W E A P O N R Y

The phalanx dominated Greek warfare for threecenturies, but fell before combined-arms forces,

By Brian Todd Carey

SOMETIME IN THE MIDDLE OF the 7thceniun BC, a new style of warfar-e ap-peaitd in ancient Gr-eece, requiring a footsoldier to forsake acts of individual valorin favor of standing shoulder-to-shoulderwith his eomr"adcs in a battle square. Thissquare, called a phalanx, distinguisheditself from other heavy infantry fotma-tions in the Near East in that it wouldevolve into a well-articulated tactiealsystem capable of decisive offensive tac-tieal mobility.

How and when the change in empha-sis from individtial to collective action onthe Greek battlefield took place is still amatter of debate. During the Bronze Ageand before the invention of the phalanx,Greek fighting had been dominated byaristocratic wairiors who reveled in in-dividual duels with their adversaries, in amanner immotialized by Homer in PieIliad. Even as Homer was conceiving hisepic, a shift in warfare was taking place.The revival of trade routes and the be-ginning of colonization in the 8th and 7thcenturies BC led to economic prosperityin Greek mother-cities such as Corinth,Thebes and Athens. That piospedty al-lowed for the democratization of war.Iron had replaced bronze as the metal ofchoice for weapons, allowing an increas-ing number of faiTner-soldiers to equipthemselves with helmets, armor, greavesand shields, and thus take their place inihc battle line. The increasing number ofarmored hea\'y infantry was probably amajor factor in the decline of individualwarfare, and the Greek arl of war beganto change to accommodate larger- num-ber's of soldiers.

How the ancient Greeks utilized thosenow developments in warfare is a subjectof great interest and heated debate inmilitai"> history'. It is universally recog-nized that the new Greek tactical system1 equired certain pr'econditions if battlewas to take place. In mountainous

Greece, each of the opposing phalanxessought level ground. Normally the de-fender enjoyed a significant advantage bysecLiring a site on a slight slope so that theattacker would have to march and fightuphill. The uphill advantage, however,was often so gr eat that attackers usuallydeclined to engage, avoiding the defend-ers' army and destroying their crops until

University of CaliforTiia at Santahas taken another look at the primarysourees and has come to a different con-clusion. The new inteipretation describesphalanx battle as the collision of twobattle squares in which, as the 4th-cen-tury BC Spar'tan soldier- and historianXenophon described it, "crashing theirshields together, they shoved, fought, slew

At Rataea in A79 BC, Persians fall back before an impenetrable phalanx ol shields andspears-a tactic their Greek enemies had perfected in the course of f igbting each other.

they were compelled to give up their ad-vantageous position. To avoid such col-lateral damage to the civilian populace,adversaries fought by mutual consent onopen level ground.

Since the late !9th century AD, histori-ans have debated how the Greek armiesactually joined battle. The old school ofthought advocated an orderly advanceinto battle in which front rank foughth"ont rank, with soldiers in the secondrank waiting to fill the places of the fallenor fatigued. But a new generation of clas-sicists, led by Victor Davis Hanson of the

and died."The typical Greek phalanx foiTnation

deployed in a closely packed rank and lile,usually but not always eight ranks deep.The or'ganization of the phalanx wasbased more on tiles than on ranks, withthe hoplite belonging to his lile ratherthan his rank. The basic idea was tomaintain a solid front after the opposingsides collided, to deny the enemy gaps topenetrate.

The key to the Greek phalanx's successwas in its innovative organization andtechnologies. The phalangeal

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WEAPONRYconsisted ot heavy iniatilnnien nthoplites, so named because of the ingc-tiioLis shield orhoplou each earned itilobattle. The hoplon itself was a routid.convex shield nearly 3 feet in diameterand weighing more than 15 poutids. Thcessential dilfeience between ihe hoplonand the older shield was that the laltetcould hang by its strap from time to litne,allowing a soldier to i est his arm, and wasused in combat by holding a grip behintlthe central boss. The newer hoplon re-mained locked onto the forearm, with itsweight boiTie by the left shotilder, tesult-ing in mote elfcctive and prolonged use.The disadvantage was that since thchoplon was tiow gripped with the lell handnear its rim, half the shield piojected l<ithe infanti-yman's left, effectively protect-ing only the left side of his body. To eom-pensate for that deficiency, Greek soldiersbegan to stand side by side, employing theoverlap of the shield to protect the t-ighiside of their bodies. Thus Thucydides ex-plains the tendency of hoplites to edge lotheir right as the resuh of "each man, inhis anxiety, getting his unprotected sick-as close as possible to the shield of theman standing on his light, and thinkingthai the more closely ihe shields wetelocked, the better the protection."

Another consequence of this new de-fensive formation was the abandonmentof the Bronze Age, Hotnerie-slyle tht ow-ing spear for a thi\isling speat; tiecessar-ily creating a tactical system that reliedexclusively on shock. So important hadthe thrusting spear become that ihesword was onlv utilized in emei^encies.

