>"Fuck Sparta and fuck Macedon too" - Rome.
>>400244
>HOLY FUCK THOSE PIKES ARE 20 FEET LONG AND THEY GO THROUGH SHIELDS
>FUCK THIS
>-Rome
They fucking hated fighting phalanxes.
>>400698
Cynoscephalae, what is it?
- You
>>400698
>"HOLY FUCK THESE ROMANS ARE GOING AROUND US"
>"WE WEREN'T TRAINED FOR THIS"
> - Macedon
They fucking hated fighting Maniples
>>400698
I don't know how much the Romans exaggerated the effectiveness of pikes but in one battle they notice how the infantry barely managed to kill a single Pikemen and how the said Pikemen turned Romans into kebab skewers.
Pikes are fucking brutal desu.
>>400244
Romans revered the Spartans even after they'd long lost relevance. Sparta was perhaps more romanticized in Roman culture than Alexander was.
One of the biggest influences on the Republic was Sparta.
What's going on in this thread, guys?
>>400752
Fuckers ruin everything. EVERYTHING.
>>400718
Sparta was miserable cheap tourist resort for rich Romans.
>>400716
A pike phalanx is extremely powerful - nigh-invincible - from the front. Unfortunately, they are also nigh-impossible to maneuver, and without proper support from more mobile troops, a flexible but strong maniple or cohort would destroy them.
>>400752
Oh, just getting ready to sack Csteiphon.
>>400732
>Pyrrhus fights romans
>notes these barbarians actually can fight
>adds swordman and peltast formations between his phalanxes for flexibility
>gets done in by roof tile thrown by old hag in Argos
>>400713
Very, very lucky.
Try reading what pallus had to say at pydna.
He describes the phalanx as absolutely terrifying, and he was a veteran commander leading a more seasoned than normal army.
>>400715
Magnesia.
The pikes weren't broken until elephants were driven mad and started rampaging around in the squares.. Macedonians were shit, selucid pikes just formed square and kept the romans back when the flanks collapsed. Attempts at pila, arrow, and sling volleys had little effect.
>>400732
They had these things, but fucked up using them.
Macedon had the issue of simply LOSING on the flanks, and of the cavalry refusing to engage or running. The seclucids had to face allied forces with hellenic cavalry backing the romans, and, again, simply got beaten on the flanks.
>>400757
>Ctesiphon was the largest city in the world from 570 AD, until its fall in 637 AD, during the Muslim conquests.[2]
Sounds like it didn't really take.
That'll teach you not to Carthage them when you had the chance.
>>400767
>sack csteiphon
>then forced to run away like faggots from mesopotamia
R-roma invicta
>>400773
If it hadn't been for the tactical flexibility of the legions, no amount of luck would have saved the Roman army at Cynoscephalae.
>>400773
this is why you gotta keep your elephants drugged people.
>>400789
>Thinking holding Mesopotamia is a good idea.
Trajan, is that you?
>>400795
>we totally didn't want it guys.
>running away was part of the plan
And thus rome ruled eternal.
>>400794
Or just don't bring them. Ever.
>>400791
No argument here. Even as it was, they possibly would have lost had the macedonians not been so poor in terms of light infantry and cavalry, or had the cavalry done their jobs.
People need to not shit on the phalanx. It was stupidly effective, but being badly handled by the time rome started looking east.
>>400803
Oh, we wanted it. It was just a misguided desire for it because there was no way it could be held. The land wasn't defensible, and sending reinforcements and extending Imperial bureaucracy there would have crippled Rome. Hadrian had the right idea. Had the Crisis of the Third Century not happened, then I think Rome would have fared much better against the Sassanians, though it should have been more active in interfering in Persian affairs in the first place to prevent a more powerful dynasty from gaining power in the first place.
>>400818
>don't bring elephants
>don't bring the premier anti cavalry force in existence
are you a faggot?
