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Training in the Use of a Sarissa and its Effect in Battle, 359-333 B.C.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

N. G. L. Hammond
N. G. L. Hammond*
Affiliation:
University of Auckland
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Extract

Important contributions to the study of the sarissa and its use in combat have been made recently by Minor M. Markle, III. He has shown clearly that the sarissa proper, a pike varying between fifteen and eighteen feet in the fourth century B.C., was held in action fairly near the butt-end and was wielded with both hands by the infantryman. When the phalanx was in close order, as many as five pike-points might project in front of a front-line man towards the enemy. The front man himself had a reach of some twelve feet with his pike, and he could put his full strength into a two-armed thrust. On the other hand, a Greek spear-man wielded a seven-foot spear with a reach of some four feet (as he held it near the middle) and he thrust only with the strength of one arm (the other arm carrying his large shield, some three feet in diameter). Thus when a pike-phalanx engaged a spear-phalanx, the spear-man was at a great disadvantage; he could not reach his opponent at all until he had himself passed through some three or four pike-points, and even then he could not put as much strength into his thrust as his opponent was able to do.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 14 , 1980 , pp. 53 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1980

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References

1 In AJA 81 (1977), 323 ff. and 82 (1978), 483 ff. I had the pleasure of discussing the sarissa with Dr Lumpkin in 1950 and with Dr Markle in 1978. The former equipped himself as an infantryman with a mediaeval pike and trained himself in its use, and the latter arranged for a friend to wield a sarissa on horseback. An early draft of this article was read and criticized by Professor J.R. Hamilton, Mr G.T. Griffith and Professor F.W. Walbank for whose help I am most grateful.

2 Polyb, . 18. 29–30. and Arr. Tact. 12.6–10. See the diagram in my bock. Alexander (note 8 below) 55.Google Scholar

3 This is the average size.

4 The greater frequency of arrow-heads, sling-bullets and spear-heads as compared with pike-points (if any) found in the ruins of Olynthus is thus no indication of the extent to which the sarissa was used in 349–8 B.C., despite the assertion to the contrary in AJA 82.488. Moreover, it is not known whether the city fell by treachery or after an assault (see Griffith, G.T. in Hammond, N.G.L. and Griffith, G.T., A History of Macedonia 2 [Oxford 1979], 324 = hereafter H Mac 2).Google Scholar

5 Cist graves are sometimes about the length of a spear; none are as long as a sarissa. The only certain sarissa found with a tumulus burial at Vergina was outside a large cist grave (see Andronicus, M. in BCH 94 [1970], 91CrossRefGoogle Scholar f. with n. 14); and in ‘Philip’s Tomb’ at Vergina one sarissa had stood against a 5.30 m. wall, where its head stayed stuck to the wall (it had not been cremated or broken in pieces).

6 Misinterpreted in AJA 82. 485. For developments in Lyncussee Hammond, N.G.L., A History of Macedonia 1 (1972), 103 f.Google Scholar

7 In Thuc. 2. 100. 2:ϊπποις xαΐ δπλοις και rfl άλλη παρασκευή I take δπλοις to mean hoplite infantry and not just any kind of infantry or weapons, and I compare Thuc. 1. 80. 3 : ϊπποις καΐ δπλοις and 1.81.1 : τοίς δπλοις καΐ τω πλήθει, where hoplite infantry is meant (see Gomme, A.W. on 1. 81. 1 ).Google Scholar Those who take δπλοις to mean weapons or any kind of infantry (e.g. Snodgrass, A.M., Arms and Armour ofthe Greeks [London 1967], 116Google Scholar and Markle in AJA 82. 485) have not noted the parallel instances in Thucydides. For the background see my remarks in Η Mac 2. 147 f.

8 See Hammond, N.G.L., Alexander the Great, King, Commander and Statesman (New Jersey 1980), 164f.Google Scholar and Markle in AJA 81. 329 f.

9 And in particular with Markle’s view that the pike was introduced for infantry only at some time after the Battle of Chaeronea of 338 B.C.

10 Polyaenus quite often uses the imperfect tense for a particular occasion for vividness, e.g. at 4. 2. 2, 4. 2. 21 and 4. 2. 22. If it is so here, then the occasion was before ‘the dangers’ of a particular battle (‘the dangers’ or just ‘danger’ being synonymous with battle, e.g. at 4. 3. 14 and Diod. 17. 55. 1), and the battle in mind was probably the impending battle with the Illyrians of Bardylis. On the other hand, Polyaenus also uses the imperfect tense for repeated or habitual action, as at 4.2.19 and 4.3. 14, and not for a particular occasion.

11 For flour as the basic ration see Xen. An. 1. 10. 18.

12 This seems not to have been suggested hitherto. For a common source to three passages on the Battle of Chaeronea see below, n. 32.

13 Plutarch’s words are μελέτη, άσκησις, έμπειρία. Plutarch may have drawn on Ephorus for these passages or on a source common to Ephorus and himself (see the discussion by , Westlake, H.D., ‘The sources of Plutarch’s Pelopidas’, CQ 33 [1939], 18).Google Scholar

14 As argued by me in CQ 31 (1937), 79 f. and 32 (1938), 137 f.

15 Arrian drew the usual distinction between the Greek doru and the Macedonian sarissa in Tact. 2. 3. 2, but in less specialized contexts any shafted weapon, including the sarissa, was called a doru.

16 In Alexander’s army there were three hundred young men who had been trained in the art of rock-climbing (Polyaen, . 4. 3.Google Scholar 29:οίς ήν άσκησις και τέχνη κρημνοβατείν).

