True Roman Memes For True Romans

2 readers

2 users here now

A place to meme about the glorious ROMAN EMPIRE (and Roman Republic, and Roman Kingdom)!

founded 1 year ago

"What do you mean Greeks can't change direction" (media.kbin.social)

submitted 6 months ago by PugJesus@kbin.social to c/RoughRomanMemes@kbin.social

3 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] PugJesus@kbin.social 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Explanation: At the Battle of Cynoscephalae, a Roman tribune, a mid-level officer, demonstrated the flexibility and responsiveness of the Roman military system by wheeling around some 2,500 men, pursuing fleeing skirmishers, to hit the rear of the opposing Macedonian phalanx, which had fought the other part of the Roman force to a standstill. As the Macedonians could not effectively turn their formation of long pikes, they were utterly overrun, turning what seemed to be a hard-fought draw or near-win for the Romans into a total and devastating victory.

[–] Jimbo@yiffit.net 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I was gonna say, looks very intimidating from the front but if you manage to hit the back.. what are they gonna do with with a long-ass stick pointing the wrong way?

[–] PugJesus@kbin.social 1 points 6 months ago

Yeah, it was the Achilles' Heel (dohohoho) of the weapon.

Later, Medieval pike formations would mix in soldiers with shorter weapons in the formation (swords and halberds, typically) so if anything nasty like that happened, the troops with weapons that weren't almost 20 feet long could buy the pikes some time to get themselves somewhere where they weren't 100% useless, lmao.