I need to finish watching the video, but one thing that is standing out to me and makes me skeptical about overarm use is the amount of shoulder strength it would require. Stand in a warrior pose in yoga for 5 minutes to see what I'm talking about, which doesn't even require that you have your arm high overhead or have a heavier object in your hand.
One thing that I've learned from taking martial arts is that almost every form or technique seems to have developed with an eye to conservation of energy and / or economy of motion. Maybe military tactics evolve differently (after all, they have to take protection of the group into consideration as well), but this technique seems like a violation of both principles, and usually such violations in the case of martial arts occurs because the technique in question is temporal, short-lived but highly effective. If overarm were a temporary position in order to accomplish a quick, devastating action, then it would make sense, but as a basic fighting stance, it seems very conceptually problematic.
Maybe the remaining 2/3s of the video will change my mind though. Good stuff.
On topic: I agree on that some spears should be able to be used one-handed, and that in a perfect world, there should be just like @Dee says, three versions of it. However, if there were, there should be different proficiences because fighting with a one-handed spear would be vastly different from fighting with two-handed spear with/Without reach. IMHO, since the spear with reach was historically used en masse and not for single combat, I wouldn't be bothered if it were left out the game(s). (This is my opinion on axes as well, FYI.)
There are a multitude of historical cultures and peoples who fought with spears one on one and army vs army. The spear was the probably the second weapon ever created (I would assume clubs were the first), and the cheapest to be used excessively by militia and military alike. The spear sure has lenght and reach advantage over swords and axes etc, but it's definite selling point has always been that it's cheap to produce. Wood is cheaper than metal and a spear head use alot less metal than a sword. With that said, you can see in most ancient cultures their usage of onehanded spears, often in combo with shields (again, shields are cheaper defense than other armor).
Lances are something completely different and pikes are essentially twohanded spears with reach, so like above, could be excluded FAIC.
Off topic: The rather amusing discussion regarding overarm vs underarm use of the spear has been raging for a long time (just like the equally amusing discussion regarding phalanx warfare). We have nothing to base our opinion on today other than logic and rational thinking vs depictions on vases etc. So with that being said, I highly doubt anyone fought extensively with the overarm grip, it just doesn't make any sense. The con's highly outnumber the pro's, so I'm with Lindybeige on this one.
@subtledoctor: the roman "spears" most people refer to was the pila, which is a javelin rather than a spear, thus it's main purpose was to be thrown. The triarii (Pre-marius regorms) did weild actual spears, most likely underarm, though as always with things like these, it's hard to be certain about anything.
>> how many people use Total war for their roman knowledge?<<
Not I. I took 4 years of Latin, read De Bello Gallico in Latin, and took electives in ancient Greek and Roman history, being fascinated by that period of History. P.S. Contemporary orators and authors derided Caesar's plain style of writing, saying it was more suited to teaching schoolchildren basic grammar. Ironic, now that his work is used to teach second year Latin classes, while those who carped are mostly forgotten.
The Roman pilum was rather heavy, designed with a soft iron head, and hurled just prior to closing in with the enemy. Its purpose, once thrown, was to lodge in an enemy shield; any actual wounds were a bonus benefit. The soft head would then bend under the weight of the shaft, making it difficult to dislodge in the midst of battle. The foe usually ended up discarding his shield, significantly reducing his defense when the Romans closed in for the melee phase of the battle.
@Skatan from what I've read and learned in university, most Roman soldiers didn't get to use the cool exotic javelins, possily due to the cost of making them. Many definately used more traditional looking spears, and by late Empire, there was no consistent uniform for most soldiers. Scale armour became more prevelant, again probably cheaper to make. Different legions would look pretty different.
AFAIK, the gladius is probably the defining feature, as the rest seems to have varied over time and from place to place. Mind you, the Romans really did have faith in Heavy Infantry, so the variances probably amounted mainly to cosmetic differences.