SCHOLARS ARE NOT certain whethet theuse of this new equipment spawiit-d iradical change in battlelield tactics or vicevetsa. Il is believed, though, ihat theadoption of the hoplon and the abandon-ment ofthe thiTiwing sjx'ar teinfoired [hehoplites' depetidence on colleetive war-fare. Unlike the rectangular shield oiscutum of the later Roman legionary orthe lighter tound shield of the early medieval watrior, the hoplo)i afforded iUvGreek heavy iniantiyman little pt otectiotifrom an attack on his side and rear. Infact, the entire hoplite panoply evolved Insatisfy the offensive and defensive mle olthe collective frontal attack. Perhaps evenmore important—and more fateful—thisnewfound dependence on mutual sup-port necessitated innovation in ihe sizeand shape of the phalaax.

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The invenlion of a superior tacticalsystem could not be monopolized lorlong, however, as the phalanx quicklyspread throtighout Greece. Thai ditlusioninstigated an amis race among city-states, one that forced the evolution of thephalanx and In tum introduced pha-inngeal warfare as a cultural inslitutionin Hellenic civilization. Because of tacti-cal diOusion, heavy infantry all overGreece wore the same t>'pe of aiTnor andfought according to identical lactiealprinciples. Overall, greater battlefield ar-ticulation remained difficult for pha-lanxes lo achieve, especially since mosthoplites were not professional soldiersbut militia. Foi the most part,GT"eekmiIi-lia had l\iil-time occupations as farmers,ailisans and tradesmen. One city-state.Sparta, solved that problem by creating aprofessional anny, employing a wamorclass that drilled for years, while othercity-states experimented with the organi-zation of the phalanx itself.

When tactical experimentation didtake plaee, it usually involved an inereasein the depth of the files of the phalanxrather than broadening the rank orfrontage of the formation. Commonbelief held that by increasing the depth ofthe phalanx, gieater momentum could hegained in the initial collision, but the phi-losophy that more was better was notuniversally accepted. Xenopbon onceasked, "When a phalanx is too deep foi-tbe men to reach tbe enemy with theirweapons, what harm do you think theydo to the enemy or good to their friends?"

WITH THE WIDESPREAD adoption ofidentical tactical principles, a "cult ofsymmetry" arose in classical boplitebattle. The idea of symmetry on the bat-tlefield goes back to Bronze Age aristo-cratic warfare, but the ethos that eom-pelled Homers Achilles to battle nmno aniano with Hector outside the walls ofTVoy was projected onto collective war-fare in Greece between the 8th and 5theentury BC. Phalanx-versus-phalanxcombat beeame tbe prefen'ed mode ofwarfare in Greece to tbe e.xclusion ofmore efficient means of killing, inasmuchas light infantiy was not an acceptablebattlefield tactical system for ihe Greeks.While archery was recognized in earlyIron Age Near Eastern warfare as tbegreat battlefield equalizer, allowing deathLo be dealt at a distance, it simply did notfit tbe confrontational image that was theessence of heroic warfare as defined byHomer. Consequently, archery was rele-

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WEAPONRYgated to a subordinate status, usuall\hunting.

Classical Greek warfare tended to bevery localized in its scope, with cit\'-.stal(.-battling city-state lor tetiitorial gain. Therelatively short distances hetween thevaiious Gieek city-stales, howevet", werestill forgiving to the hoplite anny on themarch. Greece's steep slopes, deep goi^es,dty washes and nairow passes dictatedthe use ol regular routes to move armies.That alone often compromised strategicsurprise and reinforced the ritual char-acter of phalangeal warfare at the sametime. Furthermore, hoplite arms andarmor were much too heavy to wear inthe summer if crossing difficult teiTJun. Ilmeant that even for a shoit campaignagainst a neighboring city-state, the hop-lite and his attendant had to transportseveral weeks' rations as well at ar ms anilaiTnor. If pack animals or ox-drawn cartswere used, the size of the marchingcolumn grew exponentially, since at leaslsome fodder for the pack or draft animalshad to he canned as well.

Greek victory' in the Persian wars in thefirst half of the 5th century BC con-tributed greatly to the perceived domi-nance of the heaw infantry phalanx. Al-though some Greeks realized that Persianenors had also contributed to their vic-tory, the more common belief was that itrepresented the triumph of the spear overthe bow and of heavy infantiyf over light.As the 5th century wore on, however, in-dividual Greek city-states began to ex-periment with their- armies by addinglight infanti^- to the tactical mix. Duringthe Peloponnesian War, Athenian irse olarchers and javelin throwers against theSpartans at Spacteria in 425 BC improxedthe Greek perception ol light infantry, bulit was only a slep toward a fully inlc-gi^ted amiy.

The Greek city-states never did adopt acomplete combined-arms tactical system.That refusal cost them their- freedomwhen, in the middle of the 4th centuiy BC,King Philip 11 of Macedon marched southand defeated city-state after city-statewith a balanced, combined-arms tacticalsystem that added heavy cavalry^ lancersand hor-se archers to an improved pha-lanx protected by light infantry. With theinvention ot the Macedonian combined-aims tactical system, Alexander the Greatand his Greco-Macedonian army cari/edan empire and ushered in the HellenisticAge and a new era of warlare. MH

72 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2006