Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of Ancient Welfare Answers with me,

Murray. I'm going to answer another question today which will relate to some of the previous

words I've asked, answered. This one comes from Andy who compliments me on my review of the

Sirissa and then has a question.

The question I've always bonded is why it seems to fall out of use between the two periods,

even though protecting infantry from cavalry remains a consistent problem across ancient and medieval warfare.

Now, the two periods he's talking about are a millennia apart, or more than a millennia apart,

because, of course, you've got the Macedonian

phalanche with the long pike in the fourth, third, and second century BC, gets defeated by the

Roman legion in the second century BC, and then, of course, the pike phalanx to protect infantry

from cavalry comes back in the late medieval early modern period in the

1400s. So yeah, 1600 years of non-falangx infantry. So why does it fall out in those periods

when protecting infantry against cavalry is still important and as important as it was when the phalanx comes into existence.

Now, I think that one of the reasons is something I touched upon earlier that what tends to happen

in the Roman period, especially against the Palloristic and then also against the Carthaginians is that arms fight arms, infantry fights, infantry, cavalry fights cavalry.

And only if one of those is successful do they turn.

So, you know, at the Battle of Canadi, for instance, in 216 BC, the Roman cavalry and the Carthaginian cavalry fight each other.

The Roman cavalry is driven off. Only then does the Carthaginian cavalry fight each other, the Roman cavalry is driven off.

Only then does the Carthaginian cavalry turn and encircle the Roman legions,

meaning the Roman legions have been fighting the Carthaginian family. So that's partly the problem that this, I think talking of combined arms is not quite the right

thing because that's not really the way that the ancients thought.

They did combine arms, absolutely.

...