Seriously. I've been out of the loop in gaming until Android development starting catching up to the point where ports like this actually worked. I haven't owned an Xbox or PS in 10 years. Part of it has to do with the demands of personal and professional life, but part of it is also being aware that I would literally get nothing done had I still had regular access. My background in this subject is also from some (classical) Latin (hard "c" FTW) and a heavy dose of ancient thought, mostly philosophy, coupled with an obsession of Greek and Roman mythology in my youth. Before the internet, we used encyclopedias and pop-up books for the pictures of monsters and mayhem.
Total war is a pc strategy game where you manage armies and cities, every unit and building has a description which tells you some of the history behind it, most of the time it's fairly accurate as well. I know almost everyone in my brother's ancient history class in college surprised their teacher by having learnt a lot from the game. hteir teacher also used a video that used the total war engine to show the battle of thermopylae which they found hilarious.
There are, so far, three games in the "Rome: Total War" series. You can play tactical battle recreations, or play a strategic game where you assume the role of leader of one or another faction. The House of Julius is the default, if I recall, but there are many other possibilities. You can even play the Gauls, Germanic tribes etc., although their military capabilities are somewhat limited by comparison with, say, the Carthaginians, the Greeks or the Parthians. Naval battles, generals, spies, city planning etc. etc. all factor into the games.
I am a fan of the Total War series, and although their Encyclopedia is reasonably accurate (for a game), I would not think of the game as historically accurate by means, either in terms of the tactical battles or in the empire building strategic mode. The basic model of the game imposes many restrictions on what they can achieve when it comes to realism.
For example all the TW games have struggled with implementing steppe nomads in a way that reflected the enormous role they played in human history. Even in the newest Atilla Total War, where the Huns were hyped into an apocalyptic menace to the known world, they just aren't that scary on the battlefield. The problem is inherent in the design of TW games from a strategic and tactical perspective. Namely you build infrastructure, research technology, recruit armies and upgrade units on the campaign map, and then fight battles in a limited time frame within a limited battle map when armies clash. This greatly favours technologically advanced factions with heavy infantry and heavy cavalry, as these armies are the best suited to winning a pitched battle within the above restrictions.
The Nomads' primary strength was not in a straight up "TW-battle", but rather in raiding with near-impunity to cripple a nations' economy, moving with such speed that they can bypass entire armies to strike soft targets, and effectively harass and degrade stronger enemies until they can be broken by a decisive assault. Put simply, a capable nomadic leader should never throw his men (normally heavily outnumbered by agrarian nations) into set-piece battles like every TW battle. He will only engage if the enemy is exhausted, out of supply and/or completely disorganised such that they would collapse in the face of a determined attack.
The format of TW games as they stand cannot replicate the fact that the nomads' real strength lies in their strategic advantages rather than tactical capabilities, in which they are naturally inferior to technologically superior civilisations like Rome and Persia.
Unlike the Paradox Interactive games (Hearts of Iron, Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings), which strive to be serious "empire management" and "alternate history" games, Creative Assembly (devs for Total War) made a conscious decision to make a mainstream game that, in their words, prioritized "fun" above all else. Hence in order to satisfy the competitive multiplayer crowd, they worry more about about game balance than just accepting that Roman legions were stronger than Germanic barbarians, or that elephants were actually pretty ineffective as weapons of war beyond the initial psychological impact. Speaking of which, the game is rather "arcadey" in some respects and tries to capitalise on existing popular culture like Spartans and Vikings.
tldr: If you want to command massive armies and enjoy cool cinematics, play Total War, if you want to experience a more realistic "alternate history" and better appreciate the dilemmas real kings and warlords faced, then try out the Paradox Interactive games.
Creative Assembly has never made a Total War game based in China, but if they did, you could likely conquer Tibet, a region about the size of Western Europe, in one or two turns just by capturing Lhasa (assuming you win the battle).
