sarrisas

[Nicator]

Hello Paralus,"Again, as remarked to Nicator, yes the sarissa was designed as a two handed weapon. Even so, two handed weapons of fifteen or more feet need balance if you going to clamp your two hands at about the four to five foot mark (from the bottom)."I'm well aware that a balancing counterpoise would have been necessary and employed. The longer the weapon the more difficulty the phalangyte would have experienced in wielding it. There is some human limit on how long and thick the pike could be made, as the longer it became, the thicker it would have to become to maintain the tensile strength in the shaft length. Also, as the fulcrum was moved further back (particularly to raise the weapon high enough to reach a mahout)the counterpoise would have to be heavier, thus, increasing the overall weight of the pike. The weapon would still be functional, but the time that a man could sling the thing around would correspondingly decrease due to increased fatigue. Or, just as likely, they planned on simply planting the but end into the dirt and letting the elephants come to them as their main strategy. Both methods were likely employed in such a desparate situation. later Nicator

[Paralus]

G'day Nicator.Yes, the momentum of the spear head at the end of say eighteen or so feet (in later phalanxes) must have told over time.Still, the proper counter-weighing of and training the phalangite received with these weapons made for a rather deadly machine. Again, Hieronymus, who served with Eumenes and the Antigonids and whose history is preserved in (mostly) Diodorus, has some rather vivid descriptions of the abilities of the "Silver Shields" during the battles of Paraetacene and Gabiene. These, of course, were the most experienced of the Macedonian phalangites having commenced service under Philip.At Gabiene their commander Antigenes is reported to have sent a rider across the field to yell at the opposing Macedonian phalanx the taunt:
"You are sinning against your fathers you degenerates, the men who conquered the world with Philip and Alexander!"The opposing phalanx, though Macedonian, were at the least a generation younger and had been brought over from Europe by Antipater and Craterus. Hieronymus then goes on to describe how Peucestas betrayed Eumenes and withheld his cavalry from the field. And, that while Antigonus' right wing cavalry charge netted him the baggage train, the Silver Shields GÇô all sixty to seventy years old GÇô levelled sarissas and marched straight into the opposition phalanx, scattering and disorganising it and pushing it off the field.At battle's end Antigonus had Eumene's baggage train and had mopped up the general's wing but the Silver Shields GÇô 3,000 of them GÇô had the field and killed in excess of 5,000 of the Antigonid infantry. Indeed these experienced old hard heads had (in Bosworth's words) "practically destroyed it (Antigonus' infantry) as a fighting force".So, one could still wield these things at seventy and wipe the floor with phalangites less than half your age!These would have been the men with whom Philip executed the winning tactics at Chaeronea. No wonder the Persian infantry ran.Paralus

[Nicator]

Awesome! I love the battles!!! Peucestas the treacherous...what great drama! Thanks for that, really...thanks!later Nicator

[amyntoros]

This may not even be noticed before the thread disappears of the page, but I accidentally found a great example of what I call the Huh? factor while searching the web for something unrelated. This has to be the first time IGÇÖve read that the sarissa was SHORTER than the weapon used by Greek hoplites!

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/a ... 4.shtml"It was usually 16 men on a side, 256 men in each unit, always and exclusively Macedonian. They were armed with the sarissa, a long spear but at 13 feet actually shorter than the hasta used by Greek hoplites, which was over 16 feet long. The real strength of the phalanx was its many formations and maneuvers. While the square was the usual formation, it could form a line or wedge or other shapes. The soldiers were trained to respond to flag and trumpet signals. No army in the Western world in the 4th century was its equal."And this fellow is a university professor, no less, at Boise. There's a link for comments and questions, but no, I'm not going to follow through this time. ;-)Best regards,Amyntoros

[Paralus]

G'day Amyntoros.You don't think this fellow's inadvertently got it GÇô as we'd have it in the Aussie vernacular GÇô "arse-backwards"?I can't recall a description of a hoplite spear in excess of three metres.Paralus.

[amyntoros]

Seemed like a good idea to add this post to an existing thread because the length of the sarissa has been discussed before. (There was also another thread running concurrently to this one called ‘On the Sarissa’.)

In this instance, it is the length of the cavalry sarissa that is being considered. (The complete posting can be found on this Rogue Classicism page.)

