PHALANX

(Yunanca köken — orijinale bakınız.) The close order of battle, in which the heavy-armed troops of a Grecian army were usually drawn up. There were several different arrangements of the phalanx peculiar to different states; but the most celebrated was that invented by Philip of Macedon. The men stood close together, sometimes with their shields locked, in ranks of several men in depth, displaying in front a row of long-extended spears. The phalanx, whose charge was irresistible in a smooth plain by a lighter body, was found to be overmatched by the combined strength and activity of the Roman legion, which was able to take advantage of any inequality of ground, and charge in flank and rear; and when once an accident offered an opening in the unwieldy ma of the enemy, their confusion was inevitable, and rally hopele . The phalanx is described in most works on Grecian antiquities; but see especially the Me7n. de I' Ac. des Inscr. vol. xxiv. xxv,, and the E ay in vol. xli. by M. de Maignal. PHALER A. In Roman Military Antiquities, various kinds of ornaments were so called, chiefly but not exclusively appropriated to the equipment of horse soldiers; it was also applied to the frontlets of the horses themselves. It is evidently, however, as the ornament of the man, and not the horse, that Virgil uses the word in the lines — 919 [s. 932]