>>400758
Yes, because the institutions of the Republic were inspired by the Spartan state. Something that occurred because of how much the Romans idolized the Spartans.
>>400823
You know what's great against cavalry, cheaper than elephants, easier to control, and a lot less likely to turn on you?
Your own cavalry.
Who are actually hampered by your elephants.
>>400783
>confusing the Arsacids with the Sassanians
Nigger what are you doing?
>>400764
That goes for most armies really. If you lack flanking support you will get assfucked.
>>400716
It's the ultimate "Come at me bro!" weapon.
>>400884
Yes, but it is extremely true of a phalanx, which has no way to protect its flanks other than supporting troops.
>>400764
Seems overrated when any half-way decent lighter infantry or especially cavalry or missile troops especially beat them from the sides. Which all competent commanders to do when they don't have their own hoplitse or phalangites to counter.
>>400897
Except it can, by presenting pikes to all sides. Hellenic forces did this on several occasions.
They're no more vulnerable to flanking assaults than any other body of infantry.
>>400898
That is why Alexander had multiple other troops in his army, but his successor states were often overly reliant on just the Phalanx.
>>400888
It's a formation that allows you to put a lot of rather lightly armed soldiers to good use in large numbers.
That said it suffers from the same defects as cavalry, it's shit on broken ground and it requires good communal training and preferable some sort of state behind it to fund it all.
>>400898
Very few armies both ancient or medieval defeated pikes with another melee weapon. If they did it was almost always because of terrain or some other factor like Elephants.
In the end only guns drove it away from the battlefield.
The most reliable counter to pikes were... pikes, which is what you see in the succesor kingdoms and pretty much all of Europe between 1580-1648.
>>400906
What would they do on the corners if they were making a square? Given the length of the Pikes, it would suggest that there would be very wide corners.
I have a question for you lads. We all know Latin culture has a huge tendence to be unorganized. How did the Romans manage to get over that reality and establish such a huge empire ?
>>400921
Unorganized?
They were a lot like some classical greek city states with Hoplite phalanx armies.
Were shields ever actually used in phalanx to block every surface under rain of arrows during movement or am I stupid?
>>400916
>lighter soldiers
They'd qualify as heavy by weight of weapons and armor.
>preferable some sort of state behind it to fund it all.
Actually, the phalanxes were, initially at least, 100% privately armed.
>>400920
I have no idea, but whatever it is it worked for the swiss, germans, english, spanish, and macedonians.
>>400943
They had a helm on their head and greaves on their shins typically.
>>400752
What the fuck are you doing here? Parthians can't read.
>>400888
The trips never lie
>>400950
>They'd qualify as heavy by weight of weapons and armor.
Lighter than what they typically faced.
The Swiss, Landsknecht and Macedonians typically only had the file leader armored while the rest had a helmet or some shit.
Roman legionaries and many late medieval armies had almost everyone armored.
>Actually, the phalanxes were, initially at least, 100% privately armed.
I meant the pike ones, wasn't being a Macedonian soldier a full time job?
>>400773
He was amazed that the Macedonians had that many men, how it's size terrified him, not that he was scared of Phalanxes per se.
Not to mention that the spanking he gave them speaks to the superiority of the Roman model, despite being significantly outnumbered.
>>401014
The Romans beat mr Pyrric victory mostly with luck though.
>>401028
>Get into rough terrain as the battle moves, like battle lines are wont to do
>Phalanx falls apart
Yeah, just pure luck that they ran into hilly terrain in fucking Greece.
>>400770
I still think Pyrrhus was the only guy who did it right during that era. It's a shame his other personality faults did him in, basically.
>>401052
That's luck.
Unless there is some indication it was all a planned move. Several English commanders actually fought on broken ground on purpose and didn't accidentally stumble on it while they were retreating.
>>401066
Being unable to operate in a very common mode of terrain in your own homeland isn't a matter of luck, it's an enormous operational handicap.
>>401014
He specifically speaks of the terror induced by the pikes, and unison of movement.
