Roman Phalangites?

[Spartan198]

I heard something a while back about the Roman army experimenting with Macedonian phalangite tactics (the so-called "phalangarius", as it was reputedly called), but I haven't been able to find anything to back it up.

Is there any truth to this?

[zugislander]

Hello,

I believe that it was Caracalla for his planned invasion of the Parthians (?). Anyway it was in the early 200's if memory serves. They show a representation in the Roman Military clothing book for the period from Osprey.

Cordially,

Michael

[Mitra]

Like Michael tell you, was Carcalla which enlist 16000 young macedonians for own phalanx, Cassio Dio describes the equipment; Herodian add a Spartan cohort.

I found this page over this argument; appears interesting to open a discussion:

http://tabulaenovaeexercituum.pbwiki.co ... rial+Roman

[Urselius]

By the time of Julian we know from descriptions that the Roman infantry had re-adopted a type of phalanx tactics. The use of the hasta and the interlocked shields described by Ammianus and Jordanes can mean nothing else. The Late Roman phalanx differed from the earlier Greek phalanx in one major respect: the rear ranks retained the use of missiles. In a way it was a reversal of the manipular legion; instead of the phalanx, triarii, being at the back behind the javelineers, they were at the front.

[Robert Vermaat]

By the time of Julian we know from descriptions that the Roman infantry had re-adopted a type of phalanx tactics. The use of the hasta and the interlocked shields described by Ammianus and Jordanes can mean nothing else.

I must strongly deny this. Although the late Roman army (and not since Julian but probably already around the time of Constantine or even before) was no longer fighting in a primarily manipular fashion, it was by no means comparable to the Classic Greek hoplite tactics. Roman infantry training was very different from the Greek popular armies. But the infantry itself was not the main arm (as in Classic Greek hoplite tactics), this was the cavalry.

Late Roman armies sure interlocked shield and fought with the spear - but so did the Germanic tribes, and I would bet no-one would compare these to Greeek hoplite warfare..

The Late Roman phalanx differed from the earlier Greek phalanx in one major respect: the rear ranks retained the use of missiles. In a way it was a reversal of the manipular legion; instead of the phalanx, triarii, being at the back behind the javelineers, they were at the front.

This way of fighting may always have remained part of the Roman tactics available on the battlefield. It's just that during the 'manipular period', it was rarely used. But Arrian describes something similar during the 2nd c. AD, and Everett Wheeler describes several battles in which such tactics were used.

Please forget the 'classic' idea of triarii when it come to Late Roman armies. I know they are described by Vegetius, but this source, although important, is difficult to use when it come to details. From what we know, Late Roman infantry was indeed the most heavy at the front, while missile fire was kept at a constant and heavy rate from the ranks behind.

Vegetius may have read sseveral military manuals dating from very different periods - and made them into a hypothetical truth. Late Roman armies may well have had battle lines, but descriptionss do not support differences in armament the way Vegetius describes them. Maurice is a better source.

[Urselius]

Virtually all authorities have the infantry still being the deciding factor in Roman battles before c.450 AD, after this date cavalry become progressively more important relative to the infantry, but not before. Look at the accounts of Julian's campaigns, his cavalry have an almost unrelieved poor record - he was seemingly always dressing them up in women's clothing or 'decimating' them as punishments for poor performance in action.

I, for one, would call any infantry formation armed with thrusting-spears, standing in a reasonably deep formation with their shields locked a phalanx. Be they paean-singing Greeks, barritus-raising Romans or even hairy Franks reeking of rancid butter. There you go, I've done it, I see Germanic phalanxes all over the place.

Call it a phalanx, a testudo (like Ammianus or Jordanes) or a bord-weall its all the same formation at heart.

Yes, Maurice is a good source he even gives us the term for a Late Roman phalanx - the 'fulcum.'

Can you give me a working practical definition of a phalanx as a battle tactic which excludes non-Greek practitioners of the use of thrusting spears and locked shields? Bearing in mind that recruitment methods, regularity of bathing, or knowledge of the Iliad have no real impact on the effectiveness of a bunch of men in a line standing with overlapped shields and spears at the ready.

[Paulus Claudius Damianus]

Call it a phalanx, a testudo (like Ammianus or Jordanes) or a bord-weall its all the same formation at heart.

Yes, Maurice is a good source he even gives us the term for a Late Roman phalanx - the 'fulcum.

I'm really desagree with this sentences. Phalanx, testudo are not the same thing and fulcum is not a "late roman phalanx". So, in the famous Strasbourg battle again, all units doesn't fight in locked shield fomation. The mention to a locked shield formation for the late roman is very rare. Yes to Strasbourg battle in some part like to the "caput porci" or angainst a heavy cavalry charge but others?

