Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria

Presenter: Dr Christopher Matthew
Entry: Free

Synopsis

The Hellenistic way of war changed the face of the ancient world forever.

At the heart of Hellenistic warfare was the Macedonian heavy infantryman (the phalangite) armed with a long pike (the sarissa), and deployed in a dense formation of ranks and files (the phalanx).

From the rise of Macedon as a military power in the mid 4th century BC, through the age of Alexander the Great and the Successors, to the time of their defeat at the hands of the Romans at Pydna in 168BC, the pike-armed phalanx formed the core of nearly every Hellenistic army on battlefields from Italy to India.

And yet, there remains some contention amongst scholars as to who first created the pike phalanx and when. This presentation will examine how such a revolutionary form of warfare came into being, who created it, what this reform involved, how the pike-phalanx was used to great effect by Alexander the Great, and how this style of combat came to dominate the eastern Mediterranean world for 200 years.

Biography

Christopher graduated with first class honours from the University of New England in 2006 where he focused on the study of ancient Greek and Roman warfare and completed a research thesis on the impacts of the reforms made to the Roman military by the general Gaius Marius.

He then moved to Macquarie University in Sydney where he completed a PhD in 2009 using physical re-creation, experimental archaeology and ballistics testing to examine the mechanics of warfare in ancient Greece, particularly how the equipment of the infantryman of the time dictated his role and functionality on the battlefield.

This research has been very well received and he is regarded as a leading authority on ancient Greek warfare. - See more at: http://goo.gl/KhnClo

Sponsors

This lecture is co-sponsored by The Australian Institute of Macedonian Studies (AIMS) and the Pan Macedonian Association of Melbourne & Victoria.