Syntagma produces some of the best content on this platform.

Glad to see you return. Your content is always top quality

Hearing you say Syntagma is like hearing a character in a movie name drop the movie; it’s so funny for some reason.

You do a really good job of illustrating just how large the sarissa spears were. A weapon of that size took a lot of practice to use. But perhaps more interestingly the more experienced and elite soldiers used shorter spears. And many have argued that the ability of being able to be in the 5th row back - and still inflict casualties on an enemy you never have to look in the eye - was a big and important factor in the success of the phalanx.

It is a joy to see you post! Thank you for these excellent videos! 😃👍

This is my favorite history channel. Wish he posted more.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to see that you had returned with a new video! The content, information, visuals, video quality, & narration are all of the highest quality. Your videos truly are the gold standard on Youtbe. I enjoyed this one immensely and cannot wait for the next one

Welcome back! Thoroughly enjoy your videos

I was very happy this came up in my feed. Welcome back. I'm fascinated by the phalanx formation and am glad there's another analysis of their use and tactics.

Easily the best and most interesting in depth look at the Macedonian phalanx I've seen yet. Excellent work! Thank you for sharing!

This channel deserves so many more subscribers.

The graphics are really incredible. Such a vivid picture of the ancient world.

Currently taking a upper division course on Alexander and the Hellenistic Kingdoms and I'm constantly watching videos on youtube to give visuals to the texts I'm reading. Of everything I've watched in the last 4 months this is without a doubt the highest quality and most accurate video out there. Absolutely adore the city going on in the background and the attention to detail.

Amazing how little difference there is between phalanxes and pike blocks of the late medieval/early modern era, despite the time that passed. Soldiers of each era would have found the other's drill manual very familiar.

Top quality video from a fantastic channel, and looking forward to more. Keep it up!

Really really enjoyed this video and the presentation that went with it. Very nice to have a representation to go with what you were talking about. Subscribed

Just finished watching this video and I just have to thank you so much this video work and 3d models informative voice that explains everything clearly without pauses and touching on one of my favorite bits of ancient military history is just incredible mark my words this channel is going to the top cant wait !! Keep up the great work man !!

More than a deserved subscribe! Looking forward for new content, keep it up Syntagma you'r the best!

Wow, that was amazing! Love to see your content again.

brilliant! sublime! so glad of the quality of such an interesting topic!! keep it up

Being a historian myself and loving Macedon, I think this video was 1. Very well done and two. I ended up learning a thing or two from this and I will never look at a Macedonian phalanx the same way

Really good video! Never thought this would be so interesting. Well done sir.

top quality content you made here, keep it up and thanks

Loved this video. I'm actually studying greek history and since I love military history i wanted to know more about macedonian phalanx. Very good explanation and analysis, i hope you'll consider also che cavalry in a next video

Always happy to see you post a video ^^

Ugh, you make just the best videos. Again, great work

AMAZING! This deserves millions of viewers, likes and subscribers!

So Glad to see your back

Welcome BACK!!! I love these videos

thank you for your come back

Pretty please keep making stuff like this it's really cool especially showing the formation and stuff

missed this channel, superb stuff

A tutorial video on pronouncing ancient greek and Latin names would be an absolute gem!

Such an excellent presentation. Thank you.

Marvelous exposition of the men their arms and their formations and how it all worked

Glad you are back in action. KnG was giving me headaches man!!

Great to see you back Syntagma! An excellent video as per usual. Something like a video on the naval battle at Salamis in real scale I think would make an amazing video. Meaning to see all the, close to a thousand, ships from the advantage point of the Persian king.

great video, you're FINALLY back!

