Phalange Mixte

[Sean Manning]

That is an interesting passage!

As an aside I think it is interesting that onlt 3 ranks are sarissaphoroi in Alex's scheme. This implies to me that the sarissa length in his phalanx was such that only 3 ranks could functionally bring their weapons to bear at once, or were seen as needing to, as opposed to the 5 ranks polybios describes.

I don't think it implies a shorter sarissa. If the idea was to stand off enemies and disorder them with missiles, you wouldn't need so many ranks of pikes as you would if the pikes were supposed to charge aggressively forward. But we never see the mixed phalanx in use, so its hard to tell how Alexander wanted to use it. We also don't know if the Persians were still using such mixed formations in Alexander's day as they had in Herodotus'.

Formations of missile troops behind spearmen were very common in the middle ages, but I don't know of any ancient examples other than Alexander. Wait- isn't Arrian's Battle-Array Against the Alans similar?