17 Thuc, . 4. 128. 4.Google Scholar

18 Frontinus used ‘denis’ at 4.1.6 (cited above) to translate the Greekdekasof his original source. If that source was Ephorus, as we have suggested, dekas meant a file often men in the early Macedonian phalanx and not as in Arr. An. 7. 23. 4 a file of sixteen men, although the traditional terms were retained.

19 For the extent of his kingdom see Hammond, N.G.L. in BSA 61 (1966), 239 f.Google Scholar and for a different view Papazoglou, F. in Historia 14 (1965), 143 f.Google Scholar

20 At least a year had passed since the death of Perdiccas III; during it Philip had re-equipped and trained his best men in the use of the pike and he tried them out in a set battle against the Paeonians (Diod. 16. 4. 2) before he attacked the Illyrians.

21 Diod. 16. 4. 5 and 4. 6.

22 A History of Greece to 322 B.C. (Oxford 1959), 539; see also Griffith, G.T. in Mac 2. 213 f.Google Scholar

23 Markle takes a different view of the battle, as he maintains that the pike was not invented for infantrymen until much later. He writes in AJA 82. 486: ‘There seems to be no surprise in this battle, certainly no indication of the use of any new infantry tactics.’ The 3,000 Illyrian survivors would hardly have agreed with this verdict! To tell them that a Greek writer had described an oblique line at Leuctra or at Mantinea would have seemed an academic matter, as they were no Greek linguists.

24 As the formation wheeled, the pikes were raised aloft and then were brought down to form a hedge of points on one flank. Such a manoeuvre was of no value to a hoplite-phalanx in which only one point in each file faced the enemy. Nor would it look impressive; indeed the Illyrians would hardly have been able to see the spears. See AJA 82. 492 for the suggestion that Alexander’s phalanx was armed with spears against the Illyrians.

25 Arr. 1. 6. 4: τοις δόρασι δουπήσαι προς τάς ασπίδας. Markle argues in AJA 82. 492 that a man could beat a hoplite spear against a three-foot wide shield fastened to his left arm, but a man could not beat a pike against a two-foot wide shield suspended from his neck over his left shoulder. It seems to me that both are possible in theory; and in practice Diod. 17.57.6 records the beating of the shield with the sarissa, which could easily be done if one held the shield in one’s left hand and clashed it against the upright sarissa in one’s right hand; or clashed the sarissa against the shield.

26 These troops were indispensable; a phalanx without them was vulnerable on flanks and rear.

27 Arr. An. 1. 2. 4. Markle’s belief in AJA 82. 487 (if I understand him correctly) that the phalangites and not the light-armed infantry were hurling missiles is irreconcilable with the equipment of phalangites, whether of a Greek phalanx or a Macedonian phalanx.

28 Perhaps between the Thebans and the other Boeotians; for the Theban Boeotarchs were probably stationed with their national troops and would have chosen to keep contact with the Sacred Band.

29 Φίλιππος… έπι πόδα άνεχώρει συνεσπασμένην εχων την φάλαγγα και έντός όπλων πεφυλαγμένος.

30 For this reason a deliberate and prolonged withdrawal by hoplites facing a line of advancing hoplites at spear-point distance was never attempted, as far as we know.

31 In 338 B.C. the Haemon river was most probably contained by flood-banks, and it was on the rising ground of the southern flood-bank that the Macedonians ended the retreat (see Studies in Greek History 545 f.). Pritchett, W.K. in AJA 62 (1958), 307ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar prefers the bank of the Kapraina rver.

32 In AJA 82. 491 n. 42 Markle criticized the paraphrase which I gave in 1938 (Klio 31. 209) but he was unaware of the translation I published in 1973 (Studies in Greek History 546), which is the same as his in 1978. In fact Griffith’s case is much strengthened, as he noted in Η Mac 2.601. n. 1, by Frontinus 2. 1. 9, which was clearly derived from the same source and gave the temporal sense to Philip’s withdrawal: ex industriaproelium traxit moxque languentibus iam Atheniensibus concitatius intulit signa et ipsos cecidit. The difficulties of the temporal interpretation are the awkwardness of έπίπολύ ‘for a long time’ with μετ’ ολίγον in 4.2.2. and ταχέως and the fact that there was no engagement between the Macedonians and the Athenians until Philip attacked.

33 The sarissa was the weapon par excellence of the Macedonian phalangites and not of the Macedonian cavalry, except for the sarissophoroi who formed the bulk of the élite light cavalry in Alexander’s expeditionary force in Asia. According to Plutarch, Alex. 9. 2, Alexander ‘is said to have been the first to attack the Sacred Band’ (the expression ‘is said’ meaning that Plutarch is not certain that this was so). If he led the attack, it was as commander of the left part of the line (as Parmenio was in Alexander’s battles), and he was leading his infantrymen with their pikes in a frontal attack; for the Thebans died facing their enemy and not taken in their rear, which was no doubt protected by the river bank. It was not possible for Greek or Macedonian cavalry to make a frontal attack on an intact infantry formation, because their horses were not armoured and would immediately be maimed or killed by the infantrymen's spears (as happened to Alexander’s horse at the Granicus river, Plut. Alex. 16. 14). I see no support in the sources for Markle’s, view in AJA 81. 339Google Scholar that Macedonian cavalry could and did deliver a frontal charge on an infantry line; for the only passage which he quotes, Arr. Tact. 16. 7, is in a chapter dealing with cavalry attacking cavalry.

34 Also called prodromoi from their function as an advance force. See Brunt, P.A. in the Loeb ed. of Arr. An. 1–4 p. 70Google Scholar n. 84 and lxxx, although I doubt his view that the prodromos wielded his lance in battle with both hands.

35 From Foucart, P.F., Etude sur Didymus d’après un papyrus de Berlin (Paris 1906), 120 ff.Google Scholar onwards; Markle expressed his view in AJA 81. 490.