Macedonian phalanx: overarm, underarm or both?

[RichT]

Yes welcome Paul! As it was me you quoted above, I hope I didn't misrepresent you, but I was just responding to Justin Swanton's earlier comment, which was:

I asked Paul Bardunias about this and he affirms it is impossible to bear sarissas underarm in a close formation as the shields overlap exactly where the left arm holds the sarissa.

So maybe you favour the overarm hold too? But wouldn't that mean you did disagree with Peter Connolly, whose reconstruction used the underarm hold? Or maybe Justin misremembered/misconstrued.

Concerning othismos - Lord preserve us... But I would be interested in hearing about your experiments (the ones referred to in Hoplites at War I assume?) Maybe there is a brief opportunity for a civilised discussion of this particular aspect of the topic - please do open a new thread on it if you want to risk it...

[PMBardunias]

Yes welcome Paul! As it was me you quoted above, I hope I didn't misrepresent you, but I was just responding to Justin Swanton's earlier comment, which was:

I asked Paul Bardunias about this and he affirms it is impossible to bear sarissas underarm in a close formation as the shields overlap exactly where the left arm holds the sarissa.

So maybe you favour the overarm hold too? But wouldn't that mean you did disagree with Peter Connolly, whose reconstruction used the underarm hold? Or maybe Justin misremembered/misconstrued.

Concerning othismos - Lord preserve us... But I would be interested in hearing about your experiments (the ones referred to in Hoplites at War I assume?) Maybe there is a brief opportunity for a civilised discussion of this particular aspect of the topic - please do open a new thread on it if you want to risk it...

There was a misunderstanding between you, Justin, and I, that twisted my original intent.  What I told him is that you cannot physically overlap peltae if you are a sarissaphoroi because your own spear shaft is in the way if you are holding the sarissa as Connolly showed.  Not he did not overlap shields.  You can hold sarissa as Connolly did and enter a state of "synaspismos", which has nothing to do with actually overlapping shields. You can think of it more as a spacing where shields would be overlapped, or at least brought together rim to rim, were they aspides.  As someone, maybe yourself, wrote, you stand with the pelta angled obliquely as you move to an 18" frontage.

I made a few comments on a couple threads, but I will post something specifically on the testing we did.

[Justin Swanton]

Yes welcome Paul! As it was me you quoted above, I hope I didn't misrepresent you, but I was just responding to Justin Swanton's earlier comment, which was:

I asked Paul Bardunias about this and he affirms it is impossible to bear sarissas underarm in a close formation as the shields overlap exactly where the left arm holds the sarissa.

So maybe you favour the overarm hold too? But wouldn't that mean you did disagree with Peter Connolly, whose reconstruction used the underarm hold? Or maybe Justin misremembered/misconstrued.

Concerning othismos - Lord preserve us... But I would be interested in hearing about your experiments (the ones referred to in Hoplites at War I assume?) Maybe there is a brief opportunity for a civilised discussion of this particular aspect of the topic - please do open a new thread on it if you want to risk it...

There was a misunderstanding between you, Justin, and I, that twisted my original intent.  What I told him is that you cannot physically overlap peltae if you are a sarissaphoroi because your own spear shaft is in the way if you are holding the sarissa as Connolly showed.  Not he did not overlap shields.  You can hold sarissa as Connolly did and enter a state of "synaspismos", which has nothing to do with actually overlapping shields. You can think of it more as a spacing where shields would be overlapped, or at least brought together rim to rim, were they aspides.  As someone, maybe yourself, wrote, you stand with the pelta angled obliquely as you move to an 18" frontage.

I made a few comments on a couple threads, but I will post something specifically on the testing we did.

Glad to see you here Paul  (and sorry if I took your name in vain).

Just to clarify one thing. Is synapsmos taken in the sources to mean intermediate as well as close order as per the manuals? Connolly's group were in intermediate order - he says they were able to present pikes underarm in close order but doesn't show it in a photo. (actually, rereading his article he says that the men were able to shove from intermediate to close order but doesn't mention how or even if the pikes were lowered).