And no, not the number of men, there wasn't a considerable disparity in size.
>>401000
>full time job?
Nope. Not under alexander. It became this, but the men were actually landholding farmers legally obligated to be armed to certain extents, including pike, shield, helmet, greave, and IIIRC, linothorax. You were fined if you lacked these things.
>lighter than that they faced
Not really. They're all comparable to contemporaries or heavier, with the sometimes exception of the swiss.
Macedonians were far heavier than persians, and on par with republican rome-shield, weapon, (pila vs sarissa), sword, greave and helm, likely but not guaranteed armor for the body. Romans could have anything from pectorals, to chain, to muscle armor, to nothing.
Macedonians ran a similar gamut, with men with no torso armor, linothoraxes, curiass, and likely even a few in chain.
They were possibly slightly lighter, but not enough to qualify as anything less than heavy infantry.
Landsknecht forces loved armor, and you could expect to see a LOT of almain rivet in their ranks, until the tail end of their existence.
Black and white armor was a particularly distinctive-and beautiful-style of theirs.
>>401069
How is that not luck of the Romans?
The best general is the one that makes fewer mistakes than the other general.
Phalanx is amazing but I agree with some people's assessments its a bit over-rated. Ultimately regardless of its direct advantages, it has a lot of tactical flaws. The pikes the phalangites and heavy hoplites use are extremely cumbersome, and tactical acumen isn't carried over into squad level units like how the maniplar system with Roman heavy and medium infantry are.
They can not wheel about, their sides and flanks are easily if pushed, capable of more dramatic collapsing then the Roman manipulars and so on.
>>401103
They can do literally all of these things.
>squad level
Romans NEVER operated with that level of autonomy. They moved in groups of hundreds of men or not at all.
>can't wheel
No, but they are enitely capable of raising pikes, turning 180 degrees, and marching ina different direction, or assuming a square if attacked on a flank.
Which they did, multiple times. The silver shields in particular survived the loss of a battle by forming square, marching off the field, and slaughtering any cavalry that tired to stop or slow them.
>>401120
>Phalanxes facing the legion were vulnerable to the more flexible Roman "checkerboard" deployment, which provided each fighting man a good chunk of personal space to engage in close order fighting. The manipular system also allowed entire Roman sub-units to maneuver more widely, freed from the need to always remain tightly packed in rigid formation. The deep three-line deployment of the Romans allowed combat pressure to be steadily applied forward.
>Most phalanxes favored one huge line several ranks deep. This might do well in the initial stages, but as the battle entangled more and more men, the stacked Roman formation allowed fresh pressure to be imposed over a more extended time. As combat lengthened and the battlefield compressed, the phalanx might thus become exhausted or rendered immobile, while the Romans still had enough left to not only maneuver but to make the final surges forward.
>They can do literally all of those things.
Not well enough.
>>401076
>And no, not the number of men, there wasn't a considerable disparity in size.
44,000 to 29,000 is a bit over 3:2. That is a very significant disparity in size.
>>401080
Are you being serious?
Encountering a common terrain type is hardly luck. Building a military that cannot function in said common terrain is stupid. Hadicapping yourself like that is necessarily going to lead to problems, and yes, it might not happen every single battle, but it's still at the very least something you then have to come up with ways to avoid.
Good tactics and military organization revolve around using what you have, in both terrain and men, and a force that has handicaps like the Phalanx is going to find itself "unlucky" an awful lot of the time.
Next thing you'll be saying is that the Saxon cavalry disadvantage limiting their options at Hastings, or the German mechanical unreliability of their latewar tanks were also "luck" when said systematic problems led to openings for their enemies.
>>401076
Your standard post-marius Roman legionary had main or segmentata didn't they?