THE SIGNS that the ancient Greeks and Romans are close to Carolyn Willekes’ heart are abundant. First there is the convincing way she pivots in her chair when demonstrating how archers mounted on horseback fired their arrows. Then there’s the fact that she gets a little breathless—as though her words were galloping ahead of her—when talking about Alexander the Great’s use of his cavalry. If you still need convincing, all you have to do is look a little closer to her heart because Willekes wears a necklace adorned with a copy of an Alexander coin and a small talisman used by modern Greeks to ward off the evil eye. This combination of the ancient and contemporary is also found in her approach to research. Willekes defended her master’s thesis last August and started on her PhD a month later. Although a master’s thesis called The Greek Warhorse: Its Breeding, Training and Military Role wouldn’t seem to offer a lot of scope for primary research, Willekes devised a simple way of testing her theories: She just gets on a horse with her bow and arrow (or sword or spear) and goes for a ride.

Willekes, 25, has been around horses ever since her parents gave her riding lessons for her 10th birthday. This practical knowledge was key to devising her research question. “I thought what if I took my knowledge from training horses and knowing what horses are actually like and tried to figure out how you actually put them on a battlefield?” she says. “Because if you know anything about horses it seems like the worst idea in the world. These things are afraid of everything and they’ll run away from anything.”

Along with fellow students Ryan Jones, who has a talent for making weapons, and Alison Mercer, whose parents own horses, Willekes has created a kind of bareback laboratory. In her master’s thesis, she writes about her findings regarding the sarissa, a long spear used by the Macedonian cavalry, which scholars generally believed to be about 4.5-metres-long. But Willekes was suspicious of that claim “If you have a small pony and no saddle or stirrups, how is that going to work?” she asks. “We made one that was 3.5- metres-long, and it wobbles like spaghetti when you ride.” She concluded that the sarissa could have been no more than 2.5 metres long. According to Waldemar Heckel, her thesis supervisor, Willekes’s research has larger implications. “Carolyn’s work shows that new methods can be applied,” he says, “and also that what is generally dismissed as ‘reenactment’ can be a very serious business—indeed an essential pursuit.”

My first thoughts were, did she take the thickness of the shaft into consideration and did she use cornel wood? However, with Waldemar Heckel as her thesis supervisor I can’t imagine that such known information was ignored. (What a pity that the precious metal sarissae from the Alexander sarcophagus are lost to us.) As it is, I took a look at the most famous representation of Alexander in battle, The Alexander Mosaic, and I would say that the sarissa in Alexander’s hand must be at least 3.5 metres long, the rear point of the sarissa being visible in a tiny remnant of mosaic that survives in a huge empty area. What I don’t know, however, is whether this remnant was found in situ, or whether it consisted of a few loose stones that were put back into place based on prior knowledge as to the length of the sarissa. However, if I’ve considered this image, then I’m sure that Willekes must have done so also. I wonder how one gets a hold of someone’s master’s thesis ’cause this one is definitely of interest. . .

Best regards,

Amyntoros

P.S. Is anyone else finding these peculiar groupings in old posts on this forum – GÇô GÇ£gospelGÇ¥ - IGÇÖ – etc. I noticed them in a recent post of mine (and they were not there when first posted), mostly appearing when I had used apostrophes. This old thread is replete with them, but I’m not sure if the problem lies with my computer or if anyone else has the same problem. I don’t want to bring this to Thomas’ attention unless it is a universal situation. Thanks.

[dean]

“If you have a small pony and no saddle or stirrups, how is that going to work?” she asks. “We made one that was 3.5- metres-long, and it wobbles like spaghetti when you ride.” She concluded that the sarissa could have been no more than 2.5 metres long.

I know that this is going slightly off subject but on another site, I read the interesting idea that Bucephalus was no bigger than a pony. This goes totally against the grain of how I imagine Bucephalus- easily as big as an elephant(well nearly)-

In Kirkstall Abbey, Yorkshire, England there are still today to be seen the tiny stone tombs of the monks supposedly fully grown men and their height is miniscule and that is going back only 600 years to the happy days of Henry the VIII- man's life span and height has increased over the passing centuries.

Is it possible that horse, 2000 years ago were not quite the massive animals that they can be today?

