New Article on Reenacting a Macedonian Phalanx

[Sean Manning]

Forumites will know the great article in JRMES by Peter Connolly where he equips 16 English reenactors with Macedonian shield and sarissa and has them go through sarissa drill.  He showed how to do a lot of things that you can still find people on the Internet saying are impossible, like how five ranks of pikes hang over one another or how leading with the rim of your shield opposite the hand lets you close up into one cubit per file.  A new open-access article along those lines is available, and so far its thoughtful despite not acknowledging his work:

Jean Du Plessis, "‘Synaspismos’ and Its Possibility in the Macedonian Styled Phalanx," Akropolis: Journal of Hellenic Studies 3 (2019) pp. 167-183 https://doi.org/10.35296/jhs.v3i0.41

(thanks K. Toohey on academia)

[Dave G]

Thanks for posting this, it was an interesting read.
Without commenting on the strength of the article in any way I'd like to just add a couple of personal observations about pike use based on my own re enactment of 17th century polearms. Firstly, the high guard which is the default drill position in 17th century makes accuracy of strike more assured, its easier to hit a small target like a face from the high guard than a low guard, and secondly, it's less tiring on the arms and hands for any length of time so easier to keep the attack posture without becoming too fatigued.
The one thing I would add a note of concern about is the rennaisance pike drill had the pikemen gripping the butt of the pike, this gave good control and also stopped it whacking the face of the soldier in the ranks behind, having a big pointy sarouter held at head height and being wielded by an active phalangite in front to you cant have been very comforting, I'd like to see that particular issue being solved before wholeheartedly applauding this research.

[Sean Manning]

Many of the early modern pikes originally had ferrules didn't they? Some of the military manuals talk about it as a way to stop soldiers from sawing a couple of feet off the bottom.

I don't know if there is evidence for the big four-flanged butt spikes other than the tomb with what definitely is not a coupling sleeve. The one thing we know about Greek spears is that the heads were very diverse and most had no iron or bronze ferrule; there is a history of people taking the biggest machoest-looking type and declaring it as "a typical hoplite spear" and ignoring the ten other types from the same site.

[Crispianus]

Many of the early modern pikes originally had ferrules didn't they?  Some of the military manuals talk about it as a way to stop soldiers from sawing a couple of feet off the bottom.

I don't know if there is evidence for the big four-flanged butt spikes other than the tomb with what definitely is not a coupling sleeve.  The one thing we know about Greek spears is that the heads were very diverse and most had no iron or bronze ferrule; there is a history of people taking the biggest machoest-looking type and declaring it as "a typical hoplite spear" and ignoring the ten other types from the same site.

There is another flanged butt spike from Isthmia though I think its much smaller see this article plate 108 :

The Santuary of Poseidon at Isthmia: Techniques of metal manufacture.


I wasn't able to find any other references...

[Justin Swanton]

Nicholas Sekunda in his recent talk on the Society of Ancients virtual conference maintained that the Vergina tomb weapons are ceremonial and that not only was the coupling sleeve not a coupling sleeve, but that the sarissa did not have a butt spike (the sauroter in the tomb according to him did not belong to a sarissa). In that case the phalangite would have had to hold the sarissa with the high guard like a Renaissance pikeman with his right hand pushing down the butt end since the sarissa's centre of gravity would have been well forward of his left hand's grip.

I agree that the proof for a coupling sleeve is very inconclusive, but it is likely the sarissa had some sort of sauroter since Arrian affirms 4 cubits, i.e. 6 feet, of sarissa projected back past the phalangite: not only would a sarissa with a sauroter have had its centre of gravity at the point where the phalangite gripped it in that case, but it would have been impossible for the phalangite to grip the end of the sarissa with his right hand as the butt was 6 feet away. The sarissa was a development of the dory which did have a butt spike. Notice that hoplites had no problem wielding dories with the high grip - butt spikes well behind them but not inconveniencing the hoplites in their rear. That means that phalangites would similarly have had no problem wielding sarissas with the high guard without the butt spikes inconveniencing the phalangites behind them.

[Sean Manning]

I agree that the proof for a coupling sleeve is very inconclusive, but it is likely the sarissa had some sort of sauroter since Arrian affirms 4 cubits, i.e. 6 feet, of sarissa projected back past the phalangite: not only would a sarissa with a sauroter have had its centre of gravity at the point where the phalangite gripped it in that case, but it would have been impossible for the phalangite to grip the end of the sarissa with his right hand as the butt was 6 feet away. The sarissa was a development of the dory which did have a butt spike. Notice that hoplites had no problem wielding dories with the high grip - butt spikes well behind them but not inconveniencing the hoplites in their rear. That means that phalangites would similarly have had no problem wielding sarissas with the high guard without the butt spikes inconveniencing the phalangites behind them.

If you are making spear shafts with an adze and a wedge of tree, not a machine-lathe and a squared plank, and the head is nice and light, its easy to set the point of balance wherever you want by adjusting the taper.

Edit: the 15' pikes from the Zürich arsenal in the Wade Allen Collection are on the order of 7.5 cm circumference at the base of the head, 10.5-11 cm circumference 4' from the butt, 9.4 cm circumference at the butt Given Polybius' description, I would expect that about two cubits of at 14 cubit sarissa stick out behind the soldier's rear hand when the pike is lowered for combat ... of course other phalanxes in other circumstances may have used different grips!

Edit: I think I have read writers from the 16th century who describe opposing units of pikemen using different grips and different fighting styles. So even though de Gheyn in the 17th century liked "left right hand on the butt of the pike" that was not necessarily the only grip in earlier periods.

IIRC about 1 in 10 spears in Classical and Archaic contexts in the Aegean have a butt spike associated. So the answer to "did hoplites have butt spikes on their spears" is "sometimes." I agree with Sekunda that butt spikes have many functions: they reinforce the butt when the spear is planted in the ground, they can be used as a weapon, and they can tweak the balance too.

[Sean Manning]

Also, it is too bad that du Pleiss made his pike shafts so thick. His wattle-wood trunks weighed 6.5 kg (p. 179) and seem to be more than two fingers thick at the butt, while one of the Zürich pikes weighed 2.3 kg. If a replica is more than twice as heavy as the objects it is imitating, it will teach false lessons.

He claims that such heavy pikes were used by the English Civil War reenactors he talked to, but I hope most groups are more sensible! I think everyone who had made replicas has the experince of making the first one too heavy and then making a lighter version after they carry it for a while or read more archaeological reports.