The few sources I have seen indicate only the file leaders or front rank had some sort of chest protection. Byzantine military manuals mention the same thing. The Scottish at Flodden did it and the Landsknecht had armored doppelsoldners as file leaders. Though I reckon many other landsknecht might have had armor too. That said a fair percentage could be almost unarmored, not that this changes their definition to light infantry or anything, that's more of a role thing rather than armor.
>>401080
The entire concept of hoplite heavy infantry evolved in Greece because holding vital pathways, dictated by the terrain in a country that is frequently geographically formed as being severely hilly and rocky and failing to compensate for this on your own home turf is the Greeks/Macedonian's incompetence.
>>401080
>tactical flexibility is luck
lol
>>401128
The only way non pike infantry can beat pikes is when the pike formation falls apart though.
More personal space more or less means more pointy sticks trying to stab you.
>>401130
>Are you being serious?
Allow me to greentext the situation from the perspective of a Roman.
>Oh fuck the pikes are advancing on us
>Oh shit were getting killed by said pikes
>Oh damn we have to retreat
>Oh lol their pike phalanx is falling apart because the terrain we retreated too happened to be broken ground
Did the Romans win because of their great commander? Would you promote the general who won because of that?
What if there was a lake, a swamp or a steep cliff to their back, would the same Roman army have won that day?
>>401169
They had tactical flexibility.
But unless there is a source that says the Roman general carefully prepared a controlled retreat to broken ground to use this flexibility it's not great generalship that won the battle. Rather it was serendipitous.
>>401189
If they had tactical flexibility, why did the battle fall apart in the pursuit phase?
>>401128
And meanwhile, we have battles where a phalanx ius totally surrounded and able to survive.
Try actually reading books, and not just quoting wikipedia.
>>401137
>Your standard post-marius Roman legionary?
These men were not the ones who faced the Macedonians. Or the selucids, for that matter.
Dopplesoldners were both file leaders, and an internal reserve with shorter weapons. They'd actually make up a considerable portion of a units manpower.
>>401198
They won because of the retreat didn't they?
Are we talking about the same battle here?
>>401189
If the phalanx system has more tactical flexibility, why are they unable to shish kabob the Roman units while losing unit cohesion and being routed?
>>401218
I think you misread what I said, I agreed with the guy that the Romans had more flexibility.
>>401189
>Would you promote a commander who won a battle based on using the terrain and forces available to him to secure a victory?
FTFY
>But unless there is a source that says the Roman general carefully prepared a controlled retreat to broken ground to use this flexibility it's not great generalship that won the battle. Rather it was serendipitous.
By that logic, Rommel wasn't a great (tactical) commander, since he came up with his plans on the spur of the moment because of developments in battles like Sunflower and Gazala. You can't call Alexander a great general because he didn't know where or when a weak point would open up in battles like Issus and Granicus, those were just luck. Napoleon isn't a great general for taking advantage in confusion between Austrian and Russian armies at Austerlitz. I can go on, but do you see how dumb a standard that is?
Military forces make their own luck by having a wide array of options that can be pursued. When you trade that flexibility for power in a particular instance which might or might not come up, you can't run along crying that you were merely unlucky when the specific set of circumstances that you can fight in don't come up.
>>401209
>we have battles where a phalanx ius totally surrounded and able to survive.
Apparently they missed the Romans ignored that part given how often Seleucid and Antigonid armies got blown out by Rome.
>>401233
Apparently you missed the part where the romans had to resort to shooting at elephants who were in the middle of the squares to break them, because the selucids were going to march right off the field, and nobody was able to stop them.
>>401230
>Would you promote a commander who won a battle based on using the terrain and forces available to him to secure a victory?
Literally not what happened.
They attacked frontally, lost, started getting beaten badly, and stimbled onto terrain that allowed them to win.
Had the macedonians pushed harder, or the plain been any larger, rome would have lost the day.
>>401209
>Hellenefags get wrecked by the descendants of Troy
God I love it
>>401215
The Romans won, I thought.