In Hearts of Iron 2, despite having a overwhelming manpower advantage and a technology edge, it took my army three months just to march to Tibet from a neighbouring Chinese province, my army was so exhausted by the journey and difficult terrain (represented as attrition and loss of organisation), that it could not overcome the small militia army defending Tibet, and it took over a year and further reinforcements to pacify Tibet, which is a big deal in a game that only lasts about 10 years, and nicely explains why in real life, China didn't mess around with Tibet until after the unification of the core territories.
A big limiting factor is of course the technology... saddles and stirrups are non-existent or pretty rudimentary at this point, so the tactical utility of horsemen is significantly truncated. Tactics like 'ride backwards at fill gallop while accurately firing AND not falling to your death' are hard to pull off. Parthians did it iirc though not as effectively as the later Mongolians would. The Mongolians relied very heavily on strong tactics though, to make up for being inanely outnumbered by better equipped enemies.
One reason I am pretty fond of Stronghold Crusader is how you can develop a strategy around nearly any unit, from cheaper than cheap spearmen to sluggish European swordsmen. That, and all the tactics you can do with Horse Archers. Tactical maneuvers are pretty limited though, other than high mobility units and artillery. Realistic? Not entirely, but unarmoured peasant levies were pretty useful if the terrain was really rough... and ideally if they know the terrain. If you try to use them to storm a castle though, it'll probably go the way you're expecting, and you will get anihilated by a few archers. The relative costs are probably a bigger issue, that and the unit cap screws over some builds pretty badly, ie spearmen swarms.
Regarding the topic, The Huns attacked at a pretty bad time for the Empire, which combined with their fondness for auxilliary troops, meant they had a vast army to attack a very over-stressed Empire with a spread thin army.
Mobility though is the great tactical enabler, along with communication. The Romans had better communication though, and were surprisingly mobile for heavy infantry. Locking your mobile troops down would be insane to Scythians/related cultures.
OK, this thread is now officially derailed, but I just can't help myself from replying anyways. I just lvoe history and talking about it! I've played 1000's of hours of Total war, mainly Rome1, but my knowledge comes not from game itself ( @wubble ). My interrest does though, the game spurs some amazing dreams about that time period! So I've read books, read online and discussed with knowledgeble people.
@Skatan from what I've read and learned in university, most Roman soldiers didn't get to use the cool exotic javelins, possily due to the cost of making them. Many definately used more traditional looking spears, and by late Empire, there was no consistent uniform for most soldiers. Scale armour became more prevelant, again probably cheaper to make. Different legions would look pretty different.
AFAIK, the gladius is probably the defining feature, as the rest seems to have varied over time and from place to place. Mind you, the Romans really did have faith in Heavy Infantry, so the variances probably amounted mainly to cosmetic differences.
I'm not sure where you got that (from what historic source I mean), it's correct in some part but false in others. Romans, compared to pretty much most other ancient civilzation has pretty decent written source material still readible, so we know alot more about their strat's etc than compared to say, the greeks.
So with that said, we know today that romans during the era of the height of the empire, had a unusually coherent soldier equipment (once again, compared to other contemporary civ's). This was due to two things: 1; soldiers got the equipment when joining instead of purchasing their own, as in most/all other contemporary armies. Fairly unique for rome. 2; romans developed a very specific way of fighting based on their wars against various nations around them (celts, greeks, etruscians etc) which revolved around the scutum, the pila and the gladius, not just the gladius itself. Romans actually did use phalanxes, just like their contemporary counterparts, at the beginning but devloped into the kind of army we now associate with them during their city state's development from a small player into a powerhouse.
The pila was by no means "exotic" since it implies it was non-roman, rather it was common among their professional armies (I'm talking "mid-tear" roman armies, post marius, during the height of empire). Also, using skirmishers was common throughout the contemporary world (roman=velites) and they threw javelins as their main weapon, probably weilding daggers for when forced into melee. So javelins were indeed common, not only in roman armies.
You are correct, about late roman armies. They lack consistent equipment setups and one can cleary see that they are more cost-focused and personal to the area of their placement. The gladius did indeed remain a defining feature, but AFAIR, regular thrusting spears become more common during this time as well (I know alot less about roman late era).
