nts projecting far before them. The men
were arranged in lines, one behind the other, and all facing the
enemy--sixteen lines, and a thousand in each line, or, as it is
expressed in military phrase, a thousand in rank and sixteen in file,
so that the phalanx contained sixteen thousand men.

The spears were so long that when the men stood in close order, the
rear ranks being brought up near to those before them, the points of
the spears of eight or ten of the ranks projected in front, forming a
bristling wall of points of steel, each one of which was held in its
place by the strong arms of an athletic and well-trained soldier. This
wall no force which could in those days be brought against it could
penetrate. Men, horses, elephants, every thing that attempted to rush
upon it, rushed only to their own destruction. Every spear, feeling
the impulse of the vigorous arms which held it, seemed to be alive,
and darted into its enemy, when an enemy was at hand, as if it felt
itself the fierce hostility which directed it. If the enemy remained
at a distance, and threw javelins or darts at the phalanx, they fell
harmless, stopped by the shields which the soldiers wore upon the left
arm, and which were held in such a manner as to form a system of
scales, which covered and protected the whole mass, and made the men
almost invulnerable. The phalanx was thus, when only defending itself
and in a state of rest, an army and a fortification all in one, and it
was almost impregnable. But when it took an aggressive form, put
itself in motion, and advanced to an attack, it was infinitely more
formidable. It became then a terrible monster, covered with scales of
brass, from beneath which there projected forward ten thousand living,
darting points of iron. It advanced deliberately and calmly, but with
a prodigious momentum and force. There was nothing human in its
appearance at all. It was a huge animal, ferocious, dogged, stubborn,
insensible to pain, knowing no fear, and bearing down with resistless
and merciless destruction upon every thing that came in its way. The
phalanx was the center and soul of Alexander's army. Powerful and
impregnable as it was, however, in ancient days, it would be helpless
and defenseless on a modern battle-field. Solid balls of iron, flying
through the air with a velocity which makes them invisible, would tear
their way through the pikes and the shields, and the bodies of the men
who bore them, without even feeli