Legion versus Phalanx

The Epic Struggle for Infantry Supremacy in the Ancient World

By: Myke Cole

Narrated by: Alexander Cendese

Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

Taking a populist approach to a serious subject, Myke Cole combines a novelist's flair for drama with an ancient historian's eye for detail to create a unique book that delves into one of the most popular areas of the Ancient World.

From the time of Ancient Sumeria, the heavy infantry phalanx dominated the battlefield. Armed with spears or pikes, standing shoulder to shoulder with shields interlocking, the men of the phalanx presented an impenetrable wall of wood and metal to the enemy. Until, that is, the Roman legion emerged to challenge them as masters of infantry battle.

Covering the period in which the legion and phalanx clashed (280 - 168 BC), Myke Cole delves into their tactics, arms and equipment, organization and deployment. Drawing on original primary sources to examine six battles in which the legion fought the phalanx - Heraclea (280 BC), Asculum (279 BC), Beneventum (275 BC), Cynoscephalae (197 BC), Magnesia (190 BC), and Pydna (168 BC) - he shows how and why the Roman legion, with its flexible organization, versatile tactics and iron discipline, came to eclipse the hitherto untouchable Hellenistic phalanx and dominate the ancient battlefield.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2018 Myke Cole (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Good read for those interested in ancient warfare

Good argument on why the legion prevailed over the phalanx. Myke Cole keeps it short and into the point highlighting battles between Rome and Macedon.

A solid primer with enjoyable insights

As a classical military enthusiast, I appreciate well written contemporary books which cover this well-worn topic with new insights and perspectives. As a military man who knows the ancient source material, Myke Cole does a good job comparing these ancient writers and applying his personal real world military experience. He’s also a pretty good writer.

A Good Place to Start For Classic Warfare

The author does a great job, giving you the basics of Phalanx and Legion Warfare, especially if you have an interest in the subject, but don't know where to start. He also uses pop culture to help the reader contextualize what he is trying to describe, which was very helpful.

Intriguing Thesis but Too Much Digression

This book is born of a terrific idea. Myke Cole wants to translate from the often too-academic sources the latest thinking about a series of complicated classical world battles: the showdown between the successor Hellenistic states of Alexander’s empire and the rising power of the Romans. More specifically, he pits their two distinctive fighting theories against one another, the Alexandrian phalanx and the Roman legion.

The phalanx, as Cole describes it, is a formation that affords maximum protection to its soldiers while letting them remain a lethal fighting force. Soldiers carry large shields in tight formation and then use pikes to attack as they march slowly forward. You can see how it helped Alexander conquer so much of the world; given discipline and mutual trust, it was a military technology that overwhelmed the wilder, more individual fighting styles of the “barbarians” they went up against.

A phalanx that held together was, essentially, unbeatable. There were problems, though. Sometimes a phalanx might fall into disarray because it moved too quickly or because it was fighting on uneven ground. Because its soldiers had to stand close together, both side-by side to ensure shield coverage and front-to-back to allow for filling in for the fallen, they were compact and could move in only one direction. And, if an enemy could break it, its individual soldiers were less able to fight in the close combat that could follow; pikes are, after all, not very useful close-up.

Cole explains the way the Roman legions answered that technical challenge. For one, they tended to carry javelins. Thrown from a distance, those missile weapons could soften up a phalanx, sometimes opening holes in the line that charging soldiers could enter. For another, they armed their soldiers with short swords which meant that, in the crush that would follow breaching a phalanx, they were able to move more nimbly. And, for another, they stood further apart in formation which meant they could more easily reach an exposed flank. Over time, the Roman legions won, and their formations were a crucial part of how they came to conquer most of the world.

I’m simplifying much of that; Cole is careful to explain that changes in such tactics came slowly and that each side often employed some of the elements of the other. Still, that’s the fundamental claim, and Cole explores it through close-up descriptions of six battles between the Romans and Hellenes.

The good news is that I feel smarter for having read this. I can see some of these ancient conflicts playing out, and I can understand how each side would have embraced its particular tactics.

At the same time, Cole owns up at the start of this to being a nerd. (He is, I gather, a successful fantasy writer as well.) He’s interested in all sorts of esoteric points, and, while he promises otherwise, he can’t help going into tangents that complicate and distract from his central point. His goal, he tells us, is to translate from the academic historians to the general reader, but you can see him always working to answer the academics. He’ll complicate something clear as if he’s trying to show that he knows more than what he’s fully telling the rest of us.

I define a “nerd” as someone who cares more about something than the world says he or she should. In general, I like that sense and am guilty of being such a nerd myself. There’s a challenge about telling the world too much about what we nerds care about, though. However much we may want to indicate that we are simplifying, we’re always pulled back to some nugget we can’t quite share. Trust me, I know the challenge from writing about Jewish gangsters.

As a consequence, I think Cole falls a bit short of his full ambition. As a number of reviewers have pointed out, it takes him a long time to get started – three or four chapters of definitions and background. Then, even when he gets to the individual battles that make up the heart of this, he gives extensive dynastic detail to explain how each significant general rose to prominence. In other words, he does an awful lot of “info dump” here, interrupting his interesting narrative/thesis to give us what are ultimately a range of footnotes.

So, bottom line, there’s a lot of good stuff here, but it may be more for us nerds than Cole originally hoped.

A bit winded but perfect deep dive

More than I wanted at times but it's so well done. I love how he has actually visited these places and battlegrounds. Amazing.

Interesting, Educational, Enjoyable History

The title is not a grabber but to the point. Wonderful history of the military and cultural battles between the Greek Phalanx and Roman Legionary Systems.

If you are a student of history and war the book enjoyably answers the question as to why and how the Roman Legion eventually overcame the Greek phalanx.
A must read for anyone seeking to understand why one system overcame the other.

Outstanding RLTW

An excellent job of the differences between the Legion and the phalanx from the soldiers perspective. Well done.

Military history with a plot

I've often wondered about the transition from Greek to Roman cultural dominance. Cole explains it through analysis of their institutionalized fighting styles, and along the way, tells some gripping tales of the personalities involved.

You would have to really be interested...

I gave up six chapters in. Perhaps because I wasn't interested enough I couldn't visualize or track what the author was describing. Also I found the writing style and the narrator to be arrogant which also made it difficult to listen to.

Enjoyable and informative

As a person who enjoys history but is not a scholar , I found this book informative regarding the combat of the time and the explanation of the politics. Or what was happening at that time in the region. It was not overly long explanations I feel just enough to make it interesting. The author seemed to go to great lengths in staying what was fact and what was conjecture . I believe if you are interested in this period of our history you will enjoy this book