Interresting side-note: later roman heavy infantry actually used darts, another weapon implemented in the AD&D already. I don't know which other historic armies actually used that weapon, if any.
Btw, this is all written in good fun, and none of it should be taken as I am trying to 'win' and argument here.
Edit2: Oh, had no idea that split thread was that long Alot of nice info to read in there! I never browse the off-topic forums in here, so I had missed it completely.
OK, this thread is now officially derailed, but I just can't help myself from replying anyways.
@Skatan I totally understand! I'm quite the history nut too... and contributed to the derailment myself. But I actually split a more general history thread from this spear discussion already.
If anyone would like to respond to @Skatan or others' comments here regarding more general history topics, I encourage you guys to do so there.
Let's keep this particular thread on topic about long stabby sticks!
To stay on-topic, one of the things I learned is that the thin-tipped Roman spears were not designed to better puncture shields as I had always thought. In fact they were designed to bend under their own weight after being used, so that enemy warriors could not pick up the weapon and use it against the Roman who threw it!
Yeah I also read something like that. Namely that Roman javelins were designed such that they were not easy to extract from shields. This means that 1) it is not convenient for an enemy to pick it up and throw it back 2) it forced the enemy to drop their shields because having a javelin sticking out of it was rather cumbersome.
It's called a pilum; plural is pila. Javelins are lighter, being designed for distance; pila were hurled at close range, seconds before melee contact with the enemy line. Given enough time, an enemy warrior could in fact remove the pilum from his shield despite the bent head, but this way the only thing he could to to avoid being encumbered during the fight was to drop it.
Also note that the short-bladed gladius was used with a stabbing motion; this allowed the Roman heavy infantry to concentrate more men on a given frontage of the combat line. Some German or Gaul swinging a sword with a 3 foot blade in an arc would need a lot more free space, to avoid hitting his fellow tribesmen on the backswing. This extra manpower per yard compensated for the shorter reach of the gladius, enabling the disciplined legions to defeat hordes of howling barbarians.
Getting back to spears; defeating a civilized enemy using the phalanx type formation called for a bit different tactics. Enemy pikemen (we're speaking about true Macedonian style phalanxes using the sarissa, not the old style Greek hoplites, whose spears, called dorys, were short by comparison) were also disciplined, and the sarissa, wielded en masse, gave them a huge reach advantage. The big drawback of the phalanx was its lack of maneuverability; those suckers took forever to make a turn. The manipular legion could run rings around them. In terrain favorable to the phalanx, (little maneuver room, and extremely flat), it generally gave a decent accounting of itself vs the Romans. Take the battles with Phyrrus, for example. Yes, Phyrrus moaned afterward about how expensive the cost of victory was, but people overlook the fact that ... he DID win the battle! Unfortunately for him, he was in a foreign land and couldn't replace his losses the way the Romans could.
The phalanx vs legion discussion is too long for concise exposition here. Suffice it to say that most phalanx commanders forgot the basic tactical precepts that Alexander used; Phyrrus was one notable exception. When asked who he considered the greatest generals of all time, Hannibal named himself third. His first two choices? Alexander and Phyrrus.
And what's frequently forgotten in casual discussions of Alexander is that he was tutored by Aristotle. In fact, some academics believe that Aristotle greatly influenced Alexander's military strategies and political ideas. The latter would be a safe guess as Aristotle has written extensively on politics, most of which can be found in Politeia (although one should also be aware of his non-extant works, including dialogues that rivaled Plato's themselves, which no doubt explored these issues as well). While we know Alexander received his military tutelage from Macedonian generals, including his own father, any influence by Aristotle in these affairs would have to rely on an inductive inference. What we know is that Xenophon's works were widely used and extremely common as instructional texts, especially Oeconomica. Another such text that would have relevance here, which I absolutely love, is Xenophon's Cyropaedia. Considering that Aristotle was a student of Plato and would've known of Xenophon's work well, it's not a reach to presume thatt he would've used his texts, whether directly, indirectly, or as a supplement to his own writings. This is especially the case when you note the similarities between Alexander's political and military decisions and Cyrus' in Xenophon's work. Comparisons all literally all over the place, from historical sources contemporary to Alexander to present academics.