>>401248
Apparently you missed the part where the Romans defeated the Greeks and Macedonians and Seleucid armies repeatedly using tactics, strategy, and superior combat doctrines and not playing the Hellenistic world's taunt to go for an armored fist fight between phalangites vs legionaries.
Get over it Greekboo.
>>401215
They won because the Macedonian vanguard charged ahead, lost unit cohesion and gaps started to appear fatally in their phalanxes, Romans are able to use the steep incline to gain momentum and defeat phalanx units piece meal.
>>401215
The Romans ultimately won because Macedonians are retarded.
>>401253
Yep, because they stumbled on broken ground during their retreat. Not some premeditated plan, they just found themselves on ground better suited to them by chance.
>>401277
That pretty much.
The English had a similar thing in the 16th century, they almost always encountered Scottish pike blocks in a bad position or drew them in one. Had the English bill armed force faced them on flat ground it would be a different matter.
>>401289
And the Macedonians were unprepared entirely because their tactics were shit.
>>401295
>tactics were shit
>expand from backwater kingdom in northern greece to ruling egypt, the persian empire, and greece
>do this in the lifetime of two men
>who died young
No.
>>401295
Pike worked pretty well on flat and good ground. Roman maniples worked well on less uniform ground.
The said pike wielding guys faced Romans on ground that favored them.
Same goes for cavalry really, they also need good ground. The Hundred years war has plenty of examples of Infantry beating cavalry and the other way around. However here it's mostly the English fighting on broken ground by choice and tactical consideration rather than something they just stumbled upon.
>>401300
Oh, it is fine when you have cav supporting you and more flexible lighter infantry, but the later armies didn't.
>>401300
>Destroy a bunch of states that were broken, bankrupt, and exhausted from the Peloponesean war
>As well as a gigantic empire which literally could not stop a 10,000 man phalanx from rampaging at will
>Hard.
Tactics evolve dude. If you were doing skirmish lines and set artillery barrages, you were at the forefront of tactics in the Franco-Prussian war. If you tried that in WW1, you'd get your shit pushed in, and your shit tactics would be entirely to blame.
Polybius, himself an ethnic and native born Greek admits the Roman manipular system was more flexible and overall better then the Greek phalanx and ultimately he addresses it because Greek soldiers are not trained to fight individually or in smaller units unlike their Roman counterparts and the phalanx had to be oriented on flat uneven terrain for maximum effectiveness.
So from a Greek own statements, phalanxes are inferior to Roman maniples.
>>401300
>didn't even conqueror all of previous Achaemeneid Empire lands
>reigned for barely 7 years
>empire is carved up
>once Carthage is removed as a threat after the 2nd Punic War, the Greek world succumbs within a century despite using his tactics and formations as the basis of their more modern units
Yeah.
>>401308
>could not stop a 10,00 man phalanx from rampaging at will
Please don't bluster with hyperbole. Alex's army was a lot larger then simply 10,000 hoplites or phalangites. Besides, when it came down ultimately, the Persian elite cavalry threatened to break Alex's formations several times until last minute formation changes or 11th hour tier tactical acumen won the day.
>>401318
>Please don't bluster with hyperbole. Alex's army was a lot larger then simply 10,000 hoplites or phalangites.
I was referring to Xenophon and the Anabassid, you ignorant twit.
>>401308
>Tactics evolve dude
I'd say they change to adept to the context they're used in. Many weapons and tactics saw a comeback during History.
>>401325
It wasn't clear from those chain of replies you were referring to the Anabasis. Besides, when a certain Spartan King tried invading Asia Minor, he got blown out despite having a large number of hoplites by more mobile Persians.
You niggers need to understand this stuff only works on a case by case scenario that has to be analyzed, quantified, and debated individually not generally.
>>401325
You mean the same 10,000 that lost over 40% of its manpower by the time they escaped Persian lands back to Greece? I would not define that as "rampaging".
>>401331
True, but there is a more or less general trend of more successful tactics being adopted and refined, and less successful ones being discarded. It's very, very rare when something disused is revived successfully.
