deadkenny

The Persians didn't manage to cope with it too well. For that matter, neither did the Greek city states themselves. However, the Romans did manage to handle it. Part of the key to Alexander's success was the combination of the sarissa armed phalanx and effective heavy cavalry. By the time the Romans were fighting Macedonia and the Hellenistic successor states, no one opponent had an effective combination of phalanx and cavalry as Alexander had enjoyed. Tactically, the way the Romans would deal with the sarissa armed phalanx would be for the legion to 'bombard' them with a salvo of pila and then move in with their shortswords. No doubt, some of the legionnaires would get 'impaled' on the spears, but that would facilitate the others getting 'inside' the long spears, and start to 'break up' the phalanx.