IMO a "one handed" spear would basically be just a one handed sword for practical purposes since fighting technique with a sword and shield or a one handed spear and shield would be essentially identical.
But can you kill dragons with a one-handed sword? You probably can, but it would be like cutting your steak with a fork when the knife is clearly better suited for the job.
>>frequently forgotten in casual discussions of Alexander is that he was tutored by Aristotle<<
While Politeia and Cyropaedia may be more historically relevant, the casual reader might be more interested in something more whimsical. I refer to L. Sprague de Camp's 1958 work "An Elephant for Aristotle", recently re-released I believe, in which Alexander decides to send an elephant to his old tutor for him to study.
@Fiendish_Warrior - Xenophon was a student of Socrates together with Plato. Unless you're talking about a different Xenophon here, of course.
You're right. I wrote in a hurry (was a passenger in a car on a twisty road...yuck) and made a mistake. It happens. It doesn't detract from the point I was making though. I'll edit it.
Comments
http://goo.gl/ZGrGP5
One thing that I've learned from taking martial arts is that almost every form or technique seems to have developed with an eye to conservation of energy and / or economy of motion. Maybe military tactics evolve differently (after all, they have to take protection of the group into consideration as well), but this technique seems like a violation of both principles, and usually such violations in the case of martial arts occurs because the technique in question is temporal, short-lived but highly effective. If overarm were a temporary position in order to accomplish a quick, devastating action, then it would make sense, but as a basic fighting stance, it seems very conceptually problematic.
Maybe the remaining 2/3s of the video will change my mind though. Good stuff.
I agree on that some spears should be able to be used one-handed, and that in a perfect world, there should be just like @Dee says, three versions of it. However, if there were, there should be different proficiences because fighting with a one-handed spear would be vastly different from fighting with two-handed spear with/Without reach. IMHO, since the spear with reach was historically used en masse and not for single combat, I wouldn't be bothered if it were left out the game(s). (This is my opinion on axes as well, FYI.)
There are a multitude of historical cultures and peoples who fought with spears one on one and army vs army. The spear was the probably the second weapon ever created (I would assume clubs were the first), and the cheapest to be used excessively by militia and military alike. The spear sure has lenght and reach advantage over swords and axes etc, but it's definite selling point has always been that it's cheap to produce. Wood is cheaper than metal and a spear head use alot less metal than a sword. With that said, you can see in most ancient cultures their usage of onehanded spears, often in combo with shields (again, shields are cheaper defense than other armor).
Lances are something completely different and pikes are essentially twohanded spears with reach, so like above, could be excluded FAIC.
Off topic:
The rather amusing discussion regarding overarm vs underarm use of the spear has been raging for a long time (just like the equally amusing discussion regarding phalanx warfare). We have nothing to base our opinion on today other than logic and rational thinking vs depictions on vases etc. So with that being said, I highly doubt anyone fought extensively with the overarm grip, it just doesn't make any sense. The con's highly outnumber the pro's, so I'm with Lindybeige on this one.
The triarii (Pre-marius regorms) did weild actual spears, most likely underarm, though as always with things like these, it's hard to be certain about anything.
Not I. I took 4 years of Latin, read De Bello Gallico in Latin, and took electives in ancient Greek and Roman history, being fascinated by that period of History. P.S. Contemporary orators and authors derided Caesar's plain style of writing, saying it was more suited to teaching schoolchildren basic grammar. Ironic, now that his work is used to teach second year Latin classes, while those who carped are mostly forgotten.
