Deconstructing Polybius - an example

[Macedon]

No enemy formation is easy to break. But Polybius clearly states the limitations of the Macedonian styled phalanx.

Polybius 18.25: 6-7:
"The Macedonians now, having no one to give them orders and being unable to adopt the formation proper to the phalanx, in part owing to the difficulty of the ground and in part because they were trying to reach the combatants and were still in marching order and not in line, 7 did not even wait until they were at close quarters with the Romans, but gave way thrown into confusion and broken up by the elephants alone."
Battle of Cynoscephalae

At Cynoscephalae, Philip attacked the Romans with his left wing, which had enough time to be properly deployed before the advance of the Romans. Now, these men were deployed on the same battlefield which was not as you and most non-Greeks, or better non-Southerners imagine. Greek hills are much rougher than what most believe them to be, even our valleys and plains are mostly broken with countless ravines and streams. There is almost no terrain like that you mainly meet in the US and in northern Europe. Now, staying with Polybius and not trying to bring outside paradigms which are aplenty, Philip crushed the legions in front of him and was defeated only when outflanked by the legions on the right, which, and this is also important, did NOT believe it their duty and standard tactic to attack the Macedonians on their rear. It took the initiative of a certain unnamed Roman officer to do so. The right wing of the Romans attacked the Macedonians as the latter were still deploying in phalanx. This means that most of their phalanx was still in columns taking position as they reached the ridge from the road from their camp, which, I hope you do not disagree, is considered one of the most advantageous circumstances for an organized enemy to attack. So, where the Macedonian phalanx was ready for battle, they defeated the Romans, where they were not, they were defeated. Would you use this as an example of the "superiority" of the Roman system in the battle-field? I certainly would not. On the contrary. The difficulty of the ground mentioned, for it certainly was one of the reasons why the phalanx could not deploy more quickly. only proves that the whole hill(s) was not even, which shows how an ordered phalanx fared in such a terrain.

Plus, we are not talking about easiness. We are talking about simple statistics. Just make a list of the battles in which the Republican Romans defeated a Greek phalanx face to face and then make one of battles which they simply won. You will easily find out, that the one was not a per-requisite for the other.

Pol 18.31:5-11
" Again, it is acknowledged that the phalanx requires level and clear ground with no obstacles such as ditches, clefts, clumps of trees, ridges and water courses, 6 all of which are sufficient to impede and break up such a formation. p1557 Every one would also acknowledge that it is almost impossible except in very rare cases to find spaces of say twenty stades or even more in length with no such obstacles. 8 But even if we assume it to be possible, supposing those who are fighting against us refuse to meet us on such ground, but force round sacking the cities and devastating the territory of our allies, what is the use of such a formation? 9 For by remaining on the ground that suits it, not only is it incapable of helping its friends but cannot even ensure its own safety. 10 For the arrival of supplies will easily be prevented by the enemy, when they have undisturbed command of the open country. 11 But if the phalanx leaves the ground proper to it and attempts any action, it will be easily overcome by the enemy."
Comparison of Macedonian Infantry vs Roman Infantry

So? This is exactly what I am saying. On the battle-field, the phalanx was superior when frontally engaged. The Roman system was superior in the overall campaign demands. Isn't this what I supported? I will also point out that a problem most researchers have is to understand what a Greek means by the anyways subjective words "open" or "even" country. Polybius was Greek. He mostly traveled in countries with similar topography (Italy, maybe Asia minor). This is why he talks about battlegrounds as wide as 20 stades (about 3.8 km). And there was no open ground without certain difficult geographical features, mostly because these few level areas were used for agriculture. Also keep in mind that the Romans also fought their battles in "open" ground as did most armies. The problem for the Greeks was that when the Romans came, wars stopped being won by single battles as was done before them. This was their great power. And, as I also pointed out, although some strongly support that the Romans took advantage of little gaps in the enemy army and so on, Polybius certainly does not support this idea as a standard Roman tactic. The reason for that, in my opinion, is that it is a very big decision to take for any officer. If every Roman centurion was free to take initiative, many would make the wrong call which would lead to disaster. Initiatives were not welcome in any army, especially that of the Romans, and those who took them would mostly be executed should they not calculate things well with their limited perspective of things...

Where? In what context. I only know of one, Pol 11.23. But I did find this part interesting...

Pol 29.17
"Aemilius the consul, who had never seen a phalanx until this occasion in the war with Perseus, often confessed afterwards to certain persons in Rome that he had never seen anything more terrible p73and dreadful than a Macedonian phalanx, and this although he had witnessed and directed as many battles as any man."
Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus at the Battle of Pydna

Macedon wrote:
A well-trained phalanx was not "rigid" on the battlefield. There is a misunderstanding here.

Polybius provides information to the contrary.

Pol 18.30:4
"But these men by the sheer pressure of their bodily weight in the charge add to its force, and it is quite impossible for the first ranks to face about."

