Advantage
The Macedonian phalanx was not very different from the Hoplite phalanx of other Greeks states, save it was better trained, armed with the sarissa enabling it to outreach its competitors and stave off enemy cavalry, and wore far lighter armor enabling longer endurance and long fast forced marches, including the ability to sprint to close and overwhelm opposing positions and archers. In essence, the range of their counter-weighted sarissa, allowed them superior mobility as well as superior defense and attack abilities despite the encumbrance disadvantages of the longer weapon once trained up to handling it in formation. Centuries later, the organized militia of Swiss pikemen enjoyed similar advantages over less well trained contemporary militaries which were identically equipped, which emphasizes the importance of training and unit cohesion in the scheme. In Phillip's and Alexander's time, the Macedonian phalanx had clear technical superiority.
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Famous quotes containing the word advantage:
“It is in the gift for employing all the vicissitudes of life to one’s own advantage and to that of one’s craft that a large part of genius consists.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“Justice is simply the advantage of the stronger.”
—Thrasymachus 5th century B.C., Greek philosopher. The Presocratics, p. 259, ed. Philip Wheelwright, The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc. (1960)
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—George Berkeley (1685–1753)