Greek Phalanx and the Roman Legion

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Rome represented a sharp break from the Hellenistic and Greek civilization after Rome had successfully taken over all the small kingdoms of the Hellenistic world and then incorporating these small kingdoms into the Roman Empire. We can still see that Greek influences never really went away and it always remained alive in Rome culture to a much lesser degree in areas such as politics economy and military even after the end of the Hellenist period when Octavian conquered and defeated Egypt under the rule of Cleopatra in 30BC The Roman Legion and the Greek Phalanx were two of the most amazing revolutionary tactics that was developed in ancient time. The Greek Phalanx and the Roman legion were both responsible for innovating new forms and ways of defeating an enemy. There use of tactics is what revolutionized the way war would be fought from then on. We will soon see that both of these ancient tactics have various things in common as well as many differences. To better understand these revolutionary war tactics I will compare the difference and similarities between both Roman Legion and Greek Phalanx The main structure of the Greek Phalanx and the Roman Legion was different from one another. The Greek Phalanx was a rectangular shape mass formation, and it consisted of infantry soldiers known as Hoplite. These soldiers were private farmers that owned their own land and were free men. These, were your typical soldiers who went to battle with the Phalanx. In its early stages the Phalanx was 8 to 16 men in deep. The phalanx would range from a few hundred yards in length, to more than a mile as time progressed. The hoplites would lock and put their shields together, and in the first ranks the soldiers would extend their spears out over the first rank of shields. By doing this the phalanx created a wall of shields with a mass of spears that pointed out to the enemy,

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