Greeks always fought outnumbered?

[Nikanor]

Then you see that you could never adopt hoplite tactics in a vast army like the Roman or the Persian. It would be impossible to move around 100,000 hoplites and their armors for 1000s of km. Philip's reforms and the introduction of the sarissa that required a much lighter outfit could be the result of the effort to scale down both overall weight as well as expenses and logistics.

Not sure where you are getting this from. All that a hoplite needed to be a hoplite was an aspis and a dory...>
>...Its clear from the Anabasis just how little heavy armor the mercs had. Xenophon's march shows that obviously a hoplite army could march very far in hoplite kit. ...>
>...I don't buy your argument.

I welcome your refusal to buy my argument since my argumentation is based on common logic and simple weight calculations than any direct reference of ancient sources in this case. So I do need to test it myself (do not think I am vertical on my opinion here).

But then we have first to set our definitions:

- Do we use the term hoplite in the ancient sense, man at arms? Because that could be whatever type of soldier.
- Or in the modern sense of a heavily armed infanrty fighting mostly in dense formations?

I did the 2nd, you do seem to choose the first and historically you are more correct than me.

So I was referring strictly to hoplite heavy infantry dense formation tactics. I do believe on the basis of the mere equipment that this could not had been easily transported and then of course worn by an important % of vanguard and rear-guards during long campaigns.

You refer to Xenophon where we see that the mercenary hoplites that campaigned deep into Asia became considerably aleviated in relation to the established mid 5th century standard. But this was mostly in their exit phase - in which they used every other skill of theirs on top of their dense hoplite formations! Earlier in the battle of Cunaxa they seem to had taken their traditional role of heavier infantry which implies heavier equipment than just a shield and a spear. They were a mere 13,000, so no problem for Cyrus's vastly bigger army plus non-combattants to carry such equipment. Alexander had too heavier troops but they were just a fraction of his troops. What he could not have is an army of say 30-40,000 heavy hoplites carrying their own stuff all over the place. This was possible for 200-300 kms if extraordinary events required it but impossible for several 1000s.

Now, could an aleviated hoplite force resort to phalanx tactics? Yes it could. Indeed you need just a spear and a shield to achieve the basics. Would it be successful? Yes, but as a dense formation only against an equally aleviated enemy that decided to face them head on. If having opposite a heavily-clad "proper" phalanx they would stand no chance and any descent leader would turn them into a short of hoplite-peltasts trying rather to harass than rally hit head-on. We could still call them hoplites, others would be tempted to call them peltasts. This was shown repeatedly during the Peloponesian war: the increased need for mobility coupled by strained economics meant that phalanxes had scaled down their needs in terms of equipment which actually led to the huge employment of non-phalanx tactics with light infantry and peltats even becoming prime troops something quite unthinkable 100-150 years earlier. When later on in 4th century proper phalanxes regained their place, heavy armors were back too.

So attention that the mere title "Greek soldier" or "hoplite" does not equate to strict hoplite tactics. Greek hoplites were versed in a much wider spectrum of warfare than dense formations. But in my above statement I was implying "proper hoplite tactics". I.e. lots of weight and dense formations.

So what I meant above was that, it was tactically impossible to send a sizeable army of "proper" heavy Greek hoplites in a distant campaign abroad. Practically it could had been possible but only after sending extraordinary wasteful amounts of... minions backing their logistics, which would end up in winning a couple of battles and losing the overall war. It simply was not feasible. Romans moved their average weight-equiped army only after taking decades of painstakingly organising allies and bases and provisions and still in most of their Empire making they were not really heavily clad as the hoplite mostly carrying an oval shield (one that was not really that difficult to make on spot too) a spear and a light type pot-helmet. But then even so, they had all these Greek navies to carry their troops. Even their later more sophisticated equipment like the chain armors were easier to make on the spot - its chain rings! - no1 reason that made this type popular. The more complex lorica segmentatas are mostly found in proximity campaigns (eg. in the Danubian area) and only on the western fronts associated with established bases and camps - i.e. not moving far away from basis. They are almost totally absent for the longer campaigns of the Eastern front throughout the centuries, perhaps for apparent reasons of logistics. Now, the typical Hoplite equipment from armors (composite linothoraces) to helmets (corinthian or attic ones) to shields (composite ones with particular inner structure) was of higher standards and more complex so that it had to be made prior and carried to battle, where there would be no base around. Scale it down? Yes feasible but then what, hoplites with shields and spears? Or peltasts? They would certainly not involve the same tactics as a heavy, "proper", hoplite.

The Macedonian army ended up altering all-together the rules of the earlier hoplite game. By increasing the length of their pikes they then needed lighter equipment (up to a maximum of 1/3 of earlier weight) and of course much cheaper one. As for the pikes, for the majority of them this could imply carrying only the heads, joints and savroters.The heavy wood needed could be supplied on the spot. But still even if they carried the totality, the overall weight was still a bit smaller but then the economics involved were of considerably lower scale. They knew were to find wood that was not difficult nor too expensive, nor would it be so difficult to treat the wood into the shape of the pike's components - I guess a large number of soldiers would be themselves well versed in doing so, if not part of standard training for all.

Nikos (Νικόλαος)