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Polybius (/ p ə ˈ l ɪ b i ə s /; Ancient Greek: Πολύβιος, Polýbios; c. 200 – c. 118 BC) was a Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period.He is noted for his work The Histories, a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC.
Polybius first described the maniple in the mid-2nd century BC. The manipular legion was organized into four lines, starting at the front: the velites; the hastati; the principes; and the triarii. These were divided by experience, with the younger soldiers at the front lines and the older soldiers near the back.
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.
Strengths of the Macedonian phalanx. Prior to the rise of Rome, the Macedonian phalanx was the premier infantry force in the Western World. It had proven itself on the battlefields of Mediterranean Europe, from Sparta to Macedonia , and had met and overcome several strong non-European armies from Persia to Northwest India.
The Seleucid phalanx may have been divided into corps, similar to a manner proposed of the Antigonid Macedonian army. Polybius's account of the Daphne parade is again the main source, but unfortunately the suriving fragment is only in a single manuscript and bears signs of a miscopying or lacuna.
The divergence in equipment and tactics between the traditional Greek Hoplite phalanx and the Macedonian Phalanx is attributed to Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. In set piece battles, the Macedonian Hypaspists were positioned on the flanks of the phalangite 's phalanx; in turn, their own flanks were protected by light ...
Polybius states that the three lines of heavy infantry were equipped with similar weapons and shields, save that the triarii were armed with a heavy thrusting-spear (hasta), while the hastati and principes held two pila (throwing javelins, singular form: pilum), one heavy, the other light. [46]
Reconstruction of Greek hoplites in Phalanx formation c. 480 BC. As it appears that early Roman heavy infantry were armed as Greek-style hoplites, so it is assumed that it followed the Greek practice of fighting in a "phalanx formation". This was a deep (eight ranks or more), densely packed formation of heavily armoured spearmen, developed in ...