05-19-2008, 07:22 PM
Isn't is possible that there are several rather different experiences of battle going on all together? At the center of a group of hoplites (I'm stearing clear of the term phalanx for some linguistic reasons) a hoplite would be pressed close and have some very limited fighting options. But.... for the men in the flank files, wouldn't there be a tendency to drift and to open up the combat? there always is in all the other periods I do--a combination of aggression and fear tend to widen the combat at the flanks while pressing it in the center.
Do we know how the Greeks fought as regard to "units?" I note that in Herodotus, as he lists the Greek contingents at Plataea, some are quite small; were they "brigaded?" (This seems to go against the tide of Greek history
) When an army was formed, were there gaps between contingents? My experience is in moving blocks of men, each block 100 or so, and even with training, given the "real" ground conditions of anything but a soccer pitch, the commander MUST have spaces in his line or the whole thing will collapse at the center where the pressure of marching proves intolerable as men seek to avoid everything from a puddle to a tree stump.
I'm asking all of this here because either we believe that the whole of a classical Greek army was in a single mass (as one would posit from say, Arrian et al, Onasander) in which case (1) the whole army only has say, ten files that are going to tend to "fan out" on the flanks, where single combat is possible or even likely--or (2) there are incremental gaps in the front, in which case, a great deal of the experience of hoplite warfare might well be "point of danger" fighting at the flank of a group.
Do we know how the Greeks fought as regard to "units?" I note that in Herodotus, as he lists the Greek contingents at Plataea, some are quite small; were they "brigaded?" (This seems to go against the tide of Greek history
) When an army was formed, were there gaps between contingents? My experience is in moving blocks of men, each block 100 or so, and even with training, given the "real" ground conditions of anything but a soccer pitch, the commander MUST have spaces in his line or the whole thing will collapse at the center where the pressure of marching proves intolerable as men seek to avoid everything from a puddle to a tree stump. I'm asking all of this here because either we believe that the whole of a classical Greek army was in a single mass (as one would posit from say, Arrian et al, Onasander) in which case (1) the whole army only has say, ten files that are going to tend to "fan out" on the flanks, where single combat is possible or even likely--or (2) there are incremental gaps in the front, in which case, a great deal of the experience of hoplite warfare might well be "point of danger" fighting at the flank of a group.
Qui plus fait, miex vault.
