Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of ancient warfare answers. You'll notice that I'm by

myself, so Jasper is away and the cat, meaning me, will play. So I'm going to answer a question

all by myself. I'm going to talk to myself and ask myself the question. So the question is from Celtic

Ace, one of our patrons. You too can become a patron. I'll get to that at the end.

He has a question about the phalanx.

What could be the possible reason that this style of warfare came about?

It seems strange to use such a formation against infantry,

plus why a nine-foot spear?

I picture if two phalanxes were about were to be fighting,

it would look like two bucks or stags or for the European fellas, he said that, fighting.

That is a big, big question to answer. The phalanx is a term that we tend to want to use

as a technical term, but in fact it's a massive, dense, massive men.

If I'm right off the top of my head, you know, the term is used way back in Homeric warfare,

but it's what is a phalanx, what isn't a phalanx?

And as warfare develops, we get into another set of controversies, because let's face it,

a bunch of men

fighting, standing together in close proximity to one another will look very similar to a bunch

of trained men standing very closely together in proximity to one another. And they are very

different things. So one is a mass of untrained, one is a mass of trained. The next issue that

comes about is the idea, of course, that these are all in the archaic period.

They're all carrying shields of separate different kinds.

And so it is technically a shield wall.

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