very other weapon which
could be projected from a distance, were equally ineffectual, and no
one could come near enough to men thus protected to strike at them
with the sword. Even cavalry were utterly powerless in attacking such
_chevaux de frise_ as the phalanx presented. No charge, however
furious, could break its serrated ranks; an onset upon it could only
end in impaling the men and the horses that made it together on the
points of the innumerable spears.

To form a phalanx, and to maneuver it successfully, required a special
training, both on the part of the officers and men, and in the
Macedonian armies the system was carried to very high perfection. When
foreign auxiliaries, however, served under Macedonian generals, they
were not generally formed in this way, but were allowed to fight under
their own leaders, and in the accustomed manner of their respective
nations. The army of Antigonus, accordingly, as he was retiring
before Pyrrhus, consisted of two portions. The phalanx was in advance,
and large bodies of Gauls, armed and arrayed in their usual manner,
were in the rear. Of course, Pyrrhus, as he came up with this force in
the ravine or valley, encountered the Gauls first. Their lines, it
would seem, filled up the whole valley at the place where Pyrrhus
overtook them, so that, at the outset of the contest, Pyrrhus had them
only to engage. There was not space sufficient for the phalanx to come
to their aid.

Besides the phalanx and the bodies of Gauls, there was a troop of
elephants in Antigonus's army. Their position, as it would seem, was
between the phalanx and the Gauls. This being the state of things, and
Pyrrhus coming up to the attack in the rear, would, of course,
encounter first the Gauls, then the elephants, and, lastly, the most
formidable of all, the phalanx itself.

Pyrrhus advanced to the attack of the Gauls with the utmost fury, and,
though they made a very determined resistance, they were soon
overpowered and almost all cut to pieces. The troop of elephants came
next. The army of Pyrrhus, flushed with their victory over the Gauls,
pressed eagerly on, and soon so surrounded the elephants and hemmed
them in, that the keepers of them perceived that all hope of
resistance was vain. They surrendered without an effort to defend
themselves. The phalanx now remained. It had hastily changed its
front, and it stood on the defensive. Pyrrhus advanced toward it with
his forces, bringing his men up in