Salah

One of Historum's finest traditions is arguing about who was the superior general, leader, politician, whatever - Megas Alexandros or Iulius Caesar?

But neither one of these men could have acheived anything without the armies of brave, loyal soldiers who marched behind him!

So let's say Alexander's army c. 330 BC and Caesar's army c. 50 BC could fight each other, on an open field, with perfectly even numbers.

Alexander has 10,000 men, 6,000 phalangites, 1000 Companions and Allied Greek cavalry, and 3,000 Thracian and Agriane light infantry.

Caesar has 10,000 men, 6,000 legionaries, 1000 Gaulish and Germanic horsemen, and 3,000 Numidian javelineers and Spanish slingers.

Each famous general's command skill will certainly count for something here, but ultimately this is just a clash between their respectively armies! Who wins?

Rasta

Legion takes the day. They are so much more versitile than Phalanx.

Marius

I would have to think that all but the most blind Alexander fanboy's would vote for the Legion here, simply due to the fact that it was such a vastly superior system to the phalanx. It's not a coincidence that the phalanx was an extinct style of fighting in Europe by the time of Caesar.

sylla1

Now this is something that we don't see so often in this thread; an actually non-alternative (or speculative) scenario.

The phalanges were systematically routed by the legions almost any time they faced each other.

Yup, I know; such units were strictly speaking not Alexandros' or CJ Caesar's; even so, the comparison (and the objective Legion supremacy) stands.

Far as I can tell, there's no objective evidence that may suggest that the structure or function of the phalanges at Gaugamela were particularly different from those at Pydna; the main difference between both battles was of course the enemies each of them were facing.

On the legions, the professional legions of Caesar (i.e. after the Marian reforms) were in any case objectively at least of the same quality (or even better) than the citizen pre-Marian legions that so constantly pulverized the phalanges.

NewModelSoldier

The phalanx was very wieldy and not incredibly manouevrable, its heyday had gone by the time the legion was developed.

sylla1

Right.

It seems that its heyday had gone the first time a phalanx ought to face another phalanx.

To a large extent, the legion of the middle Roman Republic (and onwards) was essentially an evolved (mostly improved) version of the contemporary Macedonian phalanx.

Whyte

The counterexample being Pyrrhus' phalanx army, which did manage to give Mid-Republican legions run for their money.

I do agree that the Legions were more flexible and adaptable than the phalanx, but if you look at the two famous examples of Legions vs. Phalanx, Cynoscephalae and Pydna, in both cases the Legions were getting beaten in a head-on collision phase. They pulled a victory by managing to outflank the Phalanx (Cynoscephalae was a classical meeting engagement which escalated, and the Macedonian left wing - still in marching order - routed at the first contact with the elephants that the Romans had with them) or by making use of the gaps in the line when the Phalanx became disorganized over broken ground (Pydna).

So I don't think this would be quite as one sided as the answers so far indicate. I think it would be a race against time to see which happens first: Companion Cavalry breaking the Gaul/German cavalry auxiliaries and coming back to hit the Legion in the rear, or the Legion managing to outflank the Phalanx before Alex gets back with the cavalry.

Alcibiades

I would just like to point out that question here is NOT Legions vs Phalanxes but Alexander's army vs Caesar' army.Tha't two entirely different comparisons,and the fact that even seasoned and knowledgeble Historumites would make the mistake of equating them is,quite frankly,dissapointing.
Alcibiades

Narses

The reason why phalanx is inferior to legions is its lack of flexibility, once the phalanx got outflanked, it is doomed. Plus, I don't really think the experienced Germanic auxiliaries are that much worse than the companions, they could at least manage to hold on and greatly weaken the companions while the legion outflanks the phalanx, so I would say that the legion is still gonna win.
PS: if they are fighting in difficult terrain, than the phalanx is gonna do much worse.

Alcibiades

As far as OP,I think the numbers given are too small.Both armies would need to have at least 35.000 troops for this to be relevant and interesting debate.
Alcibiades