In our previous video we discussed how the Romans faced off against and managed to defeat
Carthage’s mercenary army, and in this video, we shall continue looking at Rome’s enemies.
In the wake of Hannibal’s defeat at Zama, Rome turned its attention to the Antigonid
Kingdom of Macedon in the east. But even before this time, the Roman legions and the Macedonian
phalanx had fought a series of epic clashes, and they would fight many more. In this video,
we shall illustrate how the Roman legions fought and eventually gained mastery over
the Hellenistic phalanxes of Alexander’s successor kingdoms.
In the year 334 BC, Alexander the Great and his elite Macedonian army crossed the Hellespont
and began destroying Persian armies in their eastward march to conquer the Achaemenids.
At the river Granicus, Issus, Gaugamela and against Porus at the Hydaspes, Alexander’s
soldiers proved themselves superior to their foe on every occasion. At the core of this
force was a Phalanx, a densely packed formation of 9,000 highly trained Phalangites called
Pezhetairoi; the foot companions. After his stunning successes, Alexander passed
away in 323 in the city of Babylon. Unsurprisingly his generals began fighting almost immediately
after his death, eventually establishing the three primary successor kingdoms; Ptolemaic
Egypt, Antigonid Macedon and the Seleucid Empire. These new Hellenistic states fought
in similar Phalanxes to their conquering predecessors, and this would be the unit the Romans would
eventually face when they came into contact with the Greek world.
In ancient warfare, unit cohesion was the absolute key to victory due to the way in
which each soldier protected the side of the soldier next to him. Another pivotal element
was morale. Most casualties in ancient battles occurred not during the fighting itself, but
the rout afterwards, and bringing the enemy to this point was the primary goal of most
ancient generals. Before battle was joined between legion and phalanx, the Roman Velites
would have thrown their light javelins while the Hastati threw their Pila at the Phalangites.
Most would have deflected off their shields or the long 45-degree angled pikes but a great
many would also have found their mark, some pinning the Phalangites’ arms to their shields
and others killing them outright. Then came the deafening clatter as the small
iron pike heads hit the Roman Scutum. The five ranks of Sarissa which protruded in front
of the line would have claimed many Roman lives, but then the Romans had options. By
280 BC at the Battle of Asculum, the Romans had learned that they needed to get in close,
past the spear points. They would charge with shields locked, or feint low to bait the spears
into pointing upwards, and would then rush under the pikes, where the Phalangite was
almost useless and the Legionary was in their element.
There were many things which affected the way in which hand to hand combat between phalanx
and legion went, including terrain, equipment, leadership and deployment, which shall be
discussed now. In this era, unit cohesion was especially
dependent on the type of terrain battles were fought upon, and this was particularly the
case in the clash between the legion and phalanx. In general rough terrain was damaging to any
ancient military formation, but it was moreso the case with a Sarissa phalanx, where all
Phalangites needed to be tightly packed for the forest of Pikes to have their devastating
impact. Meanwhile, the Manipular legion had been adopted by the Romans as a replacement
for their Greek-style phalanx, precisely because of the necessity to maneuver in the mountains
of central Italy against the Samnites. In short, the flexibility of the Maniples to
bend and stretch where needed meant that they performed much better in mountainous terrain,
whereas the Phalanx ideally required flat ground to perform properly.
The contrast in performance between the two formations was shown clearly at the Battle
of Pydna in 168 BC. At the beginning of the battle, the Antigonid Phalanx, deployed on
a flat plain, drove away the Roman Velite skirmishers and Hastati without much effort.
The Roman legions could hardly even touch the Phalangites. But then the Romans purposefully
retreated onto the mountain slopes behind them, and the Macedonians pursued. As they
advanced up the mountain the Phalangites began to fray and split, allowing the Roman centurions
to lead their men into the formation’s gaps. With their forest of spears disrupted by the
terrain, the more flexible Romans cut the Phalangites to pieces and the remaining Antigonid
forces fled. The Phalangites in Hellenistic armies used
the Sarissa, a two-handed iron-headed pike around 16-21 feet in length, while their shafts
made of either Cornell or Ash wood and were around 1 ½ inches in diameter. The iron heads
of the Sarissae were surprisingly small, designed to pierce armour and shields. The Roman poet
Gratius described them as ‘little teeth’. In addition, the pike also had a butt-spike
which allowed it to be stuck into the ground, or functioned as a secondary weapon if the
main head was broken away. In addition, they had a shortsword as a last resort.
