The Makedonian phalanx -- why such depth?

[Paralus]

Paralus wrote:

You are suggesting that "next" means some several ranks behind?? Please, spare me. Word games, word games.

...look again at the De Selincourt translation, widely recognised as the best one. There is no "next" nor anything like it. Nor any reference to the double pay being "for valour" and even if there was, since it was the valiant who were selected as leaders it would still not preclude him being a "half-file leader". I have said that your interpretation is a possibility, though I have doubts. After all, if it was intended to retain the prickly array of sarissas, wouldn't we expect to see at least the front five ranks being Macedonian instead ( using your interpretation) of only three ?

Now we have translations "widely recognised as the best". It might better be said that is translation that better facillitates your opinion. This is the translation that you expressed doubts about in private emails where you strongly suspected lacunae were filled in as I recall. No such problems here though...

Clearly, as I have said, Alexander was making do with limited Macedonians. Just as clearly he wanted three rows of sarisae in front: it was to be a phalanx. In the earlier phalanx it is likely that the front three or four rows were the most "useful" in the attack. Alexander is attempting to keep that "hedge" of concentrated sarisae points that had proven demonstrably successful. Professor AB Bosworth has eluicidated it better than myself. Alexander and the Iranians, The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 100, Centennary Issue (1980, pp 18-19):

Each file was commanded by a Macedonian, backed by two other Macedonians in second and third place. The Persians then filled out the centre of the phalanx and a Macedonian brought up the rear. The four Macedonians were armed in traditional style (with the sarisa) and were given preferential rates of pay, whereas the Persians retained their native bows and javelins. The result was a curiously heterogeneous phalanx, packed with Persians untrained in Macedonian discipline. The Macedonians formed an elite, the first three ranks using sarisae and bearing the brunt of any attack. Even in the old phalanx there was hardly space for more than the first three ranks to use sarisae in couched position. In Polybius' day, when sarisae were longer, only the first five ranks were able to thrust with their weapons; the rest added weight and held their sarisae vertically as a screen against missiles. The Persians in the new phalanx added weight and numbers and no doubt they were intended to shoot arrows and javelins over the heads of the Macedonian ranks, much in the same way as the AoyXoxopot were to operate in Arrian's legionary phalanx of A.D. I35. This new phalanx could only be used in frontal attack. There was no possibility of complex manoeuvres or changes of front and depth on the march, which had been the hallmark of the old Macedonian phalanx and had been displayed so prominently in the Illyrian campaign of 335 and the approach to Issus. This reorganisation was in fact a means to make the best use of untrained manpower and also to husband the trained Macedonian phalangites.