Late roman Phalanx? Indeed, but as Wheeler, grec mecanical phalanx technics like "othysmos" or "synaspismos" adapted to the roman army but not a literrary phalanx. Formal Technics appliqued at situations but certainly not the conventionnal late roman battle order.

Of course this is just my point of view but to me, the battle situation don't reduce at only one tactical solution.

[Urselius]

Call it a phalanx, a testudo (like Ammianus or Jordanes) or a bord-weall its all the same formation at heart.

Yes, Maurice is a good source he even gives us the term for a Late Roman phalanx - the 'fulcum.

I'm really desagree with this sentences. Phalanx, testudo are not the same thing and fulcum is not a "late roman phalanx". So, in the famous Strasbourg battle again, all units doesn't fight in locked shield fomation. The mention to a locked shield formation for the late roman is very rare. Yes to Strasbourg battle in some part like to the "caput porci" or angainst a heavy cavalry charge but others?

Late roman Phalanx? Indeed, but as Wheeler, grec mecanical phalanx technics like "othysmos" or "synaspismos" adapted to the roman army but not a literrary phalanx. Formal Technics appliqued at situations but certainly not the conventionnal late roman battle order.

Of course this is just my point of view but to me, the battle situation don't reduce at only one tactical solution.

Ammianus uses the word 'testudo' for two distinctly different situations: a) for the formation of soldiers in an attack on the gateway of a Persian fort, which Julian led personally, and b) for the formation of at least some of the Roman units in open battle at Strasbourg.

You may like to think of 'a)' as being a "classic testudo" and 'b)' as being a shield-wall, and I might say it's a phalanx , but Ammianus did not make that distinction. It is a bit late to ask him to clarify his terminology.

Jordanes describes what Attila said about the Romans just before the Battle of Chalons, “they [the Romans] come together in formation and form a battle line with locked shieldsâ€

[Mitra]

I think we going a little out of original topic. The point is nature of Caracalla phalangarii (they are armed adn fight like in old macedonian style?), not the infantry unit tactics which depend from the ad hoc necessity over the field of battle.

[Robert Vermaat]

Virtually all authorities have the infantry still being the deciding factor in Roman battles before c.450 AD, after this date cavalry become progressively more important relative to the infantry, but not before. Look at the accounts of Julian's campaigns, his cavalry have an almost unrelieved poor record - he was seemingly always dressing them up in women's clothing or 'decimating' them as punishments for poor performance in action.

Eh? Are you sure that 'all authorities' do not mean 350 rather than 450? If not, please tell us what authorities you are referring to. As to Julian, apart from one incident where this happened (Strasbourg), please tell me where Julian also did this to his 'poorly performing' cavalry.

Urselius\\n[quote] Ammianus uses the word 'testudo' for two distinctly different situations: a) for the formation of soldiers in an attack on the gateway of a Persian fort, which Julian led personally, and b) for the formation of at least some of the Roman units in open battle at Strasbourg.

You may like to think of 'a)' as being a "classic testudo" and 'b)' as being a shield-wall, and I might say it's a phalanx , but Ammianus did not make that distinction. It is a bit late to ask him to clarify his terminology.

Jordanes describes what Attila said about the Romans just before the Battle of Chalons, “they [the Romans] come together in formation and form a battle line with locked shieldsâ€

[Urselius]

Please read this:

http://www.duke.edu/web/classics/grbs/F ... Rance2.pdf

also:

Lendon, J.E. (2005). Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity. ISBN 978-0-300-11979-4.

Hugh Elton (though his book is titled only to 425) accords primacy to the infantry in the period before 450. Though I would agree that the period c.420-480 was a transitional period in which cavalry were increaing in prominence. There was certainly a switch in the relative importance of infantry and cavalry between the abortive anti-Vandal campaigns of the mid-5th century and the campaigns of Belisarius, but no one has managed to pin-point a reform or reformer of the Roman army with any precision. Some commentators see Aetius as being influential, but this is really based solely on his use of Hunnic troops and ignores the comments attributed to Atilla by Jordanes (as quoted above).

Julian 'decimated' a cavalry unit on his Persian expedition - he thought decimating was choosing ten men from a unit at random and executing them, his antiquarianism seems to have been faulty here.

Gladius had a primary meaning of 'sword' in Latin. Modern sword collectors think a 'kilic' is a specific type of broad-bladed, well curved, short sabre with an expanded yelman, but this doesn't prevent its primary meaning in the Turkish language being just 'sword.' In an identical case we 'modern people interested in Roman warfare' tend to think of and use the word 'gladius' in a more restricted way than the Romans did themselves.