The Roman pilum was rather heavy, designed with a soft iron head, and hurled just prior to closing in with the enemy. Its purpose, once thrown, was to lodge in an enemy shield; any actual wounds were a bonus benefit. The soft head would then bend under the weight of the shaft, making it difficult to dislodge in the midst of battle. The foe usually ended up discarding his shield, significantly reducing his defense when the Romans closed in for the melee phase of the battle.
AFAIK, the gladius is probably the defining feature, as the rest seems to have varied over time and from place to place. Mind you, the Romans really did have faith in Heavy Infantry, so the variances probably amounted mainly to cosmetic differences.
For example all the TW games have struggled with implementing steppe nomads in a way that reflected the enormous role they played in human history. Even in the newest Atilla Total War, where the Huns were hyped into an apocalyptic menace to the known world, they just aren't that scary on the battlefield. The problem is inherent in the design of TW games from a strategic and tactical perspective. Namely you build infrastructure, research technology, recruit armies and upgrade units on the campaign map, and then fight battles in a limited time frame within a limited battle map when armies clash. This greatly favours technologically advanced factions with heavy infantry and heavy cavalry, as these armies are the best suited to winning a pitched battle within the above restrictions.
The Nomads' primary strength was not in a straight up "TW-battle", but rather in raiding with near-impunity to cripple a nations' economy, moving with such speed that they can bypass entire armies to strike soft targets, and effectively harass and degrade stronger enemies until they can be broken by a decisive assault. Put simply, a capable nomadic leader should never throw his men (normally heavily outnumbered by agrarian nations) into set-piece battles like every TW battle. He will only engage if the enemy is exhausted, out of supply and/or completely disorganised such that they would collapse in the face of a determined attack.
The format of TW games as they stand cannot replicate the fact that the nomads' real strength lies in their strategic advantages rather than tactical capabilities, in which they are naturally inferior to technologically superior civilisations like Rome and Persia.
Unlike the Paradox Interactive games (Hearts of Iron, Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings), which strive to be serious "empire management" and "alternate history" games, Creative Assembly (devs for Total War) made a conscious decision to make a mainstream game that, in their words, prioritized "fun" above all else. Hence in order to satisfy the competitive multiplayer crowd, they worry more about about game balance than just accepting that Roman legions were stronger than Germanic barbarians, or that elephants were actually pretty ineffective as weapons of war beyond the initial psychological impact. Speaking of which, the game is rather "arcadey" in some respects and tries to capitalise on existing popular culture like Spartans and Vikings.
tldr: If you want to command massive armies and enjoy cool cinematics, play Total War, if you want to experience a more realistic "alternate history" and better appreciate the dilemmas real kings and warlords faced, then try out the Paradox Interactive games.
Creative Assembly has never made a Total War game based in China, but if they did, you could likely conquer Tibet, a region about the size of Western Europe, in one or two turns just by capturing Lhasa (assuming you win the battle).
In Hearts of Iron 2, despite having a overwhelming manpower advantage and a technology edge, it took my army three months just to march to Tibet from a neighbouring Chinese province, my army was so exhausted by the journey and difficult terrain (represented as attrition and loss of organisation), that it could not overcome the small militia army defending Tibet, and it took over a year and further reinforcements to pacify Tibet, which is a big deal in a game that only lasts about 10 years, and nicely explains why in real life, China didn't mess around with Tibet until after the unification of the core territories.
One reason I am pretty fond of Stronghold Crusader is how you can develop a strategy around nearly any unit, from cheaper than cheap spearmen to sluggish European swordsmen. That, and all the tactics you can do with Horse Archers. Tactical maneuvers are pretty limited though, other than high mobility units and artillery. Realistic? Not entirely, but unarmoured peasant levies were pretty useful if the terrain was really rough... and ideally if they know the terrain. If you try to use them to storm a castle though, it'll probably go the way you're expecting, and you will get anihilated by a few archers. The relative costs are probably a bigger issue, that and the unit cap screws over some builds pretty badly, ie spearmen swarms.
