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There are some misconceptions here based on some of the older ideas about how phalanxes fought.
A Storm of Spears: Understanding the Greek Hoplite at War by Christopher Matthew is an excellent work which combines classical texts, archaeology and tests using recreations of equipment to try to establish how hoplites fought. The 'giant pushing match' interpretation gets a fairly workover with the author preferring an interpretation based around a poking match at close to maximum aspis range. The methods of use of the aspis are also covered in detail.
I was more thinking along the lines of letting them pull back like the Romans did.
I was talking about the hoplites who were in the more scrappy fights then before, not the pikemen who were fighting from an even greater distance. Silver shields and whatnot.
Where did you get the notion that I thought cloth armor was useless?
I feel feel somewhat entertained.
On a more serious note, while there's a whole lot of fascinating discussion about the Phalanxes it's good to always point out that we really can't have a great deal of certainty with regards to how they really fought yet as the historical sources are sparse and there's this rather large gap between the historical records and actual physical archaeological evidence.
So people should not draw overly broad conclusions from them like Hanson did. They fought in Phalanxes and we have a broad idea how they did so. But it probably shouldn't be taken as indicative of a specific worldwide trend in warfare especially if examples from other nations and cultures of a contemporary era are not taken into account.
There really isn't one. A group of amateurs can stand in a line and hold it fairly well, provided they aren't called on to perform any overly complex manouevring. One also has to remember that not everyone is a babe in the woods; Spartans are all trained warriors, in most other cities towards the end of the Classical Greece period you start to see specially trained warrior bands forming the elite of the Phalanx, and even amongst the normal Hoplites you have a variety of ages with the older (and likely battle-tested) men being there to guide and steady the younger ones.
However, so far all you've really contributed to this debate is "I think your idea is silly" without any alternative explanations, so.
I'll have to check it out. I do however have my doubts about this; I'm not sure how any decision at all would be achieved through long range poking at one another when both sides are so heavily armoured or otherwise well protected, and standing at maximum range.
It's quite amusing to transition from modern history to the classics; I'd imagine if I presented a piece of work on the World Wars evidenced to the same degree a Classics essay is, it would be thrown back in my face covered in angry red capitals. Still, limitations of the subject and all that.
Lol, well to be fair many works on the World Wars are also quite lacking in evidence; hence the prevalence of so many myths.
However the fact that there are huge gaps in the historical record even from events as recent as 1945 is really why I'm more leery of drawing wide conclusions about ancient-era warfare.
I think we can certainly learn many things from them - but I feel that for the ancients a broad approach that looks at many different armies is a more fruitful avenue than mining details for a specific army or time period.
Phalanxes for instance have been looked at very closely, but I would note that troops armed with spears and polearms were in fact a common component of many pre-gunpowder armies both in Africa and Asia as well. How, for instance, did these armies fight differently compared to the Phalanxes? Perhaps we would be able to see more clearly how there were "global" trends in warfare based on this broad view; even if we can't describe how Chinese spearmen fought in as exacting a level of detail.
Maximum range? They must be really bummed when their spears broke, as they are apt to do. I guess they can stand there hollering at the enemy.
Seriously, the "dueling spears" theory has been around for a long time. It's been proposed time & again, and rejected every time. It simply doesn't hold water.
Now, admittedly, "giant pushing match" is a little extreme. I have tried been careful in phrasing it "pushing & poking". But that it is fundamentally pushing is incontrovertible. There's a reason you pack lines, bringing more force to bear. The rear lines are not merely waiting their turn to duel.
[FWIW, seems like Matthews' entire argument basically rests on the casual observation that an underarm grip on a spear is more comfy than an overhead grip. So he insists hoplites would have held spears underarm. And since underarm-held spears cannot really be used effectively in close phalanx formation (you tend to hit the guy behind you, and movement is just constrained in so many ways), they must have been gripping the spear very far back on the shaft, nearer the butt, and holding it straight out forward (kinda like a lance or pike). Which implies there couldn't have been a close collision, but just weak pokey-pokey at a distance.
There are many reasons not to buy this - and historians routinely roll them out every time another "dueling spear" theorist pops up (e.g. depictions of combat show mostly overhand grip, collision & pushing ("othismos") is constantly described in books, etc.) So this is not new.