I would agree that the 'fulcum' is not identical with 'phalanx', but I think that when a unit employing a fulcum reached the enemy infantry it then went on to fight shoulder to shoulder in a type of phalanx. The troops had no room to do anything else. When a fulcum met the enemy face to face the front ranks would still have had locked shields (how could they move apart?) and they would have then fought much more like a Greek phalanx than the shortsword-armed Roman infantry of earlier times.

[PMBardunias]

This topic has touched upon a pet peeve of mine. The phalanx is a very specific formation and cannot be simply lumped with all formed men with spears.

Call it a phalanx, a testudo (like Ammianus or Jordanes) or a bord-weall its all the same formation at heart.

The mechanics of these formations are vastly different. Any examination of function would have to separate a hoplite phalanx, a phalanx of sarissaphoroi, a fulcum, and a board-weall (here I assume this to mean a single row of overlapped sheilds as opposed to s fulcum which may have been made of 2 rows).

Can you give me a working practical definition of a phalanx as a battle tactic which excludes non-Greek practitioners of the use of thrusting spears and locked shields? Bearing in mind that recruitment methods, regularity of bathing, or knowledge of the Iliad have no real impact on the effectiveness of a bunch of men in a line standing with overlapped shields and spears at the ready.

I can, and it is funny that my answer is foreshadowed by your joke. The word phalanx should only be used in the context of Greek formations. This can be broken into a 'hoplite phalanx" and a "sarissa-armed phalanx" or phalanx in the macedonian fashion", but I would just call the hoplite formation a phalanx and use the more specific term for macedonian-style phalanxes for simplicity.

Why? Because the term simply refers to any formed body of men or horses in the greek sense. Thus, we give it a special meaning for "thrusting spears and locked shields". This is an arbitrary choice on our part that is based on the fact that greek authors often, but not exclusively, referred to non-greek formations of formed infantry as phalanxes. In the original sense there can be phalanxes of cavalry and peltasts.

The logic is the same as that applied to swords:

"Gladius had a primary meaning of 'sword' in Latin...In an identical case we 'modern people interested in Roman warfare' tend to think of and use the word 'gladius' in a more restricted way than the Romans did themselves."

We do this because gladius to us defines a specific type of sword for us and has become jargon. We call it thus because that is what those who made it called it. Just as there is no percieved problem with the use of specific terms such as Xiphos, Gladius, seax, etc., there should be no problem with calling "spear and shield" formations by specific names- phalanx, fulcum, whatever that Gallic term was, whatever the Sumerian terms was, etc.

Applying the term phalanx to all these formation obscures essential differences in the same way that calling a rapier, a falchion, a dao, and a roman sword all Gladii would. It is only out of our ignorance of the differences, those in the sword types are obvious, that we seem to be able to group them.

[Robert Vermaat]

Martin,

You are talking about the time when cavalry became dominant. I'm not. Cavalry already increased in importance during the 3rd c., when the cavalry units grew from the old ala of 120 horses to more than 700. This was also the time from which pure cavalry units were raised. the number of cavalry increased hugely in number. It never dominated the onfantry (at least not before the time that you mention), the numbers in the field army being roughly 50:50 at most. But cavalry did become the way to win battles, with the infantry now in a defensive role. that was what I was trying to get across.

Ok, so Julian punisjed his cavalry for disobediance - twice? Not quite what your exaggerated statement implied, then? :wink:

Yes, 'gladius' is a commonly used for 'sword', and if that was the only archaic word in Ammianus' text it would not stir interest. But he archaises quite a bit, with 'Parthians' of course (being a century dead) a dead giveaway. hence my assumption that 'testudo' might also be an old word, seeing that 'fulcum' descibes alos both the formations described by Ammianus. No matter.

Back to the phalanx. I think that you are beginning to see the point. the ol;d phalanx fought in a straight front, indeed like the Late Roman infantry. But that is it. The rest differs - the LR army had missile barrages, strong cavalry flanks, artillery support, plus a choice of several infantry formations that totally differed from the classic phalanx.
And of course we're not even speaking about the Macedonian phalanx with its two-handed sarissas and no sword fighting at all, which resembles the LR tactics even less.

That's my point- the LR army used a 'phalangial' formation (resembling, but not the same as), but it did not fight 'in a phalanx'.

[Marcus_Ulpius_Trajanus]

Is the reference at Stasbourg to a testudo, this passage?

XVI., 12, 49: ...miles instar turrium fix firmitate consistens...

which my Loeb translates as ...stood their ground fast and firm, like towers...

And makes the note that although Turres was also a military formation, here the word is being used in its literal sense.

[Ironhand]

If one enjoyed the novelty of a stylized unit I believe it could definately be feasible if worked into the usual tactics. Phalangites using longer than Western norm spears wouldn't be too different as the Eastern Romans seem to often employ long spears. The novelty could be more in uniform than function.