Sargon of Akkad

I know they fought Macedonian phalanxes on multiple occasions, but did they ever face a traditional Greek phalanx? I can't think of an occasion off the top of my head.

Narses

Do you mean the Greek Hoplites? The Macedonians used phalanx.

Toltec

Too many times to mention, during the Roman Macedonians Wars.

Cynoscephalae is the most famous but by no means the largest, Pydna is worth a mention too. Also fights against the Selucids and other Greeks successors states would count and the Punic Wars too.

Sargon of Akkad

Yes, but it is the original phalanx. The Macedonian phalanx is prefixed by the word 'Macedonian' so we know which one is which.

I'm not talking about a Macedonian phalanx using sarissas, I'm talking about a traditional Greek hoplite phalanx using dory.

I'm talking this:



And not this:

Shadow Dragon

It's possible that there was some hoplite battalions in the armies they faced in Greece. And they may have faced hoplites from Syracuse in Sicily. But I can't think of a time that directly spoke of hoplites fighting legionnaires.

Sargon of Akkad

Same here, I can't think of any specific time.

Salah

Etruscans and some other Italic peoples - including the Romans themselves - fought as hoplites. The Romans abandoned the hoplite phalanx for the maniple at some point in the 4th Century BC, after some rancid encounters with more flexible Gaulish and Samnite formations.

Many Greeks settled in southern Italy - which became known as Magna Grecia to the Italic peoples. Most famous amongst these settlements was Tarentum, which was originally founded by Spartans. These states were most famous for their javelin-armed cavalry (who also carried oval shields, unlike cavalry in contemporary Greece). But they did use hoplites to provide their infantry needs.

So in conclusion, the Romans themselves fought as hoplites early in their history, and would have faced other Italic peoples as well as Magna-Grecians fighting in the same style. The Romans and their kin-tribes abandoned the hoplite formation in favor of the first form of legionary warfare in the 4th Century BC; the Magna-Grecians presumably adopted a Macedonian phalanx in favor of hoplite formations at some point in the 4th-3rd Centuries BC. Many of Rome's earlier battles would have been against hoplites.

arras

It seems that Carthaginians fought in phalanx originally.
Didn't Carthaginians brought Spartan general Xanthippus who then trained them an defeated Romans in battle of Tunis?

Salah

Ah yes, I forgot the Carthaginians. In addition to Xanthippos and other Greek mercenaries, the nucleus of their army was composed of the "Sacred Band", a hoplite formation consisting of the city's upper-class gentlemen.

sylla1

Toltec is right, there were plenty of examples; e.g. all along the Tarentine (Pyrrhic) War (which began and ended without Pyrrhos), the local Italian Hellenes and many mercenaries undoubtedly used the regular hoplite tactics.

Regarding Carthage, the bare truth is that we don't have any single description of their tactics; "Phalanx" may well have been here just an unspecific term for any infantry formation. In all likelihood each one of their allies (Numidians, Iberians, Lybians and so on) fought in their own peculiar way.

The sources on the first Punic war are extremely scarce and the story of Xanthippos is quite suspicious of chauvinistic propaganda; if we are to give face value to the available accounts (fundamentally Fabius Pictor via Polybios), Carthage was perfectly able to contain the Roman Republic for 23 years by winning just a couple of battles ... and even then just for the help of non-Carthaginians ...