx since the latter had the bad habit of shunting to close order - 8 men deep with a frontage of 1 man per 18" or 2 men per legionary. The pikes of the first 5 or 6 ranks could reach the enemy so each legionary faced 10 - 12 pike heads. There was nothing he could do.

[vexillia]

I came across this - https://acoup.blog/tag/phalanx/ - but gave up after Part II.  Not  a negative comment more my limited attention span.

[Jim Webster]

In the Battle of the Crimissus, 336BC, the Carthaginian HI are armed as hoplites. Nothing proves they had substantially changed their armament by the time of the 2nd Punic War, so using Occam's Razor one can assume they fought the Romans more-or-less as hoplites at the Trebia and Trasimere.

The problem with that argument is that it is 119 years
The same period in Greece saw the Greek force change from the Army at Marathon to the battles of the Theban Spartan war or the time between the Battle of Chaeronea (Where Philip IInd of Macedon defeated the Greeks) and the Battle of Sellasia. There were changes in the Macedonian army in that period (and the Greeks had also changed in that period as well.)

It is possible that the Carthaginians hadn't changed but I think it would have to be demonstrated, not assumed.

[Aetius]

Perhaps it was the later Macedonian Phalanx's downfall that by the time they met the Roman's their philosophy had devolved into winning by the push of the pike. In it's heyday the pike phalanx was to fix the enemy while the cavalry delivered the fatal blow. The hammer and anvil tactics of Alexander had been replaced by simpler push all the way along the line by the pikes. At Magnesia Antiochus III's cavalry beat the Roman cavalry and pursued and by the time they got back the battle was over and they had lost. If Antiochus had broken off pursuit and attacked the rear of the Romans the result would have been much different...

[DBS]

It is possible that the Carthaginians hadn't changed but I think it would have to be demonstrated, not assumed.

Furthermore, Krimisos was fought by Carthaginian forces most used to fighting Syracusan troops in Sicily.  Trebia and Trasimene were fought by Carthaginian forces most used to fighting assorted Iberian types in Spain, and drawing on the lessons of a very long and hard fought war in Sicily and Africa against the Romans, not to mention the Mercenary War.

Put another way, at Krimisos the Carthaginians supposedly had their Sacred Band and chariots.  Neither seem to be around by the time of the  Punic Wars, so some change seems to have occurred...

[Justin Swanton]

In the Battle of the Crimissus, 336BC, the Carthaginian HI are armed as hoplites. Nothing proves they had substantially changed their armament by the time of the 2nd Punic War, so using Occam's Razor one can assume they fought the Romans more-or-less as hoplites at the Trebia and Trasimere.

The problem with that argument is that it is 119 years
The same period in Greece saw the Greek force change from the Army at Marathon to the battles of the Theban Spartan war or the time between the Battle of Chaeronea (Where Philip IInd of Macedon defeated the Greeks) and the Battle of Sellasia. There were changes in the Macedonian army in that period (and the Greeks had also changed in that period as well.)

It is possible that the Carthaginians hadn't changed but I think it would have to be demonstrated, not assumed.

Sure, a lot happened in Greece, principally the revolution of the phalanx that switched from dorys to sarissas, but the Romans never got the memo so no reason to assume the Carthaginians did. It's not like today when revolutions in weaponry and tactics spread all over the planet in a few years.

[Aetius]

Today war leads to rapid technological changes. Wouldn't that be true in ancient times? They were just as smart or smarter than we...

[Justin Swanton]

Today war leads to rapid technological changes. Wouldn't that be true in ancient times? They were just as smart or smarter than we...

Modern warfare is continuous with plenty of time to try out and evaluate new tech and tactics. In Antiquity major battles were rare and it would need several of them before everyone got the idea that one system was superior. In the 1st Punic war there were only 2 major land battles: Agrigentum and Bagradas. The former not a clear victory either way and the latter a clear Roman defeat. Why would Carthage change anything before the 2nd Punic war?

[Mark G]

even within the peloponesia war, we can (if we actually look) see great changes in evidence tactially.  the idea that there is a static frozen era is wrong. 

I really doubt we can assume that carthaginians are hoplites just because we don't have a specifc statement that they are not.  its not like they were unaware of the other fighting types in evidence around them until they ran into them on the battlefield.

[Jim Webster]

In the Battle of the Crimissus, 336BC, the Carthaginian HI are armed as hoplites. Nothing proves they had substantially changed their armament by the time of the 2nd Punic War, so using Occam's Razor one can assume they fought the Romans more-or-less as hoplites at the Trebia and Trasimere.

The problem with that argument is that it is 119 years
The same period in Greece saw the Greek force change from the Army at Marathon to the battles of the Theban Spartan war or the time between the Battle of Chaeronea (Where Philip IInd of Macedon defeated the Greeks) and the Battle of Sellasia. There were changes in the Macedonian army in that period (and the Greeks had also changed in that period as well.)

It is possible that the Carthaginians hadn't changed but I think it would have to be demonstrated, not assumed.

Sure, a lot happened in Greece, principally the revolution of the phalanx that switched from dorys to sarissas, but the Romans never got the memo so no reason to assume the Carthaginians did. It's not like today when revolutions in weaponry and tactics spread all over the planet in a few years.

The Carthaginians did get the memo, they'd fought Romans for over forty years by this point. They'd spent a generation campaigning in Spain.