Ancient Greek warfare of the phalanx to its logical completion, arming his 'phalangites' (for they were assuredly not hoplites) with a fearsome pike, the 'sarissa'. Much more lightly armored, the Macedonian phalanx was not so much a shield-wall as a spear-wall. The Macedonian phalanx was a supreme defensive formation, but was not intended to be decisive offensively; instead, it was used to pin down the enemy infantry, whilst more mobile forces (such as cavalry) outflanked them. This 'combined arms' approach was furthered by the extensive use of skirmishers, such as peltasts. Tactically, Phillip absorbed the lessons of centuries of warfare in Greece. He
Thracian language the gospel all met in the church of the Greeks, where they celebrated the essential part of the sacrifice in Greek, and communicated all together..."" Thracian language The Thracian language () is an extinct Indo-European language, spoken in ancient times in South-east Europe by the Thracians. The Thracian language either belonged to the satem group of Indo-European languages, or was a centum language that had been strongly influenced by satem languages. A contemporary, neighboring language, Dacian is usually regarded as closely related to Thracian. However, there is insufficient evidence, regarding both languages, to enable the nature of this relationship to