The Makedonian phalanx -- why such depth?

[Paullus Scipio]

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...

You seem a little confused. Lacunae in the original text are nothing to do with a particular translation...other than two translators might 'fill in' those lacunae differently. Why do you attack the fact that the De Selincourt translation is generally regarded as the best? That is not my view but rather the common view....Perhaps it is you who have chosen an old translation that supports a particular viewpoint. Since you and I are not Greek language scholars, we can hardly comment on the accuracy of translations, but fortunately it is irrelevant to the point at issue. Where they stood is immaterial, the point is that the dimoirites -defined in the manuals as a 'half-file leader'- existed in the armies of Alexander and Ptolemy I.

I'm afraid I have no great respect for Bosworth's views in this instance. When it comes to matters military, he is something of an "armchair theorist" ( though of course we all are when it comes to ancient warfare). His conclusion for Alexander's reasons for the re-organisation I find singularly unconvincing.There is no evidence that 'double pay' and 'ten stater' men were only introduced for the 'new fangled' Phalanx, in fact just the opposite, as references to them in the traditional Macedonian phalanx of Ptolemy I demonstrate. To suggest that Alexander's men carried shorter sarissae than later armies is also highly controversial. To suggest that the 'new' Phalanx was not trained or drilled and incapable of manouevres ,is, to my mind, purely speculative and very 'un-Alexandrian'.It is more likely the 'new' Phalanx could perform all the drills and manouevres of the old, since the files ( or half-files if my hypothesis is correct) had merely to follow their leaders, front and rear, who were highly trained Macedonians....anyone with knowledge of drill ( which clearly does not include Bosworth) will know how little training is necessary to produce drill of the relatively low standard of the manuals.

Finally, I would dispute his conclusion that it was an attempt to make the best use of 'untrained manpower'. The Successors had little trouble in utilising this same manpower to produce Macedonian type Phalanxes, so Alexander could have too. The new formation was for a purpose, and a likely one, given it's characteristics, is a war against the Nomad Horse archers.

All of this, is irrelevant to the point at issue, as I said in my last post. Whether the views of Bosworth, which you uncritically regurgitate here are correct or not, it is clear that ' half file leaders' existed continuously from at least the time of Xenophon and probably earlier, down to the final days of the Phalanx.