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The sarissa or sarisa [note 1] was a long spear or pike about 5 to 7 meters (16 to 23 ft) in length. It was introduced by Philip II of Macedon and was used in his Macedonian phalanxes as a replacement for the earlier dory , which was considerably shorter.
The sarissa was over 6 m (20 ft) in length, with a counterweight and spiked end at the rear called a sauroter; it seems to have had an iron sleeve in the middle which may mean that it was in two pieces for the march with the sleeve joining the two sections before use. Like the xyston, the sarissa was greatly tapered towards the point.
Drawing of a full 256-man phalanx formation. The Macedonian phalanx (Greek: Μακεδονική φάλαγξ) was an infantry formation developed by Philip II from the classical Greek phalanx, of which the main innovation was the use of the sarissa, a 6-metre pike.
The Seleucid army was the army of the Seleucid Empire, one of the numerous Hellenistic states that emerged after the death of Alexander the Great. As with the other major Hellenistic armies , the Seleucid army fought primarily in the Greco-Macedonian style, with its main body being the phalanx .
The "phalangites" were armed with a much longer spear, the sarissa, and less heavily armoured. The sarissa was the pike used by the ancient Macedonian army. Its actual length is unknown, but apparently it was twice as long as the dory. This makes it at least 14 feet (4.3 m), but 18 feet (5.5 m) appears more likely.
The military tactics of Alexander the Great (356 BC - 323 BC) have been widely regarded as evidence that he was one of the greatest generals in history. During the Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC), won against the Athenian and Theban armies, and the battles of Granicius (334 BC) and of Issus (333 BC), won against the Achaemenid Persian army of Darius III, Alexander employed the so-called "hammer ...
On the battlefield, where they operated as shock-capable cavalry, the sarissophoroi wielded a weapon given the same name as the infantryman's (pezhetairos) pike, the sarissa; this was possibly in reality merely a longer version of the cavalry lance, the xyston.
These warriors were armed with a huge pike weapon called a sarissa as well as the army being equipped with slings, which used almond-shaped bronze bullets that were engraved with either Philip's name or that of one of his generals. For siege warfare, the Macedonians used an arrow-firing catapult. [16]