Pol 18.31:9
"Now in all these matters the Macedonian formation is at times of little use and at times of no use at all, because the phalanx soldier can be of service neither in detachments nor singly, while the Roman formation is efficient."

Although I did not only speak of Polybius, you can check Pol.3.73.7., 3.115.12, 11.22.9, 15.12.8. etc etc. All these are examples, in which the Romans are "formed in phalanx." Btw, mainly for the rest following this thread, the term that Arrian uses for a legion is "phalanx", interesting even if it has nothing to do with the legion of Scipio.

Your other quotes I guess go against my objection as to the notion of "rigidness". I think you mix up battle-field tactics with non-battle-field tactics. When most people call the Macedonian phalanx "rigid", they mistakingly mean that it was a steam roller set on the field and then allowed to stampede on everything in front of it but that was it. Maybe this is what you also think. This is wrong and Polybius' quotes have nothing to do with that. On the battle-field, a well-trained phalanx (no ill-trained army was really efficient anyways) could easily change its formation and do stuff other than just push forward. The examples are too many to count, I think that anyone who studies the sources knows of at least some. Chaeronea, Arbela, Sellasia, Magnesia, these are some examples and of course talking only about the Macedonian (pike-armed) phalanx. There are many more examplesas well as the testimony of the manuals themselves as to the tactical capabilities of the phalanx. Polybius talks about armies that have to send out detachments to do a number of tasks, from ambushes to forage gathering, from pursuits to convoy protection. For such tasks, the Macedonians simply used their auxiliaries or cavalry and these could never be as effective as the real backbone of an army as were the legionaries. As for the first ranks being unable to turn, this is an advantage on the field but a disadvantage once you have been broken, which is why a broken phalanx was a much easier prey than a broken Roman formation.

I agree to an extent. But what source do you provide that prove the Republican era Romans and Socii aligned in close order? Other than Cannae, where Polybius says:

"He stationed the Roman cavalry close to the river on the right wing and the foot next to them in the same line, placing the maniples closer together than was formerly the usage and making the depth of each many times exceed its front." 3.113

I know that are plenty of other sources that discount some of the things Polybius wrote about. I only bring up these to show that not everyone thought alike back then as well. Opinions are like a certain orifice, everyone has one and thinks theirs smells better than the next...

I brought up Heracleion of which I will again speak later.

Regarding Polybius, I love him. He is one of my favorites. However, this has nothing to do with whether he, or any other author, has made mistakes or not. I never base my deductions on such arguments as you should not base yours on Polybius alone. Unfortunately, Polybius does make some strangely silly mistakes (valuable in themselves since even mistakes can be used to understand how an author interprets certain facts), like for example in his very important and interesting attack on Callisthenes.

Pol 28.11
"Heracleum was taken in a peculiar manner. The town had a low wall of no great extent on one side, and to attack this the Romans employed three picked maniples. 2 The men of the first held their shields over their heads, and closed up, so that, owing to the density of the bucklers, it became like a tiled roof. The other two in succession..."

To me, this means that in this situation, the Roman maniple in question lifted their shields up and then moved closer to one another (into close order from open order). Note: This does not descibe how they always did it, just how they did it in this incident.

The Greek text reads :

Τὸ Ἡράκλειον ἥλω ἰδίαν τινὰ ἅλωσιν. ἐχούσης τῆς πόλεως ἐφ’ ἑνὸς μέρους ἐπ’ ὀλίγον τόπον ταπεινὸν τεῖχος, οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι τρεῖς σημείας προεχειρίσαντο. καὶ
τῇ μὲν πρώτῃ τοὺς θυρεοὺς ὑπὲρ τῆς κεφαλῆς ποιήσαντες συνέφραξαν, ὥστε τῇ τῶν ὅπλων πυκνότητι κεραμωτῷ καταρρύτῳ γίνεσθαι παραπλήσιον. ἐφεξῆς δ’ ἕτεραι δύο

This is a very good example of how a source could be misunderstood when one cannot really read the original. The translation reads "bucklers"... Imagine someone trying to form an opinion on the Romans having abandoned the thyreos for a buckler... However, regarding the bolded part, it is indeed the men who closed up in a formation that they would not have used for the first time. It only shows that, as circumstances dictated, the Romans could employ denser formations which is enough to prove that they did sometimes deploy in close formation. I said nothing more and nothing less. Knowing that they did employ both open and close order, as Polybius attests, it is then up to us to decide when they employed which, without really coming at odds with the author. Plus, you use the word "always" wrongly. If the Romans deployed in close order even once then they did not "always" employ open order. I guess you mean "most often" or "usually", which does not exclude close order as you seem to try to do. In all, the fact that Polybius describes the Roman battle system as lines interchanging is at odds with, for example, Cannae and Zama, both battles that he described in length, but this does not mean that these battles didn't take place in the manner he described, which also clearly shows that the Romans adopted their tactics to circumstances rather than stubbornly adhering to some adamant principle.