>>401337
You mean the Corinthian war? Where, you know, the Spartans were fighting half of Greece, who were sponsored as such by the Persians in their divide and rule policy that they'd been doing for a while?
>>401354
Mostly to disease and lack of food, which can happen when you're trapped far in a hostile country with no friends or funds.
They defeated every army sent against them, and relatively easily.
>>400921
That's really a modern assumption. Up through the remaissance/early modern era, it was really the opposite. The Romans, then the Medieval/Renaissance Italians and the early modern Spanish and Portuguese were the traders, the hard workers, and the managers of world affairs, while it was the Celts and Germans who were seen as the romantic adventuring types, over-emotional, squabbling among themselves in petty states, and more concerned with good food and drink than burning the midnight oil. Over-exaggerated stereotypes, of course, but the total opposite of the German/Italian stereotypes we have today. You can still see a little bit of this if you contrast the cultures and lifestyles of northern Italy (e.g. Milan) with those of Austria, Bohemia, and Bavaria.
>>401416
Akshully, even the French and German stereotypes were reversed not too long ago where the French were autistic and militaristic and the Germans were aloof and artistic.
>>401403
>It's very, very rare when something disused is revived successfully.
Massed archery is one thing which was resurrected.
Pikes or long spears were resurrected multiple times.
The spear armed Phalanx never really disappeared to begin with.
Shock cavalry used waxed and waned a lot too.
Until gunpowder really took off most previously used tactics were perfectly viable if used within the correct context.
>>401403
>Mostly to disease and lack of food
And Persian ambushes.
ITT greekfags get BTFO
>>401477
selucids were filthy Muslim ancestors
>>402222
t. Stormfront
>>402624
>>402649
Yes I love dank meme resposts from /twg/, what are you trying to do here?
>>401052
>Yeah, just pure luck that they ran into hilly terrain in fucking Greece.
Since when did the romans fight Pyrrhus in fucking Greece?
>>402820
The fun part is... phryuss killed romans on rough ground.
With pikes.
>>402887
The funnier part is almost every win for Phyruss costed him more then it did the Romans.
>>402892
No, they didn't. He typically lost far fewer men, and the romans took more overall casualties in that war than the epirotes and allies.
The issue was that he was in italy, not greece, and couldn't replace the men he had brought from home, whereas romans just kept coming.
3000 dead phalangnites is a serious issue when you literally can't replace them, because the locals are either samnites who fight like latins, or hoplite armed Greeks of mediocre quality.
This is even worse when you realized his best men were at the front, and were the ones who kept being killed.
Try actually reading.
>>400718
It's because they both loved Mars
>>402917
We had this fucking debate a thousand times already on the board every god damn time that loser gets brought up. He continued to lose over 10% of his manpower in every engagement he had with the Romans.
He knew he was fighting a fucking war of attrition and still ended up playing at Rome's rules on their terrain as they set the pace. Try actually not being retarded.
>>400994
Great trips pic
>>402924
He was regarded in his time and to this day as the best general of his generation sans Alexander the Great, who happened to be his cousin.
>>402924
Hes also one of the few commanders to have ever even come close to posing a serious threat to Rome because of that. In the same way Hannibal took the fight to Roman soil, so did Phyruss, and both were some of the most capable commanders to face Rome.
>>403011
>Phyruss
>>402924
where else was he supposed to fight?
its either fight in Italy, or let Rome take all of magna graecia
>>403404
Rome didn't even have to take over Magna Graecia militarily, it surrendered once it heard of Pyrrhus' death.
>>402924
I never argued this. He was an idiot. This doesn't change that the previous statement was FUCKING WRONG.
He didn't lose more men than the romans in every engagement.
Full stop. This isn't fucking debatable, the numbers are clear.
