Phalanx

The Phalanx, hard manuverabilty, a straight line of pikeman and hoplites as they were called.

Now, how big IT was, and had it got it's groups as the legion has a cohors, manipulus and centurio

Good Lannes :-) You forgot to mention that the Spartans (and all hoplites for that matter) were also armed with a sword. It was called Xyili (or Xyali in Doric) by the Spartans and Copis by others. It had a 60cm blade that was used mainly for slashing. It would be used when the spear would break (and the assistants would not have any more to provide to the frond line hoplites). It was basically a secondary weapon.

In classical times a Phalanx would be deployed in 16 rows wide, and 8 rows deep.

Xenophon, who had also been an officer, tells us about a different structure. Now the average row was 12 man deep, while only two of these rows were needed to form an enomotia. Two enomotiai formed a pentekostis, two pentekosteis formed a lochos, while four lochois formed a mora, or regiment, under the command of a p(t)olemarch. An army consisted of 6 morae. The reduction of the Spartan population did decrease the total strength of the Spartan army, but not the strength of a mora (500, 600, or 900 men) as this depended on the age of the hoplites who were used.

The enomotiai marched behind eachother in a big row. Before the battle the last troops of each enemotia positioned themselves left behind their leader to form a phalanx of four columns, in total 16 rows wide, and 8 rows deep. A space of two metres was maintained between the columns, but on the order 'close the rows' the last troops walked to the left front to close gaps in the front row. Now the phalanx was in a closed formation and ready for the battle.

The Thebans were able to defeat the Spartans by deploying a wing that was 50 men deep.

When it comes to manouverability, the phalanx relied in one Hoplitae covering his man to the left with his Hoplon shield. That means that they had to keep their shieds interlocked and that their weak side was the right one. Their sides were usually covered by "Psiloi" scirmishers or (at later stages) by cavalry.

Very good point fastpawn!

But the trick was that they attacked the strong far right wing of the Spartans. The Theban left was 50 men deep and started advancing first, the center started later and their right wing last. By the time their left wing was crushing the 12 men deep Spartan right the rest of the Theban army had not yet encountered the enemy. So the Spartans could not at the time take men from their center of left because the opposing Theban were close enough to threaten them but far enough to be attacked. The technique was revolutionary and it's called "denying you weak part" (or something like it) and was used by many commanders in the future, Napoleon being one of them....

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/371leuctra.html

Well, the soldiers that weren't in the front doing the fighting were doing the important job of pushing their comrades forward.  The phalanx had to create a constant push to really be able to slice its way through an enemy formation, or to have the massive amount of staying power that it did.

One tiny detail: Many military historians are evaluating differently the true strength of Epameinondas "skewed phalanx": they assume that after the initial impact (with all the weight of the 50 rows) elements of the "Ram" (namely: rows from the back and middle of the formation) would actually move sideways and engage the enemy formation in flanking action, while the latter was engaged with the first lines of the "ram".

I think that image makes more sense and would utilize to the greatest extend the enormous depth of the phalanx.

BTW the greatest admirers of Epameinondas and his military formation, are Carl Gustav of Sweden and Friedrich of Prussen, as well as Napoleon. The first two based a great deal of their success in adopting that tactic to the 18th century warfare.

BTW 2: Seems funny we are talking only about the hoplite phalanx since, militarly speaking, the macedonian phalanx was more succesful in the field.

The Macedonian phalanx no longer used heavely armored hoplites, instead they switched to lightly armored phalangites to form the ranks.  The theory was that the long length of their sarissa pikes(sometimes reaching 21 feet long) should prevent enemies from getting close enough in melee combat to really do damage to the phalangites, so armor wasn't as important(troops in the first five ranks were generally armed the heaviest, but still not nearly as much as the hoplites had been).

You forget Alexander and Philip! haha

Actually, those in the back tended to be more heavily armored because they were more rich and influential and could afford armor and not have to be put in the front.

The left flank was usually protected by allied cavalry(usually supplied by the Thessalians) that fought in a defensive rhomboid formation.

Well, phalangites also had a dagger, but that was really nothing that proved effective on the battlefield, and was more or less an afterthought.  Really, if an army managed to get in very close melee combat with the phalngites, then the phalanx would turn into a butchering house, as was the case at Pydna.

Sure.

Background- Battle took place in 168 BC, during the Third Macedonian War.  Philip V, who had been decisively defeated by the Romans at Cynoscephalae in 197 BC, was forced into 'friendly' terms with the Romans.  Though Philip remained on friendly terms with the Romans through the Seleucid Wars, it was clear he was sitting very uneasily.  In 180BC, Philip had his Pro-Roman son, Demetrius, executed(largely becuase of Perseus' doings), making Perseus the heir to the throne.  Perseus became King of Macedon in 179BC(Philip and his son were part of the Antigonid Dynasty).  Perseus did things to concern Rome, and in 171BC, Rome declared war on Macedonia.(The Roman Commander was the Consul, Aemilius Paulas.)

The Battle- The armies drew themselves up in their standard fashions.  The Roman formation:  Two Legions in the centre , with ala infantry flanking them, and the cavalry on the wings(the right wing cavalry had been suplemented with 22 elephants).  The Macedonian lineup:  The phalanx was in the centre of the formation(the 3, 000 Macedonian �lite guards forming the left of the phalanx), with lighter peltasts, Thracian infantry,  and ercenaries supporting the flanks of the phalanx.  The cavalry was unevenly split between the two wings of the formation- Perseus and his heavy cavalry were positioned(he would've been with his �lite Sacred Squadron), as well as the Thracian Odrysen cavalry.

The phalanx advanvced, engaging the Roman infantry at  around 3PM, and in the beginning, psuhed the Romans back.  Paulas was noted to have been amazed at the impenetrable wall of pikes coming at him.  As the phalanx advanced, they ran into the foothills on the field, and gaps began to form in their formation. Paulas saw his oppurtunity, and order his unbeleivably flexible maniples into the gaps.  In the close quarter combat that ensued, the Romans' shields and swords were too much for the phalangites, as for close quarters combats, they were armed only with the dagger that I mentioned in one of my above posts.

Seeing that the battle was lost, Perseus and his �lite cavalry retreated(Polybius tells us that they never even engaged in the combat).  He had lost his army though.  25, 000 of his men were killed in that slaughter house of a phalanx.

Which is the predominant reason why the Macedonians of the 2nd Century BC couldn't defeat the Manipular Legion.  The Macedonian phalanx was only ever ment to provide steady pressure on the enemy(letting the cavalry deliver the decisive blows to the enemy), but these later day Macedonian armies no longer possesed enough capable horsemen to form a force of cavalry as Alexandros III did, and as a result, came more and more to rely on the phalanx as earlier armies of the region had done.