Regarding the topic, The Huns attacked at a pretty bad time for the Empire, which combined with their fondness for auxilliary troops, meant they had a vast army to attack a very over-stressed Empire with a spread thin army.
Mobility though is the great tactical enabler, along with communication. The Romans had better communication though, and were surprisingly mobile for heavy infantry. Locking your mobile troops down would be insane to Scythians/related cultures.
So with that said, we know today that romans during the era of the height of the empire, had a unusually coherent soldier equipment (once again, compared to other contemporary civ's). This was due to two things:
1; soldiers got the equipment when joining instead of purchasing their own, as in most/all other contemporary armies. Fairly unique for rome.
2; romans developed a very specific way of fighting based on their wars against various nations around them (celts, greeks, etruscians etc) which revolved around the scutum, the pila and the gladius, not just the gladius itself. Romans actually did use phalanxes, just like their contemporary counterparts, at the beginning but devloped into the kind of army we now associate with them during their city state's development from a small player into a powerhouse.
The pila was by no means "exotic" since it implies it was non-roman, rather it was common among their professional armies (I'm talking "mid-tear" roman armies, post marius, during the height of empire). Also, using skirmishers was common throughout the contemporary world (roman=velites) and they threw javelins as their main weapon, probably weilding daggers for when forced into melee. So javelins were indeed common, not only in roman armies.
You are correct, about late roman armies. They lack consistent equipment setups and one can cleary see that they are more cost-focused and personal to the area of their placement. The gladius did indeed remain a defining feature, but AFAIR, regular thrusting spears become more common during this time as well (I know alot less about roman late era).
Interresting side-note: later roman heavy infantry actually used darts, another weapon implemented in the AD&D already. I don't know which other historic armies actually used that weapon, if any.
Btw, this is all written in good fun, and none of it should be taken as I am trying to 'win' and argument here.
Cheers!
Edit: Thanks @Heindrich (below).
Edit2: Oh, had no idea that split thread was that long
If anyone would like to respond to @Skatan or others' comments here regarding more general history topics, I encourage you guys to do so there.
Let's keep this particular thread on topic about long stabby sticks!
Also note that the short-bladed gladius was used with a stabbing motion; this allowed the Roman heavy infantry to concentrate more men on a given frontage of the combat line. Some German or Gaul swinging a sword with a 3 foot blade in an arc would need a lot more free space, to avoid hitting his fellow tribesmen on the backswing. This extra manpower per yard compensated for the shorter reach of the gladius, enabling the disciplined legions to defeat hordes of howling barbarians.
Getting back to spears; defeating a civilized enemy using the phalanx type formation called for a bit different tactics. Enemy pikemen (we're speaking about true Macedonian style phalanxes using the sarissa, not the old style Greek hoplites, whose spears, called dorys, were short by comparison) were also disciplined, and the sarissa, wielded en masse, gave them a huge reach advantage. The big drawback of the phalanx was its lack of maneuverability; those suckers took forever to make a turn. The manipular legion could run rings around them. In terrain favorable to the phalanx, (little maneuver room, and extremely flat), it generally gave a decent accounting of itself vs the Romans. Take the battles with Phyrrus, for example. Yes, Phyrrus moaned afterward about how expensive the cost of victory was, but people overlook the fact that ... he DID win the battle! Unfortunately for him, he was in a foreign land and couldn't replace his losses the way the Romans could.
The phalanx vs legion discussion is too long for concise exposition here. Suffice it to say that most phalanx commanders forgot the basic tactical precepts that Alexander used; Phyrrus was one notable exception. When asked who he considered the greatest generals of all time, Hannibal named himself third. His first two choices? Alexander and Phyrrus.
While Politeia and Cyropaedia may be more historically relevant, the casual reader might be more interested in something more whimsical. I refer to L. Sprague de Camp's 1958 work "An Elephant for Aristotle", recently re-released I believe, in which Alexander decides to send an elephant to his old tutor for him to study.