>>405168
>Phyrric victory
>A term literally coined because Epirus kept "winning" battles that ended up costing him more in victory at costs that were too high to justify
>>403629
yeah, because any hope of military support was gone and they knew they couldn't resist Rome
>>407312
What is it like, being unable to follow a chain of less than ten comments?
A huge advantage the Romans had was their huge manpower. The amount of men they could lose yet keep on fighting was great in wars with Hellenistic states. Makedon had a population deficit thanks to emigration to the Ptolemaic and Seleukid kingdoms. Ptolemaic Egypt suffered from not receiving enough Greek colonists and it was quite risky arming the natives who hate you. The Seleukid kingdom had to spread it's Greek colonists all over the kingdom and couldn't get into meatgrinding wars since those Greeks weren't easy to comeby. If Rome lost an army they would simply create a new one, if a Hellenistic kingdom lost a major battle they would ask for peace in order to preserve their Greek manpower.
>>407542
What's it like being autistic?
>>407563
you tell me
>>407727
I'm asking the man with experience here.
>>408108
I will ask you again, why do you think the term "Phyrric" victory came out? Are you illiterate and lacking in reading comprehension skills?
>>408146
Are you incapabale of reading a sentence, ad interpreting numbers?
The statement being refuted is
"phyruss lost more men than the roman in each of his engagements"
not
"phryuss's engagements with the Romans were strategic losses in spite of tactical victory"
You are literallt trying to argue with established fact.
There isn't a single primary or secondary source supporting the idea that he lost more men in each battle with the romans.
He lost more in one, lost fewer in the others, and has a lower overall death toll.
End of discussion.
>>408496
No, but I'm certain that failing is on your part.
>>408496
He's either trolling or retarded, in both cases it's useless to argue with him.
>>402924
>He knew he was fighting a fucking war of attrition and still ended up playing at Rome's rules on their terrain as they set the pace. Try actually not being retarded.
You're missing the tragedy of Pyrrhus entirely and you're not read up on this subject at all.
Rome had a huge population with all of their allies to draw soldiers upon. Rome, the city itself, had attracted a huge population thanks to the bread dole and that's how the early Republic maintained it's large armies.
Hellenistic Kingdoms on the other hand did not
>Enlist local troops in anything but supporting roles
>Have large populations
>Have expendeable armies
In effect, the entire population of Greeks and all of the greek migrants made up the population from which all of the successor states drew their armies upon at this particular time. A defeat or two was usually enough to make any Greek king sue for peace since the destruction of one army was enough to put you in a severly disadvantageous strategic position.
Rome, meanwhile, could just call upon the next couple of thousand poor commoners who wanted their share of the spoils.
Hannibal faced the same problem years later. He annihilated three roman armies in the span of two years, leaving almost no survivors and yet the Romans just kept coming.
In the end, THIS is why Rome conquered the Mediteranean. Had it been on the same field as the greeks, population wise, they would have sued for peace after Heraclea and Asculum and lost Magna Graeca.
Later on, after Cannae, they would have been as inable to defend themselves further as Carthage after Zama.
>re the Macedonian Phalanx
The reason Alexander was succesfull with it and the other's were not was that Alexander realized when to use it and when not to. Also, it made up a much smaller portion of his army than later Hellenistic armies. It was, in his army, supported by other heavy infantry (hoplites) and specialist light and heavy troops (hypaspistai and agrianians).
>>408496
In which battle did Pyrrhus lose more men than the romans? Genuinly curious, I'm guessing it's Benevento.
>>409393
Last one. Can't recall the name.
>>409384
>You're not read up on this subject at all.
Actually most of us are and the Greek apologism is really fucking transparent here.
>>410359
There's no Greek apologism.
The Romans won because they had more resources and were better at martial pursuits. Not only did they keep coming, they often kept coming at you from other angles.
While I find greek and hellenism more interesting, they did not adapt with the times and had to many wars going on at the same time. They were no match.
Fuck Rome and their hatred of kings.
>>402820
Since when did Pyrrhus fight at Pydna?
