Forming a sarissa phalanx.

[PMBardunias]

I am soliciting opinions on exactly how the files of sarissaphoroi stood relative to one another. You will most commonly see the ranks packed one behind the other with the men behind holding the sarissa to the right of the man in front of them. Invariably the artist "cheats" because he does not show that the sauroter of the man in front is in reality wedged into the groin of the man behind him! The back end of the spear miraculously just dissapears.

There are a variety of other ways to set the ranks, but I'd rather hear your suggestions than provide what I've seen.

[Sean Manning]

Have you read Peter Connolly's article "Experiments with the Sarissa- the Macedonian pike and cavalry lance- a functional view" in JRMES 11 (2000) pp. 103-112? He and a phalanx of 16 pikemen did some experiments and found things surprisingly straightforwards. I think I summarized it in an earlier post.

[PMBardunias]

Sean, I've been trying get access to that article for some time. Do you have it on .pdf? can you link me to your summary?

I noticed in some depictions connolly has them holding the sarissa almost at the sauroter. Is that how he avoids impalement?

[agesilaos3]

I would imagine the front five ranks would have to form diagonally in order to allow the sarissa points to extend beyond the front rank; playing with model soldiers this is how you have to base phalangites modelled with lowered pikes. The rear ranks could stand as in an orthodox phalanx as their pikes are raised and their function is to keep the fighting edge in the fight by preventing their flight; I cannot see how a pike armed phalanx can operate like a spear armed one and the different equipment reflects this, to whit the rimless shield. This cannot be deployed forward and would not provide the resistance to the asphixiating press of 'othismos' described elsewhere on this site. When the phalanx moves into 'synaspismos' presumably only the front rank's pikes are lowered andthe files line up behind the leader.

Would like to see the Connelly article, presumably Lane-Fox must have done some work with the phalanx extras in 'Alexander', has he not written anything?
Then something interesting might have come of an otherwise misfiring movie.

Without 246 men or so, ok, 128, frontage of eight, I can't see too much of worth arising how else can you judge the interaction of the ranks and files and attempt any manouevres or formation changes?

[PMBardunias]

I would imagine the front five ranks would have to form diagonally in order to allow the sarissa points to extend beyond the front rank; playing with model soldiers this is how you have to base phalangites modelled with lowered pikes. The rear ranks could stand as in an orthodox phalanx as their pikes are raised and their function is to keep the fighting edge in the fight by preventing their flight;

I agree with this. Elsewhere we have been argueing about 6' or 3' spacing, and I wonder if a 6' initial spacing facilitates the closing up of rear ranks diagonally.

I cannot see how a pike armed phalanx can operate like a spear armed one and the different equipment reflects this, to whit the rimless shield. This cannot be deployed forward and would not provide the resistance to the asphixiating press of 'othismos' described elsewhere on this site.

I believe the origination of the sarissaphoroi is due to an attempt to preempt the hoplite by not allowing the battle to move from a doratismos, or spear-fencing stage, to othismos. That said, I recently started a thread on here about Macedonian shields, which devolved into one on othismos, where I pointed out that the rim is not needed if the shield is deeply domed. There may have been deep aspides that has smaller rims. This makes survival of othismos possible for sarissaphoroi. I have recently been considering the properties of the full bronze face of the Macedonian shield (Chalkaspides?). The repeated motiff of concentric circles may simply be artistic, but they may be analogous to the reenforcing bands we see inside of aspises, but on the outer face.

[Sean Manning]

Sean, I've been trying get access to that article for some time. Do you have it on .pdf? can you link me to your summary?

I noticed in some depictions connolly has them holding the sarissa almost at the sauroter. Is that how he avoids impalement?

He followed Polybius' description and had them put their front hand 4 cubits ahead of the butt. I think each pikeman angled their pike slighly upwards and slightly left. He was worried about the butt spikes too, but this is what he found:

“Our worries about the but spike proved unfounded. In practice each person was able to hold their pike in position without endangering the person behind. Polybius' allowance of four cubits behind the front hand ensured that the butt spike passed well beyond the groin of the next person in file.” (p. 111)

So this may be something which is hard to visualize, but works out when you try to do it for real. I'll PM you about the article.

