Battle order

[L C Cinna]

Hello everyone.<br>
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I have a question concerning Roman battle order and behavior. In practically all of the books I read (except in Delbrueck) so far the writers say that in the Republican army the spacing between the manipels was about the size of 1 manipel, in the Imperial legion we have the typical cohort formation with the big spaces.<br>
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Now logically it is the formation for deployment but they can't fight like that. That would put the legion to a serious disadvantage and that would be completely stupid from a military point of view.<br>
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So here's my question as I haven't heard about this yet. WHEN did they close the gaps?<br>
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I know from reading different authors that they usually sent in the first line first (hastati or antesignani however you want to call them). So the other lines would not fight in the beginning. This tells us that the 2nd row Manipels for example didn't march up to close the gaps. So the 1st row must have closed the gaps themselves.<br>
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Did they do it<br>
a) before they started to march towards the enemy?<br>
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b)they marched up to pilum throwing range, and then closed the gap after they'd thrown their pila while they charged (this seems quite unlikely to me as it would put them into danger of being attacked while the gaps are still open)<br>
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thank you <p></p><i></i>