Finally, even if you try to explain away all the textual & visual evidence (e.g. Matthews alleges vase depictions of overhand spears are really just javelin throwers, "othismos" is a loose euphemism, etc.), keep in mind Greek hoplites are not the only shield-and-spear fighters in the world. There are spear-and-shield fighters in all ages, in all continents, from the forests of northern Europe to the plains of Africa and the jungles of Asia. And they all use the overhand grip above their shields in combat. Not exclusively, of course, but primarily. C'est naturel.
EDIT: Interesting video illustrating the effectiveness of an overarm spear vs. underarm (amateurish, but revealing).
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Perhaps the "Giant pushing match" description is a bit too general for what I've been getting at. Essentially what I envisage is two mass groups of men, leading with their shields, shoving into each other to try and knock the other backwards; of course whilst this is going on each side is stabbing away at each other like there's no tomorrow (because there really isn't for some of them).
As for the idea of an underhand grip near the bottom of the spear and a maximum range poking, I really don't see it. Pick up a broom or something and try and poke a light-switch with it, underhand, holding it at the end; it is tiring, ungainly, and you're somewhat unlikely to hit; even if you do, I don't see what's to stop the next rank of the enemy Phalanx simply filling the gap. I'd have to read the book in question before properly commenting though.
Another point on the spear itself. If you take the underhand approach, you essentially have a very limited use weapon; you can stab until your spear gets broken, but you then have to reverse it and use the other end, which will leave you severely out of balance. If you use the weapon overhand and you lose the end, you can still continue to poke with the other end of your spear, holding it relatively near the middle to maintain a balance; you're still likely in range, and you will be able to better support the weapon. The reverse end (I'm sure there's a technical term) is also useful for pushing; place your shield against the back of the man in front, dig the butt of the spear into the ground, and use it for purchase as you shove all your weight forward.
As for the idea of an underhand grip near the bottom of the spear and a maximum range poking, I really don't see it. Pick up a broom or something and try and poke a light-switch with it, underhand, holding it at the end; it is tiring, ungainly, and you're somewhat unlikely to hit; even if you do, I don't see what's to stop the next rank of the enemy Phalanx simply filling the gap. I'd have to read the book in question before properly commenting though.
Another point on the spear itself. If you take the underhand approach, you essentially have a very limited use weapon; you can stab until your spear gets broken, but you then have to reverse it and use the other end, which will leave you severely out of balance. If you use the weapon overhand and you lose the end, you can still continue to poke with the other end of your spear, holding it relatively near the middle to maintain a balance; you're still likely in range, and you will be able to better support the weapon. The reverse end (I'm sure there's a technical term) is also useful for pushing; place your shield against the back of the man in front, dig the butt of the spear into the ground, and use it for purchase as you shove all your weight forward.
Read Semper Victor's thread about the rise of the Sasanian empire, and the answer gets really obvious, really quickly. The short answer is this
The Persians had plenty of Bronze, but their traditional methods of warfare relied heavily on mounted forces fighting with bows at range, and with lances, swords and other arms at close range. They were really good at it. Any man/noble with an aptitude for fighting, the wealth to have the equipment and the horses, and the time to train with arms and horses is going to be better than any un-mounted man possibly could be. In Persia, Horses were relatively cheaper and also far more useful than they possibly could be thanks to that same terrain. So Persian armies wind up with a large # of elite horsemen, and anyone without the time/money/horses winds up as an out of luck infantryman.
In Greece however, the conditions are different - cavalry are somewhere between useless, and outrageously expensive, because the terrain to raise horses, or use cavalry simply sucks. All the best fighters are going to learn to work together as highly effective hoplite infantry, because gathering together a large enough force of cavalry to be useful is simply beyond the capacity of most city states in terms of pasture land, area to train in, areas that might be worth fighting for with cavalry, etc.
Now suddenly collide the two cultures.
