The following is the account given of the Macedonian
phalanx by Polybius:--

"It is easy then to demonstrate by many reasons, that, while the
phalanx retains its proper form and full power of action, no force is
able to stand against it in front, or to support the violence of its
attack. When the ranks are closed in order to engage, each soldier, as
he stands in his arms, occupies a space of three feet. The spears in
their most ancient form, contained seventeen cubits in length. But,
for the sake of rendering them more commodious in action, they have
since been reduced to fourteen. Of these, four cubits are contained
between the part which the soldier grasps in his hands, and the lower
end of the spear behind, which serves as a counterpoise to the part
that is extended before him; and the length of this last part from the
body of the soldier, when the spear is pushed forwards with both hands
against the enemy, is by consequence ten cubits. From hence it
follows, that when the phalanx is closed in its proper form, and every
soldier pressed within the necessary distance with respect to the man
that is before him and upon his side, the spears of the fifth rank are
extended to the length of two cubits, and those of the second, third,
and fourth to a still greater length, beyond the foremost rank. The
manner in which the men are crowded together in this method is marked
by Homer in the following lines:

"'Shield stuck to shield, to helmet helmet join'd,
And man to man; and at each nod that bow'd,
High waving on their heads the glittering cones,
Rattl'd the hair-crown'd casques, so thick they stood.'

Homer, _Il_. xiii., 131.

"This description is not less exact than beautiful. It is manifest,
then, that five several spears, differing each from the other in the
length of two cubits, are extended before every man in the foremost
rank. And when it is considered likewise, that the phalanx is formed
by sixteen in depth, it will be easy to conceive, what must be the
weight and violence of the entire body, and how great the force of its
attack. In the ranks, indeed, that are behind the fifth, the spears
cannot reach so far as to be employed against the enemy. In these
ranks, therefore, the soldiers, instead of extending their spears
forwards, rest them upon the shoulders of the men that are before
them, with their points slanting upwards; and in this manner they form
a kind of rampart which covers th