Dear Christopher Matthew. (Thrust angle, lack of arc, and 'lunge'.)

Christopher Matthew is an experimental archaeologist and 'authority' on ancient warfare. The author of several books and journal articles on the subject, he is a lecturer of ancient history at the Australian Catholic University in Sydney.

He is quoted below, in an article published in issue five, volume four of Ancient Warfare magazine:

"At Marathon, a Greek hoplite had a reach of around 2.4m with his spear. This is because any thrust made with the spear from the underarm position follows a natural extension of the arm along a relatively flat trajectory. The Persians, on the other hand, holding the centrally balanced paltron above their heads, had a range of only 1m if the weapon was used in a stabbing motion. This is because any thrusting motion made from the overhead position regardless of length or balance of the weapon, will follow a downward curving arc due to the way in which the shoulder joint is constructed and the limitations that this places on the movement of the arm when it is held above shoulder height."

Dear Chris, it takes very little practice to prove this very much untrue. And this was done with his similarly favorable view of the Dory spear not having been centrally balanced.

I wanted to take the time to disprove the idea that using a spear overarm forces an arc on the trajectory. I also wanted to disprove the idea that it needs to follow a downward motion, and that you could, in fact, 'lunge' in this stance as many opponents to using this method insist on the greater range of other methods being the deciding factor.


Mr. Matthews also goes on to claim that the Persians at marathon could not have even reached the Greeks with their shorter spear wielded overarm. Now, Chris doesn't seem to have drawn conclusions out of thin air, and there are plenty examples of a reconstruction of a hoplite phalanx (at least the front ranks), done by the group in Sydney, Australia. The wall they present strikes me as purely defensive, but that aside, it seems any issue whatsoever of non-overarm strikes potentially endangering those behind you has been solved by the two fighting ranks being far enough spaced out that they would not accidentally strike one another. If you put this together as part of a phalanx block, it means only two rows of hoplites are able to present their spears forward and actually participate in the fighting, and it puts the spear points further away from one another, as opposed to the generally accepted three if hoplites are to fight back to back. I'd like you to draw your own conclusions as to what this means, but as for what I think, I'm extremely skeptical that two spearheads held out at full length would A) be able to strike with very much force, B) would hold back any dedicated assault from enemy infantry.

If hoplites fight back to back, not only does their density give them more resistance to force along the front, but it allows three rows of hoplites to engage their weapons in whatever manner of grip they choose. It also deploys the spears closer together, as the distance from man to man is much less. This is somewhat similar to the bristling hedgehog of spears we imagine the phalanx as having been. Push your hoplites apart to avoid accidental injury and have them present only two spears which being held at length are difficult to retract and are easier for the enemy to manipulate, and what you have strikes me as having some ability to hold defensively, and almost no offensive capacity aside from walking your spearshaft into the enemy.