Roman Battle Formations Mid Republic to Late Rep.

[Timus]

The Greek terms for a formation with smaller units being separated from each other with intervals of some length was "speiridon" for infantry and "ileidon" for cavalry.

That sounds interesting. If I understand you correctly (English is not my 1st language either^^), the Greeks had a word to describe a formation with gaps.
So for instance, when Xenophon describe the usual battle formation of the 10 thousands, I guess he's using an expression that doesn't imply gaps, but when he describes his formation in IV,VIII,10 (see here: https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=...=GBS.PA140 ), he must be using a word that implies gap ?

For those that believes that gaps were just a no go in ancient warfare, Xenophon at least proved that an army could deploy this way successfully. See from IV.VIII.10 till 14.
His reasoning is very interesting:

1/ the nature of the battlefield won't allow a line to remain unbroken anyway.
2/ If we're too deep, the enemy will overlap us, and the enemy wings will be free to use that advantage.
3/ If we're too thin to prevent 2/, then the line risk being broken by the enemy in certain points which will be no good for the whole battle line.
4/ But if we have gaps then we can overlap the enemy while each sub-unit is free to maneuver around obstacles. If the enemy tries to go for the gaps, then our sub-units be in a position to attack him from two sides. And each sub-unit will be deep enough not to be easily broken. Finally, if a sub-unit finds itself in difficulty, then neighboring units will be free to keep maneuvering and either push through or help the unit in trouble.

In the end, Xenophon describe his battle line as being made up of 80 sub-units of about a 100 men(?) plus 3 divisions of light troops.
It does tell us that gaps could be maintained in combat as long as each unit was close enough to support one another and deep enough to stand on their own. And using them allowed an army to overlap or at least match the flank of a numerically superior foe. But he had to convince his army first ! So c. 400BC, gaps were indeed not something natural. Could the Romans have just reached the same conclusions on their own and use that as their basic battle formation ?

Out of curiosity, I'd really like to see a greek-english version of that part of the text, if anybody could help me with that, I'd be really grateful : )