Do you understand? I can't see them. Pen ~ Fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info In that infinitely sprawling city, there is everything, but there is no end. There is no end at all. What I can't see is the end of it all, the end of the world.

- Giusebe Tornatore (upstart director of the Italian genre of realistic cinema)

In response to the Gaul invasion, the Romans improved their legions, and the traditional Greek phalanx tactics with only its form and bones were changed to the original three-line arrangement, which was the most famous three-line battle formation of the Roman legions.

Whenever the troops of the first line were frustrated or weakened in battle, the troops of the second and third lines would be replaced in turn, and the youngest of the young recruits were on the first line of the army, rather than the Roman light infantry as determined by Bai Feng.

Apparently unable to equip themselves with Greek-style equipment, they adopted lighter spears and shields, and the main army of the prime behind them did the same, only in their personal armor, and the reserve veterans of the third line remained fully Greek-equipped.

Such a three-line battle formation was replaced by the formation of the arms in the Roman total war, that is, the first line was composed of the Roman youth army with relatively poor fighting, the second line was composed of the Roman heavy infantry with strong combat effectiveness, and the third line was composed of the Roman elite infantry who acted as pikemen.

It was with these legions that the Romans expanded into the Apennine Peninsula and conquered southern Italy, where the Greeks were concentrated, and as a new power, they soon fought the first Punic War with Carthage, a native North African power.

After a long battle, the original three-line legion finally defeated the Carthaginian army, which was dominated by mercenaries, and won a strategic victory.

It was also during the First Punic War that the Roman legionaries encountered the Spanish infantry, which was a large part of the Carthaginian army, and these mountain infantry were in a veritable sword and shield configuration, and their superior Spanish short swords were immediately appreciated by the Romans.

After the war, the Roman soldiers replaced the wax dagger with a large number of shortswords, which were more suitable for melee combat, and the Roman legions, which had completed this redress, then marched to the northern part of the Apennine Peninsula in large numbers to deal with the Celts who were still entrenched in the region.

In the face of the Celts' traditional life-threatening gambling charge, the Roman legion's three-line arrangement was very good at blocking and depleting the opponent's physical strength and attack momentum, and in the flexible troop maneuver and rapid deployment, the Romans began to gradually become accustomed to throwing the light spear in their hands, and then drawing the Spanish short sword at their waist to engage in fierce hand-to-hand combat with the enemy.

In the long run, the Roman soldiers, who had won many victories in the northern regions, began to spontaneously tend to draw their swords in hand-to-hand combat, and in Rome at that time, strict training among citizens was very important, so that the swordsmanship that required a high quality of soldiers was greatly promoted.

At this time, only the nominally elite reserve veterans of the Roman legions were still armed with Greek-style spears, and the young and mature soldiers in front of them had developed the habit of using short swords in hand-to-hand combat, supplemented by spear throwing.

However, when the legion commander judged that the sword and shield forces could not stop the Celtic barbarian charge, the last resort of these Roman troops would still use spears and shields to form a tight shield wall at the front of the troops, facing the enemy's sharp attack.

It can be seen that even though the Roman legions became sword-and-shield troops, the Romans still needed traditional pikemen to carry out their tasks, and the Roman pikemen were weaker than the Greek and Macedonian pikemen.

The Second Punic War was fought, as the Roman legions became accustomed to asymmetrical fighting with the Celtic barbarians, and Hannibal, known as the father of Western strategy, marched into Rome with tens of thousands of North African, Spanish, and Gaulic troops.

Hannibal himself not only had a strong ability to organize and plan and command battles, but also had the world-famous Spartan military advisers in Greece to plan the deployment of battle formations, and the Roman legions, which had become accustomed to fighting with the wind, were defeated so badly in the face of new threats that they lost their armor.

In addition to being absolutely inferior in command and deployment, the Roman soldiers' fighting habits with short swords and shields also put them at a great disadvantage, and the North African heavy infantry, Gauls, and Greek-style mercenaries in Hannibal's army all used traditional phalanxes to fight.

When the Romans' short swords engaged in melee combat with the opponent's spears, they inevitably suffered some losses in the early stages of the battle, and the cavalry of Hannibal's army repeatedly won and rushed to outflank the assaults, and the Romans were completely routed in bloody close battles.

But the proud Romans were not ready to improve their tactics at once, for they discovered a new weapon from the Spanish soldiers on the other side, the heavy javelin, a weapon of attack from the Spanish barbarians!

Marcellus, the famous Roman general, was the first Roman general to begin to pay attention to the special heavy javelins in the hands of his Spanish opponents, and the Romans also made new improvements to the original weapon form to further improve its combat effectiveness.

The Romans improved by concentrating the center of gravity of the javelin on the front end of the weapon to enhance the lethal effect after throwing, and the slender metal rod at the front of the javelin was also deliberately made of wrought iron, which was very easy to bend to prevent the opponent from picking up the javelin and using it again.

Beginning with General Marcellus's troops, the javelin quickly became popular among the Roman armies everywhere, and within a few years, the javelin completely replaced the short spear in the hands of the Roman soldiers and became one of the most standard weapons for the Roman legionnaires.

At the end of the Punic Wars, the expeditionary force of the famous Roman general Scipio was fought in Carthage in North Africa, and the first and second lines of the Roman legions were armed with the heavy javelins, Spanish daggers, and Latin shields that we later became familiar with.

In the local Battle of Zama, the Romans succeeded in revenge in the first battle, and the myth of Hannibal's invincibility was completely shattered.

In the years that followed, the Roman legions, tempered by the Second Punic War, began to turn their swords to the east, and they encountered several times in Greece and Asia Minor the enemy who wielded the famous Macedonian pikemen, the true phalanx pikemen.

Alexander the Great's successors, the Macedonian Kingdom and the Seleucid Empire, were defeated by the Romans, and these seemingly glorious victories largely concealed the misguided equipment in the hands of the Romans.

Although they were able to bloodied the pike-phalanx troops in places such as Kotou Mountain, Thermopylae, Magnesia, and Pidna, they could not change the status quo that the Roman legion's sword and shield armies could not resist the amazing power of the spear phalanx in a head-to-head confrontation.

In many cases, the Romans suffered a defeat in their detachments or entire armies in the early encounters, and when they fought in phalanx with heavy javelins instead of traditional spears at Thermopylae, the disadvantages were clear, and the casualties paid were even more tragic and tragic.