Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/90

 58 HISTORY OF GREECE. man of superior strength, and of tried military experience. The second and third men in the file, afe well as the rearmost man who brought up the whole, were also picked soldiers, receiving larger pay than the rest. Now the sarissa, when in horizontal position, was held with both hands (distinguished in this respect from the pike of the Grecian hoplite, which occupied only one hand, the other being required for the shield), and so held that it projected fifteen feet before the body of the pikeman ; while the liinder portion of six feet so Aveighted as to make the pressure convenient in such division. Hence, the sarissa of the man standing second in the file, projected twelve feet beyond the front rank ; that of the third man, nine feet ; those of the fourth and fifth ranks, respectively six feet and three feet. There was thus presented a quintuple series of pikes by each file, to meet an advancing enemy. Of these five, the three first would be decidedly of greater projection, and even the fourth of not less projection, than the pikes of Grecian hoplites coming up as ene- mies to the charge. The ranks behind the fifth, while serving to sustain and press onward the front, did not carry the sarissa in a horizontal position, but slanted it over the shoulders of those before them, so as to break the force of any darts or arrows which might be shot over head from the rear ranks of the enemy.i The phalangite (soldier of the phalanx) was farther pro- vided with a short sword, a circular shield of rather more than two feet in diameter, a breast-piece, leggings, and a kausia or broad-brimmed-hat — the head-covering common in the Mace- donian army. But the long pikes were in truth the main weap- ons of defence as well as of offence. They were destined to contend against the charge of Grecian hoplites with the one- handed pike and heavy shield ; especially agamst the most for- midable manifestation of that force, the deep Theban column organized by Epaminondas. This was what Philip had to deal with, at his accession, as the irresistible infantry of Greece, bearing down everything before it by thrust of pike and propul- sion of shield. He provided the means of vanquishing it, by ' Respecting the length of the pike of the Macedonian phalanx, see Ap- pendix to this Chapter.