4:52 I have doubts regarding the Leukaspides or White Shields being a phalanx unit simply due to the fact that Polybius (the more reliable source) doesn't mention these troops in the Battle of Sellasia rather puts foreign troops in their place like Illyrians. Plutarch doesn't mention them in the battle of Pydna which is incredibly weird since he says they were present in the battle of Sellasia unlike Polybius. Though like Polybius, in the battle of Pydna he mentions Thracians in place of the Leukaspides with "white and gleaming armour of their shields". The Royal Guard Infantry of the Argeads and the Antigonids is also a phalanx unit. The 5000-strong Peltast Guard is one example (they were also called Shield-Guards or Shieldbearers in Arrian's Alexander Anabasis, due to the fact that Pelte shield they were using is bigger: 70 to 75 cm [4:13]). However unlike the rest of the phalanx, they were considered lighter and more mobile in such that their deployment in battle is on the flanks. 6:35 Javelins were also a part of the phalanx arsenal. In Arrian's Alexander Anabasis, the phalanx regiments of Alexander during the Battle of the Hydaspes were also armed with javelins: "but now the phalanx itself of the Macedonians was advancing against the elephants, the men casting darts at the riders and also striking the beasts themselves, standing round them on all sides." ~ Arrian's Anabasis of Alexander, chapter 17, the Defeat of Porus. In Rufus Curtius' the History of Alexander, he mentions the arms of Macedonian Coragus in his duel with the Athenian Dioxippus as follows: "The Macedonian was had equipped himself with regular weapons: he held a bronze shield and a spear called a sarissa, in his left hand and a javelin in his right while he also had a sword at his side - as if he were going to fight a number of men simultaneously" Now is the used of both weapons possible? Sure however that depends on the kind of sarissa used. Like you mention before the sarissa varied in length; with the 4 metre version (roughly 12 to 13 feet) being the possible candidate of such use. 11:17 As for the Synaspismos or locked-shields, I think the formation wasn't purely defensive in nature. Plutarch says the when the phalanx-lines advanced during the Battle of Pydna, their shields were locked in combat suggesting that the formation as whole is just as offensive as it is defensive. Now is the possibility of such formation debatable? I don't think so. There was this article I saw last year that the formation can be done if the sarissas were raised in a "high-guard" position above the pelte, similarly to the way pikes are used in the 16th century. And as such, it creates a wall of pikes and shields. Link for more information: www.academia.edu/44440024/Synaspismos_and_Its_Possibility_in_the_Macedonian_Styled_Phalanx

Excellent presentation, glad to find this channel 👌

Top notch as always!

Impressive video! well done, thanks for making it.

Great work, the animations help a lot to visualize what it was a macedonian army.

Wow this channel deserves more attention.

This is the best museum I have ever watched.

love the videos. would love to see one on the hoplite phalanx

Absolutely outstanding presentation and animations that perfectly and accurately showcase the subject matter. You're one of the best channels out there. I know the animations take a long time but they allow a level of immersion most other channels fail to achieve, especially when going over battles and formations like these.

This is a top notch quality video! Very well done and whit the animations as well! Keep this up! Also music: I love it! Can we have it whitout the narrative and voice over? :)

Loving these visuals

hell yeah new material ! high quality content

why did you stop

Much anticipated

Really fascinating and interesting video. Thank you.

Dude your videos are awesome please make more!!!

wow. hat was a good video. Hope you will make many more in the future

a fantastic video, well done Syntagma!

Wow, this is amazing

Excellent video Appreciated the fact that you did a lot of research and experimented the faisability of various pike length. Well done to you!

Great job, thanks for the video

holy cow this is amazing i just found a new gem!

Just found this channel. Excellent quality and top research.

I realy wish you made these more often, and do a series on Scipio Africanus, Hanibal Barca or some otger great general the way you did about G.J. Cesar. You make fantastic content, its a joy to watch.

Absolutely outstanding

Thanks for sharing , good work. 👍

By far, the best explanation of the Macedonian phalanx I have ever come across. The video is worthy of scholarly publication. Phillip and Alexander would be proud!

I Love this video like All off your Videos. Allready followed your Reference to Asklepiodotuses taktica :)

Glad I found this channel

I knew stayin subbed to this channel would pay off

Excellent quality.

wow, seriously amazing job. Cheers from Estonia

I've often wondered how unwieldly the 'half pikes' were i.e. the front halves of the Sarissa not connected to their sockets. They wouldn't have a proper weighted backend and they'd still be a lot longer and thicker/heavier than conventional spears but have thought about whether they were ever used to convert the phalagnites into 'less-than-ideal' ad hoc hoplites (bearing in mind their shields are a lot smaller too) because there would have been circumstances such as garrisoning, foot patrols, sieges and less-than-regular circumstances where the phalagnites would have to make do in other roles when required.

1:17 gorgeous city! Please do more and more often videos ❤

This video is fantastic!

I'm so glad this video got to my recommendations

Pretty nice video; it would be fantastic if you also do an introduction to Persian-style equipment to compare the two different fighting styles.

Wow this was an excellent video 👍

By far,the very best historical piece about Falanx,and much more.SIMPLY WONDERFUL.

Beautiful video!

Awesome!

Great video! I wonder how they dealt with the rightward skew at the front of the phalanx. Each spear carrier has to move slightly to the right when is spear is lowered to project it forward. This would move each solder behind him at the first few ranks.

Masterful content and excellent 3D renderings. Very historically accurate. Subscribed!