[PMBardunias]

Once more the value of reenactment is shone. I still have worries about all those sauroters under actual combat conditions, but with proper spacing between ranks it seems that almost linear files work fine.

[Sean Manning]

Yeah, there must have been plenty of soldiers whose 'battle scars' were from a comrade who started waving his sword or pike too freely.

[PMBardunias]

In looking at Connolly's solution I notice he does an interesting little "cheat" of his own, one that might be completely accurate. I had been trying to envision men standing in file one behind the other bringing their sarissa to point at the enemy line directly opposite. This is somewhat problematic since the sarissa in the rear must somehow get around the men in front. One obvious solution is to stand the men in a diagonal, but that leads to other problems.

Connolly states that this is less of a problem than thought because the natural bending of the sarissa allows the spear to arch over the hands of the man in front. This of course leads to questions of how flexible sarissa were. But from his diagram he does something else to facilitate bringing the sarissa to bear without fouling the men in front. The little cheat is that the sarissa after the first rank do not point directly at the enemy line (my starting assumption), but are slightly off line to the right. This negates the problem of working the sarissa around the man in front.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Hey,we're looking only at photos and imagine static formations. Imagine how much te sarissae are moving especially in a fight,how much the men are moving while fighting or walking,in all i think that all those grips and positions should be thought as very aproximate and nothing more. I think Connolly demonstrated well that the diagonal position of either men or sarissae has to be so slight that there is no reason to worry about it.
My question is what do the ancient authors mean with the word "synaspismos" in a macedonian phalanx and how it would work. I have a suspicion that Connolly interpreted it a closer ranks and actually tried it but i haven't read the article for a long time.
Something interesting and practical he states is the danger of the sarissa point hitting the ground while marching. It xould really ruin a line or kill somone behind...
Khairete
Giannis

[PMBardunias]

My question is what do the ancient authors mean with the word "synaspismos" in a macedonian phalanx and how it would work.

It could be than in a state of synaspismos, only the front rank had their sarissa levelled. This would make sense of Cleonymus' famous tactic of having his own front rank drop their sarissa and grab that of their foes, while the second rank had levelled sarissa.

[Sean Manning]

Hey,we're looking only at photos and imagine static formations. Imagine how much the sarissae are moving especially in a fight,how much the men are moving while fighting or walking,in all i think that all those grips and positions should be thought as very aproximate and nothing more. I think Connolly demonstrated well that the diagonal position of either men or sarissae has to be so slight that there is no reason to worry about it.
My question is what do the ancient authors mean with the word "synaspismos" in a macedonian phalanx and how it would work. I have a suspicion that Connolly interpreted it a closer ranks and actually tried it but i haven't read the article for a long time.
Something interesting and practical he states is the danger of the sarissa point hitting the ground while marching. It xould really ruin a line or kill somone behind...
Khairete
Giannis

We know (from the tacticians and- I think- a few clear references in the histories) that pikemen could close up to one cubit per file, and that the technical term for this was synapsimos. But somebody (I can't remember who) showed that the Greek historians use the word "synapsimos" loosely, so there are only a few times when we are sure a phalanx was in this formation and not in the normal fighting formation of 2 cubits per file (which might also look like "locked shields" depending on what size of shields the pikemen had).

I think that a phalanx could either form up in synapsimos, or have the rear half of each file advance into the gap between its file and the next file to come to synapsimos.

[Nearco]

Hello

Last weekend we had a nice event in Sabadell (Arraona Romana) where I played as pezetairoi. I must admit that these soldiers were really well trained because is very difficult to keep the formation while moving with the sarissa. When you take down your sarissa you must hold it very closer to the sauroter, if not, you will hit the man behind you with it, even if he is placed diagonally