Good books on the macedonian warmachine.

**frontier-auxilia** · September 01, 2009, 07:34 PM

Hey guys, im doing an essay for my ancient history course on the macedonian armies during the time of alexander to the successor period. It deals mainly with the advantages of the sarissa along with their limitations. Although i know my share of their advantage and disadvantages by heart, i still need some well written literal sources espacially modern ones to diversify my bibliography.

Recommendations for stuff dealing with the phalanx themselves will be helpful as i already done a great deal of research on the cavalry.

Please help me out

**Del Valle** · September 01, 2009, 08:57 PM

I recommend Alexander the Great At War by Ruth Sheppard. Its got everything, how Philip organized it all, the makeup of both the Persian and Macedonian armies, and extremely detailed accounts of his greatest battles (Issus, Guagamela). The detail she did on the phalanx and its equipment I found to be very informative.

**Timoleon of Korinthos** · September 02, 2009, 06:00 AM

"The Generalship of Alexander the Great" by Fuller is also a must read.

Besides, note this very, very interesting quote of Polyaenus:
"Cleonymus[Spartan King] was besieging Edessa. When the wall collapsed and the enemies sallied forth holding their sarissas he increased the depth of his phalanx; he left the men of his first two lines without spears and ordered that when the fight was to begin against the sarissa-bearers they should grasp and hold the sarissas tight with both their hands, whereas the men following them should advance and pick up the fight. So, the men of the first two lines grabbed the sarissas and pulled them towards themselves and the ones coming from behind killed the sarissa-bearers. Thus, the length of the sarissa was rendered useless in front of Cleonymus' acumen." Polyaenus, Strategems, Book 2, Chapter 29, Pargraph 2.

Now, from the context we can safely deduce that Cleonymus had a traditional hoplite phalanx at his disposal. Personally, I find this an amazing feature and I wonder why didn't other Hellenistic commanders build upon it instead of adopting the sarissa in their armies or ever making it bigger.