Othismos true nature

[PMBardunias]

Unfortunately,even the Spartan Warband,the SCA team,that have enough members,do not lock shields and they don't even fight overhand. This ruins all the intelligence of a phalanx formation,and I'd say it waists the team's strenght. But I may be wrong,because I don't know the SCA regulations.

I was told years ago that a true othismos-style collision was not allowed. I don't know if this is true.

Paul,I think it's impossible that the front rankers,even if they had some space from the following ones, had any time to start spear fencing. I mean,lets say they charched and stoped just before the enemy's spear reach. Do you imagine 7 or more ranks just waiting behind them? And I don't think that once they started joging with a given speed,they could then slow down without the rear ranks pushing them instantly onto the enemy.

I'm putting together a little cartoon film to demonstrate this, I'll link you when its done. We often talk of the spacing between hopites laterally, but rarely do we conside the space between ranks in a charge. Surely this was at least 2 meters to keep men from tripping eachother. Even at a fast jog, if the men in front of you slow down and stop, you will have time to stop as well if they are 2 meters ahead of you. Remember, you are not charging bliond, you can see around the front rank and know you are close to the enemy and predict the stop. What I think is possible, especially in the early hoplite phalanx is that they did simply stop at spear range and fight for the time it took all 8 ranks to tighten up. If we accept 2 meters between ranks, which I think is conservative, then when you in the front rank stop, the 8th rank is 14 meters behind you. This will take more than a few seconds to tighten up. While this is occurring the front two ranks are probably spear fensing with the first 2 enemy ranks. The ranks get tighter and tighter until some limit, basically aspis to back, is reached and then the whole mass shuffles forward into collision.

On the other hand,what's the difference between the "doratismos" and "othismos"? I think there is no clear difference in the two phases,when both accured.

This is a good point. too often this has been portrayed as an either/or scenario. The overhand thrust allows striking in othismos, so the doratismos really never ends.

If you're interested in my understanding of it, I think there was an instant crash of the formations.This would be where many spears would break,and where shields could be penetrated. As we saw in the vids,the two formations would stop each other's charge.

True, but you'll notice they all formed packed ranks before they charged. I used to agree that the charge came immediately at the end of the run. You will often read about using the charges momentum, but this is probably wrong based on all I have learned about how to win a pushing match. If not shield to back, when you collide the momentum is as useless as the men slamming into the packed lines in the video clip.

Locked shields(or even not quite locked during the running but increasingly locked as the men took their place again in the lines) would prevent the mixing of the formations.Now remember that the big round,heavy and hollow shield would act rather differently than those narrow medieval ones. It would be even more difficult to penetrate the formation,even without an orderly packed phalanx.

I'd love to see a collision like in that video with overlapping shields. I'd love to know if they stayed in the press of combat long enough for men to be crushed too much to breathe.

Now,I think after the formations stopped,the pushing did not start at once,as the ultimate purpose of the hoplites. The formation would start becoming tighter and tighter,but at least for some moments the dront rankers would have the space to move their arms and try some targeted hits. They may even have made a step back from the enemy,to have the ability to target the front rankers and to avoid the second and third rank's spears.

From that description, I'm not sure we are disagreeing. The front ranks could have "crashed" into the men in front of them in the doratismos I described at the beginning phase, I just thing its impossible that all the ranks crashed in formation. Remember the spacing, there needed to be a delay for the rear to catch up and tighten. This can happen in one of two ways and proably occured in both ways at different times. Either each successive rank starts to push against the men in front as they arrive, or each rank arrives, then gradually starts to push after they tighten. What I don't see happening is the front ranks crashing into eachother and immediately starting to push as some would have it.

Third step,I think it happened naturally that as the rear rankers were trying to reach the enemy over their fellows' shoulders,they pushed them forward and forward and when all front rankers where fighting shield to shield- helmet to helmet with the enemy,then it was the job of the rear rankers to push them,as if they wanted to penetrate the enemy formation just with pushing and not with killing them. I also imagine that pushing was inevitable,the rear rankers feeling the pressure from the fighters in front of them. At that point killing must have been difficult. Perhaps the laconian sword was the most efective way to kill,as you could maneuver it just with your wrist,being unable to move your arm properly.

I agree, and surely that is how the whole idea of othismos began. Later armies, and here I think is the key to spartan success, arrived in such good order and perhaps with less space between ranks, that they could move very swiftly to the othismos phase.

Now we should again remind everybody that no hoplite battle was exactly the same. I could even say that in large armies both your theory and mine happened in the same time in different parts of the field.

well said, I agree

I don't know if once the othismos started it was possible to unlock the formations just a bit and start again spear fencing(thoratismos).Though it seems unlikely without breaking the ranks.

I'm not sure myself. This concept has been put forward to explain the length of battles and even in the video we saw what looked like a mutual pull-back to make room to swing those poleaxes. For the formation to loosen, it would have to do so from the rear, so its possible that once the men are exausted and the pushing falters, the rear rankers loosen up.

Any disagreement we have is now narrowed down to really fine points, so we are pretty much in agreement. Do you agree that they probably pushed facing the enemy not shoulder on? This point alone is a big departure from the prevailing theory.