How Did Philip Contribute To The Greek Military

Philip the II of Macedon came to the throne after a colossal defeat within a year of him coming to the throne by his brother Perdiccas III, within a year of coming to the throne Philip began to evolve a new Macedonian way of war. One of Philip’s great contributions was to create the army with which Alexander conquered the Persian Empire. He was the first Macedonian King to rearm the Macedonian infantry with a sarissa a long spear 18 feet long, nearly twice as long as the usual spear carried by the usual Greek infantry known as hoplites. In rearming the Macedonian army Philip had to do two things first he had to devise new systems of tactics and weapons and the armaments his innovations reflected a change of tactics that changed the face of warfare until the arrival of the Roman legions. To create this army Philip had to pull off a social economic …show more content…
The infantry itself was organized into two components, one was the phalanx (taxeis), a force of 1,536 pikemen that stood sixteen fifteen deep. They stood shoulder to shoulder with an 18-20 foot sarissa, they did not carry the heavy body armor of Greek infantry which made them extremely manoeuvrable on the battlefield. They were largely equipped with leather jackets, leather helmets and a small shield which was worn around the shoulder and they stood in close formation the first six ranks their spears pointed out and the back ten ranks held their spears at an angle to deflect any arrows, slings, or javelins that were hurled their way. This force would then pin the enemy front and the cvalry would encircle and you would have a battle of encirclement with the object of complete annihilation of the enemy. The objective was not to break the enemy and pursue it which was the technique of the old form of hoplite