E' un vero piacere vedere un vostro video. L'attesa viene sempre ripagata

Great work guys 👍👍

The most underrated channel

Enjoyed this thank you.

Huh, thought you guys were dead. Glad you're posting again.

Super interesting video! So the best way to deal with a phalanx, virtually impossible to take heads-on, is to exploit its rigid and inflexible battle formation, outmaneuvering it and engage its flanks and rear?

I absolutely love this. 😍😍😍

Awsome presentation

Some corrections and bigger explanations. The most used helmet was the Thraco-Phrygian (phrygian cap helmet with MASK) The Pelte shield was made out of bronze and it was 60 to 68 CM in early hellenistic age and in late hellenistic age it was from 68 to 77-79 CM. The Xiphos sword wasnt 60 CM overall BUT the blade could be up to 60 CM or more! So if we're talking 60 CM blade then the sword would be close to 70 CM. And it wasnt "mainly for thrusting", its a leaf-shaped sword which means it has super good cutting, some versions had less wider leaf-shape which means those versions were for thrusting and some versions were more leaf-shaped, meant for slashing and chopping. The kopis infantry sword had 45 to 65 centimeters of BLADE LENGTH and it was wider than the cavalry one, the cavalry kopis had ALWAYS more than 68 CM of blade length, for example in Italy they found a greek kopis from pyrrhus's army with a length of 95 CM blade!!!! The kopis was made for chopping and the cavalry kopis could stab really well too, it was such a good cutter that Pyrrhus of Epirus chopped or cutted a man in half with it. (while the enemy was on armor, shiny armor like plutarch says) Also yes, the Romans were using Xiphos's and Kopis's but they stopped using it quite fast, choosing the slash and chop La Tene B sword instead. They changed from Sword + Kopis to La Tene B before 325 BC. The Sarissa wasnt up to 7 meters, i dont remember exactly but either Cleomenes's sarissas or Demetrius's sarissas in his war against Pyrrhus were up to 8.91 meters! About the equipment, in times of serious troubles some parts or the entire panoply (panoply means all the weapons, aka all armour pieces, shield and weapons) was provided by the state, but most of the time it was paid by the soldiers according to most sources. And in the antigonid kingdom, in the late period aka philip v's some of it was provided by the state, according to amphipolis decree. Of course it varied, because the Achaeans had phalangites, the epirotes, the spartans, the pergaminians, the ptolemies, the seleucids, the pontians (pontus) etc etc. Also i forgot to mention this before about the swords, yes, the initial swords of the phalangites were kopis and xiphos's but as the hellenistic age progressed and rivalries became more fierce, some kingdoms changed weapons, for example the seleucid phalangites had a ton of sword types, kopis, xiphos, la tene b or c or both, persian weapons, whatever! The ptolemies even tried to make gladius hispaniensis's for the phalangites xD the antigonids in perseus's time, standardised the sword type to the Makedonian xiphos, which is this: koryvantesstudies.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/5426670160_5234c4c790_o-e1412072185303.jpg Made to counter roman Principes chainmail. I could continue on and make corrections on the phalanx formation and fighting and so on but we would finish tommorow!!! You, the angry commenter reading this comment: I am not bashing on this channel, i am one of it's first subscribers and i admire the work these guys put into making those education vids... Funny incident: When the narrator said the most used helmet was the Pilos and not the thraco phrygian one i was drinking water, i spat the water on the screen(my screen is from 2006-7 and now it has straight lines rip) and i drowned so hard that i started crying for some seconds. Thanks guys!!! Also, England is my city. P.S: Remember kids, this formation made the R*man commanders Flamininus and Aemilius Paulus have nightmares for their entire lives... ENYALIOS ENYALIOS!!!

8:41 The Syntagma was considered the best KZfaqr of the 21st century

Very interesting stuff. Thanks 😉

Fantastic video as always glad to see you back in youtube. What are the plans for the forseable future?

It would be great to see this recreated in real life. I have never seen a reanacment of a macedonian Phalanx that can convince me to the accuracy of this information. Cmon who can handle a spear that is 5-7 meters long in foemation and not only that; add other equipment, a sword, a shield and armor. And these men were supposedly able to hold the spears at angles to provide cover from missiles.

Great story - the graphics really grab me!

Hoplites would flow into the gaps created, Alexander always had enormous support for his phalanx units. When a phalanx unit was endangered of being flanked, elite hoplites would be dispatched to push out the enemy. They were usually stationed behind the Phalanx. They were very effective in hand-to-hand combat.

Top quality history channel. They dont even show this stuff on cable TV anymore

criminally underrated channel

Excellent!!!

That was really cool!