[PMBardunias]

There is some confusion over the term synaspismos, I have seen it used for both intermediate and close order. For hoplites there is less difference, and no neat geometric doubling- say something around 90cm to a close order of 60-72cm. I do not know how Connolly used it off hand.

[RichT]

The noun synaspismos is largely confined to the tacticians where it refers to closest order (1 cubit). It also occurs for example in Diodorus' origin of the phalanx passage with reference to the Homeric parallel - which Polybius in turn shows refers to the intermediate order (pace he-who-shall-not-be-named).

The verb synaspizein and variants and cognates is more common (still uncommon) in literary sources. For hoplites it's anyone's guess what it means, for Polybius it appears to mean intermediate (2 cubit).

I agree there's no neat geometric doubling for hoplites (as far as we know) and perhaps no formal file intervals at all - any more precision than that is guesswork (albeit educated).

I'd be happy to pull together the references but that will take some time.

[PMBardunias]

perhaps no formal file intervals at all

One thing to remember in these discussions is that we focus on the what and not on the how. So we can categorize a 3' frontage as opposed to something wider or closer, but how do the men actually form this?  For hoplites, the most obvious way to form at 3' is to form shield to shield. For closer formations men just converge to a comfort zone, which is hard to describe, but obvious when you do it.  Closer than this and you begin to foul each other.  These are not so formal, but simply emerge from the dimensions of the men and panoply in the same way we might form "shoulder to shoulder". If you want to form up so that you can later double your file, the way to do this is hold your aspis to your left. This is less that 6' frontage, but enough to get another hoplite between and formed up at about 28-30".

[Imperial Dave]

thanks Paul,

pictures really help for me.......

[Erpingham]

I know this is a long shot to try and get some contemporary parallels but what evidence do we have of people in the ancient mediterranean era using long spear two-handed over arm?  Art or literature?  I can think of some Mycenean hunting scenes.  Others?

[Justin Swanton]

I know this is a long shot to try and get some contemporary parallels but what evidence do we have of people in the ancient mediterranean era using long spear two-handed over arm?  Art or literature?  I can think of some Mycenean hunting scenes.  Others?

Tell me about the Mycenean hunting scenes.

[PMBardunias]

There is so much cross threading already, that I thought I might ask this here.  One thing that always bothered me with the analogies between sarissaphoroi and Swiss pike, is that there are no equivalents to halbredeers or 2 handed swords.  Why no Dorudrepanons? There probably is an obvious reason. But one could see equivalents of sword and rotella men in each and every phalangite.  My question is, is there any account of front rankers dropping sarissa and fighting within the hedge of sarissa from those behind?

[Erpingham]

I know this is a long shot to try and get some contemporary parallels but what evidence do we have of people in the ancient mediterranean era using long spear two-handed over arm?  Art or literature?  I can think of some Mycenean hunting scenes.  Others?

Tell me about the Mycenean hunting scenes.

From Grave Circle A, Mycenae 16th century BC (conventional dating).

[Justin Swanton]

I know this is a long shot to try and get some contemporary parallels but what evidence do we have of people in the ancient mediterranean era using long spear two-handed over arm?  Art or literature?  I can think of some Mycenean hunting scenes.  Others?

Tell me about the Mycenean hunting scenes.

From Grave Circle A, Mycenae 16th century BC (conventional dating).

Aren't they holding those spears one-handed?

[Erpingham]

Aren't they holding those spears one-handed?

Well the guy on the left certainly isn't.  The one in the middle is less clear but, given his similarity of stance to the guy on the left, the fact his shield is slung over his back and the spear length (about 12ft?), I'd say he isn't either.  The one at the front is behind his shield so its harder to tell.

[Jim Webster]

I'd say the one in the front is the only one holding his spear one handed

The problem is with the perspective, we see it as a 'file' whilst the original craftsman may have tried to show a more irregular group

[Duncan Head]

There's a similar "formation" with two-handed spears in a battle-scene on a silver rhyton - drawing and reconstruction at http://www.salimbeti.com/micenei/shields1.htm about the sixth paragraph. I suspect there's a photo of this rhyton somewhere but can't find it right now.