For protection, the phalangite wore bronze helmets of many kinds, especially the pilos
and corinthian. On their torso, the linothorax linen cuirass or a bronze cuirass were the
most common types of protection while the legs were protected by clip-on greaves. As
their spears were two-handed, they could only use a smaller shield strapped to their arm
known as the pelte. Meanwhile the Roman Hastati were equipped
in the lightest manner of the legion’s heavy infantry line. They were poorer and likely
armoured with a lighter pectoral slab and a single greave. On top of this armour, which
was probably lighter than that of their Phalangite opponents, they possessed the heavy Scutum
shield which was far heavier than the shield held by the Phalangites. Despite this, the
Hastati in the first line probably had a speed advantage.
Like the rest of the Roman line, they were armed with the roughly 85cm long Gladius as
their primary weapon, which they were trained to use both in an organized maniple or as
an individual fencing weapon. In addition, they possessed their two Pila throwing Javelins,
which made them into a hybrid missile troop as well as a sword wielding heavy infantry
unit. When thrown en masse at the phalangites, it would cause them to discard their crucial
shields and make them even more vulnerable. In contrast, the phalangites were purely long-range
melee units who, if the legionaries made it past the bristling pikes, were almost useless.
The manner in which both armies were led was also a key factor in their performance, and
is profoundly influenced by the culture and politics of both Rome and the eastern Greek
Kingdoms. The Hellenistic kings considered themselves descendants of Alexander the Great
and conducted themselves in this manner. From Heraclea to Beneventum, Pyrrhus of Epirus
was always in the thick of the fighting, and was eventually killed in battle against the
Argives. Philip V of Macedon was personally leading his phalanx on the ridge at Cynoscephalae
and Seleucid Emperor Antiochus III charged at the head of his cataphractii cavalry at
Magnesia, essentially copying their famous progenitor Alexander himself. This focus on
the personal heroism of a Hellenistic monarch in hand to hand combat deprived the rigid
phalanx of much needed leadership which was detrimental in its battles against the manipular
legion. While Roman generals did engage in personal
combat with their troops, it was the exception rather than the rule. Most of the time consuls
led from horseback just behind their battle line. This gave the commander an elevated
position on the battlefield, as well as a platform from which they could move to sections
of the field that needed their attention. An example of this is once again at the Battle
of Cynoscephalae, where Quinctius Flaminius observed his left flank collapsing under the
sheer weight of the Phalanx. At that moment, he decided he could be more useful elsewhere,
and rode to his right flank, which proceeded to crush the unprepared and undeployed Macedonian
left with his assistance. After that, another event occurred which shows the initiative
of Roman captains compared to their Macedonian adversaries. As the majority of the Roman
right flank chased the routing Macedonian left, a lone military Tribune managed to rally
a significant number of legionaries to him and crashed into the seemingly triumphant
Macedonian right, an action which won the battle for Rome. This kind of action, where
a small portion of a legion could act alone, was a uniquely Roman characteristic, and was
rarely seen in the Phalanx which needed to function in as big a mass as possible to be
effective. In the Roman Legions there was a high amount
of command and control which was pushed down to the lowest ranks, a trait which is not
evident in the Hellenistic militaries. The Roman centurion was an influential and powerful
figure in the legion and we see them taking their own initiative at Pydna to get their
troops into the gaps as the Phalanx opened up. We are also aware that senior Centurions
participated directly in the consular leadership of a Roman army. As mentioned before, the
Tribune at Cynoscephalae felt confident enough in his ability and authority without consulting
his overall commander that he dispatched 20 maniples to the other flank to attack the
enemy in the rear. Moreso, at Magnesia we not only see a Tribune rallying fleeing soldiers,
but executing those cowards who refused to reform. Those who did reform were led in a
countercharge, all on the officer’s own initiative.
The conflict between the legionaries and the phalangites would continue, but the defeat
of the successor kingdoms at the hands of the Roman state would prove the hands-down
victory for the more flexible and intuitive legions, over Alexander’s Sarissa phalanx.
This series of wars also had consequences for the wider region as Rome thrust east,
annexing Greece, Macedonia and the western part of Asia Minor. As a result of the Greek
slaves taken and culture observed during these conquests, the Romans would increasingly adopt
Hellenic customs and it would be said that ‘Rome conquered Greece, but Greece conquered
Rome’. The mid-republican Manipular legion had forged the Roman state into the dominant
force of the Mediterranean but new threats were soon to arise which would necessitate
the Marian Reforms.
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