content_output-027_7 (Q5838)

The method of war changed when Alexander marched his phalanx successfully against every army in the civilised world. The fiercest champion was powerless against the compact body of men acting as one machine; the tricks of the savage—ambush, stealth, surprise, treachery—were more successful. Then the bow and the sling, the weapons of the hunter and the herdsman, were requisitioned for military purposes. It was sought by their use to destroy the solidity of the phalanx. Terror played an important part in all war manoeuvres; the array of elephants before the Carthaginian phalanx, the strange engines of war, were designed to dismay the enemy; so the archers and slingers, but more particularly the archers, struck terror alike into the hearts of mounted warriors and foot soldiers. They were particularly successful in disorganising the cavalry; for the horses, wounded with the barbed darts and driven mad as the shafts changed position with each movement, became uncontrollable.