The difference between close-order heavy infantry and open-order light infantry is basically that close-order infantry, even if lightly armored is unable to move into action or retreat as swiftly as open-order infantry, who don't have to maintain a formation, and can run up and run back as individuals. If close-order troops are able to come to grips with open-order skirmishers, the former can usually make short work of the latter, not only because of their formation, but also because they generally have better armor and melee weapons. Of course, if someone were to invent light troops that were heavily armored, they could probably be run down by heavy troops that were lightly armored. It's interesting that the Greeks, after numerous experiences of hoplites, started lightening their armor, to reduce the speed differential.
Obviously there are hundreds of varieties of close-order troops, but if you look at any balanced ancient army, you will see a definite tendency to distinguish between the light/heavy categories. Some examples:
Ancient Greece: peltasts & hoplites. The classic case. Ancient Persia: after Marathon and Plataea, they adoptedGreek mercenaries to serve as their army's core, but they retained light missile-armed infantry and cavalry as a part of the army.
Alexandrian: had all four types, explicitly categorized and each given its own role in battle.
Roman: Legionnaires, auxiliaries (mostly light missile-armed troops), both light and heavy cavalry (generally locally recruited)
Norman: archers, chainmail-clad infantry, and knights Medieval English: dismounted knights, longbowmen, and mounted knights. Mongols: lance-armed horse and bow-armed horse. Early-era Saracens: lightly-armored cavalry equipped withboth bow and sword, armored infantry, archers. Later on, they added lance-armed horsemen.
Late-era Crusaders: dismounted knights & men-at-arms, archers, Turcopoles, and mounted knights (all four types)
Wallace's Scotts: pikemen, archers, knights. Late medieval Spanish: Tercios, crossbowmen, genitours, and knights. Some armies lacked one or more of the four types, as theearly Saracens or Normans. So long as they didn't face a foe with a superior weapon system, this didn't matter. The Normans at Hastings used archers and knights to good effect vs. the Saxons, who were basically all heavy infantry. The archers shot at the Saxons, until some of the housecarls broke rank to chase them, when the knights would fall upon the housecarls who'd charged, and kill them.
Note that when armies _did_ meet armies with superior weapon systems, they quickly adopted them. Thus, the Crusaders developed the Turcopoles. The Saracens developed a heavier cavalry in response to the Crusaders.
Think of the light/heavy dichotomy as within each army, not necessarily within opposing armies, and the difference becomes more clear.
The Romans and Byzantines fielded heavy infantry that were equipped with thrown missiles. These troops were still close-order infantry. Their darts and pila were for breaking up enemy formations right before a charge. A Roman legion couldn't break up into a loose order and skirmish with an opposing army.
In exactly a parallel situation, the bow-using Persians were unable to form ranks into a solid mass like the Greek hoplites. Even if they could have done so, their light armor and lack of training in that combat style would have rendered them inadequate.
Clearly there are differences within the basic categories. Caesar recognized that Pompey's forces, though nearly identically armed and trained, had better cavalry, and this influenced him. When the Roman Legions clashed with the Goths, usually the Romans triumphed, because their masses of disciplined infantry were better than the Goth's masses of undisciplined infantry.
Maybe this is a better way of putting it: The light/heavy differences are qualitative. The differences within these types are quantitative. Thus, we can tell that a Roman legion was superior to Macedonian phalangites, but if we try to say that a Roman legionary was superior to Macedonian peltasts, this is unreasonable, because we're comparing apples and oranges.
There has been an objection to my generalized categories because "every case should be taken on its own merits". While there is truth to this, there very definitely is also a place in military history for making general rules and testing them to see if they work. Knowing and following such principles can be very useful in trying to make sense of the vast amount of ancient battles and troop types that existed. If you knew nothing about "interior lines", you would be unable to understand how the battle of the Metaurus in the Second Punic War exemplifies the same principle as the battle of Chickamauga in the American Civil War. By treating every single different type of the thousands of ancient warriors as a separate issue, one makes it impossible to see underlying similarity between tactics, strategies, and the art of command.
If we are not permitted to see the similarities between Norman archers & Alexandrian peltasts, because the two types of warriors are so different, then it becomes hard to figure out what Alexander would have done at Hastings. Recognizing the equivalency between archers & peltasts enables us to predict that Alexander would have done just as William did -- used his peltasts to harass the Saxon housecarls into breaking their ranks in futile charges, then hitting the isolated men with his Companions (his equivalent to the Norman knights) and riding them down.
Being able to recognize such similarities becomes exceedingly necessary in making Gloranthan parallels. How else can we figure out how an Alexandrian-like Lunar army would fare against a Saxon-like Sartarite army?
Sandy
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