Sword to sword combat was the most deadly. It presented the most sudden changes, because it was the one in which the individual valor and dexterity of the combatant had the greatest and most immediate influence. Other methods of combat were simpler. Let us compare pikes and broadswords. The close formation of men armed with pikes was irresistible so long as it was maintained. A forest of pikes fifteen to eighteen feet long kept you at a distance. [25] On the other hand it was easy to kill off the cavalry and light infantry about the phalanx, which was an unwieldy mass marching with a measured step, and which a mobile body of troops could always avoid. Openings in the phalanx might be occasioned by marching, by the terrain, by the thousand accidents of struggle, by the individual assault of brave men, by the wounded on the ground creeping under the high held pikes and cutting at the legs of the front rank. Men in the phalanx could scarcely see and even the first two lines hardly had a free position for striking. The men were armed with long lances, useless at close quarters, good only for combat at shaft's length (Polybius). They were struck with impunity by the groups [26] which threw themselves into the intervals. And then, once the enemy was in the body of the phalanx, morale disappeared and it became a mass without order, a flock of panic-stricken sheep falling over each other. In a mob hard-pressed men prick with their knives those who press them. The contagion of fear changes the direction of the human wave; it bends back upon itself and breaks to escape danger. If, then, the enemy fled before the phalanx there was no melee. If he gave way tactically before it and availing himself of gaps penetrated it by groups, still there was no melee or mixture of ranks. The wedge entering into a mass does not become intermingled with it. With a phalanx armed with long pikes against a similar phalanx there was still less confusion. They were able to stand for a long time, if the one did not take the other in flank or in rear by a detached body of troops. In all ancient combat, even in victory achieved by methods which affected the morale, such methods are always effective, for man does not change. It is unnecessary to repeat that in ancient conflicts, demoralization and flight began in the rear ranks. We have tried to analyze the fight of infantry of the line because its action alone was decisive in ancient combat. The light infantry of both sides took to flight, as Thucydides states. They returned later to pursue and massacre the vanquished. [27]