Othismos: Classical vs Crowd Theory Othismos

[PMBardunias]

Do you mean that the natural drift towards the right of a hoplite formation could actually be of (incidental) use to make sure that the formation remains packed at the sides?

If there was a rightward drift, and Thucydidies can be trusted for at least one percieved reason for it, hoplites wanting to cover their right side, then I think it natural that this would lead to crowding from left to right. It is usually assumed that whole units of men veered to the right, but kept their spacing, thus leading to a situation where two opposing blocks overlapped one eachother's right flank. I think it just as likely that spacing also reduced. This would not be formal, like a standard 1.5 foot decrease to what will later be called synaspsmos from close order. This may have been men who began with shields not overlapped at the start of the terminal "charge", ending with a slight overlap or at least less space between them. Adding up even small increments over the front of a line can lead to the percieved right wing overlap as both lines contract in opposite directions, even if there were no actual lateral movement at all to the right for the line as a whole. For me, I think it was something of a combination of drifting and contracting.

But yes, any "need" to push left ot cover your right, unshielded, side will tend to hold the crowd together in othismos.

And on the right because this is where the most effective men are placed that can push against the drift towards the right?

I think that officers would be more likely to be able to control any rightward drift, but as Giannis points out we have no clue why it started and where. This is simply food for thought.

In general I agree with all you wrote Giannis. One thing I have thought of is that othismos is perhaps the ultimate "democratic" tactic. You need every man in the unit to actively do something, and you benefit from unity within the group and the total spirit of the army. In doratismos, if you have a few front ranks of highly skilled fighters, the rest are basically moral support. If I had an army of farmers and I had to face the smaller, but professional group of warriors of a Tyrant, I'd sure love to be able to take it to othismos. When facing an opponent who is more highly skilled than you with a weapon, the best tactic is to close range on him so that he cannot use it effectively. If he has a spear, you move to sword range, if he has a sword, you move to knife range, and if he has a knife, you wrestle.

Then a second question becomes, once othismos was a possible stage of battle, how often was it used? Maybe it was a rare possibility at first, but always a threat. Maybe after its introduction it even went out of favor for a while and no battles actually lasted past doratismos. Then again, as you mentioned, those Spartans with their walk to battle that would allow them to maintain close spacing and enter othismos either quicker than their foes or directly on contact would seem to have a huge advantage. If I were an Argive and pulled up from my charge in with the file spacing a bit screwy and watched the Spartans walking right into "spear range" in tight files, I'd run too! Maybe this time they don't want to play at doratismos, and my file is not quite ready to support me.