Best regards,
Dean

[Paralus]

G'day Amyntoros.

It's a server thing methinks. Possibly an attack of the Cryllic Virus?

I think Wilekes is correct. Cornel wood or no, there is no way (that I can invisage) a stirrup deprived horse rider weilding such a long pike. It is one thing to grapple with such an implement on foot -- with both hands -- and quite another when riding a flighty animal into a place it does not really wish to go: combat.

My view, as I think I expressed earlier, was that this was similar to the normal hoplite xyston. That would put it at some seven to nine feet. Given the fact that the rider had to carry this single handed, the weight will have been important. As well, there is the leverage aspect to thing of. Think of it in fishing terms: the longer the rod, the more pressure the fish puts upon the angler holding it. Try and hold a nine foot rod, with one hand, with a decent fish on the other end. One suspects that this spear was used similarly to the hoplite spear: stabbed down at the enemy and withdrawn for the next lunge. That being the case it was likely a better proposition being on the shorter side than the longer.

I'd guess about two and a half metres, three at most.

Then again, it is argued that Alexander and his Companions "ruptured the front" the enemy at Chaeronea. That they apparently did this on horseback would indicate a xyston of some sixteen feet or so -- given a horse's distaste for close proximity to hoplite spears and solid shield walls.

[amyntoros]

I know that this is going slightly off subject but on another site, I read the interesting idea that Bucephalus was no bigger than a pony. This goes totally against the grain of how I imagine Bucephalus- easily as big as an elephant(well nearly)- ... Is it possible that horse, 2000 years ago were not quite the massive animals that they can be today?

Hi Dean,

I was hoping that one of our experts on horses might step in with an answer here, but as they did not, here is a link to an old thread on Jeanne Reames Zimmerman’s LJ with a discussion on the size of ancient horses. Well … it also discusses the movie which was a hot topic at the time, but it’s not a large thread and the posts on horses are easy to find.

To add one thing to the comments you’ll find in Jeanne’s journal; someone posted that a Caspian horse at 9 hands would only have been a yard high, and Jeanne responded with a comment about the horses on the Parthenon Frieze. I didn’t post this on the journal, but I remembered a reference in Curtius (4.9.15) where Alexander’s army crosses the Tigris on foot while holding their weapons above their heads, yet when the cavalry had crossed the same river the water in mid-stream reached up to the horses’ necks! Doing the math, this would make for a very small horse indeed, and I admit I find it a little difficult to believe. Maybe this will prompt our experts to add some comments.

I’m not sure if I posted this before – can’t find it in a quick keyword search anyway – but PhDiva (Dorothy King) has a link to a PDF file (with photographs) on horses and horsemanship in the Athenian Agora.

And here’s another link that may be of interest – a more recent article on the comeback of the (larger) Ahal-Teke horses of Turkmenistan.

Best regards,

[dean]

Hi Amyntoros,

Thanks so much for the links- there is certainly more to it than meets the eye.

Alexander's horse can't have been anything like the one seen in Stone's film. Admittedly, it could easily have been as temperamental as described but certainly not half as big.

I haven't read the articles in depth- but this part seemed to sum things up nicely, taken from the last of the links.

In any case ancient horses were generally SMALL, compared to modern horses, I have heard many folks(students, interested others, and even other Greek scholars remark on the bad proportion of the Parthenon marbles (or other pictorial representations of horses both Greek and Persian) that show men with arms slung easliy over the withers of the horse or when mounted show feet very close to the ground. It is not bad proportion at all. It is an accurate reflection of the size of those horses.

As always, getting extremely precise is beyond what we can do with history like this- but I think that this quote puts it all into perspective,

thanks and take care,
Dean

[Archimedes]

Minor M. Markle III, one of the scholars who championed the coupling sleeve interpretation of the object in question, later repudiated his assessment: "...Mr. John Beard of Free Union, Virginia, the wood-worker who shaped for me a sarissa shaft, informed me that an iron sleeve of 0.17 m. was not sufficiently long enough to support the weight of any considerable section of a shaft with a total length of 4.6 m. and a diameter of about 0.035 m." ("Use of the Sarissa by Philip and Alexander of Macedon," American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 82, No. 4, Fall 1978, pp.483-497, see note 73 page 497.)