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Sumerian phalanx-like formation c. 2400 BC, from detail of the victory stele of King Eannatum of Lagash over Umma, called the Stele of the Vultures. The phalanx (pl.: phalanxes or phalanges) [1] was a rectangular mass military formation, usually composed entirely of heavy infantry armed with spears, pikes, sarissas, or similar polearms tightly packed together.
The Phalanx therefore presented a shield wall and a mass of spear points to the enemy, making frontal assaults much more difficult. It also allowed a higher proportion of the soldiers to be actively engaged in combat at a given time (rather than just those in the front rank). The phalanx formed the core of ancient Greek militaries.
The infantry phalanx was a Sumerian tactical formation as far back as the third millennium BC. [1] It was a tightly knit group of hoplites, generally upper and middle-class men, typically eight to twelve ranks deep, armored in helmet, breastplate, and greaves, armed with two-to-three metre (6~9 foot) pikes and overlapping round shields. [2]
Skirmishers called velites would be placed in front of the army in order to throw javelins at the enemy. Once the so-called Marian reforms were enacted, the same formations and strategies continued to be used. However, instead of hastati, principes, and triarii they used cohorts. When conducting a siege the army would begin by building a ...
Marathon was the first time a phalanx faced more lightly armed troops, and revealed how effective the hoplites could be in battle. [112] The phalanx formation was still vulnerable to cavalry (the cause of much caution by the Greek forces at the Battle of Plataea), but used in the right circumstances, it was now shown to be a potentially ...
In fact, they are the first confirmed users of the shield wall tactic later made famous as the classical Greek phalanx and the Roman "testudo formation". It is unknown who first developed this tactic, but it is thought to have been developed somewhere between 2500 B.C.E and 2000 B.C.E
The Macedonian phalanx was considered practically invulnerable from the front. Another phalanx could perhaps wear a phalanx down in a long battle from exhaustion, but this was far from guaranteed. The best way to defeat one was generally by one of a loss of morale from killing the enemy commander, breaking its formation, or outflanking it.
The phalanx formation used by Greek armies had a distinct tendency to veer to the right during battle, "because fear makes each man do his best to shelter his unarmed side with the shield of the man next him on the right". [51] Traditionally, a phalanx therefore lined up for battle with the elite troops on the right flank to counter this ...