Hi everyone and welcome to a new ancient warfare answers with me, Murray.

I'm going to be answering a couple of your questions in a minute.

But first, of course, you can join us by asking a question.

You can back us on Patreon at one of three levels,

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And, of course, you can send us a question however you like.

Now, today's question is, well, not a favourite,

but certainly one that I enjoyed receiving,

which is from Tony Pete.

Can you tell us anything about the difference in style of combat

when comparing late medieval pike versus ancient Cirissa?

Very exciting.

For those of you that aren't excited, join me on the excitement tour,

which is, of course, that the ancient Sarissa is a Macedonian weapon.

Anything we're told between 10 cubits long to 17 cubits long, most people today regarded as 14 to 15 cubits

as being the average. Problem that of course is what's

a cubit uh cubit is the length of the forum um but it varies from state to state from city to city

so uh it's tricky in terms of working out exactly how long the cubit is roughly 45 centimeters is what we normally estimate it, but it changes.

There are other things as well about a breadth of a palm and the width of a palm as well.

So you'll hear in ancient sources things like cubit palm.

And that is problematic for us working out things because we like to be mathematically

clear and it's clear the sources weren't they may have been to them if they were from Athens

...