The Greeks, who previously had scorned cavalry suddenly realize that they ARE in fact rather useful for all sorts of things, even in the bad terrain of Greece when present in sufficient numbers, and used on a large enough strategic scale - indeed some things simply can't be done without them, but having lacked them before really couldn't envision the right circumstances. The Greeks begin to field them, despite the enormous cost, often as mercenary auxiliaries for those situations when they really are needed (see Philip and Alexander of Macedon for how well a small # of elite cavalry work when paired with large numbers of good quality foot soldiers)
On the other hand, the Persians who relied on cavalry, and routinely expected to mow down or cause to flee any infantry they might come across, suddenly realize that when properly trained and equipped, infantry can in fact be incredibly difficult to dislodge from a position. Naturally they want to get some of their own, because infantry that can stand up to battle like this bring about all sorts of potential strategic opportunities that just don't exist with an army composed of good cavalry and light infantry. Easiest thing to do is just to hire some.
Mercenaries aren't like 'normal' troops. Either they really are good at what they do, and they are expensive, or they are desperate and cheap. Either way, they aren't going to be like typical part time soldiers raised for defense by a city state.
Well, technically, the "Ten Thousand" Greek mercs hired by the Persian satrap Cyrus were "part time soldiers raised for defense by a city state". It is just that said city states had just been constantly at war for the past thirty years and they were thus probably the most experienced veterans in the entire region.
While they were just demobilized and weren't quite ready to resume civvy life, they weren't quite professionals either. More precisely, they were promised extra easy cash for a very short trip. They were lied to, and had to be lied to, constantly all along the way, to prevent them from quitting and going home.
Firstly, hoplite warfare was not limited to Greece alone. It was the favoured combat form of the ancient Etruscans and their subjects, including an insignificant little tribe of hill-dwellers by the lower Tiber river. The Greeks did not either only use hoplite warfare within Greece itself, instead they used it for their city-state colonies all across the Mediterranean, ranging from the Crimean peninsula to the coast of southern France. There was nothing inherently incompatible with this form of warfare and the widely different forms of terrain at their city-state colonies.
But what I'd like to focus on is the amount of capital in relation to labour, aka the number of shiny toys each soldier carries for warfare. This does not mean just the number of silver coins a type of army costs, but all other forms of resources as well, land grants and tax exemptions are equally important forms of payments throughout history. As for the pure monetary costs of warfare, the pre pax Romana navies are probably the most one-sided example of the capital-to-labour ratio - the crews of Athenian poor that worked the the Delic fleet drew only modest wages in relation to the gigantic cost that almost bankrupted Athens for building and maintaining that fleet. (Incidentally, that is also why Salamis is a more important than any other battle of the Greco-Persian wars (sans Marathon). After the Greeks took control of the sea routes, it was only a matter of time before the Persians would be pushed back).
One odd thing about this I've read is that Northern European society transformed in the transition between the Early and High middle ages, between an external to an internal resource exploitation system. For the Early middle ages, rulers did not rely to any great extent on taxation of their subjects, instead they relied on high degree of military participation in their military campaigns abroad, which they used to gain tribute. The use of this form of mobilisation of large armies is then supposedly what the early Ottonian rulers utilised to make large swaths of the west Slavic tribes to their east pay tribute to them. But with the transition to the High middle ages, the rulers began to increase the taxation of their subjects, build large fortified castles and keep smaller, elite cavalry armies.
But what I'd like to focus on is the amount of capital in relation to labour, aka the number of shiny toys each soldier carries for warfare. This does not mean just the number of silver coins a type of army costs, but all other forms of resources as well, land grants and tax exemptions are equally important forms of payments throughout history. As for the pure monetary costs of warfare, the pre pax Romana navies are probably the most one-sided example of the capital-to-labour ratio - the crews of Athenian poor that worked the the Delic fleet drew only modest wages in relation to the gigantic cost that almost bankrupted Athens for building and maintaining that fleet. (Incidentally, that is also why Salamis is a more important than any other battle of the Greco-Persian wars (sans Marathon). After the Greeks took control of the sea routes, it was only a matter of time before the Persians would be pushed back).
One odd thing about this I've read is that Northern European society transformed in the transition between the Early and High middle ages, between an external to an internal resource exploitation system. For the Early middle ages, rulers did not rely to any great extent on taxation of their subjects, instead they relied on high degree of military participation in their military campaigns abroad, which they used to gain tribute. The use of this form of mobilisation of large armies is then supposedly what the early Ottonian rulers utilised to make large swaths of the west Slavic tribes to their east pay tribute to them. But with the transition to the High middle ages, the rulers began to increase the taxation of their subjects, build large fortified castles and keep smaller, elite cavalry armies.