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Romans used a phalanx for their third military line, the triarii. These were veteran reserve troops armed with the hastae or spear. [26] Rome conquered most of the Hellenistic successor states, along with the various Greek city-states and leagues. As these states ceased to exist, so did the armies which used the traditional phalanx ...
They served as heavy infantry in the early Roman army, and were used at the front of a very large phalanx formation. After a time, engagements with the Samnites and Gauls appear to have taught the Romans the importance of flexibility and the inadequacy of the phalanx on the rough, hilly ground of central Italy. [4] [5]
The rugged terrain of Samnium, where the war was fought, was not conducive to the phalanx formation which the Romans had inherited from the Etruscans and Ancient Greeks. The main battle troops of the Etruscans and Latins of this period comprised Greek-style hoplite phalanxes, inherited from the original Greek phalanx military unit.
In the early days of ancient Rome (from the late regal period to the first part of the early republican period) Roman soldiers wore clipeus, which were like the aspides (ἀσπίδες), smaller (than the scutum) round shields used in the Greek hoplite phalanx. The hoplites were heavy infantrymen who originally wore bronze shields and helmets ...
The existence of a separate corps of Golden-Shields is supported by a reading of 1 Maccabees that poetically refers to "shields of gold and brass" and some other scattered references in Greek literature, although is contested by some such as Nicholas Sekunda who argues that no such division existed, and the Seleucid phalanx in general were ...
The Romans had placed the two legions in the middle, with the allied Latin, Italian, and Greek infantry on their flanks. The cavalry was placed on the wings, with the Roman right being supplemented by 22 elephants. The phalanx took up the center of the Macedonian line, with the elite 3,000-strong Guard formed to the left of the phalanx.
Articles relating to the phalanx, a rectangular mass military formation, usually composed entirely of heavy infantry armed with spears, pikes, sarissas, or similar polearms. The term is particularly used to describe the use of this formation in Ancient Greek warfare , although the ancient Greek writers used it to also describe any massed ...
Macedonian phalanx. 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.