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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.
The phalanx was later changed to a 16-by-16 formation, and while the date for this change is still unknown, it occurred before 331 under Philip's rule. [2] Philip called the soldiers in the phalanx pezhetairoi, meaning 'foot-companions', bolstering the importance of the phalanx to the King. [3]
In this formation, the outside ranks formed a dense vertical shield wall and inside ranks held shields over their heads, thus forming a tortoise-like defense, well-protected from missile weapons. Although highly effective against missiles, the formation was slow and was vulnerable to being isolated and surrounded by swarms of enemy soldiers.
As with the other major Hellenistic armies, the Seleucid army fought primarily in the Greco-Macedonian style, with its main body being the phalanx. The phalanx was a large, dense formation of men armed with small shields and a long pike called the sarissa.
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 ...
The phalanx was an infantry formation, characterized by dense ranks and pikes . Their soldiers (known as phalangites) ranged from professional warriors, drilled in tactics, weapon use and formation, typically of Greek origin; to trained, non-Greek villagers, as was the case in the army of Ptolemy Philopator, the victor of Raphia.
A close order formation is a military tactical formation in which soldiers are close together and regularly arranged for the tactical concentration of force. It was used by heavy infantry in ancient warfare , as the basis for shield wall and phalanx tactics, to multiply their effective weight of arms by their weight of numbers.
Reconstruction of a Hoplite Phalanx formation. The ancient Greek city-states developed a military formation called the phalanx, which were rows of shoulder-to-shoulder hoplites. The Hoplites would lock their shields together, and the first few ranks of soldiers would project their spears out over the first rank of shields.