ing the depth of the files,
brought the tactics of armed masses to the highest extent of which it
was capable with such materials as he possessed. He formed his men
sixteen deep, and placed in their grasp the _sarissa_, as the Macedonian
pike was called, which was four-and-twenty feet in length, and, when
couched for action, reached eighteen feet in front of the soldier; so
that, as a space of about two feet was allowed between the ranks, the
spears of the five files behind him projected in front of each
front-rank man.

The phalangite soldier was fully equipped in the defensive armor of the
regular Greek infantry. And thus the phalanx presented a ponderous and
bristling mass, which, as long as its order was kept compact, was sure
to bear down all opposition. The defects of such an organization are
obvious, and were proved in after-years, when the Macedonians were
opposed to the Roman legions. But it is clear that under Alexander the
phalanx was not the cumbrous, unwieldy body which it was at Cynoscephate
and Pydna. His men were veterans; and he could obtain from them an
accuracy of movement and steadiness of evolution such as probably the
recruits of his father would only have floundered in attempting, and
such as certainly were impracticable in the phalanx when handled by his
successors, especially as under them it ceased to be a standing force,
and became only a militia.

Under Alexander the phalanx consisted of an aggregate of eighteen
thousand men, who were divided into six brigades of three thousand each.
These were again subdivided into regiments and companies; and the men
were carefully trained to wheel, to face about, to take more ground, or
to close up, as the emergencies of the battle required. Alexander also
arrayed troops armed in a different manner in the intervals of the
regiments of his phalangites, who could prevent their line from being
pierced and their companies taken in flank, when the nature of the
ground prevented a close formation, and who could be withdrawn when a
favorable opportunity arrived for closing up the phalanx or any of its
brigades for a charge, or when it was necessary to prepare to receive
cavalry.

Besides the phalanx, Alexander had a considerable force of infantry who
were called shield-bearers: they were not so heavily armed as the
phalangites, or as was the case with the Greek regular infantry in
general, but they were equipped for close fight as well as for
skirmishing, and